Story 1—Chapter XXII.A Fight for Life!In the excitement of starting the stamps, the usual precautions which had been previously practised, of posting sentinels and keeping their arms ready, were for the moment forgotten; but after the first startle of surprise at being so unexpectedly attacked passed over, there was a general rush to cover of all the members of the party, behind the breastwork of earth that the young engineer had caused to be thrown up round the spot facing the river all along its right bank, the men catching up their rifles and cartridge-pouches—which lay here and there about as they had dropped them in their expectancy while waiting the result of the weighing—as they ran to shelter themselves and prepared to return the fire of their foes.All the miners rushed to the breastwork save one, and that was Seth.At the instant he turned, like his comrades, to seek the protection of the rampart, towards which the others hastened, an arrow struck Sailor Bill slanting-wise across his forehead, and, tossing up his hands, the poor boy, who was standing on the timber which led to the wheel, tumbled over into the foaming water below that was seething like a whirlpool.Uttering a frenzied ejaculation of anguish and grief, Seth plunged into the flood, and an instant after dragged forth Sailor Bill’s body, heedless of the arrows and bullets of the Indians, the former of which darkened the air in their passage around him, while the latter whistled through his garments.The intrepid fellow seemed to bear a charmed life, for not a shot nor a barbed head of the savages’ feathered missiles reached him as he pulled the poor boy’s apparently lifeless body from the water, Seth not being content until he had hauled it up beneath the breastwork; when with a shout of vengeance he seized his rifle and set to work to aid the others in dealing death on those who had, as he thought, killed his protégé.It was a terrific fight whilst it lasted.Mingled with the war-whoop of the Sioux, which was repeated ever and anon, as if to excite them anew to the carnage, came the fierce exclamations of the miners, and the calm word of command from Mr Rawlings occasionally, to restrain the men from getting too flurried.—He certainly showed himself worthy of the post of leader then!“Steady, boys! Don’t waste your fire. Aim low; and don’t shoot too quickly!”“Ping! ping!” flew the bullets through the smoky medium with which they were surrounded, while an occasional “thud” evinced the fact that one of their assailants had fallen:—“ping, ping, ping!” it was a regular fusillade;—and the miners delivered their fire like trained soldiers from behind the breastwork that had so providentially been erected in time!Presently there was a rush of the redskins, and the besieged party could hear the voice of Rising Cloud encouraging his warriors, and taunting those he attacked.“Dogs of palefaces!” cried the chief, “your bones shall whiten the prairie, and your blood colour the buffalo grass, for your treatment of Rising Cloud in the morn of the melting of the snow! I said I would come before the scarlet sumach should spring again on the plains; and Rising Cloud and his warriors are here!”Then came the fearful war-whoop again, with that terrible iteration at its end “Who—ah—ah—ah—ah—oop!” like the howl of a laughing hyaena.The river alone interposed between the whites and their enemy, and gave them a spell of breathing time, but in spite of this protection, the odds were heavy against them; for what could even sixteen resolute men, as the party now numbered—for one had been mortally wounded by a chance shot, and although Josh the negro cook could tight bravely and did, Jasper was not of much use—do in a hand-to-hand struggle with hundreds of red-skinned human devils thirsting for their blood?The river, however, was a great help, especially now that it had been converted into a mill-race, and flooded beyond its usual proportions; for, when the Indians rushed into the water to wade across and assault the camp at close quarters, as the shallowness of the stream at that season of the year would previously have easily enabled them to have done, they found, to their astonishment, first that the current, which they did not expect to be more than a foot deep, rose above their waist-belts, then above their armpits, and finally above their heads, as, pushed onwards by their companions behind, they were submerged in the flood; while the miners, still sheltered by Ernest Wilton’s trenched rampart above, rained down a pitiless hail of bullets into the half-drowned mob, whose very strength now proved their principal weakness.“Give it ’em, b’ys: remember poor Sailor Bill!” shouted Seth, his blood up to fever heat with passion, and the murderous spirit of revenge strong in his heart. “Give ’em goss, an’ let nary a one go back to tell the story!”“Steady, men, and fire low!” repeated Mr Rawlings.And the miners mowed the redskins down by the score with regular volleys from their repeating rifles, although twenty fresh Indians seemed to spring up in the place of every one killed.The fight was too severe to last long, and soon a diversion came.As Rising Cloud, raising his tomahawk on high, and, leading the van of his warriors, was bringing them on for a decisive charge, several sharp discharges, as if from platoon firing, were heard in the rear of the Indians.Just then, a bullet from Ernest Wilton’s rifle penetrated the chief’s brain, and he fell dead right across the earth rampart in front of the young engineer. The platoon firing in the rear of the savages was again repeated; the United States troops had evidently arrived to the rescue; and, taken now between two fires, and disheartened by the fall of Rising Cloud, the Sioux broke, and fled in a tumultuous mass towards the gorge by which they had entered the valley of Minturne Creek.The struggle over, the miners had time to count casualties, and see who amongst their number had fallen in the fray.Thanks to Ernest Wilton’s breastwork, their losses had not been very heavy.Noah Webster was slightly wounded, and Black Harry badly; while the only one killed outright was Tom Cannon, the whilom keen-sighted topman of theSusan Jane, who would never sight wreck or sail more, for Sailor Bill was only wounded, and not dead, after all.Jasper, who had been hiding beneath the embankment beside the boy’s supposed lifeless body, had perceived signs of returning animation in it, to which he immediately called the attention of Seth and also Mr Rawlings, and the three were bending over the figure in a moment. Just almost a year before they were bending over Sailor Bill in precisely the same way in the cabin of theSusan Jane. The Indian’s arrow had ploughed under the skin of the boy’s forehead nearly at the same place that bore the scar of his former wound when he had been picked up at sea, and could not have inflicted any dangerous injury; it was evidently the shock of falling into the foaming torrent from the tunnel, as it rushed into the river, that had rendered Sailor Bill senseless for the time being.He was now coming back to himself, for his limbs twitched convulsively, and there was a faint tremor about the eyelids.Just then Ernest Wilton came up and stood by the side of Mr Rawlings, while Seth was rubbing the boy’s bared chest vigorously with his brawny hand to hasten the restoration of the circulation; and at that moment Sailor Bill opened his eyes—eyes that were expressionless no longer, but with the light of reason in their hidden intelligence—and fixed his gaze on the young engineer as if he recognised him at once.“Ernest!” the boy exclaimed wonderingly, “what brings you here? Why, where am I?”And he looked from one to the other of the group around him in a half-puzzled way, “Jerusalem!” ejaculated Seth, jumping to his feet and turning to the young engineer. “He knows you, mister. Ken you rec’lect him?”“By Jove!” said Ernest, “I do believe it’s my cousin, Frank Lester, now I hear his voice. Frank!”“Yes, Ernest,” answered the boy, heaving a sigh of relief. “Then it is you after all. I thought I was dreaming.”And he sank back into a calm sleep as if he were in bed.
In the excitement of starting the stamps, the usual precautions which had been previously practised, of posting sentinels and keeping their arms ready, were for the moment forgotten; but after the first startle of surprise at being so unexpectedly attacked passed over, there was a general rush to cover of all the members of the party, behind the breastwork of earth that the young engineer had caused to be thrown up round the spot facing the river all along its right bank, the men catching up their rifles and cartridge-pouches—which lay here and there about as they had dropped them in their expectancy while waiting the result of the weighing—as they ran to shelter themselves and prepared to return the fire of their foes.
All the miners rushed to the breastwork save one, and that was Seth.
At the instant he turned, like his comrades, to seek the protection of the rampart, towards which the others hastened, an arrow struck Sailor Bill slanting-wise across his forehead, and, tossing up his hands, the poor boy, who was standing on the timber which led to the wheel, tumbled over into the foaming water below that was seething like a whirlpool.
Uttering a frenzied ejaculation of anguish and grief, Seth plunged into the flood, and an instant after dragged forth Sailor Bill’s body, heedless of the arrows and bullets of the Indians, the former of which darkened the air in their passage around him, while the latter whistled through his garments.
The intrepid fellow seemed to bear a charmed life, for not a shot nor a barbed head of the savages’ feathered missiles reached him as he pulled the poor boy’s apparently lifeless body from the water, Seth not being content until he had hauled it up beneath the breastwork; when with a shout of vengeance he seized his rifle and set to work to aid the others in dealing death on those who had, as he thought, killed his protégé.
It was a terrific fight whilst it lasted.
Mingled with the war-whoop of the Sioux, which was repeated ever and anon, as if to excite them anew to the carnage, came the fierce exclamations of the miners, and the calm word of command from Mr Rawlings occasionally, to restrain the men from getting too flurried.—He certainly showed himself worthy of the post of leader then!
“Steady, boys! Don’t waste your fire. Aim low; and don’t shoot too quickly!”
“Ping! ping!” flew the bullets through the smoky medium with which they were surrounded, while an occasional “thud” evinced the fact that one of their assailants had fallen:—“ping, ping, ping!” it was a regular fusillade;—and the miners delivered their fire like trained soldiers from behind the breastwork that had so providentially been erected in time!
Presently there was a rush of the redskins, and the besieged party could hear the voice of Rising Cloud encouraging his warriors, and taunting those he attacked.
“Dogs of palefaces!” cried the chief, “your bones shall whiten the prairie, and your blood colour the buffalo grass, for your treatment of Rising Cloud in the morn of the melting of the snow! I said I would come before the scarlet sumach should spring again on the plains; and Rising Cloud and his warriors are here!”
Then came the fearful war-whoop again, with that terrible iteration at its end “Who—ah—ah—ah—ah—oop!” like the howl of a laughing hyaena.
The river alone interposed between the whites and their enemy, and gave them a spell of breathing time, but in spite of this protection, the odds were heavy against them; for what could even sixteen resolute men, as the party now numbered—for one had been mortally wounded by a chance shot, and although Josh the negro cook could tight bravely and did, Jasper was not of much use—do in a hand-to-hand struggle with hundreds of red-skinned human devils thirsting for their blood?
The river, however, was a great help, especially now that it had been converted into a mill-race, and flooded beyond its usual proportions; for, when the Indians rushed into the water to wade across and assault the camp at close quarters, as the shallowness of the stream at that season of the year would previously have easily enabled them to have done, they found, to their astonishment, first that the current, which they did not expect to be more than a foot deep, rose above their waist-belts, then above their armpits, and finally above their heads, as, pushed onwards by their companions behind, they were submerged in the flood; while the miners, still sheltered by Ernest Wilton’s trenched rampart above, rained down a pitiless hail of bullets into the half-drowned mob, whose very strength now proved their principal weakness.
“Give it ’em, b’ys: remember poor Sailor Bill!” shouted Seth, his blood up to fever heat with passion, and the murderous spirit of revenge strong in his heart. “Give ’em goss, an’ let nary a one go back to tell the story!”
“Steady, men, and fire low!” repeated Mr Rawlings.
And the miners mowed the redskins down by the score with regular volleys from their repeating rifles, although twenty fresh Indians seemed to spring up in the place of every one killed.
The fight was too severe to last long, and soon a diversion came.
As Rising Cloud, raising his tomahawk on high, and, leading the van of his warriors, was bringing them on for a decisive charge, several sharp discharges, as if from platoon firing, were heard in the rear of the Indians.
Just then, a bullet from Ernest Wilton’s rifle penetrated the chief’s brain, and he fell dead right across the earth rampart in front of the young engineer. The platoon firing in the rear of the savages was again repeated; the United States troops had evidently arrived to the rescue; and, taken now between two fires, and disheartened by the fall of Rising Cloud, the Sioux broke, and fled in a tumultuous mass towards the gorge by which they had entered the valley of Minturne Creek.
The struggle over, the miners had time to count casualties, and see who amongst their number had fallen in the fray.
Thanks to Ernest Wilton’s breastwork, their losses had not been very heavy.
Noah Webster was slightly wounded, and Black Harry badly; while the only one killed outright was Tom Cannon, the whilom keen-sighted topman of theSusan Jane, who would never sight wreck or sail more, for Sailor Bill was only wounded, and not dead, after all.
