“Here lies a sheer hulk, poor Tom Bowline.”Charles Dibdin,“Tom Bowling,” Line 1.
I was awakened by the low growling, and short bark of the dog. The night was far spent; the tiny sparks of the fire-flies that were glancing in the doorway began to grow pale; the chirping of the crickets and lizards, and the snore of the tree-toad, waxed fainter, and the wild cry of the tiger-cat was no longer heard. The terral, or land-wind, which is usually strongest towards morning, moaned loudly on the hillside, and came rushing past with a melancholy sough, through the brushwood that surrounded the hut, shaking off the heavy dew from the palm and cocoa-nut trees, like large drops of rain.
The hollow tap of the woodpecker; the clear flute-note of the Pavo del monte; the discordant shriek of the macaw; the shrill chirr of the wild Guinea fowl; and the chattering of the paroquets, began to be heard from the wood. The ill-omened gaflinaso was sailing and circling round the hut, and the tall flamingo was stalking on the shallows of the lagoon, the haunt of the disgusting alligator, that lay beneath, divided from the sea by a narrow mud-bank, where a group of pelicans, perched on the wreck of one of our boats, were pluming themselves before taking wing. In the east, the deep blue of the firmament, from which the lesser stars were fast fading, all but the “Eye of Mom,” was warming into magnificent purple, and the amber rays of the yet unrisen sun were shooting up, streamer-like, with intervals between, through the parting clouds, as they broke away with a passing shower, that fell like a veil of silver gauze between us and the first primrose-coloured streaks of a tropical dawn.
“That’s a musket shot,” said the Lieutenant. The Indian crept on his belly to the door, dropped his chin on the ground, and placed his open palms behind his ears. The distant wail of a bugle was heard, then three or four dropping shots again, in rapid succession. Mr Splinter stooped to go forth, but the Indian caught him by the leg, uttering the single word “Espanoles.”
On the instant, a young Indian woman, with a shrieking infant in her arms, rushed to the door. There was a blue gunshot wound in her neck, from which two or three large black clotting gouts of blood were trickling. Her long black hair was streaming in coarse braids, and her features were pinched and sharpened, as if in the agony of death. She glanced wildly behind, and gasped out “Escapa, Oreeque, escape, para mi, soi muerto ya.” Another shot, and the miserable creature convulsively clasped her child, whose small shrill cry I often fancy I hear to this hour blending with its mother’s death-shriek, and, falling backwards, rolled over the brow of the hill out of sight. The ball had pierced the heart of the parent through the body of her offspring. By this time a party of Spanish soldiers had surrounded the hut, one of whom, kneeling before the low door, pointed his musket into it. The Indian, who had seen his wife and child thus cruelly shot down before his face, now fired his rifle, and the man feel dead. “Siga mi Querida Bondia—maldito.” Then springing to his feet, and stretching himself to his full height, with his arms extended towards Heaven, while a strong shiver shook him like an ague fit, he yelled forth the last words he ever uttered, “Venga la suerte, ya soi listo,” and resumed his squatting position on the ground.
Half a dozen musket balls were now fired at random through the wattles of the hut, while the Lieutenant, who spoke Spanish well, sung out lustily, that we were English officers who had been shipwrecked.
“Mentira,” growled the officer of the party, “Piratas son ustedes.” “Pirates leagued with Indian bravoes; fire the hut, soldiers, and burn the scoundrels!”
There was no time to be lost; Mr Splinter made a vigorous attempt to get out, in which I seconded him with all the strength that remained to me, but they beat us back again with the butts of their muskets.
“Where are your commissions, your uniforms, if you be British officers?” We had neither, and our fate appeared inevitable.
The doorway was filled with brushwood, fire was set to the hut, and we heard the crackling of the palm thatch, while thick stifling wreaths of white smoke burst in upon us through the roof.
“Lend a hand, Tom, now or never, and kick up the dark man there;” but he sat still as a statue. We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might; when we were nearly at the last gasp it gave way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer with his shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. He unceremoniously seized par le queue, the soldier who had throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, and blowing up his cartouche box. I believe, under Providence, that the ludicrousness of this attack saved us from being bayoneted on the spot. It gave time for Mr Splinter to recover his breath, when, being a powerful man, he shook off the two soldiers who had seized him, and dashed into the burning hut again. I thought he was mad, especially when I saw him return with his clothes and hair on fire, dragging out the body of the Captain. He unfolded the sail it was wrapped in, and pointing to the remains of the naval uniform in which the mutilated and putrefying corpse was dressed, he said sternly to the officer—“We are in your power, and you may murder us if you will; but that was my Captain four days ago, and you see, he at least was a British officer—satisfy yourself.” The person he addressed, a handsome young Spaniard, with a clear olive complexion, oval face, small brown mustaches, and large black eyes, shuddered at the horrible spectacle, but did as he was requested.
When he saw the crown and anchor, and his Majesty’s cipher on the appointments of the dead officer, he became convinced of our quality, and changed his tone—“Es verdad, son de la marina Englesa. But, gentlemen, were there not three persons in the hut?”
There were indeed—the flames had consumed the dry roof and walls with incredible rapidity, which by this time had fallen in, but Oreeque was nowhere to be seen. I thought I saw something move in the midst of the fire, but it might have been fancy. Again, the white ashes heaved, and a half-consumed hand and arm were thrust through the smouldering mass, then a human head, with the scalp burnt from the skull, and the flesh from the chaps and cheekbones; the trunk next appeared, the bleeding ribs laid bare, and the miserable Indian, with his limbs like scorched rafters, stood upright before us, like a demon in the midst of the fire. He made no attempt to escape, but reeling to and fro like a drunken man, fell headlong, raising clouds of smoke and a shower of sparks in his fall. Alas! poor Oreeque, the newly risen sun was now shining on your ashes, and on the dead bodies of the ill-starred Bondia and her child, whose bones, ere his setting, the birds of the air, and beasts of the forest, will leave as white and fleshless as your own. The officer, who belonged to the army investing Carthagena, now treated us with great civility; he heard our story, and desired his men to assist us in burying the remains of our late commander.
