CHAPTER XIII.THE STOWAWAY.
Turnwe now to follow, briefly, the fortunes of Henry Chase, who had for so many months been an object of solicitude to the old members of the Sportsman’s Club, and the rest of his friends living in Louisiana.
It will be remembered that when this young gentleman and his crony, Wilson, were first introduced to the reader, they were not on the best of terms with Walter and his party. They belonged to Bayard Bell’s boat-club, made common cause with him in everything, and on one occasion came to an open rupture with the crew of the Zephyr, and might have got into a fight with them, had it not been for the timely arrival of Mr. Gaylord and Uncle Dick. This happened on the day of the panther-hunt, whichwas the beginning of the adventures we have attempted to describe in theSportsman’s Club Series.
Shortly after that, on the very same day in fact, some things came to light which made a wonderful change in the feelings of these two boys. They found that the unreasonable enmity which Bayard cherished toward the members of the Sportsman’s Club was likely to get him, and all connected with him, into serious trouble; so they abruptly deserted him, and made an attempt to warn Walter Gaylord of the plans that were being laid against him. They failed in their efforts, however, and got themselves into a scrape; and there is no telling what might have become of Chase, had not the Sportsman’s Club fortunately discovered him hidden away under a pile of leaves on Lost Island, where the smugglers had left him, and rendered him assistance. Wilson was Chase’s steadfast friend; and to show their gratitude to the Club, he and Chase joined their vessel, the Banner, and accompanied them to Cuba, to assist in rescuing Fred Craven, who was a prisoner on board the Stella, of which Mr. Bell was the owner.They bore an important part in that memorable expedition, and when left in charge of the vessel by Walter, were decoyed away by a note written by Mr. Bell’s directions, and sent out into the country, to the house of one Don Casper Nevis, the agent whose business it was to receive the arms and ammunition that were smuggled into the island for the use of the Cuban rebels. While on the way to the Don’s house they were seen, suspected and watched by a squad of government patrols, who made an attempt to arrest them; but they were saved by their host, who concealed them in a wine-cellar until dark, and then brought them out, and made ready to furnish them with horses to take them back to Port Platte.
Now, it happened that the Don had all the while been under a wrong impression in regard to the character of the two boys who were his guests. A note, which was brought to him by the negro who had acted as a guide to Chase and Wilson, and which was written by Captain Conway, the master of Mr. Bell’s smuggling schooner, led the Don tobelieve that the boys belonged to the Stella, and that they had been sent out there to make arrangements in regard to the landing of her contraband cargo. Chase tried to correct this wrong impression, and to explain to the Don how they came to be in Cuba, and the consequence was that he got himself and Wilson into a worse predicament than they had ever been in before. The Don was highly enraged, and refused to believe a word of their story. He accused them of being Spanish spies, who had been sent out to his house on purpose to give the patrols some excuse for arresting him, declared that he would take them forthwith before Captain Conway, and if he could not vouch for them, they might make up their minds that some terrible punishment would be visited upon them. The Don then went after the horses, and Chase and Wilson were left in charge of his overseer, who had orders to shoot them down if they attempted to escape.
The boys both realized that they were in a very unenviable situation, and the question was how toget out of it. Captain Conway would not vouch for them, that was certain. He would declare that he had never seen them before, and that would be all that was needed to confirm the Don’s suspicions. Then what would become of them? Wilson was disposed to trust to luck, but Chase had more confidence in his legs. He resolved to run away, leaving Walter and the rest to look out for themselves, and make all haste to get out of Cuba. He would ship on the first vessel he could find, no matter if she took him to South America. He waited anxiously for an opportunity to slip away from the overseer, and it was quickly presented to him.
Tomlinson and the rest of the deserters from the revenue cutter, who had stolen a passage to Cuba in the Banner, appeared on the scene about this time, the object of their visit to the plantation being to procure the provisions necessary to serve them during their voyage to Havana, where they expected to join a Cuban privateer. While these worthies were forcing an entrance into the storehouse, and Wilson and the overseer were watchingthem, Chase slipped away in the darkness. Had he waited two minutes longer, he might have escaped in company with his friend. Wilson also eluded the vigilance of the overseer, went on board the Banner which was anchored in the bay, and with her returned to the States in time to take part in the Christmas festivities at the hospitable Gaylord mansion; but Chase became a wanderer upon the face of the earth, and was not even heard of for nearly a year.
