Produced by John Edward Heaton






TOM CRINGLE'S LOG

By Michael Scott

(1789--1835)




CHAPTER I.--The Launching of the Log.


Dazzled by the glories of Trafalgar, I, Thomas Cringle, one fine morning
in the merry month of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and so
and so, magnanimously determined in my own mind, that the United Kingdom
of Great Britain and Ireland should no longer languish under the want of a
successor to the immortal Nelson, and being then of the great
perpendicular altitude of four feet four inches, and of the mature age of
thirteen years, I thereupon betook myself to the praiseworthy task of
tormenting, to the full extent of my small ability, every man and woman
who had the misfortune of being in any way connected with me, until they
had agreed to exert all their interest, direct or indirect, and
concentrate the same in one focus upon the head and heart of Sir Barnaby
Blueblazes, vice-admiral of the red squadrons a Lord of the Admiralty,
and one of the old plain K.B.'s (for he flourished before the time when a
gallant action or two tagged half of the letters of the alphabet to a
man's name, like the tail of a paper kite), in order that he might be
graciously pleased to have me placed on the quarterdeck of one of his
Majesty's ships of war without delay.

The stone I had set thus recklessly a-rolling, had not been in motion
above a fortnight, when it fell with unanticipated violence, and crushed
the heart of my poor mother, while it terribly bruised that of me, Thomas;
for as I sat at breakfast with the dear old woman, one fine Sunday morning,
admiring my new blue jacket and snow white trowsers, and shining well
soaped face, and nicely brushed hair, in the pier glass over the chimney
piece, I therein saw the door behind me open, and Nicodemus, the waiting
man, enter and deliver a letter to the old lady, with a formidable looking
seal.

I perceived that she first ogled the superscription, and then the seal,
very ominously, and twice made as if she would have broken the missive
open, but her heart seemed as often to fail her. At length she laid it
down-heaved a long deep sigh--took off her spectacles, which appeared
dim-wiped them, put them on again, and making a sudden effort, tore open
the letter, read it hastily over, but not so rapidly as to prevent her hot
tears falling with a small tiny tap tap on the crackling paper.

Presently she pinched my arm, pushed the blistered manuscript under my
nose, and utterly unable to speak to me, rose, covered her face with her
hands, and left the room weeping bitterly. I could hear her praying in a
low, solemn, yet sobbing and almost inarticulate voice, as she crossed the
passage to her own dressing-room.--"Even as thou wilt, oh Lord--not mine,
but thy holy will be done--yet, oh! it is a bitter bitter thing for a
widowed mother to part with her only boy."

Now came my turn--as I read the following epistle three times over, with
a most fierce countenance, before thoroughly understanding whether I was
dreaming or awake--in truth, poor little fellow as I was, I was fairly
stunned.

"Admiralty, such a date.

"DEAR MADAM,
It gives me very great pleasure to say that your son is appointed to the
Breeze frigate, now fitting at Portsmouth for foreign service. Captain
Wigemwell is a most excellent officer, and a good man, and the
schoolmaster on board is an exceedingly decent person I am informed; so I
congratulate you on his good fortune in beginning his career, in which I
wish him all success, under such favourable auspices. As the boy is, I
presume, all ready, you had better send him down on Thursday next, at
latest, as the frigate will go to sea, wind and weather permitting,
positively on Sunday morning."

"I remain, my dear Madam,"

"Yours very faithfully,"

"BARNABY BLUEBLAZES, K.B."

However much I had been moved by my mother's grief, my false pride came to
my assistance, and my first impulse was to chant a verse of some old tune,
in a most doleful manner. "All right--all right," I then exclaimed, as I
thrust half a doubled up muffin into my gob, but it was all chew, chew,
and no swallow--not a morsel could I force down my parched throat, which
tightened like to throttle me.

Old Nicodemus had by this time again entered the room, unseen and unheard,
and startled me confoundedly, as he screwed his words in his sharp cracked
voice into my larboard ear. "Jane tells me your mamma is in a sad taking,
Master Tom. You ben't going to leave us, all on a heap like, be you?
Surely your stay until your sister comes from your uncle Job's? You know
there are only two on ye--You won't leave the old lady all alone, Master
Thomas, win ye?' The worthy old fellow's voice quavered here, and the
tears hopped over his old cheeks through the flour and tallow like peas,
as he slowly drew a line down the forehead of his well-powdered pate,
with his fore-finger.

"No--no--why, yes," exclaimed I, fairly overcome; "that is--oh Nic, Nic
you old fool, I wish I could cry, man--I wish I could cry!" and
straightway I hied me to my chamber, and wept until I thought my very
heart would have burst.

In my innocence and ignorance, child as I was, I had looked forward to
several months preparation; to buying and fitting of uniforms, and dirks,
and cocked hat, and swaggering therein, to my own great glory, and the
envy of all my young relations; and especially I desired to parade my
fire--new honours before the large dark eyes of my darling little creole
cousin, Mary Palma; whereas I was now to be bundled on board, at a few
days warning, out of a ready-made furnishing shop, with lots of ill-made,
glossy, hard mangled duck trowsers, the creases as sharp as the backs of
knives, and--"oh, it never rains, but it pours," exclaimed I; "surely all
this promptitude is a little de plus in Sir Barnaby."

However, away I was trundled at the time appointed, with an aching heart,
to Portsmouth, after having endured the misery of a first parting from a
fond mother, and a host of kind friends; but, miserable as I was,
according to my preconceived determination, I began my journal the very
day I arrived, that nothing connected with so great a man should be lost,
and most weighty did the matters therein related appear to me at the time;
but seen through the long vista of, I won't say how many years, I really
must confess that the Log, for long long after I first went to sea in the
Breeze, and subsequently when removed to the old Kraaken line-of-battle
ship, both of which were constantly part of blockading squadrons, could be
compared to nothing more fitly than a dish of trifle, anciently called
syllabub, with a stray plum here and there scattered at the bottom. But
when, after several weary years, I got away in the dear old Torch, on a
separate cruise, incidents came fast enough with a vengeance--stem,
unyielding, iron events, as I found to my heavy cost, which spoke out
trumpet-tongued and fiercely for themselves, and whose tremendous
simplicity required no adventitious aid in the narration to thrill through
the hearts of others. So, to avoid yarn-spinning, I shall evaporate my
early Logs, and blow off as much of the froth as I can, in order to
present the residuum free of flummery to the reader--just to give him a
taste here and there, as it were, of the sort of animal I was at that
time. Thus:

Thomas Cringle, his log-book.

Arrived in Portsmouth by the Defiance at ten, A.M. on such a day.
Waited on the Commissioner, to whom I had letters, and said I was
appointed to the Breeze. Same day, went on board and took up my berth;
stifling hot; mouldy biscuit; and so on. My mother's list makes it
fifteen shirts, whereas I only have twelve.

Admiral made the signal to weigh, wind at S.W. fresh and squally.
Stockings should be one dozen worsted, three of cotton, two of silk; find
only half a dozen worsted, two of cotton, and one of silk.

Fired a gun and weighed.

Sailed for the Fleet off Vigo, deucidly sea-sick was told that fat pork
was the best specific, if bolted half raw; did not find it much of a tonic
passed a terrible night, and for four hours of it obliged to keep watch,
more dead than alive. The very second evening we were at sea, it came on
to blow, and the night fell very dark, with heavy rain. Towards eight
bells in the middle watch, I was standing on a gun well forward on the
starboard side, listening to the groaning of the main-tack, as the
swelling sail, the foot of which stretched transversely right athwart the
ship's deck in a black arch, struggled to tear it up, like some dark
impalpable spirit of the air striving to burst the chains that held him,
and escape high up into the murky clouds, or a giant labouring to uproot
an oak, and wondering in my innocence how hempen cord could brook such
strain when just as the long waited-for strokes of the bell sounded
gladly in mine ear, and the shrill clear note of the whistle of the
boatswain's mate had been followed by his gruff voice, grumbling hoarsely
through the gale, "Larboard watch, ahoy!" The look-out at the weather
gangway, who had been relieved, and beside whom I had been standing a
moment before, stepped past me, and scrambled up on the booms "Hillo,
Howard, where away, my man?" said I.

"Only to fetch my"--

Crack!--the main tack parted, and up flew the sail with a thundering flap,
loud as the report of a cannon-shot, through which, however, I could
distinctly hear a heavy smash, as the large and ponderous blocks at the
clew of the sail struck the doomed sailor under the ear, and whirled him
off the booms over the fore-yard-arm into the sea, where he perished, as
heaving-to was impossible, and useless if practicable, as his head must
have been smashed to atoms.

This is one of the stray plums of the trifle, what follows is a whisk of
the froth, written when we looked into Corunna, about a week after the
embarkation of the army:--

     MONODY ON THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

     Farewell, thou pillar of the war,
     Warm-hearted soldier, Moore, farewell,
     In honour's firmament a star,
     As bright as ere in glory fell.

     Deceived by weak or wicked men,
     How gallantly thou stood'st at bay,
     Like lion hunted to his den,
     Let France tell, on that bloody day.

     No boastful splendour round thy bier,
     No blazon'd trophies o'er thy grave;
     But thou had'st more, the soldier's tear,
     The heart-warm offering of the brave.

     On Lusitania's rock-girt coast,
     All coffinless thy relics lie,
     Where all but honour bright was lost,
     Yet thy example shall not die.

     Albeit no funeral knell was rung,
     Nor o'er thy tomb in mournful wreath
     The laurel twined with cypress hung,
     Still shall it live while Britons breathe.

     What though, when thou wert lowly laid,
     Instead of all the pomp of woe,
     The volley o'er thy bloody bed
     Was thunder'd by an envious foe:--

     Inspired by it in after time,
     A race of heroes will appear,
     The glory of Britannia's clime,
     To emulate thy bright career.

     And there will be, of martial fire,
     Those who all danger will endure;
     Their first, best aim, but to aspire
     To die thy death--the death of Moore.

To return. On the evening of the second day, we were off Falmouth, and
then got a slant of wind that enabled us to lie our course.

Next morning, at daybreak, saw a frigate in the northeast quarter, making
signals;--soon after we bore up. Bay of Biscay--tremendous swell--Cape
Finisterre--blockading squadron off Cadiz--in-shore squadron--and so on,
all trifle and no plums.

At length the Kraaken, in which I had now served for some time, was
ordered home, and sick of knocking about in a fleet, I got appointed to a
fine eighteen-gun sloop, the Torch, in which we sailed on such a day for
the North Sea--wind foul--weather thick and squally; but towards evening
on the third day, being then off Harwich, it moderated, when we made more
sail, and stood on, and next morning, in the cold, miserable, drenching
haze of an October daybreak, we passed through a fleet of fishing-boats
at anchor. "At anchor," thought I, "and in the middle of the sea,"--but so
it was--all with their tiny cabooses, smoking cheerily, and a solitary
figure, as broad as it was long, stiffly walking to and fro on the
confined decks of the little vessels. It was now that I knew the value of
the saying, "a fisherman's walk, two steps and overboard." With regard to
these same fishermen, I cannot convey a better notion of them, than by
describing one of the two North Sea pilots whom we had on board. This
pilot was a tall, raw-boned subject, about six feet or so, with a blue
face--I could not call it red--and a hawk's-bill nose of the colour of
bronze. His head was defended from the weather by what is technically
called a south-west, pronounced sow-west,--cap, which is in shape like
the thatch of a dustman, composed of canvass, well tarred, with no snout,
but having a long flap hanging down the back to carry the rain over the
cape of the jacket. His chin was embedded in a red comforter that rose to
his ears. His trunk was first of all cased in a shirt of worsted
stocking-net; over this he had a coarse linen shirt, then a thick cloth
waistcoat; a shag jacket was the next layer, and over that was rigged the
large cumbrous pea jacket, reaching to his knees. As for his lower spars,
the rig was still more peculiar;--first of all, he had on a pair of most
comfortable woollen stockings, what we call fleecy hosiery--and the
beauties are peculiarly nice in this respect--then a pair of strong
fearnaught trowsers; over these again are drawn up another pair of
stockings, thick, coarse, rig-and-furrowed as we call them in Scotland,
and above all this were drawn a pair of long, well-greased, and liquored
boots, reaching half-way up the thigh, and altogether impervious to wet.
However comfortable this costume may be in bad weather in board, it is
clear enough that any culprit so swathed, would stand a poor chance of
being saved, were he to fall overboard. The wind now veered round and
round, and baffled, and checked us off, so that it was the sixth night
after we had taken our departure from Harwich before we saw Heligoland
light. We then bore away for Cuxhaven, and I now knew for the first time
that we had a government emissary of some kind or another on board,
although he had hitherto confined himself strictly to the captain's
cabin.


All at once it came on to blow from the north-east, and we were again
driven back among the English fishing boats. The weather was thick as
buttermilk, so we had to keep the bell constantly ringing, as we could not
see the jib-boom end from the forecastle. Every now and then we heard a
small, hard, clanking tinkle, from the fishing-boats, as if an old pot
had been struck instead of a bell, and a faint hollo, "Fishing-smack," as
we shot past them in the fog, while we could scarcely see the vessels at
all. The morning after this particular time to which I allude, was darker
than any which had gone before it; absolutely you could not see the
breadth of the ship from you; and as we had not taken the sun for five
days, we had to grope our way almost entirely by the lead. I had the
forenoon watch, during the whole of which we were amongst a little fleet
of fishing-boats, although we could scarcely see them, but being
unwilling to lose ground by lying to, we fired a gun every half hour, to
give the small craft notice of our vicinity, that they might keep their
bells a-going. Every three or four minutes, the marine drum-boy, or some
amateur performer,--for most sailors would give a glass of grog any day to
be allowed to beat a drum for five minutes on end--beat a short roll, and
often as we drove along, under a reefed foresail, and close reefed
topsails, we could hear the answering tinkle before we saw the craft from
which it proceeded; and when we did perceive her as we flew across her
stern, we could only see it, and her mast, and one or two well-swathed,
hardy fishermen, the whole of the little vessel forward being hid in a
cloud.

I had been invited this day to dine with the Captain, Mr Splinter, the
first lieutenant being also of the party; the cloth had been withdrawn,
and we had all had a glass or two of wine a-piece, when the fog settled
down so thickly, although it was not more than five o'clock in the
afternoon, that the captain desired that the lamp might be lit. It was
done, and I was remarking the contrast between the dull, dusky, brown
light, or rather the palpable London fog that came through the skylight,
and the bright yellow sparkle of the lamp, when the second lieutenant, Mr
Treenail, came down the ladder.

"We have shoaled our water to five fathoms, sir--shells and stones.--Here,
Wilson, bring in the lead."

The leadsman, in his pea-jacket and shag trowsers, with the raindrop
hanging to his nose, and a large knot in his cheek from a junk of tobacco
therein stowed, with pale, wet visage, and whiskers sparkling with
moisture, while his long black hair hung damp and lank over his fine
forehead and the stand-up cape of his coat, immediately presented himself
at the door, with the lead in his claws, an octagonal-shaped cone, like
the weight of a window-sash, about eighteen inches long, and two inches
diameter at the bottom, tapering away nearly to a point at top, where it
was flattened, and a hole pierced for the line to be fastened to. At the
lower end--the but-end, as I would say there was a hollow scooped out,
and filled with grease, so that when the lead was cast, the quality of the
soil, sand, or shells, or mud, that came up adhering to this lard,
indicated, along with the depth of water, our situation in the North Sea;
and by this, indeed, we guided our course, in the absence of all
opportunity of ascertaining our position by observations of the sun.

The Captain consulted the chart--"Sand and shells; why, you should have
deeper water, Mr Treenail. Any of the fishing-boats near you?"

"Not at present, sir; but we cannot be far off some of them."

"Well, let me know when you come near any of them."

A little after this, as became my situation, I rose and made my bow, and
went on deck.

By this time the night had fallen, and it was thicker than ever, so that,
standing beside the man at the wheel, you could not see farther forward
than the booms; yet it was not dark, either,--that is, it was moonlight,
so that the haze, thick as it was, had that silver gauze-like appearance,
as if it had been luminous in itself, that cannot be described to any one
who has not seen it. The gun had been fired just as I came on deck, but
no responding tinkle gave notice of any vessel being in the neighbourhood.
Ten minutes, it may have been a quarter of an hour, when a short roll of
the drum was beaten from the forecastle, where I was standing. At the
moment I thought I heard a holla, but I could not be sure. Presently I
saw a small light, with a misty halo surrounding it, just under the
bowsprit.

"Port your helm," sung out the boatswain,--"port your helm, or we shall be
over a fishing-boat!"

A cry arose from beneath a black object was for an instant distinguishable
and the next moment a crash was heard. The sprit-sail-yard rattled, and
broke off sharp at the point where it crossed the bowsprit; and a heavy
smashing thump against our bows told, in fearful language, that we had run
her down. Three of the men and a boy hung on by the rigging of the
bowsprit, and were brought safely on board; but two poor fellows perished
with their boat. It appeared, that they had broken their bell; and
although they saw us coming, they had no better means than shouting, and
showing a light, to advertise us of their vicinity.

Next morning the wind once more chopped round, and the weather cleared,
and in four-and-twenty hours thereafter we were off the mouth of the
Elbe, with three miles of white foaming shoals between us and the land at
Cuxhaven, roaring and hissing, as if ready to swallow us up. It was low
water, and, as our object was to land the emissary at Cuxhaven, we had to
wait, having no pilot for the port, although we had the signal flying for
one all morning, until noon, when we ran in close to the green mound which
constituted the rampart of the fort at the entrance. To our great
surprise, when we hoisted our colours and pennant, and fired a gun to
leeward, there was no flag hoisted in answer at the flag-staff, nor was
there any indication of a single living soul on shore to welcome us. Mr
Splinter and the Captain were standing together at the gangway--"Why,
sir," said the former, "this silence somewhat surprises me: what say you,
Cheragoux?" to the government emissary or messenger already mentioned, who
was peering through the glass close by.

"Why, mi Lieutenant, I don't certain dat all ish right on sore dere.'

"No?" said Captain Deadeye; "why, what do you see?"

"It ish not so mosh vat I shee, as vat I no shee, sir, dat trembles me. It
cannot surely be possib dat de Prussian an' Hanoverian troop have left de
place, and dat dese dem Franceman ave advance so far as de Elbe autrefois,
dat ish, once more?'

"French!" said Deadeye, "Poo, nonsense; no French hereabouts; none nearer
than those cooped up in Hamburgh with Davoust, take my word for it."

"I sall take your vord for any ting else in de large vorld, mi Capitain;
but I see someting glance behind dat rampart, parapet you call, dat look
dem like de shako of de infanterie legere of dat willain de Emperor
Napoleon. Ah! I see de red worsted epaulet of de grenadier also; sacre!
vat is dat pof of vite smoke?"

What it was we soon ascertained to our heavy cost, for the shot that had
been fired at us from a long 32-pound gun, took effect right abaft the
foremast, and killed three men outright, and wounded two. Several other
shots followed, but with less sure aim. Returning the fire was of no use,
as our carronades could not have pitched their metal much more than
halfway; or, even if they had been long guns, they would merely have
plumped the balls into the turf rampart, without hurting any one. So we
wisely hauled off, and ran up the river with the young flood for about an
hour, until we anchored close to the Hanoverian bank, near a gap in the
dike, where we waited till the evening.

As soon as the night fell, a boat with muffled oars was manned, to carry
the messenger on shore. I was in it; Mr Treenail, the second lieutenant,
steering. We pulled in right for a breach in the dike, lately cut by the
French, in order to inundate the neighbourhood; and as the Elbe at high
water is hereabouts much higher than the surrounding country, we were soon
sucked into the current, and had only to keep our oars in the water,
pulling a stroke now and then to give the boat steerage way. As we shot
through the gap into the smooth water beyond, we once more gave way, the
boat's head being kept in the direction of lights that we saw twinkling I
in the distance, apparently in some village beyond the inner embankment,
when all at once we dashed in amongst thousands of wild-geese, which rose
with a clang, and a concert of quacking, screaming, and hissing, that was
startling enough. We skimmed steadily on in the same direction "Oars,
men!" We were by this time close to a small cluster of houses, perched on
the forced ground or embankment, and the messenger hailed in German.

"Qui vive!" sung out a gruff voice; and we heard the clank of a musket, as
if some one had cast it from his shoulder, and caught it in his hands, as
he brought it down to the charge. Our passenger seemed a little taken
aback; but he hailed again, still in German. "Parole," replied the man.
A pause. "The watchword, or I fire." We had none to give.

"Pull round, men," said the lieutenant, with great quickness; "pull the
starboard oars; we are in the wrong box; back water the larboard. That's
it! give way, men."

A flash-crack went the sentry's piece, and ping sung the ball over our
heads. Another pause. Then a volley from a whole platoon. Again all was
dark and silent. Presently a field-piece was fired, and several rockets
were let off in our direction, by whose light we could see a whole company
of French soldiers standing to their arms, with several cannon, but we
were speedily out of the reach of their musketry. Several round shots
were now fired, that hissed, recochetting along the water close by us.
Not a word was spoken in the boat all this time; we continued to pull for
the opening in the dike, although, the current being strong against us, we
made but little way; while the chance of being cut off by the Johnny
Crapeau, getting round the top of the embankment, so as to command the gap
before we could reach it, became every moment more alarming.

The messenger was in great tribulation, and made several barefaced
attempts to stow himself away under the stem sheets.

The gallant fellows who composed the crew strained at their oars until
every thing cracked again; but as the flood made, the current against us
increased, and we barely held our own. "Steer her, out of the current,
man," said the lieutenant to the coxswain; the man put the tiller to port
as he was ordered.

"Vat you do soch a ting for, Mr Capitain Lieutenant?" said the emissary.
"Oh! you not pershave you are rone in order de igh bank!  How you sall
satisfy me no France infanterie legere dere, too, more as in de fort, eh?
How you sall satisfy me, Mister Capitain Lieutenant, eh?"

"Hold your blasted tongue, will you," said Treenail, "and the infantry
legere be damned simply. Mind your eye, my fine fellow, or I shall be
much inclined to see whether you will be Legere in the Elbe or no. Hark!"

We all pricked up our ears, and strained our eyes, while a bright,
spitting sparkling fire of musketry opened at the gap, but there was no
ping pinging of the shot overhead.

"They cannot be firing at us, sir," said the coxswain; "none of them
bullets are telling hereaway."

Presently a smart fire was returned in three distinct clusters from the
water, and whereas the firing at first had only lit up the dark figures of
the French soldiery, and the black outline of the bank on which they were
posted, the flashes that answered them shewed us three armed boats
attempting to force the passage. In a minute the firing ceased; the
measured splash of oars was heard, as boats approached us.

"Who's there?" sung out the lieutenant.

"Torches," was the answer.

"All's well, Torches," rejoined Mr Treenail; and presently the jollyboat,
and launch, and cutter of the Torch, with twenty marines, and thirty-six
seamen, all armed, were alongside.

"What cheer, Treenail, my boy?" quoth Mr Splinter.

"Why, not much; the French, who we were told had left the Elbe entirely,
are still here, as well as at Cuxhaven, not in force certainly, just
sufficiently strong to pepper us very decently in the outgoing?"

"What, are any of the people hurt?"

"No," said the garrulous emissary. "No, not hurt, but some of us
frightened leetle piece--ah, very mosh, je vous assure."

"Speak for yourself, Master Plenippo," said Treenail. "But, Splinter, my
man, now since the enemy have occupied the dike in front, how the deuce
shall we get back into the river, tell me that?"

"Why," said the senior lieutenant, "we must go as we came."

And here the groans from two poor fellows who had been hit were heard from
the bottom of the launch. The cutter was by this time close to us, on the
larboard side, commanded by Mr Julius Caesar Tip, the senior midshipman,
vulgarly called in the ship Bathos, from his rather unromantic name. Here
also a low moaning evinced the precision of the Frenchmen's fire.

"Lord, Mr Treenail, a sharp brush that was."

"Hush!" quoth Treenail. At this moment three rockets hissed up into the
dark sky, and for an instant the hull and rigging of the sloop of war at
anchor in the river glanced in the blue-white glare, and vanished again,
like a spectre, leaving us in more thick darkness than before.

"Gemini! what is that now?" quoth Tip again, as we distinctly heard the
commixed rumbling and rattling sound of artillery scampering along the
dike.

"The ship has sent up these rockets to warn us of our danger," said Mr
Treenail. "What is to be done? Ah, Splinter, we are in a scrape--there
they have brought up field-pieces, don't you hear?"

Splinter had heard it as well as his junior officer. "True enough,
Treenail; so the sooner we make a dash through the opening the better."

"Agreed."

By some impulse peculiar to British sailors, the men were just about
cheering, when their commanding officer's voice controlled them. "Hark,
my brave fellows, silence, as you value your lives."

So away we pulled, the tide being now nearly on the turn, and presently we
were so near the opening that we could see the signal lights in the
rigging of the sloop of war. All was quiet on the dike.

"Thank God, they have retreated after all," said Mr Treenail.

"Whoo--o, whoo--o," shouted a gruff voice from the shore.

"There they are still," said Splinter. "Marines, stand by, don't throw
away a shot; men, pull like fury. So--give way, my lads, a minute of that
strain will shoot us alongside of the old brig--that's it--hurrah!"

"Hurrah!" shouted the men in answer, but his and their exclamations were
cut short by a volley of musketry. The fierce mustaches, pale faces,
glazed shakoes, blue uniforms, and red epaulets, of the French infantry,
glanced for a moment, and then all was dark again.

"Fire!" The marines in the three boats returned the salute, and by the
flashes we saw three pieces of field. Artillery in the very act of being
unlimbered. We could distinctly hear the clash of the mounted
artillerymen's sabres against their horses' flanks as they rode to the
rear, their burnished accoutrements glancing at every sparkle of the
musketry.

We pulled like fiends, and being the fastest boat, soon headed the launch
and cutter, who were returning the enemy's fire brilliantly, when crack--a
six-pound shot drove our boat into staves, and all hands were the next
moment squattering in the water. I sank a good bit, I suppose, for when I
rose to the surface, half drowned and giddy and confused, and striking out
at random, the first thing I recollected was a hard hand being wrung into
my neckerchief, while a gruff voice shouted in my ear.

"Rendez vous, mon cher"

Resistance was useless. I was forcibly dragged up the bank, where both
musketry and cannon were still playing on the boats, which had, however,
by this time got a good offing. I soon knew they were safe by the Torch
opening a fire of round and grape on the head of the dike, a contain proof
that the boats had been accounted for. The French party now ceased firing,
and retreated by the edge of the inundation, keeping the dike between them
and the brig, all except the artillery, who had to scamper off, running
the gauntlet on the crest of the embankment until they got beyond the
range of the carronades. I was conveyed between two grenadiers along the
water's edge so long as the ship was firing; but when that ceased, I was
clapped on one of the limbers of the field-guns, and strapped down to it
between two of the artillerymen.

We rattled along, until we came up to the French bivouac, where, round a
large fire, kindled in what seemed to have been a farmyard, were assembled
about fifty or sixty French soldiers. Their arms were piled under the low
projecting roof of an outhouse, while the fire flickered upon their dark
figures, and glanced on their bright accoutrements, and lit up the wall of
the house that composed one side of the square. I was immediately marched
between a file of men into a small room, where the commanding officer of
the detachment was seated at a table, a blazing wood fire roaring in the
He was a genteel, slender, dark man, with very large black mustaches, and
fine sparkling black eyes, and had apparently just dismounted, for the mud
was fresh on his boots and trowsers. The latter were blue, with a broad
gold lace down the seam, and fastened by a strap under his boot, from
which projected a long fixed spur, which to me was remarkable as an
unusual dress for a Dire, the British army being, at the time I write of,
still in the age of breeches and gaiters, or tall boots, long cues and
pipeclay--that is, those troops which I had seen at home, although I
believe the great Duke had already relaxed a number of these absurdities
in Spain.

His single-breasted coat was buttoned up to his throat, and without an
inch of lace except on his crimson collar, which fitted close round his
neck, and was richly embroidered with gold acorns and oak leaves, as were
the crimson cuffs to his sleeves. He wore two immense and very handsome
gold epaulets.

"My good boy," said he, after the officer who had captured me had told his
story--"so your Government thinks the Emperor is retreating from the
Elbe?"

I was a tolerable French scholar as times went, and answered him as well
as I could.

"I have said nothing about that, sir; but, from your question, I presume
you command the rear-guard, Colonel?"

"How strong is your squadron on the river?" said he, parrying the
question.

"There is only one sloop of war, sir"--and I spoke the truth.

He looked at me, and smiled incredulously; and then continued "I don't
command the rear-guard, sir--but I waste time--are the boats ready?"

He was answered in the affirmative.

"Then set fire to the houses, and let off the rockets; they will see them
at Cuxhaven--men," fall in--march--and off we all trundled towards the
river again.

When we arrived there, we found ten Blankanese boats, two of them very
large, and fitted with sliding platforms. The four fieldpieces were run
on board, two into each; one hundred and fifty men embarked in them and
the other craft, which I found partly loaded with sacks of corn. I was in
one of the smallest boats with the colonel. When we were all ready to
shove off, "Lafont," he said, "are the men ready with their couteaux?"

"They are, sir," replied the sergeant.

"Then cut the horses' throats--but no firing." A few bubbling groans, and
some heavy falls, and a struggling splash or two in the water, showed that
the poor artillery horses had been destroyed.

The wind was fair up the river, and away we bowled before it. It was
clear to me that the colonel commanding the post had overrated our
strength, and, under the belief that we had cut him off from Cuxhaven, he
had determined on falling back on Hamburgh.

When the morning broke, we were close to the beautiful bank below Altona.
The trees were beginning to assume the russet hue of autumn, and the sun
shone gaily on the pretty villas and bloomin Gartens on the hill side,
while here and there a Chinese pagoda, or other fanciful pleasure-house,
with its gilded trellised work, and little bells depending from the eaves
of its many roofs, glancing like small golden balls, rose from out the
fast thinning recesses of the woods.

But there was no life in the scene--'twas "Greece, but living Greece no
more,"--not a fishing-boat was near, scarcely a solitary figure crawled
along the beach.

"What is that?" after we had passed Blankanese, said the colonel quickly.
"Who are those?" as a group of three of four men presented themselves at a
sharp turning of the road, that wound along the foot of the hill close to
the shore.

"The uniform of the Prussians," said one.

"Of the Russians," said another.


"Poo," said a third, "it is a picket of the Prince's;" and so it was, but
the very fact of his having advanced his outposts so far, showed how he
trembled for his position.

After answering their hail, we pushed on, and as the clocks were striking
twelve, we were abreast of the strong beams, that were clamped together
with iron, and constituted the boom or chief water defence of Hamburgh.
We passed through, and found an entire regiment under arms, close by the
Custom-house. Somehow or other, I had drank deep of that John Bull
prejudice, which delights to disparage the physical conformation of our
Gallic neighbours, and hugs itself with the absurd notion, "that on one
pair of English legs doth march three Frenchmen." But when I saw the
weather-beaten soldierlike veterans, who formed this compact battalion,
part of the elite of the first corps, more commanding in its aspect from
severe service having worn all the gilding and lace away--"there was not a
piece of feather in the host" I felt the reality before me fast overcoming
my preconceived opinion. I had seldom or ever seen so fine a body of men,
tall, square, and muscular, the spread of their shoulders set off from
their large red worsted epaulets, and the solidity of the mass increased
by their wide trowsers, which in my mind contrasted advantageously with
the long gaiters and tight integuments of our own brave fellows.

We approached a group of three mounted officers, and in a few words the
officer, whose prisoner I was, explained the affair to the chef de baton,
whereupon I was immediately placed under the care of' a sergeant and six
rank and file, and marched along the chief canal for a mile, where I could
not help remarking the numberless large rafts--you could not call them
boats--of unpainted pine timber, which had arrived from the upper Elbe,
loaded with grain: with gardens, absolute gardens, and cowhouses, and
piggeries on board; while their crews of Fierlanders, men, women, and
children, cut a most extraordinary appearance,--the men in their jackets,
with buttons like pot-lids, and trowsers fit to carry a month's provender
and a couple of children in; and the women with bearings about the
quarters, as if they had cut holes in large cheeses, three feet in
diameter at least, and stuck themselves through them--such sterns--and as
to their costumes, all very fine in a Flemish painting, but the devils
appeared to be awfully nasty in real life.

But we carried on until we came to a large open space fronting a beautiful
piece of water, which I was told was the Alster. As I walked through the
narrow streets, I was struck with the peculiarity of the gables of the
tall houses being all turned towards the thoroughfare, and with the
stupendous size of the churches. We halted for a moment, in the porch of
one of the latter, and my notions of decency were not a little outraged,
by seeing it filled with a squadron of dragoons, the men being in the very
act of cleaning their horses.

At length we came to the open space on the Alster, a large parade, faced
by a street of splendid houses on the left hand, with a row of trees
between them, and the water on the right.

There were two regiments of foot bivouacking here, with their arms piled
under the trees, while, the men were variously employed, some on duty
before the houses, others cleaning their accoutrements, and others again
playing at all kinds of games. Presently we came to a crowd of soldiers
clustered round a particular spot, some laughing, others cracking coarse
jests, but none at all in the least serious. We could not get near enough
to see distinctly what was going on; but we afterwards saw, when the crowd
had dispersed, three men in the dress of respectable burghers, hanging
from a low gibbet,--so low in fact, that although their heads were not six
inches from the beam, their feet were scarcely three from the ground. I
was here placed in a guard-house, and kept there until the evening, when
I was again marched off under my former escort, and we soon arrived at the
door of a large mansion, fronting this parade, where two sentries were
walking backwards and forwards before the door, while five dragoon horses,
linked together, stood in the middle of the street, with one soldier
attending them, but there was no other particular bustle, to mark the
headquarters of the General commanding. We advanced to the entrance--the
sentries carrying arms--and were immediately ushered into a large saloon,
the massive stair winding up along the walls, with the usual heavy wooden
balustrade. We ascended to the first floor, where we were encountered by
three aides-de-camp, in full dress, leaning with their backs against the
hardwood railing, laughing and joking with each other, while two wall-lamps
right opposite cast a bright flashing light on their splendid uniforms.
They were all decorated with one order or another.

We approached.

"Whence, and who have we here?" said one of them, a handsome young man,
apparently not above twenty-two, as I judged, with small tiny black,
jet-black, mustaches, and a noble countenance; fine dark eyes, and curls
dark and clustering.

The officer of my escort answered, "A young Englishman, enseigne de
vaisseau."

I was no such thing, as a poor middy has no commission, but only his
rating, which even his captain, without a court-martial, can take away at
any time, and turn him before the mast.

At this moment, I heard the clang of a sabre, and the jingle of spurs on
the stairs, and the group was joined by my captor, Colonel----.

"Ah, Colonel!" exclaimed the aides, in a volley, "where the devil have you
come from? We thought you were in Bruxelles at the nearest."

The colonel put his hand on his lips and smiled, and then slapped the
young officer who spoke first with his glove. "Never mind, boys, I have
come to help you here--you will need help before long;--but how is--?"
Here he made a comical contortion of his face, and drew his ungloved hand
across his throat. The young officers laughed, and pointed to the door.

He moved towards it, preceded by the youngest of them, who led the way
into a very lofty and handsome room, elegantly furnished, with some fine
pictures on the walls, a handsome sideboard of plate, a rich Turkey carpet
an unusual thing in Germany--on the floor, and a richly gilt pillar, at
the end of the room farthest from us, the base of which contained a stove,
which, through the joints of the door of it, appeared to be burning
cheerily.

There were some very handsome sofas and ottomans scattered through the
room, and a grand piano in one corner, the furniture being covered with
yellow, or amber-coloured velvet, with broad heavy draperies of gold
fringe, like the bullion of an epaulet. There was a small round table
near the stove, on which stood a silver candlestick, with four branches
filled with wax tapers; and bottles of wine, and glasses. At this table
sat an officer, apparently about forty five years of age. There was
nothing very peculiar in his appearance; he Was a middle-sized man, well
made apparently. He sat on one chair, with his legs supported on another.

His white-topped boots had been taken off, and replaced by a pair of
slipshod slippers; his splashed white kerseymere pantaloons, seamed with
gold, resting on the unfrayed velvet cushion; his blue coat, covered with
rich embroidery at the bosom and collar, was open, and the lapels thrown
back, displaying a crimson-velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an
embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his
breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his
buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat
lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented
with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a
thick gold cord twisted two or three turns round it, and ending in two
large tassels of heavy bullion; he wore very large epaulets, and his sword
had been inadvertently, as I conjectured, placed on the table, so that the
steel hilt rested on the ornamental part of the metal stove.

His face was good, his hair dark, forehead without a wrinkle, high and
massive, eyes bright and sparkling, nose neither fine nor dumpy--a fair
enough proboscis as noses go. There was an expression about the upper lip
and mouth that I did not like--a constant nervous sort of lifting of the
lip as it were; and as the mustache appeared to have been recently shaven
off, there was a white blueness on the upper lip, that contrasted
unpleasantly with the dark tinge which he had gallantly wrought for on the
glowing sands of Egypt, and the bronzing of his general features from
fierce suns and parching winds. His bare neck and hands were delicately
fair, the former firm and muscular, the latter slender and tapering, like
a woman's. He was reading a gazette, or some printed paper, when we
entered; and although there was a tolerable clatter of muskets, sabres,
and spurs, he never once lifted his eye in the direction where we stood.
Opposite this personage, on a low chair, with his legs crossed, and eyes
fixed on the ashes that were dropping from the stove, with his brown cloak
hanging from his shoulders, sat a short stout personage, a man about
thirty years of age, with fair flaxen hair, a florid complexion, a very
fair skin, and massive German features. The expression of his face, so
far as such a countenance could be said to have any characteristic
expression, was that of fixed sorrow.

But before I could make any other observation, the aide-de-camp
approached with a good spice of fear and trembling, as I could see.

"Colonel----to wait on your Highness."

"Ah!"--said the officer to whom he spoke,--"ah, colonel, what do you here?
Has the Emperor advanced again?"

"No," said the officer, "he has not advanced; but the rear-guard were cut
off by the Prussians, and the light, with the grenadiers, are now in
Cuxhaven."

"Well," replied the general, "but how come you here?"

"Why, Marshal, we were detached to seize a depot of provisions in a
neighbouring village, and had made preparations to carry them off, when we
were attacked through a gap in the dike, by some armed boats from an
English squadron, and hearing a distant firing at the very moment, which I
concluded to be the Prussian advance, I conceived all chance of rejoining
the main army at an end, and therefore I shoved off in the grain-boats,
and here I am."

"Glad to see you, however," said the general, "but sorry for the cause why
you have returned.--Who have we got here--what boy is that?"

"Why," responded the colonel, "that lad is one of the British officers of
the force that attacked us."

"Ha," said the general again, "how did you capture him?"

"The boat (one of four) in which he was, was blown to pieces by a
six-pound shot. He was the only one of the enemy who swam ashore. The
rest, I am inclined to think, were picked up by the other boats."

"So," grumbled the general, "British ships in the Elbe!"

The colonel continued. "I hope, Marshal, you will allow him his parole? he
is, as you see, quite a child."

"Parole!" replied the Marshall,--"parole! such a mere lad cannot know the
value of his promise."

A sudden fit of rashness came over me.

"He is a mere boy," reiterated the Marshall. "No, no--send him to prison;"
and he resumed the study of the printed paper he had been reading.

I struck in, impelled by despair, for, young as I was, I knew the
character of the man before whom I stood, and I remembered that even a
tiger might be checked by a bold front--"I am an Englishman, sir, and
incapable of breaking my plighted word."

He laid down the paper he was reading, and slowly lifted his eyes, and
fastened them on me,--"Ha," said he, "ha--so young--so reckless!"

"Never mind him, Marshal," said the colonel. "If you will grant him his
parole, I."--"Take it, colonel--take it--take his parole, not to go beyond
the ditch."

"But I decline to give any such promise," said I, with a hardihood which at
the time surprised me, and has always done so.

"Why, my good youth," said the Marshal in great surprise, "why will you
not take advantage of the offer--a kinder one, let me tell you, than I am
in the habit of making to an enemy?"

"Simply, sir, because I will endeavour to escape on the very first
opportunity."

"Ha!" said the Marshal once more, "this to my face? Lafontaine,"--; to the
aide-de-camp,--"a file of soldiers." The handsome young officer
hesitated hung in the wind, as we say, for a moment--moved, as I imagined,
by my extreme youth.

This irritated the Marshal rose, and stamped on the floor. The colonel
essayed to interfere. "Sentry--sentry--a file of grenadiers--take him
forth," and--here he energetically clutched the steel hilt of his sword,
and instantly dashed it from him--"Sacre!--the devil--what is that?" and
straightway he began to pirouette on one leg round the room, shaking his
right hand, and blowing his fingers.

The officers in waiting could not stand it any longer, and burst into a
fit of laughter, in which their commanding officer, after an unavailing
attempt to look serious--I should rather write fierce joined, and there he
was, the bloody Davoust--Duke of Auerstad Prince of Eckmuhl--the Hamburgh
Robespierre--the terrible Davoust--dancing all around the room, in a
regular guffaw, like to split his sides. The heated stove had made his
sword, which rested on it, nearly red-hot.

All this while the quiet, plain-looking little man sat still. He now
rose; but I noticed that he had been fixing his eyes intently on me. I
thought I could perceive a tear glistening in them as he spoke.

"Marshal, will you intrust that boy to me?"

"Poo," said the Prince, still laughing, "take him--do what you will with
him;"--then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, "But, Mr----, you must
be answerable for him--he must be at hand if I want him."

The gentleman who had so unexpectedly patronized me rose, and said,
"Marshal, I promise."

"Very well," said Davoust. "Lafontaine, desire supper to be sent up."

It was brought in, and my new ally and I were shown out.

As we went down stairs, we looked into a room on the ground floor, at the
door of which were four soldiers with fixed bayonets. We there saw, for
it was well lit up, about twenty or five-and-twenty respectable-looking
men, very English in appearance, all to their long cloaks, an unusual sort
of garment to my eye at that time. The night was very wet, and the
aforesaid garments were hung on pegs in the wall all around the room,
which being strongly heated by a stove, the moisture rose up in a thick
mist and made the faces of the burghers indistinct.

They were all busily engaged talking to each other, some to his neighbour,
the others across the table, but all with an expression of the most
intense anxiety.

"Who are these?" said I to my guide.

"Ask no questions here" said he, and we passed on.

I afterwards learned that they were the hostages seized on for the
contribution of fifty millions of francs, which had been imposed on the
doomed city, and that this very night they had been tom from their
families, and cooped up in the way I had seen them, where, they were
advertised, they must remain until the money should be forthcoming.

As we walked along the streets, and crossed the numerous bridges over the
canals and branches of the river, we found all the houses lit up, by order,
as I learned, of the French marshal. The rain descended in torrents,
sparkling past the lights, while the city was a desert, with one dreadful
exception; for we were waylaid at almost every turn by groups of starving
lunatics, their half-naked figures and pale visages glimmering in the
glancing lights, under the dripping rain; and, had it not been for the
numerous sentries scattered along the thoroughfares, I believe we should
have been tom to pieces by bands of moping idiots, now rendered ferocious
from their sufferings, in consequence of the madhouses having been cleared
of their miserable, helpless inmates, in order to be converted into
barracks for the troops. At all of these bridges sentries were posted,
past which my conductor and myself were franked by the sergeant who
accompanied us giving the countersign. At length, civilly touching his
cap, although he did not refuse the piece of money tendered by my friend,
he left us, wishing us good-night, and saying the coast was clear.

We proceeded, without farther challenge, until we came to a very
magnificent house, with some fine trees before it. We approached the door,
and rung the doorbell. It was immediately opened, and we entered a large
desolate, looking vestibule, about thirty feet square, filled in the centre
with a number of bales of goods, and a variety of merchandise, while a
heavy wooden stair, with clumsy oak balustrades, wound round the sides of
it. We ascended, and, turning to the right, entered a large well furnished
room, with a table laid out for supper, with lights, and a comfortable
stove at one end. Three young officers of cuirassiers, in their superb
uniforms, whose breast and back pieces were glittering on a neighbouring
sofa, and a colonel of artillery, were standing round the stove. The
colonel, the moment we entered, addressed my conductor:

"Ah,----, we are devilish hungry--Ich bin dem Verhungern nahe and were
just on the point of ordering in the provender had you not appeared."