Jasper, who had been hiding beneath the embankment beside the boy’s supposed lifeless body, had perceived signs of returning animation in it, to which he immediately called the attention of Seth and also Mr Rawlings, and the three were bending over the figure in a moment. Just almost a year before they were bending over Sailor Bill in precisely the same way in the cabin of theSusan Jane. The Indian’s arrow had ploughed under the skin of the boy’s forehead nearly at the same place that bore the scar of his former wound when he had been picked up at sea, and could not have inflicted any dangerous injury; it was evidently the shock of falling into the foaming torrent from the tunnel, as it rushed into the river, that had rendered Sailor Bill senseless for the time being.
He was now coming back to himself, for his limbs twitched convulsively, and there was a faint tremor about the eyelids.
Just then Ernest Wilton came up and stood by the side of Mr Rawlings, while Seth was rubbing the boy’s bared chest vigorously with his brawny hand to hasten the restoration of the circulation; and at that moment Sailor Bill opened his eyes—eyes that were expressionless no longer, but with the light of reason in their hidden intelligence—and fixed his gaze on the young engineer as if he recognised him at once.
“Ernest!” the boy exclaimed wonderingly, “what brings you here? Why, where am I?”
And he looked from one to the other of the group around him in a half-puzzled way, “Jerusalem!” ejaculated Seth, jumping to his feet and turning to the young engineer. “He knows you, mister. Ken you rec’lect him?”
“By Jove!” said Ernest, “I do believe it’s my cousin, Frank Lester, now I hear his voice. Frank!”
“Yes, Ernest,” answered the boy, heaving a sigh of relief. “Then it is you after all. I thought I was dreaming.”
And he sank back into a calm sleep as if he were in bed.
Story 1—Chapter XXIII.After the Battle.“Now didn’t I say so, Rawlings?” said Seth triumphantly, turning to that gentleman. “I leave it to any one if I didn’t diagnose the boy’s symptoms correctly! I said ef he can meet with a similar shock to that which cost him his reason, he’d get it back again. I told you that from the first on board theSusan Jane.”“You certainly did,” replied Mr Rawlings. “It’s the most curious case I ever heard or read of! Do you think, Seth, when he wakes up he’ll be still all right here?” tapping his forehead expressively.“Sartain as thaar’s snakes in Virginny!” said the ex-mate, returning for a moment to his vernacular mode of speech; although, his medical instincts asserting themselves again presently, he spoke more formally and in professional style in continuation of his reply to Mr Rawlings. “He is still in a semi-comatose condition, as that somnolent fit assures us; but he will sleep it off, and rouse up by and by in the proper possession of his faculties, a glimpse of which we observed just now.”“I’m right glad to hear it,” said Mr Rawlings. “What a difference that look of intelligence in his eyes made in him! I declare I would hardly have known him to be the same boy!”“You’re right there,” said Seth. “I’ve read in some book of the eyes bein’ called ‘the windows of the soul;’ an’ I believe it’s pretty near the mark.”“Golly, massa Rawlings,” put in Jasper at this juncture—the darkey had been dying to speak for a long time—“p’raps him turn out to be gran’ fine genelmun, for sure, ’sides bein’ massa Willerton’s cuzzing, hey?”“P’raps I’ll souse you in the river if you don’t make tracks and bring down somethin’ as we can take poor Sailor Bill up to the hut in,” said Seth, speaking again in his customary way and in a manner that Jasper plainly understood, for he disappeared at once, returning shortly in company with Josh, the two bearing a mattress between them, on which the boy was placed, still asleep, and carried up to the house, where he was softly put down on Mr Rawlings’ bed and left, with Seth watching by his side until he should wake up, as the latter expected, in his proper senses.The camp was in a state of tremendous excitement, as may be supposed, for no less than three thrilling episodes of interest had occurred all in one day, any one of which would have been sensational enough in itself to have afforded matter for gossip for a month.The starting of the stamps—the attack and repulse of the long-dreaded Indian band—the fact of Sailor Bill recovering his lost senses—all happening at once, all coming together!It was too much for even the most apathetic of the miners to contemplate calmly. And when, after the final departure of the American soldiery—whose commander returned, after pursuing the Sioux for some distance amongst the Black Hills, to report that no further attack need be feared from the band, which was now thoroughly dispersed and incapable of assailing the camp a second time, that year at least—Minturne Creek resumed its normal quietude, and seemed duller than ever after such stirring events as had recently been witnessed, the excited gold-diggers gathered together in twos and threes, thinking over and talking about what had happened.Beyond the stirring events that had happened they had also to mourn the loss of two of their number, as gallant comrades as men ever had—for, ere long, Black Harry had followed the smart foretopman to the silent land, succumbing to the dangerous wound he had received towards the end of the struggle from an Indian tomahawk wielded by a powerful arm, which had almost cleft the poor fellow’s skull in twain; and, after so many months of close companionship, the death of the two sailors was keenly felt.The best way to banish painful thoughts, however, as Mr Rawlings knew from sad experience, was to engage in active employment; so he did not allow the men to remain idle, although he gave them ample time for a rest after the fight was over.Summoning to his aid Noah Webster, who, like some of the others who had received trivial wounds, made light of the bullet hole through his arm, he mustered the hands late in the afternoon of the eventful day, and delivered a short practical address to them before resuming operations—a speech which, being to the point, had the desired effect of making the men go back to their work with a will.“Now, lads,” said he, “we must be up and going. Sitting there talking will not bring back the poor fellows that have gone. I mourn our comrades just as much as you do, for they worked steadfastly, like the honest, true-hearted men they were, through the hard time of toil and trouble we had till recently, and at the last fought and died bravely in the defence of the camp. But, crying over them won’t help them now; all we can do is to bury them where they so nobly fell, and then turn our hands to carry on our work to the end that is now so near in view, just as they would have insisted on doing if they had been alive still and with us!”There was no more lethargy after Mr Rawlings’ exhortation: as Solomon says,—“A word in season, how good it is!”The men sprang up with alacrity to set about what he had suggested rather than ordered; and, as soon as graves had been dug in the shelter trench of the rampart that Tom Cannon and Black Harry had held so courageously against the Indians, and their bodies interred with all proper solemnity, Mr Rawlings himself reading the burial service over their remains, the miners grasped their picks and shovels with one hand as they wiped away a tear with the other, and went back to the mine, some of them possibly with the reflection that, all things considered, their slain mates were perhaps after all now better off than themselves!
“Now didn’t I say so, Rawlings?” said Seth triumphantly, turning to that gentleman. “I leave it to any one if I didn’t diagnose the boy’s symptoms correctly! I said ef he can meet with a similar shock to that which cost him his reason, he’d get it back again. I told you that from the first on board theSusan Jane.”
“You certainly did,” replied Mr Rawlings. “It’s the most curious case I ever heard or read of! Do you think, Seth, when he wakes up he’ll be still all right here?” tapping his forehead expressively.
“Sartain as thaar’s snakes in Virginny!” said the ex-mate, returning for a moment to his vernacular mode of speech; although, his medical instincts asserting themselves again presently, he spoke more formally and in professional style in continuation of his reply to Mr Rawlings. “He is still in a semi-comatose condition, as that somnolent fit assures us; but he will sleep it off, and rouse up by and by in the proper possession of his faculties, a glimpse of which we observed just now.”
“I’m right glad to hear it,” said Mr Rawlings. “What a difference that look of intelligence in his eyes made in him! I declare I would hardly have known him to be the same boy!”
“You’re right there,” said Seth. “I’ve read in some book of the eyes bein’ called ‘the windows of the soul;’ an’ I believe it’s pretty near the mark.”
“Golly, massa Rawlings,” put in Jasper at this juncture—the darkey had been dying to speak for a long time—“p’raps him turn out to be gran’ fine genelmun, for sure, ’sides bein’ massa Willerton’s cuzzing, hey?”
“P’raps I’ll souse you in the river if you don’t make tracks and bring down somethin’ as we can take poor Sailor Bill up to the hut in,” said Seth, speaking again in his customary way and in a manner that Jasper plainly understood, for he disappeared at once, returning shortly in company with Josh, the two bearing a mattress between them, on which the boy was placed, still asleep, and carried up to the house, where he was softly put down on Mr Rawlings’ bed and left, with Seth watching by his side until he should wake up, as the latter expected, in his proper senses.
The camp was in a state of tremendous excitement, as may be supposed, for no less than three thrilling episodes of interest had occurred all in one day, any one of which would have been sensational enough in itself to have afforded matter for gossip for a month.
The starting of the stamps—the attack and repulse of the long-dreaded Indian band—the fact of Sailor Bill recovering his lost senses—all happening at once, all coming together!
It was too much for even the most apathetic of the miners to contemplate calmly. And when, after the final departure of the American soldiery—whose commander returned, after pursuing the Sioux for some distance amongst the Black Hills, to report that no further attack need be feared from the band, which was now thoroughly dispersed and incapable of assailing the camp a second time, that year at least—Minturne Creek resumed its normal quietude, and seemed duller than ever after such stirring events as had recently been witnessed, the excited gold-diggers gathered together in twos and threes, thinking over and talking about what had happened.
Beyond the stirring events that had happened they had also to mourn the loss of two of their number, as gallant comrades as men ever had—for, ere long, Black Harry had followed the smart foretopman to the silent land, succumbing to the dangerous wound he had received towards the end of the struggle from an Indian tomahawk wielded by a powerful arm, which had almost cleft the poor fellow’s skull in twain; and, after so many months of close companionship, the death of the two sailors was keenly felt.
The best way to banish painful thoughts, however, as Mr Rawlings knew from sad experience, was to engage in active employment; so he did not allow the men to remain idle, although he gave them ample time for a rest after the fight was over.
Summoning to his aid Noah Webster, who, like some of the others who had received trivial wounds, made light of the bullet hole through his arm, he mustered the hands late in the afternoon of the eventful day, and delivered a short practical address to them before resuming operations—a speech which, being to the point, had the desired effect of making the men go back to their work with a will.
“Now, lads,” said he, “we must be up and going. Sitting there talking will not bring back the poor fellows that have gone. I mourn our comrades just as much as you do, for they worked steadfastly, like the honest, true-hearted men they were, through the hard time of toil and trouble we had till recently, and at the last fought and died bravely in the defence of the camp. But, crying over them won’t help them now; all we can do is to bury them where they so nobly fell, and then turn our hands to carry on our work to the end that is now so near in view, just as they would have insisted on doing if they had been alive still and with us!”
There was no more lethargy after Mr Rawlings’ exhortation: as Solomon says,—“A word in season, how good it is!”
The men sprang up with alacrity to set about what he had suggested rather than ordered; and, as soon as graves had been dug in the shelter trench of the rampart that Tom Cannon and Black Harry had held so courageously against the Indians, and their bodies interred with all proper solemnity, Mr Rawlings himself reading the burial service over their remains, the miners grasped their picks and shovels with one hand as they wiped away a tear with the other, and went back to the mine, some of them possibly with the reflection that, all things considered, their slain mates were perhaps after all now better off than themselves!