Chase moved very slowly and cautiously until he was out of sight of the overseer, and then he ran as he had never run before. His first object was to put a safe distance between himself and the storehouse; and when that had been done, he made a wide circuit to avoid the dwelling and the Spanish troopers who were keeping guard over it, and at last reached the road which led to the village of Port Platte. Then he slackened his pace to a rapid walk and began to breathe easier. His escape had been easily accomplished, and now he had only to go to the town and find some ship that was to sail at once;the sooner the better, if he were but allowed to get fairly over the side. If she were bound for the States, well and good; but rather than remain longer in Cuba he would ship on a vessel bound for Greenland. Life in the forecastle or among the icebergs was much to be preferred to a longer sojourn in such a country as this, where every man suspected his neighbor, and Spanish troopers were always ready to arrest people for the most trivial causes and shoot them down without ceremony. Chase wished now that he had not read the papers quite so attentively. Every act of cruelty which he had seen recorded came to his mind with startling distinctness, and stayed there too, in spite of all his efforts to banish it. He began to miss his friend Wilson already. The latter had been cheerful and hopeful in spite of all their misfortunes, and his example and words of encouragement had done much to keep up Chase’s drooping spirits. He would have given something now to have had anybody for companion, for it was anything but pleasant to be friendless and alone in that strange country. Everyroad and by-way was guarded by patrols, and what if he should happen to fall into the hands of some of them? He could only account for his presence in Cuba by telling a very improbable story, and if the patrols should refuse to believe it, and he could not find Walter and the rest to prove what he said, he might perhaps be detained and punished as a spy.
“I wish I had never seen or heard of the Sportsman’s Club,” said Chase, for the twentieth time. “They’ve got themselves and me into a pretty scrape, and there is no one to be benefited by it. I’d give something to know what has become of the rest of the fellows. I’ll warrant that I’ll see home before they will.”
The moon began to struggle through the clouds now—it was just about this time that Wilson was running his race with Pierre for the yawl—and this was a point in Chase’s favor, for it enabled him to see every object in the road in advance of him. He kept a bright lookout for the dreaded patrols, and was ready to take to the bushes at the first sight of a horseman; but the guards, which had been asplenty as blackberries during the day-time, were not to be seen, and Chase accomplished his ten mile walk without meeting anybody. The plantation houses along the road were as dark and silent as if they had been deserted, and even the dogs, which had greeted him and Wilson so vociferously when they passed that way in the day-time, were neither seen nor heard.
The road led Chase straight to the wide, arched gateway which opened upon the wharf near the place where the Banner was moored when he last saw her. The Spanish brig was still there, and Chase hurriedly clambered over her rail and ran to the opposite side. He did not expect to find Walter’s vessel there, and consequently he was neither surprised nor disappointed when he found that her berth was empty. The gallant little Banner, under the charge of her lawful captain, who had recovered her in a most unexpected manner, was at that moment running out of the bay at the rear of the Don’s plantation, having safely passed the iron-clad frigate that had been sent in pursuit of her.
“Aha!” said Chase, in a triumphant tone, “I knew I wasn’t quite so foolish as some people gave me credit for. Won’t Wilson be in a nice fix when he comes here with the Don? He expects to find the Banner here, and is relying upon Walter and the rest to prove who he is and how he came here; but he’ll not find them, and I knew he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t be in his boots for anything. Why didn’t he run away when I did?”
Chase, congratulating himself on having shown no small degree of shrewdness and generalship in the way he had managed matters during the last few hours, turned to go back to the wharf. One of the brig’s crew who recognised him, and who knew by his actions that he was looking for the Banner, addressed a few words to him, waving his arm toward the Gulf and saying “boom! boom!” a great many times. He was trying to explain to the boy that the Banner had gone out, and that she had been fired at by the guns of the Fort; but Chase could not understand a word he said, and believingthat the sailor was making game of him, he sprang over the brig’s side and hurried away.