"A little more than that," thought I; for the food was already smoking on
the table.

Mine host acknowledged the speech with a slight smile.

"But who have we here?" said one of the young dragoons. He waited a
moment "Etes--vous Francais?" I gave him no answer. He then addressed me
in German--"Sprechen sie geldufig Deutsch?"

"Why," chimed in my conductor, "he does speak a little French
indifferently enough; but still...."

Here I was introduced to the young officers, and we all sat down at table;
the colonel, civility itself, pressing my host to drink his own wine, and
eat his own food and even rating the servants for not being sufficiently
alert in their attendance on their own master.

"Well, my dear----, how have you sped with the Prince?"

"Why, colonel," said my protector, in his calm way, "as well as I expected.
I was of some service to him when he was here before, at the time he was
taken so very ill, and he has not forgotten it; so I am not included
amongst the unfortunate detainees for the payment of the fine. But that is
not all; for I am allowed to go tomorrow to my father's, and here is my
passport."

"Wonders will never cease," said the colonel; "but who is that boy?"

"He is one of the crew of the English boats which tried to cut off
Colonel----the other evening, near Cuxhaven. His life was saved by a
very laughable circumstance certainly; merely, by the marshal's sword,
from resting on the stove, having become almost red-hot." And here he
detailed the whole transaction as it took place, which set the party
a-laughing most heartily.

I will always bear witness to the extreme amenity with which I was now
treated by the French officers. The evening passed over quickly. About
eleven we retired to rest, my friend furnishing me with clothes, and
warning me, that next morning he would call me at daylight, to proceed to
his father's country-seat, where he intimated that I must remain in the
meantime.

Next morning I was roused accordingly, and a long, low, open carriage
rattled up to the door, just before day--dawn. Presently the reveille was
beaten, and answered by the different posts in the city, and on the
ramparts.

We drove on, merely showing our passport to the sentries at the different
bridges, until we reached the gate, where we had to pun up until the
officer on duty appeared, and had scrupulously compared our personal
appearance with the written description. All was found correct, and we
drove on.

It surprised me very much, after having repeatedly heard of the great
strength of Hamburgh, to look out on the large mound of green turf that
constituted its chief defence.

It is all true that there was a deep ditch and glacis beyond; but there
was no covered way, and both the scarp and counterscarp were simple
earthen embankments; so that, had the ditch been filled up with fascines,
there was no wall to face the attacking force after crossing it,--nothing
but a green mound, precipitous enough, certainly, and crowned with a low
parapet of masonry, and bristling with batteries about half way down, so
that the muzzles of the guns were flush with the neighbouring country
beyond the ditch. Still there was wanting, to my imagination, the
strength of the high perpendicular wall, with its gaping embrasures, and
frowning cannon. All this time it never occurred to me, that to breach
such a defence as that we looked upon was impossible. You might have
plumped your shot into it until you had converted it into an iron mine,
but no chasm could have been forced in it by all the artillery in Europe;
so battering in a breach was entirely out of the question, and this, in
truth, constituted the great strength of the place.

We arrived, after an hour's drive, at the villa belonging to my
protector's family, and walked into a large room, with a comfortable
stove, and extensive preparations made for a comfortable breakfast.

Presently three young ladies appeared. They were his sisters,--blue-eyed,
fair-haired, white-skinned, round-sterned, plump little partridges.

"Haben sie gefruhstucht?" said the eldest.

"Pas encore," said he in French, with a smile. "But, sisters, I have
brought a stranger here, a young English officer, who was recently
captured in the river."

"An English officer!" exclaimed the three ladies, looking at me, a poor,
little, dirty midshipman, in my soiled linen, unbrushed shoes, dirty
trowsers and jacket, with my little square of white cloth on the collar;
and I began to find the eloquent blood mangling in my cheeks, and tingling
in my ears; but their kindly feelings got the better of a gentle
propensity to laugh, and the youngest said--"Sie sind gerade zu rechter
zeit gekommen:" when, finding that her German was Hebrew to me, she tried
the other tack "Vous arrivez a propos, le dejeuner est pret."

However I soon found, that the moment they were assured that I was in
reality an Englishman, they all spoke English, and exceedingly well too.
Our meal was finished, and I was standing at the window looking out on a
small lawn, where evergreens of the most beautiful kinds were checkered
with little round clumps of most luxuriant hollyhocks, and the fruit trees
in the neighborhood were absolutely bending to the earth under their loads
of apples and pears. Presently my friend came up to me; my curiosity
could no longer be restrained.

"Pray, my good sir, what peculiar cause, may I ask, have you for showing
me, an entire stranger to you, all this unexpected kindness? I am fully
aware that I have no claim on you."

"My good boy, you say true; but I have spent the greatest part of my life
in London, although a Hamburgher born, and I consider you, therefore, in
the light of a countryman. Besides, I will not conceal that your gallant
bearing before Davoust riveted my attention, and engaged my good wishes."

"But how come you to have so much influence with the general, I mean?"

"For several reasons," he replied. "For those, amongst others, you heard
the colonel--who has taken the small liberty of turning me out of my own
house in Hamburgh--mention last night at supper. But a man like Davoust
cannot be judged of by common rules. He has, in short, taken a fancy to
me, for which you may thank your stars although your life has been
actually saved by the Prince having burned his fingers,--But here comes
my father."

A venerable old man entered the room, leaning on his stick. I was
introduced in due form.

"He had breakfasted in his own room," he said, "having been ailing; but he
could not rest quietly, after he had heard there was an Englishman in the
house, until he had himself welcomed him."

I shall never forget the kindness I experienced from these worthy people.
For three days I was fed and clothed by them as if I had been a member of
the family.

Like a boy as I was, I had risen on the fourth morning at grey dawn, to be
aiding in dragging the fish-pond, so that it might be cleaned out.

This was an annual amusement, in which the young men and women in the
family, under happier circumstances, had been in the invariable custom of
joining; and, changed as these were, they still preserved the fashion.
The seine was cast in at one end, loaded at the bottom with heavy sinks,
and buoyant at the top with cork floats. We hauled it along the whole
length of the pond, thereby driving the fish into an enclosure, about
twenty feet square, with a sluice towards the pond, and another fronting
the dull ditch that flowed past beyond it. Whenever we had hunted the
whole of the finny tribes--(barring those slippery youths the eels, who,
with all their cleverness, were left to dry in the mud)--into the toils,
we filled all the tubs, and pots, and pans, and vessels of all kinds and
descriptions, with the fat, honest looking Dutchmen, the carp and tench,
who really submitted to their captivity with all the resignation of most
ancient and quiet fish, scarcely indicating any sense of its irksomeness,
except by a lumbering sluggish flap of their broad heavy tails.

A transaction of this kind could not take place amongst a group of young
folk without shouts of laughter, and it was not until we had caught the
whole of the fish in the pond, and placed them in safety, that I had
leisure to look about me. The city lay about four miles distant from us.
The whole country about Hamburgh is level, except the right bank below it
of the noble river on which it stands, the Elbe. The house where I was
domiciled stood on nearly the highest point of this bank, which gradually
sloped down into a swampy hollow, nearly level with the river. It then
rose again gently until the swell was crowned with the beautiful town of
Altona, and immediately beyond appeared the ramparts and tall spires of
the noble city itself.

The morning had been thick and foggy, but as the sun rose, the white mist
that had floated over the whole country, gradually concentrated and
settled down into the hollow between us and Hamburgh, covering it with an
impervious veil, which even extended into the city itself, filling the
lower part of it with a dense white bank of fog, which rose so high that
the spires alone, with one or two of the most lofty buildings, appeared a
bove the rolling sea of white fleece-like vapour, as if it had been a
model of the stronghold, in place of the reality, packed in white wool, so
distinct did it appear, diminished as it was in the distance. On the
tallest spire of the place, which was now sparkling in the early sunbeams,
the French flag, the pestilent tricolor, that waved sluggishly in the
faint morning breeze.

It attracted my attention, and I pointed it out to my patron. Presently
it was hauled down, and a series of signals was made at the yard-arm of a
spar, that had been slung across it. Who can they be telegraphing to?
thought I, while I could notice my host assume a most anxious and startled
look, while he peered down into the hollow. But he could see nothing, as
the fog bank still filled the whole of the space between the city and the
acclivity where we stood.

"What is that?" said I; for I heard, or thought I heard, a low rumbling
rushing noise in the ravine. Mr ---- heard it as well as I apparently,
for he put his finger to his lips--as much as to say, "Hold your tongue,
my good boy nous verrons."

It increased--the clattering of horses hoofs, and the clang of scabbards
were heard, and, in a twinkling, the hussar caps of a squadron of light
dragoons emerged from out the fog bank, as, charging up the road, they
passed the small gate of green basket-work at a hand gallop. I ought to
have mentioned before, that my friend's house was situated about half way
up the ascent, so that the rising ground behind it in the opposite
direction from the city shut out all view towards the country. After the
dragoons passed, there was an interval of two minutes, when a troop of
flying artillery, with three six-pound field-pieces, rattled after the
leading squadron, the horses all in a lather, at full speed, with the guns
bounding and jumping behind them as if they had been playthings, followed
by their caissons. Presently we could see the leading squadron file to
the right--clear the low hedge--and then disappear over the crest of the
hill. Twenty or thirty pioneers, who had been carried forward behind as
many of the cavalry, were now seen busily employed in filling up the
ditch, and cutting down the short scrubby hedge; and presently, the
artillery coming up also, filed off sharply to the right, and formed on
the very summit of the hill, distinctly visible between us and the grey
cold streaks of morning. By the time we had noticed, this, the clatter in
our immediate neighbourhood was renewed, and a group of mounted officers
dashed past us, up the path, like a whirlwind, followed at a distance of
twenty yards, by a single cavalier, apparently a general officer. These
did not stop, as they rode at speed past the spot where the artillery were
in position, but, dipping over the summit, disappeared down the road, from
which they did not appear to diverge, until they were lost to our view
beyond the crest of the hill. The hum and buzz, and, anon, the "measured
tread of marching men," in the valley between us and Hamburgh, still
continued. The leading files of a light infantry regiment, now appeared,
swinging along at a round trot, with their muskets poised in their right
hands--no knapsacks on their backs. They appeared to follow the route of
the group of mounted officers, until we could see a puff of white smoke,
then another and a third from the field-pieces, followed by thudding
reports, there being no high ground nor precipitous bank nor water in the
neighborhood to reflect the sound, and make it emulate Jove's thunder. At
this, they struck across the fields, and forming behind the guns, lay down
flat on their faces, where they were soon hid from our view by the wreaths
of white smoke, as the sluggish morning breeze rolled it down the
hill-side towards us.

"What the deuce can all this mean--is it a review?" said I, in my
innocence.

"A reconnoissance in force," groaned my friend. "The Allied troops must
be at hand--now, God help us!"

The women, like frightened hares, paused to look up in their brother's
face, as he kept his eye steadily turned towards the ridge of the hill,
and, when he involuntarily wrung his hands, they gave a loud scream, a
fearful concerto, and ran off into the house.

The breeze at this moment "aside the shroud of battle cast" and we heard a
faint bugle-call, like an echo, wail in the distance, from beyond the
hill. It was instantly answered by the loud, startling blare of a dozen of
the light infantry bugles above us on the hill-side, and we could see
them suddenly start from their lair, and form; while between us and the
clearing morning sky, the cavalry, magnified into giants in the strong
relief on the outline of the hill, were driven in straggling patrols, like
chaff, over the summit--their sabres sparkling in the level sunbeams, and
the reports of the red flashes of their pistols crackling down upon us.

"They are driven in on the infantry," said Mr ---- He was right but the
light battalion immediately charged over the hill, with a loud hurrah,
after admitting the beaten horse through their intervals, who, however, to
give the devils their due, formed again in a instant, under the shelter of
the high ground. The artillery again opened their fire the cavalry once
more advanced, and presently we could see nothing but the field-pieces,
with their three separate groups of soldiers standing quietly by them,--a
sure proof that the enemy's pickets were now out of cannon-shot, and had
been driven back on the main body, and that the reconnoissance was still
advancing.

What will not an habitual exposure to danger do, even with tender women?

"The French have advanced, so let us have our breakfast, Julia, my dear,"
said Mr----as we entered the house. "The Allied Forces would have been
welcome, however; and surely, if they do come, they will respect our
sufferings and helplessness."

The eldest sister, to whom he spoke, shook her head mournfully; but,
nevertheless, betook herself to her task of making coffee.

"What rumbling and rattling is that?" said to an old servant who had just
entered the room.

"Two wagons with wounded men, sir, have passed onwards towards the town."

"Ah!" said mine host, in great bitterness of spirit.

But allons, we proceeded to make the best use of our time--ham, good--fish,
excellent eggs, fresh--coffee, superb--when we again heard the fieldpieces
above us open their fire, and in the intervals we could distinguish the
distant rattle of musketry. Presently this rolling fire slackened, and,
after a few scattering shots here and there, ceased altogether; but the
cannon on the hill still continued to play.

We were by this time all standing in a cluster in the porch of the villa,
before which stood the tubs with the finny spoil of the fish-pond, on a
small paddock of velvet grass, about forty yards square, separated from
the high-road by a low ornamental fence of green basket-work, as already
mentioned. The firing from the great guns increased, and every now and
then I thought I heard a distant sound, as if the reports of the guns
above us had been reflected from some precipitous bank.

"I did not know that there was any echo here," said the youngest girl.

"Alas, Janette!" said her brother, "I fear that is no echo;" and he put up
his hand to his ear, and listened in breathless suspense. The sound was
repeated.

"The Russian cannon replying to those on the hill!" said Mr with startling
energy. "God help us! it can no longer be an affair of posts; the heads
of the Allied columns must be in sight, for the French skirmishers are
unquestionably driven in."

A French officer at this moment rattled past us down the road at speed,
and vanished in the hollow, taking the direction of the town.

His hat fell off, as his horse swerved a little at the open gate as he
passed. He never stopped to pick it up. Presently a round shot, with a
loud ringing and hissing sound, pitched over the hill, and knocked one of
the fish-tubs close to us to pieces, scattering the poor fish all about
the lawn. With the recklessness of a mere boy I dashed out, and was busy
picking them up, when Mr----called to me to come back.

"Let us go in and await what may befall; I dread what the ty"--here he
prudently checked himself, remembering, no doubt, "that a bird of the air
might carry the matter,"--"I dread what he may do, if they are really
investing the place. At any rate, here, in the very arena where the
struggle will doubtless be fiercest, we cannot abide. So go, my dear
sisters, and pack up whatever you may have most valuable, or most
necessary. Nay, no tears; and I will attend to our poor old father, and
get the carriage ready, if, God help me, I dare use it."

"But where, in the name of all that is fearful, shall we go?" said his
second sister. "Not back to Hamburgh--not to endure another season of such
deep degradation--not to be exposed to the Oh brother, you saw we all
submitted to our fate without a murmur, and laboured cheerfully on the
fortifications, when compelled to do so, by that inhuman monster Davoust,
amidst the ribaldry of a licentious soldiery, merely because poor Janette
had helped to embroider a standard for the brave Hanseatic Legion you know
how we bore this"--here the sweet girl held out her delicate hands, galled
by actual and unwonted labour and many other indignities, until that awful
night, when--"No, brother, we shall await the arrival of the Russians, even
should we see our once happy home converted into a field of battle; but
into the city we shall not go."

"Be it so, then, my dearest, sister.--Wilhehn, put up the stuhl wagen."

He had scarcely returned into the breakfast-room, when the door opened,
and the very handsome young officer, the aide-de-camp of the Prince,
whom I had seen the night I was carried before Davoust, entered, splashed
up to the eyes, and much heated and excited. I noticed blood on the hilt
of his sword. His orderly sat on his foaming steed, right opposite where
I stood, wiping his bloody sabre on his horse's mane. The women grew
pale; but still they had presence of mind enough to do the honours with
self-possession.

The stranger wished us a good morning; and on being asked to sit down to
breakfast, he unbuckled his sword, threw it from him with a clash on the
floor, and then, with all the grace in the world, addressed himself to
discuss the comestibles. He tried a slight approach to jesting now and
then; but seeing the heaviness of heart which prevailed amongst the women,
he, with the good breeding of a man of the world, forbore to press his
attentions.

Breakfast being finished, and the ladies having retired, he rose, buckled
on his sword again, drew on his gloves, and taking his hat in his hand, he
advanced to the window, and desired his men to "fall in."

"Men--what men?" said poor Mr----.

"Why, the Marshal has had a company of sapeurs for these three days back
in the adjoining village--they are now here."

"Here!" exclaimed----; "what do the sappers here?" Two of the soldiers
carried slow matches in their hands, while their muskets were slung at
their backs. "There is no mine to be sprung here?"

The young officer heard him with great politeness, but declined giving any
answer. The next moment he turned towards the ladies, and was making
himself as agreeable as time and circumstances would admit; when a shot
came crashing through the roof, broke down the ceiling, and knocking the
flue of the stove to pieces, rebounded from the wall, and rolled
harmlessly beneath the table. He was the only person who did not start,
or evince any dread. He merely cast his eyes upward and smiled. He then
turned to poor----, who stood quite collected, but very pale, near where
the stove had stood, and held out his hand to him.

"On my honour," said the young soldier, "it grieves me to the very heart;
but I must obey my orders. It is no longer an affair of posts; the enemy
is pressing on us in force. The Allied columns are in sight; their
cannon shot have but now penetrated your roof; we have but driven in their
pickets; very soon they will be here; and in the event of their advance,
my orders are to burn down this house and the neighbouring village."

A sudden flush rushed into Mr----'s face.

"Indeed! does the Prince really--"

The young officer bowed, and with something more of sternness in his
manner than he had yet used, he said, "Mr----, I duly appreciate your
situation, and respect your feelings; but the Prince of Eckmuhl is my
superior officer, and under other circumstances"--Here he slightly touched
the hilt of his sword.

"For myself I don't care," said----, "but what is to become of my
sisters?"

"They must proceed to Hamburgh."

"Very well--let me order the stuhl wagen, and give us, at all events, half
an hour to move our valuables."

Here Mr----exchanged looks with his sisters.

"Certainly," said the young officer; "and I will myself see you safe into
the city."

Who says that eels cannot be made used to skinning? The poor girls
continued their little preparations with an alacrity and presence of mind
that truly surprised me. There was neither screaming nor fainting, and by
the time the carriage was at the door, they, with two female domestics,
were ready to mount. I cannot better describe their vehicle, than by
comparing it to a canoe mounted on four wheels, connected by a long perch,
with a coachbox at the bow, and three gig bodies hung athwart ships, or
slung inside of the canoe, by leather thongs. At the moment we were
starting, Mr ---- came close to me and whispered, "Do you think your ship
will still be in the river?"

I answered that I made no doubt she was.

"But even if she be not," said he, "the Holstein bank is open to us.
Anywhere but Hamburgh now." And the scalding tears ran down his cheeks.

At this moment there was a bustle on the hill top, and presently the
artillery began once more to play, while the musketry breezed up again in
the distance. A mounted bugler rode half way down the hill, and sounded
the recall. The young officer hesitated. He man waved his hand, and blew
the advance.

"It must be for us--answer it." His bugle did so. "Bring the pitch, men
the flax--so now--break the windows, and let the air in--set the house on
fire; and, Sergeant Guido, remain to prevent it being extinguished I shall
fire the village as we pass through."

He gave the word to face about; and, desiring the men to follow at the
same swinging run with which the whole of the infantry had originally
advanced, he spurred his horse against the hill, and soon disappeared.

My host's resolution seemed now taken. Turning to the sergeant, "My good
fellow, the reconnoissance will soon be returning; I shall precede it into
the town."

The man, a fine vieux moustache, hesitated.

My friend saw it, and hit him in a Frenchman's most assailable quarter.

"The ladies, my good man--the ladies!--You would not have them drive in
pell-mell with the troops, exposed most likely to the fire of the
Prussian advanced-guard, would you?"

The man grounded his musket, and touched his cap--"Pass on." Away we
trundled, until, coming to a cross-road, we turned down towards the
river; and at the angle we could see thick wreaths of smoke curling up
into the air, showing that the barbarous order had been but too effectually
fulfilled.

"What is that?" said----.

A horse, with his rider entangled and dragged by the stirrup, passed us at
full speed, leaving a long track of blood on the road.

"Who is that?"

The coachman drove on, and gave no answer; until, at a sharp turn, we came
upon the bruised and now breathless body of the young officer, who had so
recently obeyed the savage behests of his brutal commander. There was a
musket-shot right in the middle of his fine forehead, like a small blue
point, with one or two heavy black drops of blood oozing from it. His pale
features wore a mild and placid expression, evincing that the numberless
lacerations and bruises, which were evident through his tom uniform, had
been inflicted on a breathless corpse.

The stuhl wagen had carried on for a mile farther or so, but the firing
seemed to approximate, whereupon our host sung out, "Fahrt Zu,
Schwager--Wir Kommen nicht weiter."

The driver of the stuhl wagen skulled along until we arrived at the
beautiful, at a mile off, but the beastly, when close to, village of
Blankanese.

When the voiture stopped in the village, there seemed to be a
nonplusation, to coin a word for the nonce, between my friend and his
sisters. They said something very sharply, and with a degree of
determination that startled me. He gave no answer. Presently the
Amazonian attack was renewed.

"We shall go onboard," said they. "Very well," said he; "but have
patience, have patience!"

"No, no. Wann wird man sich einschiffen mussen?"

By this time we were in the heart of the village, and surrounded with a
whole lot, forty at the least, of Blankanese boatmen. We were not long
in selecting one of the fleetest-looking of those very fleet boats, when
we all trundled on board; and I now witnessed what struck me as being an
awful sign of the times. The very coachman of the stuhl wagen, after
conversing a moment with his master, returned to his team, tied the legs
of the poor creatures as they stood, and then with a sharp knife cut their
jugular veins through and through on the right side, having previously
reined them up sharp to the left, so that, before starting, we could see
three of the team, which consisted of four superb bays, level with the
soil and dead; the near wheeler only holding out on his fore-legs.

We shoved off at eleven o'clock in the forenoon; and after having twice
been driven into creeks on the Holstein shore by bad weather, we arrived
about two next morning safely on board the Torch, which immediately got
under weigh for England. After my story had been told to the Captain, I
left my preserver, his father, and his sisters in his hands, and I need
scarcely say that they had as hearty a welcome as the worthy old soul
could give them, and dived into the midshipmen's berth for a morsel of
comfort, where, in a twinkling, I was far into the secrets of a pork pie.



CHAPTER II.--The Cruise of the Torch.

     Sleep, gentle sleep--
     Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
     Seal up the shipboy's eyes, and rock his brains,
     In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
     And in the visitation of the winds,
     Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
     Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
     With deafning clamour in the slippery clouds,
     That, with the hurry, death itself awakes--
     Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
     To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude?

     2 HENRY IV, Ill. 1. 5, 18--27.


Heligoland light-north and by west--so many leagues--wind baffling
weather hazy--Lady Passengers on deck for the first time.

Arrived in the Downs--ordered by signal from the guard--ship to proceed to
Portsmouth. Arrived at Spithead--ordered to fit to receive a general
officer, and six pieces of field artillery, and a Spanish Ecclesiastic,
the Canon of----. Plenty of great guns, at any rate--a regular park of
artillery.

Received General ---- and his wife, and aide-de-camp, and two poodle
dogs, one white man-servant, one black ditto, and the Canon of ----, and
the six nine-pound field-pieces, and sailed for the Cove of Cork.

It was blowing hard as we stood in for the Old Head of Kinsale pilot boat
breasting the foaming surge like a sea gull--"Carrol Cove" in her tiny
mainsail-pilot jumped into the main channel a bottle of rum swung by the
lead line into the boat--all very clever.

Ran in, and anchored under Spike Island. A line-of-battle ship, three
frigates, and a number of merchantmen at anchor-men of war lovely craft,
bands playing--a good deal of the pomp and circumstance of war. Next
forenoon, Mr Treenail, the second lieutenant, sent for me.

"Mr Cringle," said he, "you have an uncle in Cork, I believe?"

I said I had.

"I am going there on duty to-night; I daresay, if you asked the Captain to
let you accompany me, he would do so." This was too good an offer not to be
taken advantage of. I plucked up courage, made my bow, asked leave, and
got it; and the evening found my friend the lieutenant, and myself, after a
ride of three hours, during which I, for one, had my bottom sheathing
grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing the Ferry at
Passage, safe in our inn at Cork. I soon found out that the object of my
superior officer was to gain information amongst the crimp shops, where ten
men, who had run from one of the West Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy,
were stowed away, but I was not let farther into the secret; so I set out
to pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my friends, Mr
and Mrs Job Cringle, the lieutenant dropped in upon us about nine o'clock.
He was heartily welcomed, and under the plea of our being obliged to return
to the ship early next morning, we soon took leave, and returned to the
inn. As I was turning into the public room, the door was open, and I could
see it full of blowsy-faced monsters, glimmering and jabbering, through
the mist of hot brandy grog and gin twist; with poodle Benjamins, and
greatcoats, and cloaks of all sorts and sizes, steaming on their pegs, with
Barcelonas and comforters, and damp travelling caps of seal-skin, and blue
cloth, and tartan, arranged above the same.

Nevertheless, such a society in my juvenile estimation, during my short
escapade from the middy's berth, had its charms, and I was rolling in with
a tolerable swagger, when Mr Treenail pinched my arm.

"Mr Cringle, come here, into my room."

From the way in which he spoke, I imagined, in my innocence, that his room
was at my elbow; but no such thing--we had to ascend a long, and not
overclean staircase, to the fourth floor, before we were shown into a
miserable little double-bedded room. So soon as we had entered, the
lieutenant shut the door.

"Tom," said he, "I have taken a fancy to you, and therefore I applied for
leave to bring you with me; but I must expose you to some danger, and, I
will allow, not altogether in a very creditable way either. You must enact
the spy for a short space."

I did not like the notion certainly, but I had little time for
consideration.

"Here," he continued--"here is a bundle." He threw it on the floor. "You
must rig in the clothes it, contains, and make your way into the celebrated
crimp shop in the neighbourhood, and pick up all the information you can
regarding the haunts of the pressable men at Cove, especially with regard
to the ten seamen who have run from the West Indiaman we left below. You
know the Admiral has forbidden pressing in Cork, so you must contrive to
frighten the blue jackets down to Cove, by representing yourself as an
apprentice of one of the merchant vessels, who had run from his indentures,
and that you had narrowly escaped from a press-gang this very night here."

I made no scruples, but forthwith arrayed myself in the slops contained in
the bundle; in a pair of shag trowsers, red flannel shirt, coarse blue
cloth jacket, and no waistcoat.

"Now," said Mr Treenail, "stick a quid of tobacco in your cheek, and take
the cockade out of your hat; or stop, leave it, and ship this striped
woollen night-cap--so--and come along with me."

We left the house, and walked half a mile down the Quay.

Presently we arrived before a kind of low grog-shop--a bright lamp was
flaring in the breeze at the door, one of the panes of the glass of it
being broken.

Before I entered, Mr Treenail took me to one side--"Tom, Tom Cringle, you
must go into this crimp shop; pass yourself off for an apprentice of the
Guava, bound for Trinidad, the ship that arrived just as we started, and
pick up all the knowledge you can regarding the whereabouts of the men, for
we are, as you know, cruelly ill manned, and must replenish as we best
may." I entered the house, after having agreed to rejoin my superior
officer, so soon as I considered I had obtained my object. I rapped at the
inner door, in which there was a small unglazed aperture cut, about four
inches square; and I now, for the first time, perceived that a strong glare
of light was cast into the lobby, where I stood, by a large argand with a
brilliant reflector, that like a magazine lantern had been mortised into
the bulkhead, at a height of about two feet above the door in which the
spy-hole was cut. My first signal was not attended to; I rapped again,
and looking round I noticed Mr Treenail flitting backwards and forwards
across the doorway, in the rain with his pale face and his sharp nose, with
the sparkling drop at the end on't, glancing in the light of the lamp. I
heard a step within, and a very pretty face now appeared at the wicket.

"Who are you saking here, an' please ye?"

"No one in particular, my dear; but if you don't let me in, I shall be
lodged in jail before five minutes be over."

"I can't help that, young man," said she; "but where are ye from, darling?"

"Hush!--I am run from the Guava, now lying at the Cove."

"Oh," said my beauty, "come in;" and she opened the door, but still kept it
on the chain in such a way, that although, by bobbing, I creeped and slid
in beneath it, yet a common-sized man could not possibly have squeezed
himself through. The instant I entered, the door was once more banged to,
and the next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen
feet square, with a well sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over
against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks against the wall.
There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room--but no
tablecloth--at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather
whisky-faced savage, dressed in a shabby great-coat of the hodden grey
worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy
breeches, worsted stockings, and well-patched shoes; he was smoking a long
pipe. Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets
and trowsers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent
up a smoky steam that cast a halo round the lamp, that depended from the
roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking abominably of
coarse whale oil. They were, generally speaking, hardy, weather beaten
men, and the greater proportion half, or more than half drunk. When I
entered, I walked up to the landlord.

"Yo ho, my young un, whence and whither bound, my hearty?"

"The first don't signify much to you," said I, "seeing I have wherewithal
in the locker to pay my shot; and as to the second, of that hereafter; so,
old boy, let's have some grog, and then say if you can ship me with one of
them cowers that are lying alongside the quay?"

"My eye, what a lot of brass that small chap has!" grumbled mine host.

"Why, my lad, we shall see to-morrow morning; but you gammons so bad about
the rhino, that we must prove you a bit; so, Kate, my dear,"--to the pretty
girl who had let me in--"score a pint of rum against--why, what is your
name?"


"What's that to you?" rejoined I, "let's have the drink, and don't doubt
but the shiners  shall be forthcoming."

"Hurrah!" shouted the party, most of them now very tipsy. So the rum was
produced forthwith, and as I lighted a pipe and filled a glass of swizzle,
I struck in, "Messmates, I hope you have all shipped?"

"No, we haven't," said some of them.

"Nor shall we be in any hurry, boy," said others.

"Do as you please, but I shall, as soon as I can, I know; and I recommend
all of you making yourselves scarce to-night, and keeping a bright
look-out."

"Why, boy, why?"

"Simply because I have just escaped a press-gang, by bracing sharp up at
the corner of the street, and shoving into this dark alley here."

This called forth another volley of oaths and unsavoury exclamations, and
all was bustle and confusion, and packing up of bundles, and settling of
reckonings.

"Where," said one of the seamen,--"where do you go to, my lad?"

"Why, if I can't get shipped to-night, I shall trundles down to Cove
immediately, so as to cross at Passage before daylight, and take my chance
of shipping with some of the outward-bound that are to sail, if the wind
holds, the day after to-morrow. There is to be no pressing when blue
Peter flies at the fore--and that was hoisted this afternoon, I know, and
the foretopsail will be loose to-morrow."

"D--n my wig, but the small chap is right," roared one.

"I've a bloody great mind to go down with him," stuttered another, after
several unavailing attempts to weigh from the bench, where he had brought
himself to anchor.

"Hurrah!" yelled a third, as he hugged me, and nearly suffocated me with
his maudling caresses, "I trundles wid you too, my darling, boy the piper!"

"Have with you, boy--have with him," shouted half-a-dozen other voices,
while each stuck his oaken twig through the handkerchief that held his
bundle, and shouldered it, clapping his straw or tarpaulin hat, with a slap
on the crown, on one side of his head, and staggering and swaying about
under the influence of the poteen, and slapping his thigh, as he bent
double, laughing like to split himself, till the water ran over his cheeks
from his drunken half-shut eyes, while jets of tobacco juice were
squirting in all directions.

I paid the reckoning, urging the party to proceed all the while, and
indicating Pat Doolan's at the Cove as a good rendezvous; and promising to
overtake them before they reached passage, I parted company at the corner
of the street, and rejoined the lieutenant.

Next morning we spent in looking about the town--Cork is a fine town,
contains seventy thousand inhabitants, more or less-safe in that--and
three hundred thousand pigs, driven by herdsmen, with coarse grey
greatcoats. The pigs are not so handsome as those in England, where the
legs are short, and tails curly; here the legs are long, the flanks sharp
and thin, and tails long and straight.

All classes speak with a deuced brogue, and worship graven images; arrived
at Cove to a large dinner and here follows a great deal of nonsense of the
same kind.

By the time it was half-past ten o'clock, I was preparing to turn in, when
the master at arms called down to me,--"Mr Cringle, you are wanted in the
gunroom."

I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way
I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in
pea jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of
them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass. They
appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one
fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom,
the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying
themselves over a glass of cold grog--the gunner taking the watch on deck
the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet,
while the Spanish priest, and aide-de-camp to the general, were playing
at chess, and wrangling in bad French. I could hear Mr Treenail rumbling
and stumbling in his stateroom as he accoutred himself in a jacket similar
to those of the armed boat's crew whom I had passed, and presently he
stepped into the gunroom, armed also with cutlass and pistol.

"Mr Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring your arms with
you."

I now knew whereabouts he was, and that my Cork friends were the quarry at
which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, and we immediately pulled on shore,
where, leaving two strong fellows in charge of the boat, with instructions
to fire their pistols and shove off a couple of boat-lengths, should any
suspicious circumstance indicating an attack take place, we separated, like
a pulk of Cossacks coming to the charge, but without the hourah, with
orders to meet before Pat Doolan's door, as speedily as our legs could
carry us. We had landed about a cable's length to the right of the high
precipitous bank--up which we stole in straggling parties--on which that
abominable congregation of the most filthy huts ever pig grunted in is
situated, called the Holy Ground. Pat Doolan's domicile was in a little
dirty lane, about the middle of the village. Presently ten strapping
fellows, including the lieutenant, were before the door, each man with his
stretcher in his hand. It was a very tempestuous, although moonlight
night, occasionally clear, with the moonbeams at one moment sparkling
brightly in the small ripples on the filthy puddles before the door, and
on the gem like water-drops that hung from the eaves of the thatched roof,
and lighting up the dark statue like figures of the men, and casting their
long shadows strongly against the mud wall of the house; at another, a
black cloud as it flew across her disk, cast every thing into deep shade,
while the only noise we heard was the hoarse dashing of the distant surf,
rising and falling on the fitful gusts of the breeze. We tried the door.
It was fast.

"Surround the house, men," said the lieutenant, in a whisper. He rapped
loudly. "Pat Doolan, my man, open the door, will ye?" No answer. "If you
don't, we shall make free to break it open, Patrick, dear."

All this while the light of a fire, or of candles, streamed through the
joints of the door. The threat at length appeared to have the desired
effect. A poor decrepid old man undid the bolt and let us in. "Ohon a reel
Ohon a reel What make you all this boder for--come you to help us to wake
poor ould Kate there, and bring you the whisky wid you?"

"Old man, where is Pat Doolan?" said the lieutenant.

"Gone to borrow whisky, to wake ould Kate, there--the howling will begin
whenever Mother Doncannon and Mistress Conolly come over from Middleton,
and I look for dem every minute."

There was no vestige of any living thing in the miserable hovel, except the
old fellow. On two low trestles, in the middle of the floor, lay a coffin
with the lid on, on the top of which was stretched the dead body of an old
emaciated woman in her grave-clothes, the quality of which was much finer
than one could have expected to have seen in the midst of the surrounding
squalidness. The face of the corpse was uncovered, the hands were crossed
on the breast, and there was a plate of salt on the stomach.

An iron cresset, charged with coarse rancid oil, hung from the roof, the
dull smoky red light flickering on the dead corpse, as the breeze streamed
in through the door and numberless chinks in the walls, making the cold,
rigid, sharp features appear to move, and glimmer, and gibber as it were,
from the changing shades. Close to the head, there was a small door
opening into an apartment of some kind, but the coffin was placed so near
it, that one could not pass between the body and the door.

"My good man," said Treenail, to the solitary mourner, "I must beg leave to
remove the body a bit, and have the goodness to open that door."

"Door, yere honour!  It's no door o'mine--and it's not opening that same,
that old Phil Carrol shall busy himself wid."

"Carline," said Mr Treenail, quick and sharp, "remove the body." It was
done.

"Cruel heavy the old dame is, sir, for all her wasted appearance," said one
of the men.

The lieutenant now ranged the press-gang against the wall fronting the
door, and stepping into the middle of the room, drew his pistol and cocked
it. "Messmates," he sung out, as if addressing the skulkers in the other
room, "I know you are here--the house is surrounded--and unless you open
that door now, by the power, but I'll fire slap into you." There was a
bustle, and a rumbling tumbling noise within. "My lads, we are now sure of
your game," sung out Treenail, with great animation. "Sling that clumsy
bench there." He pointed to an oaken form about eight feet long, and nearly
three inches thick. To produce a two-inch rope, and junk it into three
lengths, and rig the battering-ram, was the work of an instant. "One,
two, three,"--and bang the door flew open, and there were our men stowed
away, each sitting on the top of his bag, as snug as could be, although
looking very much like condemned thieves. We bound eight of them, and
thrusting a stretcher across their backs, under their arms, and lashing
the fins to the same by good stout lanyards, we were proceeding to stump
our prisoners off to the boat, when, with the innate devilry that I have
inherited, I know not how, but the original sin of which has more than
once nearly cost me my life, I said, without addressing my superior
officer, or any one else, directly--"I should like now to scale 'my pistol
through that coffin. If I miss, I can't hurt the old woman; and an eyelet
hole in the coffin itself, will only be an act of civility to the worms."

I looked towards my superior officer, who answered me with a knowing shake
of the head. I advanced, while all was silent as death--the sharp click of
the pistol lock now struck acutely on my own ear. I presented, when--crash
the lid of the coffin, old woman and all, was dashed off in an instant, the
corpse flying up in the air, and then falling heavily on the floor, rolling
over and over, while a tall handsome fellow, in his stripped flannel shirt
and blue trowsers, with the sweat pouring down over his face in steams, sat
up in the shell.

"All right," said Mr Treenail--"help him out of his berth."

He was pinioned like the rest, and forthwith we walked them all off to the
beach. By this time there was an unusual bustle in the Holy Ground, and we
could hear many an anathema, curses, not loud but deep, ejaculated from
many a half-opened door as we passed along. We reached the boat, and time
it was we did so, for a number of stout fellows, who had followed us in a
gradually increasing crowd, until they amounted to forty at the fewest, now
nearly surrounded us, and kept closing in. As the last of us jumped into
the boat, they made a rush, so that if we had not shoved off with the speed
of light, I think it very likely that we should have been overpowered.
However, we reached the ship in safety, and the day following we weighed,
and stood out to sea  with our convoy.

It was a very large fleet nearly three hundred sail of merchant vessel
and a noble sight truly.

A line-of-battle ship led--and two frigates and three sloops of our class
were stationed on the outskirts of the fleet, whipping them in as it were.
We made Madeira in fourteen days, looked in, but did not anchor; superb
island--magnificent mountains--white town,--and all very fine, but nothing
particular happened for three weeks. One fine evening, (we had by this
time progressed into the trades, and were within three hundred miles of
Barbadoes,) the sun had set bright and clear, after a most beautiful day,
and we were bowling along right before it, rolling like the very devil; but
there was no moon, and although the stars sparkled brilliantly, yet it was
dark, and as we were the sternmost of the men of war, we had the task of
whipping in the sluggards. It was my watch on deck. A gun from the
commodore, who showed a number of lights. "What is that, Mr Kennedy?"
said the captain to the old gunner.--"The commodore has made the night
signal for the sternmost ships to make more sail and close, sir." We
repeated the signal--and stood on hailing the dullest of the merchantmen in
our neighbourhood to make more sail, and firing a musket-shot now and then
over the more distant of them. By and by we saw a large West Indiaman
suddenly haul her wind, and stand across our bows.

"Forward there!" sung out Mr Splinter, "stand by to fire a shot at that
fellow from the boat gun if he does not bear up. What can he be after?
Sergeant Armstrong,"--to a marine, who was standing close by him in the
waist--"get a musket, and fire over him!"

It was done, and the ship immediately bore up on her course again; we now
ranged alongside of him on his larboard quarter.

"Ho, the ship, ahoy!"--"Hillo!" was the reply.--"Make more sail, sir, and
run into the body of the fleet, or I shall fire into you; why don't you,
sir, keep in the wake of the commodore?" No answer. "What meant you by
hauling your wind, just now, sir?"

"Yesh, Yesh," at length responded a voice from the merchantman.

"Something wrong here," said Mr Splinter. "Back your maintopsail, sir, and
hoist a light at the peak; I shall send a boat on board of you.
Boatswain's mate, pipe away the crew of the jolly boat." We also hove to,
and were in the act of lowering down the boat, when the officer rattled
out. "Keep all fast, with the boat; I can't comprehend that chap's
manoeuvres for the soul of me. He has not hove to." Once more we were
within pistol-shot of him. "Why don't you heave to, sir?" All silent.

Presently we could perceive a confusion and noise of struggling on board,
and angry voices, as if people were trying to force their way up the
hatchways from below; and a heavy thumping on the deck, and a creaking of
the blocks, and rattling of the cordage, while the mainyard was first
braced one way, and then another, as if two parties were striving for the
mastery. At length a voice hailed distinctly "We are captured by a"--A
sudden sharp cry, and a splash overboard, told of some fearful deed.

"We are taken by a privateer or pirate," sung out another voice. This was
followed by a heavy crunching blow, as when the spike of a butcher's axe is
driven through a bullock's forehead deep into the brain.

By this time all hands had been called, and the word had been passed to
clear away two of the foremost carronades on the starboard side, and to
load them with grape.

"On board there--get below, all you of the English crew, as I shall fire
with grape," sung out the captain.

The hint was not taken. The ship at length came to the wind--we rounded
to, under her lee--and an armed boat, with Mr Treenail, and myself, and
sixteen men, with cutlasses, were sent on board.

We jumped on deck, and at the gangway, Mr Treenail stumbled, and fell over
the dead body of a man, no doubt the one who had hailed last, with his
scull cloven to the eyes, and a broken cutlass blade sticking in the gash.
We were immediately accosted by the mate, who was lashed down to a ringbolt
close by the bits, with his hands tied at the wrists by sharp cords, so
tightly that the blood was spouting from beneath his nails.

"We have been surprised by a privateer schooner, sir; the lieutenant of
her, and twelve men, are now in the cabin."

"Where are the rest of the crew?"

"All secured in the forecastle, except the second mate and boatswain, the
men who hailed you just now; the last was knocked on the head, and the
former was stabbed and thrown overboard."

We immediately released the men, eighteen in number, and armed them with
boarding pikes. "What vessel is that astern of us?" said Treenail to the
mate. Before he could answer, a shot from the brig fired at the privateer
showed she was broad awake. Next moment Captain Deadeye hailed. "Have you
mastered the prize crew, Mr Treenail?"--"Aye, aye, sir."--"Then keep your
course, and keep two lights hoisted at your mizzen peak during the night,
and blue Peter at the main topsail yardarm when the day breaks; I shall
haul my wind after the suspicious sail in your wake."

Another shot, and another, from the brig--the time between each flash and
the report increasing with the distance. By this the lieutenant had
descended to the cabin, followed by his people, while the merchant crew
once more took the charge of the ship, crowding sail into the body of the
fleet.

I followed him close, pistol and cutlass in hand, and I shall never forget
the scene that presented itself when I entered. The cabin was that of a
vessel of five hundred tons, elegantly fitted up; the panels filled with
crimson cloth, edged with gold mouldings, with superb damask hangings
before the stem windows and the side berths, and brilliantly lighted up by
two large swinging lamps hung from the deck above, which were reflected
from, and multiplied in, several plate glass mirrors in the panels. In the
recess, which in cold weather had been occupied by the stove, now stood a
splendid grand piano, the silk in the open work above the keys
corresponding with the crimson cloth of the panels; it was open, a Leghom
bonnet with a green veil, a parasol, and two long white gloves, as if
recently pulled off, lay on it, with the very mould of the hands in them.

