Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.The Greek Bandit.A Reminiscence of a Yachting Cruise in the Aegean Sea.Some few years ago, when I was a youngster, I had what was then the great desire of my heart gratified by being allowed to accompany a party on a yachting cruise to the Mediterranean.How I enjoyed myself, and how tragically our cruise nearly terminated, I will now proceed to tell.There were six of us in all on board the yacht. There was dad, one; Captain Buncombe, two; Mr Joe Moynham, three; Bob, four; myself, Charley, five; and dog Rollo, six—though I think, by rights, I ought to have counted Rollo first, as he was the best of us all, and certainly thought the least of himself—brave, fine, black, curly old fellow that he was!Just as you fellows in England were having the nastiest part of the winter, when there is no skating or snowballing, and only drenching rain and easterly winds, that bring colds and coughs and mumps, we were enjoying the loveliest of blue skies and jolly warm weather, that made swimming in the sea a luxury, and ices after dinner seem like a taste of nectar. We did enjoy ourselves; and had a splendid cruise up the old Mediterranean, going everywhere and seeing everything that was to be seen. Oh, it was jolly! The yacht stopped at Gibraltar, where we climbed the rock and saw the monkeys that lived in the caverns on the top; at Malta, where we went up the “Nothing to Eat” stairs mentioned inMidshipman Easy: and then, sailing up the Levant, theMoonshine—she was eighty tons, and the crack of the RYS—was laid up at anchor for a long time at Alexandria, while we went ashore, going through the Suez Canal, across the desert to Cairo, and thence to the pyramids, after which we started for Greece.You must know, before we get any further, that Bob and I didn’t want to go anywhere near Greece at all! We had good reasons for this dislike. There were dad and Captain Buncombe—who was what people call an archaeologist, fond of grubbing up old stones and skeletons, and digging like an old mole amongst ruins—continually talking all day long about Marathon and Hymettus, the Parthenon and Chersonese, the Acropolis, and Theseus and Odysseus and all the rest of them, bothering our lives out with questions about Homer and theIliad, and all such stuff; so, I put it to you candidly, whether it wasn’t almost as bad as being back again at school, making a fellow feel small who was shaky in his Greek and had a bad memory for history?However, we had scarcely anchored in the Piraeus when some events happened which drove the classics out of the heads of our elders; and I may say that thenceforth we heard no more about the ancients.There had been a sharp squall shortly before, in which we had been amused by seeing the smart little zebeques, with their snowy white lateen sails, flying before the wind like a flock of small birds frightened by a hawk; and theMoonshinewas just coming up to the wind in order to let go her anchor, when Bob and I, who were close together on the forecastle, watching the men preparing for running out and bitting the cable, saw, almost at the same moment, a man’s head in the water right in front of the yacht’s forefoot; then—it all happened as suddenly as a flash of lightning—his hands were thrown up as if in entreaty, although we heard no cry, and he disappeared.“Man overboard!” sang out one of the crew, who was pulling away at the jib down-haul in order to stow the sail, the halliards having been cast loose, “Man overboard!” in a voice which rang through the vessel fore and aft, and attracted everybody’s attention.“Hi! Rollo, good dog!” cried out Bob, turning round sharp to where the brave old fellow had been lying on the deck not a moment before, flopping his tail lazily, and with his great red tongue lolling out, as though he laughed cheerily at everything going on around him.“Hi! Rollo!” said I too, in almost the same breath with Bob. “Fetch him out, good dog!” and I turned round also.But the dog was gone.Bob and I were “nonplussed.” We had both seen Rollo there not—why, not a second before. And now he was gone.However, we soon discovered the noble fellow and the cause of his absence.The cry of “Man overboard!” had startled everybody, so that the anchor had not been let go; and the steersman’s attention, naturally, having been taken up, the yacht had paid off again instead of bringing up, and her head had swung; consequently, what had been ahead of us just before was now astern, and we were quite confused as to our bearings.While we were looking in perplexity in every direction but the right one, Captain Buncombe, who was at the wheel, and perhaps anxious to atone for his carelessness in letting theMoonshineswing round, shouted out “Bravo!” waving his hat like a madman. Of course all our several pairs of eyes were turned on him at once.“There he is—there he is—the brave old fellow!” cried the captain, letting go the helm in his eagerness, and pointing with his hat—waving hand to the water under the stern. “Look aft, you duffers! Where are your eyes? Bravo, Rollo! good dog! Hold up, old fellow! I’m coming to help you!” and with these words, before you could say “Jack Robinson,” Captain Buncombe had thrown off his coat, pitched away the hat he had been waving, jumped over the taffrail of the yacht into the bosom of the blue Aegean Sea, and was rapidly swimming to where we could see dear old Rollo’s black head and splashing paws as he supported a man in the yacht’s wake, and tried to drag him towards us in theMoonshine.We gave a “Hooray!” which you might have heard at Charing Cross if you had been listening!Captain Buncombe and Rollo, with their burden, were so near the yacht that there was no necessity for lowering the gig as we had hastened to do; and in a very little time we hauled them on board—Rollo jumping about in the highest spirits, as if he had been just having a quiet lark on his own account; but the rescued person was limp and insensible, though he presently came to by the aid of hot-water bottles and blankets. TheMoonshinethen made another start, and succeeded better in anchoring in a respectable fashion, as she had always been accustomed to do.The man was a handsome young fellow, with black hair and piercing eyes—a Greek, he told us in French which he spoke fluently—although he had not that treacherous cast of countenance which most of his countrymen possess. He was profuse in the thanks which he bestowed broadcast for our saving him from drowning, although Rollo had really all the credit of it. His name was Stephanos Pericles, he said, and he was crossing to Salamis, when the squall came on, and his boat was upset. He had been dragged under water by the boat and almost suffocated before he could get to the surface, being quite exhausted when the dog gripped him. For Rollo had seen him before any of us, and had not waited for our directions as to what to do.“I’m a soldier,” he said, proudly tapping his chest, and looking round at dad and the captain, and Mr Moynham. “I’ve eaten your bread,”—he had dinner with us after he had got all right again, and we had settled down into that general routine in which our meals were attended to with the strictest punctuality—“and I shall never forget you have saved my life. By that bread I have eaten, I will repay you, I swear!”Then turning to Bob and I, who were sitting on each side of him, and Rollo, who stuck close to him, as if under the idea that having saved him he was now his property—“And much thanks to you, little Englishmen, and your dogs I vill nevare forget, no nevare!”He couldn’t speak English as well as French. The evening had closed now, so Captain Buncombe told the crew to get the boat ready, and the Greek with many more fervent expressions of gratitude, was rowed ashore.The next morning we had landed and after pottering about the port proceeded up to Athens, which much disappointed all of us, especially dad and the captain. It had a garish and stucco-like appearance; while the people looked as if they were costumed for a fancy ball, being not apparently at home in their national dress, picturesque though it was. It was quite nightmarish for Bob and me to read the names on the shop fronts in the streets, and see the newspapers printed in the old Greek characters. Fancy “Modiste,” and “Perruquier,” as they will have the French terms spelt, in the letters sacred to Euripides and Xenophon. It seemed like walking in a dream!We had inspected Athens, as I’ve said, and visited the plain of Marathon, which was offered by the Greeks to Lord Byron for sixteen thousand piastres, or about eight hundred pounds—alas for glory!—and returned on board the yacht for dinner again, when we were told that a messenger had been off in our absence and left a parcel for us. What do you think it contained? Guess.Well, there was a splendid shawl, worth more than a hundred guineas, for Captain Buncombe, and a handsome jewelled pipe for dad; while Mr Joe Moynham had a case of Greek wines for his special self!Bob and I were not forgotten either. He had a fine gun, with the stock inlaid with ivory, and carved beautifully; and I, a yataghan, decorated with a jewelled hilt, that was even more valuable than dad’s pipe. Rollo was presented with a grand gold collar, which Mr Joe Moynham said was like the one that Malachi, one of the Irish kings, wore in the days of Brian Boru; and, if you please, a lot of little purses, each containing a handsome present, were sent also in the parcel—a good big one, you may be sure—for distribution amongst the crew. It was princely gratitude, wasn’t it, in spite of the slighting way in which Mr Moynham had spoken of the modern Greeks and their ways? However, he had to “take it all back,” as he said, when he drank the health of Monsieur Pericles—who seemed, by the way, to be much better off than his illustrious ancestor, and whom we put down as the Sultan Haroun el Raschid in disguise—in a glass of the very wine that he had sent on board the yacht.But that wasn’t the end of it all, by any means:— why, I am only just coming to my real story now.Time rolled on—when I say “time,” of course, I only mean hours and days as we mean, not years and centuries as the ancients calculated the lapse of time—and we managed to see everything that sight-seers see in the city of Minerva.Having nothing else to look at close at hand, therefore, we determined to go on our travels, like Ulysses; not amongst the islands, which we had already visited, but towards the mountains, Captain Buncombe having made a vow ere he left England to see the ruins of Thebes, after which, he said, he would have no further object in life, and would perform the Japanese feat of the “happy despatch!”We had horses, and mules, and donkeys for the journey; that is, dad and the captain rode horses, there were mules for our traps and food, which we had to take along with us, thanks to the hospitality of the regions we were going to, while the donkeys were for Bob and me and Mr Moynham. That gentleman, who would be very positive when he liked, declared that no earthly consideration should compel him to mount the Bucephalus that was provided for him. He said that a horse was expressly stated by King David to be “a vain thing to save a man,” and so why should he go against that ruling?The first part of our journey went off as jolly as possible: the way was good; the scenery—although I confess I didn’t trouble my head very much about it—though dad and the captain were in raptures with it—magnificent; the halts, just at the right time, although all in classic places, whose names Bob and I hated the sound of; the food was first-rate, and Mr Moynham so funny, that he nearly made me roll off my donkey every now and then with laughter. But towards evening, when we were all ascending a steep hill, with rocks and thick shrubbery on each side of it, through a narrow defile, a harsh voice suddenly exclaimed through the gloom, something that sounded like the Greek imperative Statheets!Stop! and then again another monosyllable, which we certainly understood better, “Halt!” A gun was also fired off at the same time; and, by the flash of the discharge we could see several long gleaming rifle barrels peering out from the bushes on either side of the way.“Brigands!” ejaculated the guides together, tumbling prostrate on the ground pell-mell, as if they had been swept down.“Fascia a terra! Ventre à terre!” shouted out the same hoarse voice again, and a volley was fired over our heads.“Pleasant!” said Mr Moynham, throwing himself down with his face to the ground like the cowardly guides. “But I suppose we’d better do as these gentry require, or else they’ll be hitting us under the fifth buttonhole; and, what would become of us then?”“Fascia a terra!” repeated the leader of the brigands, emerging from a clump of shrubbery at the head of the pass, motioning his arms violently at dad and the captain, who were inclined to show fight at first; but discretion proved the better part of valour, and they both dropped the pistols they had hurriedly drawn from their pockets, seeing that the rifle barrels covered them, sinking down prone on the earth like the rest of us.Rollo, however, poor brave old fellow, made one dash at the ruffian as he threatened dad; and, seizing him by the throat, dashed him to the ground.Poor fellow, the next moment he had a stiletto jammed into him, which made him sink down bleeding, with a faint howl, to which Bob and I responded with a cry, as if we felt the blow ourselves!The moment dad and Captain Buncombe heard Rollo’s howl and our cry, they jumped up again like lightning, and began hitting out right and left at the brigands who now surrounded us; and Mr Moynham was not behind, I can tell you! He butted one big chap right in the pit of the stomach, and sent him tumbling down the defile, his body rattling against the stones, and he swearing like mad all the time. Bob and I scrambled at them as best we could, catching hold of their legs and tripping them up; but they were too many for us, for the cowardly guides did not stir hand or foot to help us, but lay stretched like logs along the ground, although they were unbound. We were certain that they were in league with the robbers; and so, without doubt, they were, for, if they had only assisted us, now that their assailants had dropped their firearms, and were engaged in a regular rough-and-tumble fight, we could have mastered them, I’m sure, as, counting Bob and myself in, we were nearly man for man as many as they were.The struggle did not last long, although dad and the captain held out bravely to the last, flooring the brigands one after another, and knocking them down as if they had been nine-pins. They were presently tied securely, with their arms behind them, and menaced with death if they stirred, by a brawny ruffian touching each of their heads with a pistol barrel. As for Bob and me, they did not think it necessary to tie us.“Well, this is a delightful ending to our picnic,” said Mr Moynham in lugubrious tones, as we all lay on the ground, with the exception of the guides, who appeared to mingle freely with the robbers, who were grouped in picturesque attitudes around us, leaning on their carbines. “I wonder what’s their little game?”The leader presently gave an order, and our seniors were then each lifted on to a horse or mule, and tied securely there.“At all events,” said Mr Moynham, who kept up his spirits still wonderfully, “we sha’n’t fall off, that’s one comfort, and so we’ll have the less bruises after the scrimmage!”Although the chief brigand scowled at me, he allowed me to lift poor Rollo, who was not dead as I had feared, and I bandaged his neck where the wound was with my handkerchief, and took him up in front of me.The leader then spoke vehemently in his own language to one of the treacherous guides, who approached dad as if to speak.“Away, scoundrel!” said dad, wrathfully. “Don’t speak to me; I would kill you if I were free, for leading us into this ambush!”The man, however, urged again by the chief, who raised his pistol ominously at dad, approached him once more.“The Albanian chief says that if twenty thousand piastres apiece, or one hundred thousand piastres in all, are not paid for you by sunset here to-morrow evening, you shall all be shot in cold blood, and your doom be on your own heads.”“Tell your chief, or thief, or whatever ruffian he is, that none of us will pay a penny. Our friends at Athens will miss us, and you’ll have the palikari after you all in hot haste if I’m not back to-night safe.”“The English lord forgets that he left word that he might remain for two days on the mountains, and his friends will not think him missing before to-morrow night: at that time, the English lord and his friends, and the little lords, will be all dead men if the ransom be not paid.”“What on earth shall I do, Buncombe?” asked dad of the captain. “Shall I write an order on my bankers for the money to be sent? One hundred thousand piastres will be about five thousand pounds—I don’t know whether my credit will be good for that amount?”“Your credit and mine will be sufficient,” Captain Buncombe said; “one can’t trifle with these fellows, for the villains keep their word, I’m told.”The guide again spoke by the chief’s order to dad, as if the tenor of the captain’s words were understood.“The Albanian chief declares that if the ransom be not paid by sunset to-morrow at latest, every one of you shall be shot, and your heads cut off and sent back to Athens in token of your fate.”“Ugh!” said Mr Moynham, shuddering; “I certainly have been a Tory throughout all my life, but I should not like to follow Charles the First’s example.”“I declare it’s disgraceful,” said Captain Buncombe; “I’ll apply to the ambassador. This brigandage is the curse of Greece. I’ll—”“That won’t help us now,” said dad. “I suppose we must write for the ransom, although under protests; for, however much we have to pay, we must remember that our lives are in jeopardy; and that’s the main consideration.”The advice was good; so, a joint letter was despatched to certain influential friends, as well as dad’s banker at Athens, urging that the ransom should be sent in a certain way, to be handed over, as the brigand chief arranged, as we were given up, so that there should be no treachery on either side. The false guides then went off cheerfully down hill towards the plains, whilst our cavalcade, encompassed by the brigands, moved towards those mountain fastnesses, “where they resided when they were at home,” as Mr Moynham said.Up and down hill and dale, we seemed in the darkness to be penetrating miles into the country; until, at last, passing, as well as we could see from the gloom, which was almost impenetrable, through a narrow glen between steep peaks, we suddenly turned a corner of a projecting rock, and found ourselves on an elevated plateau on the top of the mountains, where a strange scene awaited us. A number of ruddy watch-fires were burning with red and smoky light, and around these sat, reclined, or moved about, in a variety of active employments, a number of dark forms, most of which were robust Arnauts, clad in their national dress, which in the distance is not unlike that seen among Highlandmen, consisting as it does of a snowy white kilt, green velvet jacket, and bright-coloured scarf wound round the waist. Here and there, the glare from the firelight was reflected from the barrels of guns, rifles, and matchlocks, which the owners were cleaning or examining; while, before several of the fires cooking operations were going on. Kids, whole sheep, and pieces of raw flesh, were being slowly broiled, hanging from bits of stick stuck in the ground, or suspended by pieces of string attached to the branches of the overhanging trees that encircled the plateau. This added to the “effect” of the scene.“Quite operatic, and better than old Drury,” I heard Mr Moynham say; but we were all too depressed and uncomfortable from our constrained attitudes to feel inclined to appreciate the picturesque, the brigands having taken us off the horses, and flung us down on the ground, having this time bound even Bob and myself; indeed, they treated us with even less attention than they would have bestowed on anything eatable, judging by the care they evinced in their cuisine, although they did not offer us anything either to eat or drink, much to Mr Moynham’s great chagrin especially, nor did they give us the slightest covering to protect us from the night air when the waning watch-fires told us that bedtime—save the mark—had arrived. I suppose they thought that it did not much matter if we did catch cold, considering that we were going to be shot within twenty-four hours!Tired out with fatigue, we finally sank to rest in the same place where we were first pitched down, not awaking till late the next morning, when we found most of the brigands had departed—to look-out for other “welcome guests” like ourselves, I suppose! Only three were left to guard us, but they were quite enough, considering that we were tied up fast, and couldn’t move if we wished.How slowly that day dragged out! We thought it would never end. They gave us some hard coarse dry bread to eat and water to drink, nothing else; and the hours dragged themselves slowly along, as if they would never end.Our hopes gradually sank, as the sun declined in the heavens, for we watched the progress of the glowing orb with almost the devoted zeal of the followers of Zoroaster.At last, just as it was within half an hour of sunset as nearly as we could calculate, we heard a tumult as of many voices in the ravine leading to the plateau; and, presently, the man whom we had conceived to be the leader of the brigands advanced towards us, in company with his band, now largely reinforced by others. At a word from him our bonds were untied, and we were assisted to our feet, on which we could not stand firmly for some little time, on account of the want of circulation of our blood during the long time we had been in such constrained attitudes.The guide who had previously acted the part of interpreter after betraying us—although, by the way, he told us before he left us that he belonged to the band, and thus, perhaps, had only acted honourably according to his creed—then translated what the leader had to say.Our ransom had been paid, and we were free to go down the mountains. The horses, mules, and everything belonging to us would be restored, and a trusty guide—the speaker, of course—would put us in the direct route to Athens, but as near the city as possible; and, finally, the chief begged that we would excuse the rough treatment to which we had been subjected, as he had a great regard for us!“It was all very well to dissemble his love,” quoted Mr Moynham; “but,—why did he kick us down-stairs?”“The chief!—which chief, or thief?” said dad sternly. He did not feel particularly pleased with the Arnauts or their leader. “I’ve had enough of the scoundrels already, and the sooner I lose sight of them the better! What do you mean by the chief?”“He means me!” said a gorgeous individual, all green velvet jacket, and gold braid, and red sash, with a cap set rakishly on the side of his head in the front of which glittered a diamond of surpassing brilliancy.We had noticed this individual before, but not especially, and he had been rather hidden by the figure of the man we looked upon as the leader: now he stepped forward, and we could see his face plainly, as we recognised the voice.Who do you think it was?Why, Stephanos Pericles, the man whom we had saved from drowning, and who had sent us those handsome presents!“Why have we met with this treatment at your hands?” said papa, puzzled at the Greek’s behaviour.“You have nothing to complain of,” said Stephanos, with an air of courteous nobility which exasperated the captain to that degree that I saw him clenching and unclenching his fists, and dancing about, as Mr Moynham said afterwards, “like a hen on a hot griddle.”“My dear sir, you have nothing really to complain of,” said the Greek. “You saved my life, I admit, and I think I politely expressed my obligations at the time. In return I now present you with five lives, independently of that of the dog, which, I am sorry to see, has been hurt.”“But the ransom?” said dad.“Oh, I’m sorry I had to insist on that,” said Stephanos, placidly; “but it is one of our rules to enforce such in all cases, and I’m sorry that I could not let you off, although my friendship yearned to set you free without it. You must really please excuse the treatment you have met with. If I had known who honoured me with their company, I’m sure you would have had no reason to be dissatisfied with my hospitality. Thenexttime you favour me with your presence, my lord—”“The next time you catch me here, or anywhere else on Greek ground,” laughed my father in a hearty “Ho! ho!” in which all of us joined, “you may cut me up into kabobs and cook and eat me, and welcome; for I know I’ll then deserve it!”We got back safe aboard theMoonshineall right, setting sail from the Piraeus next day; but it was a good trick of the brigand chief, wasn’t it—though I can’t say much for his gratitude after all, spite of those magnificent presents, which there was little reason to wonder at his offering us, considering the easy manner in which he got his money?The cut in Rollo’s neck healed soon, and he is now as right as ever he was, excepting a slight scar which tells where the stiletto or dagger went, and he wears still the collar of gold that Stephanos Pericles presented him with. As for the rest of our party, all of us got home safe with theMoonshine, which is now fitting out at Ryde for the coming regatta, where I hope she’ll come off as successfully in carrying off prizes as “THE GREEK BANDIT.”