Story 1—Chapter XXIV.Sailor Bill’s Story.After the sad ceremony which he had just performed, Mr Rawlings did not feel much inclined for gold-seeking or any worldly affairs, although he went towards the mine as a matter of duty; and when he reached the stamps he found Ernest Wilton already standing there, but looking pale and perturbed, as if anxious about something.“What is the matter?” said Mr Rawlings. “You seem out of sorts, beyond what the loss of these poor fellows would have affected you?”“Yes, I am,” replied the other. “I can’t help thinking of that cousin of mine, and why I did not recognise him when I first saw him; but then he was quite a little boy at school, and who would have dreamt of your picking him up at sea?”“Strange things do happen sometimes,” said Mr Rawlings. “When was it that you last saw him in England?”“Four years ago last Christmas, if I recollect aright. He was then a little schoolboy not half his present size. How on earth did he manage to get to sea? my aunt had a perfect horror of a sailor’s life, and would never have let him go willingly. But, there, it only serves me right for my selfish neglect! As you told me before, I ought to have kept up my communication with my family, and then I should have known all about it. I can’t help now fancying all sorts of queer things that may have occurred. My poor aunt, who used to be so fond of me, may be dead; and my uncle, who was of a roving nature kindred to mine, may—”“Nonsense!” said Mr Rawlings, good-naturedly, interrupting him. “If you go on like that, you’ll imagine you’re the man in the moon, or something else! Sailor Bill, or rather your cousin Frank, as we must now call him, will wake up presently and enlighten us as to how he came to be in his present position—or rather in the Bay of Biscay, where we picked him up; for we all know his subsequent history; and then you’ll learn what you are now puzzling your brains about, without any bother. I confess I am curious in the matter too, for I wish to know the secret of that mysterious packet round his neck; but we must both wait with patience, and dismiss the subject for the present from our minds. Come along with me now, my boy,” he added, as the body of the miners hastened up after paying their last tribute of respect at their comrades’ graves. “I’m just going to have a look at your sluices, and see whether the stuff is coming out as rich as before.”This invitation at once caused the young engineer to brighten up, as the idea of action had aroused the miners from dwelling on what had happened.The yield upon being examined proved fully as rich as before the first experiment.“You see, Mr Rawlings,” said Ernest, cordially holding out his hand for a friendly grip, “the lead has turned out just as I fancied it would do, and my efforts to open it out proved successful. You are now, as I told you would be the case, the richest man in this State, or in Montana either, for that matter, with all their talk of Bonanza Kings there.”“You bet,” chimed in Noah Webster, who felt equally proud and delighted with the young engineer at the result of their joint operations; but Mr Rawlings could say little.The Indian attack had hitherto prevented his realising this sudden change of fortune, and now that he was fully conscious of it, all he could do was to silently shake Ernest Wilton’s hand first, and then Noah Webster’s; and after that each of those of the miners who pressed near him for the purpose, full of sympathy with “the good luck of the boss,” and forgetting already the fate of their lost comrades in the sight of the glittering metal before them—their natural good spirits being perfectly restored a little later on, when Mr Rawlings assured them, on his recovering his speech, that he fully intended now keeping to the promise he had given when the venture was first undertaken, and would divide half the proceeds of the mine, share and share alike, among the men, in addition to paying them the wages he had engaged to do.The ringing hurrahs with which the jubilant miners gave vent to their gladness on the reiteration of Mr Rawlings’ promise, were so loud that they reached the ears of Seth, who was watching by the sleeping boy, and the latter woke up immediately with a frightened air, as if suffering from the keenest terror.“It’s all right, my b’y, all right,” said Seth soothingly; and at the same time Wolf, who had entered the house and crept up by the side of the bed, leapt up on the boy and licked his face.“Where am I, Sam?” he said to Seth, the dog’s greeting having apparently calmed him down as well as the ex-mate’s kindly manner; “are they after me still, Sam?”“You are here with us,” saith Seth, puzzled at the boy’s addressing him so familiarly; “but my name arn’t Sam, leastways, not as I knows on.”The boy looked in his face, and seemed disappointed.“No, you are not Sam, though you are like him. Oh, now I recollect all?” and he hid his face in his hands and burst into a passionate fit of crying, as if his heart would break.“There, there,” said Seth, patting him on the back, “it’s all right, I tell you, my b’y; an’ when Seth says so I guess he means it!”But the boy would not stop weeping; and Seth, thinking that some harm might result to his newly-awakened reason if he went on like that, strode to the door and summoned help, with a stentorian hail that rang through the valley as loudly as the cheer of the miners had done one instant before.“Ahoy there, all hands on deck!” he shouted, hardly knowing what he was saying, adding a moment afterwards, “Wilton, you’re wanted! Look sharp.”“Here I am,” cried Wilton, hurrying up, with Mr Rawlings after him. “What is the matter now, Seth?”“I can’t make him do nothing” said that worthy hopelessly. “He takes me to be some coon or other called Sam, an’ then when I speaks he turns on the water-power and goes on dreadful, that I’m afeard he’ll do himself harm. Can’t you quiet him, Wilton; he kinder knowed you jest now?”“I’ll try,” said Ernest; and kneeling by the boy’s side, he drew his hands away from his face and gently spoke to him.“Frank! look at me: don’t you know me?”“Ye–e–es,” sobbed he, “you—youare Ernest. But how did you come here? you weren’t on board the ship. Oh, father! where are you, and all the rest?”And the boy burst out crying again, in an agony of grief which was quite painful to witness.Presently, however, he grew more composed; and, in a broken way, Ernest managed to get his story from him—a terrible tale of mutiny, and robbery, and murder on the high seas.This was his story, as far as could be gathered from his disconnected details.Frank Lester, much against his mother’s wishes, had persuaded his father to take him with him in the early part of the previous year to the diamond fields in South Africa, whither Mr Lester was going for the purpose of purchasing some of the best stones he could get for a large firm who intrusted him with the commission. The object of the journey had been safely accomplished, and Mr Lester and Frank reached Cape Town, where they took their return passage to England in a vessel called theDragon King.Seth nudged Mr Rawlings at this point.“Didn’t I say that was the name of the desarted ship?” he asked in a whisper.And Mr Rawlings nodded his assent.TheDragon King—to continue Frank’s, or Sailor Bill’s story—was commanded by a rough sort of captain, who was continually swearing at the men and ill-treating them; and, in the middle of the voyage a mutiny broke out on board, started originally by some of the hands who wished merely to deprive the captain of his authority, and put the first mate, who was much liked by the men, in his place; but the outbreak was taken advantage of by a parcel of desperadoes and ne’er-do-weels, who were returning home empty handed from the diamond diggings, and were glad of the opportunity of plundering the ship and passengers—whence the mutiny, from being first of an almost peaceful character, degenerated into a scene of bloodshed and violence which it made Frank shudder to speak about.His father, fearing what was about to happen, and that, as he was known as having been up the country and in the possession of jewels of great value, the desperadoes would attempt to rob him first, placed round Frank’s neck, in the original parchment-covered parcel in which he had received them from the bank at the diamond fields, the precious stones he had bought, with all his own available capital as well as his employers’ money, thinking that that would be the last place where the thieves would search for them.“And now they are lost,” added the boy with another stifled sob, “and poor mother will be penniless.”“Nary a bit,” said Seth; and pulling out the little packet by the silken string attached round his neck—which the poor boy had not thought of feeling for even, he was so confident of his loss—he disclosed it to his gaze. “Is that the consarn, my b’y?” he asked.“Oh!” exclaimed Frank in delighted surprise. “It is, with the bank seal still unbroken, I declare!”And opening the parchment cover he showed Ernest and the rest some diamonds of the first water, that must have been worth several thousand pounds.After his father had given the parcel into his care, Frank went on to say, events transpired exactly as he had anticipated. Most of the passengers were robbed, and those that objected to being despoiled tranquilly, murdered. Amongst these were his father, whom the ruffians killed more out of spite from not finding the valuables they expected on him. He, Frank, escaped through the kindness of one of the sailors, who took a fancy to him, and hid him up aloft in the ship’s foretop when the men who had possession of the ship would have killed him.“This sailor,” said Frank, “was just like that gentleman there,” pointing to Seth.“Waal neow, that’s curious,” said Seth. “Was his name Sam?”“It was,” said the boy.“This is curious,” said Seth, looking round at the rest; “it is really. I wouldn’t be at all surprised as how that’s my brother Sam I haven’t heerd on for this many a year, or seed, although he’s a seafarin’ man like myself, an’ I oughter to ’ave run across his jib afore now. Depend on it, Rawlings, that the reason the boy stuck to me so when he hadn’t got his wits, and came for to rescue me aboard theSusan Jane, and arterwards, was on account of my likeness to Sam.”And as nobody could say him nay, it may be mentioned here that that was Seth’s fervent belief ever after.The last recollection that Frank had of the ship and the mutineers was of an orgie on board theDragon Kingin the height of a storm, and of one of the murderous villains finding out his retreat in the foretop, where the sailor who protected him lashed him to the rigging, so that he could not tumble on deck if he should fall asleep. He remembered a man with gleaming eyes and great white teeth swearing at him, and making a cut at him with a drawn sword. After that, all was a complete blank to him till he had just now opened his eyes and recognised Ernest.“An’ yer don’t recollect being picked up at sea an’ taken aboard theSusan Jane, and brought here, nor nuthin’?” inquired Seth.“Nothing whatever,” said Frank, who showed himself to be a remarkably intelligent boy now that he had recovered his senses. “I don’t remember anything that happened in the interval.”“Waal, that is curious,” observed Seth.That was all the story that Frank Lester could tell of the mutiny on board theDragon King, and his wonderful preservation.All the mutineers, and some of their victims too most probably, met their final doom shortly afterwards in the storm that had dismasted the ship, leaving it to float derelict over the surface of the ocean; all but the three whose corpses the visiting party from theSusan Janehad noticed on the submerged deck. These must have survived the tempest only to perish finally from each other’s murderous passions, after having lingered on in a state of semi-starvation possibly—although Frank said that the desperadoes from the diamond fields, who were the ringleaders on board, were originally the most attenuated, starved-looking mortals he had ever seen in his life.
After the sad ceremony which he had just performed, Mr Rawlings did not feel much inclined for gold-seeking or any worldly affairs, although he went towards the mine as a matter of duty; and when he reached the stamps he found Ernest Wilton already standing there, but looking pale and perturbed, as if anxious about something.
“What is the matter?” said Mr Rawlings. “You seem out of sorts, beyond what the loss of these poor fellows would have affected you?”
“Yes, I am,” replied the other. “I can’t help thinking of that cousin of mine, and why I did not recognise him when I first saw him; but then he was quite a little boy at school, and who would have dreamt of your picking him up at sea?”
“Strange things do happen sometimes,” said Mr Rawlings. “When was it that you last saw him in England?”
“Four years ago last Christmas, if I recollect aright. He was then a little schoolboy not half his present size. How on earth did he manage to get to sea? my aunt had a perfect horror of a sailor’s life, and would never have let him go willingly. But, there, it only serves me right for my selfish neglect! As you told me before, I ought to have kept up my communication with my family, and then I should have known all about it. I can’t help now fancying all sorts of queer things that may have occurred. My poor aunt, who used to be so fond of me, may be dead; and my uncle, who was of a roving nature kindred to mine, may—”
“Nonsense!” said Mr Rawlings, good-naturedly, interrupting him. “If you go on like that, you’ll imagine you’re the man in the moon, or something else! Sailor Bill, or rather your cousin Frank, as we must now call him, will wake up presently and enlighten us as to how he came to be in his present position—or rather in the Bay of Biscay, where we picked him up; for we all know his subsequent history; and then you’ll learn what you are now puzzling your brains about, without any bother. I confess I am curious in the matter too, for I wish to know the secret of that mysterious packet round his neck; but we must both wait with patience, and dismiss the subject for the present from our minds. Come along with me now, my boy,” he added, as the body of the miners hastened up after paying their last tribute of respect at their comrades’ graves. “I’m just going to have a look at your sluices, and see whether the stuff is coming out as rich as before.”
This invitation at once caused the young engineer to brighten up, as the idea of action had aroused the miners from dwelling on what had happened.
The yield upon being examined proved fully as rich as before the first experiment.
“You see, Mr Rawlings,” said Ernest, cordially holding out his hand for a friendly grip, “the lead has turned out just as I fancied it would do, and my efforts to open it out proved successful. You are now, as I told you would be the case, the richest man in this State, or in Montana either, for that matter, with all their talk of Bonanza Kings there.”
“You bet,” chimed in Noah Webster, who felt equally proud and delighted with the young engineer at the result of their joint operations; but Mr Rawlings could say little.