The rudder case was particularly beautiful; it was a richly carved and
gilded palm tree, the stem painted white, and interlaced with golden
fretwork, like the lozenges of a pine-apple, while the leaves spread up
and abroad on the roof.

The table was laid for supper, with cold meat, and wine, and a profusion of
silver things, all sparkling brightly; but it was in great disorder, wine
spilt, and glasses broken, and dishes with meat upset, and knives, and
forks, and spoons, scattered all about. She was evidently one of those
London West Indiamen, on board of which I knew there was much splendour and
great comfort. But, alas! the hand of lawless violence had been there.
The captain lay across the table, with his head hanging over the side of it
next to us, and unable to help himself, with his hands tied behind his
back, and a gag in his mouth; his face purple from the blood running to
his head, and the white of his eyes turned up, while his loud stentorous
breathing but too clearly indicated the rupture of a vessel on the brain.

He was a stout portly man, and, although we released him on the instant,
and had him bled, and threw water on his face, and did all we could for
him, he never spoke afterwards, and died in half an hour.

Four gentlemanly-looking men were sitting at table, lashed to their
chairs, pale and trembling, while six of the most ruffian-looking
scoundrels I ever beheld, stood on the opposite side of the table in a row
fronting us, with the light from the lamps shining full on them. Three of
them were small, but very square mulattoes; one was a South American
Indian, with the square high-boned visage, and long, lank, black glossy
hair of his cast. These four had no clothing besides their trowsers, and
stood with their arms folded, in all the calmness of desperate men, caught
in the very fact of some horrible atrocity, which they knew shut out all
hope of mercy. The two others were white Frenchmen, tall,
bushy-whiskered, sallow desperadoes, but still, wonderful to relate,
with, if I may so speak, the manners of gentlemen. One of them squinted,
and had a hair-lip, which gave him a horrible expression. They were
dressed in white trowsers and shirts, yellow silk sashes round their
waists, and a sort of blue uniform jacket, blue Gascon caps, with the
peaks, from each of which depended a large bullion tassel, hanging down on
one side of their heads. The whole party had apparently made up their
minds that resistance was vain, for their pistols and cutlasses, some of
them bloody, had all been laid on the table, with the buts and handles
towards us, contrasting horribly with the glittering equipage of steel,
and crystal, and silver things, on the snow-white damask table-cloth.
They were immediately seized and ironed, to which they submitted in
silence. We next released the passengers, and were overpowered with
thanks, one dancing, one crying, one laughing, and another praying. But,
merciful Heaven! what an object met our eyes!  Drawing aside--the curtain
that concealed a sofa, fitted into a recess, there lay, more dead than
alive, a tall and most beautiful girl, her head resting on her left arm,
her clothes disordered and tom, blood on her bosom, and foam on her mouth,
with her long dark hair loose and dishevelled, and covering the upper part
of her deadly pale face, through which her wild sparkling black eyes,
protruding from their sockets, glanced and glared with the fire of a
maniac's, while her blue lips kept gibbering an incoherent prayer one
moment, and the next imploring mercy, as if she had still been in the
hands of those who knew not the name; and anon, a low hysterical laugh
made our very blood freeze in our bosoms, which soon ended in a long
dismal yell, as she rolled off the couch upon the hard deck, and lay in a
dead faint.

Alas the day!--a Maniac she was from that hour. She was the only daughter
of the murdered master of the ship, and never awoke, in her unclouded
reason, to the fearful consciousness of her own dishonour and her parent's
death.

The Torch captured the schooner, and we left the privateer's men at
Barbadoes to meet their reward, and several of the merchant sailors were
turned over to the guardship, to prove the facts in the first instance, and
to serve his Majesty as impressed men in the second, but scrimp measure of
justice to the poor ship's crew.

Anchored at Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes.--Town seemed built of cards--black
faces--showy dresses of the negroes--dined at Mr C----'s, capital dinner
little breeze mill at the end of the room, that pumped a solution of
saltpetre and water into a trough of tin, perforated with small holes,
below which, and exposed to the breeze, were ranged the wine and liqueurs,
all in cotton bags; the water then flowed into a well, where the pump was
stepped, and thus was again pumped up and kept circulating.

Landed the artillery, the soldiers, officers, and the Spanish Canon
discharged the whole battery.

Next morning, weighed at day--dawn, with the trade for Jamaica, and soon
lost sight of the bright blue waters of Carlisle Bay, and the smiling fields
and tall cocoa-nut trees of the beautiful island. In a week after we
arrived off the east end of Jamaica, and that same evening, in obedience to
the orders of the admiral on the Windward Island station, we hove to in
Bull Bay, in order to land despatches, and secure our tithe of the crews of
the merchant-vessels bound for Kingston, and the ports to leeward, as they
passed us. We had fallen in with a pilot canoe off Morant Bay with four
negroes on board, who requested us to hoist in their boat, and take them
all on board, as the pilot schooner, to which they belonged, had that
morning bore up for Kingston, and left instructions to them to follow her
in the first vessel appearing afterwards. We did so, and now, as it was
getting dark, the captain came up to Mr Treenail.

"Why, Mr Treenail, I think we had better heave-to for the night, and in
this case I shall want you to go in the cutter to Port Royal to deliver the
despatches on board the flag-ship."

"I don't think the admiral will be at Port Royal, sir," responded the
lieutenant; "and, if I might suggest, these black chaps have offered to
take me ashore here on the Palisadoes, a narrow spit of land, not above one
hundred yards across, that divides the harbour from the ocean, and to haul
the canoe across, and take me to the agent's house in Kingston, who will
doubtless frank me up to the pen, where the admiral resides, and I shall
thus deliver the letters, and be back again by day--dawn."

"Not a bad plan," said old Deadeye; "put it in execution, and I will go
below and get the despatches immediately."

The canoe was once more hoisted out; the three black fellows, the pilot of
the ship continuing on board, jumped into her alongside.

"Had you not better take a couple of hands with you, Mr Treenail?" said the
skipper.

"Why, no, sir, I don't think I shall want them; but if you will spare me Mr
Cringle I will be obliged, in case I want any help."

We shoved off, and as the glowing sun dipped under Portland Point, as the
tongue of land that runs out about four miles to the southward, on the
western side of Port Royal harbour, is called, we arrived within a hundred
yards of the Palisadoes. The surf, at the particular spot we steered for,
did not break on the shore in a rolling curling wave, as it usually does,
but smoothed away under the lee of a small sandy promontory that ran out
into the sea, about half a cable's length to windward, and then slid up the
smooth white sand, without breaking, in a deep clear green swell, for the
space of twenty yards, gradually shoaling, the colour becoming lighter and
lighter, until it frothed away in a shallow white fringe, that buzzed as it
receded back into the deep green sea, until it was again propelled forward
by the succeeding billow.

"I say, friend Bungo, how shall we manage? You don't mean to swamp us in a
shove through that surf, do you?" said Mr Treenail.

"No fear, massa, if you and toder leetle man-of-war buccra, only keep dem
seat when we rise on de crest of de swell dere."

We sat quiet enough. Treenail was coolness itself, and I aped him as well
as I could. The loud murmur, increasing to a roar, of the sea, was trying
enough as we approached, buoyed on the last long undulation.

"Now sit still, massa, bote."

We sank down into the trough, and presently were hove forwards with a
smooth sliding motion up on the beach--until grit, grit, we stranded on the
cream-coloured sand, high and dry.

"Now jomp, massa, jomp."

We leapt with all our strength, and thereby toppled down on our noses; the
sea receded, and before the next billow approached, we had run the canoe
twenty yards beyond high water mark.

It was the work of a very few minutes to haul the canoe across the
sandbank, and to launch it once more in the placid waters of the harbour
of Kingston. We pulled across towards the town, until we landed at the
bottom of Hanover Street; the lights from the cabin windows of the
merchantmen glimmering as e passed, and the town only discernible from a
solitary sparkle here and there. But the contrast when we landed was very
striking. We had come through the darkness of the night in comparative
quietness; and in two hours from the time we had left the old Torch, we
were transferred from her orderly deck to the bustle of a crowded town.


One of our crew undertook to be the guide to the agent's house. We arrived
before it. It was a large mansion, and we could see lights glimmering in
the ground floor; but it was gaily lit up aloft. The house itself stood
back about twenty feet from the street, from which it was separated by an
iron railing.

We knocked at the outer-gate, but no one answered. At length our black
guide found out a bell-pull, and presently the clang of a bell resounded
throughout the mansion. Still no one answered. I pushed against, the
door, and found it was open, and Mr Treenail and myself immediately
ascended a flight of six marble steps, and stood in the lower piazza,
with the hall, or lower vestibule, before us. We entered. A very
well-dressed brown woman, who was sitting at her work at a small table,
along with two young girls of the same complexion, instantly rose to
receive us.

"Beg pardon," said Mr Treenail, "pray, is this Mr----'s house?" "Yes,
sir, it is."

"Will you have the goodness to say if he be at home?"

"Oh yes, sir, he is dere upon dinner wid company," said the lady.

"Well," continued the lieutenant, "say to him, that an officer of his
Majesty's sloop Torch is below, with despatches for the admiral."

"Surely, sir,--surely," the dark lady continued;--"Follow me, sir; and dat
small gentleman,--[Thomas Cringle, Esquire, no less!]--him will better
follow me too."

We left the room, and, turning to the right, landed in the lower piazza of
the house, fronting the north. A large clumsy stair occupied the
easternmost end, with a massive mahogany balustrade, but the whole affair
below was very ill lighted. The brown lady preceded us; and planting
herself at the bottom of the staircase, began to shout to some one above.

"Toby!--Toby!--buccra gentlemen arrive, Toby." But no Toby responded to
the call.

"My dear madam," said Treenail, "I have little time for ceremony. Pray
usher us up into Mr----'s presence."

"Den follow me, gentlemen, please."

Forthwith we all ascended the dark staircase until we reached the first
landing-place, when we heard a noise as of two negroes wrangling on the
steps above us.

"You rascal!" sang out one, "take dat; larn you for teal my wittal!"--then
a sharp crack, as if he had smote the culprit across the pate; whereupon,
like a shot, a black fellow, in a handsome livery, trundled down, pursued
by another servant with a large silver ladle in his hand, with which he
was belabouring the fugitive over his flinthard skull, right against our
hostess, with the drumstick of a turkey in his hand, or rather in his
mouth.

"Top, you tief--top, you tief!--for me piece dat," shouted the pursuer.

"You dam rascal!" quoth the dame. But she had no time to utter another
word, before the fugitive pitched, with all his weight, right against her;
and at the very moment another servant came trundling down with a large
tray-full of all kinds of meats--and I especially remember that two large
crystal stands of jellies composed part of his load--so there we were
regularly capsized, and caught all of a heap in the dark landing-place,
half way up the stair; and down the other flight tumbled our guide, with Mr
Treenail and myself, and the two blackies, on the top of her, Tolling in
our descent over, or rather into, another large mahogany tray which had
just been carried out, with a tureen of turtle soup in it, and a dish of
roast-beef, and platefulls of land-crabs, and the Lord knows what all
besides.

The crash reached the ear of the landlord, who was seated at the head of
his table in the upper piazza, a long gallery about fifty feet long by
fourteen wide, and he immediately rose and ordered his butler to take a
light. When he came down to ascertain the cause of the uproar, I shall
never forget the scene.

There was, first of all, mine host, a remarkably neat personage, standing
on the polished mahogany stair, three steps above his servant, who was a
very well-dressed respectable elderly negro, with a candle in each hand;
and beneath him, on the landing-place, lay two trays of viands, broken
tureens of soup, fragments of dishes, and fractured glasses, and a chaos of
eatables and drinkables, and table gear scattered all about, amidst which
lay scrambling my lieutenant and myself, the brown housekeeper, and the two
negro servants, all more or less covered with gravy and wine dregs.
However, after a good laugh, we gathered ourselves up, and at length we
were ushered on the scene. Mine host, after stifling his laughter the
best way he could, again sat down at the head of his table, sparkling with
crystal and wax lights, while a superb lamp hung overhead. The company was
composed chiefly of naval and military men, but there was also a sprinkling
of civilians, or Muftees, to use a West India expression. Most of them
rose as we entered, and after they had taken a glass of wine, and had their
laugh at our mishap, our landlord retired to one side with Mr Treenail,
while I, poor little middy as I was, remained standing at the end of the
room, close to the head of the stairs. The gentleman who sat at the foot
of the table had his back towards me, I and was not at first aware of my
presence. But the guest at his right hand, a happy-looking, red-faced,
well-dressed man, soon drew his attention towards me. The party to whom I
was thus indebted seemed a very jovial-looking personage, and appeared to
be well known to all hands, and indeed the life of the party, for, like
Falstaff, he was not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit in others.

The gentleman to whom he had pointed me out immediately rose, made his bow,
ordered a chair, and made room for me beside himself, where the moment it
was known that we were direct from home, such a volley of questions was
fired off at me, that I did not know which to answer first. At length,
after Treenail had taken a glass or two of wine, the agent started him off
to the admiral's pen in his own gig, and I was desired to stay where I was
until he returned.

The whole party seemed very happy, my boon ally was fun itself, and I was
much entertained with the mess he made when any of the foreigners at table
addressed him in French or Spanish. I was particularly struck with a small,
thin, dark Spaniard, who told very feelingly how the night before, on
returning home from a party to his own lodgings, on passing through the
piazza, he stumbled against something heavy that lay in his grass-hammock,
which usually hung there. He called for a light, when, to his horror, he
found the body of his old and faithful valet lying in it, dead and cold,
with a knife sticking under his fifth rib--no doubt intended for his
master. The speaker was Bolivar. About midnight, Mr Treenail returned, we
shook hands with Mr----, and once more shoved off; and, guided by the
lights shown on board the Torch, we were safe home again by three in the
morning, when we immediately made sail, and nothing particular happened
until we arrived within a day's sail of New Providence. It seemed, that
about a week before, a large American brig, bound from Havanna to Boston,
had been captured in this very channel by one of our men-of-war
schooners, and carried into Nassau; out of which port, for their own
security, the authorities had fitted a small schooner, carrying six guns
and twenty-four men. She was commanded by a very gallant fellow--there
is no disputing that--and he must needs emulate the conduct of the officer
who had made the capture--for in a fine clear night, when all the officers
were below rummaging in their kits for the killing things they should
array themselves in on the morrow, so as to smite the Fair of New
Providence to the heart at a blow--Whiss--a shot flew over our mast-head.

"A small schooner lying-to right ahead, sir," sung out the boatswain from
the forecastle.

Before we could beat to quarters, another sung between our masts. We kept
steadily on our course, and as we approached our pigmy antagonist, he bore
up. Presently we were alongside of him.

"Heave-to," hailed the strange sail; "heave-to or I'll sink you."

The devil you will, you midge, thought I.

The captain took the trumpet--"Schooner, ahoy"--no answer "D--n your blood,
sir, if you don't let every thing go by the run this instant, I'll fire a
broadside. Strike, sir, to his Britannic Majesty's sloop Torch."

The poor fellow commanding the schooner had by this time found out his
mistake and immediately came on board, where, instead of being lauded for
his gallantry, I am sorry to say he was roundly rated for his want of
discernment in mistaking his Majesty's cruiser for a Yankee merchantman.

Next forenoon we arrived at Nassau.


In a week after we again sailed for Bermuda, having taken on board ten
American skippers, and several other Yankees, as prisoners of war.

For the first three days after we cleared the Passages. We had fine
weather. Wind at east south-east; but after that it came on to blow from
the north-west, and so continued without intermission during the whole of
the passage to Bermuda. On the fourth morning after we left Nassau, we
descried a sail in the south-east quarter, and immediately made sail in
chase. We overhauled her about noon; she hove-to, after being fired at
repeatedly; and, on boarding her, we found she was a Swede from Charleston,
bound to Havre-de-Grace. All the letters we could find on board were
very unceremoniously broken open, and nothing having transpired that could
identify the cargo as enemy's property, we were bundling over the side,
when a nautical looking subject, who had attracted my attention from the
first, put in his oar.

"Lieutenant," said he, "will you allow me to put this barrel of New York
apples into the boat as a present to Captain Deadeye, from Captain----of
the United States navy?"

Mr Treenail bowed, and said he would; and we shoved off and got on board
again, and now there was the devil to pay, from the perplexity old Deadeye
was thrown into, as to whether, here in the heat of the American war, he
was bound to take this American captain prisoner or not. I was no party to
the councils of my superiors, of course, but the foreign ship was finally
allowed to continue her course.

The next day I had the forenoon watch; the weather had lulled unexpectedly,
nor was there much sea, and the deck was all alive, to take advantage of
the fine blink, when the man at the mast-head sung out--"Breakers right
ahead, sir."

"Breakers!" said Mr Splinter, in great astonishment. "Breakers! why the
man must be mad--I say, Jenkins!"

"Breakers close under the bows," sung out the boatswain from forward.

"The devil," quoth Splinter, and he ran along the gangway, and ascended the
forecastle, while I kept close to his heels. We looked out a-head, and
there we certainly did see a splashing, and boiling, and white foaming of
the ocean, that unquestionably looked very like breakers. Gradually, this
splashing and foaming appearance took a circular whisking shape, as if the
clear green sea, for a space of a hundred yards in diameter, had been
stirred about by a gigantic invisible spurtle, until every thing hissed
again; and the curious part of it was, that the agitation of the water
seemed to keep ahead of us, as if the breeze which impelled us had also
floated it onwards. At length the whirling circle of white foam ascended
higher and higher, and then gradually contracted itself into a spinning
black tube, which wavered about, for all the world, like a gigantic
loch-leech, held by the tail between the finger and thumb, while it was
poking its vast snout about in the clouds in search of a spot to fasten on.

"Is the boat gun on the forecastle loaded?" said Captain Deadeye.

"It is, sir."

"Then luff a bit--that will do--fire."

The gun was discharged, and down rushed the black wavering pillar in a
watery avalanche, and in a minute after the dark, heaving billows rolled
over the spot whereout it arose, as if no such thing had ever been.

This said troubling of the waters was neither more nor less than a
waterspout, which again is neither more nor less than a whirlwind at sea,
which gradually whisks the water round and round, and up and up, as you see
straws so raised, until it reaches a certain height, when it invariably
breaks. Before this I had thought that a waterspout was created by some
next to supernatural exertion of the power of the Deity, in order to suck
up water into the clouds, that they, like the wine-skins in Spain, may be
filled with rain.

The morning after the weather was clear and beautiful, although the wind
blew half-a-gale. Nothing particular happened until about seven o'clock in
the evening. I had been invited to dine with the gunroom officers this day,
and every thing was going on smooth and comfortable, when Mr Splinter
spoke. "I say, master, don't you smell gunpowder?"

"Yes I do," said the little master, "or something deuced like it."

To explain the particular comfort of our position, it may be right to
mention that the magazine of a brig sloop is exactly under the gunroom.
Three of the American skippers had been quartered on the gunroom mess, and
they were all at table. Snuff, snuff, smelled one, and another sniffled,

"Gunpowder, I guess, and in a state of ignition."

"Will you not send for the gunner, sir?" said the third.

Splinter did not like it, I saw, and this quailed me.

The captain's bell rang. "What smell of brimstone is that, steward?" "I
really can't tell," said the man, trembling from head to foot; "Mr Splinter
has sent for the gunner, sir."

"The devil!" said Deadeye, as he hurried on deck. We all followed. A
search was made.

"Some matches have caught in the magazine," said one.

"We shall be up and away like sky-rockets," said another.

Several of the American masters ran out on the jib-boom, coveting the
temporary security of being so far removed from the seat of the expected
explosion, and all was alarm and confusion, until it was ascertained that
two of the boys, little skylarking vagabonds, had stolen some pistol
cartridges, and had been making lightning, as it is called, by holding a
lighted candle between the fingers, and putting some loose powder into the
palm of the hand, and then chucking it up into the flame. They got a sound
flogging, on a very unpoetical part of their corpuses, and once more the
ship subsided into her usual orderly discipline. The northwester still
continued, with a clear blue sky, without a cloud overhead by day, and a
bright cold moon by night. It blew so hard for the three succeeding days,
that we could not carry more than close reefed topsails to it, and a reefed
foresail. Indeed, towards six bells in the forenoon watch, it came
thundering down with such violence, and the sea increased so much, that we
had to hand the fore-topsail.

This was by no means an easy job. "Ease her a bit,"  said the first
lieutenant, "there--shake the wind out of her sails for a moment, until the
men get the canvass"--whirl, a poor fellow pitched off the lee fore yardarm
into the sea. "Up with the helm--heave him the bight of a rope." We kept
away, but all was confusion, until an American midshipman, one of the
prisoners on board, hove the bight of a rope at him. The man got it under
his arms, and after hauling him along for a hundred yards at the least--and
one may judge of the velocity with which he was dragged through the water,
by the fact that it took the united strain of ten powerful men to get him
in--he was brought safely on board, pale and blue, when we found that the
running of the rope had crushed in his broad chest below his arms, as if it
had been a girl's waist, cutting into the very muscles of it and of his
back half an inch deep. He had to be bled before he could breathe, and it
was an hour before the circulation could be restored, by the joint
exertions of the surgeon and gunroom steward, chafing him with spirits and
camphor, after he had been stripped and stowed away between the blankets in
his hammock.

The same afternoon we fell in with a small prize to the squadron in the
Chesapeake, a dismasted schooner, manned by a prize crew of a midshipman
and six men. She had a signal of distress, an American ensign, with the
union down, hoisted on the jury-mast, across which there was rigged a
solitary lug-sail. It was blowing so hard that we had some difficulty in
boarding her, when we found she was a Baltimore pilot-boat--built
schooner, of about 70 tons burden, laden with flour, and bound for
Bermuda. But three days before, in a sudden squall, they had carried away
both masts short by the board, and the only spar which they had been able
to rig, was a spare topmast which they had jammed into one of the pumps
fortunately she was as tight as a bottle--and stayed it the best way they
could. The captain offered to take the little fellow who had charge of
her, and his crew and cargo, on board, and then scuttle her; but no--all
he wanted was a cask of water and some biscuit; and having had a glass of
grog, he trundled over the side again, and returned to his desolate
command. However, he afterwards brought his prize safe into Bermuda.

The weather still continued very rough, but we saw nothing until the second
evening after this. The forenoon had been even more boisterous than any of
the preceding, and we were all fagged enough with "make sail," and "shorten
sail," and "all hands," the whole day through; and as the night fell, I
found myself, for the fourth time, in the maintop. The men had just lain
in from the main topsail yard, when we heard the watch called on deck,
"Starboard watch, ahoy,"--which was a cheery sound to us of the larboard,
who were thus released from duty on deck and allowed to go below.

The men were scrambling down the weather shrouds, and I was preparing to
follow them, when I jammed my left foot in the grating of the top, and
capsized on my nose. I had been up nearly the whole of the previous night,
and on deck the whole of the day, and actively employed too, as during the
greatest part of it it blew a gale. I stooped down in some pain, to see
what had bolted me to the grating, but I had no sooner extricated my foot,
than, over-worked and over fatigued as I was, I fell over in the soundest
sleep that ever I have enjoyed before or since, the back of my neck resting
on a coil of rope, so that my head hung down within it.

The rain all this time was beating on me, and I was drenched to the skin. I
must have slept for four hours or so, when I was awakened by a rough thump
on the side from the stumbling foot of the captain of the top, the word
having been passed to shake a reef out of the topsails, the wind having
rather suddenly gone down. It was done; and now broad awake, I determined
not to be caught napping again, so I descended, and swung myself in on deck
out of the main rigging, just as Mr Treenail was mustering the crew at
eight bells. When I landed on the quarterdeck, there he stood abaft the
binnacle, with the light shining on his face, his glazed hat glancing, and
the rain-drop sparkling at the brim of it. He had noticed me the moment I
descended.

"Heyday, Master Cringle, you are surely out of your watch. Why, what are
you doing here, eh?"

I stepped up to him, and told him the truth, that, being over fatigued, I
had fallen asleep in the top.

"Well, well, boy," said he, "never mind, go below, and turn in; if you
don't take your rest, you never will be a sailor."

"But what do you see aloft?" glancing his eye upwards, and all the crew on
deck as I passed them looked anxiously up also amongst the rigging, as if
wondering what I saw there, for I had been so chilled in my noose, that my
neck, from resting in the cold on the coil of rope, had become stiffened
and rigid to an intolerable degree; and although, when I first came on
deck, I had by a strong exertion brought my caput to its proper bearings,
yet the moment I was dismissed by my superior officer, I for my own
comfort was glad to conform to the contraction of the muscle, whereby I
once more staved along the deck, glowering up into the heavens, as if I
had seen some wonderful sight there.

"What do you see aloft?" repeated Mr Treenail, while the crew, greatly
puzzled, continued to follow my eye, as they thought, and to stare up into
the rigging.

"Why, sir, I have thereby got a stiff neck--that's all, sir."

"Go and turn in at once, my good boy--make haste, now--tell our steward to
give you a glass of hot grog, and mind your hand that you don't get sick."

I did as I was desired, swallowed the grog, and turned in; but I could not
have been in bed above an hour, when the drum beat to quarters, and I had
once more to bundle out on the cold wet deck, where I found all excitement.
At the time I speak of, we had been beaten by the Americans in several
actions of single ships, and our discipline had improved in proportion as
we came to learn by sad experience that the enemy was not to be
undervalued. I found that there was a ship in sight, right a-head of us
apparently carrying all sail. A group of officers were on the forecastle
with night-glasses, the whole crew being stationed in dark clusters round
the guns at quarters. Several of the American skippers were forward
amongst us, and they were of opinion that the chase was a man-of-war,
although our own people seemed to doubt this. One of the skippers
insisted that she was the Hornet, from the unusual shortness of her lower
masts, and the immense squareness of her yards. But the puzzle was, if it
were the Hornet, why she did not shorten sail. Still this might be
accounted for, by her either wishing to make out what we were before she
engaged us, or she might be clearing for action. At this moment a whole
cloud of studdingsails were blown from the yards as if the booms had been
carrots; and to prove that the chase was keeping a bright look-out, she
immediately kept away, and finally bore up dead before the wind, under the
impression, no doubt, that she would draw a-head of us, from her gear
being entire, before we could rig out our light sails again.

And so she did for a time, but at length we got within gun-shot. The
American masters were now ordered below, the hatches were clapped on, and
the word passed to see all clear. Our shot was by this time flying over
and over her, and it was evident she was not a man-of-war. We peppered
away--she could not even be a privateer; we were close under her
lee-quarter, and yet she had never fired a shot; and her large swaggering
Yankee ensign was now run up to the peak, only to be hauled down the next
moment. Hurrah! a large cotton ship, from Charlestown to Bourdeaux, prize
to H.M.S. Torch.

She was taken possession of, and proved to be the Natches, of four hundred
tons burden, fully loaded with cotton.

By the time we got the crew on board, and the second lieutenant, with a
prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour
again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage
for the next three days, without any thing particular happening. It was
the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent
jerking of my hammock, and a cry "that the brig was amongst the breakers."
I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of
confusion such as I never had witnessed before. The gale had increased,
yet the prize had not been cast off, and the consequence was, that by some
mismanagement or carelessness, the swag of the large ship had suddenly hove
the brig in the wind, and taken the sails a-back. We accordingly fetched
stern way, and ran foul of the prize, and there we were, in a heavy sea,
with our stern grinding against the cotton ship's high quarter.

The main boom, by the first rasp that took place after I came on deck, was
broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove right in over the
taffril; the vessels then closed, and the next rub ground off the ship's
mizzen channel as clean as if it had been sawed away. Officers shouting,
men swearing, rigging cracking, the vessels crashing and thumping together,
I thought we were gone, when the first lieutenant seized his trumpet
"Silence, men,--hold your tongues, you cowards, and mind the word of
command!"

The effect was magical.--"Brace round the foreyard; round with it--set the
jib--that's it--fore-topmast stay-sail--haul--never mind if the gale
takes it out of the bolt rope"--a thundering flap, and away it flew in
truth down to leeward, like a puff of white smoke.--"Never mind, men, the
jib stands. Belay all that--down with the helm, now don't you see she has
sternway yet? Zounds! we shall be smashed to atoms if you don't mind your
hands, you lubbers--main-topsail sheets let fly--there she pays off, and
has headway once more, that's it--right your helm now--never mind his
spanker-boom, the forestay will stand it--there--up with the helm, sir
we have cleared him hurrah!"--And a near thing it was too but we soon had
every thing snug; and although the gale continued without any intermission
for ten days, at length we ran in and anchored with our prize in Five
Fathom Hole, off the entrance to St George's Harbour.

It was lucky for us that we got to anchor at the time we did, for that same
afternoon, one of the most tremendous gales of wind from the westward came
on that I ever saw. Fortunately it was steady and did not veer about, and
having good ground-tackle down, we rode it out well enough. The effect
was very uncommon; the wind was howling over our mast-heads, and amongst
the cedar bushes on the cliffs above, while on deck it was nearly calm, and
there was very little swell, being a weather shore; but half a mile out at
sea all was white foam, and the tumbling waves seemed to meet from north
and south, leaving a space of smooth water under the lee of the island,
shaped like the tail of a comet, tapering away, and gradually roughening
and becoming more stormy, until the roaring billows once more owed
allegiance to the genius of the storm.

There we rode, with three anchors a-head, in safety through the night; and
next day, availing of a temporary lull, we ran up, and anchored off the
Tanks. Three days after this, the American frigate President was brought
in by the Endymion, and the rest of the squadron.

I went on board, in common with every officer in the fleet, and certainly I
never saw a more superb vessel; her scantling was that of a seventy-four,
and she appeared to have been fitted with great cares. I got a week's
leave at this time, and, as I had letters to several families, I contrived
to spend my time pleasantly enough.

Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a cluster of islands in the middle of
the Atlantic. There are Lord knows how many of them, but the beauty of the
little straits and creeks which divide them, no man can describe who has
not seen them. The town of Saint George's, for instance, looks as if the
houses were cut out of chalk; and one evening the family where I was on a
visit proceeded to the main island, Hamilton, to attend a ball there. We
had to cross three ferries, although the distance was not above nine miles,
if so far. The Mudian women are unquestionably beautiful--so thought
Thomas Moore, a tolerable judge, before me. By the by, touching this Mudian
ball, it was a very gay affair--the women pleasant and beautiful; but all
the men, when they speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye and spit;--a lucid
and succinct description of a community.

The second day of my sojourn was fine--the first fine day since our arrival
and with several young ladies of the family, I was prowling through the
cedar wood above St George's, when a dark good-looking man passed us; he
was dressed in tight worsted net pantaloons and Hessian boots, and wore a
blue frock-coat and two large epaulets, with rich French bullion, and a
round hat. On passing he touched his hat with much grace, and in the
evening I met him in society. It was Commodore Decatur. He was very much
a Frenchman in manner, or, I should rather say, in look, for although very
well bred, he, for one ingredient, by no means possessed a Frenchman's
volubility; still, he was an exceedingly agreeable and very handsome man.

The following day we spent in a pleasure cruise amongst the three hundred
and sixty-five islands, many of them not above an acre in extent--fancy an
island of an acre in extent!--with a solitary house, a small garden, a
red-skinned family, a piggery, and all around clear deep pellucid water.
None of the islands, or islets, rise to any great height, but they all
shoot precipitously out of the water, as if the whole group, had originally
been one huge platform of rock, with numberless grooves subsequently
chiselled out in it by art.


We had to wind our way amongst these manifold small channels for two hours
before we reached the gentleman's house where we had been invited to dine;
at length, on turning a corner, with both latteen sails drawing
beautifully, we ran bump on a shoal; there was no danger, and knowing that
the Mudians were capital sailors, I sat still. Not so Captain K----, a
round plump little homo,--"Shove her off, my boys, shove her off." She
would not move, and thereupon he in a fever of gallantry jumped overboard
up to the waist in full fig; and one of the men following his example, we
were soon afloat. The ladies applauded, and the Captain sat in his wet
breaks for the rest of the voyage, in all the consciousness of being
considered a hero. Ducks and onions are the grand staple of Bermuda, but
there was a fearful dearth of both at the time I speak of; a knot of young
West India merchants, who, with heavy purses and large credits on England,
had at this time domiciled themselves in St George's, to batten on the
spoils of poor Jonathan, having monopolized all the good things of the
place. I happened to be acquainted with one of them, and thereby had less
reason to complain, but many a poor fellow, sent ashore on duty, had to put
up with but Lenten fair at the taverns. At length, having refitted, we
sailed, in company with the Rayo frigate, with a convoy of three
transports, freighted with a regiment for New Orleans, and several
merchantmen, bound for the West Indies.

"The still vexed Bermoothes"--I arrived at them in a gale of wind, and I
sailed from them in a gale of wind. What the climate may be in the summer
I don't know; but during the time I was there, it was one storm after
another.

We sailed in the evening with the moon at full, and the wind at
west-north-west. So soon as we got from under the lee of the land, the
breeze struck us, and it came on to blow like thunder, so that we were
all soon reduced to our storm staysails; and there we were, transports,
merchantmen, and men-of-war, rising on the mountainous billows one
moment, and the next losing sight of every thing but the water and sky
in the deep trough of the sea, while the seething foam was blown over us
in showers from the curling manes of the roaring waves. But overhead,
all this while, it was as clear as a lovely winter moon could make it,
and the stars shone brightly in the deep blue sky; there was not even a
thin fleecy shred of cloud racking across the moon's disk. Oh, the
glories of a northwester!

But the devil seize such glory!  Glory, indeed! with a fleet of transports,
and a regiment of soldiers on board!  Glory! why, I daresay five hundred
rank and file, at the fewest, were all cascading at one and the same
moment, a thousand poor fellows turned outside in, like so many pairs of
old stockings. Any glory in that? But to proceed.

Next morning the gale still continued, and when the day broke, there was
the frigate standing across our bows, rolling and pitching, as she tore her
way through the boiling sea, under a close-reefed main-topsail and reefed
foresail, with topgallant-yards and royal masts, and every thing that
could be struck with safety in war time, down on deck. There she lay with
her clear black bends, and bright white streaks and long tier of cannon on
the maindeck, and the carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle grinning
through the ports in the black bulwarks, while the white hammocks,
carefully covered by the hammock-cloths, crowned the defences of the
gallant frigate fore and aft, as she delved through the green surge,--one
minute rolling and rising on the curling white crest of a mountainous sea,
amidst a hissing snowstorm of spray, with her bright copper glancing from
stem to stem, and her scanty white canvass swelling aloft, and twenty feet
of her keel forward occasionally hove into the air clean out of the water,
as if she had been a sea-bird rushing to take wing,--and the next, sinking
entirely out of sight, hull, masts, and rigging, behind an intervening sea,
that rose in hoarse thunder between us, threatening to overwhelm both us
and her. As for the transports, the largest of the three had lost her fore
topmast, and had bore up under her foresail; another was also scudding
under a close reefed fore-topsail; but the third or head-quarter ship was
still lying to windward, under her storm stay-sails. None of the merchant
vessels were to be seen, having been compelled to bear up in the night, and
to run before it under bare poles.

At length, as the sun rose, we got before the wind, and it soon moderated
so far, that we could carry reefed topsails and foresail; and away we all
bowled, with a clear, deep, cold, blue sky, and a bright sun overhead, and
a stormy leaden-coloured ocean, with whitish green-crested billows,
below. The sea continued to go down, and the wind to slacken, until the
afternoon, when the Commodore made the signal for Torch to send, a boat's
crew, the instant it could be done with safety, on board the dismasted
ship, to assist in repairing damages, and in getting up a
jury-fore-topmast.

The damaged ship was at this time on our weather-quarter; we accordingly
handed the fore-topsail, and presently she was alongside. We hailed her,
that we intended to send a boat on board, and desired her to heave-to, as
we did, and presently she rounded to under our lee. One of the
quarter-boats was manned, with three of the carpenter's crew, and six good
men over and above her complement; but it was no easy matter to get on
board of her, let me tell you, after she had been lowered, carefully
watching the rolls, with four hands in. The moment she touched the water,
the tackles were cleverly unhooked, and the rest of us tumbled on board,
shin leather growing scarce, when we shoved off. With great difficulty,
and not without wet jackets, we, the supernumeraries, got on board, and the
boat returned to the Torch. The evening when we landed in the lobsterbox,
as Jack loves to designate a transport, was too far advanced for us to do
anything towards refitting that night; and the confusion, and uproar, and
numberless abominations of the crowded craft, were irksome to a greater
degree than I expected even, after having been accustomed to the strict and
orderly discipline of a man-of-war. The following forenoon the Torch was
ordered by signal to chase in the south-east quarter, and hauling out from
the fleet, she was soon out of sight.

"There goes my house and home," said I, and a feeling of desolateness came
over me, that I would have been ashamed at the time to have acknowledged.
We stood on, and worked hard all day in repairing the damage sustained
during the gale.

At length dinner was announced, and I was invited, as the officer in charge
of the seamen, to go down. The party in the cabin consisted of an old
gizzened Major with a brown wig, and a voice melodious as the sharpening of
a saw--I fancied sometimes that the vibration created by it set the very
glasses in the steward's pantry a-ringing three captains and six
subalterns, every man of whom, as the devil would have it, played on the
flute, and drew bad sketches, and kept journals. Most of them were very
white and blue in the gills when we sat down, and others of a dingy sort
of whitey-brown, while they ogled the viands in a most suspicious manner.
Evidently most of them had but small confidence in their moniplies; and one
or two, as the ship gave a heavier roll than usual, looked wistfully
towards the door, and half rose from their chairs, as if in act to bolt.
However, hot brandy grog being the order of the day, we all, landsmen and
sailors, got on astonishingly, and numberless long yarns were spun of what
"what's-his-name of this, and so-and-so of t'other, did or did not do."

About half-past five in the evening, the captain of the transport, or
rather the agent, an old lieutenant in the navy, and our host, rang his
bell for the steward.

"Whereabouts are we in the fleet, steward?" said the ancient.

"The stern most ship of all, sir," said the man.

"Where is the Commodore?" "About three miles a-head, sir."

"And the Torch, has she rejoined us?"

"No, sir; she has been out of sight these two hours; when last seen she was
in chase of something in the south-east quarter, and carrying all the sail
she could stagger under."

"Very well, very well."

A song from Master Waistbelt, one of the young officers. Before he had
concluded, the mate came down. By this time it was near sun-down.

"Shall we shake a reef out of the main and mizzen-topsails, sir, and set
the mainsail and spanker? The wind has lulled, sir, and there is a strange
sail in the northwest that seems to be dodging us--but she may be one of
the merchantmen after all, sir."

"Never mind, Mr Leechline," said our gallant captain. "Mr Bandalier--a
song if you please."

Now the young soldiers on board happened to be men of the world, and
Bandalier, who did not sing, turned off the request with a good-humoured
laugh, alleging his inability with much suavity; but the old rough Turk of
a tar-bucket chose to fire at this, and sang out--"Oh, if you don't choose
to sing when you are asked, and to sport your damned fine airs...."

"Mr Crowfoot."

"Captain," said the agent, piqued at having his title by courtesy withheld.

"By no mean," said Major Sawrasp, who had spoken--"I believe I am speaking
to Lieutenant Crowfoot, agent for transport No.--, wherein it so happens I
am commanding officer--so"--

Old Crowfoot saw he was in the wrong box, and therefore hove about, and
backed out in good time--making the amende as smoothly as his gruff nature
admitted, and trying to look pleased.

Presently the same bothersome mate came down again--"The strange sail is
creeping up on our quarter, sir."

"Ay?" said Crowfoot, "how does she lay?"

"She is hauled by the wind on the starboard tack, sir," continued the mate.

We now went on deck, and found that our suspicious friend had shortened
sail, as if he had made us out, and wag afraid to approach, or was lying by
until nightfall.

Sawrasp had before this, with the tact and ease of a soldier and a
gentleman, soldered his feud with Crowfoot, and, with the rest of the
lobsters, was full of fight. The sun at length set, and the night closed
in when the old major again addressed Crowfoot.

"My dear fellow, can't you wait a bit, and let us have a rattle at that
chap?" And old Crowfoot, who never bore a grudge long, seemed much inclined
to fall in with the soldier's views; and, in fine, although the weather was
now moderate, he did not make sail. Presently the Commodore fired a gun,
and showed lights. It was the signal to close. "Oh, time enough," said
old Crowfoot--"what is the old man afraid of?" Another gun and a fresh
constellation on board the frigate. It was "an enemy in the northwest
quarter."

"Hah, hah," sung out the agent, "is it so? Major, what say you to a brush
let her close, eh?--should like to pepper her--wouldn't you--three hundred
men, eh?"

By this time we were all on deck--the schooner came bowling along under a
reefed mainsail and jib, now rising, and presently disappearing behind the
stormy heavings of the roaring sea, the rising moon shining brightly on her
canvass pinions, as if she had been an albatross skimming along the surface
of the foaming water, while her broad white streak glanced like a silver
ribbon along her clear black side. She was a very large craft of her class,
long and low in the water, and evidently very fast; and it was now clear,
from our having been unable as yet to sway up our fore-topmast, that she
took us for a disabled merchantman, which might be cut off from the convoy.

As she approached, we could perceive by the bright moonlight, that she had
six guns of a side, and two long ones on pivots, the one forward on the
forecastle, and the other choke up to the mainmast.

Her deck was crowded with dark figures, pike and cutlass in hand; we were
by this time so near that we could see pistols in their belts, and a
trumpet in the hand of a man who stood in the fore rigging, with his feet
on the hammock netting, and his back against the shrouds. We had cleared
away our six eighteen-pound carronades, which composed our starboard
broadside, and loaded them, each with a round shot, and a bag of two
hundred musket-balls, while three hundred soldiers in their foraging
jackets, and with their loaded muskets in their hands, were lying on the
deck, concealed by the quarters, while the blue jackets were sprawling in
groups round the carronades.

I was lying down beside the gallant old Major, who had a bugler close to
him, while Crowfoot was standing on the gun nearest us; but getting tired
of this recumbent position, I crept aft, until I could see through a spare
port.

"Why don't the rascals fire?" quoth Sawrasp.

"Oh, that would alarm the Commodore. They intend to walk quietly on board
of us; but they will find themselves mistaken a little," whispered
Crowfoot.

"Mind, men, no firing till the bugle sounds," said the Major.

The word was passed along.

The schooner was by this time ploughing through it within half pistolshot,
with the white water dashing away from her bows, and buzzing past her
sides her crew as thick as peas on her deck. Once or twice she hauled her
wind a little, and then again kept away from us, as if irresolute what to
do. At length, without hailing, and all silent as the grave, she put her
helm a-starboard, and ranged alongside.

"Now, my boys, give it him," shouted Crowfoot--"Fire!"

"Ready, men," shouted the Major--"Present--fire!"

The bugles sounded, the cannon roared, the musketry rattled, and the men
cheered, and all was hurra, and fire, and fury. The breeze was strong
enough to carry all the smoke forward, and I saw the deck of the schooner,
where the moment before all was still and motionless, and filled with dark
figures, till there scarcely appeared standing room, at once converted into
a shambles. The blasting fiery tempest had laid low nearly the whole mass,
like a maize plant before a hurricane; and such a cry arose, as if "Men
fought on earth, and fiends in upper air."

Scarcely a man was on his legs, the whole crew seemed to have been levelled
with the deck, many dead, no doubt, and most wounded, while we could see
numbers endeavouring to creep towards the hatches, while the black blood,
in horrible streams, gushed and gurgled through her scuppers down her
sides, and across the bright white streak that glanced in the moonlight.

Some one on board of the privateer now hailed, "We have surrendered; cease
firing, sir." But devil a bit--we continued blazing away--a lantern was run
up to his main gaff, and then lowered again.

"We have struck, sir," shouted another voice, "don't murder us don't fire,
sir, for Godsake."