Some few years ago, when I was a youngster, I had what was then the great desire of my heart gratified by being allowed to accompany a party on a yachting cruise to the Mediterranean.

How I enjoyed myself, and how tragically our cruise nearly terminated, I will now proceed to tell.

There were six of us in all on board the yacht. There was dad, one; Captain Buncombe, two; Mr Joe Moynham, three; Bob, four; myself, Charley, five; and dog Rollo, six—though I think, by rights, I ought to have counted Rollo first, as he was the best of us all, and certainly thought the least of himself—brave, fine, black, curly old fellow that he was!

Just as you fellows in England were having the nastiest part of the winter, when there is no skating or snowballing, and only drenching rain and easterly winds, that bring colds and coughs and mumps, we were enjoying the loveliest of blue skies and jolly warm weather, that made swimming in the sea a luxury, and ices after dinner seem like a taste of nectar. We did enjoy ourselves; and had a splendid cruise up the old Mediterranean, going everywhere and seeing everything that was to be seen. Oh, it was jolly! The yacht stopped at Gibraltar, where we climbed the rock and saw the monkeys that lived in the caverns on the top; at Malta, where we went up the “Nothing to Eat” stairs mentioned inMidshipman Easy: and then, sailing up the Levant, theMoonshine—she was eighty tons, and the crack of the RYS—was laid up at anchor for a long time at Alexandria, while we went ashore, going through the Suez Canal, across the desert to Cairo, and thence to the pyramids, after which we started for Greece.

You must know, before we get any further, that Bob and I didn’t want to go anywhere near Greece at all! We had good reasons for this dislike. There were dad and Captain Buncombe—who was what people call an archaeologist, fond of grubbing up old stones and skeletons, and digging like an old mole amongst ruins—continually talking all day long about Marathon and Hymettus, the Parthenon and Chersonese, the Acropolis, and Theseus and Odysseus and all the rest of them, bothering our lives out with questions about Homer and theIliad, and all such stuff; so, I put it to you candidly, whether it wasn’t almost as bad as being back again at school, making a fellow feel small who was shaky in his Greek and had a bad memory for history?

However, we had scarcely anchored in the Piraeus when some events happened which drove the classics out of the heads of our elders; and I may say that thenceforth we heard no more about the ancients.

There had been a sharp squall shortly before, in which we had been amused by seeing the smart little zebeques, with their snowy white lateen sails, flying before the wind like a flock of small birds frightened by a hawk; and theMoonshinewas just coming up to the wind in order to let go her anchor, when Bob and I, who were close together on the forecastle, watching the men preparing for running out and bitting the cable, saw, almost at the same moment, a man’s head in the water right in front of the yacht’s forefoot; then—it all happened as suddenly as a flash of lightning—his hands were thrown up as if in entreaty, although we heard no cry, and he disappeared.

“Man overboard!” sang out one of the crew, who was pulling away at the jib down-haul in order to stow the sail, the halliards having been cast loose, “Man overboard!” in a voice which rang through the vessel fore and aft, and attracted everybody’s attention.

“Hi! Rollo, good dog!” cried out Bob, turning round sharp to where the brave old fellow had been lying on the deck not a moment before, flopping his tail lazily, and with his great red tongue lolling out, as though he laughed cheerily at everything going on around him.

“Hi! Rollo!” said I too, in almost the same breath with Bob. “Fetch him out, good dog!” and I turned round also.

But the dog was gone.

Bob and I were “nonplussed.” We had both seen Rollo there not—why, not a second before. And now he was gone.

However, we soon discovered the noble fellow and the cause of his absence.

The cry of “Man overboard!” had startled everybody, so that the anchor had not been let go; and the steersman’s attention, naturally, having been taken up, the yacht had paid off again instead of bringing up, and her head had swung; consequently, what had been ahead of us just before was now astern, and we were quite confused as to our bearings.

While we were looking in perplexity in every direction but the right one, Captain Buncombe, who was at the wheel, and perhaps anxious to atone for his carelessness in letting theMoonshineswing round, shouted out “Bravo!” waving his hat like a madman. Of course all our several pairs of eyes were turned on him at once.

“There he is—there he is—the brave old fellow!” cried the captain, letting go the helm in his eagerness, and pointing with his hat—waving hand to the water under the stern. “Look aft, you duffers! Where are your eyes? Bravo, Rollo! good dog! Hold up, old fellow! I’m coming to help you!” and with these words, before you could say “Jack Robinson,” Captain Buncombe had thrown off his coat, pitched away the hat he had been waving, jumped over the taffrail of the yacht into the bosom of the blue Aegean Sea, and was rapidly swimming to where we could see dear old Rollo’s black head and splashing paws as he supported a man in the yacht’s wake, and tried to drag him towards us in theMoonshine.

We gave a “Hooray!” which you might have heard at Charing Cross if you had been listening!

Captain Buncombe and Rollo, with their burden, were so near the yacht that there was no necessity for lowering the gig as we had hastened to do; and in a very little time we hauled them on board—Rollo jumping about in the highest spirits, as if he had been just having a quiet lark on his own account; but the rescued person was limp and insensible, though he presently came to by the aid of hot-water bottles and blankets. TheMoonshinethen made another start, and succeeded better in anchoring in a respectable fashion, as she had always been accustomed to do.

The man was a handsome young fellow, with black hair and piercing eyes—a Greek, he told us in French which he spoke fluently—although he had not that treacherous cast of countenance which most of his countrymen possess. He was profuse in the thanks which he bestowed broadcast for our saving him from drowning, although Rollo had really all the credit of it. His name was Stephanos Pericles, he said, and he was crossing to Salamis, when the squall came on, and his boat was upset. He had been dragged under water by the boat and almost suffocated before he could get to the surface, being quite exhausted when the dog gripped him. For Rollo had seen him before any of us, and had not waited for our directions as to what to do.

“I’m a soldier,” he said, proudly tapping his chest, and looking round at dad and the captain, and Mr Moynham. “I’ve eaten your bread,”—he had dinner with us after he had got all right again, and we had settled down into that general routine in which our meals were attended to with the strictest punctuality—“and I shall never forget you have saved my life. By that bread I have eaten, I will repay you, I swear!”

Then turning to Bob and I, who were sitting on each side of him, and Rollo, who stuck close to him, as if under the idea that having saved him he was now his property—“And much thanks to you, little Englishmen, and your dogs I vill nevare forget, no nevare!”

He couldn’t speak English as well as French. The evening had closed now, so Captain Buncombe told the crew to get the boat ready, and the Greek with many more fervent expressions of gratitude, was rowed ashore.

The next morning we had landed and after pottering about the port proceeded up to Athens, which much disappointed all of us, especially dad and the captain. It had a garish and stucco-like appearance; while the people looked as if they were costumed for a fancy ball, being not apparently at home in their national dress, picturesque though it was. It was quite nightmarish for Bob and me to read the names on the shop fronts in the streets, and see the newspapers printed in the old Greek characters. Fancy “Modiste,” and “Perruquier,” as they will have the French terms spelt, in the letters sacred to Euripides and Xenophon. It seemed like walking in a dream!

We had inspected Athens, as I’ve said, and visited the plain of Marathon, which was offered by the Greeks to Lord Byron for sixteen thousand piastres, or about eight hundred pounds—alas for glory!—and returned on board the yacht for dinner again, when we were told that a messenger had been off in our absence and left a parcel for us. What do you think it contained? Guess.

Well, there was a splendid shawl, worth more than a hundred guineas, for Captain Buncombe, and a handsome jewelled pipe for dad; while Mr Joe Moynham had a case of Greek wines for his special self!

Bob and I were not forgotten either. He had a fine gun, with the stock inlaid with ivory, and carved beautifully; and I, a yataghan, decorated with a jewelled hilt, that was even more valuable than dad’s pipe. Rollo was presented with a grand gold collar, which Mr Joe Moynham said was like the one that Malachi, one of the Irish kings, wore in the days of Brian Boru; and, if you please, a lot of little purses, each containing a handsome present, were sent also in the parcel—a good big one, you may be sure—for distribution amongst the crew. It was princely gratitude, wasn’t it, in spite of the slighting way in which Mr Moynham had spoken of the modern Greeks and their ways? However, he had to “take it all back,” as he said, when he drank the health of Monsieur Pericles—who seemed, by the way, to be much better off than his illustrious ancestor, and whom we put down as the Sultan Haroun el Raschid in disguise—in a glass of the very wine that he had sent on board the yacht.

But that wasn’t the end of it all, by any means:— why, I am only just coming to my real story now.

Time rolled on—when I say “time,” of course, I only mean hours and days as we mean, not years and centuries as the ancients calculated the lapse of time—and we managed to see everything that sight-seers see in the city of Minerva.

Having nothing else to look at close at hand, therefore, we determined to go on our travels, like Ulysses; not amongst the islands, which we had already visited, but towards the mountains, Captain Buncombe having made a vow ere he left England to see the ruins of Thebes, after which, he said, he would have no further object in life, and would perform the Japanese feat of the “happy despatch!”

We had horses, and mules, and donkeys for the journey; that is, dad and the captain rode horses, there were mules for our traps and food, which we had to take along with us, thanks to the hospitality of the regions we were going to, while the donkeys were for Bob and me and Mr Moynham. That gentleman, who would be very positive when he liked, declared that no earthly consideration should compel him to mount the Bucephalus that was provided for him. He said that a horse was expressly stated by King David to be “a vain thing to save a man,” and so why should he go against that ruling?

The first part of our journey went off as jolly as possible: the way was good; the scenery—although I confess I didn’t trouble my head very much about it—though dad and the captain were in raptures with it—magnificent; the halts, just at the right time, although all in classic places, whose names Bob and I hated the sound of; the food was first-rate, and Mr Moynham so funny, that he nearly made me roll off my donkey every now and then with laughter. But towards evening, when we were all ascending a steep hill, with rocks and thick shrubbery on each side of it, through a narrow defile, a harsh voice suddenly exclaimed through the gloom, something that sounded like the Greek imperative Statheets!Stop! and then again another monosyllable, which we certainly understood better, “Halt!” A gun was also fired off at the same time; and, by the flash of the discharge we could see several long gleaming rifle barrels peering out from the bushes on either side of the way.

“Brigands!” ejaculated the guides together, tumbling prostrate on the ground pell-mell, as if they had been swept down.

“Fascia a terra! Ventre à terre!” shouted out the same hoarse voice again, and a volley was fired over our heads.

“Pleasant!” said Mr Moynham, throwing himself down with his face to the ground like the cowardly guides. “But I suppose we’d better do as these gentry require, or else they’ll be hitting us under the fifth buttonhole; and, what would become of us then?”

“Fascia a terra!” repeated the leader of the brigands, emerging from a clump of shrubbery at the head of the pass, motioning his arms violently at dad and the captain, who were inclined to show fight at first; but discretion proved the better part of valour, and they both dropped the pistols they had hurriedly drawn from their pockets, seeing that the rifle barrels covered them, sinking down prone on the earth like the rest of us.

Rollo, however, poor brave old fellow, made one dash at the ruffian as he threatened dad; and, seizing him by the throat, dashed him to the ground.

Poor fellow, the next moment he had a stiletto jammed into him, which made him sink down bleeding, with a faint howl, to which Bob and I responded with a cry, as if we felt the blow ourselves!

The moment dad and Captain Buncombe heard Rollo’s howl and our cry, they jumped up again like lightning, and began hitting out right and left at the brigands who now surrounded us; and Mr Moynham was not behind, I can tell you! He butted one big chap right in the pit of the stomach, and sent him tumbling down the defile, his body rattling against the stones, and he swearing like mad all the time. Bob and I scrambled at them as best we could, catching hold of their legs and tripping them up; but they were too many for us, for the cowardly guides did not stir hand or foot to help us, but lay stretched like logs along the ground, although they were unbound. We were certain that they were in league with the robbers; and so, without doubt, they were, for, if they had only assisted us, now that their assailants had dropped their firearms, and were engaged in a regular rough-and-tumble fight, we could have mastered them, I’m sure, as, counting Bob and myself in, we were nearly man for man as many as they were.

