"Just then up got the merry chant of the men running round with the capstan-bars, to get up anchor; the chief officer wishing, as it was found, to carry her farther into the river with the breeze—for the sake of filling our water-casks the easier, according to him, but more likely out of sheer spite at what had been done without him. What with eagerness in the cuddy to get on shore and see the woods, the breakfast below was a rare scene, no one minding what he did, even to rushing slap into a couple of ladies' berths for his boots, or laying a couple of loaded Joe Mantons into somebody's bed, swallowing biscuit and butter on the way.
"Suddenly, we heard the splash of paddles in the water, with a hail in some foreign tongue or other, and hurried on deck in a body; where we found the ship tiding it slowly up, under jibs and fore-topsail, and beginning to open a longer reach where the river seemed to narrow in. A black-eyed, black-bearded fellow, with a tallow, yellow, sweaty sort of complexion, in a dirty jacket, drawers, and short boots, and an immense grass hat, shouting Portuguese louder and louder into the first mate's ear, till he actually put both hands together, and roared through them, pointing to himself now and then, as if surprised he wasn't known.
"All at once, evidently quite disgusted, he turned and looked over the side, saying something to one of the ugliest and most ill-looking mulattoes I ever saw, who sat in the stern of a long rough canoe, hollowed out of some tree, with two naked black rowers, less of the real nigger than himself, as they leant grinning up at the bulwarks with their sharp teeth,that appeared as if they'd been filed to a point. The mulatto gloomed, but he gave no answer, and as one of the cadets and I knew a little Portuguese, we managed together to get something out of the fellow on deck, though, at noticing him for the first time that morning, I saw Finch turn red with surprise.
"We understood the man to ask if we wanted nothing particular in the river, the meaning of which I saw better on bethinking me of the fire along the bush inside the headland, that had let me see the marks of it—no doubt a signal to some craft they had taken us for. However, so soon as he heard we needed no more than water and spars, after musing a minute, and speaking again to Rodriguez, as he called the mulatto, he said he would pilot us to a convenient berth himself, for two or three dollars; notwithstanding his title was, as he said, Don José Jeronimo Santa somebody, commandant of the Portuguese fort something else. The river, we found, was the Nouries or the Cuanené, where they had a settlement called Caconda, a good way up; a remarkably bad country he gave us to know, and not worth staying in, from the number of flies, and the elephants having got into a cursed way of burying their tusks—except, he hinted, for the plenty of blacks, all anxious to be sold and to see foreign countries; but the trade was nothing yet—absolutely nothing, said he, blowing his nose without a pocket-handkerchief, and suiting the act to the word, as he mentioned his notion of throwing it up and going farther north-west.
"By this time we had stood over to the lowest shore, till you could see the thick coffee-coloured mud in among the roots and suckers of the dark-green mangroves, with their red pods bursting under their rank-looking leaves—and over them, through the tall coarse guinea-grass, to the knots of feathery cocoas behind, swarming with insects; when he gave the sign to go about, one of his blacks heaving a lead, and grunting out the depth of water, as the ship made a long stretch across towards the woody side again, and Don José all the time taking it as easy as if the quarter-deck were his own, while he asked for a cigar and lighted it. Joke though he did, yet I couldn't like the fellow at all; however, as soon as she got pretty near the shore, about a quarter of a mile from what seemed a wide creek, glittering up between a high fringe of cane and bamboo clumps, he had the sails clued up, a single anchor let go infour or five fathoms, and our Portuguese friend got his money and bundled over the side, pulling quietly ashore.
"The tide by this time was quite still, and the breeze sank almost at once, as we were shut in from the sea, when we were surprised to see the striped Portuguese flag, rise off a tall bamboo stick, among the bushes on the open shore, nearly abreast of us, where a low muddy-like wall was to be made out, with something of a thatched roof or two, and a sort of rude wooden jetty running before it into the water. Shortly after, Don José came paddling out again, and got on board, this time with an old cocked hat on, excusing himself for not having fired a gun—which was to save us expense, he remarked, being particular friends—seeing that he'd got to demand twelve dollars of harbour dues and duties, whereas, if he saluted, he must have charged fourteen. The cool impudence of this brought the chief officer from the capstan; but the steady face of the fellow, and the glance he took round the deck when the cadet told him he'd better be off at once, made me think he had something or other to back him. Mr Finch, as usual, fumed up into a passion, and told the men to fling him over into his canoe, which they accordingly did, without the least nicety about it; the Portuguese next minute picking himself up, and standing straight, with the look of a perfect devil, as he shook his fist at the whole ship, while the canoe slid off to the shore.
"Budge even so much as a single fathom, at present, we could not; and most of us were too much in the spirit of fun and venture to care a fig for having made an enemy of Don José So-on, as the cadet called him; indeed, it seemed rather to set a finer point on people's admiration of the green jungly-looking shore next to us, with its big aloes and agaves growing before the bush, and all sorts of cocoas, palms, monkey-bread, and tall white-flaked cotton trees, rising in every way out from over the rest. For my part, I thought more of the Portugueseinterest, after all, than his hatred—which proved correct, by his soon sending out a sulkymessage by the mulatto, offering to sell us fowls and a bullock, at no ordinary price. However, all hands from the cabin were mad already to get ashore somewhere, and the cadets, bristling with fowling-pieces and rifles, each singing out that he was ready to supply the whole ship with fresh meat; so the mulatto had to sheer off, with a boat nearly lowered over his head.
"From where we lay at the time, what with the large creek off one bow, and the broad river ahead of us, spreading brimful along to the light, the water had the look of a huge lake, fringed in by a confused hazy bluish outline steeping in the heat, where the distance clipped behind the lumps of keen verdure, showering over a dark mangrove-covered point. Before the two large quarter-boats could be got ready for the ladies and the rest of us, in fact, we heard the gigful of writers and cadets beginning to pop away at everything they saw alive, out of sight of the ship, till at last we were afloat, too, pulling slowly into the middle of the stream, and the men eyeing us lazily as they turned-to about the rigging, to send up new spars in place of those lost. The old Indiaman's big bows stood looming up broad astern of us on the sluggish eddies round her cable, with her tall, steady forespars and furled yards rising white against the low line of marshy shore in the distance, and wavering in her shadow below, till the thick green branches of the next point shut her out, and the glare off the face of the creek shot level over all of us in the two cutters, wild with every kind of feeling that India passengers could have after two months' voyage.
"For my own part, I should have had rather a suspicion how absurd it was to go a-pleasuring in an African river we knew nothing about, especially when I saw that a day or two so long after the rains might suck it up, during ebb, into a pretty narrow mid-channel; all I thought of was, however, that I was steering the boat with Violet Hyde in it, the kitmagar holding his gaudy punkah over her before me, while the judge, with his gun in his hands, was looking out as eagerly, for the time, as the four griffins were pulling furiously, in spite of the heat that made the sweat run into their eyes.
"The other party were soon off ahead of us up the main river, under care of the Scotch surgeon, laughing, talking, andhalloing in chase of the cadets who had first left. However, Sir Charles thought there was more likelihood of game along the creek, and the ladies fancied it something new, so I steered right into it; the fat midshipman, Simm, watching me critically as I handled the yoke-lines, which he had given up to me in a patronising way, and the sailor in the bow regarding the exertions of the griffins with a knowingly serious expression, while he dabbled his flipper at ease in the water.
"As the tide steadied, this said creek proved to be a smaller river, apparently from the hilly country I had noticed beyond the woods, by the clearness of its current, that showed the pale yellow reflection of the close bamboo-brake on one side, deep down into the light—the huge, sharp, green notched aloe-leaves and fern showing here and there out of it—the close, rank, stifling smell of rotten weeds and fungi giving place to the strange wild scent of the flowers, trailing and twisting in thick snaky coils up the stems on our opposite hand, and across from branch to branch, with showers of crimson and pink blossoms and white stars; still, eager as the ladies were to put foot on land, 'twas no use looking as yet for a spot of room, let alone going farther in.