The Indian attack had hitherto prevented his realising this sudden change of fortune, and now that he was fully conscious of it, all he could do was to silently shake Ernest Wilton’s hand first, and then Noah Webster’s; and after that each of those of the miners who pressed near him for the purpose, full of sympathy with “the good luck of the boss,” and forgetting already the fate of their lost comrades in the sight of the glittering metal before them—their natural good spirits being perfectly restored a little later on, when Mr Rawlings assured them, on his recovering his speech, that he fully intended now keeping to the promise he had given when the venture was first undertaken, and would divide half the proceeds of the mine, share and share alike, among the men, in addition to paying them the wages he had engaged to do.
The ringing hurrahs with which the jubilant miners gave vent to their gladness on the reiteration of Mr Rawlings’ promise, were so loud that they reached the ears of Seth, who was watching by the sleeping boy, and the latter woke up immediately with a frightened air, as if suffering from the keenest terror.
“It’s all right, my b’y, all right,” said Seth soothingly; and at the same time Wolf, who had entered the house and crept up by the side of the bed, leapt up on the boy and licked his face.
“Where am I, Sam?” he said to Seth, the dog’s greeting having apparently calmed him down as well as the ex-mate’s kindly manner; “are they after me still, Sam?”
“You are here with us,” saith Seth, puzzled at the boy’s addressing him so familiarly; “but my name arn’t Sam, leastways, not as I knows on.”
The boy looked in his face, and seemed disappointed.
“No, you are not Sam, though you are like him. Oh, now I recollect all?” and he hid his face in his hands and burst into a passionate fit of crying, as if his heart would break.
“There, there,” said Seth, patting him on the back, “it’s all right, I tell you, my b’y; an’ when Seth says so I guess he means it!”
But the boy would not stop weeping; and Seth, thinking that some harm might result to his newly-awakened reason if he went on like that, strode to the door and summoned help, with a stentorian hail that rang through the valley as loudly as the cheer of the miners had done one instant before.
“Ahoy there, all hands on deck!” he shouted, hardly knowing what he was saying, adding a moment afterwards, “Wilton, you’re wanted! Look sharp.”
“Here I am,” cried Wilton, hurrying up, with Mr Rawlings after him. “What is the matter now, Seth?”
“I can’t make him do nothing” said that worthy hopelessly. “He takes me to be some coon or other called Sam, an’ then when I speaks he turns on the water-power and goes on dreadful, that I’m afeard he’ll do himself harm. Can’t you quiet him, Wilton; he kinder knowed you jest now?”
“I’ll try,” said Ernest; and kneeling by the boy’s side, he drew his hands away from his face and gently spoke to him.
“Frank! look at me: don’t you know me?”
“Ye–e–es,” sobbed he, “you—youare Ernest. But how did you come here? you weren’t on board the ship. Oh, father! where are you, and all the rest?”
And the boy burst out crying again, in an agony of grief which was quite painful to witness.
Presently, however, he grew more composed; and, in a broken way, Ernest managed to get his story from him—a terrible tale of mutiny, and robbery, and murder on the high seas.
This was his story, as far as could be gathered from his disconnected details.
Frank Lester, much against his mother’s wishes, had persuaded his father to take him with him in the early part of the previous year to the diamond fields in South Africa, whither Mr Lester was going for the purpose of purchasing some of the best stones he could get for a large firm who intrusted him with the commission. The object of the journey had been safely accomplished, and Mr Lester and Frank reached Cape Town, where they took their return passage to England in a vessel called theDragon King.
Seth nudged Mr Rawlings at this point.
“Didn’t I say that was the name of the desarted ship?” he asked in a whisper.
And Mr Rawlings nodded his assent.
TheDragon King—to continue Frank’s, or Sailor Bill’s story—was commanded by a rough sort of captain, who was continually swearing at the men and ill-treating them; and, in the middle of the voyage a mutiny broke out on board, started originally by some of the hands who wished merely to deprive the captain of his authority, and put the first mate, who was much liked by the men, in his place; but the outbreak was taken advantage of by a parcel of desperadoes and ne’er-do-weels, who were returning home empty handed from the diamond diggings, and were glad of the opportunity of plundering the ship and passengers—whence the mutiny, from being first of an almost peaceful character, degenerated into a scene of bloodshed and violence which it made Frank shudder to speak about.
His father, fearing what was about to happen, and that, as he was known as having been up the country and in the possession of jewels of great value, the desperadoes would attempt to rob him first, placed round Frank’s neck, in the original parchment-covered parcel in which he had received them from the bank at the diamond fields, the precious stones he had bought, with all his own available capital as well as his employers’ money, thinking that that would be the last place where the thieves would search for them.
“And now they are lost,” added the boy with another stifled sob, “and poor mother will be penniless.”
“Nary a bit,” said Seth; and pulling out the little packet by the silken string attached round his neck—which the poor boy had not thought of feeling for even, he was so confident of his loss—he disclosed it to his gaze. “Is that the consarn, my b’y?” he asked.
“Oh!” exclaimed Frank in delighted surprise. “It is, with the bank seal still unbroken, I declare!”
And opening the parchment cover he showed Ernest and the rest some diamonds of the first water, that must have been worth several thousand pounds.
After his father had given the parcel into his care, Frank went on to say, events transpired exactly as he had anticipated. Most of the passengers were robbed, and those that objected to being despoiled tranquilly, murdered. Amongst these were his father, whom the ruffians killed more out of spite from not finding the valuables they expected on him. He, Frank, escaped through the kindness of one of the sailors, who took a fancy to him, and hid him up aloft in the ship’s foretop when the men who had possession of the ship would have killed him.
“This sailor,” said Frank, “was just like that gentleman there,” pointing to Seth.
“Waal neow, that’s curious,” said Seth. “Was his name Sam?”
“It was,” said the boy.
“This is curious,” said Seth, looking round at the rest; “it is really. I wouldn’t be at all surprised as how that’s my brother Sam I haven’t heerd on for this many a year, or seed, although he’s a seafarin’ man like myself, an’ I oughter to ’ave run across his jib afore now. Depend on it, Rawlings, that the reason the boy stuck to me so when he hadn’t got his wits, and came for to rescue me aboard theSusan Jane, and arterwards, was on account of my likeness to Sam.”
And as nobody could say him nay, it may be mentioned here that that was Seth’s fervent belief ever after.
The last recollection that Frank had of the ship and the mutineers was of an orgie on board theDragon Kingin the height of a storm, and of one of the murderous villains finding out his retreat in the foretop, where the sailor who protected him lashed him to the rigging, so that he could not tumble on deck if he should fall asleep. He remembered a man with gleaming eyes and great white teeth swearing at him, and making a cut at him with a drawn sword. After that, all was a complete blank to him till he had just now opened his eyes and recognised Ernest.
“An’ yer don’t recollect being picked up at sea an’ taken aboard theSusan Jane, and brought here, nor nuthin’?” inquired Seth.
“Nothing whatever,” said Frank, who showed himself to be a remarkably intelligent boy now that he had recovered his senses. “I don’t remember anything that happened in the interval.”
“Waal, that is curious,” observed Seth.
That was all the story that Frank Lester could tell of the mutiny on board theDragon King, and his wonderful preservation.
All the mutineers, and some of their victims too most probably, met their final doom shortly afterwards in the storm that had dismasted the ship, leaving it to float derelict over the surface of the ocean; all but the three whose corpses the visiting party from theSusan Janehad noticed on the submerged deck. These must have survived the tempest only to perish finally from each other’s murderous passions, after having lingered on in a state of semi-starvation possibly—although Frank said that the desperadoes from the diamond fields, who were the ringleaders on board, were originally the most attenuated, starved-looking mortals he had ever seen in his life.
Story 1—Chapter XXV.Homeward-Bound.The work at the mine went on steadily. The “pocket” was cleared of the quartz it contained, and the whole, amounting to two hundred and fifty tons, passed through the stamp.The soldiers, on their return from their victory over the Sioux, had spread the news of the wonderful find of gold at Minturne Creek, and miners had flocked up in hundreds. When the pocket was emptied, a debate arose whether a heading should be driven along the course of the lode to the spot where Mr Rawlings’ cousin had struck gold, and where it was probable that another pocket existed. It was, however, decided to accept the offer of a body of wealthy speculators, who offered 100,000 pounds for the set. This was indeed far less than they would have gleaned from it had the second pocket turned out as rich as the first, for the gold, when all the quartz was crushed, amounted in value to 350,000 pounds. Half of the total amount was divided by Mr Rawlings, according to his promise, among the miners. Seth receiving three shares, Noah Webster two, and the men one each. To Ernest Wilton he gave one-fourth of his own share of the proceeds.Then, starting from the spot where they had toiled so hard, the little band set out for the haunts of civilisation once more, leaving behind, where they had found a solitary valley, a place dotted with huts and alive with busy men.At Bismark the men separated, some to proceed back to their beloved California, to star it among their fellows with their newly acquired wealth, others to dissipate it in riotous living in the nearest frontier towns, while others again, struck with the greed of gold, thought that they had not yet got enough, and proceeded rapidly to gamble away what they had.Mr Rawlings went eastwards towards Boston, intending to take steamer thence to England, which he resolved never to leave again in the pursuit of adventure now that fortune had so generously befriended him; and with him came Ernest Wilton, taking charge of his recovered cousin; and Seth, who could not bear to lose sight of his former protégé.Josh and Jasper had been left behind, the two darkeys sinking their mutual jealousy, and determining to start a coloured hotel on the Missouri, for the benefit of travelling gentlemen of their own persuasion; so too had Noah Webster, who said he liked hunting better than civilisation, and intended to pass the remainder of his days out west in the company of Moose, who was as eager after game as he was himself and as fearless of the Indians, should they again trouble them, after their Minturne Creek experiences.Wolf, however, was one of the homeward-bound party. He certainly could not be abandoned after all his faithful services, and the wonderful instinct he had displayed, more than his master had done, in recognising Frank, whom he had not seen since puppyhood, when Ernest Wilton’s aunt, Frank’s mother, gave him to the young engineer.As luck would have it, on the arrival of Mr Rawlings and his party at Boston whom should they meet accidentally at the railway depot but Captain Blowser, of theSusan Jane, as hearty and jolly as of yore, and delighted to see them! His ship he “guessed” was just going to Europe, and he would be only too glad of their taking passage in her.Need it be mentioned that the captain’s offer was accepted; and that, long before Frank Lester—the “Sailor Bill” whom Seth loved, and the crew of theSusan Janeand the gold-miners of Minturne Creek had regarded with such affection—had arrived in England to gladden his mother’s heart by his restoration, as if from the dead, when he had long been given up for lost, together with his father’s property which he carried with him, he had learnt every detail, as if he had been in his right senses at the time, of how he had been “Picked up at Sea?”
The work at the mine went on steadily. The “pocket” was cleared of the quartz it contained, and the whole, amounting to two hundred and fifty tons, passed through the stamp.
The soldiers, on their return from their victory over the Sioux, had spread the news of the wonderful find of gold at Minturne Creek, and miners had flocked up in hundreds. When the pocket was emptied, a debate arose whether a heading should be driven along the course of the lode to the spot where Mr Rawlings’ cousin had struck gold, and where it was probable that another pocket existed. It was, however, decided to accept the offer of a body of wealthy speculators, who offered 100,000 pounds for the set. This was indeed far less than they would have gleaned from it had the second pocket turned out as rich as the first, for the gold, when all the quartz was crushed, amounted in value to 350,000 pounds. Half of the total amount was divided by Mr Rawlings, according to his promise, among the miners. Seth receiving three shares, Noah Webster two, and the men one each. To Ernest Wilton he gave one-fourth of his own share of the proceeds.
Then, starting from the spot where they had toiled so hard, the little band set out for the haunts of civilisation once more, leaving behind, where they had found a solitary valley, a place dotted with huts and alive with busy men.
At Bismark the men separated, some to proceed back to their beloved California, to star it among their fellows with their newly acquired wealth, others to dissipate it in riotous living in the nearest frontier towns, while others again, struck with the greed of gold, thought that they had not yet got enough, and proceeded rapidly to gamble away what they had.