The struggle did not last long, although dad and the captain held out bravely to the last, flooring the brigands one after another, and knocking them down as if they had been nine-pins. They were presently tied securely, with their arms behind them, and menaced with death if they stirred, by a brawny ruffian touching each of their heads with a pistol barrel. As for Bob and me, they did not think it necessary to tie us.

“Well, this is a delightful ending to our picnic,” said Mr Moynham in lugubrious tones, as we all lay on the ground, with the exception of the guides, who appeared to mingle freely with the robbers, who were grouped in picturesque attitudes around us, leaning on their carbines. “I wonder what’s their little game?”

The leader presently gave an order, and our seniors were then each lifted on to a horse or mule, and tied securely there.

“At all events,” said Mr Moynham, who kept up his spirits still wonderfully, “we sha’n’t fall off, that’s one comfort, and so we’ll have the less bruises after the scrimmage!”

Although the chief brigand scowled at me, he allowed me to lift poor Rollo, who was not dead as I had feared, and I bandaged his neck where the wound was with my handkerchief, and took him up in front of me.

The leader then spoke vehemently in his own language to one of the treacherous guides, who approached dad as if to speak.

“Away, scoundrel!” said dad, wrathfully. “Don’t speak to me; I would kill you if I were free, for leading us into this ambush!”

The man, however, urged again by the chief, who raised his pistol ominously at dad, approached him once more.

“The Albanian chief says that if twenty thousand piastres apiece, or one hundred thousand piastres in all, are not paid for you by sunset here to-morrow evening, you shall all be shot in cold blood, and your doom be on your own heads.”

“Tell your chief, or thief, or whatever ruffian he is, that none of us will pay a penny. Our friends at Athens will miss us, and you’ll have the palikari after you all in hot haste if I’m not back to-night safe.”

“The English lord forgets that he left word that he might remain for two days on the mountains, and his friends will not think him missing before to-morrow night: at that time, the English lord and his friends, and the little lords, will be all dead men if the ransom be not paid.”

“What on earth shall I do, Buncombe?” asked dad of the captain. “Shall I write an order on my bankers for the money to be sent? One hundred thousand piastres will be about five thousand pounds—I don’t know whether my credit will be good for that amount?”

“Your credit and mine will be sufficient,” Captain Buncombe said; “one can’t trifle with these fellows, for the villains keep their word, I’m told.”

The guide again spoke by the chief’s order to dad, as if the tenor of the captain’s words were understood.

“The Albanian chief declares that if the ransom be not paid by sunset to-morrow at latest, every one of you shall be shot, and your heads cut off and sent back to Athens in token of your fate.”

“Ugh!” said Mr Moynham, shuddering; “I certainly have been a Tory throughout all my life, but I should not like to follow Charles the First’s example.”

“I declare it’s disgraceful,” said Captain Buncombe; “I’ll apply to the ambassador. This brigandage is the curse of Greece. I’ll—”

“That won’t help us now,” said dad. “I suppose we must write for the ransom, although under protests; for, however much we have to pay, we must remember that our lives are in jeopardy; and that’s the main consideration.”

The advice was good; so, a joint letter was despatched to certain influential friends, as well as dad’s banker at Athens, urging that the ransom should be sent in a certain way, to be handed over, as the brigand chief arranged, as we were given up, so that there should be no treachery on either side. The false guides then went off cheerfully down hill towards the plains, whilst our cavalcade, encompassed by the brigands, moved towards those mountain fastnesses, “where they resided when they were at home,” as Mr Moynham said.

Up and down hill and dale, we seemed in the darkness to be penetrating miles into the country; until, at last, passing, as well as we could see from the gloom, which was almost impenetrable, through a narrow glen between steep peaks, we suddenly turned a corner of a projecting rock, and found ourselves on an elevated plateau on the top of the mountains, where a strange scene awaited us. A number of ruddy watch-fires were burning with red and smoky light, and around these sat, reclined, or moved about, in a variety of active employments, a number of dark forms, most of which were robust Arnauts, clad in their national dress, which in the distance is not unlike that seen among Highlandmen, consisting as it does of a snowy white kilt, green velvet jacket, and bright-coloured scarf wound round the waist. Here and there, the glare from the firelight was reflected from the barrels of guns, rifles, and matchlocks, which the owners were cleaning or examining; while, before several of the fires cooking operations were going on. Kids, whole sheep, and pieces of raw flesh, were being slowly broiled, hanging from bits of stick stuck in the ground, or suspended by pieces of string attached to the branches of the overhanging trees that encircled the plateau. This added to the “effect” of the scene.

“Quite operatic, and better than old Drury,” I heard Mr Moynham say; but we were all too depressed and uncomfortable from our constrained attitudes to feel inclined to appreciate the picturesque, the brigands having taken us off the horses, and flung us down on the ground, having this time bound even Bob and myself; indeed, they treated us with even less attention than they would have bestowed on anything eatable, judging by the care they evinced in their cuisine, although they did not offer us anything either to eat or drink, much to Mr Moynham’s great chagrin especially, nor did they give us the slightest covering to protect us from the night air when the waning watch-fires told us that bedtime—save the mark—had arrived. I suppose they thought that it did not much matter if we did catch cold, considering that we were going to be shot within twenty-four hours!

Tired out with fatigue, we finally sank to rest in the same place where we were first pitched down, not awaking till late the next morning, when we found most of the brigands had departed—to look-out for other “welcome guests” like ourselves, I suppose! Only three were left to guard us, but they were quite enough, considering that we were tied up fast, and couldn’t move if we wished.

How slowly that day dragged out! We thought it would never end. They gave us some hard coarse dry bread to eat and water to drink, nothing else; and the hours dragged themselves slowly along, as if they would never end.

Our hopes gradually sank, as the sun declined in the heavens, for we watched the progress of the glowing orb with almost the devoted zeal of the followers of Zoroaster.

At last, just as it was within half an hour of sunset as nearly as we could calculate, we heard a tumult as of many voices in the ravine leading to the plateau; and, presently, the man whom we had conceived to be the leader of the brigands advanced towards us, in company with his band, now largely reinforced by others. At a word from him our bonds were untied, and we were assisted to our feet, on which we could not stand firmly for some little time, on account of the want of circulation of our blood during the long time we had been in such constrained attitudes.

The guide who had previously acted the part of interpreter after betraying us—although, by the way, he told us before he left us that he belonged to the band, and thus, perhaps, had only acted honourably according to his creed—then translated what the leader had to say.

Our ransom had been paid, and we were free to go down the mountains. The horses, mules, and everything belonging to us would be restored, and a trusty guide—the speaker, of course—would put us in the direct route to Athens, but as near the city as possible; and, finally, the chief begged that we would excuse the rough treatment to which we had been subjected, as he had a great regard for us!

“It was all very well to dissemble his love,” quoted Mr Moynham; “but,—why did he kick us down-stairs?”

“The chief!—which chief, or thief?” said dad sternly. He did not feel particularly pleased with the Arnauts or their leader. “I’ve had enough of the scoundrels already, and the sooner I lose sight of them the better! What do you mean by the chief?”

“He means me!” said a gorgeous individual, all green velvet jacket, and gold braid, and red sash, with a cap set rakishly on the side of his head in the front of which glittered a diamond of surpassing brilliancy.

We had noticed this individual before, but not especially, and he had been rather hidden by the figure of the man we looked upon as the leader: now he stepped forward, and we could see his face plainly, as we recognised the voice.

Who do you think it was?

Why, Stephanos Pericles, the man whom we had saved from drowning, and who had sent us those handsome presents!

“Why have we met with this treatment at your hands?” said papa, puzzled at the Greek’s behaviour.

“You have nothing to complain of,” said Stephanos, with an air of courteous nobility which exasperated the captain to that degree that I saw him clenching and unclenching his fists, and dancing about, as Mr Moynham said afterwards, “like a hen on a hot griddle.”

“My dear sir, you have nothing really to complain of,” said the Greek. “You saved my life, I admit, and I think I politely expressed my obligations at the time. In return I now present you with five lives, independently of that of the dog, which, I am sorry to see, has been hurt.”

“But the ransom?” said dad.

“Oh, I’m sorry I had to insist on that,” said Stephanos, placidly; “but it is one of our rules to enforce such in all cases, and I’m sorry that I could not let you off, although my friendship yearned to set you free without it. You must really please excuse the treatment you have met with. If I had known who honoured me with their company, I’m sure you would have had no reason to be dissatisfied with my hospitality. Thenexttime you favour me with your presence, my lord—”

“The next time you catch me here, or anywhere else on Greek ground,” laughed my father in a hearty “Ho! ho!” in which all of us joined, “you may cut me up into kabobs and cook and eat me, and welcome; for I know I’ll then deserve it!”

We got back safe aboard theMoonshineall right, setting sail from the Piraeus next day; but it was a good trick of the brigand chief, wasn’t it—though I can’t say much for his gratitude after all, spite of those magnificent presents, which there was little reason to wonder at his offering us, considering the easy manner in which he got his money?

The cut in Rollo’s neck healed soon, and he is now as right as ever he was, excepting a slight scar which tells where the stiletto or dagger went, and he wears still the collar of gold that Stephanos Pericles presented him with. As for the rest of our party, all of us got home safe with theMoonshine, which is now fitting out at Ryde for the coming regatta, where I hope she’ll come off as successfully in carrying off prizes as “THE GREEK BANDIT.”