"The cadets were not long in being blown, either; when the midshipman, the bowman, and I, had to relieve them. However,thenI could look straight toward Violet Hyde's face, the shade of the scarlet punkah hanging over it, and her soft little straight nose and forehead catching a flickering burst from the leaves as we sheered at times under cover of the bank; while her eyelids, drooping from the glare, gave her bright eyes a half-sleepy sort of violet look, and it was only her lips that let you see how excited she felt. The griffin who had the tiller steering with the judgment of a tailor's 'prentice on a picnic to Twickenham, we came two or three times crash into the twigs of some half-sunk tree; then a blue bird like a heron would rise direct ahead of us, with its tall wet spindle legs and spurs glistening like steel behind it into the light, and a young snake in its sharp bill; or a grey crane rustled out of the cane from overhead, its long wings creaking in the air out of sight. Suddenly, you heard a long chirruping croak from a tree-frog, and the ground ones gave full chorus from farther in, whining and cackling andpeep-peep-peeping in one complete rush that died as suddenly away again, like thousands of young turkeys. Then out in the midst of the quiet would come a loud clear wheetle-wheetling note from some curious fowl in an opening, with another of the same to match, dimmer amongst the thick of the bush. However, everything of the kind seemed to sink down with the heat at noon, the very buzz of flies round every dark feather of the cocoas, and the mosquito-hum along the bank, getting fainter; till oneheardthe heat, as it were, creeping and thrilling down through the woods, with the green light that steeped into both edges of the long creek; every reed, cane, leaf, and twig, seemingly, at last giving it back again with a whispering, hushing crackle, and the broad fans of the palms tingling in it with rays from them, as they trembled before you in the glare, back into the high bundles of knotted and jointed bamboo, with their spiky-tufted crowns.
"'Can you not almostfeelthe forest grow!' exclaimed Miss Hyde; while the boat floated quietly to one side, and her charming young face shining out from the punkah, before Master Gopaul's deucedly ugly one, coolly staring past his snub nose, made one think of a white English rose and a black puff-ball growing together under a toadstool; plenty of which, as red as soldiers' coats, and as big as targets, looked here and there out of the bank. It put new spirit into me to see her, but still we could do little more than shove across from one side to the other—till something all at once roused us up in the shape of a long scaly-like log, seemingly lying along in the sun, which tumbled off the edge with a loud splash, and two of the young fellows let drive from their fowling-pieces, just after the alligator had sunk to the bottom. Rather uncomfortable it was to come sheering right over him next moment, and catch a glimpse of his round red eyes and his yellow throat, as the mud and weeds rose over him.
"The other ladies shrieked, but Violet Hyde only caught hold of her father's arm and started back; though her blue eye and the clear cut of her pretty nostril opened out, too, for the moment her lips closed. Five minutes after, when a couple of large guinea-fowl sprang up, Sir Charles proved himself a better shot than the cadets, by dropping one of them over the water ahead of us, which was laid hold of by the reefer of the Indiaman, and stowed away fluttering intothe stern-locker—Simm observing coolly that it was a scavengering carrion sort of bird, but perhaps one of his messmates might like to take it home stuffed to his sister. The judge merely smiled and patted the mid on the shoulder, remarking in great good-humour that he, Simm, would make a good attorney; and on we held, soaking to our shirts and panting, until the bowman hooked down the stem of a young plantain, with a huge bunch of full ripe yellow bananas under the long flapping leaves at its head, right into the midst of us, out of a whole clump of them, where the smooth face of the cove showed you their scarlet clusters of flowers and green round pods hanging over it, hidden as they were from above. Every man of us made a clutch, and the stem almost lifted Simm out of the boat with it, as it sprang back into the brake, rousing out a shower of gaudy-coloured butterflies, and a cloud of mosquitoes, and making the parroquets scream inside; while the cadets' mouths were so full they couldn't speak, the reefer making a gulp with the juice seeming to come out at his eyes, the sailor spitting out his quid and stuffing in a banana, and the ladies hoping they were safe to eat, as I peeled the soft yellow rind off, and handed one to Violet Hyde, which she tasted at once. But if ever one enters into the heart of things in the tropics, I'd say 'tis when that same delicious taste melts through and through and all over you, after chewing salt-junk for a space. I remember one foremast man, who was always so drunk ashore he used to remember nothing in India but 'scoffing23one juicy benanny,' as he called it; 'but hows'ever, Jack,' he'd say, ''twas blessed good, ye know, and I'm on the look-out for a berth again, jist for to go and have another.' One of us looked to the other, and Miss Hyde laughed and coloured a bit when I offered her a second, while her father said, full five minutes after, ''Gad, Violet, it almost made me think I saw Garden Reach in the Hooghly, and the Baboo's Ghaut!'
"This whole time we couldn't have got more than three-quarters of a mile from where the ship lay, when, all at once, the close growth on our left hand began to break into low bush, and at length a spot offered where we might get ashore tolerably, with two or three big red ant-hills heaped up out of the close prickly-pear plant, and the black ants streamingover the bank, as well as up the trunk of a large tree. The monkeys were keeping up a chattering stir everywhere about; and two or three bright green little lizards, changing into purple and back again, as they lay gleaming in the sun on the sides of the ant-heaps, darted their long tongues out like silver bodkins at the ants coming past. In we shoved with a cheer, and had scarce moored to the tree ere the ladies were being handed out and tripping over the ground-leaves to the ankles, starting on again at every rustle and prick, for fear of snakes; till the bowman in charge was left in the boat by himself, and, there being seven of us with guns over our arms, the next notion of the griffins was to get a sight of some 'natives.'
"In fact, there was a sort of a half-track leading off near the bank, through among the long coarse grass and the ferny sprouts of young cocoas, and a wide stretch of open country seen beyond it, dotted all over with low clumps of trees and bush rounded off in the gush of light, that gave it all a straw-coloured tint up to where a bare reddish-looking ridge of hill looked over a long swell of wild forest, off a hot, pale, cloudless sky. Here and there you saw the shadow of one bluff lying purple on the side of another, and a faint blue peak between, letting north'ard into some pass through the hills, but no signs of life save a few dun big-headed buffaloes feeding about a swampy spot not very far off, and rather too shaggy, by all appearance, to make pleasant company. Accordingly, we held for a few yards under the shade, where the fat mid, thinking to show off his knowingness by getting cocoa-nuts for the ladies, began to shy balls of mud from the creek-sides at the monkeys in the trees.
"However, he brought us rather more than he bargained for, till the whole blessed jungle seemed to be gathering between us and the boat to pelt us to death with nuts as big as eighteen-pound shot, husks and all; so off we had to hurry into the glare again, Sir Charles half-carrying his daughter through guinea-grass up to the waist—when somebody felt the smell of smoke, and next minute we broke out near it, wreathing up white from inside a high bamboo fence, propped up and tied all along with cocoa-nut husk. 'What the devil!' shouted the foremost cadet, as soon as he found the opening, 'they're cannibals!—roasting a black child, by heaven!' andin he dashed, being no chicken of a fellowashoreat any rate, the others after him, while the judge, Simm, and I kept outside with the ladies, who were all of a shudder of course, what with the thought, and what with the queer scent of roast meat that came to us. 'Ha, ha!' laughed the cadet next moment, 'it's only a monkey, after all!—come in, though, Sir Charles, if you please, sir—nobody here, ladies.'
"There, accordingly, was the little skinned object twirling slowly between two bamboo sticks, over a fire beneath two or three immense green leaves on a frame, with its knees up not to let its legs burn; about a dozen half-open sheds and huts, like little corn-stacks, thatched close with reeds, and hung with wattled mats of split bamboo, giving the place more the look of a farmyard than a village; as there was a big tree spreading in the middle, a few plantains, yams, and long maize-stalks flowering out of the coarse guinea-grass which the niggers hadn't taken the trouble to tread down all round inside of the fence.