Mr Rawlings went eastwards towards Boston, intending to take steamer thence to England, which he resolved never to leave again in the pursuit of adventure now that fortune had so generously befriended him; and with him came Ernest Wilton, taking charge of his recovered cousin; and Seth, who could not bear to lose sight of his former protégé.
Josh and Jasper had been left behind, the two darkeys sinking their mutual jealousy, and determining to start a coloured hotel on the Missouri, for the benefit of travelling gentlemen of their own persuasion; so too had Noah Webster, who said he liked hunting better than civilisation, and intended to pass the remainder of his days out west in the company of Moose, who was as eager after game as he was himself and as fearless of the Indians, should they again trouble them, after their Minturne Creek experiences.
Wolf, however, was one of the homeward-bound party. He certainly could not be abandoned after all his faithful services, and the wonderful instinct he had displayed, more than his master had done, in recognising Frank, whom he had not seen since puppyhood, when Ernest Wilton’s aunt, Frank’s mother, gave him to the young engineer.
As luck would have it, on the arrival of Mr Rawlings and his party at Boston whom should they meet accidentally at the railway depot but Captain Blowser, of theSusan Jane, as hearty and jolly as of yore, and delighted to see them! His ship he “guessed” was just going to Europe, and he would be only too glad of their taking passage in her.
Need it be mentioned that the captain’s offer was accepted; and that, long before Frank Lester—the “Sailor Bill” whom Seth loved, and the crew of theSusan Janeand the gold-miners of Minturne Creek had regarded with such affection—had arrived in England to gladden his mother’s heart by his restoration, as if from the dead, when he had long been given up for lost, together with his father’s property which he carried with him, he had learnt every detail, as if he had been in his right senses at the time, of how he had been “Picked up at Sea?”
Story 2—Chapter I.Greek Pirates and Turkish Brigands. A Tale of Adventure by Sea and Land.In Beyrout Harbour.“It’s a thundering shame our sticking here so long; and I’m sick of the beastly old place,” said Tom Aldridge in a grumbling tone, as he leant over the bulwarks listlessly, crumbling bits of biscuit into the sea to attract the fish, which would not be attracted, and gazing in an idle way at the roof of the pacha’s palace, that glittered under the rays of the bright Syrian sun. “I’m sick of the place, Charley!” he repeated, more venomously than before.“So am I, Tom,” said Charley Onslow, his fellow-midshipman on board theMuscadine, an English barque of some seven or eight hundred tons, that lay, along with several foreign vessels of different rig, in the bay of Beyrout—as pretty a harbour as could be picked out in a score of voyages, and about the busiest port in the whole of the Levant.“So am I, Tom,” said Charley with the utmost heartiness. “I am as tired of it as I am of the eternal dates and coffee, coffee and dates, on which these blessed Arab beggars live, and which everybody makes a point of offering to one, if a chap goes ashore for a minute; while, on board, we’ve nothing now to do but to check off the freight as it comes alongside before it’s lowered in the hold, and look out at the unchanging picture around us, which is so familiar that I believe I could paint it with my eyes shut if I were an artist. Talk of the beauty of Beyrout, indeed! To my taste, it’s the most monotonous hole I was ever in in my life, and I hate it!”And yet, in spite of Charley Onslow’s peevish criticism, the scene around him and his companion was charming enough.TheMuscadinewas anchored out in the roads, close to the jutting promontory on which the lazaretto buildings were lately erected, that stretched out like an arm into the harbour; and the view from her deck presented a beautiful panorama of the semi-European, semi-Oriental town, nestling on the very edge of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and surrounded by gently-undulating hills, that were terraced with symmetrical rows of trim olive-trees and vineyards, rising tier upon tier, the one above the other; amidst which, occasionally peeped out slily the white cupola of some suburban villa belonging to one of the wealthy merchants of the port, or the minaret of a Moslem mosque, standing out conspicuously against the shrubbery of foliage formed of different tints of green, from the palest emerald shade to the deepest indigo, that culminated finally in the cedar-crowned heights of the mountains of Lebanon in the purple distance.It was not a quiet scene either, as might have been imagined from the idle ennui of both the young sailors, whom it seemed to have well-nigh bored to death. On the contrary, to an unprejudiced looker-on it was quite the reverse of being inactive.In the foreground the harbour was lively enough, with boats and caravels, and other Turkish craft of all sizes and shapes, darting here and there like great white-winged dragon-flies, as they were wafted swiftly one moment by some passing whiff of air, or lying still on the surface of the sea as the wind fell and they were temporarily becalmed, until another gust came from the hills to rouse them out of their noontide sluggishness.Amongst them, too, were ships’ boats belonging to the different vessels, anchored, like theMuscadine, out in the roads, being pulled to and from the shore, anon laden with merchandise, anon returning for more; while, of course, the dingy black smoke and steady paddle-beat of the inevitable steamer, that marks the progress of Western civilisation in the East, made themselves seen and heard, to complete the picture and make the contrast the more striking.“Tom,” said Charley presently, after the two had remained silent for some time, still standing in the shade of the awning aft, that protected them from the burning heat of the sun, which was at its most potent point, it being just mid-day.“Yes,” said the other grumpily, as if disinclined even for conversation.“It has just gone eight bells.”“Can’t I hear as well as you, Charley? What’s the use of bothering a fellow? Do leave me alone.”“I only wanted to say, Tom, that the skipper said we might go ashore this afternoon if we liked, as soon as the second mate came on board; and there he is coming off in the jolly-boat now.”“I don’t care whether Tompkins comes off or not,” replied Tom Aldridge in the same peevish tone as he had spoken at first. “What’s the good of going ashore?”“Oh, lots of good,” said Charley Onslow more cheerily. “Better than stopping here cooped-up like a fowl and being grilled in the sun.”“Well, I can’t see the difference between getting roasted ashore and roasted on board, for my part,” retorted Tom. “It’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.”“You lazy duffer!” said Charley laughing; “you are incorrigible. But do come along with me, Tom. We haven’t landed now for two days, and I can’t stand theMuscadineany longer.”“I suppose you’ll have your way, as you always do,” grumbled the other, turning away at last from his listless contemplation of the prospect with which he had owned himself so disgusted. “I don’t know how it is, Charley, but you seem to manage me and everybody here just as you like; you can come round the skipper even, when you set your mind to it, and that is what no one else can do!”“You forget Mr Tompkins.”“I don’t count him at all,” said Tom Aldridge indignantly. “He’s a sneak, and gets his way by wheedling and shoe-scraping! But you, Charley, go to work in quite a different fashion. Why, I’m hanged if you don’t cheek a fellow when you want to get something out of him. It’s your Irish impudence that does it, my boy, I expect.”“Sure, an’ it’s a way we have in the ould counthry,” said Charley, putting on the brogue so easily that it seemed natural to him—which indeed it was, as he was born not twenty miles from Cork, in the neighbourhood of which is situated the far-famed “Blarney stone,” that is supposed to endow those who kiss it with the “gift of the gab;” and Charley must have “osculated it,” as a Yankee would say, to some purpose.“Be jabers, thin, ye spalpeen,” laughed Tom—who had got out of his grumpy state quickly enough; for his disposition was almost as light-hearted as that of his friend, and it was only the heat and the confinement on board ship when in harbour that had previously oppressed his spirits—“let us look smart, and be off. Here’s that fellow Tompkins just coming up the side, and I don’t want any more of his company than I can help! Tell him we’re going by the captain’s permission, Charley. I don’t want to say a word to him after that row this morning. You are still on speaking terms with him, and I’m not. And while you are settling matters with the old sneak, I’ll get the dinghy ready, and fetch up the bottle of brandy I promised that jolly old Turk at the coffee-shop.”“You’d better water it a bit, Tom,” said Charley, as the other was diving down the companion-stairs. “It’s awfully strong; and you know Mohammedans are not accustomed to it.”“Not a drop of it, my boy,” replied he, disappearing for a moment from view, and his voice receding in the distance. “I promised the old infidel that he should have the real stuff, and I’ll let him see that a giaour can keep his word.”In a second or two he came up again, the bottle, however, concealed in the pocket of his reefer of light blue serge. And hauling in the painter of the boat, which was floating astern, while Charley was still confabulating with the second officer, who had come on board in the meantime, he sat himself down in her, and waited patiently till his chum had done with the obnoxious Mr Tompkins, who seemed to have a good deal to say, and that of a not very pleasant character. “Bother the chap!” said Charley, when he was at length released, and, shinning down a rope, sat down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy, as Tom Aldridge took up the sculls and shoved off from the ship. “He’s got as much to say as Noah’s great-grandmother. And the gist of it all, fault-finding, of course.”“What can you expect from a pig, eh?” said Tom, philosophically, when the boat was well clear of theMuscadine, setting to work leisurely and pulling to shore, while Charley reclined at his ease on the cushions which he had taken the trouble to fix up for himself, and—did nothing, as usual.It was the general sort of “division of labour” amongst them.However, they were fast friends, and, as Tom didn’t complain, nobody else has any right to find fault.“A grunt, I suppose,” replied Charley, in answer to Tom’s conundrum. “At least, from a Welsh pig, like Tompkins. An Irish one, bedad! would have better manners.”“Bravo, Charley!” exclaimed Tom, bursting out into a laugh in which his companion as heartily joined. “You stick to your country, at all events, which is more than can be said for our leek-eating friend. He always wishes to deny that he belongs to the land of the Cymri and hails from Swansea, as he does. The sneak! I’m sure a decent Welshman would be ashamed to own him. But, don’t let us worry ourselves any longer about Tompkins; it’s bad enough to have him with us on board, without lugging him ashore, too; hang him!”“Ay, ay, so say I,” sang out Charley, in the best accord.And then, after a few more vigorous strokes from the sculls, propelled by Tom’s muscular arms, the bow of the dinghy stranded on the sandy shore, and the two boys landed in the highest glee, without a trace of the ill-humour and despondency in which they had been apparently plunged not an hour or so before.
“It’s a thundering shame our sticking here so long; and I’m sick of the beastly old place,” said Tom Aldridge in a grumbling tone, as he leant over the bulwarks listlessly, crumbling bits of biscuit into the sea to attract the fish, which would not be attracted, and gazing in an idle way at the roof of the pacha’s palace, that glittered under the rays of the bright Syrian sun. “I’m sick of the place, Charley!” he repeated, more venomously than before.
“So am I, Tom,” said Charley Onslow, his fellow-midshipman on board theMuscadine, an English barque of some seven or eight hundred tons, that lay, along with several foreign vessels of different rig, in the bay of Beyrout—as pretty a harbour as could be picked out in a score of voyages, and about the busiest port in the whole of the Levant.
“So am I, Tom,” said Charley with the utmost heartiness. “I am as tired of it as I am of the eternal dates and coffee, coffee and dates, on which these blessed Arab beggars live, and which everybody makes a point of offering to one, if a chap goes ashore for a minute; while, on board, we’ve nothing now to do but to check off the freight as it comes alongside before it’s lowered in the hold, and look out at the unchanging picture around us, which is so familiar that I believe I could paint it with my eyes shut if I were an artist. Talk of the beauty of Beyrout, indeed! To my taste, it’s the most monotonous hole I was ever in in my life, and I hate it!”
And yet, in spite of Charley Onslow’s peevish criticism, the scene around him and his companion was charming enough.
TheMuscadinewas anchored out in the roads, close to the jutting promontory on which the lazaretto buildings were lately erected, that stretched out like an arm into the harbour; and the view from her deck presented a beautiful panorama of the semi-European, semi-Oriental town, nestling on the very edge of the blue waters of the Mediterranean, and surrounded by gently-undulating hills, that were terraced with symmetrical rows of trim olive-trees and vineyards, rising tier upon tier, the one above the other; amidst which, occasionally peeped out slily the white cupola of some suburban villa belonging to one of the wealthy merchants of the port, or the minaret of a Moslem mosque, standing out conspicuously against the shrubbery of foliage formed of different tints of green, from the palest emerald shade to the deepest indigo, that culminated finally in the cedar-crowned heights of the mountains of Lebanon in the purple distance.