Chapter Four.Jim Newman’s Yarn: Or, A Sight of the Sea Serpent.“Was you ever up the Niger, sir?”“Why, of course not, Jim! you know that I’ve never been on the African station, or any other for that matter. But why do you ask the question?”“Don’t know ’xactly, sir. P’raps that blessed sea-fog reminds me of it, somehow or other—though there’s little likeness, as far as that goes, between the west coast and Portsmouth, is there, sir?”“I don’t suppose there is,” I said; “but what puts the Niger, of all places in the world, in your head at the present moment?”“Ah, that’d tell a tale, sir,” he answered, cocking his left eye in a knowing manner, and giving the quid in his mouth a turn. “Ah, that’d tell a tale, sir!”Jim Newman, an old man-of-war’s man—now retired from the navy, and who eked out his pension by letting boats for hire to summer visitors—was leaning against an old coal barge that formed his “office,” drawn up high and dry on the beach, midway between Southsea Castle and Portsmouth Harbour, and gazing out steadily across the channel of the Solent, to the Isle of Wight beyond. He and I were old friends of long standing, and I was never so happy as when I could persuade him—albeit it did not need much persuasion—to open the storehouse of his memory, and spin a yarn about his old experiences afloat in the whilom wooden walls of England, when crack frigates were the rage instead of screw steamers with armour-plates. We had been talking of all sorts of service gossip—the war, the weather, what not—when he suddenly asked me the question about the great African river that has given poor Sambo “a local habitation and a name.”Although the gushing tears of April had hardly washed away the traces of the wild March winds, the weather had suddenly become almost tropical in its heat. There was not the slightest breath of air stirring, and the sea lay lazily asleep, only throbbing now and then with a faint spasmodic motion, which barely stirred the shingle on the shore, much less plashed on the beach; while a thick, heavy white mist was steadily creeping up from the sea, shutting out, first the island, and then the roadstead at Spithead from view, and overlapping the whole landscape in thick woolly folds, moist yet warm. Jim had said that the sea-fog, coming as it did, was a sign of heat, and that we should have a regular old-fashioned hot summer, unlike those of recent years.“Ah, sir,” he repeated, “I could tell a tale about that deadly Niger river, and the Gaboon, and the whole treacherous coast, if I liked, from Lagos down to the Congo—ay, I could! It was that ’ere sea-fog that put Afriker into my head, Master Charles; I know that blessed white mist, a-rising up like a curtain, well, I do! The ‘white man’s shroud,’ the niggers used to call it—and many a poor beggar it has sarved to shroud, too, in that killing climate, confound it!”“Well, Jim, tell us about the Niger to begin with,” said I, so as to bring him up to the scratch without delay; for, when Jim once got on the moralising or sentimental tack, he generally ended by getting angry with everybody and everything around him; and when he got angry, there was an end to his stories for that day at least.“All right, your honour,” said the old fellow, calming down at once into his usual serenity again, and giving his quid another shift as he braced himself well up against the old barge, on the half-deck of which I was seated with my legs dangling down—“All right, your honour! If it’s a yarn you’re after, why I had best weigh anchor at once and make an offing, or else we shan’t be able to see a handspike afore us!”“Heave ahead, Jim!” said I impatiently; “you are as long as a three-decker in getting under way!”With this encouragement, he cleared his throat with his customary hoarse, choking sort of cough, like an old raven, and commenced his narrative without any further demur.“It’s more’n twenty years now since I left the service—ay, thirty years would be more like it; and almost my very last cruise was on the West African station. I had four years of it, and I recollect it well; for, before I left the blessed, murdering coast, with its poisonous lagoons covered with thick green slime, and sickly smells, and burning sands, I seed a sight there that I shall never forget as long as I live, and which would make me recklect Afrikey well enough if nothing else would!”“That’s right, Jim, fire away!” said I, settling myself comfortably on my seat to enjoy the yarn. “What was it that you saw?”“Steady! Let her go easy, your honour; I’m a-coming to that soon enough. It was in the oldAmphitriteI was at the time—she’s broken-up and burnt for firewood long ago, poor old thing!—and we was a-lying in the Bight of Benin, alongside of a slaver which we had captured the day before off Whydah. She was a Brazilian schooner with nearly five hundred wretched creatures on board, so closely packed that you could not find space enough to put your foot fairly on her deck in any place. The slaves had only been a night on board her; but the stench was so awful, from so many unfortunate niggers being squeezed so tightly together like herrings in a barrel, and under a hot sun too, that we were longing to send the schooner away to Sierra Leone, and get rid of the horrid smell, which was worse than the swamps ashore! Well, I was in the morning watch after we had towed in the slaver to the Bights, having carried away her foremast with a round shot in making her bring to, and was just going forward to turn in as the next watch came on deck, when who should hail me but my mate, Gil Saul, coming in from the bowsprit, where he had been on the look-out—it was him as was my pardner here when I first started as a shore hand in letting out boats, but he lost the number of his mess long ago like our old ship theAmphitrite.“As he came up to me his face was as white as your shirt, and he was trembling all over as if he was going to have a fit of the fever and ague.“‘Lor’, Gil Saul,’ sez I, ‘what’s come over you, mate? are you going on the sick list, or what?’“‘Hush, Jim,’ sez he, quite terror-stricken. ‘Don’t speak like that; I’ve seen a ghost, and I knows I shall be a dead man afore the day’s out!’“With that I burst into a larf.“‘Bless your eyes, Gil,’ sez I, ‘tell that to the marines, my bo’! you can’t get over me on that tack. You won’t find any respectable ghosts leaving dear old England for the sake of this dirty, sweltering west coast, which no Christian would come to from choice, let alone a ghost!’“‘But, Jim,’ he sez, leaning his hand on my arm to detain me as I was going down below, ‘this wasn’t a h’English ghost as I sees just now. It was the most outlandish foreign reptile you ever see. A long, big, black snake like a crocodile, only twice the length of the old corvette; with a head like a bird, and eyes as big and fiery as our side-lights. It was a terrible creature, Jim, and its eyes flamed out like lightning, and it snorted like a horse as it swam by the ship. I’ve had a warning, old shipmate, and I’ll be a dead man before to-morrow morning, I know!’“The poor chap shook with fright as he spoke, though he was as brave a man as we had aboard; so I knew that he had been drinking and was in a state of delirium tremendibus, or else he was sickening for the African fever, which those who once have never forget. I therefore tried to pacify him and explain away his fancy.“‘That’s a good un, Gil Saul,’ I sez. ‘Don’t you let none of the other hands hear what you’ve told me, that you’ve seen the great sea sarpint, or you’ll never get the end of it.’“Gil got angry at this, forgetting his fright in his passion at my doubting his word like.“‘But it was the sea sarpint, I tells you, or its own brother if it wasn’t. Didn’t I see it with my own eyes, and I was as wide awake as you are, and not caulking?’“‘The sea sarpint!’ I repeated scornfully, laughing again in a way that made Gil wild. ‘Who ever heard tell of such a thing, except in a Yankee yarn?’“‘And why shouldn’t there be a big snake in the sea the same as there are big snakes on land like the Bow constreetar, as is read of in books of history, Jim Newman? Some folks are so cocksure, that they won’t believe nothing but what they sees for themselves. I wonder who at home, now, would credit that there are some monkeys here in Afrikey that are bigger than a man and walk upright; and you yourself, Jim, have told me that when you were in Australy you seed rabbits that were more than ten foot high when they stood on their hind-legs, and that could jump a hundred yards at one leap.’“‘So I have, Gil Saul,’ sez I, a bit nettled at what he said, and the way he said it, ‘and what I says I stick to. I have seen at Port Philip kangaroos, which are just like big rabbits with upright ears, as big as I’ve said; and I’ve seen ’em, too, jump more than twice the distance any horse could.’“‘And why then,’ sez he, argumentifying on to me like a shot, ‘and why then shouldn’t there be such a thing as the sea sarpint?’“This flummuxed me a bit, for I couldn’t find an answer handy, so I axed him another question to get out of my quandary.“‘But why, Gil, did you say you had seed a ghost, when it was a sarpint?’“This timehewas bothered for a moment.“‘Because, Jim,’ sez he, after a while, ‘it appeared so awful to me when I saw it coming out of the white mist with its glaring red eyes and terrible beak. It was a ghost I feels, if it wasn’t the sea sarpint; and whether or no it bodes no good to the man wot sees it, I know. I’m a doomed man.’“I couldn’t shake him from that belief, though I thought the whole thing was fancy on his part, and I turned into my hammock soon after we got below, without a thought more about the matter—it didn’t stop my caulk, I know. But, ah! that was only in the early morning. Before the day was done, as Gil had said, that conversation was recalled to me in a terrible way—ah, a terrible way!” the old sailor repeated impressively, taking off his tarpaulin hat, and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, as if the recollection of the past awed him even now. He looked so serious that I could not laugh, inclined as I was to ridicule any such story as that of the fabled sea serpent, which one looks for periodically as a transatlantic myth to crop up in dull seasons in the columns of American newspapers.“And did you see it too?” I asked; “and Gil Saul’s prophecy turns out true?”“You shall hear,” he answered gravely; “I’m not spinning a yarn, as you call it, Master Charles; I’m telling you the truth.”“Go on, Jim,” said I, to reassure him. “I’m listening, all attention.”“At eight bells that day, another man-of-war come in, bringing an empty slaver she had taken before she had shipped her cargo. In this vessel we were able to separate some of the poor wretches packed on board our Brazilian schooner, and so send them comfortably on to Sierra Leone, which was what we were waiting to do, as I’ve told you already; and now being free to go cruising again, we hove up anchor and made our way down the coast to watch for another slaver which we had heard news of by the man-o’-war that came in to relieve us.“We had a spanking breeze all day, for a wonder, as it generally fails at noon; but towards the evening, when we had made some eighty miles or so from the Bights, it fell suddenly dead calm, as if the wind had been shut off slap without warning. It was bright before, but the moment the calm came a thick white mist rose around the vessel, just like that which came just now from seaward, and has hidden the island and Spithead from view; you see how it’s reminded me now of the west coast and the Niger river, Master Charles, don’t you?”“Ay,” said I, “Jim, I see what you were driving at.”“Those thick mists,” he continued, “always rise on the shores of Afrikey in the early mornings—just as there was a thick one when Gil had seen his ghost, as he said—and they comes up again when the sun sets; but you never sees ’em when the sun’s a-shining bright as it was that arternoon. It was the rummiest weather I ever see. By and by, the mist lifted a bit, and then there were clumps of fog dancing about on the surface of the sea, which was oily and calm, just like patches of trees on a lawn. Sometimes these fog curtains would come down and settle round the ship, so that you couldn’t see to the t’other side of the deck for a minute, and they brought a fearful bad smell with them, the very smell of the lagoons ashore with a dash of the niggers aboard the slave schooner, only a thousand times worse, and we miles and miles away from the land. It was most unaccountable, and most uncomfortable. I couldn’t make it out at all.“Jest as I was a-puzzling my brains as to the reason of these fog banks and the stench they brought with them, Gil Saul came on deck too, and sheered up alongside of me as I was looking out over the side. His face was a worse sight than the morning; for, instead of his looking white, the colour of his skin was grey and ashy, like the face of a corpse. It alarmed me so that I cried out at once—“‘Go down below, Gil! Go down and report yourself to the doctor!’