We remained all day on the same part of the coast, but towards evening the party fell back on the outpost to which they belonged—after travelling an hour or so we emerged from a dry river course, in which the night had overtaken us, and came suddenly on a small plateau, where the post was established on the promontory of “Punto Canoa.” There may be braver soldiers at a charge, although that I doubt, if they be properly led, but none more picturesque in a bivouac than the Spanish. A gigantic wild cotton-tree, to which our largest English oaks would have been but as dwarfs, rose on one side, and overshadowed the whole level space. The bright beams of the full moon glanced among the topmost leaves, and tipped the higher branches with silver, contrasting strangely with the scene below, where a large watch-fire cast a strong red glare on the surrounding objects, throwing up dense volumes of smoke, which eddied in dun wreaths amongst the foliage, and hung in the still night air like a canopy, about ten feet from the ground, leaving the space beneath comparatively clear.
A temporary guard-house, with a rude verandah of bamboos and palm leaves, had been built between two of the immense spurs of the mighty tree, that shot out many yards from the parent stem like wooden buttresses, whilst overhead there was a sort of stage, made of planks laid across the lower boughs, supporting a quantity of provisions covered with tarpaulins. The sentries in the background with their glancing arms, were seen pacing on their watch; some of the guard were asleep on wooden benches, and on the platform amongst the branches, where a little baboon-looking old man, in the dress of a drummer, had perched himself, and sat playing a Biscayan air on a sort of bagpipe; others were gathered round the fire, cooking their food, or cleaning their arms. It shone brightly on the long line of Spanish transports that were moored below, stem on to the beach, and on the white sails of the armed craft that were still hovering under weigh in the offing, which, as the night wore on, stole in, one after another like phantoms of the ocean, and letting go their anchors with a splash, and a hollow rattle of the cable, remained still and silent like the rest. Farther off, it fell in a crimson stream on the surface of the sheltered bay, struggling with the light of the gentle moon, and tinging with blood the small waves that twinkled in her silver wake, across which a guard boat would now and then glide, like a fairy thing, the arms of the men flashing back the red light.
Beyond the influence of the hot smoky glare, the glorious planet reassumed her sway in the midst of her attendant stars, and the relieved eye wandered forth into the lovely night, where the noiseless sheet-lightning was glancing, and ever and anon lighting up for an instant some fantastic shape in the fleecy clouds, like prodigies forerunning the destruction of the stronghold over which they impended; while beneath, the lofty ridge of the convent-crowned Popa, the citadel of San Felipe bristling with cannon, the white batteries and many towers of the fated city of Carthagena, and the Spanish blockading squadron at anchor before it, slept in the moonlight.
We were civilly received by the captain, who apologized for the discomfort under which we must pass the night. He gave us the best he had, and that was bad enough, both of food and wine, before showing us into the hut, where we found a rough deal coffin lying on the very bench that was to be our bed. This he ordered away with all the coolness in the world. “It was only one of his people who had died that morning of vomito, or yellow fever.”
“Comfortable country this,” quoth Splinter, “and a pleasant morning we have had of it, Tom!”
Next morning, we proceeded towards the Spanish headquarters, provided with horses through the kindness of the captain of the outpost, and preceded by a guide on an ass. He was a moreno, or man of colour, who in place of bestriding his beast, gathered his limbs under him, and sat crosslegged on it like a tailor; so that when you saw the two “end on,” the effect was laughable enough, the flank and tail of the ass appearing to constitute the lower part of the man, as if he had been a sort of composite animal, like the ancient satyr. The road traversed a low swampy country, from which the rank moisture arose in a hot palpable mist, and crossed several shallow lagoons, from two to six feet deep of tepid, muddy, brackish water, some of them half a mile broad, and swarming with wild waterfowl. On these occasions, our friend the Satyr was signalled to make sail ahead on his donkey to pilot us; and as the water deepened, he would betake himself to swimming in its wake, holding on by the tail, and shouting, “Cuidado Burrico, Cuidado que no te ahogas.”
While passing through the largest of these, we noticed several calabashes about pistol-shot on our right; and as we fancied one of them bobbed now and then it struck me they might be Indian fishing floats. To satisfy my curiosity, I hauled my wind, and leaving the track we were on, swam my horse towards the group. The two first that I lifted had nothing attached to them, but proved to be mere empty gourds floating before the wind; but when I tried to seize the largest, it eluded my grasp in a most incomprehensible manner, and slid away astern of me with a curious hollow gabbling sort of noise, whereupon my palfrey snorted and reared, and nearly capsized me over his bows. What a noble fish, thought I, as I tacked in chase, but my Bucephalus refused to face it. I therefore bore up to join my companions again; but in requital of the disappointment, smashed the gourd in passing with the stick I held in my hand, when, to my unutterable surprise, and amidst shouts of laughter from our moreno, the head and shoulders of an Indian, with a quantity of sedges tied round his neck, and buoyed up by half-a-dozen dead teal fastened by the legs to his girdle, started up before me. “Ave Maria, purissima! you have broken my head, senior.” But as the vegetable helmet had saved his skull, of itself possibly none of the softest, a small piece of money spliced the feud between us; and as he fitted his pate with another calabash, preparatory to resuming his cruise, he joined in our merriment, although from a different cause.—“What can these English simpletons see so very comical in a poor Indian catching wild-ducks?”