But fire we still did; no sailor has the least compunction at even running
down a privateer. Mercy to privateersmen is unknown. "Give them the
stem," is the word, the curs being regarded by Jack at the best as
highwaymen; so, when he found we still peppered away, and sailing two feet
for our one, the schooner at length, in their desperation, hauled her
wind, and speedily got beyond range of our carronades, having all this
time never fired a shot. Shortly after this we ran--under the Rayo's stern
she was lying to.

"Mr Crowfoot what have you been after? I have a great mind to report you,
sir."

"We could not help it, sir," sung out Crowfoot in a most dolorous tone, in
answer to the captain of the frigate; "we have been nearly taken, sir, by
a privateer, sir--an immense vessel, sir, that sails, like a witch, sir."

"Keep close in my wake then, sir," rejoined the captain, in a gruff tone,
and immediately the Rayo bore up.

Next morning we were all carrying as much sail as we could crowd. By this
time we had gotten our jury-fore-topmast up, and the Rayo, having kept
astern in the night, was now under topsails, and top-gallant sails, with
the wet canvass at the head of the sails, showing that the reefs had been
freshly shaken out--rolling wedge like on the swell, and rapidly shooting
a-head, to resume her station. As she passed us, and let fall her
foresail, she made the signal to make more sail, her object being to get
through the Caicos Passage, into which we were now entering, before
nightfall. It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon. A fine clear breezy day,
fresh and pleasant, sometimes cloudy overhead, but always breaking away
again, with a bit of a sneezer, and a small shower. As the sun rose there
were indications of squalls in the north-eastern quarter, and about noon
one of them was whitening to windward. So "hands by the topgallant
clew-lines" was the word, and we were all standing by to shorten sail,
when the Commodore came to the wind as sharp and suddenly as if he had
anchored; but on a second look, I saw his sheets were let fly, haulyards
let go, and apparently all was confusion on board of her. I ran to the
side and looked over. The long hearing dark blue swell had changed into a
light green hissing ripple.

"Zounds, Captain Crowfoot, shoal water--why it breaks--we shall be ashore!"

"Down with the helm-brace round the yards," shouted Crow foot; "that's it
steady--luff, my man;" and the danger was so imminent that even the
studding-sail haulyards were not let go and the consequence was, that the
booms snapped off like carrots, as we came to the wind.

"Lord help us, we shall never weather that foaming reef there set the
spanker--haul out--haul down the foretopmast--staysail--so, mind your luff,
my man."

The frigate now began to fire right and left, and the hissing of the shot
overhead was a fearful augury of what was to take place; so sudden was the
accident, that they had not had time to draw the round shot. The other
transports were equally fortunate with ourselves, in weathering the shoal,
and presently we were all close hauled to windward of the reef, until we
weathered the easternmost prong, when we bore up. But, poor Rayo! she had
struck on a coral reef, where the Admiralty charts laid down fifteen
fathoms water; and although there was some talk at the time of an error in
judgment, in not having the lead going in the chains, still do I believe
there was no fault lying at the door of her gallant captain. By the time
we had weathered the reef, the frigate had swung off from the pinnacle of
rock on which she had been in a manner impaled, and was making all the sail
she could, with a fothered sail under her bows, and chain-pumps clanging,
and whole cataracts of water gushing from them, clear white jets spouting
from all the scuppers, fore and aft. She made the signal to close. The
next, alas! was the British ensign, seized, union down in the main rigging,
the sign of the uttermost distress. Still we all bowled along together,
but her yards were not squared, nor her sails set with her customary
precision, and her lurches became more and more sickening, until at length
she rolled so heavily, that she dipped both yardarms alternately in the
water, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man.

"What is that splash?"

It was the larboard-bow long eighteen-pound gun hove overboard, and
watching the roll, the whole broadside, one after another, was cast into
the sea. The clang of the chain-pumps increased, the water rushed in at
one side of the main-deck, and out at the other, in absolute cascades from
the ports. At this moment the whole fleet of boats were alongside, keeping
way with the ship, in the light breeze. Her main-topsail was hove aback,
while the captain's voice resounded through the ship.

"Now, men--all hands--bags and hammocks--starboard watch, the starboard
side--larboard watch, the larboard side--no rushing now--she will swim this
hour to come."

The bags, and hammocks, and officers' kits, were handed into the boats; the
men were told off over the side, as quietly by watches as if at muster, the
officers last. At length the first lieutenant came down. By this time she
was settling perceptibly in the water; but the old captain still stood on
the gangway, holding by the iron stanchion, where, taking off his hat, he
remained uncovered for a moment, with the tears standing in his eyes. He
then replaced it, descended, and took his place in the ship's launch--the
last man to leave the ship; and there was little time to spare, for we had
scarcely shoved off a few yards, to clear the spars of the wreck, when she
sended forward, heavily and sickly, on the long swell.--She never rose to
the opposite heave of the sea again, but gradually sank by the head. The
hull disappeared slowly and dignifiedly, the ensign fluttered and vanished
beneath the dark ocean--I could have fancied reluctantly as if it had been
drawn down through a trap-door. The topsails next disappeared, the
fore-topsail sinking fastest; and last of all, the white pennant at the
main-topgallant-mast head, after flickering and struggling in the wind,
flew up in the setting sun as if imbued with--life, like a stream of white
fire, or as if it had been the spirit leaving the body, and was then drawn
down into the abyss, and the last vestige of the Rayo vanished for ever.
The crew, as if moved by one common impulse, gave three cheers.

The captain now stood up in his boat--"Men, the Rayo is no more, but it is
my duty to tell you, that although you are now to be distributed amongst
the transports, you are still amenable to martial law; I am aware, men,
this hint may not be necessary, still it is right you should know it."

When the old hooker clipped out of sight, there was not a dry eye in the
whole fleet. "There she goes, the dear old beauty," said one of her crew.
"There goes the blessed old black b----h," quoth another. "Ah, many a
merry night have we had in the clever little craft," quoth a third; and
there was really a tolerable shedding of tears and squirting of tobacco
juice. But the blue ripple had scarcely blown over the glasslike
surface of the sea where she had sunk, when the buoyancy of young
hearts, with the prospect of a good furlough amongst the lobster boxes
for a time, seemed to be uppermost amongst the men. The officers, I saw
and knew, felt very differently.

"My eye!" sung out an old quartermaster incur boat, perched well forward
with his back against the ring in the stem, and his arms crossed, after
having been busily employed rummaging in his bag, "my eye, what a pity--oh,
what a pity!"

Come, there is some feeling, genuine, at all events, thought I.

"My," said Bill Chestree, the captain of the foretop, "what is can't be
helped, old Fizgig; old Rayo has gone down, and"--"Old Rayo be d----d,
Master Bill," said the man; "but may I be flogged, if I han't forgotten
half a pound of negro head baccy in Dick Catgut's bag."

"Launch ahoy!" hailed a half drunken voice from one of the boats astern of
us. "Hillo," responded the coxswain. The poor skipper even pricked up his
ears. "Have you got Dick Catgut's fiddle among ye?" This said Dick Catgut
was the corporal of marines, and the prime instigator of all the fun
amongst the men. "No, no," said several voices, "no fiddle here." The hail
passed round among the other boats, "No fiddle." "I would rather lose three
days grog than have his fiddle mislaid," quoth the man who pulled the bow
oar.

"Why don't you ask Dick himself?" said our coxswain.

"Aye--true enough--Dick, Dick Catgut!" but no one answered. Alas! poor
Dick was nowhere to be found; he had been mislaid as well as his fiddle.
He had broken into the spirit room, as it turned out, and having got drunk,
did not come to time when the frigate sunk.

Our ship, immediately after the frigate's crew had been bestowed, and the
boats got in, hoisted the Commodore's light, and the following morning we
fell in with the Torch, off the east end of Jamaica, which, after seeing
the transports safe into Kingston, and taking out me and my people, bore up
through the Gulf, and resumed her cruising ground on the edge of the Gulf
stream, between 25 degrees and 30 degrees north latitude.



CHAPTER III.--The Quenching of the Torch.


     "Then rose from sea to sky, the wild farewell."
     BYRON, DON JUAN, II. 409


The evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every appearance of a gale
from the westward, and the weather had become so thick and boisterous, that
the lieutenant of the watch had ordered the look-out at the mast-head
down on deck. The man, on his way down, had gone into the maintop to bring
away some things he had placed there in going aloft, and was in the act of
leaving it, when he sung out,--"A sail on the weather-bow."

"What does she look like?"

"Can't rightly say, sir; she is in the middle of the thick weather to
windward."

"Stay where you are a little.--Jenkins, jump forward, and see what you can
make of her from the foreyard."

Whilst the topman was obeying his instructions, the look-out again hailed
"She is a ship, sir, close-hauled on the same tack----the weather clears,
and I can see her now."

The wind, ever since noon, had been blowing in heavy squalls, with
appalling lulls between them. One of these gusts had been so violent as to
bury in the sea the lee-guns in the waist, although the brig had nothing
set but her close-reefed main-topsail, and reefed foresail. It was now
spending, its fury, and she was beginning to roll heavily, when, with a
suddenness almost incredible to one unacquainted with these latitudes, the
veil of mist that had hung to windward the whole day was rent and drawn
aside, and the red and level rays of the setting sun flashed at once,
through a long arch of glowing clouds, on the black hull and tall spars of
his Britannic Majesty's sloop, Torch. And, true enough, we were not the
only spectators of this gloomy splendour; for, right in the wake of the
moon-like sun, now half sunk in the sea, at the distance of a mile or more,
lay a long warlike-looking craft, apparently a frigate or heavy corvette,
rolling heavily and silently in the trough of the sea, with her masts,
yards, and the scanty sail she had set, in strong relief against the
glorious horizon.

Jenkins now hailed from the foreyard--"The strange sail is bearing up, sir."

As he spoke, a flash was seen, followed, after what seemed a long interval,
by the deadened report of the gun, as if it had been an echo, and the
sharp, half-ringing half-hissing sound of the shot. It fell short, but
close to us, and was evidently thrown from a heavy cannon, from the length
of the range.

Mr Splinter, the first lieutenant, jumped from the gun he stood on.

"Quartermaster, keep her away a bit"--and dived into the cabin to make his
report.

Captain Deadeye was a staid, stiff-rumped, wall-eyed, old first
lieutenantish-looking veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney cut,
broad skirts, long waist, and standup collar, over which dangled either a
queue, or a marlinspike with a tuft of oakum at the end of it,--it would
have puzzled Old Nick to say which. His lower spars were cased in tight
unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the
coal-skuttle tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings
from his coat-flaps in bad weather; he was, in fact, the "last of the
sea-monsters," but, like all his tribe, as brave as steel, and, when put
to it, as alert as a cat.

He no sooner heard Splinter's report, than he sprung up the ladder,
brushing the tumbler of swizzle he had just brewed clean out of the fiddle
into the lap of Mr Saveall, the purser, who had dined with him, and nearly
extinguishing the said purser, by his arm striking the bowl of the pipe he
was smoking, thereby forcing the shank half-way down his throat.

"My glass, Wilson," to his steward.

"She is close to, sir; you can see her plainly without it," said Mr
Treenail, the second lieutenant, from the weather nettings, where he was
reconnoitring.

After a long look through his starboard blinker, (this other skylight had
been shut up ever since Aboukir,) Deadeye gave orders to "clear away the
weather-bow gun;" and as it was now getting too dark for flags to be seen
distinctly, he desired that three lanterns might be got ready for hoisting
vertically in the main-rigging.

"All ready forward there?"

"All ready, sir."

"Then hoist away the lights, and throw a shot across her forefoot I fire!"
Bang went our carronade, but our friend to windward paid no regard to the
private signal; he had shaken a reef out of his topsails, and wars coming
down fast upon us.

It war clear that old Blowhard had at first taken him for one of our own
cruisers, and meant to signalize him, "all regular and shipshape," to use
his own expression. Most of us, however, thought it would have been wiser
to have made sail, and widened our distance, a little, in place of
bothering with old fashioned manoeuvres, which might end in our catching a
tartar; but the skipper had been all his life in line-of-battle ships, or
heavy frigates; and it was a tough job, under, any circumstances, to
persuade him of the propriety of "up-stick-and-away," as we soon felt to
our cost.

The enemy, for such he evidently was, now all at once yawed, and indulged
us with a sight of his teeth; and there he was, fifteen ports of a side on
his maindeck, with the due quantum of carronades on his quarterdeck and
forecastle; whilst his short lower masts, white canvass, and the tremendous
hoist in his topsails, showed him to be a heavy American frigate; and it
was equally certain that he had cleverly hooked us under his lee, within
comfortable range of his long twenty-fours. To convince the most
unbelieving, three jets of flame, amidst wreaths of white smoke, now
glanced from his main-deck; but in this instance, the sound of the cannon
was followed by a sharp crackle and a shower of splinters from the
foreyard.

It was clear we had got an ugly customer--poor Jenkins now called to
Treenail, who was standing forward near the gun which had been fired "Och,
sir, and it's badly wounded we are here."

The officer was a Patlander, as well as the seaman. "Which of you my boy?"
the growing seriousness of the affair in no way checking his propensity to
fun,--"Which of you,--you, or the yard?"

"Both of us, your honour; but the yard badliest."

"The devil!--Come down, then, or get into the top, and I will you looked
after presently."

The poor fellow crawled off the yard into the foretop, as he was ordered,
where he was found after the brush, badly wounded by a splinter in the
breast.

Jonathan, no doubt "calculated," as well he might, that this taste of his
quality would be quite sufficient for a little eighteen-gun sloop, close
under his lee; but the fight was not to be so easily taken out of Deadeye,
although even to his optic it was now high time to be off.

"All hands make sail, Mr Splinter; that chap is too heavy for us. Mr
Kelson," to the carpenter, "jump up and see what the foreyard will carry.
Keep her away, my man," to the seaman at the helm. "Crack on, Mr Splinter,
shake all the reefs out,----set the fore-topsail, and loose
topgallant-sails;--stand by to sheet home; and see all clear to rig the
booms out, if the breeze lulls."

In less than a minute we were bowling along before it; but the wind was
breezing up again, and no one could say how long the wounded foreyard would
carry the weight and drag of the sails. To mend the matter, Jonathan was
coming up hand over hand with the freshening breeze, under a press of
canvass; it was clear that escape was next to impossible.

"Clear away the larboard guns!" I absolutely jumped off the deck with
astonishment--who could have spoken it? It appeared such downright
madness to show fight under the very muzzles of the guns of an enemy, half
of whose broadside was sufficient to sink us. It was the captain,
however, and there was nothing for it but to obey.

In an instant, the creaking and screaming of the carronade slides, the
rattling of the carriage of the long twelve-pounder amidships, the
thumping and punching of handspikes, and the dancing and jumping of jack
himself, were heard through the whistling of the breeze, as the guns were
being shotted and run out. In a few seconds all was still again, but the
rushing sound of the vessel going through the water, and of the rising
gale amongst the rigging.

The men stood clustered at their quarters, their cutlasses buckled round
their waists, all without jackets and waistcoats, and many with nothing
but their trowsers on.

"Now, men, mind your aim; our only chance is to wing him. I will yaw the
ship, and as your guns come to bear, slap it right into his bows.
Starboard your helm, my man, and bring her to the wind." As she came round,
blaze went our carronades and long-gun in succession, with goodwill and
good aim, and down came his foretop-sail on the cap, with all the
superincumbent spars and gear; the head of the topmast had been shot away.
The men instinctively cheered. "That will do; now knock off, my boys, and
let us run for it. Keep her away again; make all sail."

Jonathan was for an instant paralysed by our impudence; but just as we were
getting before the wind, he yawed, and let drive his whole broadside; and
fearfully did it transmogrify us. Half an hour before we were as gay a
little sloop as ever floated, with a crew of 120 as fine fellows as ever
manned a British man-of-war. The iron-shower sped--ten of the hundred
and twenty never saw the sun rise again; seventeen more were wounded, three
mortally; we had eight shot between wind and water, our maintop-mast shot
away as clean as a carrot, and our hull and rigging otherwise regularly cut
to pieces. Another broadside succeeded; but by this time we had bore up
thanks to the loss of our after sail, we could do nothing else; and what
was better luck still, whilst the loss of our maintop-mast paid the brig
off on the one hand, the loss of head-sail in the frigate brought her as
quickly to the wind on the other; thus most of her shot fell astern of us;
and, before she could bear up again in chase, the squall struck her, and
carried her maintop-mast overboard.

This gave us a start, crippled and bedevilled though we were; and as the
night fell, we contrived to lose sight of our large friend. With
breathless anxiety did we carry on through that night, expecting every
lurch to send our remaining topmast by the board; but the weather
moderated, and next morning the sun shone on our bloodstained decks, at
anchor off the entrance to St George's harbour.

I was the mate of the watch, and, as day dawned, I had amused myself with
other younkers over the side, examining the shot holes and other injuries
sustained from the fire of the frigate, and contrasting the clean, sharp,
well-defined apertures, made by the 24-pound shot from the long guns,
with the bruised and splintered ones from the 32-pound carronades; but the
men had begun to wash down the decks, and the first gush of clotted blood
an water from the scuppers fairly turned me sick. I turned away, when Mr
Kennedy, our gunner, a good steady old Scotchman, with whom I was a bit of
a favourite, came up to me--"Mr Cringle, the Captain has sent for you; poor
Mr Johnstone is fast going, he wants to see you."

I knew my young messmate had been wounded, for I had seen him carried below
after the frigate's second broadside; but the excitement of a boy, who had
seldom smelled powder fired in anger before, had kept me on deck the whole
night, and it never once occurred to me to ask for him, until the old
gunner spoke.

I hastened down to our small confined berth, where I saw a sight that
quickly brought me to myself. Poor Johnstone was indeed going; a grapeshot
had struck him, and torn his belly open. There he lay in his bloody
hammock on the deck, pale and motionless as if he had already departed,
except a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, and a convulsive
contraction and distension of his nostrils.

His brown ringlets still clustered over his marble forehead, but they were
drenched in the cold sweat of death. The surgeon could do nothing for him,
and had left him; but our old captain--bless him for it--I little expected,
from his usual crusty bearing, to find him so employed--had knelt by his
side, and, whilst he read from the Prayer-book one of those beautiful
petitions in our Church service to Almighty God, for mercy to the passing
soul of one so young, and so early cut off, the tears trickled down the old
man's cheeks, and filled the furrows worn in them by the washing up of many
a salt spray. On the other side of his narrow bed, fomenting the rigid
muscles of his neck and chest, sate Mistress Connolly, one of three women
on board--a rough enough creature, Heaven knows! in common weather; but her
stifled sobs showed that the mournful sight had stirred up all the woman
within her. She had opened the bosom of the poor boy's shirt, and untying
the riband that fastened a small gold crucifix round his neck, she placed
it in his cold hand. The young midshipman was of a respectable family in
Limerick, her native place, and a Catholic--another strand of the cord that
bound her to him. When the Captain finished reading, he bent over the
departing youth and kissed his cheek. "Your young messmate just now
desired to see you, Mr Cringle, but it is too late, he is insensible and
dying." Whilst he spoke, a strong shiver passed through the boy's frame,
his face became slightly convulsed, and all was over!

The Captain rose, and Connolly, with a delicacy of feeling which many might
not have looked for in her situation, spread one of our clean mess
tablecloths over the body. "And is it really gone you are, my poor dear
boy!" forgetting all difference of rank in the fulness of her heart. "Who
will tell this to your mother, and nobody here to wake you but ould Kate
Connolly, and no time will they be giving me, nor whisky--Ochon! ochon!"

But enough and to spare of this piping work. The boatswain's whistle now
called me to the gangway, to superintend the handling up, from a shore boat
alongside, a supply of the grand staples of the island--ducks and onions.
The three Mudians in her were characteristic samples of the inhabitants.
Their faces and sins, where exposed, were not tanned, but absolutely burnt
into a fiery-red colour by the sun. They guessed and drawled like any
buckskin from Virginia, superadding to their accomplishments their insular
peculiarity of always shutting one eye when they spoke to you. They are
all Yankees at bottom; and if they could get their 365 Islands--so they
call the large stones on which they live--under weigh, they would not be
long in towing them into the Chesapeake.

The word had been passed to get six of the larboard-guns and all the shot
over to the other side, to give the brig a list of a streak or two
a-starboard, so that the stage on which the carpenter and his crew were
at work over the side, stopping the shot holes about the water line, might
swing clear of the wash of the sea. I had jumped from the nettings, where
I was perched, to assist in unbolting one of the carronade slides, when I
slipped and capsized against a peg sticking out of one of the scuppers. I
took it for something else, and d----d the ring-bolt incontinently. Caboose,
the cook, was passing with his mate, a Jamaica negro of the name of John
Crow, at the time. "Don't d----n the remains of your fellow-mortals, Master
Cringle; that is my leg." The cook of a man-of-war is no small beer; he
is his Majesty's warrant-officer, a much bigger wig than a poor little
mid, with whom it is condescension on his part to jest.

It seems to be a sort of rule, that no old sailor who has not lost a limb,
or an eye at least, shall be eligible to the office; but as the kind of
maiming is so far circumscribed that all cooks must have two arms, a
laughable proportion of them have but one leg. Besides the honour, the
perquisites are good; accordingly, all old quartermasters, captains of
tops, etc. look forward to the cookdom, as the cardinals look to the
popedom; and really there is some analogy between them, for neither are
preferred from any especial fitness for the office. A cardinal is made
pope because he is old, infirm, and imbecile,--our friend Caboose was made
cook because he had been Lord Nelson's coxswain, was a drunken rascal, and
had a wooden leg; for, as to his gastronomical qualifications, he knew no
more of the science than just sufficient to watch the copper where the
salt junk and potatoes were boiling. Having been a little in the wind
overnight, he had quartered himself, in the superabundance of his heroism,
at a gun where he had no business to be, and in running it out, he had
jammed his toe in a scupper hole, so fast that there was no extricating
him; and notwithstanding his piteous entreaty "to be eased out handsomely,
as the leg was made out of a plank of the Victory, and the ring at the end
out of one of her bolts," the captain of the gun finding, after a stout
pull, that the man was like to come home in his hand without the leg, was
forced "to break him short off," as he phrased it, to get him out of the
way, and let the carriage traverse. In the morning when he sobered, he had
quite forgotten where the leg was, and how he broke it; he therefore got
Kelson to splice the stump with the but-end of a mop; but in the hurry it
had been left three inches too long, so he had to jerk himself up to the
top of his peg at every step. The Doctor, glad to breathe the fresh air
after the horrible work he had gone through, was leaning over the side
speaking to Kelson. When I fell, he turned round and drew Cookee's fire
on himself. "Doctor, you have not prescribed for me yet."

"No, Caboose, I have not; what is wrong?"

"Wrong, sir? why, I have lost my leg, and the Captain's clerk says I am not
in the Return!--Look here, sir, had Doctor Kelson not coopered me, where
should I have been?--Why, Doctor, had I been looked after, amputation might
have been unnecessary; a fish might have done, whereas I have had to be
spliced."

He was here cut short by the voice of his mate, who had gone forward to
slay a pig for the gunroom mess. "Oh, Lad, oh!--Massa Caboose!--Dem dam
Yankee!--De Purser killed, massa!--Dem shoot him troo de head!--Oh, Lad!"

Captain Deadeye had come on deck. "You John Crow, what is wrong with you?"

"Why, de Purser killed, Captain, dat all."

"Purser killed?--Doctor, is Saveall hurt?"

Treenail could stand it no longer. "No, sir, no; it is one of the gunroom
pigs that we shipped at Halifax three cruises ago; I am sure I don't know
how he survived one, but the seamen took a fancy to him, and nicknamed him
the Purser. You know, sir, they make pets of any thing, and every thing,
at a pinch!"

Here John Crow drew the carcass from the hog-pen, and sure enough a shot
had cut the poor Purser's head nearly off. Blackee looked at him with a
most whimsical expression; they saynno one can fathom a negro's affection
for a pig. "Poor Purser! de people call him Purser, sir, because him
knowing chap; him cabbage all de grub, slush, and stuff in him own corner,
and give only de small bit, and de bad piece, to de older pig; so Captain."

Splinter saw the poor fellow was like to get into a scrape. "That will do,
John Crow--forward with you now, and lend a hand to cat the anchor.--All
hands up anchor!" The boatswain's hoarse voice repeated the command, and he
n turn was re-echoed by his mates. The capstan was manned, and the crew
stamped, round to a point of wart most villainously performed by a bad
drummer and a worse fifer, in as high glee as if those who were killed had
been snug and well in their hammocks on the berth-deck--, in place of at
the bottom of the sea, with each a shot at his feet. We weighed, and began
to work up, tack and tack, towards the island of Ireland, where the arsenal
is, amongst a perfect labyrinth of shoals, through which the Mudian pilot
conned the ship with great skill, taking his stand, to our no small
wonderment, not at the gangway or poop, as usual, but on the bowsprit end,
so that he might see the rocks under foot, and shun them accordingly, for
they are so steep and numerous, (they look like large fish in the clear
water,) and the channel is so intricate, that you have to go quite close
to them. At noon we arrived at the anchorage, and hauled our moorings on
board.

We had refitted, and been four days at sea, on our voyage to Jamaica, when
the gunroom officers gave our mess a blow-out.

The increased motion and rushing of the vessel through the water, the
groaning of the masts, the howling of the rising gale, and the frequent
trampling of the watch on deck, were prophetic of wet jackets to some of
us; still, midshipman-like, we were as happy as a good dinner and some
wine could make us, until the old gunner shoved his weather beaten phiz
and bald pate in at the door. "Beg pardon, Mr Splinter, but if you will
spare Mr Cringle on the forecastle for an hour until the moon rises."

("Spare, quotha, is his Majesty's officer a joint stool?")

"Why, Mr Kennedy, why? here, man, take a glass of grog."

"I thank you, sir. It is coming on a roughish night, sir; the running
ships should be crossing us hereabouts; indeed more than once I thought
there was a strange sail close aboard of us, the scud is flying so low, and
in such white flakes; and none of us have an eye like Mr Cringle, unless it
be John Crow, and he is all but frozen."

"Well, Tom, I suppose you will go"--Angelice, from a first lieutenant to a
mid--"Brush instanter."

Having changed my uniform, for shag-trowsers, pea-jacket, and south-west
cap, I went forward, and took my station, in no pleasant humour, on the
stowed foretopmast-staysail, with my arm round the stay. I had been half
an hour there, the weather was getting worse, the rain was beating in my
face, and the spray from the stem was flashing over me, as it roared
through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters. I turned my back to the
weather for a moment, to press my hand on my strained eyes. When I opened
them again, I saw the gunner's  gaunt high-featured visage thrust
anxiously forward; his profile looked as if rubbed over with phosphorus,
and his whole person as if we had been playing at snap-dragon. "What has
come over you, Mr Kennedy?--who is burning the bluelight now?"

"A wiser man than I am must tell you that; look forward, Mr Cringle--look
there; what do your books say to that?"

I looked forth, and saw, at the extreme end of the jib-boom, what I had
read of, certainly, but never expected to see, a pale, greenish, glowworm
coloured flame, of the size and shape of the frosted glass shade over the
swinging lamp in the gunroom. It drew out and flattened as the vessel
pitched and rose again, and as she sheered about, it wavered round the
point that seemed to attract it, like a soapsud bubble blown from a tobacco
pipe before it is shaken into the air; at the core it was comparatively
bright, but gradually faded into a halo. It shed a baleful and ominous
light on the surrounding objects; the cup of sailors on the forecastle
looked like spectres, and they shrunk together, and whispered when it began
to roll slowly along the spar towards where the boatswain was sitting at my
feet. At this instant something slid down the stay, and a cold clammy hand
passed round my neck. I was within an ace of losing my hold, and tumbling
overboard. "Heaven have mercy on me, what's that?"

"It's that skylarking son of a gun, Jem Sparkle's monkey, sir. You, Jem,
you'll never rest till that brute is made shark bait of."

But Jackoo vanished up the stay again, chuckling and grinning in the
ghostly radiance, as if he had been the "Spirit of the Lamp." The light
was still there, but a cloud of mist, like a burst of vapour from a steam
boiler, came down upon the gale, and flew past, when it disappeared. I
followed the white mass as it sailed down the wind; it did not, as it
appeared to me, vanish in the darkness, but seemed to remain in sight to
leeward, as if checked by a sudden flaw; yet none of our sails were taken
aback. A thought flashed on me. I peered still more intensely into the
night. I was now certain. "A sail, broad on the lee bow."

The ship was in a buz in a moment. The Captain answered from the
quarterdeck--"Thank you, Mr Cringle. How shall we steer?"

"Keep her away a couple of points, sir, steady."

"Steady," sung the man at the helm; and the slow melancholy cadence,
although a familiar sound to me, now moaned through the rushing of the
wind, and smote upon my heart as if it had been the wailing of a spirit.

I turned to the boatswain, who was now standing beside me--"Is that you or
Davy Jones steering, Mr Nipper? if you had not been here bodily at my
elbow, I could have sworn that was your voice."

When the gunner made the same remark it startled the poor fellow he tried
to take it as a joke, but could not. "There may be a laced hammock with a
shot in it, for some of us ere morning."

At this moment, to my dismay, the object we were chasing shortened,
gradually fell abeam of us, and finally disappeared. "The Flying
Dutchman."

"I can't see her at all now."

"She will be a fore-and-aft-rigged vessel that has tacked, sir," said
the gunner. And sure enough, after a few seconds, I saw the white object
lengthen, and draw out again abaft our beam.

"The chase has tacked sir," I sung out; "put the helm down, or she will,
go to windward of us."

We tacked also, and time it was we did so, for the rising moon now showed
us a large schooner under a crowd of sail. We edged down on her, when
finding her manoeuvre detected, she brailed up her flat sails, and bore up
before the wind. This was our best point of sailing, and we cracked on,
the captain rubbing his hands--"It's my turn to be the big un this time."
Although blowing a strong north-easter, it was now clear moonlight and we
hammered away from bow guns, but whenever a shot told amongst the rigging,
the injury was repaired as if by magic. It was evident we had repeatedly
hulled her, from the glimmering white streaks along her counter and, across
her stern, occasioned by the splintering of the timber, but it seemed to
produce no effect.

At length we drew well up on her quarter. She continued all black hull and
white sail, not a soul to be seen on deck, except a dark object, which we
took for the man at the helm. "What schooner's that?" No answer.
"Heave-to, or I'll sink you." Still all silent. "Sergeant Armstrong, do
you think you could pick off that chap at the wheel?" The marine jumped on
the forecastle, and levelled his piece, when a musket-shot from the
schooner crashed through his skull, and he fell dead. The old skipper's
blood was up. "Forecastle, there!  Mr Nipper, clap a canister of grape
over the round shot into the boat-gun, and give it to him."

"Ay, ay, sir!" gleefully rejoined the boatswain, forgetting the augury and
every thing else in the excitement of the moment. In a twinkling, the
square foresail-topsail-topgallant-royal--and studdingsail haulyards
were let go by the run on board of the schooner, as if they had been shot
away, and he put his helm hard aport as, if to round to.

"Rake him, sir, or give him the stem. He has not surrendered. I know
their game. Give him your broadside, sir, or he is off to windward of you
like a shot.--No, no! we have him now; heave to, Mr  Splinter, heave-to!"
We did so, and that so suddenly, that the studdingsail booms snapped like
pipe-shanks, short off by the irons. Notwithstanding, we had shot two
hundred yards to leeward before we could lay our maintopsail to the mast. I
ran to windward. The schooner's yards and rigging were now black with men,
clustered like bees swanning, her square-sails were being close furled,
her fore and--aft sails set, and away she was, close-hauled and dead to
windward of us.

"So much for undervaluing our American friends," grumbled Mr Splinter.

We made all sail in chase, blazing away to little purpose; we had no chance
on a bowline, and when our amigo had satisfied himself of his superiority
by one or two short tacks, he deliberately hauled down his flying jib and
gaff-topsail, took a reef in his mainsail, triced up the bunt of his
foresail, and fired his long thirty-two at us. The shot came in at the
third aftermost port on the starboard side, and dismounted the carronade,
smashing the slide, and wounding three men. The second shot missed, and as
it was madness to remain to be peppered, probably winged, whilst every one
of ours fell short, we reluctantly kept away on our course, having the
gratification of hearing a clear well-blown bugle on board the schooner
play up "Yankee Doodle."

As the brig fell off, our long-gun was run out to have a parting crack at
her, when the third and last shot from the schooner struck the sill of the
midship-port, and made the white splinters fly from the solid oak like
bright silver sparks in the moonlight. A sharp piercing cry rose into the
air--my soul identified that death-shriek with the voice that I had heard,
and I saw the man who was standing with the lanyard of the lock in his hand
drop heavily across the breech, and discharge the gun in his fall.
Thereupon a blood-red glare shot up into the cold blue sky, as if a
volcano had burst forth from beneath the mighty deep, followed by a roar,
and a shattering crash, and a mingling of unearthly cries and groans, and a
concussion of the air, and of the water, as if our whole broadside had been
fired at once. Then a solitary splash here, and a dip there, and short
sharp yells, and low choking bubbling moans, as the hissing fragments of
the noble vessel we had seen fell into the sea, and the last of her gallant
crew vanished for ever beneath that pale broad moon. We were alone, and
once more, all was dark, and wild, and stormy. Fearfully had that ball
sped, fired by a dead man's hand. But what is it that clings black and
doubled across that fatal cannon, dripping and heavy, and choking the
scuppers with clotting gore, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the
vessel, like a bloody fleece?

"Who is it that was hit at the gun there?"

"Mr Nipper, the boatswain, sir. The last shot has cut him in two."

After this most melancholy incident we continued on our voyage to Jamaica,
nothing particular occurring until we anchored at Port Royal, where we had
a regular overhaul of the old Bark, and after this was completed, we were
ordered down to the leeward part of the island to afford protection to the
coasting trade. One fine morning, about a fortnight after we had left
Port Royal, the Torch was lying at anchor in Bluefields Bay. It was
between eight and nine; the land-wind had died away, and the sea-breeze
had not set in--there was not a breath stirring. The pennant from the
masthead fell sluggishly down, and clung amongst the rigging like a dead
snake, whilst the folds of the St George's ensign that hung from the
mizzen-peak, were as motionless as if they had been carved in marble.

The anchorage was one unbroken mirror, except where its glass-like surface
was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols of a skipjack, or the
flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican; and the reflection of the vessel
was so clear and steady, that at the distance of a cable's length you could
not distinguish the water-line, nor tell where the substance ended and
shadow began, until the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a few
moments broke up the phantom ship; but the wavering fragments soon
reunited, and she again floated double, like the swan of the poet. The
heat was so intense, that the iron stanchions of the awning could not be
grasped with the hand, and where the decks were not screened by it, the
pitch boiledout from the seams. The swell rolled in from the offing in
long shining undulations, like a sea of quicksilver, whilst every now and
then a flying fish would spark out from the unruffled bosom of the heaving
water, and shoot away like a silver arrow, until it dropped with a flash
into the sea again. There was not a cloud in the heavens, but a quivering
blue haze hung over the land, through which the white sugar-works and
overseers' houses on the distant estates appeared to twinkle like objects
seen through a thin smoke, whilst each of the tall stems of the cocoa--nut
trees on the beach, when looked at steadfastly, seemed to be turning round
with a small spiral motion, like so many endless screws. There was a
dreamy indistinctness about the outlines of the hills, even in the
immediate vicinity, which increased as they receded, until the Blue
Mountains in the horizon melted into sky. The crew were listlessly
spinning oakum, and mending sails, under the shade of the awning; the only
exceptions to the general languor were John Crow the black, and jackoo the
monkey. The former (who was an improvisatore of a rough stamp) sat out on
the bowsprit, through choice, beyond the shade of the canvass, without hat
or shirt, like a bronze bust, busy with his task, whatever that might be,
singing at the top of his pipe, and between whiles confabulating with his
hairy ally, as if he had been a messmate. The monkey was hanging by the
tail from the dolphin-striker, admiring what John Crow called "his own dam
ogly face in the water."

"Tail like yours would be good ting for a sailor, jackoo, it would leave
his two hands free aloft--more use, more hornament, too, I'm sure, den de
piece of greasy junk dat hangs from de Captain's taffril.--Now I shall sing
to you, how dat Corromantee rascal, my fader, was sell me on de Gold Coast.

     "Two red nightcap, one long knife,
     All him get for Quackoo,
     For gun next day him sell him wife,
     You tink dat good song, lackoo?"

"Chocko, chocko," chattered the monkey, as if in answer.

"Ah, you tink so--sensible honimal!--What is dat? shark?--Jackoo, come up,
sir: don't you see dat big shovel--nosed fis looking at you? Pull your
handout of the water--Caramighty!"

The negro threw himself on the gammoning of the bowsprit to take hold of
the poor ape, who, mistaking his kind intention, and ignorant of his
danger, shrunk from him, lost his hold, and fell into the sea. The shark
instantly sank to have a run, then dashed at his prey, raising his snout
over him, and shooting his head and shoulders three or four feet out of the
water, with poor Jackoo shrieking in his jaws, whilst his small bones
crackled and crunched under the monster's triple row of teeth.

Whilst this small tragedy was acting--and painful enough it was to the
kind-hearted negro--I was looking out towards the eastern horizon,
watching the first dark-blue ripple of the sea-breeze, when a rushing
noise passed over my head. I looked up and saw a gawnaso, the large
carrion-crow of the tropics, sailing, contrary to the habits of its kind,
seaward over the brig. I followed it with my eye, until it vanished in the
distance, when my attention was attracted by a dark speck far out in the
offing, with a little tiny white sail. With my glass I made it out to be
a ship's boat, but I saw no one on board, and the sail was idly flapping
about the mast.

On making my report, I was desired to pull towards it in the gig; and as we
approached, one of the crew said he thought he saw some one peering over
the bow. We drew nearer, and I saw him distinctly.

"Why don't you haul the sheet aft, and come down to us, sir?"

He neither moved nor answered, but, as the boat rose and fell on the short
sea raised by the first of the breeze, the face kept mopping and mowing at
us over the gunwale.

"I will soon teach you manners, my fine fellow! give way, men" and I fired
my musket, when the crow that I had seen, rose from the boat into the air,
but immediately alighted again, to our astonishment, vulture-like with
out-stretched wings, upon the head.

Under the shadow of this horrible plume, the face seemed on the instant to
alter like the hideous changes in a dream. It appeared to become of a
deathlike paleness, and anon streaked with blood. Another stroke of the
oar--the chin had fallen down, and the tongue was hanging out. Another
pull--the eyes were gone, and from their sockets, brains and blood were
fermenting and flowing down the cheeks. It was the face of a putrefying
corpse. In this floating coffin we found the body of another sailor,
doubled across one of the thwarts, with a long Spanish knife sticking
between his ribs, as if he had died in some mortal struggle, or, what was
equally probable, had put an end to himself in his frenzy; whilst along the
bottom of the boat, arranged with some show of care, and covered by a piece
of canvass stretched across an oar above it, lay the remains of a beautiful
boy, about fourteen years of age, apparently but a few hours dead. Some
biscuit, a roll of jerked beef, and an earthen water-jar, lay beside him,
showing that hunger at least could have had no share in his destruction but
the pipkin was dry, and the small water-cask in the bow was staved, and
empty.

We had no sooner cast our grappling over the bow, and begun to tow the boat
to the ship, than the abominable bird that we had scared settled down into
it again, notwithstanding our proximity, and began to peck at the face of
the dead boy. At this moment we heard a gibbering noise, and saw something
like a bundle of old rags roll out from beneath the stem-sheets, and
whatever it was, apparently make a fruitless attempt to drive the
gallinaso from its prey. Heaven and earth, what an object met our eyes!
It was a full-grown man, but so wasted, that one of the boys lifted him by
his belt with one hand. His knees were drawn up to his chin, his hands
were like the talons of a bird, while the falling in of his
chocolate-coloured and withered features gave an unearthly relief to his
forehead, over which the horny and transparent skin was braced so tightly
that it seemed ready to crack. But in the midst of this desolation, his
deep-set coal-black eyes sparkled like two diamonds with the fever of his
sufferings; there was a fearful fascination in their flashing brightness,
contrasted with the deathlike aspect of the face, and rigidity of the
frame. When sensible of our presence he tried to speak, but could only utter
a low moaning sound. At length--"Agua, agua"--we had not a drop of water
in the boat. "El muchacho esta moriendo de sed--Agua."

We got on board, and the surgeon gave the poor fellow some weak tepid grog.
It acted like magic. He gradually uncoiled himself, his voice, from being
weak and husky, became comparative strong and clear. "El hijo--Agua para
mi Pedrillo--No le hace pari mi--oh la noche pasado, la noche pasado!" He
was told to compose himself, and that his boy would be taken care of.
"Dexa me verlo entonces, oh Dios, dexa me verlo"----and he crawled,
grovelling on his chest, like a crushed worm, across the deck, until he got
his head over the port sill, and looked down into the boat. He there
beheld the pale face of his dead son; it was the last object he ever saw,
"Ay de mi!"  he groaned heavily, and dropped his face against the ship's
side--He was dead.

After spending several months in the service already alluded to, we were
ordered on a cruise off the coast of Terra Firma.

Morillo was at this time besieging Carthagena by land, while a Spanish
squadron, under Admiral Enrile, blockaded the place by sea; and it pleased
the officer who commanded the inshore division to conceive, while the old
Torch was quietly beating up along the coast, that we had an intention of
forcing the blockade.

The night before had been gusty and tempestuous--all hands had been called
three times, so that at last, thinking there was no use in going below, I
lay down on the stern sheets of the boat over the stern--an awkward berth
certainly, but a spare tarpaulins had that morning been stretched over the
after part of the boat to dry, and I therefore ensconced myself beneath it.
just before daylight, however, the brig, by a sudden shift of wind, was
taken aback, and fetching stern-way, a sea struck her. How I escaped I
never could tell, but I was pitched right in on deck over the poop, and
much bruised, where I found a sad scene of confusion, with the captain and
several of the officers in their shirts, and the men tumbling up from below
as fast as they could--while, amongst other incidents, one of our
passengers who occupied a small cabin under the poop, having gone to sleep
with the stern port open, the sea had surged in through it with such
violence as to wash him out on deck in his shirt, where he lay sprawling
among the feet of the men. However, we soon got all right, and in five
minutes the sloop was once more tearing through it on a wind; but the boat
where I had been sleeping was smashed into staves, all that remained of her
being the stem and stern-post dangling from the tackles at the ends of
the davits.

At this time it was grey dawn, and we were working up in shore, without
dreaming of breaking the blockade, when it fell stark calm. Presently the
Spanish squadron, anchored under Punto Canoa, perceived us, when a
corvette, two schooners, a cutter, and eight gunboats, got under weigh, the
latter of which soon swept close to us, ranging themselves on our bows and
quarters; and although we showed our colours, and made the private
international signal, they continued firing at us for about an hour,
without, however, doing any damage, as they had chosen a wary distance.
At length some of the shot falling near us, the skipper cleared for action,
and with his own hand fired a 32-pounder at the nearest gun-boat, the
crew of which bobbed as if they, had seen the shot coming. This opened
the eyes of the Dons, who thereupon ceased firing; and as a light breeze
had now set down, they immediately made sail in pursuit of a schooner that
had watched the opportunity of their being employed with us to run in
under the walls, and was at this moment chased by a ship and a gun-boat,
who had got within gun-shot and kept up a brisk fire on her. So soon as
the others came up, all hands opened on the gallant little hooker who was
forcing the blockade, and peppered away; and there she was, like a hare,
with a whole pack of harriers after her, sailing and sweeping in under
their fire towards the doomed city. As the wind was very light, the
blockading squadron now manned their boats, and some of them were coming
fast, when a raffle of musketry from the small craft sent them to the
right about, and presently the chase was safely at anchor under the
battery of Santa Catalina.