"However, we weren't long of perceiving an old grey-headed black sitting on his hams against the post of a hut, watching us all the time; and a villainously ugly old thief he looked, with a string of Aggry beads about his head, and a greegree charm-bag hung round his shrivelled neck, which was stuck through a hole in some striped piece of stuff that fell over to his knees, as he sat mumbling and croaking to himself, and leering out of the yellows of his eyes, though too helpless to stir. Something out of the way attracted my notice, glittering in front of the hut over his head; but, on stepping up to it, I wasn't a little surprised to find it the stern-board of some small vessel or other, with the tarnished gilt ornament all round, and the name in large white letters—'Martha Cobb'—the port, Boston, still to be made out, smaller, below. This I didn't think so much of in itself, as the craft might have been lost; till, on noticing that the old fellow's robe was neither more nor less than a torn American ensign, in spite of his growls and croaks I walked past him into the hut, where there was a whole lot of marling-spikes, keys, and such like odds and ends, carefully stored up in a bag, marked with the same name, besides a stewpan with some ostrich feathers stuck where the handle had been, as if this rascally black sinner wore it on his head on stateoccasions, being probably the head man and a justice of the peace.
"What struck me most, though, was a pocket-book with a letter inside it, in a woman's hand, addressed to the master of the brigMartha Cobb; dated a dozen years before, yellow and fusty, and with tarry finger-marks on it, as if the poor skipper, God knows, had read it over and over in his cabin many a fresh breeze betwixt there and Boston. I put it in my pocket, with a curse to the old black devil, as he croaked out and fell on his face trying to bite me with his filed teeth when I passed out, to follow the rest out of the bamboo-pen; wondering, of course, where all the other negroes could be, unless they were dodging about the river shore to watch the Indiaman—little chance as there was of their trying the same joke with theSeringapatamas with theMartha Cobb.
"As for the women, however, I had scarce joined our party going out, when we met a half-naked black hag with a bunch of cocoa-nuts and husk. The moment she saw us she gave a squeal like an old hen, and fell flat, while several younger ones, jogging along with their naked black piccaninnies on their backs, turned tail and were off with a scream. Next minute we were almost as startled as they could be when three plump young jetty damsels dropped down right into the bushes alongside of us, off as many tall cocoas which they'd been climbing by a band round them, for the nuts. 'Mercy on us!' said the eldest of our lady passengers; and itwasrather queer, since they had nothing earthly upon them save very very short pet——I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I didn't know any other word. However, off they scampered for the woods, Simm and one of the cadets hard after them, and we turning away to smother our laughter, especially as the griffin had forgot his mother being with us. The middy being first started, he was a good way ahead, when all at once the sternmost of the black girls tripped in the band she had over her shoulder, Simm giving a cheer as he made prize of his chase; but scarce before the whole three of the dark beauties had him smothered up amongst them, laughing yelling, and squalling as they hauled him about; till I saw the dirk Simm sported glitter in one of their hands, and I made towards the spot in the notion of their finishing him in right earnest.
"The black damsels ran off together as the unlucky reefer picked himself up, coming to us with his hair rubbed up like a brush, his cap out of shape in his hand, and the gold band off it, his red face shining, and all the gilt anchor-buttons off his jacket, besides being minus his dirk. 'Simm, Simm, my fine fellow!' said his friend the cadet, like to die with laughing, 'what—what did they do to you?—why, your head looks like a chimney-sweep's mop!' Simm knocked his cap against a tree to set it right, without a word, and we followed the others to the boat, where he swore, however, that he'd kissed 'em all three, at which Mrs Atkins fairly took him a slap on the side of the head, saying he was a nasty, improper boy, and she was gladhispoor mother couldn't see him run after creatures of that kind in African woods. 'Natives, indeed!' said she, 'I have heard so often of native modesty, too, in books; but, after all, there's nothing like experience, I think, Sir Charles?' 'Certainly not, ma'am,' replied the judge, humouring her, as she hadn't often had the chance of speaking to him before; ''tis almost as bad in India, though, you know.' 'Oh,there, Sir Charles,' said the lady, 'I never happened to go out, of course, except in the carriage!' 'Ah,' said the judge, coolly, 'you should try an elephant, sometimes, ma'am.'
"After this, as Sir Charles was bent on getting a shot at something better, with a glass or two of Madeira to refresh us, we pulled farther still up the small river, passing the mouth of a deep marshy inlet, where I noticed a few long canoes belonging to the Congo village we had seen; the close, heavy heat of the woods getting, if possible, worse; and the rank green growth topping up round us as flat as before; when the sound of a loud rush of water up-stream broke upon us through the bush to northward, the surface rippling, and a slight cool breath seeming to flutter across it now and then, the very noise putting fresh soul into you. Suddenly we opened out on a broad bend, where it was hard work to force her round, and next moment a low fall was gleaming before us, where a hill-stream came washing and plashing over one wide rocky step above another in the turn, then sweeping out of a deep pool to both hands, and running away ahead, in between the spread of trees, seemingly to a sort of a lagoon, where you saw the light in the middle glancing bright down upon its face. Abroad blue burst of air and light struck down along the hollow the stream rushed out of, off the roots of a regular mountain, leaning back to the sky, with its big tufted knolls and its shady rifts thrown out blue beyond one or two thick scaly-stemmed date-trees, waving their long, feathery, fringe-like leaves to the least bit of a breeze, on as many rough points near at hand; thewholeshape of the mountain you couldn't see for the huge mahogany-trees, teak, and African oak, rising up over one shoulder into a lump of green forest. In five minutes more we were through into the lagoon, which very possibly took round into the main river again, only the opposite end, to our surprise, was all afloat with logs of big timber choking it up, so that there we must stick or go back upon our wake.
"However, the lagoon itself being broad enough and round enough in all conscience, with a deep hollow opening up out of it on the high ground, the judge and the cadets thought a better place couldn't have been chosen for landing after a little sport, while we left the fair ladies to rest in the cool, and look at the lotus-lilies spread all over one cove of it, floating white on their large leaves. The green edge of scum ran about the black shadow on the rest of it, gathering round where a big branch or two had fallen in, with the hot white sky looking bluer out through the broad leaves coming together aloft, and the showers of little sharp ones in the tamarind twigs, mangoes, ironwood, sumach, and all sorts, while here and there a knot of crimson blossoms looked out from under the boughs in the dark, humming with small flies. Beautiful spot as it was every way, especially after the heat, yet I didn't much like the idea of letting the ladies stay by themselves, except the sailor and the kitmagar. Nothing particular had turned up to trouble us, certainly, but I daresay 'twas because there wasoneof them I never looked at without her soft fairy-like air making me think of something that might happen to her, life-like though she seemed. When I saw a big branch over her head, I kept fancying what it would do if it fell—and now, the thumping slabs and stones we scrambled over up into the gully toward the mountain, seemed to have come tumbling down off it to the very water's edge, covered with nets of thick creeping plants and trails of flat, fingery-leaved flowers, such asyou see in hot-houses at home. A few yards higher, too, where the ground broke away into a slanting hollow out of the bush, 'twas all trampled and crushed, half-withering together in the heat of the sun, the young trees twisted and broken, and two or three good-sized ones lying out from the roots, which I set to the score of the timbers rolling down their logs, for some craft that evidently got their cargoes hereaway.