Shortly after, we entered a forest of magnificent trees, whose sombre shade, on first passing from the intolerable glare of the sun, seemed absolute darkness. The branches were alive with innumerable tropical birds and insects, and were laced together by a thick tracery of withes, along which a guana would occasionally dart, coming nearest of all the reptiles I had seen to the shape of the fabled dragon.
But how different from the clean steams and beautiful green sward of our English woods! Here, you were confined to a quagmire by impervious underwood of prickly pear, penguin, and speargrass; and when we rode under the drooping branches of the trees, that the leaves might brush away the halo of musquittoes, flying ants, and other winged plagues that buzzed about our temples, we found, to our dismay, that we had made bad worse by the introduction of a whole colony of garapatos, or wood-ticks, into our eyebrows and hair. At length, for the second time, so far as I was concerned, we reached the reached the headquarters at Torrecilla, and were well received by the Spanish commander-in-chief, a tall, good-looking, soldierlike man, whose personal qualities had an excellent foil in the captain-general of the province, an old friend of mine, as already mentioned, and who certainly looked full as like a dancing-master, or, at the best, perruquier en general to the staff, as a viceroy.
General Morillo, however, had a great share of Sancho Panza shrewdness, and I will add kindness, about him. We were drenched and miserable when we arrived, yet he might have turned us over, naturally enough, to the care of his staff. No such thing; the first thing he did was to walk both of us behind a canvass screen, that shut off one end of the large barnlike room, where a long table was laid for dinner. This was his sleeping apartment, and drawing out of a leather bag two suits of uniform, he rigged us almost with his own hands. Presently a point of war was sounded by half-a-dozen trumpeters, and Splinter and I made our appearance each in the dress of a Spanish general. The party consisted of Morillo’s personal staff, the captain-general, the inquisidor general, and several colonels and majors of different regiments. In all, twenty people sat down to dinner; among whom were several young Spanish noblemen, some of whom I had met on my former visit, who, having served in the Peninsular war under the great Duke, made their advances with great cordiality. Strange enough—Splinter and I were the only parties present in uniform; all the others, priests and soldiers, were clothed in gingham coats and white trowsers.
The besieging force at this time was composed of about five thousand Spaniards, as fine troops as I ever saw, and three thousand Creoles under the command of that desperate fellow Morales. I was not long in recognising an old friend of mine in the person of Captain Bayer, an aide-de-camp of Morillo, amongst the company. He was very kind and attentive, and rather startled me by speaking very tolerable English now, from a kindly motive I make no question, whereas, when I had known him before in Kingston, he professed to speak nothing but Spanish or French. He was a German by birth, and lived to rise to the rank of colonel in the Spanish army, where he subsequently greatly distinguished himself, but he at length fell in some obscure skirmish in New Granada; and my old ally Morillo, Count of Carthagena, is now living in penury, an exile in Paris.
After being, as related, furnished with food and raiment, we retired to our quatres, a most primitive sort of couch, being a simple wooden frame, with a piece of canvass stretched over it. However, if we had no mattresses, we had none of the disagreeables often incidental to them, and, fatigue proved a good opiate, for we slept soundly until the drums and trumpets of the troops, getting under arms, awoke us at daylight. The army was under weigh to occupy Carthagena, which had fallen through famine, and we had no choice but to accompany it.
I knew nothing of the misery of a siege but by description; the reality even to me, case-hardened as I was by my own recent sufferings, was dreadful. We entered by the gate of the raval, or suburb. There was not a living thing to be seen in the street; the houses had been pulled down, that the fire of the place might not be obstructed in the event of a lodgment in the outwork. We passed on, the military music echoing mournfully amongst the ruined walls, to the main gate, or Puerto de Tiera, which was also open, and the drawbridge lowered. Under the archway, we saw a delicate female, worn to the bone, and weak as an infant, gathering garbage of the most loathsome description, the possession of which had been successfully disputed by a carrion crow. A little farther on, the bodies of an old man and two small children were putrefying in the sun, while beside them lay a miserable, wasted, dying negro, vainly endeavouring to keep at a distance with a palm branch a number of the same obscene birds that were already devouring the carcass of one of the infants; before two hours, the faithful servant, and those he attempted to defend, were equally the prey of the disgusting gallinaso. The houses, as we proceeded, appeared entirely deserted, except where a solitary spectre like inhabitant appeared at a balcony, and feebly exclaimed, “Viva, los Espanoles! Viva, Fernando Septimo!”—We saw no domestic animal whatsoever, not even a cat or a dog; but I will not dwell on these horrible details any longer.
One morning, shortly after our arrival, as we strolled beyond the land gate, we came to a place where four banquillos (a sort of short bench or stool, with an upright post at one end firmly fixed into the ground) were placed opposite a dead wall. They were painted black, and we were not left long in suspense as to their use; for solemn music, and the roll of muffled drums in the distance, were fearful indications of what we were to witness.
First came an entire regiment of Spanish infantry, which, filing off, formed three sides of a square,—the wall near which the banquillos were placed forming the fourth; then eight priests, and as many choristers chanting the service for the dying; next came several mounted officers of the staff, and four firing parties of twelve men each. Three Spanish American prisoners followed, dressed in white, with crucifixes in their hands, each supported, more dead than alive, by two priests; but when the fourth victim appeared, we could neither look at nor think of any thing else.