But the fun was to come-for by this time some of the vessels that held
her in chase, had got becalmed under the batteries, which immediately
opened on them cheerily; and down came a topgallant-mast here, and a
topsail-yard there, and a studdingsail t'other place-and such a squealing
and creaking of blocks and rattling of the gear, while yards braced hither
and thither, and topping-lifts let go, and sheets let fly, showed that the
Dons were in a sad quandary; and no wonder, for we could see the shot from
the long 32-pounders on the walls, falling very thick all around several
of them. However, at 4 P.M. we had worked up alongside of the Commodore,
when the old skipper gave our friend such a rating, that I don't think he
will ever forget it.

On the day following our being fired at, I was sent, being a good
Spaniard, along with the second lieutenant--poor Treenail--to Morillo's
headquarters. We got an order to the officer commanding the nearest post
on shore, to provide us with horses; but before reaching it, we had to
walk, under a roasting sun, about two miles through miry roads, until we
arrived at the barrier, where we found a detachment of artillery, but the
commanding officer could only give us one poor broken-winded horse, and
a jackass, on which we were to proceed to headquarters on the morrow; and
here, under a thatched hut of the most primitive construction, consisting
simply of cross sticks and palm branches, we had to spend the night, the
poor fellows being as kind as their own misery would let them.

Next morning we proceeded, accompanied by a hussar, through dreadful
roads, where the poor creatures we bestrode sunk to the belly at every
flounder, until about four p.m., when we met two negroes and found, to
our great distress, that the soldier who was our guide and escort, had
led us out of our way, and that we were in very truth then travelling
towards the town. We therefore hove-about and returned to Palanquillo, a
village that we had passed through that very morning, leaving the hussar
and his horse sticking fast in a slough. We arrived about nightfall,
and as the village was almost entirely deserted, we were driven to take up
our quarters in an old house, that seemed formerly to have been used as a
distillery. Here we found a Spanish lieutenant and several soldiers
quartered, all of them suffering more or less from dysentery; and after
passing a very comfortless night on hard benches, we rose at grey dawn,
with our hands and faces blistered from musquitto bites, and our hair full
of wood ticks, or garapatos. We again started on our journey to
headquarters, and finally arrived at Torrecilla at two o'clock in the
afternoon. Both the Commander-in-Chief Morillo, and Admiral Enrile, had
that morning proceeded to the works at Boca Chica, so we only found El
Senor Montalvo, the Captain-General of the Province, a little kiln-dried
diminutive Spaniard. Morillo used to call him "uno muneco Creollo," but
withal he was a gentlemanlike man in his manners.

He received us very civilly; we delivered our despatches; and the same
evening we made our bow, and having obtained fresh horses, set out on our
return, and arrived at the village of Santa Rosa at nine at night, where
we slept; and next morning continuing on our journey, we got once more
safely on board of the old Brig at twelve o'clock at noon, in a miserable
plight, not having had our clothes off for three days. As for me I was
used to roughing it, and in my humble equipment any disarrangement was not
particularly discernible, but in poor Treenail, one of the nattiest
fellows in the service, it was a very different matter. He had issued
forth on the enterprise, cased in tight blue pantaloons that fitted him
like his skin, over which were drawn long well-polished Hessian boots,
each with a formidable tassel at top, and his coat was buttoned close up
to the chin, with a blazing swab on the right shoulder, while a laced
cocked hat and dress sword completed his equipment. But, alas! when we
were accounted for on board of the old Torch, there was a fearful
dilapidation of his external man. First of all, his inexpressibles were
absolutely tom into shreds by the briers and prickly bushes through which
we had been travelling, and fluttered from his waistband like the stripes
we see depending from an ancient Roman or Grecian coat of armour; his coat
had only one skirt, and the bullion of the epaulet was reduced to a strand
or two, while the tag that held the brim, or flaps of the cocked hat up,
had given way, so that, although he looked fierce enough, stem on, still,
when you had a sternview, the after part hung down his back like the tail
of the hat of one of Landseer's flying dustmen.

After this, we experienced, with little intermission, most dreadful
weather for two weeks, until at length we were nearly torn in pieces, and
the Captain was about abandoning his ground, and returning to Port Royal,
when it came on to blow with redoubled violence. We struggled against it
for twelve hours, but were finally obliged to heave-to, the sea all the
while running tremendously high.

About noon on the day I speak of, the weather had begun to look a little
better, but the sea had if any thing increased. I had just come on deck,
when Mr Splinter sung out--"Look out for that sea, quartermaster!--Mind
your starboard helm!--Ease her, man--ease her!"

On it came, rolling as high as the foreyard, and tumbled in over the
bows, green, clear, and unbroken. It filled the deep waist of the Torch
in an instant, and as I rose half smothered in the midst of a jumble of
men, pigs, hencoops, and spare spars, I had nearly lost an eye by a
floating boarding-pike that was lanced at me by the jauglet of the water.
As for the boats on the booms, they had all gone to sea separately, and
were bobbing at us in a squadron to leeward, the launch acting as
commodore, with a crew of a dozen sheep, whose bleating as she rose on the
crest of a wave came back upon us, faintly blending with the hoarse
roaring of the storm, and seeming to cry, "No more mutton for you, my
boys!"

At length the lee ports were forced out--the pumps promptly rigged and
manned--buckets slung and at work down the hatchways; and although we had
narrowly escaped being swamped, and it continued to blow hard, with a
heavy sea, the men, confident in the qualities of the ship, worked with
glee, shaking their feathers, and quizzing each other. But anon a sudden
and appalling change came over the sea and the sky, that made the stoutest
amongst us quail and draw his breath thick. The firmament darkened--the
horizon seeme to contract--the sea became black as ink--the wind fell to a
dead calm--the teeming clouds descended and filled the murky arch of
heaven with their whirling masses, until they appeared to touch our
mast-heads, but there was neither lightning nor rain, not one glancing
flash, not one refreshing drop--the windows of the sky had been sealed up
by Him who had said to the storm, "Peace, be still."

During this deathlike pause, infinitely more awful than the heaviest gale,
every sound on board, the voices of the men, even the creaking of the
bulkheads, was heard with startling distinctness; and the water-logged
brig, having no wind to steady her, laboured so heavily in the trough of
the sea, that we expected her masts to go overboard every moment.

"Do you see and hear that, sir?" said Lieutenant Treenail to the Captain.

We all looked eagerly forth in the direction indicated. There was a white
line in fearful contrast with the clouds and the rest of the ocean,
gleaming on the extreme verge of the horizon--it grew broader--a  low
increasing growl was heard--a thick blinding mist came driving up a-stern
of us, whose small drops pierced into the skin like sharp hail.

"Is it rain?"

"No, no--salt, salt."

And now the fierce Spirit of the Hurricane himself, the sea Azrael, in
storm and in darkness, came thundering on with stunning violence, tearing
off the snowy scalps of the tortured billows, and with tremendous and
sheer force, crushing down beneath his chariot wheels their mountainous
and howling ridges into one level plain of foaming water. Our chainplates,
strong fastenings, and clenched bolts, drew like pliant wires, shrouds and
stays were torn away like the summer gossamer, and our masts and spars,
crackling before his fury like dry reeds in autumn, were blown clean out
of the ship, over her bows, into the sea.

Had we shown a shred of the strongest sail in the vessel, it would have
been blown out of the bolt-rope in an instant; we had, therefore, to get
her before the wind, by crossing a spar on the stump of the foremast, with
four men at the wheel, one watch at the pumps, and, the other clearing the
wreck. But our spirits were soon dashed, when the old carpenter, one of
the coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the forehatch, pale
as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming straight out in the wind. He
did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft, towards the capstan, to
which the Captain had lashed himself.

"The water is rushing in forward like a mill-stream, sir; we have either
started a but, or the wreck of the foremast has gone through her bows,
for she is fast settling down by the head."

"Get the boatswain to father a sail then, man, and try it over the leak;
but don't alarm the people, Mr Kelson."

The brig was, indeed, rapidly losing her buoyancy, and when the next heavy
sea rose ahead of us, she gave a drunken sickening lurch, and pitched
right into it, groaning and trembling in every plank, like a guilty and
condemned thing in the prospect of impending punishment.

"Stand by, to heave the guns overboard."

Too late, too late--Oh God, that cry!--I was stunned and drowning, a chaos
of wreck was beneath me, and around me, and above me, and blue agonized
gasping faces, and struggling arms, and colourless clutching hands, and
despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp
bite on the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had
snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the sinking vessel.

For life, for dear life, nearly suffocated amidst--the hissing spray, we
reached the cutter, the dog and his helpless master.

For three miserable days, I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded,
in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. The third fierce
cloudless West Indian noon was long passed, and once more the dry burning
sun sank in the west, like a red-hot shield of iron. In my horrible
extremity, I imprecated the wrath of Heaven on my defenceless head, and
shaking my clenched hands against the brazen sky, I called aloud on the
Almighty, "Oh, let me never see him rise again!" I glared on the noble dog,
as he lay dying at the bottom of the boat; madness seized me, I tore his
throat with my teeth, not for food, but that I might drink his hot blood
it flowed, and vampire-like, I would have gorged myself; but as he turned
his dull, grey, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart stopped, and I
fell senseless.

When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain
leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining
and licking my hands and face. On the rude joists that bound the rafters
of the roof together, rested a light canoe with its paddles, and over
against me, on the wall, hung some Indian fishing implements, and a
long-barrelled Spanish gun. Underneath lay a corpse, wrapped in a
boat-sail, on which was clumsily written, with charcoal,--"The body of
John Deadeye, Esq. late Commander of his Britannic Majesty's Sloop,
Torch."

There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his shirt
and trowsers, drenched, unshorn, and deathlike, was roasting a joint of
meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian, stark naked, sat opposite to him,
squatting on his hams, more like a large bull-frog than a man, and
fanning the flame with a palm leaf. In the dark corner of the hut half a
dozen miserable sheep shrunk huddled together. Through the open door I
saw the stars in the deep blue heaven, and the cold beams of the newly
risen moon were dancing in a long flickering wake of silver light on the
ever-heaving bosom of the ocean, whilst the melancholy murmur of the surf
breaking on the shore, came booming on the gentle night-wind. I was
instantly persuaded that I had been nourished during my delirium; for the
fierceness of my sufferings was assuaged, and I was comparatively strong.
I anxiously enquired of the Lieutenant the fate of our shipmates.

"All gone down in the old Torch; and had it not been for the launch and
our four-footed friends there, I should not have been here to have told
it; but raw mutton, with the wool on, is not a mess to thrive on, Tom.
All that the sharks have left of the Captain and five sea men came ashore
last night. I have buried the poor fellows on the beach where they lay
as well as I could, with an oar-blade for a shovel, and the bronze
ornament there [pointing to the Indian] for an assistant."

Here he looked towards the body; and the honest fellow's voice shook as
he continued.

"But seeing you were alive, I thought if you did recover, it would be
gratifying to both of us, after having weathered it so long with him
through gale and sunshine, to lay the kind-hearted old man's head on its
everlasting pillow as decently as our forlorn condition permitted."

As the Lieutenant spoke, Sneezer seemed to think his watch was up, and
drew off towards the fire. Clung and famished, the poor brute could no
longer resist the temptation, but, making a desperate snatch at the joint,
bolted through the door with it, hotly pursued by the Bull-frog.

"Drop the leg of mutton, Sneezer," roared the Lieutenant, "drop the
mutton-drop it, sir, drop it, drop it." And away raced his Majesty's
officer in pursuit of the canine pirate.

After a little, he and the Indian returned, the former with the joint in
his hand; and presently the dog stole into the hut after them, and
patiently lay down in a corner, until the Lieutenant good-humouredly
threw the bone to him after our comfortless meal had been finished.

I was so weak that my shipmate considerately refrained from pressing his
society on me; and we, therefore, all betook ourselves to rest for the
night.



To COMMODORE CHRISTOPHER NORTH.

DEAR OLD GENTLEMAN,

Your chief devil has got me into a terrible mess by a misprint in last
Chapter--confound my cramp fist--regarding which Old Splinter
(erst of the Torch,) has ever since quizzed me very nearly up to gunpowder
mark.

To the matter--The said imp makes me say, in page 84, standing on the
bowsprit, that "the spray from the stern was flashing over me, as it
roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters."  Now, I don't
dispute the roaring of sterns-in season. But,--me, if you or any other
man shall make Tom Cringle's stern roar, out of season, on compulsion. I
wrote STEM, the cutwater of the ship, the coulter as it were--the head of
her, not the tail, as the devil would have it. And again, when the
privateer hauls his wind suddenly to let the Torch shoot past him, and
thereby gain the weather-gage, when old Splinter should sing out, as it
was written--but, confound the fist once more "Give her the stem"--that
is, run her down and sink her, the stem being the strongest part, as the
stern is the weakest, he, Belzebub, judging, I presume, of the respective
strength of the two ends from his own comparative anatomy, makes him say,
"Give her the stern," as if he were going to let drive at her with that
end. "Poo, nonsense--it don't signify." But it does signify, old man.

To touch you more near--you yourself have been known to get fou and
pugnacious on great occasions--the visit of royalty, for instance--it is
on record. A mountain foreigner from Rossshire engages you, for some
unknown insult, in single combat, and, leagued with John Barleycorn,
(let us imagine an impossibility,) floors you by a peg on the gnomon--the
wound is in the front--your snout is broken, but your honour is whole.
Would it be so, were the Gael to allege, that "her mainsell had coupit you
by a pig kick on her preach?" By all the gods, he of the laconic garment,
the "thousand hill man," would have been careering on a cloud after his
"freen" Ossian, with the moon shining through him, within that very
hour.

Still I would not have bothered you; but I know his Most Gracious Majesty
King William, God bless him! (who can forget poor Burns's "Tarry Breeks?")
either has noticed it, or will notice it, the instant he comes to that
part of the Log. Now this, without explanation, is inconvenient, trowsers
being likely to come as high up in these days as pantaloons, and I have
some claim on him, seeing that my uncle, Job Cringle, some
five-and-forty years ago, at Jamaica, in the town of Port Royal, had his
headrails smashed, the neb of his nose (stem) bitten off by a bungo, and
the end of his spine (stern-post), that mysterious point, where man ends,
and monkey begins, grievously shaken in a spree at Kitty Finnans, in
Prince William Henry's company.

"Poo, nonsense." Indeed!--Why, the very devil himself, the author of the
evil, shall be convinced that there is much peril in the transposition of
ends. I will ask him--"What is a sternutation?" (words being his weapons)
"What is a sternutation?" He shall answer learnedly by the card--"A
sneeze," the nose or stem being the organ. Then he shall ask Jem
Sparkle "What is a sternutation?"--You laugh, old gentleman; but your
devil's "mistack" looks every inch as queer to a sailor as our topman's
answer would sound to you.

Yours with all cordiality, notwithstanding,

"THOMAS CRINGLE."



CHAPTER IV.--Scenes on the Costa Firme.


     "Here lies a sheer hulk, poor Tom Bowline."

     Charles Dibdin,

     "Tom Bowling," Line 1.


I was awakened by the low growling, and short bark of the dog. The night
was far spent; the tiny sparks of the fire-flies that were glancing in
the doorway began to grow pale; the chirping of the crickets and lizards,
and the snore of the tree-toad, waxed fainter, and the wild cry of the
tiger-cat was no longer heard. The terral, or land-wind, which is
usually strongest towards morning, moaned loudly on the hillside, and came
rushing past with a melancholy sough, through the brushwood that
surrounded the hut, shaking off the heavy dew from the palm and cocoa-nut
trees, like large drops of rain.

The hollow tap of the woodpecker; the clear flute-note of the Pavo del
monte; the discordant shriek of the macaw; the shrill chirr of the wild
Guinea fowl; and the chattering of the paroquets, began to be heard from
the wood. The ill-omened gaflinaso was sailing and circling round the
hut, and the tall flamingo was stalking on the shallows of the lagoon, the
haunt of the disgusting alligator, that lay beneath, divided from the sea
by a narrow mud-bank, where a group of pelicans, perched on the wreck of
one of our boats, were pluming themselves before taking wing. In the
east, the deep blue of the firmament, from which the lesser stars were
fast fading, all but the "Eye of Mom," was warming into magnificent
purple, and the amber rays of the yet unrisen sun were shooting up,
streamer-like, with intervals between, through the parting clouds, as
they broke away with a passing shower, that fell like a veil of silver
gauze between us and the first primrose-coloured streaks of a tropical
dawn.

"That's a musket shot," said the Lieutenant. The Indian crept on his
belly to the door, dropped his chin on the ground, and placed his open
palms behind his ears. The distant wail of a bugle was heard, then three
or four dropping shots again, in rapid succession. Mr Splinter stooped
to go forth, but the Indian caught him by the leg, uttering the single
word "Espanoles."

On the instant, a young Indian woman, with a shrieking infant in her
arms, rushed to the door. There was a blue gunshot wound in her neck,
from which two or three large black clotting gouts of blood were
trickling. Her long black hair was streaming in coarse braids, and her
features were pinched and sharpened, as if in the agony of death. She
glanced wildly behind, and gasped out "Escapa, Oreeque, escape, para mi,
soi muerto ya." Another shot, and the miserable creature convulsively
clasped her child, whose small shrill cry I often fancy I hear to this
hour blending with its mother's death-shriek, and, falling backwards,
rolled over the brow of the hill out of sight. The ball had pierced the
heart of the parent through the body of her offspring. By this time a
party of Spanish soldiers had surrounded the hut, one of whom, kneeling
before the low door, pointed his musket into it. The Indian, who had seen
his wife and child thus cruelly shot down before his face, now fired his
rifle, and the man feel dead. "Siga mi Querida Bondia--maldito." Then
springing to his feet, and stretching himself to his full height, with his
arms extended towards Heaven, while a strong shiver shook him like an ague
fit, he yelled forth the last words he ever uttered, "Venga la suerte, ya
soi listo," and resumed his squatting position on the ground.

Half a dozen musket balls were now fired at random through the wattles of
the hut, while the Lieutenant, who spoke Spanish well, sung out lustily,
that we were English officers who had been shipwrecked.

"Mentira,"  growled the officer of the party, "Piratas son ustedes."
"Pirates leagued with Indian bravoes; fire the hut, soldiers, and burn the
scoundrels!"

There was no time to be lost; Mr Splinter made a vigorous attempt to get
out, in which I seconded him with all the strength that remained to me,
but they beat us back again with the butts of their muskets.

"Where are your commissions, your uniforms, if you be British officers?"
We had neither, and our fate appeared inevitable.

The doorway was filled with brushwood, fire was set to the hut, and we
heard the crackling of the palm thatch, while thick stifling wreaths of
white smoke burst in upon us through the roof.

"Lend a hand, Tom, now or never, and kick up the dark man there;" but he
sat still as a statue. We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved
at it with all our might; when we were nearly at the last gasp it gave
way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by
Sneezer with his shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar, blazing like
a torch. He unceremoniously seized par le queue, the soldier who had
throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, and blowing up his
cartouche box. I believe, under Providence, that the ludicrousness of
this attack saved us from being bayoneted on the spot. It gave time for
Mr Splinter to recover his breath, when, being a powerful man, he shook
off the two soldiers who had seized him, and dashed into the burning hut
again. I thought he was mad, especially when I saw him return with his
clothes and hair on fire, dragging out the body of the Captain. He
unfolded the sail it was wrapped in, and pointing to the remains of the
naval uniform in which the mutilated and putrefying corpse was dressed, he
said sternly to the officer--"We are in your power, and you may murder us
if you will; but that was my Captain four days ago, and you see, he at
least was a British officer--satisfy yourself." The person he addressed, a
handsome young Spaniard, with a clear olive complexion, oval face, small
brown mustaches, and large black eyes, shuddered at the horrible
spectacle, but did as he was requested.

When he saw the crown and anchor, and his Majesty's cipher on the
appointments of the dead officer, he became convinced of our quality, and
changed his tone--"Es verdad, son de la marina Englesa. But, gentlemen,
were there not three persons in the hut?"

There were indeed--the flames had consumed the dry roof and walls with
incredible rapidity, which by this time had fallen in, but Oreeque was
nowhere to be seen. I thought I saw something move in the midst of the
fire, but it might have been fancy. Again, the white ashes heaved, and a
half-consumed hand and arm were thrust through the smouldering mass, then
a human head, with the scalp burnt from the skull, and the flesh from the
chaps and cheekbones; the trunk next appeared, the bleeding ribs laid
bare, and the miserable Indian, with his limbs like scorched rafters,
stood upright before us, like a demon in the midst of the fire. He made
no attempt to escape, but reeling to and fro like a drunken man, fell
headlong, raising clouds of smoke and a shower of sparks in his fall.
Alas! poor Oreeque, the newly risen sun was now shining on your ashes, and
on the dead bodies of the ill-starred Bondia and her child, whose bones,
ere his setting, the birds of the air, and beasts of the forest, will
leave as white and fleshless as your own. The officer, who belonged to
the army investing Carthagena, now treated us with great civility; he
heard our story, and desired his men to assist us in burying the remains
of our late commander.

We remained all day on the same part of the coast, but towards evening the
party fell back on the outpost to which they belonged--after travelling an
hour or so we emerged from a dry river course, in which the night had
overtaken us, and came suddenly on a small plateau, where the post was
established on the promontory of "Punto Canoa." There may be braver
soldiers at a charge, although that I doubt, if they be properly led, but
none more picturesque in a bivouac than the Spanish. A gigantic wild
cotton-tree, to which our largest English oaks would have been but as
dwarfs, rose on one side, and overshadowed the whole level space. The
bright beams of the full moon glanced among the topmost leaves, and tipped
the higher branches with silver, contrasting strangely with the scene
below, where a large watch-fire cast a strong red glare on the
surrounding objects, throwing up dense volumes of smoke, which eddied in
dun wreaths amongst the foliage, and hung in the still night air like a
canopy, about ten feet from the ground, leaving the space beneath
comparatively clear.

A temporary guard-house, with a rude verandah of bamboos and palm leaves,
had been built between two of the immense spurs of the mighty tree, that
shot out many yards from the parent stem like wooden buttresses, whilst
overhead there was a sort of stage, made of planks laid across the lower
boughs, supporting a quantity of provisions covered with tarpaulins. The
sentries in the background with their glancing arms, were seen pacing on
their watch; some of the guard were asleep on wooden benches, and on the
platform amongst the branches, where a little baboon-looking old man, in
the dress of a drummer, had perched himself, and sat playing a Biscayan
air on a sort of bagpipe; others were gathered round the fire, cooking
their food, or cleaning their arms. It shone brightly on the long line of
Spanish transports that were moored below, stem on to the beach, and on
the white sails of the armed craft that were still hovering under weigh in
the offing, which, as the night wore on, stole in, one after another like
phantoms of the ocean, and letting go their anchors with a splash, and a
hollow rattle of the cable, remained still and silent like the rest.
Farther off, it fell in a crimson stream on the surface of the sheltered
bay, struggling with the light of the gentle moon, and tinging with blood
the small waves that twinkled in her silver wake, across which a guard
boat would now and then glide, like a fairy thing, the arms of the men
flashing back the red light.


Beyond the influence of the hot smoky glare, the glorious planet reassumed
her sway in the midst of her attendant stars, and the relieved eye
wandered forth into the lovely night, where the noiseless sheet-lightning
was glancing, and ever and anon lighting up for an instant some fantastic
shape in the fleecy clouds, like prodigies forerunning the destruction of
the stronghold over which they impended; while beneath, the lofty ridge of
the convent-crowned Popa, the citadel of San Felipe bristling with
cannon, the white batteries and many towers of the fated city of
Carthagena, and the Spanish blockading squadron at anchor before it, slept
in the moonlight.

We were civilly received by the captain, who apologized for the discomfort
under which we must pass the night. He gave us the best he had, and that
was bad enough, both of food and wine, before showing us into the hut,
where we found a rough deal coffin lying on the very bench that was to be
our bed. This he ordered away with all the coolness in the world. "It
was only one of his people who had died that morning of vomito, or yellow
fever."

"Comfortable country this," quoth Splinter, "and a pleasant morning we
have had of it, Tom!"

Next morning, we proceeded towards the Spanish headquarters, provided with
horses through the kindness of the captain of the outpost, and preceded by
a guide on an ass. He was a moreno, or man of colour, who in place of
bestriding his beast, gathered his limbs under him, and sat crosslegged on
it like a tailor; so that when you saw the two "end on," the effect was
laughable enough, the flank and tail of the ass appearing to constitute
the lower part of the man, as if he had been a sort of composite animal,
like the ancient satyr. The road traversed a low swampy country, from
which the rank moisture arose in a hot palpable mist, and crossed several
shallow lagoons, from two to six feet deep of tepid, muddy, brackish
water, some of them half a mile broad, and swarming with wild waterfowl.
On these occasions, our friend the Satyr was signalled to make sail ahead
on his donkey to pilot us; and as the water deepened, he would betake
himself to swimming in its wake, holding on by the tail, and shouting,
"Cuidado Burrico, Cuidado que no te ahogas."

While passing through the largest of these, we noticed several calabashes
about pistol-shot on our right; and as we fancied one of them bobbed now
and then it struck me they might be Indian fishing floats. To satisfy my
curiosity, I hauled my wind, and leaving the track we were on, swam my
horse towards the group. The two first that I lifted had nothing attached
to them, but proved to be mere empty gourds floating before the wind; but
when I tried to seize the largest, it eluded my grasp in a most
incomprehensible manner, and slid away astern of me with a curious hollow
gabbling sort of noise, whereupon my palfrey snorted and reared, and
nearly capsized me over his bows. What a noble fish, thought I, as I
tacked in chase, but my Bucephalus refused to face it. I therefore bore up
to join my companions again; but in requital of the disappointment,
smashed the gourd in passing with the stick I held in my hand, when, to my
unutterable surprise, and amidst shouts of laughter from our moreno, the
head and shoulders of an Indian, with a quantity of sedges tied round his
neck, and buoyed up by half-a-dozen dead teal fastened by the legs to
his girdle, started up before me. "Ave Maria, purissima! you have
broken my head, senior." But as the vegetable helmet had saved his skull,
of itself possibly none of the softest, a small piece of money spliced the
feud between us; and as he fitted his pate with another calabash,
preparatory to resuming his cruise, he joined in our merriment, although
from a different cause.--"What can these English simpletons see so very
comical in a poor Indian catching wild-ducks?"

Shortly after, we entered a forest of magnificent trees, whose sombre
shade, on first passing from the intolerable glare of the sun, seemed
absolute darkness. The branches were alive with innumerable tropical
birds and insects, and were laced together by a thick tracery of withes,
along which a guana would occasionally dart, coming nearest of all the
reptiles I had seen to the shape of the fabled dragon.

But how different from the clean steams and beautiful green sward of our
English woods!  Here, you were confined to a quagmire by impervious
underwood of prickly pear, penguin, and speargrass; and when we rode under
the drooping branches of the trees, that the leaves might brush away the
halo of musquittoes, flying ants, and other winged plagues that buzzed
about our temples, we found, to our dismay, that we had made bad worse by
the introduction of a whole colony of garapatos, or wood-ticks, into our
eyebrows and hair. At length, for the second time, so far as I was
concerned, we reached the reached the headquarters at Torrecilla, and were
well received by the Spanish commander-in-chief, a tall, good-looking,
soldierlike man, whose personal qualities had an excellent foil in the
captain-general of the province, an old friend of mine, as already
mentioned, and who certainly looked full as like a dancing-master, or, at
the best, perruquier en general to the staff, as a viceroy.

General Morillo, however, had a great share of Sancho Panza shrewdness,
and I will add kindness, about him. We were drenched and miserable when
we arrived, yet he might have turned us over, naturally enough, to the
care of his staff. No such thing; the first thing he did was to walk both
of us behind a canvass screen, that shut off one end of the large barnlike
room, where a long table was laid for dinner. This was his sleeping
apartment, and drawing out of a leather bag two suits of uniform, he
rigged us almost with his own hands. Presently a point of war was sounded
by half-a-dozen trumpeters, and Splinter and I made our appearance each
in the dress of a Spanish general. The party consisted of Morillo's
personal staff, the captain-general, the inquisidor general, and several
colonels and majors of different regiments. In all, twenty people sat
down to dinner; among whom were several young Spanish noblemen, some of
whom I had met on my former visit, who, having served in the Peninsular
war under the great Duke, made their advances with great cordiality.
Strange enough--Splinter and I were the only parties present in uniform;
all the others, priests and soldiers, were clothed in gingham coats and
white trowsers.

The besieging force at this time was composed of about five thousand
Spaniards, as fine troops as I ever saw, and three thousand Creoles under
the command of that desperate fellow Morales. I was not long in
recognising an old friend of mine in the person of Captain Bayer,
an aide-de-camp of Morillo, amongst the company. He was very kind and
attentive, and rather startled me by speaking very tolerable English now,
from a kindly motive I make no question, whereas, when I had known him
before in Kingston, he professed to speak nothing but Spanish or French.
He was a German by birth, and lived to rise to the rank of colonel in the
Spanish army, where he subsequently greatly distinguished himself, but he
at length fell in some obscure skirmish in New Granada; and my old ally
Morillo, Count of Carthagena, is now living in penury, an exile in Paris.

After being, as related, furnished with food and raiment, we retired to
our quatres, a most primitive sort of couch, being a simple wooden frame,
with a piece of canvass stretched over it. However, if we had no
mattresses, we had none of the disagreeables often incidental to them,
and, fatigue proved a good opiate, for we slept soundly until the drums
and trumpets of the troops, getting under arms, awoke us at daylight. The
army was under weigh to occupy Carthagena, which had fallen through
famine, and we had no choice but to accompany it.

I knew nothing of the misery of a siege but by description; the reality
even to me, case-hardened as I was by my own recent sufferings, was
dreadful. We entered by the gate of the raval, or suburb. There was not
a living thing to be seen in the street; the houses had been pulled down,
that the fire of the place might not be obstructed in the event of a
lodgment in the outwork. We passed on, the military music echoing
mournfully amongst the ruined walls, to the main gate, or Puerto de Tiera,
which was also open, and the drawbridge lowered. Under the archway, we
saw a delicate female, worn to the bone, and weak as an infant, gathering
garbage of the most loathsome description, the possession of which had
been successfully disputed by a carrion crow. A little farther on, the
bodies of an old man and two small children were putrefying in the sun,
while beside them lay a miserable, wasted, dying negro, vainly
endeavouring to keep at a distance with a palm branch a number of the same
obscene birds that were already devouring the carcass of one of the
infants; before two hours, the faithful servant, and those he attempted to
defend, were equally the prey of the disgusting gallinaso. The houses, as
we proceeded, appeared entirely deserted, except where a solitary spectre
like inhabitant appeared at a balcony, and feebly exclaimed, "Viva, los
Espanoles!  Viva, Fernando Septimo!"--We saw no domestic animal
whatsoever, not even a cat or a dog; but I will not dwell on these
horrible details any longer.

One morning, shortly after our arrival, as we strolled beyond the land
gate, we came to a place where four banquillos (a sort of short bench or
stool, with an upright post at one end firmly fixed into the ground) were
placed opposite a dead wall. They were painted black, and we were not
left long in suspense as to their use; for solemn music, and the roll
of muffled drums in the distance, were fearful indications of what we were
to witness.

First came an entire regiment of Spanish infantry, which, filing off,
formed three sides of a square,--the wall near which the banquillos were
placed forming the fourth; then eight priests, and as many choristers
chanting the service for the dying; next came several mounted officers of
the staff, and four firing parties of twelve men each. Three Spanish
American prisoners followed, dressed in white, with crucifixes in their
hands, each supported, more dead than alive, by two priests; but when the
fourth victim appeared, we could neither look at nor think of any thing
else.

On enquiry we found he was an Englishman, of the name of S----: English,
that is, in all except the place of his birth, for his whole education had
been English, as were his parents and all his family; but it came out,
accidentally I believe, on his trial, that he had been born at Buenos
Ayres, and having joined the patriots, this brought treason home to him,
which he was now led forth to expiate. Whilst his fellow-sufferers
appeared crushed down to the very earth, under their intense agony, so
that they had to be supported as they tottered towards the place of
execution, he stepped firmly and manfully out, and seemed impatient when
at any time, from the crowding in front, the procession was obliged to
halt. At length they reached the fatal spot, and his three companions in
misery being placed astride on the banquillos, their arms twisted round
the upright posts, and fastened to them with cords, their backs being
towards the soldiers. Mr S----walked firmly up to the vacant bench,
knelt down, and covering his face with his hands, rested his head on the
edge of it. For a brief space he seemed to be engaged in prayer, during
which he sobbed audibly, but soon recovering himself, he rose, and folding
his arms across his breast, sat down slowly and deliberately on the
banquillo, facing the firing party with an unshrinking eye.

He was now told that he must turn his back and submit to be tied like the
others. He resisted this, but on force being attempted to be used, he
sprung to his feet, and stretching out his hand, while a dark red flush
passed transiently across his pale face, he exclaimed in a loud voice,
"Thus, thus, and not otherwise, you may butcher me, but I am an Englishman
and no traitor, nor will I die the death of one." Moved by his gallantry,
the soldiers withdrew, and left him standing. At this time the sun was
intensely hot, it was high noon, and the monk who attended Mr S----held
an umbrella over his head; but the preparations being completed, he kissed
him on both cheeks, while the hot tears trickled down his own, and was
stepping back, when the unhappy man said to him, with the most perfect
composure, "Todavia padre, todavia, mucho me gusta la sombra." But the
time had arrived, the kind-hearted monk was obliged to retire. The
signal was given, the musketry rattled, and they were as clods of the
valley "Truly," quoth old Splinter, "a man does sometimes become a horse
by being born in a stable."

Some time after this we were allowed to go to the village of Turbaco, a
few miles distant from the city, for change of air. On the third morning
after our arrival, about the dawning, I was suddenly awakened by a shower
of dust on my face, and a violent shaking of the bed, accompanied by a low
grumbling unearthly noise, which seemed to pass immediately under where I
lay. Were I to liken it to any thing I had ever experienced before, it
would be to the lumbering and tremor of a large waggon in a tempestuous
night, heard and felt through the thin walls of a London house.--Like--yet
how fearfully different!

In a few seconds the motion ceased, and the noise gradually died away in
hollow echoes in the distance--whereupon ensued such a crowing of cocks,
cackling of geese, barking of dogs, lowing of kine, neighing of horses,
and shouting of men, women, and children amongst the negro and coloured
domestics, as baffles all description, whilst the various white inmates of
the house (the rooms, for air and coolness, being without ceiling, and
simply divided by partitions run up about ten feet high) were, one and
all, calling to their servants and each other, in accents which did not by
any means evince great composure. In a moment this hubbub again sank into
the deepest silence--man, and the beasts of the field, and the fowls of
the air, became mute with breathless awe, at the impending tremendous
manifestation of the power of that Almighty Being in whose hands the hills
are as a very little thing--for the appalling voice of the earthquake was
once more heard growling afar off, like distant thunder mingling with the
rushing of a mighty wind, waxing louder and louder as it approached, and
upheaving the sure and firm-set earth into long undulations, as if its
surface had been the rolling swell of the fathomless ocean. The house
rocked, pictures of saints fell from the walls, tables and chairs were
overturned, the window frames were forced out of their embrasures and
broken in pieces, beams and rafters groaned and screamed, crushing the
tiles of the roof into ten thousand fragments. In several places the
ground split open into chasms a fathom wide, with an explosion like a
cannon-shot; the very foundation of the house seemed to be sinking under
us; and whilst men and women rushed like maniacs naked into the fields,
with a yell as if the Day of Judgment had arrived, and the whole brute
creation, in an agony of fear, made the most desperate attempts to break
forth from their enclosures into the open air, the end wall of my
apartment was shaken down; and falling outwards with a deafening crash,
disclosed, in the dull grey mysterious twilight of morning, the huge
gnarled trees that overshadowed the building, bending and groaning, amidst
clouds of dust, as if they had been tormented by a tempest, although the
air was calm and motionless as death.



CHAPTER V.--The Piccaroon


     "Ours the wild life in tumult still to range."

     Byron, The Corsair, I. 7.


Some time after this, we once more returned to Carthagena, to be at hand
should any opportunity occur for Jamaica, and we were lounging about one
forenoon on the fortifications, looking with sickening hearts out to
seaward, when a voice struck up the following negro ditty close to us:

     "Fader was a Corramantee,
     Moder was a Mingo,
     Black picaniny buccra wantee,
     So dem sell a me Peter, by jingo,
     Jiggery, jiggery, jiggery."

"Well sung, Massa Bungo," exclaimed Mr Splinter; "where do you hail from,
my hearty?"

"Hiflo!  Bungo, indeed! free and easy dat, anyhow. Who you yousef, eh?"

"Why, Peter," continued the Lieutenant, "don't you know me?" "Cannot say
dat I do," rejoined the negro, very gravely, without lifting his head, as
he sat mending his jacket in one of the embrasures near the water gate of
the arsenal--"Have not de honour of your acquaintance, sir."

He then resumed his scream, for song it could not be called:--

     "Mammy Sally's daughter,
     Lose him shoe in an old canoe,
     Dat lay halffull of water,
     And den she knew not what to do.
     Jiggery, jig"--

"Confound your jiggery, jiggery, sir!  But I know you well enough, my man;
and you can scarcely have forgotten Lieutenant Splinter of the Torch, one
would think?"

However, it was clear that the poor fellow really had not known us; for
the name so startled him, that, in his hurry to unlace his legs from under
him, as he sat tailor-fashion, he fairly capsized out of his perch, and
toppled down on his nose--a feature fortunately so flattened by the hand
of nature, that I question if it could have been rendered more obtuse had
he fallen out of the maintop on a timber-head, or a marine officer's.

"Eh!--no--yes, him sure enough; and who is de picaniny hofficer--Oh! I
see, Massa Tom Cringle? Garamighty, gentlemen, where have you drop
from?--Where is de old Torch? Many a time hab I Peter Mangrove, pilot to
Him Britanic Majesty squadron, taken de old brig in and through amongst de
keys at Port Royal!"

"Ay, and how often did you scour her copper against the coral reefs,
Peter?"

His Majesty's pilot gave a knowing look, and laid his hand on his breast
"No more of dat if you love me, massa."

"Well, well, it don't signify now, my boy; she will never give you that
trouble again--foundered--all hands lost, Peter, but the two you see
before you."

"Werry sorry, Massa Plinter, werry sorry--What! de black cooksmate and
all?--But misfortune can't be help. Stop till I put up my needle, and I
will take a turn wid you." Here he drew himself up with a great deal of
absurd gravity. "Proper dat British hofficer in distress should assist
one anoder--We shall consult togeder.--How can I serve you?"

"Why, Peter, if you could help us to a passage to Port Royal, it would be
serving us most essentially. When we used to be lying there, a week
seldom passed without one of the squadron arriving from this; but here
have we been for more than a month, without a single pennant belonging to
the station having looked in: our money is running short, and if we are to
hold on in Carthagena for another six weeks, we shall not have a shot
left in the locker--not a copper to tinkle on a tombstone."

The negro looked steadfastly at us, then carefully around. There was no
one near.

"You see, Massa Plinter, I am desirable to serve you, for one little
reason of my own; but, beside dat, it is good for me at present to make
some friend wid de hofficer of de squadron, being as how dat I am absent
widout leave."

"Oh, I perceive--a large R against your name in the master attendant's
books, eh?"

"You have hit it, sir, werry close; besides I long mosh to return to my
poor wife, Nancy Cator, dat I leave, wagabone dat I is, just about to be
confine."

I could not resist putting in my oar.

"I saw Nancy just before we sailed, Peter,--fine child that; not quite so
black as you, though."

"Oh, massa," said Snowball, grinning and showing his white teeth, "you
know I am soch a terrible black fellow--But you are a leetle out at
present, massa--I meant, about to be confine in de workhouse, for stealing
de admiral's Muscovy ducks;" and he laughed loud and long.--"However, if
you will promise dat you will stand my friends, I will put you in de way
of getting a shove across to de east end of Jamaica; and I will go wid
you, too, for company."

"Thank you," rejoined Mr Splinter; "but how do you mean to manage this?
There is no Kingston trader here at present, and you don't mean to make a
start of it in an open boat, do you?"

"No, sir, I don't; but in de first place--as you are a gentleman, will you
try and get me off when we get to Jamaica? Secondly, wi you promise dat
you will not seek to know more of de vessel you may go in, nor of her
crew, than dey are willing to tell you, provided you are landed safe?"

"Why, Peter, I scarcely think you would deceive us, for you know I saved
your bacon in that awkward affair, when through drunkenness you plumped
the Torch ashore, so"--

"Forget dat, sir,----forget dat!--Never shall poor black pilot forget how
you saved him from being seized upt when de gratings, boatswain's mates,
and all, were ready at de gangway@never shall poor black rascal forget
dat."

"Indeed I do not think you would wittingly betray us into trouble, Peter;
and as I guess you mean one of the forced traders, we will venture in her,
rather than kick about here any longer, and pay a moderate sum for our
passage."

"Den wait here five minute,"--and so saying he slipt down through the
embrasure into a canoe that lay beneath, and in a trice we saw him jump on
board of a long low nondescript kind of craft, that lay moored within
pistol-shot of the walls.

She was a large shallow vessel, coppered to the bends, of great breadth of
beam, with bright sides, like an American, so painted as to give her a
clumsy mercantile sheer externally, but there were many things that belied
this to a nautical eye: her copper, for instance, was bright as burnished
gold on her very sharp bows and beautiful run; and we could see from the
bastion where we stood, that her decks were flush and level. She had no
cannon mounted that were visible, but we distinguished grooves on her
well-scrubbed decks, as from the recent traversing of carronade slides,
while the bolts and rings in her high and solid bulwarks shone clear and
bright in the ardent noontide. There was a tarpawling stretched over a
quantity of rubbish, old sails, old junk, and hencoops rather
ostentatiously piled up forward, which we conjectured might conceal a
long gun.

She was a very taught-rigged hermaphrodite, or brig forward and schooner
aft. Her foremast and bowsprit were immensely strong and heavy, and her
mainmast was so long and tapering, that the wonder was, how the few
shrouds and stays about it could support it: it was the handsomest stick
we had ever seen. Her upper spars were on the same scale, tapering away
through topmast, topgallant-mast, royal and skysail-masts, until they
fined away into slender wands. The sails, that were loose to dry, were
old, and patched, And evidently displayed to cloak the character of the
vessel, by an ostentatious show of their unserviceable condition, but her
rigging was beautifully fitted, every rope lying in the chafe of another
being carefully served with hide. There were several large
bushy-whiskered fellows lounging about the deck, with their hair
gathered into dirty net bags, like the fishermen of Barcelona; many had
red silk sashes round their waists, through which were stuck their long
knives, in shark-skin sheaths. Their numbers were not so great as to
excite suspicion; but a certain daring reckless manner, would at once
have distinguished them, independently of any thing else, from the quiet,
hard-worked, redshirted merchant seaman.

"That chap is not much to be trusted," said the Lieutenant; "his bunting
would make a few jackets for Joseph, I take it." But we had little time to
be critical before our friend Peter came paddling back with another
blackamoor in the stem, of as ungainly an exterior as could well be,
imagined. He was a very large man, whose weight every now and then, as
they breasted the short sea, cocked up the snout of the canoe with Peter
Mangrove in it, as if he had been a cork, leaving him to flourish his
paddle in the air, like the weatherwheel of a steam-boat in a sea-way.
The new-comer was strong and broad-shouldered, with long muscular arms,
and a chest like Hercules; but his legs and thighs were, for his bulk,
remarkably puny and misshapen. A thick fell of black wool, in close
tufts, as if his face had been stuck full of cloves, covered his chin and
upper lip; and his hair, if hair it could be called, was twisted into a
hundred short plaits, that bristled out, and gave his head, when he took
his hat off, the appearance of a porcupine. There was a large sabre-cut
across his nose, and down his cheek, and he wore two immense gold earings.
His dress consisted of short cotton drawers, that did not reach within two
inches of his knee, leaving his thin cucumber shanks (on which the small
bullet-like calf appeared to have been stuck before, through mistake, in
place of abaft) naked to the shoe; a check shirt, and an enormously large
Panama hat, made of a sort of cane, split small, and worn shovel-fashion.
Notwithstanding, he made his bow by no means ungracefully, and offered his
services in choice Spanish, but spoke English as soon as he heard who we
were.