"After all, the thought of a slap at some wild game was tempting enough, the judge appearing to consider anyone but a sportsman nobody at all; so up we went behind him out of the gully till we were all blowing like so many porpoises on the head of it, Sir Charles raising his finger as we peeped across a grassy slope right under us, where a whole drove of small slender-legged antelopes were feeding. We had just time to rest, getting a breath of air off the heights, when one of the foremost lifted its head, listening the opposite way from us; next moment the entire scatter of them came sweeping direct over to leeward in a string—we could almost catch their bright black eyes through the grass, when the crack of our seven barrels turned them bolt off at a corner, and they were gone like wind on water. All of us had missed save Sir Charles Hyde, but his rifle-bullet had sent one of the antelopes springing up in the air ten feet or so, rolling over and over into the grass again, where we found it lying with its tongue out, and its large eye glazing amidst the blades and dust—a pair of huge turkey buzzards falling, as it were, out of two specks in the sun above us, already, and rising with an ugly flap while we got round the dead creature.
"Hallo!' said the mid suddenly, looking back over toward the hollow we'd come out of, 'what's that?'
"From where we stood we could just see through the wild cane to the mouth of the gully, half-a-mile down or more, leading upon the trees by the lagoon. I thought I could hear a dull heavy sound now and then going thump thump down the hollow and along it, the stones rumbling from one spot to another at the root of the hill; but noticing a light smoke rising farther into the course of the creek, with a faint echo of axes at work somewhere in the woods below, I wasn't sorry to find the timberers were still in the river, showing we weren't the only civilised folks that thought it fit to visit. Perhapsit might have been a quarter of an hour or more, however, and we were all looking out sharp for birds of any kind to pop at, happening to turn my head, I saw the long reeds were moving about the banks below and the trees twisting about furiously, and no sooner had I made a few paces than good heavens!—right in the break of the trees at the landing-place—therewas a huge brute of some sort coming slowly up out of the water; then another, and another, glistening wet in the bright light as the shadow of the branches slipped behind them. A blindness came over my eyes, and I had scarce time to make out the big block-like heads and moving trunks of five or six black African elephants, ere the whole case flashed upon me, and away I dashed full-speed down the slope. The big beasts were turning quietly off into the hollow, and two or three of their calves trotted after them out of the bushes, munching the young cane-stalks as they lifted their pillars of legs and their tufty little tails, when I passed a fire of sticks blazing under a slab of rock, with the judge's guinea-fowl plucked and roasting before it from a string, the bowman's tarpaulin and his pipe lying near by—a sight that doubled the horror in me, to know he had left the boat at all; and no doubt, as I thought, taken fright and run off, man-o'war's-man though he was. I made three springs over the stones down to the water, terrified to look in, hearing it, as I did, splash and wash about the sides, up among the leaves of the trees, while a couple of monstrous brutes were to be seen by the light in the midst of it, still wallowing about, and seeming to enjoy sending the whole pool in wide rings and waves as far as it would go, with the noise besides; the one-half swimming and the biggest standing aground as he poured the water out of his long trunk all over his back, then broke off a branch and waved it to and fro like a fan round his flapping leathery ears.
"Such a moment I hope never to know again—not the least sign of the boat could I see in the green black blink of the place, after the glare above, and I stood like a madman at the thought of what the herd of monsters haddonewhen they came suddenly down upon it; then I gave a wild cry, and levelled my ship's musket at the big elephant's head as he brought his small cunning eye slowly to bear upon me, dropped the branch, and began to swing his forehead, all the timelooking at me, and wading out to the shallow—by Jove! my flesh creeps at itjust now—though I couldn't have stirred for worlds till he was close enough for me to fire into that devilish eye of his. 'Twas no more than the matter of half-a-minute—till you may fancy what I felt to catch sight, all at once, of the cutter splashing up and down in the gloom below the branches, the ladies and the Hindoo crouching down terrified together, except Violet Hyde, who stood straight, holding the boat firm in by a bough, her white face fixed through the shadow, and her hair floating out of her straw bonnet each time her head went up among the leaves, with her glittering eyes on the two elephants.
"Suddenly some heavy black figure dropped almost right over her into the boat, and she let go with a low cry, and sank down with her hands over her eyes; when they went sheering out towards the creek, the foretopman handling his boat-hook in her bow, without his tarpaulin. As for the wild elephants, I had just time to come to myself before the foremost had his feet on the stones below me, getting cautiously out of the pool; these awkward antics of theirs being possibly signs of too much satisfaction in a bathe for them to show aught like fury, if you didn't rouse them; so I was slipping quietly round the nearest tree when I heard the cadets halloing up the hill. The old bull elephant seemed a dangerous customer to meet, and I was hurrying over the dead grass and branches to give warning, just as Sir Charles Hyde could be seen coming down before the rest, his rifle over his shoulder.
"However, he brought up the moment I sang out to stop: both the elephants were stalking off lower down into the hollow, and I dropped behind the slab where Tom Wilkes had been roasting his bird, when some fool of a cadet let drive at the bull elephant from above, hitting him fair on the front. You heard the rifle-bullet hit slap against it as if on an anvil: the she elephant made off at a fast trot, but the big brute himself turned round on the moment, lifting up his trunk straight aloft with a sharp trumpeting scream through it, and looked round till his small red eye lighted on the judge, who seemed quite out of breath from his sport.
'The fire! that fire, for God's sake, Mr Westwood, else I am lost!' called out Sir Charles, in a calm distinct key from where he stood with his eye fixed on the elephant, and couldsee me, too—a moment or two before the huge round-backed lump of a brute came running round into the track, stumbling heavily up the dead branches of the fallen trees and the dry guinea-grass, with a savage roar between his two white tusks—and I saw what the judge meant just in time to throw over the whole heap of flaming cocoa-tree husk among the withered grass and stuff a few yards before the monster, as dry as tinder, while the light air coming down the gully of the mountain, drove it spreading across his course up through the twigs, and sweeping in one sudden gust of fire up to the very end of his trunk. I saw it lift over the smoke like a black serpent, then another scream from the brute, and away he was charging into the hollow again, the flame licking up among the grass astern of him, and darting from one bough to another towards the cane-brake below. I had scarce drawn a long breath and remembered the devil's own thought that had come into my head, when the judge called to me, ere he slapped me on the shoulder.
"'You did nobly there, my dear boy,' said Sir Charles; 'managed it well! 'Gad, it was a crisis, though, Mr Westwood!' 'I'm afraid, however, sir,' said I, eyeing the crackling bushes, smoking and whitening to a dead smoulder in the sunlight, then flashing farther down as the hill-breeze rustled off, 'I'm afraid we shall have the woods burning about our ears!'
"Down we hurried accordingly, and hailed the cutter, where, scarce had we leisure to pass a few quick words and tumble in, before I heard a shout beyond the other turn of the creek, through the end of the lagoon; then something like the cheep of ropes through blocks, with the bustle of men's feet on a deck, and next minute a perfect hubbub of cries, whether Dutch, Portuguese, English, or all together, I couldn't say—only it wasn't likely thelastwould kick up such a bother for nothing. Four or five Kroomen came leaping round and along the float of logs at the far end, their large straw hats shining in the light over their jet faces, as they peered across into the lagoon. The minute after they vanished we saw the white upper spars of a schooner slide above the farthest of the wood, and her bowsprit shoved past the turn just enough to show her sharp lead-coloured bow, with the mouth of a gun out of a port, and a fellow blowing the red end of his match behindit. All at once the chorus of shouts and cries ceased, and a single voice sang out along the water, clear, stern, and startling, in bad Portuguese, 'Queren sieté?who are you?' Still we gave no answer, quietly shoving off as fast as we could, the flicker of the fire in the brake behind the trees beginning to show itself through the black shade of the lagoon. 'Queren sieté?' sang out the voice, louder than before, in a threatening way, and the logs were knocking and plashing before the schooner as the Kroomen hauled at them to make an opening. 'Amigos! Amigos!' hailed we in turn; 'Ingleses, gentlemen!' shouted the cadet who knew Portuguese, calling to them not to fire, for heaven's sake, else they would do us some harm. With this, the hubbub was worse than before; they plainly had some design on us, from the confusion that got up; but by that time we were pulling hard into the narrow of the river, and took the fair current of it as soon as the boat was past the falling stream we had seen before, till we were round into the next reach.