On enquiry we found he was an Englishman, of the name of S——: English, that is, in all except the place of his birth, for his whole education had been English, as were his parents and all his family; but it came out, accidentally I believe, on his trial, that he had been born at Buenos Ayres, and having joined the patriots, this brought treason home to him, which he was now led forth to expiate. Whilst his fellow-sufferers appeared crushed down to the very earth, under their intense agony, so that they had to be supported as they tottered towards the place of execution, he stepped firmly and manfully out, and seemed impatient when at any time, from the crowding in front, the procession was obliged to halt. At length they reached the fatal spot, and his three companions in misery being placed astride on the banquillos, their arms twisted round the upright posts, and fastened to them with cords, their backs being towards the soldiers. Mr S——walked firmly up to the vacant bench, knelt down, and covering his face with his hands, rested his head on the edge of it. For a brief space he seemed to be engaged in prayer, during which he sobbed audibly, but soon recovering himself, he rose, and folding his arms across his breast, sat down slowly and deliberately on the banquillo, facing the firing party with an unshrinking eye.
He was now told that he must turn his back and submit to be tied like the others. He resisted this, but on force being attempted to be used, he sprung to his feet, and stretching out his hand, while a dark red flush passed transiently across his pale face, he exclaimed in a loud voice, “Thus, thus, and not otherwise, you may butcher me, but I am an Englishman and no traitor, nor will I die the death of one.” Moved by his gallantry, the soldiers withdrew, and left him standing. At this time the sun was intensely hot, it was high noon, and the monk who attended Mr S——held an umbrella over his head; but the preparations being completed, he kissed him on both cheeks, while the hot tears trickled down his own, and was stepping back, when the unhappy man said to him, with the most perfect composure, “Todavia padre, todavia, mucho me gusta la sombra.” But the time had arrived, the kind-hearted monk was obliged to retire. The signal was given, the musketry rattled, and they were as clods of the valley “Truly,” quoth old Splinter, “a man does sometimes become a horse by being born in a stable.”
Some time after this we were allowed to go to the village of Turbaco, a few miles distant from the city, for change of air. On the third morning after our arrival, about the dawning, I was suddenly awakened by a shower of dust on my face, and a violent shaking of the bed, accompanied by a low grumbling unearthly noise, which seemed to pass immediately under where I lay. Were I to liken it to any thing I had ever experienced before, it would be to the lumbering and tremor of a large waggon in a tempestuous night, heard and felt through the thin walls of a London house.—Like—yet how fearfully different!
In a few seconds the motion ceased, and the noise gradually died away in hollow echoes in the distance—whereupon ensued such a crowing of cocks, cackling of geese, barking of dogs, lowing of kine, neighing of horses, and shouting of men, women, and children amongst the negro and coloured domestics, as baffles all description, whilst the various white inmates of the house (the rooms, for air and coolness, being without ceiling, and simply divided by partitions run up about ten feet high) were, one and all, calling to their servants and each other, in accents which did not by any means evince great composure. In a moment this hubbub again sank into the deepest silence—man, and the beasts of the field, and the fowls of the air, became mute with breathless awe, at the impending tremendous manifestation of the power of that Almighty Being in whose hands the hills are as a very little thing—for the appalling voice of the earthquake was once more heard growling afar off, like distant thunder mingling with the rushing of a mighty wind, waxing louder and louder as it approached, and upheaving the sure and firm-set earth into long undulations, as if its surface had been the rolling swell of the fathomless ocean. The house rocked, pictures of saints fell from the walls, tables and chairs were overturned, the window frames were forced out of their embrasures and broken in pieces, beams and rafters groaned and screamed, crushing the tiles of the roof into ten thousand fragments. In several places the ground split open into chasms a fathom wide, with an explosion like a cannon-shot; the very foundation of the house seemed to be sinking under us; and whilst men and women rushed like maniacs naked into the fields, with a yell as if the Day of Judgment had arrived, and the whole brute creation, in an agony of fear, made the most desperate attempts to break forth from their enclosures into the open air, the end wall of my apartment was shaken down; and falling outwards with a deafening crash, disclosed, in the dull grey mysterious twilight of morning, the huge gnarled trees that overshadowed the building, bending and groaning, amidst clouds of dust, as if they had been tormented by a tempest, although the air was calm and motionless as death.
“Ours the wild life in tumult still to range.”Byron, The Corsair, I. 7.
Some time after this, we once more returned to Carthagena, to be at hand should any opportunity occur for Jamaica, and we were lounging about one forenoon on the fortifications, looking with sickening hearts out to seaward, when a voice struck up the following negro ditty close to us:
“Fader was a Corramantee,Moder was a Mingo,Black picaniny buccra wantee,So dem sell a me Peter, by jingo,Jiggery, jiggery, jiggery.”
“Well sung, Massa Bungo,” exclaimed Mr Splinter; “where do you hail from, my hearty?”
“Hiflo! Bungo, indeed! free and easy dat, anyhow. Who you yousef, eh?”
“Why, Peter,” continued the Lieutenant, “don’t you know me?” “Cannot say dat I do,” rejoined the negro, very gravely, without lifting his head, as he sat mending his jacket in one of the embrasures near the water gate of the arsenal—“Have not de honour of your acquaintance, sir.”
He then resumed his scream, for song it could not be called:—
“Mammy Sally’s daughter,Lose him shoe in an old canoe,Dat lay halffull of water,And den she knew not what to do.Jiggery, jig”—
“Confound your jiggery, jiggery, sir! But I know you well enough, my man; and you can scarcely have forgotten Lieutenant Splinter of the Torch, one would think?”
However, it was clear that the poor fellow really had not known us; for the name so startled him, that, in his hurry to unlace his legs from under him, as he sat tailor-fashion, he fairly capsized out of his perch, and toppled down on his nose—a feature fortunately so flattened by the hand of nature, that I question if it could have been rendered more obtuse had he fallen out of the maintop on a timber-head, or a marine officer’s.
“Eh!—no—yes, him sure enough; and who is de picaniny hofficer—Oh! I see, Massa Tom Cringle? Garamighty, gentlemen, where have you drop from?—Where is de old Torch? Many a time hab I Peter Mangrove, pilot to Him Britanic Majesty squadron, taken de old brig in and through amongst de keys at Port Royal!”