"Pray, sir, are you the master of that vessel?" said the lieutenant.

"No, sir, I am the mate, and I learn you are desirous of a passage to
Jamaica." This was spoken with a broad Scotch accent.

"Yes, we are," said I, in very great astonishment; "but we will not sail
with the devil; and who ever saw a negro Scotchman before, the spirit of
Nicol Jarvie conjured into a blackamoor's skin!"

The fellow laughed. "I am black, as you see; so were my father and mother
before me." And he looked at me, as much as to say, I have read the book
you quote from. "But I was born in the good town of Port--Glasgow,
notwithstanding, and many a voyage I have made as cabin-boy and cook, in
the good ship the Peggy Bogle, with worthy old jock Hunter; but that
matters not. I was told you wanted to go to Jamaica; I dare say our
captain will take you for a moderate passage-money. But here he comes to
speak for himself.--Captain Vanderbosh, here are two shipwrecked British
officers, who wish to be put on shore on the east end of Jamaica; will you
take them, and what will you charge for their passage?"

The man he spoke to was nearly as tall as himself; he was a sunburnt,
angular, raw-boned, iron-visaged veteran, with a nose in shape and
colour like the bowl of his own pipe, but not at all, according to the
received idea, like a Dutchman. His dress was quizzicaly enough, white
trowsers, a long-flapped embroidered waistcoat, that might have belonged
to a Spanish grandee, with an old-fashioned French-cut coat, showing the
frayed marks where the lace had been stripped off, voluminous in the
skirts, but very tight in the sleeves, which were so short as to leave his
large bony paws, and six inches of his arm above the wrist, exposed;
altogether, it fitted him like a purser's shirt on a handspike.

"Vy, for von hondred thaler, I will land dem safe in Mancheoneal Bay; but
how shall ve manage, Villiamson? De cabin vas point yesterday."

The Scotch negro nodded. "Never mind; I dare say the smell of the paint
won't signify to the gentlemen."

The bargain was ratified, we agreed to pay the stipulated sum, and that
same evening, having dropped down with the last of the seabreeze, we set
sail from Bocca Chica, and began working up under the lee of the headland
of Punto Canoa. When off the San Domingo Gate, we burned a blue light,
which was immediately answered by another in shore of us. In the glare,
we could perceive two boats, full of men. Any one who has ever played at
snapdragon, can imagine the unearthly appearance of objects when seen by
this species of firework. In the present instance, it was held aloft on
a boat-hook, and cast a strong spectral light on the band of lawless
ruffians, who were so crowded together, that they entirely filled the
boats, no part of which could be seen. It seemed as if two clusters of
fiends, suddenly vomited forth from hell, were floating on the surface of
the midnight sea, in the midst of brimstone flames. In a few moments, our
crew was strengthened by about forty as ugly Christians as I ever set eyes
on. They were of all ages, countries, complexions, and tongues, and looked
as if they had been kidnapped by a pressgang, as they had knocked off from
the Tower of Babel. From the moment they came on board, Captain
Vanderbosh was shorn of all his glory, and sank into the petty officer,
while, to our amazement, the Scottish negro took the command, evincing
great coolness, energy, and skill. He ordered the schooner to be wore,
as soon as we had shipped the men, and laid her head off the land, then
set all hands to shift the old suit of sails, and to bend new ones.

"Why did you not shift your canvass before we started?" said I to the
Dutch captain, or mate, or whatever he might be.

"Vy vont you be content to take a quiet passage and hax no question?" was
the uncivil rejoinder, which I felt inclined to resent, until I remembered
that we were in the hands of the Philistines, where a quarrel would have
been worse than useless. I was gulping down the insult as well as I could,
when the black captain came-aft, and, with the air of an equal, invited
us into the cabin to take a glass of grog. We had scarcely sat down
before we heard a noise like the swaying up of guns, or some other heavy
articles, from the hold.

I caught Mr Splinter's eye--he nodded, but said nothing. In half an hour
afterwards, when we went on deck, we saw by the light of the moon, twelve
eighteen-pound carronades mounted, six of a side, with their
accompaniments of rammers and sponges, water buckets, boxes of round,
grape, and canister, and tubs of wadding, while the combings of the
hatchways were thickly studded with round shot. The tarpawling and lumber
forward had disappeared, and there lay long Tom ready levelled, grinning
on his pivot.

The ropes were all coiled away, and laid down in regular man-of-war
fashion; while an ugly gruff beast of a Spanish mulatto, apparently the
officer of the watch, walked the weather-side of the quarter-deck, in
the true pendulum style. Look-outs were placed aft, and at the gangways
and bows, who every now and then passed the word to keep a bright
look-out, while the rest of the watch were stretched silent, but
evidently broad awake, under the lee of the boat. We noticed that each
man had his cutlass buckled round his waist, that the boarding-pikes had
been cut loose from the main boom, round which they had been stopped, and
that about thirty muskets were ranged along a fixed-rack, that ran athwart
ships, near the main hatchway.

By the time we had reconnoitred thus far, the night became overcast, and a
thick bank of clouds began to rise to windward; some heavy drops of rain
fell, and the thunder grumbled at a distance. The black veil crept
gradually on, until it shrouded the whole firmament, and left us in as
dark a night as ever poor devils were out in. By and by, a narrow streak
of bright moonlight appeared under the lower edge of the bank, defining
the dark outlines of the tumbling multitudinous billows on the horizon, as
distinctly as if they had been pasteboard waves in a theatre.

"Is that a sail to windward, in the clear, think you?" said Mr Splinter to
me in a whisper. At this moment it lightened vividly. "I am sure it is,"
continued he--"I could see her white canvass glance just now."

I looked steadily, and, at last, caught the small dark speck against the
bright background, rising and falling on the swell of the sea like a
feather.

As we stood on, she was seen more distinctly, but, to all appearance,
nobody was aware of her proximity. We were mistaken in this, however, for
the captain suddenly jumped on a gun, and gave his orders with a fiery
energy that startled us.

"Leroux!" A small French boy was at his side in a moment. "Forward, and
call all hands to shorten sail; but, doucement, you land crab!--Man the
fore clew-garnets.--Hands by the topgallant clewlines-peak and throat
haulyards--jib down-haul--rise tacks and sheets--let go--clew up--settle
away the main--gaff there!"

In almost as short a space as I have taken to write it, every inch of
canvass was close furled--every light, except the one in the binnacle, and
that was cautiously masked, carefully extinguished--a hundred and twenty
men at quarters, and the ship under bare poles. The head yards were then
squared, and we bore up before the wind. The stratagem proved successful;
the strange sail could be seen through the night glasses, cracking on
close to the wind, evidently under the impression that we had tacked.

"Dere she goes, chasing de Gobel," said the Dutchman.

She now burned a blue light, by which we saw she was a heavy cutter
without doubt our old fellow-cruiser the Spark. The Dutchman had come to
the same conclusion.

"My eye, Captain, no use to dodge from her; it is only dat footy little
King's cutter on de Jamaica station."

"It is her, true enough," answered Williamson; "and she is from Santa
Martha with a freight of specie, I know. I will try a brush with
her by...."

Splinter struck in before he could finish his irreverent exclamation. "If
your conjecture be true, I know the craft--a heavy vessel of her class,
and you may depend on hard knocks, and small profit if you do take her;
while, if she takes you"--

"I'll be hanged if she does"--and he grinned at the conceit--then setting
his teeth hard, "or rather, I will blow the schooner up with my own hand
before I strike; better that than have one's bones bleached in chains on a
key at Port Royal.--But, you see you cannot control us, gentlemen; so get
down into the cable tier and take Peter Mangrove with you. I would not
willingly see those come to harm who have trusted me."

However, there was no shot flying as yet, we therefore staid on deck. All
sail was once more made; the carronades were cast loose on both sides, and
double-shotted; the long gun slewed round; the tack of the fore-and-aft
foresail hauled up, and we kept by the wind, and stood after the cutter,
whose white canvass we could still see through the gloom like a
snow-wreath.

As soon as she saw us she tacked and stood towards us, and came bowling
along gallantly, with the water roaring and flashing at her bows. As the
vessels neared each other, they both shortened sail, and finding that we
could not weather her, we steered close under her lee.

As we crossed on opposite tacks her commander hailed, "Ho, the brigantine,
ahoy!"

"Hillo!" sung out Blackie, as he backed his maintopsail.

"What schooner is that?"

"The Spanish schooner Caridad."

"Whence, and whither bound?"

"Carthagena to Porto Rico."

"Heave-to, and send your boat on board."

"We have none that will swim, sir."

"Very well--bring-to, and I will send mine."

"Call away the boarders," said our captain, in a low stern tone; "let
them crouch out of sight behind the boat."

The cutter wore, and hove-to under our lee quarter, within pistol shot.
We heard the rattle of the ropes running through the davit blocks, and the
splash of the jolly boat touching the water, then the measured stroke of
the oars, as they glanced like silver in the sparkling sea, and a voice
calling out, "Give way, my lads."

The character of the vessel we were on board of was now evident; and the
bitter reflection that we were chained to the stake on board of a pirate,
on the eve of a fierce contest with one of our own cruisers, was
aggravated by the consideration that the cutter had fallen into a snare,
by which a whole boat's crew would be sacrificed before a shot was fired.

I watched my opportunity as she pulled up alongside, and called out,
leaning well over the nettings, "Get back to your ship! treachery! get
back to your ship!"

The little French serpent was at my side with the speed of thought, his
long clear knife glancing in one hand, while the fingers of the other were
laid on his lips. He could not have said more plainly, "Hold your tongue
or I'll cut your throat;" but Sneezer now startled him by rushing between
us, and giving a short angry growl.

The officer in the boat had heard me imperfectly; he rose up--"I won't go
back, my good man, until I see what you are made of; and as he spoke he
sprung on board, but the instant he got over the bulwarks he was caught by
two strong hands, gagged and thrown bodily down the main hatchway.

"Heave," cried a voice, "and with a will!" and four cold 32-pound shot
were hove at once into the boat alongside, which crashing through her
bottom, swamped her in a moment, precipitating the miserable crew into the
boiling sea. Their shrieks still ring in my ears as they clung to the
oars and some loose planks of the boat.

"Bring up the officer, and take out the gag," said Williamson.

Poor Walcolm, who had been an old messmate of mine, was now dragged to the
gangway half-naked, his face bleeding, and heavily ironed, when the
blackamoor, clapping a pistol to his head, bid him, as he feared instant
death, hail "that the boat had swamped under the counter, and to send
another." The poor fellow, who appeared stunned and confused, did so, but
without seeming to know what he said.

"Good God," said Mr Splinter, "don't you mean to pick up the boat's crew?"

The blood curdled to my heart as the black savage answered in a voice of
thunder, "Let them drown and be d----d! fill, and stand on!"

But the clouds by this time broke away, and the mild moon shone clear and
bright once more, upon this scene of most atrocious villainy. By her
light the cutter's people could see that there was no one struggling in
the water now, and that the people must either have been saved, or were
past all earthly aid; but the infamous deception was not entirely at an
end.

The captain of the cutter, seeing we were making sail, did the same, and
after having shot ahead of us, hailed once more.

"Mr Walcolm, why don't you run to leeward, and heave-to, sir?"

"Answer him instantly, and hail again for another boat," said the sable
fiend, and cocked his pistol.

The click went to my heart. The young midshipman turned his pale mild
countenance, laced with his blood, upwards towards the moon and stars, as
one who had looked his last look on earth; the large tears were flowing
down his cheeks, and mingling with the crimson streaks, and a flood of
silver light fell on the fine features of the poor boy, as he said firmly,
"Never." The miscreant fired, and he fell dead.

"Up with the helm, and wear across her stern." The order was obeyed.
"Fire!" The whole broadside was poured in, and we could hear the shot
rattle and tear along the cutter's deck, and the shrieks and groans of the
wounded, while the white splinters glanced away in all directions.

We now ranged alongside, and close action commenced, and never do I expect
to see such an infernal scene again. Up to this moment there had been
neither confusion nor noise on board the pirate--all had been coolness and
order; but when the yards locked, the crew broke loose from all control
they ceased to be men they were demons, for they threw their own dead and
wounded, as they were mown down like grass by the cutter's grape,
indiscriminately down the hatchways to get clear of them. They had stript
themselves almost naked; and although they fought with the most desperate
courage, yelling and cursing, each in his own tongue, most hideously, yet
their very numbers, pent up in a small vessel, were against them. At
length, amidst the fire, and smoke, and hellish uproar, we could see that
the deck had become a very shambles; and unless they soon carried the
cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of my
own glorious service must prevail, even against such fearful odds, the
superior size of the vessel, greater number of guns, and heavier metal.
The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate
attempt forward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black
captain. Just at this moment, the cutter's main-boom fell across the
schooner's deck, close to where we were sheltering ourselves from the shot
the best way we could; and while the rush forward was being made, by a
sudden impulse Splinter and I, followed by Peter and the dog, (who with
wonderful sagacity, seeing the uselessness of resistance, had cowered
quietly by my side during the whole row) scrambled along it as the
cutter's people were repelling the attack on her bow, and all four of us
in our haste jumped down on the poor Irishman at the wheel.

"Murder, fire, rape, and robbery! it is capsized, stove in, sunk, burned,
and destroyed I am!  Captain, Captain, we are carried aft here--Och,
hubbaboo for Patrick Donnally!"

There was no time to be lost; if any of the crew came aft, we were dead
men, so we tumbled down through the cabin skylight, men and beast, the
hatch having been knocked off by a shot, and stowed ourselves away in the
side berths. The noise on deck soon ceased the cannon were again plied
gradually the fire slackened, and we could hear that the pirate had
scraped clear and escaped. Some time after this, the lieutenant
commanding the cutter came down. Poor Mr Douglas! both Mr Splinter and I
knew him well. He sat down and covered his face with his hands, while the
blood oozed down between his fingers. He had received a cutlass wound on
the head in the attack. His right arm was bound up with his neckcloth,
and he was very pale.

"Steward, bring me a light.--Ask the doctor how many are killed and
wounded; and, do you hear, tell him to come to me when he is done forward,
but not a moment sooner. To have been so mauled and duped by a cursed
buccaneer; and my poor boat's crew."

Splinter groaned. He started--but at this moment the man returned again.

"Thirteen killed, your honour, and fifteen wounded; scarcely one of us
untouched." The poor fellow's own skull was bound round with a bloody
cloth.

"God help me!  God help me! but they have died the death of men. Who
knows what death the poor fellows in the boat have died?" Here he was cut
short by a tremendous scuffle on the ladder, down which an old
quarter-master was trundled neck and crop into the cabin. "How now,
Jones?"

"Please your honour," said the man, as soon as he had gathered himself up,
and had time to turn his quid, and smooth down his hair; but again the
uproar was renewed, and Donnally was lugged in, scrambling and struggling,
between two seamen--"this here Irish chap, your honour, has lost his wits,
if so be he ever had any, your honour. He has gone mad through fright."

"Fright be d----d!" roared Donnally; "no man ever frightened me: but as his
honour was skewering them bloody thieves forward, I was boarded and
carried aft by the devil, your honour--pooped by  Beelzebub, by--," and he
rapped his fist on the table until every thing on it danced again. "There
were four of them, yeer honour--a black one and two blue ones--and a
piebald one, with four legs and a bushy tail--each with two horns on his
head, for all the world like those on Father M'Cleary's red cow--no, she
was humbled--it is Father Clannachan's I mane--no, not his neither, for
his was the parish bull; fait, I don't know what I mane, except that they
had all horns on their heads, and vomited fire, and had each of them a
tail at his stem, twisting and twining like a conger eel, with a blue
light at the end on't."

"And dat's a lie, if ever dere was one," exclaimed Peter Mangrove, jumping
from the berth. "Look at me, you Irish tief, and tell me if I have a blue
light or a conger eel at my stem?"

This was too much for poor Donnally. He yelled out, "You'll believe your
own eyes now, yeer honour, when you see one o'dem bodily before you!  Let
me go--let me go" and, rushing up the ladder, he would, in all
probability, have ended his earthly career in the salt sea, had his bullet
head not encountered the broadest part of the purser, who was in the act
of descending, with such violence, that he shot him out of the companion
several feet above the deck, as if he had been discharged from a culverin;
but the recoil sent poor Donnally, stunned and senseless, to the bottom of
the ladder. There was no standing all this; we laughed outright, and made
ourselves known to Mr Douglas, who received us cordially, and in a week we
were landed at Port Royal.



CHAPTER VI.--The Cruise of the Spark


     "Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed."

     Byron, The Corsair, I.35.


The only other midshipman on board the cutter beside young Walcolm, whose
miserable death we had witnessed, twas a light delicate little fellow,
about fourteen years old, of the name of Duncan; he was the smallest boy
of his age I ever saw, and had been badly hurt in repelling the attack of
the pirate. His wound was a lacerated puncture in the left shoulder from
a boarding pike, but it appeared to be healing kindly, and for some days
we thought he was doing well. However, about five o'clock in the
afternoon on which we made Jamaica, the surgeon accosted Mr Douglas as we
were walking the deck together.

"I fear little Duncan is going to slip through my fingers after all, sir."

"No!--I thought he had been better."

"So he was till about noon, when a twitching of the muscles came on, which
I fear betokens lock jaw; he wavers, too, now and then, a bad sign of
itself where there is a fretting wound."

We went below, where, notwithstanding the wind--sail that was let down
close to where his hammock was slung, the heat of the small vessel was
suffocating. The large coarse tallow candle in the purser's lantern, that
hung beside his shoulder, around which the loathsome cockroaches fluttered
like moths in a summer evening, filled the between decks with a rancid oil
smell, and with smoke as from a torch, while it ran down and melted like
fat before a fire. It cast a dull sickly, gleam on the pale face of the
brown-hefted, girlish-looking lad, as he lay in his narrow hammock.
When we entered, an old quartermaster was rubbing his legs, which were
jerking about like the limbs of a galvanized frog, while two of the boys
held his arms, also violently convulsed. The poor little fellow was
crying and sobbing most piteously, but made a strong effort to compose
himself and "be a man" when he saw us.

"This is so good of you, Mr Cringle! you will take charge of my letter to
my sister, I know you will?--I say, Anson," to the quartermaster, "do lift
me up a little till I try and finish it.--It will be a sore heart to poor
Sarah; she has no mother now, nor father, and aunt is not over kind,"--and
again he wept bitterly. "Confound this jumping hand, it won't keep
steady, all I can do.--I say, Doctor, I shan't die this time, shall I?"

"I hope not, my fine little fellow."

"I don't think I shall; I shall live to be a man yet, in spite of that
bloody buccaneer's pike, I know I shall." God help me, the death rattle
was already in his throat, and the flame was flickering in the socket;
even as he spoke, the muscles of his neck stiffened to such a degree that
I thought he was choked, but the violence of the convulsion quickly
subsided. "I am done for, Doctor!" he could no longer open his mouth, but
spoke through his clenched teeth--"I feel it now!--God Almighty receive my
soul, and protect my poor sister!" The arch-enemy was indeed advancing to
the final struggle, for he now gave a sudden and sharp cry, and stretched
out his legs and arms, which instantly became as rigid as marble, and in
his agony he turned his face to the side I stood on, but he was no longer
sensible. "Sister," he said with difficulty--"Don't let them throw me
overboard; there are sharks here."

"Land on the lee bow,"--sung out the man at the masthead.

The common life sound would not have moved any of us in the routine of
duty, but bursting in, under such circumstances, it made us all start, as
if it had been something unusual; the dying midshipman heard it, and said
calmly--"Land,--I will never see it.--But how blue all your lips look.--It
is cold, piercing cold, and dark, dark." Something seemed to rise in his
throat, his features sharpened still more, and he tried to gasp, but his
clenched teeth prevented him--he was gone.

I went on deck with a heavy heart, and, on looking in the direction
indicated, I beheld the towering Blue Mountain peak rising high above the
horizon, even at the distance of fifty miles, with its outline clear and
distinct against the splendid western sky, now gloriously illumined by the
light of the set sun. We stood on under easy sail for the night, and next
morning when the day broke, we were off the east end of the magnificent
Island of Jamaica. The stupendous peak now appeared to rise close aboard
of us, with a large solitary star sparkling on his forehead, and reared
his forest-crowned summit high into the cold blue sky, impending over us
in frowning magnificence, while the long dark range of the Blue Mountains,
with their outlines hard and clear in the grey light, sloped away on each
side of him as if they had been the Giant's shoulders. Great masses of
white mist hung on their sides about half-way down, but all the valleys
and coast as yet slept in the darkness. We could see that the land-wind
was blowing strong in shore, from the darker colour of the water, and the
speed with which the coasters, only distinguishable by their white sails,
slid along; while astern of us, out at sea, yet within a cable's length,
for we had scarcely shot beyond its influence, the prevailing trade-wind
blew a smart breeze, coming up strong to a defined line, beyond which and
between it and the influence of the land-wind, there was a belt of dull
lead-coloured sea, about half a mile broad, with a long heavy
ground-swell rolling, but smooth as glass, and without even a ripple on
the surface, in the midst of which we presently lay dead becalmed.

The heavy dew was shaken in large drops out of the wet flapping sails,
against which the reef points pattered like hail as the vessel rolled.
The decks were wet and slippery, and our jackets saturated with moisture;
but we enjoyed the luxury of cold to a degree that made the sea water when
dashed about the decks, as they were being holystoned, appear absolutely
warm. Presently all nature awoke in its freshness so suddenly, that it
looked like a change of scene in a theatre. The sun, as yet set to us,
rose to the huge peak, and glanced like lightning on his summit, making it
gleam like a ruby; presently the clouds on his shaggy ribs rolled upwards,
enveloping his head and shoulders, and were replaced by the thin blue
mists which ascended from the valleys, forming a fleecy canopy, beneath
which appeared hill and dale, woods and cultivated lands, where all had
been undistinguishable a minute before, and gushing streams burst from the
mountain sides like gouts of froth, marking their course in the level
grounds by the vapours they sent up. Then breeze--mill towers burst into
light, and cattle--mills, with their cone--shaped roofs, and overseers
houses, and water-mills, with the white spray falling from the wheels,
and sugar-works, with long pennants of white smoke streaming from the
boiling-house chimneys seaward in the morning wind. Immediately after,
gangs of negroes were seen at work; loaded waggons, with enormous teams of
fourteen to twenty oxen dragging them, rolled along the roads; long
strings of mules loaded with canes were threading the fields; drogging
vessels were seen to shove out from every cove; the morning song of the
black fishermen was heard, while their tiny canoes, like black specks,
started up suddenly on all sides of us, as if they had floated from the
bottom of the sea; and the smiling scene burst at once, and as if by
magic, on us, in all its coolness and beauty, under the cheering influence
of the rapidly rising sun. We fired a gun, and made the signal for a
pilot; upon which a canoe, with three negroes in it, shoved off from a
small schooner lying to about a mile to leeward. They were soon
alongside, when one of the three jumped on board. This was the pilot, a
slave, as I knew; and I remember the time, when, in my innocence, I would
have expected to see something very squalid and miserable, but there was
nothing of the kind; for I never in my life saw a more spruce saltwater
dandy, in a small way. He was well dressed, according to a seaman's
notion--clean white trowsers, check shirt, with white lapels, neatly
fastened at the throat with a black ribbon, smart straw hat; and
altogether he carried an appearance of comfort--I was going to write
independence--about him, that I was by no means prepared for. He moved
about with a swaggering roll, grinning and laughing with the seamen.

"I say, blackie," said Mr Douglas.

"John Lodge, massa, if you please, massa; blackie is not politeful, sir;"
whereupon he showed his white teeth again.

"Well, well, John Lodge, you are running us in too close surely;" and the
remark seemed seasonable enough to a stranger, for the rocks on the bold
shore were now within half pistol shot.

"Mind your eye," shouted old Anson. "You will have us ashore, you black
rascal!"

"You, sir, what water have you here?" sung out Mr Splinter.

"Salt water, massa," rapped out Lodge, fairly dumfounded by such a volley
of questions--"You hab six fadom good here, massa;" but suspecting he had
gone too far--"I take de Tonnant, big ship as him is, close to dat reef,
sir, you might have jump ashore, so you need not frighten for your leetle
dish of a hooker; beside, massa, my character is at stake, you know"--then
another grin and bow.

There was no use in being angry with the poor fellow, so he was allowed to
have his own way until we anchored in the evening at Port Royal.

The morning after we arrived, I went ashore with a boat's crew to perform
the magnanimous operation of cutting brooms; we pulled ashore for Green
Bay, under the guns of the Twelve Apostles--a heavy battery of twelve
cannon, where there is a tombstone with an inscription, setting forth that
the party over whom it was erected, had been actually swallowed up in the
great earthquake that destroyed the opposite town, but subsequently
disgorged again; being, perchance, an unseemly morsel.

We approached the beach--"Oars"--the men laid them in.

"What sort of nuts be them, Peter Coamings?" said the coxswain to a new
hand who had been lately impressed, and was now standing at the bow ready
to fend off.

Peter broke off one of the branches from the bush nearest him.

"Smite my timbers, do the trees here bear shellfish?"

The tide in the Gulf of Mexico does not ebb and flow above two feet,
except at the springs, and the ends of the drooping branches of the
mangrove-trees, that here cover the shore, are clustered, within the wash
of the water, with a small well-flavoured oyster. The first thing the
seamen did when they got ashore, was to fasten an oakum tail to the rump
of one of the most lubberly of the cutter's crew; they then gave him ten
yards' law, when they started in chase, shouting amongst the bushes, and
switching each other like the veriest schoolboys. I had walked some
distance along the beach, pelting the amphibious little creatures, half
crab, half lobster, called soldiers, which kept shouldering their large
claws, and running out and in their little burrows, as the small ripple
twinkled on the sand in the rising sun, when two men-of-wars boats,
each with three officers in the stern, suddenly pulled round a little
promontory that intercepted my view ahead. Being somewhat out of the line
of my duty, so far from my boat, I squatted amongst the brushwood,
thinking they would pass by; but, as the devil would have it, they pulled
directly for the place where I was ensconced, beached their boats, and
jumped on shore. "Here's a mess," thought I.

I soon made out that one of the officers was Captain Pinkem of the Flash,
and that the parties saluted each other with that stern courtesy which
augured no good.

"So, so, my masters, not enough of fighting on the coast of America, but
you must have a little private defacing of God's image amongst
yourselves?"

Pinkem spoke first. "Mr Clinch," (I now knew he addressed the first
lieutenant of the flagship)--"Mr Clinch, it is not too late to prevent
unpleasant consequences; I ask you again, at the eleventh hour, will you
make an apology?"

He seemed hurried and fidgety in his manner; which rather surprised me, as
I knew he was a seasoned hand in these matters, and it contrasted
unfavourably with the calm bearing of his antagonist, who by this time had
thrown his hat on the ground, and stood with one foot on the handkerchief
that marked his position, the distance, twelve paces, having already been
measured. By the by, his position was deucedly near in a line with the
grey stone behind which I lay perdu; nevertheless, the risk I ran did not
prevent me noticing that he was very pale, and had much the air of a brave
man come to die in a bad cause. He looked upwards for a second for two,
and then answered, slowly and distinctly, "Captain Pinkem, I now repeat
what I said before; this rencontre is none of my seeking. You accuse me
of having spoken slightingly of you seven years ago, when I was a mere
boy. You have the evidence of a gallant officer that I did so; therefore
I may not gainsay it; but of uttering the words imputed to me, I declare,
upon my honour, I have no recollection." He paused.

"That won't do, my fine fellow," said Pinkem.

"You are unreasonable," rejoined Clinch, in the same measured tone, "to
expect farther amende for uttering words which I have no conviction of
having spoken; yet to any other officer in the service I would not
hesitate to make a more direct apology, but you know your credit as a
pistol-shot renders this impossible."

"Sorry for it, Mr Clinch, sorry for it."

Here the pistols were handed to the principals by their respective
seconds. In their attitudes, the proficient and the novice were
strikingly contrasted; (by this time I had crept round so as to have a
view of both parties, or rather, if the truth must be told, to be out of
the line of fire.) Pinkem stood with his side accurately turned towards
his antagonist, so as to present the smallest possible surface; his head
was, as it struck me, painfully slewed round, with his eye looking
steadily at Clinch, over his right shoulder, whilst his arm was brought
down close to his thigh, with the cock of the pistol turned outwards, so
that his weapon must have covered his opponent by the simple raising of
his arm below the elbow. Clinch, on the other hand, stood fronting him,
with the whole breadth of his chest; holding his weapon awkwardly across
his body, with both hands. Pinkem appeared unwilling to take him at such
advantage, for, although violent and headstrong, and but too frequently
the slave of his passions, he had some noble traits in his character.

"Turn your feather edge to me, Mr Clinch; take a fair chance, man."

The lieutenant bowed, and I thought would have spoken, but he was checked
by the dread of being thought to fear; however, took the advice, and in an
instant the word was given--"Are you both ready?"

"Yes."

"Then fire!"

Clinch fired without deliberation. I saw him, for my eyes were fixed on
him, expecting to see him fall. He stood firm, however, which was more
than I did, as at the instant, a piece of the bullion of an epaulet, at
first taken for a pellet of baser metal, struck me sharply on the nose,
and shook my equanimity confoundedly; at length I turned to look at
Pinkem, and there he stood with his arm raised, and pistol levelled, but
he had not fired. He stood thus whilst I might have counted ten, like a
finger-post, then dropping his hand, his weapon went off, but without
aim, the bullet striking the sand near his feet, and down he came headlong
to the ground. He fell with his face turned towards me, and I never shall
forget the horrible expression of it. His healthy complexion had, given
place to a deadly blue, the eyes were wide open and straining in their
sockets, the upper lip was drawn up, showing his teeth in a most frightful
grin, the blood gushed from his mouth as if impelled by the strokes of a
force pump, while his hands griped and dug into the sand.

Before the sun set, he was a dead man.

"A neat morning's work, gentlemen," thought I.

The two surgeons came up, opened his dress, felt his pulse, and shook
their heads; the boats crews grouped around them--he was lifted into his
gig, the word was given to shove off, and--I returned to my
broom-cutters.

When we got on board, the gunner who had the watch was taking his
fisherman's walk on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, and kept
looking steadily at the land, as if to avoid seeing poor little Duncan's
coffin, that lay on a grating near the gangway. The crew, assisted by
thirty men from the flag-ship, were employed in twenty different ways,
repairing damages, and were bustling about, laughing, joking, and singing,
with small regard to the melancholy object before their eyes, when Mr
Douglas put his head up the ladder--"Now, Jackson, if you please."

The old fellow's countenance fell as if his heart was wrung by the order
he had to give.

"Aloft there! lie out, you Perkins, and reeve a whip on the starboard
yard-arm to lower Mr"--The rest stuck in his throat, but, as if
ashamed of his softheartedness, he threw as much gruffness as he could
into his voice as he sung out--"Beat to quarters there!--knock off, men!"

The roll of the drum stayed the confusion and noise of the people at work
in an instant, who immediately ranged themselves, in their clean frocks
and trowsers, on each side of the quarterdeck. At a given signal, the
white deal coffin, wrapped in its befitting pall, the meteor flag of
England, swung high above the hammock nettings between us and the bright
blue sky, to the long clear note of the boatswain's whistle, which soon
ending in a short chirrup, told that it now rested on the thwarts of the
boat alongside. We pulled ashore, and it was a slight perchance to move a
woman, to see the poor little fellow's hat and bit of a dirk lying on his
coffin, whilst the body was carried by four ships boys, the eldest
scarcely fourteen. I noticed the tears stand in Anson's eyes as the coffin
was lowered into the grave,--the boy had been wounded close to him,--and
when we heard the hollow battle of the earth on the coffin,--an unusual
sound to a sailor,--he shuddered.

"Yes, Master Cringle," he said, in a whisper, "he was as kind hearted, and
as brave a lad as ever trod on shoe leather,--none of the larkings of the
men in the clear moonlight nights ever reached the cabin through him,--nor
was he the boy to rouse the watch from under the lee of the boats in bad
weather, to curry with the lieutenant, while he knew the look-outs were
as bright as beagles,--and where was the man in our watch that wanted
baccy while Mr Duncan had a shiner left?" The poor fellow drew the back of
his horny hand across his eyes, and grumbled out as he turned away, "And
here am I, Bill Anson, such a swab as to be ashamed of being sorry for
him."

We were now turned over into the receiving ship the old Spark, and
fortunately there were captains enough in port to try us for the loss of
the Torch, so we got over our court-martial speedily, and the very day I
got back my dirk, the packet brought me out a lieutenant's Commission.
Being now my own master for a season, I determined to visit some relations
I had in the island, to whom I had never yet been introduced; so I shook
hands with old Splinter, packed my kit, and went to the wharf to charter a
wherry to carry me up to Kingston. The moment my object was perceived by
the black boat-men, I was surrounded by a mob of them, pulling and
hauling each other, and shouting forth the various qualifications of their
boats, with such vehemence, that I was nearly deafened.

"Massa, no see Pam be Civil, sail like a witch, tack like a dolphin?"

"Don't believe him, massa; Ballahoo is de boat dat can beat him."

"Dam lie dat, as I am a gentleman!" roared a ragged black vagabond.

"Come in de Monkey, massa; no flying fish can beat she."

"Don't boder de gentleman," yelled a fourth,--"massa love de stamp and
go--no so, massa?" as he saw me make a step in the direction of his boat.
"Oh yes--so get out of de way, you black rascals,"--the fellow was as
black as a sloe himself--"make room for man-of-war buccra; him leetle
just now, but will be admiral one day."

So saying, the fellow who had thus appropriated me, without more ado,
levelled his head like a battering ram, and began to batter in breach all
who stood in his way. He first ran a tilt against Pam be Civil, and shot
him like a rocket into the sea; the Monkey fared no better; the Ballahoo
had to swim for it; and having thus opened a way by main force, I at
length got safely moored in the stern sheets; but just as we were shoving
off, Mr Callaloo, the clergyman of Port Royal, a tall yellow personage,
begged for a passage, and was accordingly taken on board. As it was high
water, my boatmen chose the five foot channel, as the boat channel near to
Gallows Point is called, by which a long stretch would be saved, and we
were cracking on cheerily, my mind full of my recent promotion, when,
scur, scur, scur, we stuck fast on the bank. Our black boatmen, being
little encumbered with clothes, jumped overboard in a covey like so many
wild-ducks, shouting, as they dropped into the water, "We must all get
out,--we must all get out;" whereupon Mr Callaloo, a sort of Dominie
Sampson in his way, promptly leaped overboard up to his waist in the
water. The negroes were thunderstruck.

"Massa Parson Callaloo, you mad surely, you mad!"

"Children, I am not mad, but obedient--you said we must all get out"

"To be sure, massa, and you no see we all did get out?"

"And did you not see that I got out too?" rejoined the parson, still in
the water, and somewhat nettled.

"Oh, lud, massa! we no mean you--we meant poor nigger, not white man
parson."

"You said all, children, and thereupon I leaped," pronouncing the last
word in two syllables--"be more correct in your grammar next time."

The worthy but eccentric old chap then scrambled on board again, amidst
the suppressed laughter of the boatmen, and kept his seat, wet clothes and
all, until we reached Kingston.



CHAPTER VII.--Scenes in Jamaica


     'Excellent--why this is the best fooling when all is done.'

     Twelfth Night, II. iii. 29--30.


I confess that I did not promise myself much pleasure from my cruise
ashore; somehow or other I had made up my mind to believe, that in
Jamaica, putting aside the magnificence and natural beauty of the face of
he country, there was little to interest me. I had pictured to myself the
slaves--a miserable, squalid, half fed, ill-clothed, over-worked
race--and their masters, and the white inhabitants generally, as an
unwholesome-looking crew of saffron faced tyrants, who wore straw hats
with umbrella brims, wide trowsers, and calico jackets, living on pepper
pot and land crabs, and drinking sangaree and smoking cigars the whole
day; in a word, that all that Bryan Edwards and others had written
regarding the civilisation of the West Indies was a fable. But I was
agreeably undeceived; for although I did meet with some extraordinary
characters, and witnessed not a few rum scenes, yet, on the whole, I
gratefully bear witness to the great hospitality of the inhabitants, both
in the towns and in the country. In Kingston the society was exceedingly
good, as good, I can freely affirm, as I ever met with in any provincial
town anywhere; and there prevailed a warmth of heart, and a kindliness
both in the males and females of those families to which I had the good
fortune to be introduced, that I never experienced out of Jamaica.

At the period I am describing, the island was in the hey-day of its
prosperity, and the harbour of Kingston was full of shipping. I had never
before seen so superb a mercantile haven; it is completely landlocked, and
the whole navy of England might ride in it commodiously.

On the sea face it is almost impregnable, for it would be little short of
a miracle for an invading squadron to wind its way through the labyrinth
of shoals and reefs lying off the mouth of it, amongst which the channels
are so narrow and intricate, that at three or four points the sinking of a
sand barge would effectually block up all ingress; but, independently of
this, the entrance at Port Royal is defended by very strong works, the
guns ranging the whole way across, while, a little farther on, the
attacking ships would be exposed to a cross fire from the heavy metal of
the Apostles' Battery; and even assuming all these obstacles to be
overcome, and the passage into the harbour forced, before they could pass
the narrows to get up to the anchorage at Kingston, they would be blown
out of the water by a raking fire from sixty pieces of large cannon on
Fort Augusta, which is so situated that they would have to turn to
windward for at least half an hour, in a strait which, at the widest,
would not allow them to reach beyond musket-shot of the walls.
Fortunately, as yet Mr Canning had not called his New World into
existence, and the whole of the trade of Terra Firma, from Porto Cavello
down to Chagres, the greater part of the trade of the islands of Cuba and
San Domingo, and even that of Lima and San Blas, and the other ports of
the Pacific, carried on across the Isthmus of Darien, centred in Kingston,
the usual supplies through Cadiz being stopped by the advance of the
French in the Peninsula. The result of this princely traffic, more
magnificent than that of Tyre, was a stream of gold and silver flowing
into the Bank of England, to the extent of three millions of pounds
sterling annually, in return for British manufactures; thus supplying the
sinews of war to the government at home, and, besides the advantage of so
large a mart, employing an immense amount of British tonnage, and many
thousand seamen; and in numberless ways opening up new outlets to British
enterprise and capital. Alas! alas! where is all this now? The echo of
the empty stores might answer "where!"

On arriving at Kingston, my first object was to seek out Mr  the admiral's
agent, and one of the most extensive merchants in the place, in order to
deliver some letters to him, and get his advice as to my future
proceedings. Mr Callaloo undertook to be my pilot, striding along a-beam
of me, and leaving in his wake two serpentine dottings on the pavement
from the droppings of water from his voluminous coat-skirts, which had
been thoroughly soaked by his recent ducking.

Every thing appeared to be thriving, and as we passed along, the hot sandy
streets were crowded with drays conveying goods from the wharfs to the
stores, and from the stores to the Spanish Posadas. The merchants of the
place, active, sharp-looking men, were seen grouped under the piazzas in
earnest conversation with their Spanish customers, or perched on the top
of the bales and boxes just landed, waiting to hook the gingham-coated,
Moorish-looking Dons, as they came along with cigars in their mouths, and
a train of negro servants following them with fire buckets on their heads,
filled with pesos fuertes. The appearance of the town itself was novel
and pleasing; the houses, chiefly of two stories, looked as if they had
been built of cards, most of them being surrounded with piazzas from ten
to fourteen feet wide, gaily painted green and white, and formed by the
roofs projecting beyond the brick walls or shells of the houses. On the
ground-floor these piazzas are open, and in the lower part of the town,
where the houses are built contiguous to each other, they form a covered
way, affording a most grateful shelter from the sun, on each side of the
streets, which last are unpaved, and more like dry river courses, than
thoroughfares in a Christian town. On the floor above, the balconies are
shut in with a sort of movable blinds, called "jealousies,' like large
bladed Venetian blinds, fixed in frames, with here and there a glazed sash
to admit light in bad weather when the blinds are closed. In the upper
part of the town the effect is very beautiful, every house standing
detached from its neighbour, in its little garden filled with vines,
fruittrees, stately palms, and cocoa-nut trees, with a court of negro
houses and offices behind, and a patriarchal-looking draw-well in the
centre, generally overshadowed by a magnificent wild tamarind. When I
arrived at the great merchant's place of business, I was shown into a
lofty cool room, with a range of desks along the walls, where a dozen
clerks were quill-driving. In the centre sat my man, a small sallow, yet
perfectly gentlemanlike personage.

"Dat is massa" quoth my black usher.

I accordingly walked up to him, and presented my letter. He never lifted
his head from his paper, which I had half a mind to resent; but at the
moment there was a bustle in the piazza, and a group of naval officers,
amongst whom was the admiral, came in. My silent friend was now alert
enough, and profuse of his bows and smiles.

"Who have we here? Who is that boy, L----?" said the admiral to his
secretary.

"Young Cringle, sir; the only one except Mr Splinter saved from the Torch;
he was first on the Admiralty list t'other day."

"What, the lad Willoughby spoke so well of?"

"The same, sir; he got his promotion by last packet."

"I know, I know. I say, Mr Cringle, you are appointed to the Firebrand, do
you know that?"--I did not know it, and began to fear my cruise on shore
was all up.--"But I don't look for her from Havanna for a month; so leave
your address with L----, that you may get the order to join when she does
come."

It appeared that I had seen the worst of the agent, for he gave me a very
kind invitation to stay some days with him, and drove me home in his
ketureen, a sort of sedan chair with the front and sides knocked out, and
mounted on a gig body.

Before dinner we were lounging about the piazza, and looking down into the
street, when a negro funeral came past, preceded by a squad of drunken
black vagabonds, singing and playing on gumbies, or African drums, made
out of pieces of hollow trees, about six feet long, with skins braced
over them, each carried by one man, while another beats it with his open
hands. The coffin was borne along on the heads of two negroes--a negro
carries every thing on his head, from a bale of goods to a wine-glass or
tea-cup. It is a practice for the bearers, when they come near the house
of any one against whom the deceased was supposed to have had a grudge, to
pretend that the coffin will not pass by, and in the present case, when
they came opposite to where we stood, they began to wheel round and round,
and to stagger under their load, while the choristers shouted at the top
of their lungs.

"We beg you, shipmate, for come along--do, broder, come away;" then
another reel. "What, you no wantee go in a hole, eh? You hab grudge
against somebody lif here, eh?"--Another devil of a lurch "Massa----'s
housekeeper, eh? Ah, it must be!"--A tremendous stagger--"Oh, Massa----,
dollar for drink; someting to hold play [negro wake] in Spring-path,
[the negro burying-ground;] Bediacko say him won't pass 'less you give
it." And here they began to spin round more violently than before; but at
the instant a drove of bullocks coming along, they got entangled amongst
them, and down went body and bearers and all, the coffin bursting in the
fall, and the dead corpse, with its white grave-clothes and black face,
rolling over and over in the sand amongst the feet of the cattle. It was
immediately caught up, however, bundled into the coffin again, and away
they staggered, drumming and singing as loudly as before.

The party at dinner was a large one; every thing in good style, wines
superb, turtle, &c., magnificent, and the company exceedingly
companionable. A Mr Francis Fyall, (a great planting attorney, that is,
an agent for a number of proprietors of estates, who preferred living in
England, and paying a commission to him for managing in Jamaica, to facing
the climate themselves,) to whom I had an introduction, rather posed me,
by asking me during dinner, if I would take any thing in the long way with
him, which he explained by saying he would be glad to take a glass of
small beer with me. This, after a deluge of Madeira, Champagne, and all
manner of light wines, was rather trying; but I kept my countenance as
well I could. One thing I remember struck me as remarkable; just as we
were rising to go to the drawing-room, a cloud of winged ants burst in
upon us through the open windows, and had it not been for the glass-shades
would have extinguished the candles; but when they had once settled on the
table, they deliberately wriggled themselves free of their wings, as one
would cast off a great-coat, and crept away in their simple and more
humble capacity of creeping things.