"In fact, the rate we all bent our backs at this time was pretty different from coming up: the cadets seemed hardly to feel the heat, fierce and close though it was, at thought of those that might be in our wake, and nobody spoke a word at ease till at last, after an hour's hard work, taking it in turns, we came full in sight of the Indiaman at her anchor on the broad current. The ladies blessed the very ropes hanging from her bowsprit, and we got safe aboard, where we found the two other boats had come back long before; and every one of us turned in directly after sundown, as tired as dogs.
"Well, I didn't suppose I had slept an hour, dreaming terribly wild sort of dreams about Violet Hyde and elephants, then that I'd saved her myself, and was stooping to kiss her rosy lips, when a sudden noise on deck startled me. I shoved myself into my clothes, and rushed on the quarter-deck. She had gone aground at her stern in swinging in the water the Portuguese rascal gave her, canted a little over to starboard, away from the shore; and till morning flood nothing could be done to haul her off. The fog was rolling down with the land-breeze, and the jabber in the woods again thickened the confusion, when all at once a dim flash off the shore glimmered in the white fog, and a round-shot whistled just astern, pretty well aimed for her bilge, which would have cost us some workif it had hit. After that, however, there was no more of it, the fellow probably having spent either all his powder or his balls. As for his fort, I heard the chief officer swearing he would knock it about his ears next day—a thing that couldn't have done him much harm, certainly, unless mud were dear.
"No sooner had the men gone below, leaving the ordinary anchor-watch, than Mr Finch, to my great surprise, walked up to me, and gave me a strange suspicious look, hinting that he began to have a good guess of what I really was, but if anything new of the kind turned up, said he, he should know better what to say to me. 'Mr Finch,' said I, starting, 'this won't do, sir—you'll either speak your mind before cabin and cuddy, or to-morrow morning, by Jove! you'll go quietly ashore with me, sir—as I think, now you remind me of it, we settled to do, already!' The mate's face whitened, and he eyed me with a glare of malice, as I turned on my heel and began to walk the quarter-deck till he went below.
"However, the thought of the thing stuck to me, and I kept walking in the dark to get rid of it: the four or five men of the anchor-watch shuffling lazily about, and all thick save ahead up the river, where the land-breeze blew pretty strong, bringing now and then a faint gleam out of the mist. I was leaning against the fore-chains, listening to the ebb-time, and thinking, when I saw one of the men creeping in from the bowsprit, which you just saw, where it ran up thick into the dusk, with scarce a glimpse of the jib-boom and flying-jib-boom beyond.
"The sailor came up, touching his hat to me, and said he thought he saw something queer off the boom-end. 'Well,' said I gruffly, 'go and tell your mate, then.' I didn't know the fellow's voice, though it had a particular twang in it, and he wasn't in Jacobs' watch, I knew. 'Why, your honour,' he persisted, 'I knows pretty well what you air—asking your pardon, sir—but I think you'd make more out of it nor any of the mates! It's some'at rather skeary, sir,' added he. Accordingly I took hold of the man-ropes and swung myself up the bowsprit, and had my feet on the foot-rope below the jib-boom, when I heard his breath, following behind me. 'Never you trouble yourself, my man,' said I; 'one at a time!' and back he went in board again—for something curious in his way struck me; but I wanted to see what he meant. I hadjust got near the flying-jib, half-stowed in as it was on the boom, and I fancied, with a creep of my blood in me, I made out a man's head over the sail; but next moment a hand like a vice caught me by the throat, and some one growled out, 'Now ye infernal man-o'-war hound, I have ye—and down you goes for it!'
"The instant Ifeltit, my coolness came back; as for grappling, I couldn't, and the ebb current ran below to her bows at a rate fit to carry one out to sea in half-an-hour. I saw the whole plot in a twinkling, and never moved; instead of that I gave a sort of laugh, and followed the husky twang of the other man to a tee. 'He won't come, Harry, my lad!' said I, and my ugly friend let go before he had time to think twice. 'He be blowed!' said Harry, scornfully; 'an' why won't he, mate?' He had scarce the words out of his mouth, though, ere I took him a twist that doubled him over the spar, and down he slipped, hanging by a clutch of the sail. 'I suppose, my fine fellow,' said I, 'you forgot Fernando Po, and those nigger adventures of yours—eh?' and I went in without more ado.
"I hadn't been ten minutes on deck, however, when I heard both of them swearing something or other to the first mate. A little after Finch came forward to me, with a ship's lantern, and three or four of the men behind. 'Mr Collins, or whatever's your name, sir,' said he aloud, 'I believe you've been seen just now at the bowsprit-end, making signals or something to the shore! You're in arrest at once, sir, and no more about it!' 'What the deuce!' said I, my blood up, and pulling out a pair of pocket-pistols I had had in the boat, 'let me see the man to——' At the moment a blow of a handspike from near the mast laid me senseless on the deck, and I knew nothing more.—But I see 'tis too far gone in the night to carry out the yarn, ladies!"
"Well, ma'am," resumed the commander, "I came to myself again at last, but when, how, or where, I really did not know, nor even what had been the matter with me;except that I lay on my back upon something or other softer than the planks, my head aching like to split, and so stupid, I couldn't take the trouble to choose amongst the strange notions that came creeping over me. 'Twas pitch-dark, too, and choking hot. The sole wish I had was for a drop of water; but there I stuck in the same helpless plight, more like a nightmare than aught else; and as fortime, if it went by what I felt, why, I might have lain, then and before, long enough for one of the Seven Sleepers. First one fancy, and then another, came looming up from over my brain, like a sail on the horizon, till my head was full of it. That ugly rascal's story got hold of me, and I thought I was stowed away below in some abominable slaver; then I was the sick captain lying in my cot dreaming, with all as still and dark as death. As my wits cleared, however, I began to hear plenty of sounds, as it were, buzzing and rustling and booming in my very ears, then far away again. Confused though I was, a horrid idea struck me as I tried to listen—that Finch and his understrappers had put me ashore in the woods or handed me over to some of those villainous blacks with the filed teeth; and theSeringapatammust be gone, Heaven knew how long!
"Suddenly, as if to clinch my notion, I started for a moment at the loud cry of a bell-bird, as I thought at first; but, the next instant, a sort of a thick crust seemed to clear off my hearing, and I knew it was 'two bells' going on deck, so that I was still on board; after which a regular bustle got up of a sudden overhead. I heard people running up the nearest ladder from below; cadets shouting and clattering, apparently with muskets and cutlasses; the creak of the davit-blocks letting down the boats, and the chief officer's voice alongside. What with my broken head, though, and the want of air and water, I felt too sick to give them a thought. It wasn't long, either, before the whole Indiaman seemed to be as quiet as a church, except one heavy pair of feet on the quarter-deck above; then that stopped as well, and I heard nothing but the dull sound of the tide through her thick outer-timbers, gurgling up and poppling along, like to make me mad for thirst. I put up my hand to my head, and found my hair on one side all sticky, and covered with cockroaches; but though the very touch of their bristly feelers made my blood creep, and the wretches began to dig with their pincersinto the wound, I was too weak to keep brushing them away as fast as they swarmed about it.
"It must have been rather some sort of swoon than a doze that I woke out of again, when I heard a man's voice not far off, through the stillness of the 'tween-decks, reading aloud, which I soon made out to be Mr Knowles's, the missionary's; and, from the key of it, it was evidently the Bible he was reading. In a little while he gave up, and another voice came in, that I knew still better. It was Violet Hyde's—low enough, but so clear at times, that it seemed to come into the dark where I lay half-senseless, and afterwards I could even call back some of the very words; then it came to a stand, and I heard her two or three times apparently answering someone I couldn't hear. All at once, the missionary struck up the first note of a psalm-tune, and her lovely voice slid into it, till there was nothing in the whole ship, as it were, butthat—singing the old Evening Hymn—alone—such music, I thought, never was on sea or land—when down from some opening above, out of heaven, you might have fancied, fell a chorus like the sound of angels and cherubs joining in at the end, once and again; catching up the air out of her sweet tongue, and drowning it in a way to ravish one's soul, till it sank into a hush in which you could hear the missionary's voice rise, as he prayed aloud, over the whispers of the ladies and children stealing away from round the skylight—with the slight creak of the rudder, now and then, in its case abaft, and the tide bumping and tapping outside, from the deadwood at her counter to the hollow planking amidships.