“Ay, and how often did you scour her copper against the coral reefs, Peter?”
His Majesty’s pilot gave a knowing look, and laid his hand on his breast “No more of dat if you love me, massa.”
“Well, well, it don’t signify now, my boy; she will never give you that trouble again—foundered—all hands lost, Peter, but the two you see before you.”
“Werry sorry, Massa Plinter, werry sorry—What! de black cooksmate and all?—But misfortune can’t be help. Stop till I put up my needle, and I will take a turn wid you.” Here he drew himself up with a great deal of absurd gravity. “Proper dat British hofficer in distress should assist one anoder—We shall consult togeder.—How can I serve you?”
“Why, Peter, if you could help us to a passage to Port Royal, it would be serving us most essentially. When we used to be lying there, a week seldom passed without one of the squadron arriving from this; but here have we been for more than a month, without a single pennant belonging to the station having looked in: our money is running short, and if we are to hold on in Carthagena for another six weeks, we shall not have a shot left in the locker—not a copper to tinkle on a tombstone.”
The negro looked steadfastly at us, then carefully around. There was no one near.
“You see, Massa Plinter, I am desirable to serve you, for one little reason of my own; but, beside dat, it is good for me at present to make some friend wid de hofficer of de squadron, being as how dat I am absent widout leave.”
“Oh, I perceive—a large R against your name in the master attendant’s books, eh?”
“You have hit it, sir, werry close; besides I long mosh to return to my poor wife, Nancy Cator, dat I leave, wagabone dat I is, just about to be confine.”
I could not resist putting in my oar.
“I saw Nancy just before we sailed, Peter,—fine child that; not quite so black as you, though.”
“Oh, massa,” said Snowball, grinning and showing his white teeth, “you know I am soch a terrible black fellow—But you are a leetle out at present, massa—I meant, about to be confine in de workhouse, for stealing de admiral’s Muscovy ducks;” and he laughed loud and long.—“However, if you will promise dat you will stand my friends, I will put you in de way of getting a shove across to de east end of Jamaica; and I will go wid you, too, for company.”
“Thank you,” rejoined Mr Splinter; “but how do you mean to manage this? There is no Kingston trader here at present, and you don’t mean to make a start of it in an open boat, do you?”
“No, sir, I don’t; but in de first place—as you are a gentleman, will you try and get me off when we get to Jamaica? Secondly, wi you promise dat you will not seek to know more of de vessel you may go in, nor of her crew, than dey are willing to tell you, provided you are landed safe?”
“Why, Peter, I scarcely think you would deceive us, for you know I saved your bacon in that awkward affair, when through drunkenness you plumped the Torch ashore, so”—
“Forget dat, sir,——forget dat!—Never shall poor black pilot forget how you saved him from being seized upt when de gratings, boatswain’s mates, and all, were ready at de gangway@never shall poor black rascal forget dat.”
“Indeed I do not think you would wittingly betray us into trouble, Peter; and as I guess you mean one of the forced traders, we will venture in her, rather than kick about here any longer, and pay a moderate sum for our passage.”
“Den wait here five minute,”—and so saying he slipt down through the embrasure into a canoe that lay beneath, and in a trice we saw him jump on board of a long low nondescript kind of craft, that lay moored within pistol-shot of the walls.
She was a large shallow vessel, coppered to the bends, of great breadth of beam, with bright sides, like an American, so painted as to give her a clumsy mercantile sheer externally, but there were many things that belied this to a nautical eye: her copper, for instance, was bright as burnished gold on her very sharp bows and beautiful run; and we could see from the bastion where we stood, that her decks were flush and level. She had no cannon mounted that were visible, but we distinguished grooves on her well-scrubbed decks, as from the recent traversing of carronade slides, while the bolts and rings in her high and solid bulwarks shone clear and bright in the ardent noontide. There was a tarpawling stretched over a quantity of rubbish, old sails, old junk, and hencoops rather ostentatiously piled up forward, which we conjectured might conceal a long gun.
She was a very taught-rigged hermaphrodite, or brig forward and schooner aft. Her foremast and bowsprit were immensely strong and heavy, and her mainmast was so long and tapering, that the wonder was, how the few shrouds and stays about it could support it: it was the handsomest stick we had ever seen. Her upper spars were on the same scale, tapering away through topmast, topgallant-mast, royal and skysail-masts, until they fined away into slender wands. The sails, that were loose to dry, were old, and patched, And evidently displayed to cloak the character of the vessel, by an ostentatious show of their unserviceable condition, but her rigging was beautifully fitted, every rope lying in the chafe of another being carefully served with hide. There were several large bushy-whiskered fellows lounging about the deck, with their hair gathered into dirty net bags, like the fishermen of Barcelona; many had red silk sashes round their waists, through which were stuck their long knives, in shark-skin sheaths. Their numbers were not so great as to excite suspicion; but a certain daring reckless manner, would at once have distinguished them, independently of any thing else, from the quiet, hard-worked, redshirted merchant seaman.