“‘No,’ sez he, ‘it ain’t the doctor an will cure me, Jim; I feel it coming over me again as I felt this morning. I shall see that sarpint or ghost again, I feel sure.’“What with his face and his words, and the bad smell from the fog, I confess I began to feel queer myself—not frightened exactly—but I’d have much rather have been on Southsea common in the broad daylight than where I was at that moment, I can tell you.”“Did you see anything, Jim?” I asked the old sailor at this juncture.“I seed nothing, Master Charles,as yetbut I felt something, I can’t tell what or how to explain; it was a sort of all-overish feeling, as if something was a-walking over my grave, as folks say, summat uncanny, I do assure you.“The captain and the first lieutenant was on the quarter-deck, the latter with his telescope to his eye a-gazing at something forward apparently, that he was trying to discern amongst the clumps of fog. I was nigh them, and being to leeward could hear what they said.“The first lieutenant, I hears him, turns to the captain over his shoulder speaking like, and sez he—“‘Captain Manter, I can’t make it out exactly, but it’s most curious;’ and then turning to me, he sez, ‘Newman, go down to my steward and ax him to give you my night-glass.’“I went down and fetched the glass and handed it to him, he giving me t’other one to hold; and he claps the night-glass to his eye.“‘By Jove, Captain Manter,’ sez he presently, ‘I was right, it is the greatest marine monster I ever saw!’“‘Pooh!’ says the captain, taking the glass from him and looking himself. ‘It’s only a waterspout, they come sometimes along with this appearance of the sea!’ But presently I heard him mutter something under his voice to the lieutenant, and then he said aloud, ‘It is best to be prepared;’ and a moment after that he gave an order, and the boatswain piped up and we beat to quarters. It was very strange that, wasn’t it? And so every man on board thought.“A very faint breeze was springing up again, and I was on the weather side of the ship, which was towards the land from which the wind came, when suddenly Gil Saul, who was in the same battery and captain of my crew, grips my arm tight. ‘It’s coming! it’s coming!’ he said right in my ear, and then the same horrible foul smell wafted right over the ship again, and a noise was heard just as if a herd of wild horses were sucking up water together.“At this moment the fog lifted for a bit, and we could see clear for about a couple of miles to windward, where the captain and first lieutenant and all the hands had their eyes fixed as if expecting something.“By George! you could have knocked me down with a feather, I tell you! I never saw such a sight in my life, and may I never see such another again! There, with his head well out of the water, shaped like a big bird, and higher in the air than the main truck of the ship, was a gigantic reptile like a sarpint, only bigger than you ever dreamt of. He was wriggling through the water at a fearful rate, and going nearly the same course as ourselves, with a wake behind him bigger than a line-of-battle ship with paddle-wheels, and his length—judging by what I saw of him—was about half a mile at least, not mentioning what part of his body was below the water; while he must have been broader across than the largest sperm whale, for he showed good five feet of freeboard.“The captain and first lieutenant were flabbergasted, I could see; but Captain Manter was as brave an officer as ever stepped, and he pulled himself together in a minute, as the fog, which had only lifted for a minute, came down again shutting out everything from view so that we could not see a yard from the side. ‘Don’t be alarmed, my men,’ he sings out in his cheery voice, so that every hand could hear him, ‘it’s only a waterspout that is magnified by the fog; and as it gets nearer we’ll give it the starboard broadside to clear it up and burst it.’“‘Ay! ay!’ sez the men with a cheer, while the smell grew more awful and the snorting gushing sound we had heard before so loud that it was quite deafening, just immediately after the captain spoke, when it had stopped awhile.“As for poor Gil, he had never lost the grip of my arm since we sighted the reptile, although he had the lanyard of his gun in his right hand all the same.“‘Fire!’ sez the captain; and, in a moment, the whole starboard broadside was fired off, point blank across the water, in a line with the deck, as Captain Manter had ordered us to depress the guns, the oldAmphitriterocking to her keel with the explosion.“Well, sir, as true as I’m standing here a-talking to you, at the very instant the guns belched out their fire and smoke, and the cannon-balls with which they were loaded, there was a most treemenjus roar and a dash of water alongside the ship, and the waves came over us as if we were on a lee shore; and then, as the men stood appalled at the things going on around them, which was what no mortal ever seed before, Gil clasped my arm more tightly, loosening his right hand from the lanyard of the gun which he had now fired, and shrieked out, ‘There! there!’“Master Charles, it were awful! A long heavy body seemed to be reared up high in the air right athwart the vessel, and plunged far away in the sea to leeward; and, as the body passed over our heads, I looked up with Gil, and saw the fearful fiery eyes of the biggest snake that ever crawled on the earth, though this was flying in the air, and round his hideous head, that had a long beak like a bird, was a curious fringe or frill all yellowish green, just like what a lizard puffs out under his throat when in a rage. I could see no more, for the thing was over us and gone a mile or more to leeward in a wink of the eye, the fog drifting after it and hiding it from sight. Besides which, I was occupied with Gil, who had sank down on the deck in a dead swoon.“Whatever it was, the thing carried away our main topmast with the yards, and everything clean from the caps as if it had been shot away, and there wasn’t a trace of them floating in the sea around, as we could see.“‘A close thing that!’ said the captain, after the shock was over, speaking to the lieutenant, although all hands could hear him, for it was as still as possible now. ‘A close thing, Mr Freemantle. I’ve known a waterspout do even more damage than this; so let us be thankful!’“And then all hands were piped to clear the wreck, and make the ship snug; for we had some bad weather afterwards, and had to put into Sierra Leone to refit.“Gil was in a swoon for a long time after; and then he took the fever bad, and only recovered by the skin of his teeth; but he never forgot what he had seen, nor I either, nor any of the hands, though we never talked about it. We knew we had seen something unearthly; even the captain and Lieutenant Freemantle, though they put down the damage to a waterspout for fear of alarming the men, knew differently, as we did. We had seen the great sea sarpint, if anybody had, every man-jack of us aboard! It was a warning, too, as poor Gil Saul had declared; for, strange to say, except himself and me, not a soul as was on board theAmphitritewhen the reptile overhauled us, lived to see Old England again. The bones of all the others were left to bleach on the burning sands of the east coast of Africa, which has killed ten thousand more of our own countrymen with its deadly climate than we have saved slaves from slavery!”“But, Jim,” said I, as the old sailor paused at the end of his yarn. “Do you think it was really the sea serpent? Might it not have been a waterspout, or a bit of floating wreck, which you saw in the fog?”Jim Newman got grumpy at once, at the bare insinuation of such a thing.“Waterspouts and bits of wreck,” said he sarcastically, “generally travel at the rate of twenty miles an hour when there is no wind to move them along, and a dead calm, don’t they? Waterspouts and bits of wreck smell like polecats when you’re a hundred miles from land, don’t they? Waterspouts and bits of wreck roar like a million wild bulls, and snort and swish as they go through the water like a thousand express trains going through a tunnel, don’t they?”I was silenced by Jim’s sarcasm, and humbly begged his pardon for doubting the veracity of his eyesight.“Besides, Master Charles,” he urged, when he had once more been restored to his usual equanimity; “besides, you must remember that nearly in the same parts, and about the same time—in the beginning of the month of August, 1848—the sea sarpint, as people who have never seen it are so fond of joking of, was seen by the captain and crew of HMSDaedalusand the event was put down in the ship’s log, and reported officially to the Admiralty. I suppose you won’t go for to doubt the statement which was made by a captain in the navy, a gentleman, and a man of honour, and supported by the evidence of the lieutenant of the watch, the master, a midshipman, the quartermaster, boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel—the rest of the ship’s company being below at the time?”“No, Jim,” said I, “that’s straight enough.”“We was in latitude 5 degrees 30 minutes north, and longitude about 3 degrees east,” continued the old sailor, “when we saw it on the 1st of August, 1848, and they in latitude 24 degrees 44 minutes south, and longitude 9 degrees 22 minutes east, when they saw it on the 6th of the same month; so the curious reptile—for reptile he was—must have put the steam on when he left us!”“Stirred up, probably, by your starboard broadside?” said I.“Jest so,” went on Jim. “But, he steered just in the direction to meet them when he went off from us, keeping a southward and eastward course; and I daresay, if he liked, he could have made a hundred knots an hour as easy as we could sail ten on a bowline with a stiff breeze.”“And so you really have seen the great sea serpent?” said I, when the old man-of-war’s man had shifted his quid once more, thus implying that he had finished.“Not a doubt of it, sir; and by the same token he was as long as from here to the Spit Buoy, and as broad as one of them circular forts out there.”“That’s a very good yarn, Jim,” said I; “but do you mean to say that you saw the monster with your own eyes, Jim, as well as all the rest of you?”“I saw him, I tell you, Master Charles, as plain as I see you now; and as true as I am standing by your side the sarpint jumped right over theAmphitritewhen Gil Saul and I was a-looking up, and carried away our maintopmast and everything belonging to it!”“Well, it must have been wonderful, Jim,” said I.“Ay, ay, sir,” said he, “but you’d ha’ thought it a precious sight more wonderful if you had chanced to see it, like me!”I may add, that, shortly afterwards, I really took the trouble to overhaul a pile of the local papers to see whether Jim’s account of the report made by the captain of theDaedalusto the Lords of the Admiralty was substantially true; and, strange to say, I discovered amongst the numbers of theHampshire Telegraphfor the year 1848, the following copy of a letter forwarded by Captain McQubae to the admiral in command at Devonport dockyard at the date mentioned:—“Her Majesty’s ShipDaedalus“Hamoaze, October 11th, 1848.“Sir,—In reply to your letter of this day’s date, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in theGlobenewspaper, of a sea serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from her Majesty’s shipDaedalus, under my command, on her passage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at five o’clock, PM, on the 6th of August last, in latitude 24 degrees 44 minutes south, and longitude 9 degrees 22 minutes east, the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the North West, with a long ocean swell from the South West, the ship on the port tack heading North East by North, something very unusual was seen by Mr Sartons, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The circumstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Edgar Drummond, with whom and Mr William Barrett, the master, I was at the time walking the quarter-deck. The ship’s company were at supper.“On our attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail-yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the animalà fleur d’eau, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognised his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the South West, which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.“The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake, and never, during the twenty minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses once below the surface of the water; its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and officers above-mentioned.“I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s posts.“I have, etcetera,“Peter McQubae, Captain.“To Admiral Sir WH Gage, GCH, Devonport.”Consequently, having this testimony, which was amply verified by the other witnesses at the time, I see no reason to doubt the truth of Jim Newman’s yarn about THE GREAT SEA SERPENT!