It was not a quiet scene either, as might have been imagined from the idle ennui of both the young sailors, whom it seemed to have well-nigh bored to death. On the contrary, to an unprejudiced looker-on it was quite the reverse of being inactive.
In the foreground the harbour was lively enough, with boats and caravels, and other Turkish craft of all sizes and shapes, darting here and there like great white-winged dragon-flies, as they were wafted swiftly one moment by some passing whiff of air, or lying still on the surface of the sea as the wind fell and they were temporarily becalmed, until another gust came from the hills to rouse them out of their noontide sluggishness.
Amongst them, too, were ships’ boats belonging to the different vessels, anchored, like theMuscadine, out in the roads, being pulled to and from the shore, anon laden with merchandise, anon returning for more; while, of course, the dingy black smoke and steady paddle-beat of the inevitable steamer, that marks the progress of Western civilisation in the East, made themselves seen and heard, to complete the picture and make the contrast the more striking.
“Tom,” said Charley presently, after the two had remained silent for some time, still standing in the shade of the awning aft, that protected them from the burning heat of the sun, which was at its most potent point, it being just mid-day.
“Yes,” said the other grumpily, as if disinclined even for conversation.
“It has just gone eight bells.”
“Can’t I hear as well as you, Charley? What’s the use of bothering a fellow? Do leave me alone.”
“I only wanted to say, Tom, that the skipper said we might go ashore this afternoon if we liked, as soon as the second mate came on board; and there he is coming off in the jolly-boat now.”
“I don’t care whether Tompkins comes off or not,” replied Tom Aldridge in the same peevish tone as he had spoken at first. “What’s the good of going ashore?”
“Oh, lots of good,” said Charley Onslow more cheerily. “Better than stopping here cooped-up like a fowl and being grilled in the sun.”
“Well, I can’t see the difference between getting roasted ashore and roasted on board, for my part,” retorted Tom. “It’s six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.”
“You lazy duffer!” said Charley laughing; “you are incorrigible. But do come along with me, Tom. We haven’t landed now for two days, and I can’t stand theMuscadineany longer.”
“I suppose you’ll have your way, as you always do,” grumbled the other, turning away at last from his listless contemplation of the prospect with which he had owned himself so disgusted. “I don’t know how it is, Charley, but you seem to manage me and everybody here just as you like; you can come round the skipper even, when you set your mind to it, and that is what no one else can do!”
“You forget Mr Tompkins.”
“I don’t count him at all,” said Tom Aldridge indignantly. “He’s a sneak, and gets his way by wheedling and shoe-scraping! But you, Charley, go to work in quite a different fashion. Why, I’m hanged if you don’t cheek a fellow when you want to get something out of him. It’s your Irish impudence that does it, my boy, I expect.”
“Sure, an’ it’s a way we have in the ould counthry,” said Charley, putting on the brogue so easily that it seemed natural to him—which indeed it was, as he was born not twenty miles from Cork, in the neighbourhood of which is situated the far-famed “Blarney stone,” that is supposed to endow those who kiss it with the “gift of the gab;” and Charley must have “osculated it,” as a Yankee would say, to some purpose.
“Be jabers, thin, ye spalpeen,” laughed Tom—who had got out of his grumpy state quickly enough; for his disposition was almost as light-hearted as that of his friend, and it was only the heat and the confinement on board ship when in harbour that had previously oppressed his spirits—“let us look smart, and be off. Here’s that fellow Tompkins just coming up the side, and I don’t want any more of his company than I can help! Tell him we’re going by the captain’s permission, Charley. I don’t want to say a word to him after that row this morning. You are still on speaking terms with him, and I’m not. And while you are settling matters with the old sneak, I’ll get the dinghy ready, and fetch up the bottle of brandy I promised that jolly old Turk at the coffee-shop.”
“You’d better water it a bit, Tom,” said Charley, as the other was diving down the companion-stairs. “It’s awfully strong; and you know Mohammedans are not accustomed to it.”
“Not a drop of it, my boy,” replied he, disappearing for a moment from view, and his voice receding in the distance. “I promised the old infidel that he should have the real stuff, and I’ll let him see that a giaour can keep his word.”
In a second or two he came up again, the bottle, however, concealed in the pocket of his reefer of light blue serge. And hauling in the painter of the boat, which was floating astern, while Charley was still confabulating with the second officer, who had come on board in the meantime, he sat himself down in her, and waited patiently till his chum had done with the obnoxious Mr Tompkins, who seemed to have a good deal to say, and that of a not very pleasant character. “Bother the chap!” said Charley, when he was at length released, and, shinning down a rope, sat down in the stern-sheets of the dinghy, as Tom Aldridge took up the sculls and shoved off from the ship. “He’s got as much to say as Noah’s great-grandmother. And the gist of it all, fault-finding, of course.”
“What can you expect from a pig, eh?” said Tom, philosophically, when the boat was well clear of theMuscadine, setting to work leisurely and pulling to shore, while Charley reclined at his ease on the cushions which he had taken the trouble to fix up for himself, and—did nothing, as usual.
It was the general sort of “division of labour” amongst them.
However, they were fast friends, and, as Tom didn’t complain, nobody else has any right to find fault.
“A grunt, I suppose,” replied Charley, in answer to Tom’s conundrum. “At least, from a Welsh pig, like Tompkins. An Irish one, bedad! would have better manners.”
“Bravo, Charley!” exclaimed Tom, bursting out into a laugh in which his companion as heartily joined. “You stick to your country, at all events, which is more than can be said for our leek-eating friend. He always wishes to deny that he belongs to the land of the Cymri and hails from Swansea, as he does. The sneak! I’m sure a decent Welshman would be ashamed to own him. But, don’t let us worry ourselves any longer about Tompkins; it’s bad enough to have him with us on board, without lugging him ashore, too; hang him!”
“Ay, ay, so say I,” sang out Charley, in the best accord.
And then, after a few more vigorous strokes from the sculls, propelled by Tom’s muscular arms, the bow of the dinghy stranded on the sandy shore, and the two boys landed in the highest glee, without a trace of the ill-humour and despondency in which they had been apparently plunged not an hour or so before.
Story 2—Chapter II.The Coffee-Shop in Beyrout.Pushing past the crowds of busy and idle people, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Maronites, Arabs, Frenchmen, and a few English, like themselves, who thronged the narrow streets, which were lined on either side with stores built in the American fashion for the disposal of European goods; narrow Eastern shops, and bazaars and caravanserais, hung with carpets, and displaying grapes and figs, and all sorts of fruit in true Oriental style; they made their way towards a Turkish coffee-house that was situated not far from the waterside, and much patronised by those who, like themselves, had to do with ships and seafaring concerns—although, they did not arrive very quickly at their destination, for the time for the noonday halt having passed by, the usual caravans from Damascus and the interior were coming in, long trains of camels, asses, and mules, laden with coffee, raw silk, rhubarb, untanned leather, figs, aromatic gums, and all the varied merchandise that comes through Arabia and Persia to the ports of the Levant; and, consequently, the main thoroughfares were so blocked with these commercial pilgrims from the desert, that it was as much as Tom and Charley could do to get along.They did it at length, however, by dint of shoving themselves unceremoniously through the lookers-on who congregated to see the caravans pass, taking no notice of the many invocations to Allah to curse them, as “dogs of Christians,” who profaned the sacred presence of the followers of Islam by breathing the same air as themselves; finally reaching the courtyard of Mohammed’s khan, after much jostling and struggling and good-natured expostulation and repartee, enlivened with many a hearty laugh as some donkey driver came to grief with his load, or when a venerable Arab sheikh on a tall dromedary sputtered with rage at finding the way impassable and his dignity hurt.The Turk who kept the khan, or coffee-house, was a middle-aged man, who had seen a good deal of all sorts of life in knocking about the world, and was so cosmopolitan in his character that he was almost denationalised. He had a round, good-humoured face, that told as plainly as face could tell that he was no ascetic, or rigid Mussulman bound to the edicts of the Koran, but one who liked good living as well as most folk.Tom’s description of him hit him off exactly; he was decidedly “a jolly old Turk”—nothing more nor less.On seeing the boys come in, he at once made places for them beside him on the divan, where he sat on a pile of cushions smoking a long chibouque, with a coffee-cup beside him on a little tray, that also contained sweetmeats, from which he took an occasional sip in the intervals, when he removed the stem of his pipe from his lips and emitted a vast volume of tobacco-smoke in one long puff.“Aha, my young capitan!” said he to Tom Aldridge, when they had seated themselves, cross-legged, as he was, and accepted the chibouques brought to them immediately by an Arab boy, “you ver long time coming to see me. I tinks I nevare see yous no more!”He spoke broken English, but with his genial manner and broad smile of welcome made himself readily understood.“I couldn’t come before,” said Tom. “But I didn’t forget you all the same, for I’ve brought what I promised, the bottle of—”“Hush-h!” interrupted old Mohammed, with a warning gesture, placing his hand before Tom’s mouth. “De med-i-seen for my leg? Ah, yase, I recollects. I am ver mooch oblige. Tanks. You’ll have some café?”“No, thank you,” replied Tom. “I and my friend here are sick of coffee; let us have some sherbet instead, although we don’t want anything. We only came to have a chat with you and a smoke, that’s all.”“That is all raite, my frens. I don’t like mooch coffees myselfs. De med-i-seen is mooch bettaires,” said Mohammed, patting his stomach and grinning again, as he winked knowingly at Tom, in a manner that would have shocked a true believer, while he shouted out an order to the Arab boy. “But, de sheerbeet is goot for de leetle boys, O yase.”“Cunning old rogue,” said Charley, aside to Tom. “He wants all the brandy for himself, although he wouldn’t like his fellow-religionists to know that he drank it. I suppose if we wished for some, we would have to ask for a drop of the med-i-seen.”“Oh, he’s not a bad sort,” replied Tom. “He has offered me wine many a time, and he’s a generous old chap, I should think. Well, Mohammed,” he continued, aloud, “and how’s business?”“Ver bad, ver bad inteet,” said that worthy. “I nevare did no worse in my loife. I shall have to shoot up de shop soon.”“That’s a good one!” exclaimed Tom. “You can tell that to the marines. I bet you’ve got a snug little pile of piastres stowed away somewhere.”“P’raps I haive,” said the old Turk, nodding his head as he smiled complacently; “and if you young shentlemens should be vat you call ‘ard oop,’ I could lend you some moneys. But don’t talk so loud,” he added cautiously, casting a glance at a group of Greek sailors who were gabbling away near them, and scanning Tom and Charley curiously, “I don’t like de look of dose fellows dere, and dey might hear us talk if dey leesten, and vill remembers.”“What of that?” asked Charley; “I don’t suppose they would understand us.”“Aha, so you tink,” said Mohammed warily. “But dose Grecs are ver knowing and oop to every ting. Dey are bad, ver bad, every one.”As he spoke two of the Greeks separated themselves from the group, and came over to where they were sitting, as if sent for the purpose.“I understand,” said one, who acted as spokesman, and addressed them in the most perfect English, “that your captain is in want of hands?”The question was pertinent enough, as more than half the crew were laid up in the Beyrout hospital, or lazaretto, with a sort of malarial fever, and theMuscadinewas only waiting for their recovery, or until enough hands could be shipped, to enable her to pursue her voyage to her next port, Smyrna, where she was to complete her cargo, and then sail for England.The boys of course knew this well enough, but they did not see it was any business of the Greeks, and after Mohammed’s hint as to their character they resented the inquiry as a piece of impudence.“How do you know which is our ship?” said Charley, in Irish fashion asking another question, in lieu of answering the one addressed to him; “and if you do, whether she wants hands or not?”He spoke rather uncivilly, but the man replied to him with studied politeness.“I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but theMuscadineis the only English ship in the harbour, and any one who has travelled like myself could easily tell the nationality of yourself and your friend. I am aware, also, that several of your crew are laid up in hospital.”“And supposing such is the case,” said Tom Aldridge, taking up the cudgels, “what then?”