“That chap is not much to be trusted,” said the Lieutenant; “his bunting would make a few jackets for Joseph, I take it.” But we had little time to be critical before our friend Peter came paddling back with another blackamoor in the stem, of as ungainly an exterior as could well be, imagined. He was a very large man, whose weight every now and then, as they breasted the short sea, cocked up the snout of the canoe with Peter Mangrove in it, as if he had been a cork, leaving him to flourish his paddle in the air, like the weatherwheel of a steam-boat in a sea-way. The new-comer was strong and broad-shouldered, with long muscular arms, and a chest like Hercules; but his legs and thighs were, for his bulk, remarkably puny and misshapen. A thick fell of black wool, in close tufts, as if his face had been stuck full of cloves, covered his chin and upper lip; and his hair, if hair it could be called, was twisted into a hundred short plaits, that bristled out, and gave his head, when he took his hat off, the appearance of a porcupine. There was a large sabre-cut across his nose, and down his cheek, and he wore two immense gold earings. His dress consisted of short cotton drawers, that did not reach within two inches of his knee, leaving his thin cucumber shanks (on which the small bullet-like calf appeared to have been stuck before, through mistake, in place of abaft) naked to the shoe; a check shirt, and an enormously large Panama hat, made of a sort of cane, split small, and worn shovel-fashion. Notwithstanding, he made his bow by no means ungracefully, and offered his services in choice Spanish, but spoke English as soon as he heard who we were.
“Pray, sir, are you the master of that vessel?” said the lieutenant.
“No, sir, I am the mate, and I learn you are desirous of a passage to Jamaica.” This was spoken with a broad Scotch accent.
“Yes, we are,” said I, in very great astonishment; “but we will not sail with the devil; and who ever saw a negro Scotchman before, the spirit of Nicol Jarvie conjured into a blackamoor’s skin!”
The fellow laughed. “I am black, as you see; so were my father and mother before me.” And he looked at me, as much as to say, I have read the book you quote from. “But I was born in the good town of Port—Glasgow, notwithstanding, and many a voyage I have made as cabin-boy and cook, in the good ship the Peggy Bogle, with worthy old jock Hunter; but that matters not. I was told you wanted to go to Jamaica; I dare say our captain will take you for a moderate passage-money. But here he comes to speak for himself.—Captain Vanderbosh, here are two shipwrecked British officers, who wish to be put on shore on the east end of Jamaica; will you take them, and what will you charge for their passage?”
The man he spoke to was nearly as tall as himself; he was a sunburnt, angular, raw-boned, iron-visaged veteran, with a nose in shape and colour like the bowl of his own pipe, but not at all, according to the received idea, like a Dutchman. His dress was quizzicaly enough, white trowsers, a long-flapped embroidered waistcoat, that might have belonged to a Spanish grandee, with an old-fashioned French-cut coat, showing the frayed marks where the lace had been stripped off, voluminous in the skirts, but very tight in the sleeves, which were so short as to leave his large bony paws, and six inches of his arm above the wrist, exposed; altogether, it fitted him like a purser’s shirt on a handspike.
“Vy, for von hondred thaler, I will land dem safe in Mancheoneal Bay; but how shall ve manage, Villiamson? De cabin vas point yesterday.”
The Scotch negro nodded. “Never mind; I dare say the smell of the paint won’t signify to the gentlemen.”
The bargain was ratified, we agreed to pay the stipulated sum, and that same evening, having dropped down with the last of the seabreeze, we set sail from Bocca Chica, and began working up under the lee of the headland of Punto Canoa. When off the San Domingo Gate, we burned a blue light, which was immediately answered by another in shore of us. In the glare, we could perceive two boats, full of men. Any one who has ever played at snapdragon, can imagine the unearthly appearance of objects when seen by this species of firework. In the present instance, it was held aloft on a boat-hook, and cast a strong spectral light on the band of lawless ruffians, who were so crowded together, that they entirely filled the boats, no part of which could be seen. It seemed as if two clusters of fiends, suddenly vomited forth from hell, were floating on the surface of the midnight sea, in the midst of brimstone flames. In a few moments, our crew was strengthened by about forty as ugly Christians as I ever set eyes on. They were of all ages, countries, complexions, and tongues, and looked as if they had been kidnapped by a pressgang, as they had knocked off from the Tower of Babel. From the moment they came on board, Captain Vanderbosh was shorn of all his glory, and sank into the petty officer, while, to our amazement, the Scottish negro took the command, evincing great coolness, energy, and skill. He ordered the schooner to be wore, as soon as we had shipped the men, and laid her head off the land, then set all hands to shift the old suit of sails, and to bend new ones.
“Why did you not shift your canvass before we started?” said I to the Dutch captain, or mate, or whatever he might be.
“Vy vont you be content to take a quiet passage and hax no question?” was the uncivil rejoinder, which I felt inclined to resent, until I remembered that we were in the hands of the Philistines, where a quarrel would have been worse than useless. I was gulping down the insult as well as I could, when the black captain came-aft, and, with the air of an equal, invited us into the cabin to take a glass of grog. We had scarcely sat down before we heard a noise like the swaying up of guns, or some other heavy articles, from the hold.
I caught Mr Splinter’s eye—he nodded, but said nothing. In half an hour afterwards, when we went on deck, we saw by the light of the moon, twelve eighteen-pound carronades mounted, six of a side, with their accompaniments of rammers and sponges, water buckets, boxes of round, grape, and canister, and tubs of wadding, while the combings of the hatchways were thickly studded with round shot. The tarpawling and lumber forward had disappeared, and there lay long Tom ready levelled, grinning on his pivot.
The ropes were all coiled away, and laid down in regular man-of-war fashion; while an ugly gruff beast of a Spanish mulatto, apparently the officer of the watch, walked the weather-side of the quarter-deck, in the true pendulum style. Look-outs were placed aft, and at the gangways and bows, who every now and then passed the word to keep a bright look-out, while the rest of the watch were stretched silent, but evidently broad awake, under the lee of the boat. We noticed that each man had his cutlass buckled round his waist, that the boarding-pikes had been cut loose from the main boom, round which they had been stopped, and that about thirty muskets were ranged along a fixed-rack, that ran athwart ships, near the main hatchway.