"As for me, at first blush I thought it all part of my queer visions, till somehow or other I began to revive a bit, and felt for the door of the place they had boxed me up into. However, it was fast enough, and as soon as I tried to stand upright, something over my head gave me a shove down again—it being evidently one of the steward's store-rooms abaft of the cuddy, full of bags and such like lumber, where the best I could do was to stretch myself on the heap of old canvas again, groaning from sheer weakness and desperation. Just then I heard a light step coming close past the door, out of the large cabin, and I gave another groan. A dress rustled, and the foot started to the other side of the passage.
"'For God's sake open the door!' said I, in a faint voice. 'What—who—is there?' exclaimed Miss Hyde, anxiously; but my mouth was so dry I couldn't answer her. Next moment she was trying the handle, though to no purpose; for a little after I caught the sound of her footsteps hastening off, and once more my senses left me. It couldn't have been more than a minute or two, however, for I heard the missionary's voice still praying beside Captain Williamson's cot, when a gush of air suddenly revived me, and I sat up winking at a glare of light, in which Violet Hyde's face seemed to be hovering brighter than the lamp she had in her two hands, as she stood and gazed at me between wonder and dismay; while the steward held the door only half open behind her, peeping in at me with one eye like a fellow watching a hyena in a cage. 'Miss!—miss!' said he, trying to shove the door to again, 'take care—he's a pirate, ma'am, he is! The chief officer'll blow me up for it, your ladyship!' 'Mr Westwood!' exclaimed she, pushing it wide in spite of him, 'what—what is this!—you are all over blood, Mr Westwood! Oh, are you wounded?—what can be—run, run for something,' said she to the steward—'where is the surgeon?' 'The doctor's gone with the rest of 'em, miss,' said he. With this I took hold of something to scramble up, bringing down a bag of cabin-biscuit over me, and got on my legs in the midst of the dust; but grim enough I must have looked, with my face like a North American Indian's, and the cockroaches sticking in my hair, as I stumbled out of the corner. The little Cockney of a steward seemed to think me dangerous, for all I saw of him next moment was his striped gingham jacket vanishing round a bulkhead aft. 'Oh,' stammered I, leaning against the doorpost, 'it's—it's nothing, after all—only—a little water!' The truth was, my brain felt so confused still, that I really was not quite sure how the case stood—whether I hadn't in fact bowsed up my jib too taut that night, and tumbled on my head, or kicked up some row or other; so I suppose I must have looked rather ashamed, which the young lady appeared to notice, by the expression of her face as she moved towards the cuddy, and slipped quietly through one of the folding-doors. 'Hush!' said she, gravely, holding up her finger, as she came out again and closed it, carrying a couple of decantersand a glass; 'poor Captain Williamson seems asleep—he was removed there this evening for air.' As I drank one tumbler of water after another, I fancied the young lady watched me curiously; however, I had scarce quenched my thirst when my own ideas got clear enough, as well as my tongue, to give an offhand account of what had happened. Violet Hyde started, and her voice faltered, as she said, 'Then—then you must have been shut up here all day—oh, how cruel of them! so hot, too! Oh, what a wonder you were not actually——' 'All day!' said I—'what day is it, then, Miss Hyde?' 'It is Sunday evening!' answered she, the tears rushing somehow or other into her eyes. 'Oh, how glad I am that I happened to pass! But your head—what a dreadful wound you must have got, Mr Westwood!' continued she; 'something must be done to it,indeed!'
"What the sweet young creature hesitated and blushed about for the first time, I never guessed; but I can't help thinking that anything short of an angel would have laughed at the ridiculous figure I must have cut, with powdered biscuit added to the blood, the hair, and the cockroaches—although my worthy friend's handspike from behind the foremast had laid the bone bare, so that the bleeding saved it from a lump. I hardly know how it came about, but, five minutes after, there I was sitting on the planks of the 'tween-decks, while the charming girl herself stooped over me with a basin in one hand and a sponge in the other—the muslin sleeves tucked half up off her two round white arms, as she began to wash the blood carefully off the place. I couldn't stand it a minute, however. To feel her fairy fingers soiling themselves in such dirty work, for such a fellow as me, Ned Collins, made me shiver all over; so bolt upright I started, carrying away the sponge in the neck of my coat, and squeezing a teacupful of water down my back at every wriggle—while my lovely sick-nurse stood with one pretty little wrist out, betwixt alarm lest she had hurt me, and surprise at my life-like condition. After giving my face a wipe, however, and swallowing a glass or two of wine, with some of the biscuit I had knocked down, I felt wonderfully well, except for an ache at the top of my head. The next thing that occurred to me, of course, was to have my friend the mate made aware of his mistake; but as for the curious quietnessof the Indiaman at that hour, even of a Sunday evening, I couldn't understand it, and I looked for a cap to go on deck with immediately. The young lady seemed to be looking up the after-hatchway, and listening, I thought, and the lady passengers could be heard talking about the poop; but when Violet Hyde turned round, and our eyes met again, I caught an anxious expression in them that puzzled me. 'Do you think it will be long before we shall hear them?' said she, next moment. 'Who?—whom?' asked I, hastily. 'Oh!' said she, starting,'you could not have known they had gone, Mr Westwood. Tell me, Mr Westwood,' said she, coming nearer to me, putting her hand lightly on my arm, and glancing into my face, 'tell me, did you not know that that vessel was in the river?' 'Vessel, Miss Hyde?' I said, looking at her steadily in turn. 'It's all one riddle to me—what vessel do you mean, madam?' 'The—the pirate!' exclaimed she, breathlessly; and turning towards the hatchway again, while I stood eyeing her stupidly, all abroad, so to speak. 'For heaven's sake, tell me what you mean, Miss Hyde!' said I, putting my hand to my head. 'Ah, but you look so white—you are not well yet, sir,' said she, softly. 'To think how all the passengers were amused, and even papa too, when they heard this morning of your being arrested as a—a——But nobody could know you were so hurt, Mr Westwood. Then when some of the sailors came back, and said they had seen the French ship in disguise——' 'By Jupiter! thebrigthey meant?' I broke out. 'Then, good heavens! they must have painted her lead-colour, and turned her back into a schooner!Thatwas she, for a thousand!' 'And, you know, yesterday morning, sir,' continued the young lady, 'youtold me you knew our friends were there, instead of being lost, as we thought!'
"'Yes, yes!' said I, 'there must be some bad scheme at the bottom; but by morning we'll have a slap at them, for certain. For my part I feel——' 'Why,' said Miss Hyde, turning anxiously to me, 'almost everybody in the ship has gonealready. Whenever the truth was discovered, there was such a confusion amongst the gentlemen and the officers that they could not think of anything else; and, as soon as the sun had set, they all crowded into the boats and went away together, to surprise the pirates in the dark.' 'Good God!'exclaimed I, in sheer amazement, and making toward the hatchway. 'Miss Hyde!doyou say so!—How many were there then, ma'am?' I asked. 'Oh,' said she, quickly, 'I am so glad there was such a number—five boats quite full, I believe. Not a single gentleman would stay, except little Tommy's father, who is upstairs—and papa was one of the first to get down into a boat with his rifle. But do you not think,' added she, with somewhat of a tremble in her voice, 'do you not think the people in the French ship will yield, or at least give our friends up?'