“Only, sir,” replied the man, even more obsequiously than before, “I and several others here, who are in want of a ship, would be glad to sign articles with you.”“The others you mention are Greeks like yourself, I suppose?” inquired Tom, still brusquely, as if he did not care whether he offended his interlocutor or not.“Yes, sir,” said the man, “but my countrymen are generally reckoned to make good sailors, and ship in all sorts of vessels to all parts of the world.”“That may be,” answered Tom, who hardly knew what to say, “but it is no concern of mine. You had better speak to Captain Harding about the matter; we can’t engage you.”“No?” said the man with a half sneer, half smile on his face, and he seemed about to say something nasty; but he altered his mind before he uttered the words, and completed his sentence with another civil inquiry, at which neither Tom nor Charley could take offence. “And, where can I and my friends see the captain, sir?”“On board, any time before ten in the morning or after sunset in the evening,” said Tom curtly.He didn’t like the man, but he was at a loss how he could put him off in any other way.“Thank you, sir, I’m deeply obliged for your condescension,” said the Greek, who then regained his comrades, and the group presently walked out of the khan.“Bismillah!” ejaculated Mohammed as soon as the Greeks had disappeared. “Can I believe my eyes? That scoundrel has got the impudence of Sheitan, and must be in league with the spirits of Eblis.”“Who is he? do you know him?” eagerly asked Tom and Charley almost in one breath of the Turk, who exhibited all the appearance of stupefied astonishment.“Mashallah! do I know him?” gasped out Mohammed, his emotion nearly choking him. “Allah is great and Mohammed is his prophet—do I know him?” he repeated, taking a long draw at his chibouque as if to calm his nerves, while he lay back for a moment motionless amid his cushions.“Well, who on earth is he, Mohammed?” demanded Tom abruptly—“that is, unless the a—medicine—has got into your head.”While the Greek had been talking to Charley in the first instance, it may be mentioned that Tom had dexterously transferred the bottle of brandy to the keeping of the Turk, who had secreted it behind his back, after turning half aside and pouring out a pretty good dose into his coffee-cup, all with the most rapid legerdemain as if he were a practical conjuror.“Effendi,” said Mohammed with dignity, “you insult me by such a remark. The sight of that man—that Grec, that villainous piratt, quite overwhelmed me.”“Pirate!” said Charley, for Tom was too much abashed by the Turk’s rebuke to speak.“Yes, piratt,” repeated Mohammed firmly. “That would-be simple Grec sailor, as he represented himself to you, was no one else than Demetri Pedrovanto, better known in the Aegean Sea, as ‘The Corsair of Chios.’ There’s a price of ten thousand piastres on his head. Mashallah! How he dares show himself in Beyrout, amongst the enemy he has plundered, I know not. However, kismet! ’tis his fate, I suppose.”“Are you sure?” asked Charley, who was inclined to think that Mohammed was cramming them.“Effendi, throw dirt on my beard if I lie. It is Demetri Pedrovanto, sure enough.”“But I never heard of pirates being about in these waters, with so many French and English cruisers going backwards and forwards in the neighbourhood,” observed Tom.“Aha, you Inglese and Frenchmans don’t know everyting!” said the Turk laconically, after emitting another volume of smoke, which he had been apparently accumulating all the time he had been speaking previously. “There are alway piratts in dese seas, and always will be, as long as Grecs are Grecs!”“Ah, you say that because you are a Turk,” said Charley chaffingly.“No, no, no,” replied Mohammed, shaking his head vehemently. “I’m not one great bigot because I have been born under the crescent. I am cosmopolitaine. You ask your consul, or ze Americans, dey will tell you the same. All dose Grecs are piratts, and dem as isn’t piratts are brigands, tiefs, every one.”“Well, you’ve got a very good opinion of them at any rate,” said Tom. “I wonder what the beggar spoke to us for, eh? If he is the man you say, I don’t suppose he would have the cheek to go on board theMuscadine.”“No, I should think not,” agreed Charley; “and if he does, the skipper will soon overhaul his papers, and then find him out.”“Aha, ah!” grunted out Mohammed. “De Grec is one ver clevaire rogue, and would sheet Sheitan himself.”“Who is he?” asked Charley innocently. “I heard you mention him before.”“De Debble!” answered the Turk, so gravely that both the young fellows burst out into such paroxysms of laughter that Mohammed thought they were ridiculing him, and they had much difficulty in assuring him to the contrary. Indeed, it was not until late in the evening, after they had dinner of kebabs and coffee and their host had imbibed several cups of his “med-i-seen,” that he grew friendly again; and then, he was so cordial that he wept over them at their departure, and assured them that he loved them as his own children, as his brothers, as his father, nay, even as his great-grandfather, who had borne the standard of the prophet in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca!When Tom and Charley got on board theMuscadine, they saw only the second officer, Mr Tompkins, who after telling them that they were very late, and that the captain had turned in long since, said they might go below; which of course, as the ship was in harbour and only an anchor watch kept, when their services were not required, they were extremely grateful for, and turned in accordingly, without giving a thought to their rencontre at the khan.The next morning, however, when they came on deck they saw three or four Greek sailors lounging about the foc’s’le, and Mohammed’s warning recurred to there with startling significance.“Who are those men?” asked Charley of Mr Tompkins, who was in command of the vessel for the time being, Captain Harding, the skipper, having gone ashore, and the chief mate being invalided with those of the crew who were in the lazaretto.“Some new hands the captain shipped last night,” answered he; “and if you’ve any more business ashore, Master Onslow, you’d better look sharp about it, as we’re going to sail as soon as we’ve obtained pratique, which will be about four bells, I reckon.”“But, does Cap’en Harding know about them?” asked Tom, sinking his objection to having any conversation with the second officer in the urgency of the occasion.“You mind your own business, you young dog,” said Tompkins, glad to have the opportunity of snubbing Tom. “I suppose you would like to command this ship, but you sha’n’t while I’m on board.”“You cad!” muttered Tom under his breath, as he walked away forward to look at the men more closely. “I wish I had you on land for a quiet half hour, and I’d soon take the starch out of you!”“None of your jaw,” shouted the second mate as a parting shot. “I hear you, and if you speak another word I’ll have you put in irons for mutiny,” swearing also a fearful oath. So Tom had to put up with the other’s language and nurse his wrath until the skipper came on board.When Charley joined him presently, they took note of the new additions to the crew, who were altogether eight in number; but to their surprise they did not see the Greek among them whom Mohammed had indicated as being the far-famed corsair; and on their comparing their views they both agreed that the worthy Turk must have been “slinging the hatchet” at their expense, or else mistaken about the supposed pirate.On Captain Harding coming off, however, they thought it their duty to tell him what they heard; but the skipper, who was a bold bluff English sailor, laughed the Turk’s warning to scorn, and joked the young fellows for taking any notice of it.“What! Mohammed told you, the keeper of the khan by the Capuchin monastery. My dear boys, he was only humbugging you. I saw the old rascal this very morning hauled up before the cadi, for being drunk and kicking up a row. He must be able to spin a fine yarn when he has a mind to. There are no pirates nowadays in the Mediterranean; and if we do come across any, I believe theMuscadinewill be able to give a good account of them. Pirates! bless my soul, what a tremendous liar that old Turk must be! Those Greeks I’ve shipped are honest sailors enough; for I’ve examined their papers, and had them before our consul. Besides, I’ve told them what sort of discipline I keep on board my ship; and they are not likely to try and come the old soldier over me—not if John Harding knows it!”“But, captain,” put in Tom.The skipper wouldn’t hear any more, however. “Now get to your stations, lads,” said he, to show that the private interview was at an end. “Mr Aldridge, I must make you acting second officer in Mr Tompkins’ place, as I’ve promoted him to poor Wilson’s berth until he can join me at Smyrna, as I’m bound to start at once now that I have filled-up the vacancies amongst my crew. Charley Onslow, remain aft with me. All hands up anchor, and make sail!”In a short time the men working together with a will, and the new hands specially distinguishing themselves for their activity in so marked a manner as to call forth the approval of the generally grumbling Mr Tompkins—although, perhaps, he praised them because Tom and Charley had suspected them—theMuscadinehad her anchor at the catheads; and, her topsails having been dropped long before, was sailing gaily out of Beyrout harbour, under the influence of the land-breeze that sprang up towards the afternoon, blowing briskly off shore.When she had got a good offing, and the mountains of Lebanon began to sink below the horizon in the distance as she bowled along merrily on her north-western course, a long way to the southward of Cyprus, bearing up direct for the Archipelago, a keen observer on board might have noticed something that looked strange, at all events on the face of it.No sooner had the shades of evening begun to fall than a long low suspicious-looking vessel crept out from the lee of the land, and followed right in the track of theMuscadine, as if in chase of the English ship.It was a swift-sailing lateen-rigged felucca, one of those crafts that are common enough in Eastern waters, especially in the Levant.She spread a tremendous amount of canvas; and leaping through the sea with the pace of a dolphin, came up with the doomed merchantman hand over hand.
Pushing past the crowds of busy and idle people, Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Maronites, Arabs, Frenchmen, and a few English, like themselves, who thronged the narrow streets, which were lined on either side with stores built in the American fashion for the disposal of European goods; narrow Eastern shops, and bazaars and caravanserais, hung with carpets, and displaying grapes and figs, and all sorts of fruit in true Oriental style; they made their way towards a Turkish coffee-house that was situated not far from the waterside, and much patronised by those who, like themselves, had to do with ships and seafaring concerns—although, they did not arrive very quickly at their destination, for the time for the noonday halt having passed by, the usual caravans from Damascus and the interior were coming in, long trains of camels, asses, and mules, laden with coffee, raw silk, rhubarb, untanned leather, figs, aromatic gums, and all the varied merchandise that comes through Arabia and Persia to the ports of the Levant; and, consequently, the main thoroughfares were so blocked with these commercial pilgrims from the desert, that it was as much as Tom and Charley could do to get along.
They did it at length, however, by dint of shoving themselves unceremoniously through the lookers-on who congregated to see the caravans pass, taking no notice of the many invocations to Allah to curse them, as “dogs of Christians,” who profaned the sacred presence of the followers of Islam by breathing the same air as themselves; finally reaching the courtyard of Mohammed’s khan, after much jostling and struggling and good-natured expostulation and repartee, enlivened with many a hearty laugh as some donkey driver came to grief with his load, or when a venerable Arab sheikh on a tall dromedary sputtered with rage at finding the way impassable and his dignity hurt.
The Turk who kept the khan, or coffee-house, was a middle-aged man, who had seen a good deal of all sorts of life in knocking about the world, and was so cosmopolitan in his character that he was almost denationalised. He had a round, good-humoured face, that told as plainly as face could tell that he was no ascetic, or rigid Mussulman bound to the edicts of the Koran, but one who liked good living as well as most folk.
Tom’s description of him hit him off exactly; he was decidedly “a jolly old Turk”—nothing more nor less.
On seeing the boys come in, he at once made places for them beside him on the divan, where he sat on a pile of cushions smoking a long chibouque, with a coffee-cup beside him on a little tray, that also contained sweetmeats, from which he took an occasional sip in the intervals, when he removed the stem of his pipe from his lips and emitted a vast volume of tobacco-smoke in one long puff.
“Aha, my young capitan!” said he to Tom Aldridge, when they had seated themselves, cross-legged, as he was, and accepted the chibouques brought to them immediately by an Arab boy, “you ver long time coming to see me. I tinks I nevare see yous no more!”
He spoke broken English, but with his genial manner and broad smile of welcome made himself readily understood.
“I couldn’t come before,” said Tom. “But I didn’t forget you all the same, for I’ve brought what I promised, the bottle of—”
“Hush-h!” interrupted old Mohammed, with a warning gesture, placing his hand before Tom’s mouth. “De med-i-seen for my leg? Ah, yase, I recollects. I am ver mooch oblige. Tanks. You’ll have some café?”