By the time we had reconnoitred thus far, the night became overcast, and a thick bank of clouds began to rise to windward; some heavy drops of rain fell, and the thunder grumbled at a distance. The black veil crept gradually on, until it shrouded the whole firmament, and left us in as dark a night as ever poor devils were out in. By and by, a narrow streak of bright moonlight appeared under the lower edge of the bank, defining the dark outlines of the tumbling multitudinous billows on the horizon, as distinctly as if they had been pasteboard waves in a theatre.
“Is that a sail to windward, in the clear, think you?” said Mr Splinter to me in a whisper. At this moment it lightened vividly. “I am sure it is,” continued he—“I could see her white canvass glance just now.”
I looked steadily, and, at last, caught the small dark speck against the bright background, rising and falling on the swell of the sea like a feather.
As we stood on, she was seen more distinctly, but, to all appearance, nobody was aware of her proximity. We were mistaken in this, however, for the captain suddenly jumped on a gun, and gave his orders with a fiery energy that startled us.
“Leroux!” A small French boy was at his side in a moment. “Forward, and call all hands to shorten sail; but, doucement, you land crab!—Man the fore clew-garnets.—Hands by the topgallant clewlines-peak and throat haulyards—jib down-haul—rise tacks and sheets—let go—clew up—settle away the main—gaff there!”
In almost as short a space as I have taken to write it, every inch of canvass was close furled—every light, except the one in the binnacle, and that was cautiously masked, carefully extinguished—a hundred and twenty men at quarters, and the ship under bare poles. The head yards were then squared, and we bore up before the wind. The stratagem proved successful; the strange sail could be seen through the night glasses, cracking on close to the wind, evidently under the impression that we had tacked.
“Dere she goes, chasing de Gobel,” said the Dutchman.
She now burned a blue light, by which we saw she was a heavy cutter without doubt our old fellow-cruiser the Spark. The Dutchman had come to the same conclusion.
“My eye, Captain, no use to dodge from her; it is only dat footy little King’s cutter on de Jamaica station.”
“It is her, true enough,” answered Williamson; “and she is from Santa Martha with a freight of specie, I know. I will try a brush with her by....”
Splinter struck in before he could finish his irreverent exclamation. “If your conjecture be true, I know the craft—a heavy vessel of her class, and you may depend on hard knocks, and small profit if you do take her; while, if she takes you”—
“I’ll be hanged if she does”—and he grinned at the conceit—then setting his teeth hard, “or rather, I will blow the schooner up with my own hand before I strike; better that than have one’s bones bleached in chains on a key at Port Royal.—But, you see you cannot control us, gentlemen; so get down into the cable tier and take Peter Mangrove with you. I would not willingly see those come to harm who have trusted me.”
However, there was no shot flying as yet, we therefore staid on deck. All sail was once more made; the carronades were cast loose on both sides, and double-shotted; the long gun slewed round; the tack of the fore-and-aft foresail hauled up, and we kept by the wind, and stood after the cutter, whose white canvass we could still see through the gloom like a snow-wreath.
As soon as she saw us she tacked and stood towards us, and came bowling along gallantly, with the water roaring and flashing at her bows. As the vessels neared each other, they both shortened sail, and finding that we could not weather her, we steered close under her lee.
As we crossed on opposite tacks her commander hailed, “Ho, the brigantine, ahoy!”
“Hillo!” sung out Blackie, as he backed his maintopsail.
“What schooner is that?”
“The Spanish schooner Caridad.”
“Whence, and whither bound?”
“Carthagena to Porto Rico.”
“Heave-to, and send your boat on board.”
“We have none that will swim, sir.”
“Very well—bring-to, and I will send mine.”
“Call away the boarders,” said our captain, in a low stern tone; “let them crouch out of sight behind the boat.”
The cutter wore, and hove-to under our lee quarter, within pistol shot. We heard the rattle of the ropes running through the davit blocks, and the splash of the jolly boat touching the water, then the measured stroke of the oars, as they glanced like silver in the sparkling sea, and a voice calling out, “Give way, my lads.”
The character of the vessel we were on board of was now evident; and the bitter reflection that we were chained to the stake on board of a pirate, on the eve of a fierce contest with one of our own cruisers, was aggravated by the consideration that the cutter had fallen into a snare, by which a whole boat’s crew would be sacrificed before a shot was fired.
I watched my opportunity as she pulled up alongside, and called out, leaning well over the nettings, “Get back to your ship! treachery! get back to your ship!”
The little French serpent was at my side with the speed of thought, his long clear knife glancing in one hand, while the fingers of the other were laid on his lips. He could not have said more plainly, “Hold your tongue or I’ll cut your throat;” but Sneezer now startled him by rushing between us, and giving a short angry growl.
The officer in the boat had heard me imperfectly; he rose up—“I won’t go back, my good man, until I see what you are made of; and as he spoke he sprung on board, but the instant he got over the bulwarks he was caught by two strong hands, gagged and thrown bodily down the main hatchway.
“Heave,” cried a voice, “and with a will!” and four cold 32-pound shot were hove at once into the boat alongside, which crashing through her bottom, swamped her in a moment, precipitating the miserable crew into the boiling sea. Their shrieks still ring in my ears as they clung to the oars and some loose planks of the boat.
“Bring up the officer, and take out the gag,” said Williamson.
Poor Walcolm, who had been an old messmate of mine, was now dragged to the gangway half-naked, his face bleeding, and heavily ironed, when the blackamoor, clapping a pistol to his head, bid him, as he feared instant death, hail “that the boat had swamped under the counter, and to send another.” The poor fellow, who appeared stunned and confused, did so, but without seeming to know what he said.
“Good God,” said Mr Splinter, “don’t you mean to pick up the boat’s crew?”
The blood curdled to my heart as the black savage answered in a voice of thunder, “Let them drown and be d——d! fill, and stand on!”