"'I hope to goodness they may!' said I, turning away from the eagerness those soft eyes of hers glittered with, as she leant out before the faint glimmer through the cuddy-door, the light of the lamp in her hand shining bright over her hair and her shoulders; while the gloomy stillness of the whole ship, below, made me think of the voice that had hailed us through the lagoon, and the same man's face—as I had no doubt now it was—when I saw it aboard the brig at sea, before the thunder-squall came on. I almost fancied I saw Finch andhimmeeting at the present moment, with the mate's awkward look as the Frenchman's sword flashed across him—my fingers gripped together for the handle of a cutlass, to go tumbling up amongst the men over the schooner's bulwarks in the creek—when all at once another notion darted into my head, to remind me where we were in the meantime; I ran to the companion and sprang up the stair on to the quarter-deck.
"It was a hot, still night; but the change from the closeness below to the deck seemed to make quite a new man of one in an instant. I jumped on the nearest carronade-slide, and looked round to see how the land lay, which at first was difficult enough to do. They had got the Indiaman fair afloat again, I found, a little more off the shore, and farther down—the starboard gun I stood upon being, as I guessed by the shape of the trees, about opposite the mud fort, which Finch had probably been peppering at as he threatened, since the port was open, and two or three shot lying in the scuppers beside it. 'Twas somewhere nigh-hand eight o'clock of the evening, I think, and quite black on the nearest bank—you couldn't even make out the top of the woods against the sky; but another cable-length would have served to open the lowerreach of the river, where it came brimming up full round the point with the night flow, sending a floating sort of a glimmer along in the dusk over against us. One could even pitch upon a line where it ran side by side with the heavy shadow that took in the ship, going across to the swampy-looking shore off our larboard side, and blackening away up-stream, while the dim bubbles and eddies swept out of the one into the other. I could just catch the low, deep roar of the sea more than a mile off, muffled by the trees and mangroves on both sides between it and us; and, the tide having come almost to a standstill, you heard the ripple against her bows get gentler and gentler, with a weak plash here and there in the dark among the grass and sedge alongshore, which seemed to wake up a chirping mutter in the bushes—and at times you'd have thought something came wading out from the edge; till in a few minutes both river and forest had sunk, as it were, into a sleep. The quieter they got, however, the more uneasy I began to feel at the state I saw things in upon deck; absolutely not a soul to be seen from wheel to bowsprit, except one man walking back and forward by himself on the forecastle, and giving a look now and then carefully enough over at the cable; Mr Brown being on the poop with his family and the knot of ladies, talking under their breath; while the old Scotch mate could be seen through the cabin skylight, leaning his bald crown over his two hands, under the lamp near the captain's cot, to listen to the missionary, as he sat gravely whispering and looking at him through his spectacles.
"For my part, I hadn't a doubt but the ship had been watched from shore all along; and there was no saying at presentwhomight be keeping an eye upon her, even if this affair of the French brig weren't to catch us in some deep trick or other. If it were really she, and lying where we caught a glimpse of her the day before, 'twould take three or four hours, at night, even to pull there and back again; but as for her being an ordinary pirate, I had a strong notion she was no such thing, and the stranger I thought the whole matter throughout.
"As I peered over the bulwarks into the thick of the tall jungle, the showers of fireflies came here and there flickering out from under the big leaves, lighting up the green of them for a moment, and dancing across a black mouth in the banknearest us, like emerald sparks. By this time, too, the starlight was growing large out over the dusk, till the whole height of the sky had heaved itself above our upper spars, clear as crystal, and sprinkled full of soft silver points, that gathered and got brighter as you looked. One could see the whole breadth of the river floating slowly between, with lazy brown swirls of current twisting and curling round the point, and the eddies rising in the middle, to where the water glistened among the dark wet mangrove stems, or some oily swell near the edge went lipping in with the gleam of a star lengthened upon it. Hot and close though the night still was, while the rank smell of the mud came at times into our nostrils from one side, and of growing leaves from the other, yet it was pleasant enough after being shut up for ever so many hours in a dark hole below.
"Neither did I think there was any fear of trouble from the natives while this lasted; but the haze that seemed to be oozing out over the mass of woods, with now and then a cool breath of air from up-river, showed what a fog we might expect as soon as the land-wind began to blow strong from inland. Sometimes I fancied I heard cries in the distance among the woods, over the croaking of the frogs which seemed to get up as one listened; then again I could make out the hollow booming of the African tree-drum, with a chorus of horns and savage-like shouts, apparently filling up every break in the hum that rose off the ground—far enough away, however, to satisfy me the blacks were only making merry before turning in.
"As for Tom Westwood, he had plainly gone with the boats, clerical though he was, which didn't go to set my mind greatly at rest, knowing him to be one of your slap-dash fellows when roused; and, either way, it couldn't do much good to a man hailing for a parson to be particularly active on boat-service. But you may easily conceive what a pitch one's anxiety for the upshot rose to, at every whisper and hush of the woods, and every glimmer of the water far astern, where the upper reach could just be seen brimming pale out of the shadow, against a thick fringe of misty cane-clumps, topped with tall palms and cocoas—their stems wavering in the thin haze, and their dark crowns seemingly floating off above it like heads coming away from the bodies, asthe heavy blue land-fog began to gather like smoke away behind.
"The flow of tide having of course set the Indiaman's stern up-stream, the ladies on the poop could be seen clustered across the taffrail, with the careful married gentleman in the middle of them, more dignified than ordinary, as they one and all strained their eyes into the dusk before them; when one of the men came down the poop-stairs behind me, and, on turning, I saw to my surprise that it was Jacobs, he being still more astonished to see me on deck. I soon found, to my great relief too, that, what with the anchor-watch and some lads, there were still seven or eight of the crew aboard, whom I advised him to get on deck and make them keep a bright look-out—more especially as he was one of the boatswain's mates, and had charge of the watch at the moment; for, to tell the truth, seriously speaking, I had more real fear, all along, of some attack from the negroes and Don José, than of the French craft theywouldfancy a pirate, whatever might be her reason for stowing away Rollock and his companions—although I told Jacobs I had no doubt now but itwasactually she. 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Jacobs in a low voice, giving his trousers an uneasy hitch up, 'not a doubt on it, Mr Collins. Black Harry and his mates clapped eyes on her this forenoon, when they went up for water—so they said, anyway!' 'What, Bob?' said I, starting—'was itthatscoundrel? Did they not see her then?' 'Well, sir,' replied Jacobs, 'as I gather, 'twas rather one of her boats they fell ath'art of. You'll mind Harry was in the cutter that time you boarded the brig at sea, Mr Collins, a week or two 'gone—so, you see, he knowed one or two o' the crew at once; and in course, sir, comin' across one another hereaway, they'd make shift to have a talk, but none on 'em ever guessed about our passengers bein' aboard of her, till——' 'Did the fellow himself think they were pirates, then?' asked I, more anxiously than before—a shivering dread of I didn't know what beginning to creep on me, as I turned suddenly round to eye the river glooming away up from the starlight, through into the blue heaps of hazy forest.
'Why, sir,' answered Jacobs hastily, 'he's a desperate sort, is that 'ere Foster, if it was only what I've heard himsay, swinging sound asleep in 's hammock. I wouldn't tellas much otherways; but I tell ye what it is, sir, my mind misgived me o' this here overnight boat-business! It's my sober notion, Leftenant Collins,' gravely added he, seeing I still looked anxiously to him—'it's my notion, if that craft's aught of a pirate, Harry Foster and more nor half of his watch 'ud think no more o' joining her, on a chance, thanoneon 'em did o' taking you that clip with a handspike this morning, sir! As for this here brig, Master Ned, your honour,' continued he, 'what did she do, but, to my fancy, she's keeped a eye on us ever since we first fell foul of her?'