“Was you ever up the Niger, sir?”

“Why, of course not, Jim! you know that I’ve never been on the African station, or any other for that matter. But why do you ask the question?”

“Don’t know ’xactly, sir. P’raps that blessed sea-fog reminds me of it, somehow or other—though there’s little likeness, as far as that goes, between the west coast and Portsmouth, is there, sir?”

“I don’t suppose there is,” I said; “but what puts the Niger, of all places in the world, in your head at the present moment?”

“Ah, that’d tell a tale, sir,” he answered, cocking his left eye in a knowing manner, and giving the quid in his mouth a turn. “Ah, that’d tell a tale, sir!”

Jim Newman, an old man-of-war’s man—now retired from the navy, and who eked out his pension by letting boats for hire to summer visitors—was leaning against an old coal barge that formed his “office,” drawn up high and dry on the beach, midway between Southsea Castle and Portsmouth Harbour, and gazing out steadily across the channel of the Solent, to the Isle of Wight beyond. He and I were old friends of long standing, and I was never so happy as when I could persuade him—albeit it did not need much persuasion—to open the storehouse of his memory, and spin a yarn about his old experiences afloat in the whilom wooden walls of England, when crack frigates were the rage instead of screw steamers with armour-plates. We had been talking of all sorts of service gossip—the war, the weather, what not—when he suddenly asked me the question about the great African river that has given poor Sambo “a local habitation and a name.”