“No, thank you,” replied Tom. “I and my friend here are sick of coffee; let us have some sherbet instead, although we don’t want anything. We only came to have a chat with you and a smoke, that’s all.”
“That is all raite, my frens. I don’t like mooch coffees myselfs. De med-i-seen is mooch bettaires,” said Mohammed, patting his stomach and grinning again, as he winked knowingly at Tom, in a manner that would have shocked a true believer, while he shouted out an order to the Arab boy. “But, de sheerbeet is goot for de leetle boys, O yase.”
“Cunning old rogue,” said Charley, aside to Tom. “He wants all the brandy for himself, although he wouldn’t like his fellow-religionists to know that he drank it. I suppose if we wished for some, we would have to ask for a drop of the med-i-seen.”
“Oh, he’s not a bad sort,” replied Tom. “He has offered me wine many a time, and he’s a generous old chap, I should think. Well, Mohammed,” he continued, aloud, “and how’s business?”
“Ver bad, ver bad inteet,” said that worthy. “I nevare did no worse in my loife. I shall have to shoot up de shop soon.”
“That’s a good one!” exclaimed Tom. “You can tell that to the marines. I bet you’ve got a snug little pile of piastres stowed away somewhere.”
“P’raps I haive,” said the old Turk, nodding his head as he smiled complacently; “and if you young shentlemens should be vat you call ‘ard oop,’ I could lend you some moneys. But don’t talk so loud,” he added cautiously, casting a glance at a group of Greek sailors who were gabbling away near them, and scanning Tom and Charley curiously, “I don’t like de look of dose fellows dere, and dey might hear us talk if dey leesten, and vill remembers.”
“What of that?” asked Charley; “I don’t suppose they would understand us.”
“Aha, so you tink,” said Mohammed warily. “But dose Grecs are ver knowing and oop to every ting. Dey are bad, ver bad, every one.”
As he spoke two of the Greeks separated themselves from the group, and came over to where they were sitting, as if sent for the purpose.
“I understand,” said one, who acted as spokesman, and addressed them in the most perfect English, “that your captain is in want of hands?”
The question was pertinent enough, as more than half the crew were laid up in the Beyrout hospital, or lazaretto, with a sort of malarial fever, and theMuscadinewas only waiting for their recovery, or until enough hands could be shipped, to enable her to pursue her voyage to her next port, Smyrna, where she was to complete her cargo, and then sail for England.
The boys of course knew this well enough, but they did not see it was any business of the Greeks, and after Mohammed’s hint as to their character they resented the inquiry as a piece of impudence.
“How do you know which is our ship?” said Charley, in Irish fashion asking another question, in lieu of answering the one addressed to him; “and if you do, whether she wants hands or not?”
He spoke rather uncivilly, but the man replied to him with studied politeness.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said he, “but theMuscadineis the only English ship in the harbour, and any one who has travelled like myself could easily tell the nationality of yourself and your friend. I am aware, also, that several of your crew are laid up in hospital.”
“And supposing such is the case,” said Tom Aldridge, taking up the cudgels, “what then?”
“Only, sir,” replied the man, even more obsequiously than before, “I and several others here, who are in want of a ship, would be glad to sign articles with you.”
“The others you mention are Greeks like yourself, I suppose?” inquired Tom, still brusquely, as if he did not care whether he offended his interlocutor or not.
“Yes, sir,” said the man, “but my countrymen are generally reckoned to make good sailors, and ship in all sorts of vessels to all parts of the world.”
“That may be,” answered Tom, who hardly knew what to say, “but it is no concern of mine. You had better speak to Captain Harding about the matter; we can’t engage you.”
“No?” said the man with a half sneer, half smile on his face, and he seemed about to say something nasty; but he altered his mind before he uttered the words, and completed his sentence with another civil inquiry, at which neither Tom nor Charley could take offence. “And, where can I and my friends see the captain, sir?”
“On board, any time before ten in the morning or after sunset in the evening,” said Tom curtly.
He didn’t like the man, but he was at a loss how he could put him off in any other way.
“Thank you, sir, I’m deeply obliged for your condescension,” said the Greek, who then regained his comrades, and the group presently walked out of the khan.
“Bismillah!” ejaculated Mohammed as soon as the Greeks had disappeared. “Can I believe my eyes? That scoundrel has got the impudence of Sheitan, and must be in league with the spirits of Eblis.”
“Who is he? do you know him?” eagerly asked Tom and Charley almost in one breath of the Turk, who exhibited all the appearance of stupefied astonishment.
“Mashallah! do I know him?” gasped out Mohammed, his emotion nearly choking him. “Allah is great and Mohammed is his prophet—do I know him?” he repeated, taking a long draw at his chibouque as if to calm his nerves, while he lay back for a moment motionless amid his cushions.
“Well, who on earth is he, Mohammed?” demanded Tom abruptly—“that is, unless the a—medicine—has got into your head.”
While the Greek had been talking to Charley in the first instance, it may be mentioned that Tom had dexterously transferred the bottle of brandy to the keeping of the Turk, who had secreted it behind his back, after turning half aside and pouring out a pretty good dose into his coffee-cup, all with the most rapid legerdemain as if he were a practical conjuror.
“Effendi,” said Mohammed with dignity, “you insult me by such a remark. The sight of that man—that Grec, that villainous piratt, quite overwhelmed me.”
“Pirate!” said Charley, for Tom was too much abashed by the Turk’s rebuke to speak.
“Yes, piratt,” repeated Mohammed firmly. “That would-be simple Grec sailor, as he represented himself to you, was no one else than Demetri Pedrovanto, better known in the Aegean Sea, as ‘The Corsair of Chios.’ There’s a price of ten thousand piastres on his head. Mashallah! How he dares show himself in Beyrout, amongst the enemy he has plundered, I know not. However, kismet! ’tis his fate, I suppose.”
“Are you sure?” asked Charley, who was inclined to think that Mohammed was cramming them.
“Effendi, throw dirt on my beard if I lie. It is Demetri Pedrovanto, sure enough.”
“But I never heard of pirates being about in these waters, with so many French and English cruisers going backwards and forwards in the neighbourhood,” observed Tom.
“Aha, you Inglese and Frenchmans don’t know everyting!” said the Turk laconically, after emitting another volume of smoke, which he had been apparently accumulating all the time he had been speaking previously. “There are alway piratts in dese seas, and always will be, as long as Grecs are Grecs!”
“Ah, you say that because you are a Turk,” said Charley chaffingly.
“No, no, no,” replied Mohammed, shaking his head vehemently. “I’m not one great bigot because I have been born under the crescent. I am cosmopolitaine. You ask your consul, or ze Americans, dey will tell you the same. All dose Grecs are piratts, and dem as isn’t piratts are brigands, tiefs, every one.”
“Well, you’ve got a very good opinion of them at any rate,” said Tom. “I wonder what the beggar spoke to us for, eh? If he is the man you say, I don’t suppose he would have the cheek to go on board theMuscadine.”
“No, I should think not,” agreed Charley; “and if he does, the skipper will soon overhaul his papers, and then find him out.”
“Aha, ah!” grunted out Mohammed. “De Grec is one ver clevaire rogue, and would sheet Sheitan himself.”
“Who is he?” asked Charley innocently. “I heard you mention him before.”
“De Debble!” answered the Turk, so gravely that both the young fellows burst out into such paroxysms of laughter that Mohammed thought they were ridiculing him, and they had much difficulty in assuring him to the contrary. Indeed, it was not until late in the evening, after they had dinner of kebabs and coffee and their host had imbibed several cups of his “med-i-seen,” that he grew friendly again; and then, he was so cordial that he wept over them at their departure, and assured them that he loved them as his own children, as his brothers, as his father, nay, even as his great-grandfather, who had borne the standard of the prophet in the annual pilgrimage to Mecca!
When Tom and Charley got on board theMuscadine, they saw only the second officer, Mr Tompkins, who after telling them that they were very late, and that the captain had turned in long since, said they might go below; which of course, as the ship was in harbour and only an anchor watch kept, when their services were not required, they were extremely grateful for, and turned in accordingly, without giving a thought to their rencontre at the khan.
The next morning, however, when they came on deck they saw three or four Greek sailors lounging about the foc’s’le, and Mohammed’s warning recurred to there with startling significance.
“Who are those men?” asked Charley of Mr Tompkins, who was in command of the vessel for the time being, Captain Harding, the skipper, having gone ashore, and the chief mate being invalided with those of the crew who were in the lazaretto.
“Some new hands the captain shipped last night,” answered he; “and if you’ve any more business ashore, Master Onslow, you’d better look sharp about it, as we’re going to sail as soon as we’ve obtained pratique, which will be about four bells, I reckon.”
“But, does Cap’en Harding know about them?” asked Tom, sinking his objection to having any conversation with the second officer in the urgency of the occasion.
“You mind your own business, you young dog,” said Tompkins, glad to have the opportunity of snubbing Tom. “I suppose you would like to command this ship, but you sha’n’t while I’m on board.”
“You cad!” muttered Tom under his breath, as he walked away forward to look at the men more closely. “I wish I had you on land for a quiet half hour, and I’d soon take the starch out of you!”
“None of your jaw,” shouted the second mate as a parting shot. “I hear you, and if you speak another word I’ll have you put in irons for mutiny,” swearing also a fearful oath. So Tom had to put up with the other’s language and nurse his wrath until the skipper came on board.
When Charley joined him presently, they took note of the new additions to the crew, who were altogether eight in number; but to their surprise they did not see the Greek among them whom Mohammed had indicated as being the far-famed corsair; and on their comparing their views they both agreed that the worthy Turk must have been “slinging the hatchet” at their expense, or else mistaken about the supposed pirate.
On Captain Harding coming off, however, they thought it their duty to tell him what they heard; but the skipper, who was a bold bluff English sailor, laughed the Turk’s warning to scorn, and joked the young fellows for taking any notice of it.
“What! Mohammed told you, the keeper of the khan by the Capuchin monastery. My dear boys, he was only humbugging you. I saw the old rascal this very morning hauled up before the cadi, for being drunk and kicking up a row. He must be able to spin a fine yarn when he has a mind to. There are no pirates nowadays in the Mediterranean; and if we do come across any, I believe theMuscadinewill be able to give a good account of them. Pirates! bless my soul, what a tremendous liar that old Turk must be! Those Greeks I’ve shipped are honest sailors enough; for I’ve examined their papers, and had them before our consul. Besides, I’ve told them what sort of discipline I keep on board my ship; and they are not likely to try and come the old soldier over me—not if John Harding knows it!”
“But, captain,” put in Tom.
The skipper wouldn’t hear any more, however. “Now get to your stations, lads,” said he, to show that the private interview was at an end. “Mr Aldridge, I must make you acting second officer in Mr Tompkins’ place, as I’ve promoted him to poor Wilson’s berth until he can join me at Smyrna, as I’m bound to start at once now that I have filled-up the vacancies amongst my crew. Charley Onslow, remain aft with me. All hands up anchor, and make sail!”
In a short time the men working together with a will, and the new hands specially distinguishing themselves for their activity in so marked a manner as to call forth the approval of the generally grumbling Mr Tompkins—although, perhaps, he praised them because Tom and Charley had suspected them—theMuscadinehad her anchor at the catheads; and, her topsails having been dropped long before, was sailing gaily out of Beyrout harbour, under the influence of the land-breeze that sprang up towards the afternoon, blowing briskly off shore.
When she had got a good offing, and the mountains of Lebanon began to sink below the horizon in the distance as she bowled along merrily on her north-western course, a long way to the southward of Cyprus, bearing up direct for the Archipelago, a keen observer on board might have noticed something that looked strange, at all events on the face of it.
No sooner had the shades of evening begun to fall than a long low suspicious-looking vessel crept out from the lee of the land, and followed right in the track of theMuscadine, as if in chase of the English ship.
It was a swift-sailing lateen-rigged felucca, one of those crafts that are common enough in Eastern waters, especially in the Levant.
She spread a tremendous amount of canvas; and leaping through the sea with the pace of a dolphin, came up with the doomed merchantman hand over hand.