Next day I went to wait on my relation, Mrs Palma. I had had a
confoundedly hot walk through the burning sand streets, and was nearly
blinded by the reflection from them, as I ascended the front stairs.
There are no carpets in the houses in Jamaica; but the floors, which are
often mahogany, are beautifully polished, and shine like a well-kept
dinner table. They are, of course, very slippery, and require wary
walking till one gets accustomed to them. The rooms are made exceedingly
dark during the heat of the day, according to the prevailing practice in
all ardent climates. A black footman, very handsomely dressed, all to his
bare legs, (I thought at first he had black silk stocking on,) preceded
me, and when he reached the drawing-room door, asked my name. I told him,
"Mr Cringle,"--whereupon he sung out, to my dismay--"Massa Captain
Ringtail to wait pan Misses."

This put me out a little--especially as I heard some one say "Captain
who--what a very odd name?"

But I had no time for reflection, as I had not blundered three steps out
of the glare of the piazza, into the palpable obscure of the darkened
drawing-room, black as night from the contrast, when I capsized headlong
over an ottoman in the middle of the apartment, and floundered right into
the centre of a group of young ladies, and one or two lapdogs, by whom it
was conjointly occupied. Trying to recover myself, I slipped on the
glasslike floor, and came down stern foremost; and being now regularly at
the slack end, for I could not well get lower, I sat still, scratching my
caput in the midst of a gay company of morning visitors, enjoying the
gratifying consciousness that I was distinctly visible to them, although
my dazzled optics could as yet distinguish nothing. To add to my
pleasurable sensations, I now perceived, from the coldness of the floor,
that in MY downfall the catastrophe of my unmentionables had been
grievously rent, but I had nothing for it but sitting patiently still
amidst the suppressed laughter of the company, until I became accustomed
to the twilight, and they, like bright stars, began to dawn on my
bewildered senses in all their loveliness, and prodigiously handsome women
some of' them were, for the Creoles, so far as figure is concerned, are
generally perfect, while beautiful features are not wanting, and my travel
had reconciled me to the absence of the rose from their cheeks. My eldest
cousin Mary (where is there a name like Mary?) now approached; she and I
were old friends, and many a junketing we used to have in my father's
house during the holydays, when she was a boarding-school girl in
England. My hardihood and self-possession returned, under the double
gratification of seeing her, and the certainty that my blushes (for my
cheeks were glowing like hot iron) could not have been observed in the
subdued green light that pervaded the room.--"Well, Tom, since you are no
longer dazzled, and see us all now, you had better get up, hadn't you--you
see mamma is waiting there to embrace you?"

"Why, I think myself I had better;--but when I broached--to so suddenly,
I split my lower canvass, Mary, and I cannot budge until your mother lends
me a petticoat."

"A what? you are crazy, Tom"

"Not a whit, not a whit, why I have split my--ahem. This is speaking
plain, an't it?"

Away tripped the sylph-like girl, and in a twinkling reappeared with the
desired garment, which in a convulsion of laughter she slipped over my
head as I sat on the floor; and having fastened it properly round my
waist, I rose and paid my respects to my warm hearted relations. But that
petticoat--it could not have been the old woman's, there could have been
no such virtue in an old woman's petticoat; no, no, it must either have
been a charmed garment, or--Mary's own; for from that hour I was a lost
man, and the devoted slave of her large black eyes, and high pale
forehead. "Oh, murder you speak of the sun dazzling; what is it to the
lustre of that same eye of yours, Mary!"

In the evening I escorted the ladies to a ball, (by the way, a West India
ball-room being a perfect lantern, open to the four winds of heaven, is
cooler, notwithstanding the climate, than a ball-room anywhere else,)
and a very gay affair it turned out to be, although I had more trouble in
getting admittance than I bargained for, and was witness to as comical a
row (considering the very frivolous origin of it, and the quality of the
parties engaged in it) as ever took place even in that peppery country,
where, I verily believe, the temper of the people, generous though it be
in the main, is hotter than the climate, and that, God knows! is
soporiferous enough. I was walking through the entrance saloon with my
fair cousin on my arm, stepping out like a hero to the opening crash of a
fine military band, towards the entrance of the splendid ball-room filled
with elegant company, brilliantly lighted up and ornamented with the most
rare and beautiful shrubs and flowers, which no European conservatory
could have furnished forth, and arched overhead with palm branches and a
profusion of evergreens, while the polished floor, like one vast mirror,
reflected the fine forms of the pale but lovely black-eyed and black
haired West Indian dames, glancing amidst the more sombre dressed of their
partners, while the whole group was relieved by being here and there
spangled with a rich naval or military uniform. As we approached, a
constable put his staff across the doorway.

"Beg pardon, sir, but you are not in full dress."

Now this was the first night whereon I had sported my lieutenant's
uniform, and with my gold swab on my shoulder, the sparkling bullion
glancing in the corner of my eye at the very moment, my dress-sword by my
side, gold buckles in my shoes, and spotless white trowsers, I had, in my
innocence, considered myself a deuced killing fellow, and felt proportion
ably mortified at this address.

"No one can be admitted in trowsers, sir," said the man.

"Shiver my timbers!" I could not help the exclamation, the transactions of
the morning crowding on my recollection; "shiver my timbers! is my fate in
this strange country to be for ever irrevocably bound up in a pair of
breeches?"

My cousin pinched my arm.--"Hush, Tom; go home and get mamma's petticoat."

The man was peremptory; and as there was no use in getting into a squabble
about such a trifle, I handed my partner over to the care of a gentleman
of the party, who was fortunately accoutred according to rule, and,
stepping to my quarters, I equipped myself in a pair of tight nether
integuments, and returned to the ball-room. By this time there was the
devil to pay; the entrance saloon was crowded with military and naval men,
high in oath, and headed by no less a person than a general officer, and a
one-armed man, one of the chief civil officers in  the place, and who had
been a sailor in his youth. I was just in time to see the advance of the
combined column to the door of the ball-room, through which they drove
the picket of constables like chaff, and then halted. The one-armed
functionary, a most powerful and very handsome man, now detached himself
from the phalanx, and strode up to the advanced guard of stewards
clustered in front of the ladies, who had shrunk together into a corner of
the room, like so many frightened hares.

The place being now patent to me, I walked up to comfort my party, and
could see all that passed. The champion of the Excluded had taken the
precaution to roll up the legs of his trowsers, and to tie them tightly at
the knee with his garters, which gave him the appearance of a Dutch
skipper; and in all the consciousness of being now properly arrayed, he
walked up to one of the men in authority--a small pot bellied gentleman,
and set himself to intercede for the attacking column, the head of which
was still lowering at the door. But the little steward speedily
interrupted him.

"Why, Mr Singlefist, rules must be maintained, and let me see," here he
peered through his glass at the substantial supporters of our friend,--"as
I live, you yourself are inadmissible."

The giant laughed.

"Damn the body, he must have been a tailor!--Charge, my fine fellows, and
throw the constables out of the window, and the stewards after them.
Every man his bird; and here goes for my Cock Robin." With that he made a
grab at his Lilliputian antagonist, but missed him, as he slid away
amongst the women like an eel, while his pursuer, brandishing his wooden
arm on high, to which I now perceived, for the first time, that there was
a large steel hook appended, exclaimed in a broad Scotch accent, "Ah, if I
had but caught the creature, I would have clapt this in his mouth, and
played him like a salmon."

At this signal, in poured the mass of soldiers and sailors; the constables
vanished in an instant; the stewards were driven back upon the ladies; and
such fainting and screaming, and swearing and threatening, and shying of
cards, and fixing of time and place for a cool turn in the morning, it had
never been my good fortune to witness before or since. My wig! thought I,
a precious country, where a man's life may be periled by the fashion of
the covering to his nakedness!

Next day, Mr Fyall, who, I afterwards learned, was a most estimable man
in substantials, although somewhat eccentric in small matters, called and
invited me to accompany him on a cruise amongst some of the estates under
his management. This was the very thing I desired, and three days
afterwards I left my kind friends in Kingston, and set forth on my visit
to Mr Fyall, who lived about seven miles from town..

The morning was fine as usual, although about noon the clouds, thin and
fleecy and transparent at first, but gradually settling down more dense
and heavy, began to congregate on the summit of the Liguanea Mountains,
which rise about four miles distant, to a height of near 5000 feet, in
rear of the town. It thundered too a little now and then in the same
direction, but this was an every-day occurrence in Jamaica at this
season, and as I had only seven miles to go, off I started in a gig of
mine host's, with my portmanteau well secured under a tarpawlin, in
defiance of all threatening appearances, crowding sail, and urging the
noble roan that had me in tow close upon thirteen knots. I had not gone
above three miles, however, when the sky in a moment changed from the
intense glare of a tropical noontide to the deepest gloom, as if a bad
angel had suddenly overshadowed us, and interposed his dark wings between
us and the blessed sun; indeed, so instantaneous was the effect, that it
reminded me of the withdrawing of the foot-lights in a theatre. The road
now wound round the base of a precipitous spur from the Liguanea
Mountains, which, instead of melting onto the level country by gradual
decreasing undulations, shot boldly out nearly a mile from the main range,
and so abruptly, that it seemed mortised into the plain, like a rugged
promontory running into a frozen lake. On looking up along the ridge of
this prong, I saw the lowering mass of black clouds gradually spread out,
and detach themselves from the summits of the loftier mountains, to which
they had clung the whole morning, and begin to roll slowly down the hill,
seeming to touch the tree tops, while along their lower edges hung a
fringe of dark vapour, or rather shreds of cloud in rapid motion, that
shifted about, and shot out and shortened like streamers.

As yet there was no lightning nor rain, and in the expectation of escaping
the shower, as the wind was with me, I made more sail, pushing the horse
into a gallop, to the great discomposure of the negro who sat beside me.

"Massa, you can't escape it, you are galloping into it; don't massa hear
de sound of de rain coming along against de wind, and smell de earthy
smell of him like one new-made grave?"

"The sound of the rain." In another clime, long, long ago, I had often
read at my old mother's knee, "And Elijah said unto Ahab, there is a sound
of abundance of rain, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the
rain stop thee not; and it came to pass, in the meanwhile, that the heaven
was dark with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain."

I looked, and so it was, for in an instant a white sheet of the heaviest
rain I had ever seen (if rain it might be called, for it was more like a
water-spout) fell from the lower edge of the black cloud, with a strong
rushing noise, that increased as it approached to a loud roar like that of
a waterfall. As it came along, it seemed to devour the rocks and trees,
for they disappeared behind the watery screen the instant it reached them.

We saw it a-head of us for more than a mile coming along the road,
preceded by a black line from the moistening of the white dust, right in
the wind's eye, and with such an even front, that I verily believe it was
descending in bucketsful on my horse's head, while as yet not one drop had
reached me. At this moment the adjutant-general of the forces, Colonel
F----, of the Coldstream Guards, in his tandem, drawn by two sprightly
blood bays, with his servant, a light boy, mounted Creole fashion on the
leader, was coming up in my wake at a spot where the road sank into a
hollow, and was traversed by a watercourse already running knee deep,
although dry as a bone but the minute before.

I was now drenched to the skin, the water pouring out in cascades from
both sides of the vehicle, when just as I reached the top of the opposite
bank, there was a flash of lightning so vivid, accompanied by an explosion
so loud and tremendous, that my horse, trembling from stem to stem, stood
dead still; the dusky youth by my side jumped out, and buried his snout in
the mud, like a porker in Spain nuzzling for acorns, and I felt more
queerish than I would willingly have confessed to. I could have knelt and
prayed. The noise of the thunder was a sharp ear-piercing crash, as if
the whole vault of heaven had been made of glass, and had been shivered at
a blow by the hand of the Almighty.

It was, I am sure, twenty seconds before the usual roar and rumbling
reverberation of the report from the hills, and among the clouds, was
heard.

I drove on, and arrived just in time to dress for dinner, but I did not
learn till next day, that the flash which paralysed me, had struck dead
the Colonel's servant and leading horse, as he ascended the bank of the
ravine, by this time so much swollen, that the body of the lad was washed
off the road into the neighbouring gully, where it was found, when the
waters subsided, entirely covered with sand.

I found the party congregated in the piazza around Mr Fyall, who was
passing his jokes, without much regard to the feelings of his guests, and
exhibiting as great a disregard of the common civilities and courtesies of
life as can well be imagined. One of the party was a little red-faced
gentleman, Peregrine Whiffle, Esquire, by name who, in Jamaica parlance,
was designated an extraordinary master in Chancery; the overseer of the
pen, or breeding farm, in the great house as it is called, or mansionhouse
of which Mr Fyall resided, and a merry, laughing, intelligent, round,
red-faced man, with a sort of Duncan Knockdunder nose, through the wide
nostrils of which you could see a cable's length into his head; he was
either Fyall's head clerk, or a sort of first lieutenant; these personages
and myself composed the party. The dinner itself was excellent, although
rather of the rough and round order; the wines and food intrinsically
good; but my appetite was not increased by the exhibition of a deformed,
bloated negro child, about ten years old, which Mr Fyall planted at his
elbow, and, by way of practical joke, stuffed to repletion with all kinds
of food and strong drink, until the little dingy brute was carried out
drunk.

The wine circulated freely, and by and by Fyall indulged in some
remarkable stories of his youth, for he was the only speaker, which I
found some difficulty in swallowing, until at length, on one thumper being
tabled, involving an impossibility, and utterly indigestible, I
involuntarily exclaimed, "by Jupiter!"

"You want any ting, massa?" promptly chimed in the black servant at my
elbow, a diminutive kiln-dried old negro.

"No," said I, rather caught.

"Oh, me tink you call for Jupiter."

I looked in the baboon's face--"Why, if I did; what then?"

"Only me Jupiter, at massa service, dat all."

"You are, eh, no great shakes of a Thunderer; and who is that tall square
man standing behind your master's chair?"

"Daddy Cupid, massa."

"And the old woman who is carrying away the dishes in the piazza?"

"Mammy Weenus."

"Daddy Cupid, and Mammy Weenus--Shade of Homer!"

Jupiter, to my surprise, shrunk from my side, as if he had received a
blow, and the next moment I could hear him communing with Venus in the
piazza.

"For true, dat leetle man-of-war buccra must be Obeah man: how  de debil
him come to sabe dat it was stable-boy Homer who broke de candle shade on
massa right hand, dat one wid de piece broken out of de edge?" and here he
pointed towards it with his chin--a negro always points with his chin.

I had never slept on shore out of Kingston before; the night season in the
country in dear old England, we all know, is usually one of the deepest
stillness--here it was any thing but still;--as the evening closed in,
there arose a loud humming noise, a compound of the buzzing, and chirping,
and whistling, and croaking of numberless reptiles and insects, on the
earth, in the air, and in the water. I was awakened out of my first sleep
by it, not that the sound was disagreeable, but it was unusual; and every
now and then a beetle, the size of your thumb, would bang in through the
open window, cruise round the room with a noise like a humming-top, and
then dance a quadrille with half-a-dozen bats; while the fire-flies
glanced like sparks, spangling the folds of the muslin curtains of the
bed. The croak of the tree-toad, too, a genteel reptile, with all the
usual loveable properties of his species, about the size of the crown of
your hat, sounded from the neighbouring swamp, like some one snoring in
the piazza, blending harmoniously with the nasal concert got up by
Jupiter, and some other heathen deities, who were sleeping there almost
naked, excepting the head, which every negro swathes during the night with
as much flannel and as many handkerchiefs as he can command. By the way,
they all slept on their faces--I wonder if this will account for their
flat noses.

Next morning we started at daylight, cracking along at the rate of twelve
knots an hour in a sort of gig, with one horse in the shafts, and another
hooked on a-breast of him to a sort of studdingsail-boom, or outrigger,
and followed by three mounted servants, each with a led horse and two
sumpter mules.

In the evening we arrived at an estate under Mr Fyall's management, having
passed a party of maroons immediately before. I never saw finer men tall,
strapping fellows, dressed exactly as they should be and the climate
requires; wide duck trowsers, over these a loose shirt, of duck also,
gathered at the waist by a broad leathern belt, through which, on one
side, their short cutlass is stuck, while on the other hangs a leathern
pouch for ball, and a loose thong across one shoulder, supports, on the
opposite hip, a large powder-horn and haversack. This, with a straw hat,
and a short gun in their hand, with a sling to be used on a march,
completes their equipment--in better keeping with the climate, than the
padded coats, heavy caps, tight cross-belts, and ponderous muskets of our
regulars. As we drove up to the door, the overseer began to bawl, "Boys,
boys!" and kept blowing a dog-call. All servants in the country in the
West Indies, be they as old as Methuselah, are called boys. In the
present instance, half-a-dozen black fellows forthwith appeared, to take
our luggage, and attend on massa in other respects. The great man was
as austere to the poor overseer, as if he had been guilty of some
misdemeanour, and after a few short, crabbed words, desired him to get
supper, "do you hear?"

The meat consisted of plantation fare-salted fish, plantains and yams,
and a piece of goat mutton. Another "observe,"--a South Down mutton,
after sojourning a year or two here, does not become a goat exactly, but
he changes his heavy warm fleece, and wears long hair; and his progeny
after him, if bred on the hot plains, never assume the wool again. Mr
Fyall and I sat down, and then in walked four mutes, stout young fellows,
not over-well dressed, and with faces burnt to the colour of brick-dust.
They were the bookkeepers, so called because they never see a book, their
province being to attend the negroes in the field, and to superintend the
manufacture of sugar and rum in the boiling and distilling-houses.

One of them, the head bookkeeper, as he was called, appeared literally
roasted by the intensity of the sun's rays.

"How is Baldy Steer?" said the overseer to this person.

"Better to-day, sir--I drenched him with train--oil and sulphur."

"The devil you did," thought I--"alas! for Baldy." "And Mary, and
Caroline, and the rest of that lot?" "Are sent to Perkin's Red Rover, sir;
but I believe some of them are in calf already by Bullfinch--and I have
cut Peter for the lampas." The knife and fork dropped from my hands.
"What can all this mean? is this their boasted kindness to their slaves?
One of a family drenched with train-oil and brimstone, another cut for
some horrible complaint never heard of before, called lampas, and the
females sent to the Red Rover, some being in calf already!" But I soon
perceived that the baked man was the cowboy or shepherd of the estate,
making his report of the casualties amongst his bullocks, mules, and
heifers.

"Juliet Ridge will not yield, sir," quoth another.

"Who is this next? a stubborn concern she must be."

"The liquor is very poor." Here he helped himself to rum and water, the
rum coming up about an inch in the glass, regular half and half, fit to
float a marlinspike.

"It is more than yours is," thought I; and I again stared in wonderment,
until I perceived he spoke of the juice of a cane patch.

At this time a tall, lathy gentleman came in, wearing a most original cut
coatee. He was a most extraordinary built man; he had absolutely no body,
his bottom being placed between his shoulders, but what was wanted in
corpus was made up in legs, indeed he looked like a pair of compasses,
buttoned together at the shoulders, and supporting a yellow phiz half a
yard long, thatched with a fell of sandy hair, falling down lank and
greasy on each side of his face. Fyall called him Buckskin, which, with
some other circumstances, made me guess that he was neither more nor less
than an American smuggler.

After supper, a glass of punch was filled for each person, the overseer
gave a rap on the table with his knuckles, and off started the
bookkeepers, like shots out of shovels, leaving the Yankee, Mr Fyall, the
overseer, and myself, at table.

I was very tired, and reckoned on going to bed now--but no such thing.
Fyall ordered Jupiter to bring a case from his gig-box, containing some
capital brandy. A new brewage of punch took place, and I found about the
small hours that we were all verging fast towards drunkenness, or
something very like that same. The Yankee was specially plied by Fyall,
evidently with an object, and he soon succeeded in making him helplessly
drunk.

The fun now "grew fast and furious,"--a large wash-tub was ordered in,
placed under a beam at the corner of the room, and filled with water; a
sack and a three-inch rope were then called for, and promptly produced by
the blackies, who, apparently accustomed to Fyall's pranks, grinned with
delight.--Buckskin was thrust into the sack, feet foremost; the mouth of
it was then gathered round his throat with a string, and I was set to
splice a bight in the rope, so as to fit under his arms without running,
which might have choked him. All things being prepared, the slack end was
thrown over the beam. He was soused in the tub, the word was given to
hoist away, and we ran him up to the roof, and then belayed the rope round
the body of the overseer, who was able to sit on his chair, and that was
all. The cold bath, and the being hung up to dry, speedily sobered the
American, but his arms being within the sack, he could do nothing for his
own emancipation; he kept swearing, however, and entreating, and dancing
with rage, every jerk drawing the cord tighter round the waist of the
overseer, who, unaware of his situation, thought himself bewitched as he
was drawn with violence by starts along the floor, with the chair as it
were glued to him. At length the patient extricated one of his arms, and
laying hold of the beam above him, drew himself up, and then letting go
his hold suddenly, fairly lifted the drunken overseer, chair and all,
several feet from the ground, so as to bring him on a level with himself,
and then, in mid air, began to pummel his counterpoise with right
goodwill. At length, fearful of the consequences from the fury into which
the man had worked himself, Fyall and I dashed out the candles, and fled
to our rooms, where, after barricading the doors, we shouted to the
servants to let the gentlemen down.

The next morning had been fixed for duck-shooting, and the overseer and I
were creeping along amongst the mangrove bushes on the shore, to get a
shot at some teal, when we saw our friend the pair of compasses crossing
the small bay in his boat, towards his little pilotboat-built schooner,
which was moored in a small creek opposite, the brushwood concealing every
thing but her masts. My companion, as wild an Irishman as I ever knew,
hailed him,--

"Hillo, Obadiah--Buckskin--you Yankee rascal, heave-to. Come ashore
here--come ashore."

Obed, smoking his pipe, deliberately uncoiled himself--I thou as he rose,
there was to be no end of him--and stood upright in the boat, like an
ill-rigged jurymast.

"I say, Master Tummas, you ben't no friend of mine, I guess, a'ter last
night's work; you hears how I coughs?"--and he began to wheezle and crow
in a most remarkable fashion.

"Never mind," rejoined the overseer; "if you go round that point, and put
up the ducks--by the piper, but I'll fire at you!"

Obed neighed like a horse expecting his oats, which was meant as a laugh
of derision. "Do you think your birding-piece can touch me here away,
Master Tummas?" And again he nichered more loudly than before.

"Don't provoke me to try, you yellow snake, you!"

"Try, and be d----d, and there's a mark for thee," unveiling a certain part
of his body, not his face.

The overseer, or bushes, to give him his Jamaica name, looked at me and
smiled, then coolly lifted his long Spanish barrel, and fired. Down
dropped the smuggler, and ashore came the boat.

"I am mortally wounded, Master Tummas," quoth Obed; and I was
confoundedly frightened at first, from the unusual proximity of the
injured part to his head; but the overseer, as soon as he could get off
the ground, where he had thrown himself in an uncontrollable fit of
laughter, had the man stripped and laid across a log, where he set his
servant to pick out the pellets with a penknife.

Next night I was awakened out of my first sleep by a peculiar sort of
tap, tap, on the floor, as if a cat with walnut shells had been moving
about the room. The feline race, in all its varieties, is my detestation,
so I slipped out of bed to expel the intruder; but the instant my toe
touched the ground, it was seized as if by a smith's forceps. I drew it
into bed, but the annoyance followed it; and in an agony of alarm and
pain, I thrust my hand down, when my thumb was instantly manacled to the
other suffering member. I now lost my wits altogether, and roared murder,
which brought a servant in with a light, and there I was, thumb and toe,
in the clinch of a land-crab.

I had been exceedingly struck with the beauty of the negro villages on the
old settled estates, which are usually situated in the most picturesque
spots, and I determined to visit the one which lay on a sunny bank full in
view from my window, divided on two sides from the cane pieces by a
precipitous ravine, and on the other two by a high logwood hedge, so like
hawthorn, that I could scarcely tell the difference, even when close to it.

At a distance it had the appearance of one entire orchard of fruit trees,
where were mingled together the pyramidal orange, in fruit and in flower,
the former in all its stages from green to dropping ripe,--the citron,
lemon, and lime-trees, the stately, glossy-leaved star-apple, the
golden shaddock and grape-fruit, with their slender branches bending
under their ponderous yellow fruit,--the cashew, with its apple like
those of the cities of the plain, fair to look at, but acrid to the taste,
to which the far-famed nut is appended like a bud,--the avocada, with its
brobdignag pear, as large as a purser's lantern,--the bread-fruit, with a
leaf, one of which would have covered Adam like a bishop's apron, and a
fruit for all the world in size and shape like a blackamoor's head; while
for underwood you had the green, fresh, dew-spangled plantain, round
which in the hottest day there is always a halo of coolness,--the coco
root, the yam and granadillo, with their long vines twining up the
neighbouring trees and shrubs like hop tendrils,--and peas and beans, in
all their endless variety of blossom and of odour, from the Lima bean,
with a stalk as thick as my arm, to the mouse pea, three inches high,--the
pineapple, literally growing in, and constituting, with its prickly
leaves, part of the hedgerows,--the custard-apple, like russet bags of
cold pudding,--the cocoa and coffee bushes, and the devil knows what all,
that is delightful in nature besides; while aloft, the tall graceful
cocoa-nut, the majestic palm, and the gigantic wild cotton-tree, shot up
here and there like minarets far above the rest, high into the blue
heavens.

I entered one of the narrow winding footpaths, where an immense variety of
convolvuli crept along the penguin fences, disclosing their delicate
flowers in the morning freshness, (all that class here shut shop at noon,)
and passion flowers of all sizes, from a soup plate to a thumb ring.

The huts were substantially thatched with palm leaves, and the walls woven
with a basket-work of twigs, plastered over with clay, and whitewashed;
the floors were of baked clay, dry and comfortable. They all consisted of
a hall and a sleeping-room off each side of it: in many of the former I
noticed mahogany sideboards and chairs, and glass decanters, while a whole
lot of African drums and flutes, and sometimes a good gun, hung from the
rafters; and it would have gladdened an Irishman's heart to have seen the
adjoining piggeries. Before one of the houses an old woman was taking
care of a dozen black infants, little naked, glossy, black guinea pigs,
with party coloured beads tied round their loins, each squatted like a
little Indian pagod in the middle of a large wooden bowl, to keep it off
the damp ground.

While I was pursuing my ramble, a large conch-shell was blown at the
overseer's house, and the different gangs turned in to dinner; they came
along, dancing and shouting, and playing tricks on each other in the
little paths, in all the happy anticipation of a good dinner, and an hour
and a half to eat it in, the men well clad in Osnaburg frocks and
trowsers, and the women in baize petticoats and Osnaburg shifts, with a
neat printed calico short gown over all.

"And these are slaves," thought I, "and this is West Indian bondage!  Oh
that some of my well-meaning anti-slavery friends were here, to judge
from the evidence of their own senses!"

The following night there was to be a grand play or wake in the negro
houses, over the head cooper, who had died in the morning, and I
determined to be present at it, although the overseer tried to dissuade
me, saying that no white person ever broke in on these orgies, that the
negroes were very averse to their doing so, and that neither he, nor any
of the white people on the estate, had ever been present on such an
occasion. This very interdict excited my curiosity still more; so I rose
about midnight, and let myself gently down through the window, and shaped
my course in the direction of the negro houses, guided by a loud drumming,
which, as I came nearer, every now and then sunk into a low murmuring
roll, when a strong bass voice would burst forth into a wild recitative;
to which succeeded a loud piercing chorus of female voices, during which
the drums were beaten with great vehemence; this was succeeded by another
solo, and so on. There was no moon, and I had to thread my way along one
of the winding footpaths by starlight. When I arrived within a
stone-cast of the hut before which the play was being held, I left the
beaten track, and crept onwards, until I gained the shelter of the stem of
a wild cotton-tree, behind which I skulked unseen.

The scene was wild enough. Before the door a circle was formed by about
twenty women, all in their best clothes, sitting on the ground, and
swaying their bodies to and fro, while they sung in chorus the wild dirge
already mentioned, the words of which I could not make out; in the centre
of the circle sat four men playing on gumbies, or the long drum formerly
described, while a fifth stood behind them, with a conch-shell, which he
kept sounding at intervals. Other three negroes kept circling round the
outer verge of the circle of women, naked all to their waist cloths,
spinning about and about with their hands above their heads, like so many
dancing dervishes. It was one of these three that from time to time took
up the recitative, the female chorus breaking in after each line. Close
to the drummers lay the body in an open coffin, supported on two low
stools or trestles; a piece of flaming resinous wood was stuck in the
ground at the head, and another at the feet; and a lump of kneaded clay,
in which another torchlike splinter was fixed, rested on the breast. An
old man, naked like the solo singer, was digging a grave close to where
the body lay. The following was the chant:--

"I say, broder, you can't go yet."

THEN THE CHORUS OF FEMALE VOICES

"When de morning star rise, den we put you in a hole."

CHORUS AGAIN


"Den you go in a Africa, you see Fetish dere."

CHORUS

"You shall nyam goat dere, wid all your family."

CHORUS

"Buccra can't come dere; say, dam rascal, why you no work?"

CHORUS

"Buccra can't catch Duppy, no, no."

CHORUS

Three calabashes, or gourds, with pork, yams, and rum, were placed on a
small bench that stood close to the head of the bier, and at right angles
to it.

In a little while, the women, singing-men, and drummers, suddenly gave a
loud shout, or rather yell, clapped their hands three times, and then
rushed into the surrounding cottages, leaving the old grave-digger alone
with the body.

He had completed the grave, and had squatted himself on his hams beside
the coffin, swinging his body as the women had done, and uttering a low
moaning sound, frequently ending in a loud pech, like that of a paviour
when he brings down his rammer.

I noticed he kept looking towards the east, watching, as I conjectured,
the first appearance of the morning star, but it was yet too early.

He lifted the gourd with the pork, and took a large mouthful.

"How is dis? I can't put dis meat in Quacco's coffin, dere is salt in de
pork; Duppy can't bear salt," another large mouthful--"Duppy hate salt too
much,"--here he ate it all up, and placed the empty gourd in the coffin.
He then took up the one with boiled yam in it, and tasted it also.

"Salt here too--who de debil do such a ting?--must not let Duppy taste
dat." He discussed this also, placing the empty vessel in the coffin as he
had done with the other. He then came to the calabash with the rum.
There is no salt there, thought I.

"Rum! ah, Duppy love rum--if it be well strong, let me see Massa Niger,
who put water in a dis rum, eh? Duppy will never touch dat"--a long
pull--"no, no, never touch dat." Here he finished the whole, and placed
the empty vessel beside the others; then gradually sunk back on his hams
with his mouth open, and his eyes starting from the sockets, as he peered
up into the tree, apparently at some terrible object. I looked up also,
and saw a large yellow snake, nearly ten feet long, let itself gradually
down directly over the coffin, between me and the bright glare, (the
outline of its glossy mottled skin glancing in the strong light, which
gave its dark opaque body the appearance of being edged with flame, and
its glittering tongue, that of a red hot wire,) with its tail round a limb
of the cottontree, until its head reached within an inch of the dead man's
face, which it licked with its long forked tongue, uttering a loud hissing
noise.

I was fascinated with terror, and could not move a muscle; at length the
creature slowly swung itself up again, and disappeared amongst the
branches.

Quashie gained courage, as the rum began to operate, and the snake to
disappear. "Come to catch Quaccols Duppy, before him get to Africa, sure
as can be. De metody parson say de debil old sarpant--dat must be old
sarpant, for I never see so big one, so it must be debil."

He caught a glimpse of my face at this moment; it seemed that I had no
powers of fascination like the snake, for he roared out, "Murder, murder,
de debil, de debil, first like a sarpent, den like himself; see him white
face behind de tree; see him white face behind de tree;" and then, in the
extremity of his fear, he popt, head foremost, into the grave, leaving his
quivering legs and feet sticking upwards, as if he had been planted by the
head, like a forked parsnip reversed.

At this uproar, a number of negroes ran out of the nearest houses, and, to
my surprise, four white seamen appeared suddenly amongst them, who, the
moment they got sight of my uniform, as I ran away, gave chase, and having
overtaken me, as I stumbled in the dark path, immediately pinioned me.
They were all armed, and I had no doubt were part of the crew of the
smuggling schooner, and that they had a depot amongst the negro houses.

"Yo ho, my hearty, heave-to, or here goes with a brace of bullets."

I told them who I was, and that curiosity alone brought me there.

"Gammon, tell that to the marines; you're a spy, messmate, and on board
you go with us, so sure as I be Paul Brandywine."

Here was a change with a vengeance. An hour before I was surrounded by
friends, and resting comfortably, in my ward bed, and now I was a prisoner
to a set of brigands, who were smugglers at the best, and what might they
not be at the worst? I had no chance of escape by any sudden effort of
strength or activity, for a piece of a handspike had been thrust across my
back, passing under both of my arms, which were tightly lashed to it, as
if I had been trussed for roasting, so that I could no more run, with a
chance of escape, than a goose without her pinions. After we left the
negro houses, I perceived, with some surprise, that my captors kept the
beaten tract, leading directly to, and past the overseer's dwelling.
"Come, here is a chance, at all events," argued I to myself. "If I get
within hail, I will alarm the lieges, if a deuced good pipe don't fail
me."

This determination had scarcely been framed in my mind, when, as if my
very thoughts had been audible, the smuggler next me on the right hand
drew a pistol, and held it close to my starboard ear.

"Friend, if you tries to raise the house, or speaks to any Niger, or other
person we meets, I'll walk through your skull with two ounces of lead."

"You are particularly obliging," said I; "but what do you promise
yourselves by carrying me off? Were you to murder me, you would be none
the richer; for I have no valuables about me, as you may easily ascertain
by searching me."

"And do you think that freeborn Americans like we have kidnapped you for
your dirty rings, and watch, and mayhap a few dollars, which I takes you
to mean by your waluboles, as you calls them?"

"Why, then, what, in the devil's name, have you kidnapped me for?" And I
began to feel my choler overpowering my discretion, when Mr Paul
Brandywine, who I now suspected to be the mate of the smuggler, took the
small liberty of jerking the landyard, that had been made fast to the
middle of the handspike, so violently, that I thought both my shoulders w
ere dislocated; for I was fairly checked down on my back, just as you may
have seen a pig-merchant on the Fermoy road bring an uproarious boar to
his marrowbones; while the man who had previously threatened to blow my
brains out, knelt beside me, and civilly insinuated, that "if I was tired
of my life, he calculated I had better speak as loud again."

There was no jest in all this; so I had nothing for it but to walk
silently along with my escort, after having gathered myself up as well as
I could. We crept so close under the windows of the overseer's house,
where we picked up a lot of empty ankers, slung on a long pole, that I
fancied I heard, or really did hear, some one snore--oh how I envied the
sleeper!  At length we reached the beach, where we found two men lying on
their oars, in what, so far as I could distinguish, appeared to be a sharp
swift-looking whale boat, which they kept close to, with her head
seaward, however, to be ready for a start should any thing suspicious
appear near to them.

The boat-keeper hailed promptly, "Who goes there?" as they feathered
their oars.

"The tidy little Wave," was the answer.

No more words passed, and the men who had, in the first instance, pulled a
stroke or two to give the boat way, now backed water, and tailed her on to
the beach, when we all stepped on board.

Two of my captors now took each an oar; we shoved off, and glanced away
through the darkness, along the smooth surface of the sparkling sea, until
we reached the schooner, by this time hauled out into the fairway at the
mouth of the cove, where she lay hove short, with her mainsail hoisted
up, riding to the land-wind, and apparently all ready to cants and be off
the moment the boat returned.

As we came alongside, the captain of her, my friend Obediah, as I had no
difficulty in guessing, from his very out of the way configuration, dark
as it was, called out, "I says, Paul, who have you got in the
starn-sheets there?"

"A bloody spy, captain; he who was with the overseer when he peppered your
sheathing t'other morning."

"Oho, bring him on board--bring him on board. I knows there be a
man-of-war schooner close aboard of the island somewheres hereabouts. I
sees through it all, smash my eyes!--I sees through it. But what kept
you, Paul? Don't you see the morning star has risen?"

By this time I stood on the deck of the little vessel, which was no above
a foot out of the water; and Obediah, as he spoke, pointed to the small
dark pit of a companion, for there was no light below, nor indeed anywhere
on board, except in the binnacle, and that carefully masked, indicating by
his threatening manner, that I was to get below as speedily as possible.

"Don't you see the morning star, sir? Why, the sun will be up in an hour,
I calculate, and then the sea-breeze will be down on us before we get any
thing of an offing."

The mention of the morning star recalled vividly to my recollection the
scene I had so recently witnessed at the negro wake; it seemed there was
another person beside poor Quacco, likely to be crammed into a hole before
the day broke, and to be carried to Africa too, for what I knew; but one
must needs go when the devil drives, so I slipped down into the cabin, and
the schooner having weighed, made sail to the northward.



CHAPTER VIII.--The Chase of the Smuggler


     Would I were in an alehouse in London,
     I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.'

     Henry V, III. II. 12--13.


The crib in which I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, as I soon
found, as hot as the black-hole in Calcutta. I don't pretend to be
braver than my neighbours, but I would pluck any man by the beard who
called me coward. In my small way I had in my time faced death in various
shapes; but it had always been above board, with the open heaven overhead,
and generally I had a goodly fellowship in danger, and the eyes of others
were upon me. No wonder, then, that the sinking of the heart within me,
which I now experienced for the first time, was bitter exceedingly, and
grievous to be 'borne. Cooped up in a small suffocating cabin, scarcely
eight feet square, and not above four feet high, with the certainty of
being murdered, as I conceived, were I to try to force my way on deck, and
the knowledge that all my earthly prospects, all my dreams of promotion,
were likely to be blasted, and for ever ruined by my sudden spiriting away,
not to take into the heavy tale the misery which my poor mother and my
friends must suffer, when they came to know it--and "who will tell this to
thee, Mary?" rose to my throat, but could get no farther for a cursed bump
that was like to throttle me. Why should I blush to own it--when the
gipsy, after all, junked an old rich goutified coffee-planter at the
eleventh hour, and married me, and is now the mother of half-a-dozen
little Cringles or so? However, I made a strong effort to bear my
misfortunes like a man, and, folding my arms, I sat down on a chest to
abide my fate, whatever that might be, with as much composure as I could
command, when half-a-dozen cockroaches flew flicker against my face.

For the information of those who have never seen this delicious insect, I
take leave to mention here, that, when full grown, it is a large dingy
brown-coloured beetle, about two inches long, with six legs, and two f
eelers as long as its body. It has a strong anti-hysterical flavour,
something between rotten cheese and assafoetida, and seldom stirs aboard
when the sun is up, but lies concealed in the most obscure and obscene
crevices it can creep into; so that, when it is seen, its wings and body
are thickly covered with dust and dirt of various shades, which any culprit
who chances to fall asleep with his mouth open, is sure to reap the benefit
of, as it has a great propensity to walk into it, partly for the sake of
the crumbs adhering to the masticators, and also, apparently, with a
scientific desire to inspect, by accurate admeasurement with the aforesaid
antennae, the state and condition of the whole potato trap.

At the same time I felt something gnawing the toe of my boot, which I
inferred to be a rat--another agreeable customer for which I had a special
abhorrence; but, as for beetles of all kinds, from my boyhood up, they had
been an abomination unto me, and a cockroach is the most abominable of all
beetles; so between the two I was speedily roused from my state of supine,
or rather dogged endurance; and, forgetting the geography of my position, I
sprung to my feet, whereby I nearly fractured my skull against the low deck
above. I first tried the skylight; it was battened down--then the companion
hatch; it was locked--but the ladder leading up to it being cooler than the
noisome vapour bath I had left, I remained standing in it, trying to catch
a mouthful of fresh air through the joints of the door. All this while we
had been slipping along shore with the land-wind on our beam, at the rate
of five or six knots, but so gently and silently, that I could distinctly
hear the roar of the surf, as the long smooth swell broke on the beach,
which, from the loudness of the noise, could not be above a mile to
windward of us. I perceived at the same time that the schooner, although
going free, did not keep away nor take all the advantage of the land-wind
to make his easting, before the sea-breeze set down, that he might have
done, so that it was evident he did not intend to beat up, so as to fetch
the Crooked Island Passage, which would have been his course, had he been
bound for the States; but was standing over to the Cuba shore, at that time
swarming with pirates.

It was now good daylight, and the terral gradually died away, and left us
rolling gunwale under, as we rose and fell on the long seas, with our sails
flapping, bulkheads creaking and screaming, and mainboom jig-jigging, as
if it would have torn every thing to pieces. I could hear my friend Obed
walking the deck, and whistling manfully for the sea-breeze, and
exclaiming from time to time in his barbarous lingo, "Souffle, souffle, San
Antonio." But the saint had no bowels, and there we lay roasting until near
ten o'clock in the forenoon. During all this period, Obed, who was
shortsighted, as I learned afterwards, kept desiring his right arm, Paul
Brandywine, to keep a bright look-out for the sea-breeze to windward, or
rather to the eastward, for there was no wind--because he knowed it
often times tumbling down right sudden and dangerous at this season about
the corner of the island hereabouts; and the pride of the morning often
brought a shower with it, fit to level a maize plat smooth as his hand.

"No black clouds to windward yet, Paul?"

Paul could see nothing, and the question was repeated three or four times.

"There is a small black cloud about the size of my hand to windward, sir,
right in the wake of the sun, just now, but it won't come to any thing; I
sees no signs of any wind."

"And Elijah said to his servant, Go up now, and look towards the sea, and
he went up and looked, and said there is nothing; and he said go again
seven times, and it came to pass the seventh time, that he said behold
there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand."

I knew what this foreboded, which, as I thought, was more than friend Obed
did; for he shortened no sail, and kept all his kites abroad, for no use as
it struck me, unless he wished to wear them out by flapping against the
masts. He was indeed a strange mixture of skill and carelessness; but,
when fairly stirred up, one of the most daring and expert and
self-possessed seamen I had ever seen, as very soon had an ugly
opportunity of ascertaining.

The cloud on the horizon continued to rise rapidly, spreading over the
whole eastern sky, and the morning began to lower very ominously; but there
was no sudden squall, the first of the breeze coming down as usual in cats'
paws, and freshening gradually; nor did I expect there would be, although
I was certain it would soon blow a merry capful of wind, which might take
in some of the schooner's small sails, and pretty considerably bother us,
unless we could better our offing speedily, for it blew right on shore,
which, by the setting in of the sea-breeze, was now close under our lee.

At length the sniffler reached us, and the sharp little vessel began to
speak, as the rushing sound through the water is called; while the wind
sang like an Eolian harp through the taut weather-rigging. Presently I
heard the word given to take in the two gaff-topsails and flying jib,
which was scarcely done, when the moaning sound roughened into a roar, and
the little vessel began to yerk at the head seas, as if she would have cut
through them, in place of rising to them, and to lie over, as if Davy Jones
himself had clapperclawed the mast heads, and was in the act of using them
as levers to capsize her, while the sails were tugging at her, as if they
would have torn the spars out of her, so that I expected every moment,
either that she would turn over, keel up, or that the masts would snap
short off by the deck.

All this, which I would without the smallest feeling of dread, on the
contrary with exhilaration, have faced cheerily on deck in the course of
duty, proved at the time, under my circumstances, most alarming and painful
to me; a fair-strae death out of the maintop, or off the weather-yard
arm, would to my imagination have been an easy exit comparatively; but to
be choked in this abominable hole, and drowned darkling like a blind
puppy--the very thought made me frantic, and I shouted and tumbled about,
until I missed my footing and fell backwards down the ladder, from the
bottom of which I scuttled away to the lee-side of the cabin, quiet,
through absolute despair and exhaustion from the heat and closeness.