"'Jacobs! Jacobs!' I broke out directly, 'get every hand up on the foc'sle at once, with everything like arms you can find—for God's sake look sharp, and then bear a hand here to have the carronades fore and aft run in, and stuffed full of some old iron or other, as we can't have grape!' Hurried as it was, I saw the whole thing—a regular deep-laid plot it seemed, too—and the first time I had seen light as to what the strange brig could be after. Here had she dodged us, no doubt, for weeks; got hold of our friends by accident, which would give her a clue how to find us anywhere during the rest of our voyage, as we were too strong-handed for herthen. 'Twas very likely they thought we should suspect something, and follow wherever they could manage to lure the Indiaman—or else possibly they had run into the river the very same day we did, and perhaps seen us out of the haze which hid the land from us that morning; andnow, if they had studied it for years, they couldn't have contrived a cleverer trap than this that Finch and the passengers had run their heads into, with more than a dozen mutinous dogs, at least, in their company. A prize like an East-Indiaman was worth taking some trouble about, of course; while such villains as Foster and his messmates, I knew, would fancy a Bengal nabob carried untold treasures with him, and it was plain to me they had something like an understanding with the stranger's crew. 'Ay, ay, sir,' said Jacobs, in answer to me; 'hows'ever, the first mate left word with Mr Macleod he'd send up a rocket and a blue-light in case o' a good success, or else come back with the boats.' 'Heaven help them, Jacobs!' said I, taking a hasty turn or two, 'forwecan't. But thereissomething more horrid in the matter than I fancied—only all we can do is to look to ourselves and the ship! Harkye,though, Bob,' added I, following him; 'bring up the beef-kid, will ye? I feel terribly sharp-set, notwithstanding.'
"I came back and looked from the quarter-deck down the skylight, where the second mate still sat with his elbows on the table, apparently listening to the missionary; when the good man suddenly took off his spectacles and peered under Macleod's broad fists, as an undeniable snore broke out between them; then he glanced toward the captain, who seemed dozing in his cot, raised his mild eyes for a moment through the opening up to the blue starry sky swimming out above, put on his spectacles again, and taking up the Bible, he leant back in his chair to read, as if there were neither pirates, savages, nor aught a man need dread, in the world.
"'Strange!' I thought. 'Yet, after all isn't there a soul below there, ere a few hours, will go higher aloft than the smallest star that twinkles over the main-truck yonder? And who knows how many of us may——' However, I saw Jacobs hurrying aft again, and the rest coming up out of the fore-peak; so hard to work we set for the best part of an hour, which it took us to get the guns on deck made serviceable, and to find powder enough. Not a cutlass or pistol was left on board, so we had only two or three axes and pikes, with a rusty musket or two, and handspikes, certainly, to spare.
"As soon as we had taken breath, 'Now, Jacobs, my man,' said I, 'send out the boys to loose the jibs and fore-topsail—let's hoist the yard, too, with the sail clued up—all ready for slipping her cable at five minutes' warning! It can't do any harm—and I've no more doubt,' said I, 'than if I saw it, we shall have that schooner coming down with the ebb upon us!' 'Tide'll turn in little better nor an hour, sir,' said Jacobs, when we had got this quietly done. 'And by that time the breeze will be blowing with it,' said I, 'bringing down the fog too, however—but keep a bright look-out aloft for the signal, Jacobs! If you seeit, or the boats, good and well. But I tell you what it is, Jacobs,' added I, firmly, 'should it be the schooner instead, that instant we must cut and run for it! I shall carry the ship out to sea, if I can, as I brought her in—where we may have a better chance with her in the morning, or get clear off, perhaps!'
"There being no more we could do, and having instructed Jacobs to go down and rouse Mr Macleod himself if hesaw the signal, I kept stealing back and forward on one side of the quarter-deck alone. The river was still as a mill-pond, except where it trembled in long streaky gleams from the sky, else I should at once have slipped cable and begun to go down, leaving the boats to come after us, if they did come, as they best could. There wasn't a breath of air yet, either, save what seemed now and then to waft out of the thick woods, and to bring the whole whispering buzz of them stifled together along the face of the water, with the heavy scent of the aloes and trailers on the bank, meeting the warm steam that crept across from the mangroves on the opposite shore. A hundred notions ran through my head, as I walked, of what might happen: whether the boats would miss the schooner altogether, and she drop down upon us in the meantime, either by the creek or the river—or whether Foster and his crew of Wapping blackguards would carry out what I'd no doubt they had at heart.
"But at any rate, as for a set of passengers and merchant sailors catching an armed schooner asleep, with one like that Frenchman in her, I had his fierce dark face too much before me whenever I thought of him to fancy the thing for a moment. Thatthatman was in command of the stranger craft, and had some scheme in hand he would stir heaven and earth to carry out, unless you ground his head to powder, was an idea that came shivering sharp into me as I kept watching the dark mouth of the creek astern, and the glimmering reach beyond—looking almost to see the schooner's bowsprit shoot out of one of them, tide or wind though there was none. Frigate to frigate in a breeze, in fact, I should have minded my weather-gage pretty cautiously withhim, if a seaman he was; but if he were bent on having the oldSeringapatamat present, by heaven! what I feared was worse than either plunder or walking the plank—seeing there was a prize the judge had left on board, for which I felt a free-cruising captain would give all the treasures that fellows like Foster might think an Indian nabob had in his portmanteau.
"In fact, I saw Violet Hyde moving restlessly, two or three times, near the break of the poop, as she watched the dim opening astern, while her lady's maid kept close behind her, afraid to stay below; and waiting, idle as I was, I almost began for the time to forget everything else that might be going on, at thought ofherbeing only a few feet off, with noone by but the servant-maid. The touch of her soft hand about my head an hour ago came back on me, and the drowsy creeping kind of hush of the tropical night seemed to bewilder my senses at every rustle of her dress—I shan't even deny that the notion seized me for half-a-minute, were the schooner to make prisoners of the boats' crews, how I might carry the Indiaman out to sea, and go Lord knows where with her. Then the idea of defending her, and saving her, made one wild with excitement—I felt as if I had the strength of twenty in me, almost longing to see the pirates' faces, especially the dark Frenchman's, and to wait till they came close on, when we could let drive into them, expecting to find us helpless. I made up my mind that Mr Brown there, and the missionary too, should work at a gun as soon as they were wanted—when, trip, trip, I heard her footstep coming down the poop-stair behind me, and stood trembling and tingling to my very finger-ends.
"'Mr Westwood,' said her low sweet voice, and I turned round. 'Yes, madam,' I answered, gulping down my breath. 'Have you heard—do you see anything?' 'They've scarce had time yet,' said I; 'of course the more cautious they are the better!' 'Oh!' continued she, her hands clasping together, and the shawl falling half off her head to one shoulder—'oh, if there should really be bloodshed at this moment—the river looks so fearfully gloomy and silent! How is it possible to bear this suspense any longer, sir? If we couldonlythink they were not pirates after all!' 'Miss Hyde,' replied I seriously, as she seemed to wish me to speak, 'I can't have any doubt in my own mind what they are!' 'How!what?for mercy's sake!' exclaimed she, gazing earnestly at me. 'You musn't suppose all pirates to be bloody murdering ruffians, Miss Hyde,' said I hastily. 'There's one man belonging to that craft yonder,I'msure, if he saw—if he stood where I stand just now, so near an angel——' The young lady shrank back with a startled look; but I wasn't master of myself longer, and out I broke: 'For God's sake forgive me, but I—I'd serve you like a slave—dearestMiss Hyde. I'll stand up to the last drop of my blood before——' 'Mr West—wood!' was the answer, hanging betwixt surprise and terror. But I burst out with, 'Confound that name!—my name isnotWestwood, madam, and I'm no relation at all to the gentleman in India.I never said so, but your father mistook——' 'Who then—what are you—what design have you?' was her broken question; and she put one hand on the bulwarks as if for support, looking round from me to the woods, the river, and back to the ship and me again, so pale and terrified-like, that I could have cursed myself for my stupidity.