Although the gushing tears of April had hardly washed away the traces of the wild March winds, the weather had suddenly become almost tropical in its heat. There was not the slightest breath of air stirring, and the sea lay lazily asleep, only throbbing now and then with a faint spasmodic motion, which barely stirred the shingle on the shore, much less plashed on the beach; while a thick, heavy white mist was steadily creeping up from the sea, shutting out, first the island, and then the roadstead at Spithead from view, and overlapping the whole landscape in thick woolly folds, moist yet warm. Jim had said that the sea-fog, coming as it did, was a sign of heat, and that we should have a regular old-fashioned hot summer, unlike those of recent years.

“Ah, sir,” he repeated, “I could tell a tale about that deadly Niger river, and the Gaboon, and the whole treacherous coast, if I liked, from Lagos down to the Congo—ay, I could! It was that ’ere sea-fog that put Afriker into my head, Master Charles; I know that blessed white mist, a-rising up like a curtain, well, I do! The ‘white man’s shroud,’ the niggers used to call it—and many a poor beggar it has sarved to shroud, too, in that killing climate, confound it!”

“Well, Jim, tell us about the Niger to begin with,” said I, so as to bring him up to the scratch without delay; for, when Jim once got on the moralising or sentimental tack, he generally ended by getting angry with everybody and everything around him; and when he got angry, there was an end to his stories for that day at least.

“All right, your honour,” said the old fellow, calming down at once into his usual serenity again, and giving his quid another shift as he braced himself well up against the old barge, on the half-deck of which I was seated with my legs dangling down—“All right, your honour! If it’s a yarn you’re after, why I had best weigh anchor at once and make an offing, or else we shan’t be able to see a handspike afore us!”

“Heave ahead, Jim!” said I impatiently; “you are as long as a three-decker in getting under way!”

With this encouragement, he cleared his throat with his customary hoarse, choking sort of cough, like an old raven, and commenced his narrative without any further demur.

“It’s more’n twenty years now since I left the service—ay, thirty years would be more like it; and almost my very last cruise was on the West African station. I had four years of it, and I recollect it well; for, before I left the blessed, murdering coast, with its poisonous lagoons covered with thick green slime, and sickly smells, and burning sands, I seed a sight there that I shall never forget as long as I live, and which would make me recklect Afrikey well enough if nothing else would!”

“That’s right, Jim, fire away!” said I, settling myself comfortably on my seat to enjoy the yarn. “What was it that you saw?”

“Steady! Let her go easy, your honour; I’m a-coming to that soon enough. It was in the oldAmphitriteI was at the time—she’s broken-up and burnt for firewood long ago, poor old thing!—and we was a-lying in the Bight of Benin, alongside of a slaver which we had captured the day before off Whydah. She was a Brazilian schooner with nearly five hundred wretched creatures on board, so closely packed that you could not find space enough to put your foot fairly on her deck in any place. The slaves had only been a night on board her; but the stench was so awful, from so many unfortunate niggers being squeezed so tightly together like herrings in a barrel, and under a hot sun too, that we were longing to send the schooner away to Sierra Leone, and get rid of the horrid smell, which was worse than the swamps ashore! Well, I was in the morning watch after we had towed in the slaver to the Bights, having carried away her foremast with a round shot in making her bring to, and was just going forward to turn in as the next watch came on deck, when who should hail me but my mate, Gil Saul, coming in from the bowsprit, where he had been on the look-out—it was him as was my pardner here when I first started as a shore hand in letting out boats, but he lost the number of his mess long ago like our old ship theAmphitrite.

“As he came up to me his face was as white as your shirt, and he was trembling all over as if he was going to have a fit of the fever and ague.

“‘Lor’, Gil Saul,’ sez I, ‘what’s come over you, mate? are you going on the sick list, or what?’

“‘Hush, Jim,’ sez he, quite terror-stricken. ‘Don’t speak like that; I’ve seen a ghost, and I knows I shall be a dead man afore the day’s out!’

“With that I burst into a larf.

“‘Bless your eyes, Gil,’ sez I, ‘tell that to the marines, my bo’! you can’t get over me on that tack. You won’t find any respectable ghosts leaving dear old England for the sake of this dirty, sweltering west coast, which no Christian would come to from choice, let alone a ghost!’

“‘But, Jim,’ he sez, leaning his hand on my arm to detain me as I was going down below, ‘this wasn’t a h’English ghost as I sees just now. It was the most outlandish foreign reptile you ever see. A long, big, black snake like a crocodile, only twice the length of the old corvette; with a head like a bird, and eyes as big and fiery as our side-lights. It was a terrible creature, Jim, and its eyes flamed out like lightning, and it snorted like a horse as it swam by the ship. I’ve had a warning, old shipmate, and I’ll be a dead man before to-morrow morning, I know!’

“The poor chap shook with fright as he spoke, though he was as brave a man as we had aboard; so I knew that he had been drinking and was in a state of delirium tremendibus, or else he was sickening for the African fever, which those who once have never forget. I therefore tried to pacify him and explain away his fancy.

“‘That’s a good un, Gil Saul,’ I sez. ‘Don’t you let none of the other hands hear what you’ve told me, that you’ve seen the great sea sarpint, or you’ll never get the end of it.’

“Gil got angry at this, forgetting his fright in his passion at my doubting his word like.

“‘But it was the sea sarpint, I tells you, or its own brother if it wasn’t. Didn’t I see it with my own eyes, and I was as wide awake as you are, and not caulking?’

“‘The sea sarpint!’ I repeated scornfully, laughing again in a way that made Gil wild. ‘Who ever heard tell of such a thing, except in a Yankee yarn?’

“‘And why shouldn’t there be a big snake in the sea the same as there are big snakes on land like the Bow constreetar, as is read of in books of history, Jim Newman? Some folks are so cocksure, that they won’t believe nothing but what they sees for themselves. I wonder who at home, now, would credit that there are some monkeys here in Afrikey that are bigger than a man and walk upright; and you yourself, Jim, have told me that when you were in Australy you seed rabbits that were more than ten foot high when they stood on their hind-legs, and that could jump a hundred yards at one leap.’

“‘So I have, Gil Saul,’ sez I, a bit nettled at what he said, and the way he said it, ‘and what I says I stick to. I have seen at Port Philip kangaroos, which are just like big rabbits with upright ears, as big as I’ve said; and I’ve seen ’em, too, jump more than twice the distance any horse could.’

“‘And why then,’ sez he, argumentifying on to me like a shot, ‘and why then shouldn’t there be such a thing as the sea sarpint?’

“This flummuxed me a bit, for I couldn’t find an answer handy, so I axed him another question to get out of my quandary.

“‘But why, Gil, did you say you had seed a ghost, when it was a sarpint?’

“This timehewas bothered for a moment.

“‘Because, Jim,’ sez he, after a while, ‘it appeared so awful to me when I saw it coming out of the white mist with its glaring red eyes and terrible beak. It was a ghost I feels, if it wasn’t the sea sarpint; and whether or no it bodes no good to the man wot sees it, I know. I’m a doomed man.’

“I couldn’t shake him from that belief, though I thought the whole thing was fancy on his part, and I turned into my hammock soon after we got below, without a thought more about the matter—it didn’t stop my caulk, I know. But, ah! that was only in the early morning. Before the day was done, as Gil had said, that conversation was recalled to me in a terrible way—ah, a terrible way!” the old sailor repeated impressively, taking off his tarpaulin hat, and wiping his forehead with his handkerchief, as if the recollection of the past awed him even now. He looked so serious that I could not laugh, inclined as I was to ridicule any such story as that of the fabled sea serpent, which one looks for periodically as a transatlantic myth to crop up in dull seasons in the columns of American newspapers.

“And did you see it too?” I asked; “and Gil Saul’s prophecy turns out true?”

“You shall hear,” he answered gravely; “I’m not spinning a yarn, as you call it, Master Charles; I’m telling you the truth.”

“Go on, Jim,” said I, to reassure him. “I’m listening, all attention.”

“At eight bells that day, another man-of-war come in, bringing an empty slaver she had taken before she had shipped her cargo. In this vessel we were able to separate some of the poor wretches packed on board our Brazilian schooner, and so send them comfortably on to Sierra Leone, which was what we were waiting to do, as I’ve told you already; and now being free to go cruising again, we hove up anchor and made our way down the coast to watch for another slaver which we had heard news of by the man-o’-war that came in to relieve us.

“We had a spanking breeze all day, for a wonder, as it generally fails at noon; but towards the evening, when we had made some eighty miles or so from the Bights, it fell suddenly dead calm, as if the wind had been shut off slap without warning. It was bright before, but the moment the calm came a thick white mist rose around the vessel, just like that which came just now from seaward, and has hidden the island and Spithead from view; you see how it’s reminded me now of the west coast and the Niger river, Master Charles, don’t you?”

“Ay,” said I, “Jim, I see what you were driving at.”

“Those thick mists,” he continued, “always rise on the shores of Afrikey in the early mornings—just as there was a thick one when Gil had seen his ghost, as he said—and they comes up again when the sun sets; but you never sees ’em when the sun’s a-shining bright as it was that arternoon. It was the rummiest weather I ever see. By and by, the mist lifted a bit, and then there were clumps of fog dancing about on the surface of the sea, which was oily and calm, just like patches of trees on a lawn. Sometimes these fog curtains would come down and settle round the ship, so that you couldn’t see to the t’other side of the deck for a minute, and they brought a fearful bad smell with them, the very smell of the lagoons ashore with a dash of the niggers aboard the slave schooner, only a thousand times worse, and we miles and miles away from the land. It was most unaccountable, and most uncomfortable. I couldn’t make it out at all.

“Jest as I was a-puzzling my brains as to the reason of these fog banks and the stench they brought with them, Gil Saul came on deck too, and sheered up alongside of me as I was looking out over the side. His face was a worse sight than the morning; for, instead of his looking white, the colour of his skin was grey and ashy, like the face of a corpse. It alarmed me so that I cried out at once—

“‘Go down below, Gil! Go down and report yourself to the doctor!’

“‘No,’ sez he, ‘it ain’t the doctor an will cure me, Jim; I feel it coming over me again as I felt this morning. I shall see that sarpint or ghost again, I feel sure.’

“What with his face and his words, and the bad smell from the fog, I confess I began to feel queer myself—not frightened exactly—but I’d have much rather have been on Southsea common in the broad daylight than where I was at that moment, I can tell you.”

“Did you see anything, Jim?” I asked the old sailor at this juncture.

“I seed nothing, Master Charles,as yetbut I felt something, I can’t tell what or how to explain; it was a sort of all-overish feeling, as if something was a-walking over my grave, as folks say, summat uncanny, I do assure you.

“The captain and the first lieutenant was on the quarter-deck, the latter with his telescope to his eye a-gazing at something forward apparently, that he was trying to discern amongst the clumps of fog. I was nigh them, and being to leeward could hear what they said.

“The first lieutenant, I hears him, turns to the captain over his shoulder speaking like, and sez he—

“‘Captain Manter, I can’t make it out exactly, but it’s most curious;’ and then turning to me, he sez, ‘Newman, go down to my steward and ax him to give you my night-glass.’

“I went down and fetched the glass and handed it to him, he giving me t’other one to hold; and he claps the night-glass to his eye.

“‘By Jove, Captain Manter,’ sez he presently, ‘I was right, it is the greatest marine monster I ever saw!’