His first care was to satisfy himself that the Stella still occupied her old berth, and that none of her company were roaming about the wharf. Chase had learned to stand in wholesome fear of Mr. Bell and his gang of smugglers, and he did not care to meet any of them again if he could help it. But Mr. Bell was no longer in a situation to do him any injury, if he had only known it. If he had approached close enough to the Stella he must have gained some idea of the state of affairs, for he would have seen the soldiers on her deck. Hedidsee a number of men walking about, but he was too far away to see their uniforms, and believing that the moving figures were members of her crew on watch, he hurried away as fast as his legs could carry him, to find a vessel that was about to sail.
“And what if I shouldn’t happen to find one?” Chase almost gasped, a new and most unwelcome thought suddenly forcing itself upon him. “In a little out-of-the-way port like this, vessels can’t becoming and going at all hours of the day and night, and if I can’t get off, where shall I sleep, and where shall I go in the morning to get something to eat?”
Chase was called upon more than once to decide such questions as these before he saw home and friends again. Indeed, there were a few weeks of his life during which the finding of food to sustain life, and a shelter of some kind to protect him while he slept, about which he had never before bothered his head, were matters that occupied every one of his waking hours. But on this occasion fortune seemed to favor him. A few steps from the Spanish brig lay a ship which Chase had noticed during the day. It was then being loaded, and the anxiety manifested by the officers to get the freight aboard as rapidly as possible, indicated that she was about to leave port. Toward this vessel Chase bent his steps, and he was overjoyed to find that the loading was all done, and that preparations were being made to take her to sea. Some of the lines were already cast off, and a couple of men in a yawl were making an effort to tow her bow out from the wharf. Chase had arrivedjust in time. He made all haste to get on board, and while he was looking about for the captain, to whom he wished to make known his desires, he was accosted by a bustling little man in a red shirt and wide trowsers, who proved to be the second mate of the vessel.
“Now, then, what do you want here?” exclaimed that gentleman. “Off you go. We’re going to sea at once.”
“I am glad to hear it,” replied Chase. “I want to ship.”
“Too late,” said the mate. “Got a full crew already. Lay aft, a couple of you,” he added, as a hoarse voice shouted out some orders from the quarter-deck. “If you are not ashore in half a minute, my lad, you’ll have to go with us.”
The mate hurried away to attend to his duties, and Chase, who would have tried to gain his ear a moment longer, was left to himself.
“Where are you bound?” he asked of a man who at that moment ran past him—“for the States?”
The sailor, whose actions indicated that he had notime to waste in answering foolish questions, made a motion with his head, the significance of which was very doubtful; but Chase took it for a reply in the affirmative, and his mind was made up on the instant. Here was the opportunity he had been longing for, and the only thing that prevented him from taking advantage of it, was the fact that the crew was full. But that made no difference to Chase. His circumstances were desperate, and in his opinion desperate measures were required. Instead of going ashore, as he had been ordered to do, he looked about the deck, and having made sure that all the crew, from the captain down, were too busy to pay any attention to himself, he suddenly crouched down beside one of the boats that had been stowed in the waist, and crawled under it out of sight.
“There!” panted Chase, whose heart beat violently with excitement and suspense; “if I can only stay here five minutes without being discovered, I shall be all right. They’ll not stop to put me ashore after they once get fairly started. I don’t knowwhat the captain will say to me when he finds me here, and I don’t care, so long as he gives me plenty to eat and takes me to my own country. It is enough for me to know that I am leaving Cuba behind every minute.”
Chase was securely hidden under the boat, and not one of the crew, who were constantly passing his hiding-place, suspected his presence. The work of hoisting the sails was completed at last, and finally the vessel began to rise and fall with a slow regular motion, telling the stowaway that she had left the sheltered waters, of the harbor, and was fairly afloat on the Gulf.
And now came a task which Chase would have been glad to postpone indefinitely if he could. He must come out and show himself to the captain.