But the clouds by this time broke away, and the mild moon shone clear and bright once more, upon this scene of most atrocious villainy. By her light the cutter’s people could see that there was no one struggling in the water now, and that the people must either have been saved, or were past all earthly aid; but the infamous deception was not entirely at an end.
The captain of the cutter, seeing we were making sail, did the same, and after having shot ahead of us, hailed once more.
“Mr Walcolm, why don’t you run to leeward, and heave-to, sir?”
“Answer him instantly, and hail again for another boat,” said the sable fiend, and cocked his pistol.
The click went to my heart. The young midshipman turned his pale mild countenance, laced with his blood, upwards towards the moon and stars, as one who had looked his last look on earth; the large tears were flowing down his cheeks, and mingling with the crimson streaks, and a flood of silver light fell on the fine features of the poor boy, as he said firmly, “Never.” The miscreant fired, and he fell dead.
“Up with the helm, and wear across her stern.” The order was obeyed. “Fire!” The whole broadside was poured in, and we could hear the shot rattle and tear along the cutter’s deck, and the shrieks and groans of the wounded, while the white splinters glanced away in all directions.
We now ranged alongside, and close action commenced, and never do I expect to see such an infernal scene again. Up to this moment there had been neither confusion nor noise on board the pirate—all had been coolness and order; but when the yards locked, the crew broke loose from all control they ceased to be men they were demons, for they threw their own dead and wounded, as they were mown down like grass by the cutter’s grape, indiscriminately down the hatchways to get clear of them. They had stript themselves almost naked; and although they fought with the most desperate courage, yelling and cursing, each in his own tongue, most hideously, yet their very numbers, pent up in a small vessel, were against them. At length, amidst the fire, and smoke, and hellish uproar, we could see that the deck had become a very shambles; and unless they soon carried the cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of my own glorious service must prevail, even against such fearful odds, the superior size of the vessel, greater number of guns, and heavier metal. The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate attempt forward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black captain. Just at this moment, the cutter’s main-boom fell across the schooner’s deck, close to where we were sheltering ourselves from the shot the best way we could; and while the rush forward was being made, by a sudden impulse Splinter and I, followed by Peter and the dog, (who with wonderful sagacity, seeing the uselessness of resistance, had cowered quietly by my side during the whole row) scrambled along it as the cutter’s people were repelling the attack on her bow, and all four of us in our haste jumped down on the poor Irishman at the wheel.
“Murder, fire, rape, and robbery! it is capsized, stove in, sunk, burned, and destroyed I am! Captain, Captain, we are carried aft here—Och, hubbaboo for Patrick Donnally!”
There was no time to be lost; if any of the crew came aft, we were dead men, so we tumbled down through the cabin skylight, men and beast, the hatch having been knocked off by a shot, and stowed ourselves away in the side berths. The noise on deck soon ceased the cannon were again plied gradually the fire slackened, and we could hear that the pirate had scraped clear and escaped. Some time after this, the lieutenant commanding the cutter came down. Poor Mr Douglas! both Mr Splinter and I knew him well. He sat down and covered his face with his hands, while the blood oozed down between his fingers. He had received a cutlass wound on the head in the attack. His right arm was bound up with his neckcloth, and he was very pale.
“Steward, bring me a light.—Ask the doctor how many are killed and wounded; and, do you hear, tell him to come to me when he is done forward, but not a moment sooner. To have been so mauled and duped by a cursed buccaneer; and my poor boat’s crew.”
Splinter groaned. He started—but at this moment the man returned again.
“Thirteen killed, your honour, and fifteen wounded; scarcely one of us untouched.” The poor fellow’s own skull was bound round with a bloody cloth.
“God help me! God help me! but they have died the death of men. Who knows what death the poor fellows in the boat have died?” Here he was cut short by a tremendous scuffle on the ladder, down which an old quarter-master was trundled neck and crop into the cabin. “How now, Jones?”
“Please your honour,” said the man, as soon as he had gathered himself up, and had time to turn his quid, and smooth down his hair; but again the uproar was renewed, and Donnally was lugged in, scrambling and struggling, between two seamen—“this here Irish chap, your honour, has lost his wits, if so be he ever had any, your honour. He has gone mad through fright.”
“Fright be d——d!” roared Donnally; “no man ever frightened me: but as his honour was skewering them bloody thieves forward, I was boarded and carried aft by the devil, your honour—pooped by Beelzebub, by—,” and he rapped his fist on the table until every thing on it danced again. “There were four of them, yeer honour—a black one and two blue ones—and a piebald one, with four legs and a bushy tail—each with two horns on his head, for all the world like those on Father M’Cleary’s red cow—no, she was humbled—it is Father Clannachan’s I mane—no, not his neither, for his was the parish bull; fait, I don’t know what I mane, except that they had all horns on their heads, and vomited fire, and had each of them a tail at his stem, twisting and twining like a conger eel, with a blue light at the end on’t.”
“And dat’s a lie, if ever dere was one,” exclaimed Peter Mangrove, jumping from the berth. “Look at me, you Irish tief, and tell me if I have a blue light or a conger eel at my stem?”
This was too much for poor Donnally. He yelled out, “You’ll believe your own eyes now, yeer honour, when you see one o’dem bodily before you! Let me go—let me go” and, rushing up the ladder, he would, in all probability, have ended his earthly career in the salt sea, had his bullet head not encountered the broadest part of the purser, who was in the act of descending, with such violence, that he shot him out of the companion several feet above the deck, as if he had been discharged from a culverin; but the recoil sent poor Donnally, stunned and senseless, to the bottom of the ladder. There was no standing all this; we laughed outright, and made ourselves known to Mr Douglas, who received us cordially, and in a week we were landed at Port Royal.