“‘Pooh!’ says the captain, taking the glass from him and looking himself. ‘It’s only a waterspout, they come sometimes along with this appearance of the sea!’ But presently I heard him mutter something under his voice to the lieutenant, and then he said aloud, ‘It is best to be prepared;’ and a moment after that he gave an order, and the boatswain piped up and we beat to quarters. It was very strange that, wasn’t it? And so every man on board thought.

“A very faint breeze was springing up again, and I was on the weather side of the ship, which was towards the land from which the wind came, when suddenly Gil Saul, who was in the same battery and captain of my crew, grips my arm tight. ‘It’s coming! it’s coming!’ he said right in my ear, and then the same horrible foul smell wafted right over the ship again, and a noise was heard just as if a herd of wild horses were sucking up water together.

“At this moment the fog lifted for a bit, and we could see clear for about a couple of miles to windward, where the captain and first lieutenant and all the hands had their eyes fixed as if expecting something.

“By George! you could have knocked me down with a feather, I tell you! I never saw such a sight in my life, and may I never see such another again! There, with his head well out of the water, shaped like a big bird, and higher in the air than the main truck of the ship, was a gigantic reptile like a sarpint, only bigger than you ever dreamt of. He was wriggling through the water at a fearful rate, and going nearly the same course as ourselves, with a wake behind him bigger than a line-of-battle ship with paddle-wheels, and his length—judging by what I saw of him—was about half a mile at least, not mentioning what part of his body was below the water; while he must have been broader across than the largest sperm whale, for he showed good five feet of freeboard.

“The captain and first lieutenant were flabbergasted, I could see; but Captain Manter was as brave an officer as ever stepped, and he pulled himself together in a minute, as the fog, which had only lifted for a minute, came down again shutting out everything from view so that we could not see a yard from the side. ‘Don’t be alarmed, my men,’ he sings out in his cheery voice, so that every hand could hear him, ‘it’s only a waterspout that is magnified by the fog; and as it gets nearer we’ll give it the starboard broadside to clear it up and burst it.’

“‘Ay! ay!’ sez the men with a cheer, while the smell grew more awful and the snorting gushing sound we had heard before so loud that it was quite deafening, just immediately after the captain spoke, when it had stopped awhile.

“As for poor Gil, he had never lost the grip of my arm since we sighted the reptile, although he had the lanyard of his gun in his right hand all the same.

“‘Fire!’ sez the captain; and, in a moment, the whole starboard broadside was fired off, point blank across the water, in a line with the deck, as Captain Manter had ordered us to depress the guns, the oldAmphitriterocking to her keel with the explosion.

“Well, sir, as true as I’m standing here a-talking to you, at the very instant the guns belched out their fire and smoke, and the cannon-balls with which they were loaded, there was a most treemenjus roar and a dash of water alongside the ship, and the waves came over us as if we were on a lee shore; and then, as the men stood appalled at the things going on around them, which was what no mortal ever seed before, Gil clasped my arm more tightly, loosening his right hand from the lanyard of the gun which he had now fired, and shrieked out, ‘There! there!’

“Master Charles, it were awful! A long heavy body seemed to be reared up high in the air right athwart the vessel, and plunged far away in the sea to leeward; and, as the body passed over our heads, I looked up with Gil, and saw the fearful fiery eyes of the biggest snake that ever crawled on the earth, though this was flying in the air, and round his hideous head, that had a long beak like a bird, was a curious fringe or frill all yellowish green, just like what a lizard puffs out under his throat when in a rage. I could see no more, for the thing was over us and gone a mile or more to leeward in a wink of the eye, the fog drifting after it and hiding it from sight. Besides which, I was occupied with Gil, who had sank down on the deck in a dead swoon.

“Whatever it was, the thing carried away our main topmast with the yards, and everything clean from the caps as if it had been shot away, and there wasn’t a trace of them floating in the sea around, as we could see.

“‘A close thing that!’ said the captain, after the shock was over, speaking to the lieutenant, although all hands could hear him, for it was as still as possible now. ‘A close thing, Mr Freemantle. I’ve known a waterspout do even more damage than this; so let us be thankful!’

“And then all hands were piped to clear the wreck, and make the ship snug; for we had some bad weather afterwards, and had to put into Sierra Leone to refit.

“Gil was in a swoon for a long time after; and then he took the fever bad, and only recovered by the skin of his teeth; but he never forgot what he had seen, nor I either, nor any of the hands, though we never talked about it. We knew we had seen something unearthly; even the captain and Lieutenant Freemantle, though they put down the damage to a waterspout for fear of alarming the men, knew differently, as we did. We had seen the great sea sarpint, if anybody had, every man-jack of us aboard! It was a warning, too, as poor Gil Saul had declared; for, strange to say, except himself and me, not a soul as was on board theAmphitritewhen the reptile overhauled us, lived to see Old England again. The bones of all the others were left to bleach on the burning sands of the east coast of Africa, which has killed ten thousand more of our own countrymen with its deadly climate than we have saved slaves from slavery!”

“But, Jim,” said I, as the old sailor paused at the end of his yarn. “Do you think it was really the sea serpent? Might it not have been a waterspout, or a bit of floating wreck, which you saw in the fog?”

Jim Newman got grumpy at once, at the bare insinuation of such a thing.

“Waterspouts and bits of wreck,” said he sarcastically, “generally travel at the rate of twenty miles an hour when there is no wind to move them along, and a dead calm, don’t they? Waterspouts and bits of wreck smell like polecats when you’re a hundred miles from land, don’t they? Waterspouts and bits of wreck roar like a million wild bulls, and snort and swish as they go through the water like a thousand express trains going through a tunnel, don’t they?”

I was silenced by Jim’s sarcasm, and humbly begged his pardon for doubting the veracity of his eyesight.

“Besides, Master Charles,” he urged, when he had once more been restored to his usual equanimity; “besides, you must remember that nearly in the same parts, and about the same time—in the beginning of the month of August, 1848—the sea sarpint, as people who have never seen it are so fond of joking of, was seen by the captain and crew of HMSDaedalusand the event was put down in the ship’s log, and reported officially to the Admiralty. I suppose you won’t go for to doubt the statement which was made by a captain in the navy, a gentleman, and a man of honour, and supported by the evidence of the lieutenant of the watch, the master, a midshipman, the quartermaster, boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel—the rest of the ship’s company being below at the time?”

“No, Jim,” said I, “that’s straight enough.”

“We was in latitude 5 degrees 30 minutes north, and longitude about 3 degrees east,” continued the old sailor, “when we saw it on the 1st of August, 1848, and they in latitude 24 degrees 44 minutes south, and longitude 9 degrees 22 minutes east, when they saw it on the 6th of the same month; so the curious reptile—for reptile he was—must have put the steam on when he left us!”

“Stirred up, probably, by your starboard broadside?” said I.

“Jest so,” went on Jim. “But, he steered just in the direction to meet them when he went off from us, keeping a southward and eastward course; and I daresay, if he liked, he could have made a hundred knots an hour as easy as we could sail ten on a bowline with a stiff breeze.”

“And so you really have seen the great sea serpent?” said I, when the old man-of-war’s man had shifted his quid once more, thus implying that he had finished.

“Not a doubt of it, sir; and by the same token he was as long as from here to the Spit Buoy, and as broad as one of them circular forts out there.”

“That’s a very good yarn, Jim,” said I; “but do you mean to say that you saw the monster with your own eyes, Jim, as well as all the rest of you?”

“I saw him, I tell you, Master Charles, as plain as I see you now; and as true as I am standing by your side the sarpint jumped right over theAmphitritewhen Gil Saul and I was a-looking up, and carried away our maintopmast and everything belonging to it!”

“Well, it must have been wonderful, Jim,” said I.

“Ay, ay, sir,” said he, “but you’d ha’ thought it a precious sight more wonderful if you had chanced to see it, like me!”

I may add, that, shortly afterwards, I really took the trouble to overhaul a pile of the local papers to see whether Jim’s account of the report made by the captain of theDaedalusto the Lords of the Admiralty was substantially true; and, strange to say, I discovered amongst the numbers of theHampshire Telegraphfor the year 1848, the following copy of a letter forwarded by Captain McQubae to the admiral in command at Devonport dockyard at the date mentioned:—

“Her Majesty’s ShipDaedalus“Hamoaze, October 11th, 1848.“Sir,—In reply to your letter of this day’s date, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in theGlobenewspaper, of a sea serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from her Majesty’s shipDaedalus, under my command, on her passage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at five o’clock, PM, on the 6th of August last, in latitude 24 degrees 44 minutes south, and longitude 9 degrees 22 minutes east, the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the North West, with a long ocean swell from the South West, the ship on the port tack heading North East by North, something very unusual was seen by Mr Sartons, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The circumstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Edgar Drummond, with whom and Mr William Barrett, the master, I was at the time walking the quarter-deck. The ship’s company were at supper.“On our attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail-yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the animalà fleur d’eau, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognised his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the South West, which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.“The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake, and never, during the twenty minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses once below the surface of the water; its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and officers above-mentioned.“I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s posts.“I have, etcetera,“Peter McQubae, Captain.“To Admiral Sir WH Gage, GCH, Devonport.”

“Her Majesty’s ShipDaedalus

“Hamoaze, October 11th, 1848.

“Sir,—In reply to your letter of this day’s date, requiring information as to the truth of a statement published in theGlobenewspaper, of a sea serpent of extraordinary dimensions having been seen from her Majesty’s shipDaedalus, under my command, on her passage from the East Indies, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that at five o’clock, PM, on the 6th of August last, in latitude 24 degrees 44 minutes south, and longitude 9 degrees 22 minutes east, the weather dark and cloudy, wind fresh from the North West, with a long ocean swell from the South West, the ship on the port tack heading North East by North, something very unusual was seen by Mr Sartons, midshipman, rapidly approaching the ship from before the beam. The circumstance was immediately reported by him to the officer of the watch, Lieutenant Edgar Drummond, with whom and Mr William Barrett, the master, I was at the time walking the quarter-deck. The ship’s company were at supper.

“On our attention being called to the object it was discovered to be an enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four feet constantly above the surface of the sea, and as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it with the length of what our main-topsail-yard would show in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet of the animalà fleur d’eau, no portion of which was, to our perception, used in propelling it through the water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter that had it been a man of my acquaintance I should have easily recognised his features with the naked eye; and it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree from its course to the South West, which it held on at the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently on some determined purpose.

“The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head, which was, without any doubt, that of a snake, and never, during the twenty minutes that it continued in sight of our glasses once below the surface of the water; its colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or rather a bunch of sea-weed, washed about its back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain’s mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and officers above-mentioned.

“I am having a drawing of the serpent made from a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty by to-morrow’s posts.

“I have, etcetera,

“Peter McQubae, Captain.

“To Admiral Sir WH Gage, GCH, Devonport.”

Consequently, having this testimony, which was amply verified by the other witnesses at the time, I see no reason to doubt the truth of Jim Newman’s yarn about THE GREAT SEA SERPENT!

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