I had remarked that from the time the breeze freshened, the everlasting
Yankee drawling of the crew, and the endless confabulation of the captain
and his mate, had entirely ceased, and nothing was now heard on deck but
the angry voice of the raging elements, and at intervals a shrill piercing
word or two from Obed, in the altered tone of which I had some difficulty
in recognising his pipe, which rose clear and distinct above the roar of
the sea and wind, and was always answered by a prompt, sharp, "ay, ay,
sir," from the men. There was no circumlocution, nor calculating, nor
guessing now, but all hands seemed to be doing their duty energetically and
well. "Come, the vagabonds are sailors after all, we shan't be swamped
this turn;" and I resumed my place on the companion ladder, with more ease
of mind, and a vast deal more composure, than when I was pitched from it
when the squall came on. In a moment after I could hear the captain sing
out, loud even above the howling of the wind and rushing of the water,
"There it comes at last--put your helm hard a-port-down with it, Paul,
down with it, man-luff, and shake the wind out of her sails, or over we
goes, clean and for ever.' Everything was jammed, nothing could be let go,
nor was there an axe at hand to make short work with the sheets and
haulyards; and for a second or two I thought it was all over, the water
rushing half way up her decks, and bubbling into the companion through the
crevices; but at length the lively little craft came gaily to the wind,
shaking her plumage like a wild duck; the sails were got in, all to the
foresail, which was set with the bonnet off, and then she lay-to like a
seagull, without shipping a drop of water. In the comparative stillness I
could now distinctly hear every word that was said on deck.

"Pretty near it; rather close shaving that same, captain," quoth Paul, with
a congratulatory chuckle; "but I say, sir, what is that wreath of smoke
rising from Annotta Bay over the headland?"

"Why, how should I know, Paul? Negroes burning brush, I guess."

"The smoke from brushwood never rose and flew over the bluff with that
swirl, I calculate; it is a gun, or I mistake."

And he stepped to the companion for the purpose, as I conceived, of taking
out the spy-glass, which usually hangs there in brackets fitted to hold
it; he undid the hatch and pushed it back, when I popped my head out, to
the no small dismay of the mate; but Obed was up to me, and while with one
hand he seized the glass, he ran the sliding top sharp up against my neck,
till he pinned me into a kind of pillory, to my great annoyance; so I had
to beg to be released, and once more slunk back into my hole. There was a
long pause; at length Paul, to whom the skipper had handed the spy-glass,
spoke.

"A schooner, sir, is rounding the point."

As I afterwards learned, the negroes who had witnessed my capture,
especially the old man who had taken me for his infernal majesty, had
raised the alarm, so soon as they could venture down to the overseer's
house, which was on the smuggling boat shoving off, and Mr Fyall
immediately despatched an express to the Lieutenant commanding the Gleam,
then lying in Annotta Bay, about ten miles distant, when she instantly
slipped and shoved out.

"Well, I can't help it if there be," rejoined the captain. Another pause.

"Why, I don't like her, sir; she looks like a man-of-war-and that must
have been the smoke of the gun she fired on weighing.'

"Eh?" sharply answered Obed, "if it be, it will be a hanging matter if we
are caught with this young splice on board; he may belong to her for what I
know. Look again, Paul."

A long, long look.

"A man-of-war schooner, sure enough, sir; I can see her ensign and
pennant, now that she is clear of the land."

"Oh Lord, oh Lord!" cried Obed, in great perplexity, "what shall we do?"

"Why, pull foot, Captain," promptly replied Paul; "the breeze has lulled,
and in light winds she will have no chance with the tidy little Wave."

I could now perceive that the smugglers made all sail, and I heard the
frequent swish--swish of the water, as they threw bucketfuls on the sails,
to thicken them and make them hold more wind, while we edged away, keeping
as close to the wind, however, as we could, without stopping her way.

"Starboard," quoth Obed--"rap full, Jem--let her walk through it, my
boy--there, main and foresail, flat as boards; why, she will stand the
main-gaff-topsail yet--set it, Paul, set it;" and his heart warmed as he
gained confidence in the qualifications of his vessel. "Come, weather me
now, see how she trips it along--poo, I was an ass to quail, wan't I,
Paul?"

No chance, now, thought I, as I descended once more; "I may as well go and
be suffocated at once." I knocked my foot against something, in stepping
off the ladder, which, on putting down my hand, I found to be tinder-box,
with steel and flint. I had formerly ascertained there was a candle in the
cabin, on the small table, stuck into a bottle; so I immediately struck a
light, and as I knew that meekness and solicitation, having been tried in
vain, would not serve me, I determined to go on the other tack, and to see
how far an assumption of coolness and self-possession, or, it might be, a
dash of bravado, whether true or feigned, might not at least ensure me some
consideration and better treatment from the lawless gang into whose hands I
had fallen.

So I set to and ransacked the lockers, where, amongst a vast variety of
miscellaneous matters, I was not long in finding a bottle of very tolerable
rum, some salt junk, some biscuit, and a goglet or porous earthen jar of
water, with some capital cigars. By this time I was like to faint with the
heat and smell; so I filled a tumbler with good half-and-half and swigged
it off. The effect was speedy; I thought I could eat a bit, so I attacked
the salt junk and made a hearty meal, after which I replenished my tumbler,
lighted a cigar, pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and, with a sort of
desperate glee, struck up at the top of my pipe, "Ye Mariners of England."
My joviality was soon noticed on deck.

"Eh, what be that?" quoth Obed,--"that be none of our ditties, I guess? who
is singing below there?'

"We be all on deck, sir,' responded Paul.

"It can't be the spy, eh?--sure enough it must be he, and no one else; the
heat and choke must have made him mad."

"We shall soon see," said Paul, as he removed the skylight, and looked down
into the cabin.

Obed looked over his shoulder, peering at me with his little short-sighted
pig's eyes, into which, in my pot valiancy, I immediately chucked half a
tumbler of very strong grog, and under cover of it attempted to bolt
through the scuttle, and thereby gain the deck; but Paul, with his shoulder
of mutton fist, gave me a very unceremonious rebuff, and down I dropped
again.

"You makes yourself at home, I sees, and be hanged to you," said Obed,
laying the emphasis on the last word, pronouncing it "yoo--oo" in two
syllables.

"I do, indeed, and be d----d to yoo--oo," I replied; "and why should I not?
the visit was not volunteered, you know so come down, you long-legged
Yankee smuggling scoundrel, or I'll blow your bloody buccaneering craft out
of the water like the peel of an onion. You see I have got the magazine
scuttle up, and there are the barrels of powder, and here is the candle,
so"--

Obed laughed like the beginning of the bray of the jackass before he swings
off into his "heehaw, heehaw."--"Smash my eyes, man, but them barrels be
full of pimento, all but that one with the red mark, and that be crackers
fresh and sharp from the Brandywine mills."

"Well, well, gunpowder or pimento, I'll set fire to it if you don't be
civil."

"Why, I will be civil; you are a curious chap, a brave slip, to carry it
so, with no friend near; so, civil I will be."

He unlocked the companion hatch and came down to the cabin, doubling his
long limbs up like foot-rules, to suit the low roof.

"Free and easy, my man," continued the Captain, as he entered. "Well, I
forgive you--we are quits now--and if we were not beyond the Island Craft,
I would put you ashore, but I can't stand back now."  "Why, may I ask?"
"Simply, because one of your men-of-war schooners an't more than hull
down astarn of me at this moment; she is working up in shore, and has not
chased me as yet; indeed she may save herself the trouble, for ne'er a
schooner in your blasted service has any chance with the tidy little Wave."

I was by no means so sure of this.

"Well Master Obediah, it may turn up as you say, and in a light wind, I
know you will either sail or sweep away from any one of them; but, to be on
the square with you, if it comes on to blow, that same hooker, which I take
to be his Britannic Majesty's schooner Gleam, will, from his greater beam,
and superior length, out carry and forereach on you, ay, and weather on you
too, hand over hand; so this is my compact--if he nails you, you will
require a friend at court, and I will stand that friend; if you escape--and
I will not interfere either by advice or otherwise, either to get you taken
or to get you clear will you promise to put me on board of the first
English merchant vessel we fall in with, or, at the longest, to land me at
St Jago de Cuba, and I will promise you, on my honour, notwithstanding all
that has been said or done, that I will never hereafter inform against you,
or in any way get you into trouble if I can help it. Is it done? Will you
ive me your hand upon it?"

Obed did not hesitate a moment; he clenched my hand, and squeezed it till
the blood nearly spouted from my finger-ends; one might conceive of
Norwegian bears greeting each other after this fashion, but I trust no
Christian will ever, in time coming, subject my digits to a similar species
of torture.

"Agreed, my boy, I have promised, and you may depend on me; smuggler though
I be, and somewhat worse on occasion mayhap, I never breaks my word."

There was an earnestness about the poor fellow, in which I thought there
could be no deception, and from that moment we were on what I may call a
very friendly footing for a prisoner and his jailer.

"Well, now, I believe you, so let us have a glass of grog, and"--

Here the mate sung out, "Captain, come on deck, if you please; quickly,
sir, quickly."

By this time it had begun to breeze up again, and as the wind rose, I could
see the spirits of the crew fell, as if conscious they had no chance if it
freshened. When we went on deck, Paul was still peering through the
telescope.

"The schooner has tacked, sir." A dead silence; then giving the glass a
swing, and driving the joints into each other, with such vehemence as if he
would have broken them in pieces, he exclaimed, "She is after us, so sure
as I ben't a niger."

"No! is she though?" eagerly enquired the captain, as he at length seized
the spy-glass, twisting and turning it about and about, as he tried to hit
his own very peculiar focus. At length he took a long, long, breathless
look, while the eyes of the whole crew, some fifteen hands or so, were
riveted upon him with the most intense anxiety.

"What a gaff-topsail she has got--my eye!--and a ringtail with more cloths
in it than our squaresail--and the breeze comes down stronger and
stronger!"

All this while I looked out equally excited, but with a very different
interest. "Come, this will do,' thought I; 'she is after us; and if old
Dick Casket brings that fiery sea-breeze he has now along with him, we
shall puzzle the smuggler, for all his long start."

"There's a gun, sir," cried Paul, trembling from head to foot.

"Sure enough," said the skipper; "and it must be a signal. And there go
three flags at the fore.--She must, I'll bet a hundred dollars, have taken
our tidy little Wave for the Admiral's tender that was lying in Morant
Bay."

"Blarney," thought I; "tidy as your little Wave is, she won't deceive old
Dick--he is not the man to take a herring for a horse; she must be making
signals to some man-of-war in sight."

"A strange sail right a-head," sung out three men from forward all at
once.

"Didn't I say so?"--I had only thought so. "Come, Master Obediah, it
thickens now, you're in for it," said I.

But he was not in the least shaken; as the matter grew serious, he seemed
to brace up to meet it. He had been flurried at the first, but he was
collected and cool as a cucumber now, when he saw every thing depending on
his seamanship and judgment. Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his
mind that they must be taken.

"Jezebel Brandywine, you are but a widowed old lady, I calculate. I shall
never see the broad, smooth Chesapeake again--no more peach brandy for
Paul;" and folding his arms, he set himself doggedly down on the low
tafferel.

Little did I think at the time how fearfully the poor fellow's foreboding
was so soon to be fulfilled.

"There again," said I, "a second puff to windward." This was another signal
gun I knew; and I went forward to where the captain was reconnoitring the
sail a-head through the glass. "Let me see," said I, "and I will be
honest with you, and tell you if I know her."

He handed me the glass at once, and the instant I saw the top of her
courses above the water, I was sure, from the red cross in her foresail,
that she was the Firebrand, the very corvette to which I was appointed.
She was so well to windward, that I considered it next to impossible that
we should weather her, but Obediah seemed determined to try it. After
seeing his little vessel snug under mainsail, foresail, and jib, which was
as much as she could stagger under, and every thing right and tight, and
all clear to make more sail should the breeze lull, he ordered the men
below, and took the helm himself. What queer animals sailors are!  We were
rising the corvette fast; and on going aft again from the bows, where I had
been looking at her, I cast my eye down the hatchway into the men's berth,
and there were the whole crew at breakfast, laughing and joking, and
enjoying themselves, as heartily, apparently, nay, I verily believe in
reality, as if they had been in a yacht on a cruise of pleasure, in place
of having one enemy nearly within gunshot astern, and another trying to cut
them off ahead.

At this moment the schooner in chase luffed up in the wind, and I noticed
the foot of the foresail lift. "You'll have it now, friend Obed; there's
at you in earnest." While I spoke, a column of thick white smoke spouted
over the bows of the Gleam, about twenty yards to windward, and then blew
back again amongst the sails and rigging, as if a gauze veil had for an
instant been thrown over the little vessel, rolling off down the wind to
leeward, in whirling eddies, growing thinner and thinner, until it
disappeared altogether. I heard the report this time, and the shot fell
close alongside of us.

"A good mark with that apple," coolly observed the Captain; "the Long Tom
must be a tearer, to pitch its mouthful of iron this length."

Another succeeded; and if I had been still pinned up in the companion,
there would have been no log now, for it went crash through
into the hold.

"Go it, my boys," shouted I; "a few more as well aimed, and heigh for the
Firebrand's gunroom!"

At the mention of the Firebrand I thought Obed started, but he soon
recovered himself, and looking at me with all the apparent composure in the
world, he smiled as he said, "Not so fast, Lieutenant; you and I have not
drank our last glass of swizzle yet, I guess. If I can but weather that
chap ahead, I don't fear the schooner."

The corvette had by this time answered the signal from the Gleam, and had
hauled his wind also, so that I did not conceive it possible that the Wave
could scrape clear, without coming under his broadside.

"You won't try it, Obed, surely?'

"Answer me this, and I'll tell you," rejoined he. "Does that corvette now
carry long 18's or 32-pound carronades?"

"She carries 32-pound carronades.'

"Then you'll not sling your cot in her gunroom this cruise."

All this time the little Wave was carrying to it gallantly, her jib-boom
bending like whalebone, and her long slender topmasts whipping about like a
couple of fishing-rods, as she thrashed at it, sending the spray flashing
over her mastheads at every pitch; but notwithstanding her weatherly
qualities, the heavy cross sea, as she drove into it, headed her off
bodily, and she could not prevent the Gleam from creeping up on her weather
quarter, where she peppered away from her long 24-pounder, throwing the
shot over and over us.

To tack, therefore, would have been to run into the lion's mouth, and to
bear up was equally hopeless, as the corvette, going free, would have
chased her under water; the only chance remaining was to stand on, and
trust to the breeze taking off, and try to weather the ship, now about
three miles distant on our lee bow, braced sharp up on the opposite tack,
and evidently quite aware of our game.

As the corvette and the Wave neared each other, he threw a shot at us from
the boat gun on his topgallant forecastle, as if to ascertain beyond all
doubt the extent of our insanity, and whether we were serious in our
attempt to weather him and escape.

Obed held right on his course, like grim Death. Another bullet whistled
over our mastheads, and, with the aid of the glass, I could see by the
twinkling of feet, and here and there a busy peering face through the
ports, that the crew were at quarters fore and aft, while fourteen marines
or so were all ready rigged on the poop, and the nettings were bristling
through the whole length of the ship, with fifty or sixty small-arm men.

All this I took care to communicate to Obediah. "I say, my good friend, I
see little to laugh at in all this. If you do go to windward of him at
all, which I greatly doubt, you will have to cross his fore-foot within
pistol-shot at the farthest, and then you will have to rasp along his
whole broadside of great and small, and they are right well prepared and
ready for you, that I can tell you; the skipper of that ship has had some
dedication, I guess, in the war on your coast, for he seems up to your
tricks, and I don't doubt but he will tip you the stem, if need be, with as
little compunction as I would kill a cockroach, devil confound the whole
breed!  There,--I see his marines and small-arm men handling their
firelocks, as thick as sparrows under the lee of a hedge in a snow-storm,
and the people are training the bull-dogs fore and aft. Why, this is
downright, stark staring lunacy, Obed; we shall be smashed like an
eggshell, and all hands of us whipped off to Davy, from your cursed
foolhardiness."

I had made several pauses in my address, expecting an answer, but Obed was
mute as a stone. At length I took the glass from my eye, and turned round
to look at him, startled by his silence.

I might have heard of such things, but I had never before seen the working
of the spirit so forcibly and fearfully demonstrated by the aspect of the
outward man. With the exception of myself, he was the only man on deck, as
before mentioned, and by this time he was squatted down on it, with his
long legs and thighs thrust down into the cabin, through the open skylight.
The little vessel happened to carry a weather helm, so that his long sinewy
arms, with their large veins and leaders strained to cracking, covered but
a small way below the elbow by his jacket, were stretched as far as they
could clutch the tiller to windward, and his enormous head, supported on
his very short trunk, that seemed to be countersunk into the deck, gave him
a most extraordinary appearance. But this was not all; his complexion,
usually sallow and sunburnt, was now ghastly and blue, like that of the
corpse of a drowned man; the muscles of the neck, and the flesh of the
cheeks and chin were rigid and fixed, and shrunk into one half of their
usual compass; the lips were so compressed that they had almost entirely
disappeared, and all that marked his mouth was a black line; the nostrils
were distended, and thin and transparent, while the forehead was shrivelled
into the most minute and immovable wrinkles, as if done with a crimping
instrument while over his eyes, or rather his eye, for he kept
one closed as if it had been hermetically sealed, he had lashed with half a
dozen turns of spun-yarn a wooden socket, like the but-end of an opera
glass, fitted with some sort of magnifier, through which he peered out
ahead most intensely, stooping down, and stretching his long bare neck to
its utmost reach, that he might see under the foot of the foresail.

I had scarcely time to observe all this, when a round shot came through the
head of the mainsail, grazing the mast, and the very next instant a bushel
of grape, from one of the bow guns, a 32-pound carronade, was crashed in
on us amidships. I flung down the glass, and dived through the companion
into the cabin--I am not ashamed to own it; and any man who would
undervalue my courage in consequence, can never, taking into consideration
the peculiarities of my situation, have known the appalling sound, or
infernal effect of a discharge of grape. Round shot in broadsides is a
joke to it; musketry is a joke to it; but only conjure up in your
imagination, a shower of iron bullets, of the size of well-grown plums, to
the number of from sixty to one hundred and twenty, taking effect within a
circle, not above ten feet in diameter, and that all this time there was
neither honour nor glory in the case, for I was a miserable captive, and I
fancy I may save myself the trouble of farther enlargement.

I found that the crew had by this time started and taken up the planks of
the cabin floor, and had stowed themselves well down into the run, so as to
be as much out of harm's way as they could manage, but there was neither
fear nor flinching amongst them; and although totally devoid of all
gasconade--on the contrary, they had taken all the precautions men could do
in their situation, to keep out of harm's way, or at least to lessen the
danger--there they sat, silent, and cool, and determined. "I shall never
undervalue an American as an enemy again," thought I. I lay down on the
side of the little vessel, now nearly level as she lay over, alongside of
Paul Brandywine, in a position that commanded a view of Obed's face through
the small scuttle. Ten minutes might have elapsed--a tearing crash--and a
rattle on the deck overhead, as if a shower of stones had been thrown from
aloft on it.

"That's through the mainmast, I expect," quoth Paul.

I looked from him to the Captain; a black thick stream of blood was
trickling down behind his ear. Paul had noticed it also.

"You are hurt by one of them splinters, I see; give me the helm now,
Captain;" and, crushed down as the poor fellow appeared to be under some
fearful and mysterious consciousness of impending danger, he nevertheless
addressed himself to take his Captain's place.

"Hold your blasted tongue"--was the polite rejoinder.

"I say, Captain,"--shouted your humble servant, "you may as well eat pease
with a pitchfork, as try to weather him. You are hooked, man, flounder as
you will. Old Nick can't shake you clear--so I won't stand this any
longer;" and making a spring, I jammed myself through the skylight, until I
sat on the deck, looking aft, and confronting him, and there we were, stuck
up like the two kings of Brentford, or a couple of smiling cherries on one
stalk. I have often laughed over the figure we must have cut, but at the
time there was that going on that would have made Comus himself look grave.
I had at length fairly aroused the sleeping devil within him.

"Look out there, Lieutenant--look out there,"--and he pointed with his
sinister claw down to leeward. I did so--whew!--what a sight for poor
Master Thomas Cringle!  "You are booked for an outside place, Master
Tommy," thought I to myself--for there was the corvette in very truth--she
had just tacked, and was close aboard of us on our lee quarter, within
musket-shot at the farthest, bowling along upon a wind, with the green,
hissing, multitudinous sea surging along her sides, and washing up in foam,
like snow flakes, through the mid-ship ports, far aft on the quarterdeck,
to the glorification of jack, who never minds a wet jacket, so long as he
witnesses the discomfiture of his ally, Peter Pipeclay. The press of
canvass she was carrying laid her over, until her copper sheathing, clear
as glass, and glancing like gold, was seen high above the water, throughout
her whole length, above which rose her glossy jet black bends, surmounted
by a milk-white streak, broken at regular intervals into eleven goodly
ports, from which the British cannon, ugly customers at the best, were
grinning, tompion out, open-mouthed at us; and above all, the clean,
well-stowed white hammocks filled the nettings, from tafferel to cathead
oh! that I had been in one of them, snug on the berth deck!  Aloft, a cloud
of white sail swelled to the breeze, till the cloth seemed inclined to say
goodby to the bolt ropes, bending the masts like willow-wands, as if the
devil, determined to beat Paganini himself, was preparing fiddlesticks to
play a spring with, on the cracking and straining weather shrouds and
backstays, and tearing her sharp wedge-like bows out of the bowels of the
long swell, until the cutwater, and ten yards of the keel next to it, were
hove clean out of the sea, into which she would descend again with a
roaring plunge, burying every thing up to the hause-holes, and driving the
brine into mist, over the fore-top, like vapour from a waterfall, through
which, as she rose again, the bright red copper on her bows flashed back
the sunbeams in momentary rainbows. We were so near, that I could with the
naked eye distinctly see the faces of the men. There were at least 150
determined fellows at quarters, and clustered with muskets in their hands,
wherever they could be posted to most advantage.

There they were in groups about the ports, (I could even see the captains
of the guns, examining the locks,) in their clean white frocks and
trowsers, the officers of the ship, and the marines, clearly
distinguishable by their blue or red jackets. I could discern the very
sparkle of the epaulets.

High overhead, the red cross, that for a thousand years "has braved the
battle and the breeze," blew out strong from the peak, like a sheet of
flickering white flame, or a thing instinct with life, struggling to tear
away the ensign haulyards, and to escape high into the clouds; while, from
the main-royal-masthead, the long white pennant streamed upwards into the
azure heavens, like a ray of silver light. Oh! it was a sight "most
beautiful to see," as the old song hath it,-----but I confess I would have
preferred that pleasure from t'other side of the hedge.

There was no hailing nor trumpeting, although, as we crossed on opposite
tacks when we first weathered her, just before she hove in stays, I had
heard a shrill voice sing out, "Take good aim, men--Fire"; but now each
cannon in thunder shot forth its glance of flame, without a word being
uttered, as she kept away to bring them to bear in succession, while the
long feathery cloud of whirling white smoke that shrouded her sides from
stem to stem, was sparkling brilliantly throughout with crackling musketry,
for all the world like fire-flies in a bank of night fog from the hills,
until the breeze blew it back again through the rigging, and once more
unveiled the lovely craft in all her pride and glory.

"You see all that?' said Obed.

"To be sure I do, and I feel something too'; for a sharp rasping jar was
repeated in rapid succession three or four times, as so many shot struck
our hull, and made the splinters glance about merrily; and the musketballs
were mottling our top sides and spars, plumping into the timber, whit whit!
as thick as ever you saw schoolboys' plastering a church door with
clay-pellets. There was a heavy groan, and a stir amongst the seamen in
the run.

"And, pray, do you see and hear all that yourself, Master Obed? The iron
has clenched some of your chaps down there.--Stay a bit, you shall have a
better dose presently, you obstinate old"--

He waved his hand, and interrupted me with great energy--"I dare not give
in, I cannot give in; all I have in the world swims in the little hooker,
and strike I will not so long as two planks stick together.

"Then," quoth I, "you are simply a damned, cold-blooded, calculating
scoundrel--brave I will never call you." I saw he was now stung to the
quick.

"Lieutenant, smuggler as I am, don't goad me to what worse I may have been;
there are some deeds done in my time, which at a moment like this I don't
much like to think upon. I am a desperate man, Master Cringle; don't, for
your own sake, as well as mine, try me too far.'

"Well but"--persisted I. He would hear nothing.

"Enough said, sir, enough said; there was not an honester trader nor a
happier man in all the Union, until your infernal pillaging an burning
squadron in the Chesapeake captured and ruined me; but I paid it off on the
prize-master, although we were driven on the rocks after all. I paid it
off, and, God help me, I have never thriven since, enemy although he was.
I see the poor fellow's face yet, as I!"--He checked himself suddenly, as
if aware that he might say more than could be conveniently retracted. "But
I dare not be taken; let that satisfy you, Master Cringle, so go
below--below with you, sir"--I saw he had succeeded in lashing himself into
a fury--"or, by the Almighty God, who hears me, I shall be tempted to do
another deed, the remembrance of which will haunt me till my dying day."

All this passed in no time, as we say, much quicker than one can read it;
and I now saw that the corvette had braced up sharp to the wind again, on
the same tack that we were on; so I slipped down like an eel, and once more
stretched myself beside Paul, on the lee side of the cabin. We soon found
that she was indeed after us in earnest, by the renewal of the cannonade,
and the breezing up of the small arms again. Two round shot now tore right
through the deck, just beneath the larboard coamings of the main hatchway;
the little vessel's deck, as she lay over, being altogether exposed to, the
enemy's fire, they made her whole frame tremble again, smashing every thing
in their way to shivers, and going right out through her bottom on the
opposite side, within a dozen streaks of her keel, while the rattling of
the clustered grapeshot every now and then made us start, the musketry all
the while peppering away like a hail shower. Still the skipper, who I
expected every moment to see puffed away from the tiller like smoke, held
upon deck as if he had been bullet-proof, and seemed to escape the hellish
tornado of missiles of all sorts and sizes by a miracle.

"He is in league with the old one, Paul," said I; "howsoever, you must be
nabbed, for you see the ship is forereaching on you, and you can't go on
t'other tack, surely, with these pretty eyelet holes between wind and water
on the weather side there? Your captain is mad why will you, then, and all
these poor fellows, go down, because he dare not surrender, for some good
deed of his own, eh?"

The roar of the cannon and noise of the musketry made it necessary for me
to raise my voice here, which the small scuttle, like Dionysius's ear,
conveyed unexpectedly to my friend, the captain, on deck.

"Hand me up my pistols, Paul."

It had struck me before, and I was now certain, that from the time he had
become so intensely excited as he was now, he spoke with a pure English
accent, without the smallest dash of Yankeeism.

"So, so; I see--no wonder you won't strike, you renegade," cried I.

"You have tampered with my crew, sir, and abused me," he announced, in a
stem, slow tone, much more alarming than his former fierceness, "so take
that, to quiet you;" and deuce take me if he did not, the moment he
received the pistols from his mate, fire slap at me, the ball piercing the
large muscle of my neck on the right side, missing the artery by the merest
accident. Thinking I was done for, I covered my face with my hands, and
commanded myself to God, with all the resignation that could be expected
from a poor young fellow in my grievous circumstances, expecting to be cut
off in the prima vera of his days, and to part for ever from--. Poo, that
there line is not my forte. However, finding the haemorrhage by no means
great, and that the wound was in fact slight, I took the captain's rather
strong hint to be still, and lay quiet, until a 32-pound shot struck us
bang on the quarter. The subdued force with which it came, showed that we
were widening our distance, for it did not drive through and through with a
crash, but lodged in a timber; nevertheless it started one of the planks
across which Paul and I lay, and pitched us both with extreme violence
bodily into the run amongst the men, three of them lying amongst the
ballast, which was covered with blood, two badly wounded, and one dead. I
came off with some slight bruises, however; not so the poor mate. He had
been nearest the end or but that was started, which thereby struck him so
forcibly, that it fractured his spine, and dashed him amongst his
shipmates, shrieking piercingly in his great agony, and clutching whatever
he could grasp with his hands, and tearing whatever he could reach with his
teeth, while his limbs below his waist were dead and paralysed.

"Oh, Christ! water, water," he cried, "water, for the love of God, water!"
The crew did all they could; but his torments increased--the blood began to
flow from his mouth--his hands became clay--cold and pulseless--his
features sharp, blue, and death--like--his respiration difficult--the
choking death--rattle succeeded, and in ten minutes he was dead.

This was the last shot that told--every report became more and more faint,
and the musketry soon ceased altogether.

The breeze had taken off, and the Wave, resuming her superiority in light
winds, had escaped.



CHAPTER IX.--Cuba Fishermen


     "El Pescador de Puerto Escondido,
     Pesca mas que Peseado,
     Quando la Luna redonda Reflexado en la mar profunda.
     Pero cuidado,
     El pobre sera el nino perdido Si esta por Anglisman cogido.
     Ay de mi".


It was now five in the afternoon, and the breeze continued to fall, and
the sea to go down, until sunset, by which time we had I run the
corvette hull down, and the schooner nearly out of sight. Right ahead
of us rose the high land of Cuba, to the westward of Cape Maize, clear
and well-defined against the northern sky; and as we neither hauled our
wind to weather the east end of the island, nor edged away for St Jago,
it was evident, beyond all doubt, that we were running right in for some
one of the piratical haunts on the Cuba coast.

The crew now set to work, and removed the remains of their late
messmate, and the two wounded men, from where they lay upon the ballast
in the Run, to their own berth forward in the bow of the little vessel;
they then replaced the planks which they had started, and arranged the
dead body of the mate along the cabin floor, close to where I lay, faint
and bleeding, and more heavily bruised than I had at first thought.

The captain was still at the helm; he had never spoken a word either to
me or any of the crew, since he had taken the trifling liberty of
shooting me through the neck, and no thanks to him that the wound was
not mortal; but he now resumed his American accent, and began to drawl
out the necessary orders for repairing damages.

When I went on deck shortly afterwards, I was surprised beyond measure
to perceive the injury the little vessel had sustained, and the uncommon
speed, handiness, and skill, with which it had been repaired. However
lazily the command might appear to have been given, the execution of it
was quick as lightning. The crew, now reduced to ten working hands,
had, with an almost miraculous promptitude, knotted and spliced the
rigging, mended and shifted sails, fished the sprung and wounded spars,
and plugged and nailed lead over the shot-holes, and all within half an
hour.

I don't like Americans; I never did, and never shall like them; I have
seldom met with an American gentleman, in the large and complete sense
of the terms. I have no wish to eat with them, drink with them, deal
with, or consort with them in any way; but let me tell the whole truth,
nor fight with them, were it not for the laurels to be acquired, by
overcoming an enemy so brave, determined, and alert, and every way so
worthy of one's steel, as they have always proved. One used to fight
with a Frenchman, as a matter of course, and for the fun of the thing as
it were, never dreaming of the possibility of Johnny Crapeau beating us,
where there was any thing approaching to an equality of force; but, say
as much as we please about larger ships and more men, and a variety of
excuses which proud John Bull, with some truth very often I will admit,
has pertinaciously thrust forward to palliate his losses during the
short war, a regard for truth and fair dealing, which I hope are no
scarce qualities amongst British seamen, compels me to admit, that
although I would of course peril my life and credit more readily with an
English crew, yet I believe a feather would turn the scale between the
two countries, so far as courage and seamanship goes; and let it not be
forgotten, although we have now regained our superiority in this
respect, yet, in gunnery and smallarm practice, we were as thoroughly
weathered on by the Americans during the war, as we overtopped them in
the bulldog courage with which our boarders handled those genuine
English weapons, the cutlass and the pike.

After the captain had given his orders, and seen the men fairly at work,
he came down to the cabin, still ghastly and pale, but with none of that
ferocity stamped on his grim features, from the outpouring of which I
had suffered so severely. He never once looked my way, no more than if
I had been a bundle of old junk; but folding his hands on his knee, he
sat down on a small locker, against which the feet of the dead mate
rested, and gazed earnestly on his face, which was immediately under the
open skylight, through which, by this time, the clear cold rays of the
moon streamed full on it, the short twilight having already fled,
chained as it is in these climates to the chariot wheels of the burning
sun. My eye naturally followed his, but I speedily withdrew it. I had
often bent over comrades who had been killed by gunshot wounds, and
always remarked, what is well-known, that the features wore a benign
expression, bland and gentle, and contented as the face of a sleeping
infant, while their limbs were composed decently, often gracefully, like
one resting after great fatigue, as if nature, like an affectionate
nurse, had arranged the deathbed of her departing child with more than
usual care, preparatory to his last long sleep; whereas those who had
died from the thrust of a pike, or the blow of a cutlass, however mild
the living expression of their countenance might have been, were always
fearfully contorted both in body and face.

In the present instance, the eyes were wide open, white, prominent, and
glazed like those of a dead fish; the hair, which was remarkably fine,
and had been worn in long ringlets, amongst which a large gold earring
glittered, the poor fellow having been a nautical dandy of the first
water was drenched and clotted into heavy masses with the death-sweat,
and had fallen back on the deck from his forehead, which was well
formed, high, broad and massive. His nose was transparent, thin, and
sharp, the tense skin on the bridge of it glancing in the silver light,
as if it had been glass. His mouth was puckered on one side into
angular wrinkles, like a curtain drawn up awry, while a clotted stream
of black gore crept from it sluggishly down his right cheek, and
coagulated in a heap on the deck. His lower jaw had fallen, and there
he lay agape with his mouth full of blood.

His legs, indeed his whole body below his loins, where the fracture of
the spine had taken place, rested precisely as they had been arranged
after he died; but the excessive swelling and puffing out of his broad
chest, contrasted shockingly with the shrinking of the body at the pit
of the stomach, by which the arch of the ribs was left as well defined
as if the skin had been drawn over a skeleton, and the distortion of the
muscles of the cheeks and throat evinced the fearful strength of the
convulsions which had preceded his dissolution. It was evident, indeed,
that throughout his whole person above the waist, the nervous system had
been utterly shattered; the arms, especially, appeared to have been
awfully distorted, for when crossed on his breast, they had to be
forcibly fastened down at the wrists by a band of spun-yam to the
buttons of his jacket. His right hand was shut, with the exception of
the forefinger, which was extended, pointing upwards; but the whole arm,
from the shoulder down, had the horrible appearance of struggling to get
free from the cord which confined it.

Obed, by the time I had noticed all this, had knelt beside the shoulder
of the corpse, and I could see by the moonlight that flickered across
his face as the vessel rolled in the declining breeze, that he had
pushed off his eye the uncouth spyglass which he had fastened over it
during the chase, so that it now stood out from the middle of his
forehead like a stunted horn; but, in truth, "it was not exalted," for
he appeared crushed down to the very earth by the sadness of the scene
before him, and I noticed the frequent sparkle of a heavy tear as it
fell from his iron visage on the face of the dead man. At length he
untied the string that fastened the eyeglass round his head, and taking
a coarse towel from a locker, he spunged poor Paul's face and neck with
rum, and then fastened up his lower jaw with the lanyard. Having
performed this melancholy office, the poor fellow's feelings could no
longer be restrained by my presence.

"God help me, I have not now one friend in the wide world. When I had
neither home, nor food, nor clothing, he sheltered me, and fed me, and
clothed me, when a single word would have gained him five hundred
dollars, and run me up to the fore yardarm in a wreath of white smoke;
but he was true as steel; and oh that he was now doing for me what I
have done for him! who would have moaned over me,--me, who am now
without wife or child, and have disgraced all my kin! alack-a-day,
alack-a-day!"--And he sobbed and wept aloud, as if his very heart
would have burst in twain.--"But I will soon follow you, Paul; I have
had my warning already; I know it, and I believe it." At this instant
the dead hand of the mate burst the ligature that kept it down across
his body, and slowly rose up and remained in a beckoning attitude. I was
seized with a cold shivering from head to foot, and would have shrieked
aloud, had it not been for very shame, but Obed was unmoved.--"I know
it, Paul. I know it. I am ready, and I shall not be long behind you."

He fastened the arm down once more, and having called a couple of hands
to assist him, they lashed up the remains of their shipmate in his
hammock, with a piece of iron ballast at his feet, and then, without
more ado, handed the body up through the skylight; and I heard the heavy
splash as they cast it into the sea. When this was done, the captain
returned to the cabin, bringing a light with him, filled and drank off a
glass of strong grog. Yet he did not even now deign to notice me, which
was by no means soothing; and I found that, since he wouldn't speak, I
must, at all hazards.

"I say, Obed, do you ever read your Bible?" He looked steadily at me
with his lacklustre eyes. "Because, if you do, you may perhaps have
fallen in with some such passages as the following:--Behold I am in your
hand; but know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall
surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves."

"It is true, Mr Cringle, I feel the truth of it here," and he laid his
large bony hand on his heart. "Yet I do not ask you to forgive me; I
don't expect that you can or will; but unless the devil gets possession
of me again--which, so sure as ever there was a demoniac in this world,
he had this afternoon when you so tempted me--I hope soon to place you
in safety, either in a friendly port, or on board of a British vessel;
and then what becomes of me is of little consequence, now since the only
living soul who cared a dollar for me is at rest amongst the coral
branches at the bottom of the deep green sea."

"Why, man," rejoined I, "leave off this stuff; something has turned your
brain, surely; people must die in their beds, you now, if they be not
shot, or put out of the way somehow or other; and as for my small
affair, why I forgive you, man--from my heart I forgive you; were it
only for the oddity of your scantling, mental and corporeal, I would do
so; and you see I am not much hurting--so lend me a hand, like a good
fellow, to wash the wound with a little spirits--it will stop the
bleeding, and the stiffness will soon go off."

"Lieutenant Cringle, I need not tell what I know you have found out,
that I am not the vulgar Yankee smuggler, fit only to be made a butt of
by you and your friends, that you no doubt at first took me for; but who
or what I am, or what I may have been, you shall never know--but I will
tell you this much...."

"Devil confound the fellow!--why this is too much upon the brogue, Obed.
Will you help me to dress my wound, man, and leave off your cursed
sentimental speeches, which you must have gleaned from some old novel or
another? I'll hear it all by and by."

At this period I was a reckless young chap, with strong nerves, and my
own share of that animal courage, which generally oozes out at one's
finger ends when one gets married and turned of thirty; nevertheless I
did watch with some anxiety the effect which my unceremonious
interruption was to have upon him. I was agreeably surprised to find
that he took it all in good part, and set himself, with great alacrity
and kindness even, to put me to rights, and so successfully, that when I
was washed and cleansed, and fairly coopered up, I found myself quite
able to take my place at the table; and having no fear of the College of
Surgeons before my eyes, I helped myself to a little of the needful, and
in the plenitude of my heart, I asked Obed's pardon for my ill-bred
interruption.

"It was not quite the thing to cut you short in the middle of your
Newgate Calendar, Obed--beg pardon, your story I mean; no offence now,
none in the world--eh? But where the deuce, man, got you this fine
linen of Egypt?" looking at the sleeves of the shirt Obed had obliged me
with, as I sat without my coat. "I had not dreamt you had any thing so
luxurious in your kit."

I saw his brow begin to lower again, so the devil prompted me to advert,
by way of changing the subject, to a file of newspapers, which, as it
turned out, might have proved to be by far the most dangerous topic I
could have hit upon. He had laid them aside, having taken them out of
the locker when he was rummaging for the linen. "What have we here?
Kingston Chronicle, Montego Bay Gazette, Falmouth Advertiser. A great
newsmonger you must be. What arrivals?--let me see;--you know I am a
week from headquarters. Let me see."

At first he made a motion as if he would have snatched them out of my
hands, but speedily appeared to give up the idea, merely murmuring
"What can it signify now?"

I continued to read--"Chanticleer from a cruise--Tonnant from Barbadoes
Pique from Port-au-Prince. Oh, the next interests me the Firebrand
is daily expected from Havanna; she is to come through the gulf, round
Cape Antonio, and beat up the haunts of the pirates all along the Cuba
shore." I was certain now that at the mention of this corvette mine host
winced in earnest. This made me anxious to probe him farther. "Why,
what means this pencil mark--'Firebrand's number off the Chesapeake was
1022?' How the deuce, my fine fellow, do you know that?"

He shook his head, but said nothing, and I went on reading the pencil
memoranda--"But this is most probably changed; she now carries a red
cross in the head of her foresail, and has very short lower masts like
the Hornet."  Still he made me no answer. I proceeded--"Stop, let me see
what merchant ships are about sailing. Loading for Liverpool, the John
Gladstone, Peter Ponderous master;" and after it, again in pencil
"Only sugar: goes through the gulf.--Only sugar," said I, still fishing;
"too bulky, I suppose.--Ariel, Jenkins Whitehaven;" remark--"sugar,
coffee, and logwood. Nuestra Senora de los Dolores, to sail for
Chagres on 7th proximo;" remark--"rich cargo of bale goods, but no
chance of overtaking her." "El Rayo to sail for St Jago de Cuba on the
10th proximo;" remark--"sails fast; armed with a long gun and musketry;
thirty hands; about ten Spanish passengers; valuable cargo of dry goods;
mainmast rakes well aft; new cloth in the foresail about half-way up;
will be off the Moro about the 13th.--And what is this written in ink
under the above?--The San Pedro from Chagres, and Marianita from Santa
Martha, although rich, have both got convoy.--Ah, too strong for your
friends, Obed--I see, I see.--Francis Baring, Loan French, master--an
odd name, rather, for a skipper;" remark--"forty seroons of cochineal
and some specie; is to sail from Morant Bay on 5th proximo, to go
through the windward passage; may be expected off Cape St Nicolas on the
12th, or thereby." I laid down the paper and looked him full in the
face. "Nicolas is an ominous name. I fear the good ship Francis Baring
will find it so. Some of the worthy saint's clerks to be fallen in with
off the Mole, eh? Don't you think as I do, Obed?" Still silent. "Why
you seem to take great delight in noting the intended departures and
expected arrivals, my friend--merely to satisfy your curiosity, of
course; but, to come to close quarters with you, captain, I now know
pretty well the object of your visiting Jamaica now and then you are
indeed no vulgar smuggler."

"It is well for you and good for myself, Mr Cringle, that something
weighs heavy at my heart at this moment, and that there is that about
you which, notwithstanding your ill-timed jesting, commands my respect,
and engages my goodwill--had it not been so, you would have been
alongside of poor Paul at this moment." He leant his arms upon the
table, and gazed intensely on my face as he continued in a solemn
tremulous tone--"Do you believe in auguries, Mr Cringle? Do you believe
that coming events cast their shadows before?'"--oh, that little Wiggy
Campbell had been beside me to have seen the figure and face of the man
who now quoted him!

"Yes, I do, it is part of the creed of every sailor to do so; I do
believe that people have had forewarnings of peril to themselves or
their friends."

"Then what do you think of the mate beckoning me with his dead hand to
follow him?"

"Why, you are raving, Obed; you saw that he had been much convulsed, and
that the limb, from the contraction of the sinews, was forcibly kept
down in the position it broke loose from--the spunyarn gave way, and of
course it started up--nothing wonderful in all this although it did at
the time somewhat startle me, I confess."

"It may be so, it may be so. I don't know," rejoined he, "but taken
along with what I saw before"--Here his voice sank into so hollow and
sepulchral a tone as to be almost unintelligible. "But there is no use
in arguing on the subject. Answer me this, Lieutenant Cringle, and
truly, so help you God at your utmost need, did the mate leave the cabin
at any moment after I was wounded by the splinter?" And he seized one of
my hands convulsively with his iron paw, while he pointed up through the
open scuttle towards heaven with the other, which trembled like a reed.
The moon shone strong on the upper part of his countenance, while the
yellow smoky glare of the candle over which he bent, blending harshly
and inharmoniously with the pale silver light, fell full on his uncouth
figure, and on his long scraggy bare neck and chin and cheeks, giving
altogether a most unearthly expression to his savage features, from the
conflicting tints and changing shadows cast by the flickering moonbeams
streaming fitfully through the skylight, as the vessel rolled to and
fro, and by the large torchlike candle as it wavered in the night wind.
The Prince of the Powers of the Air might have sat for his picture by
proxy. It was just such a face as one has dreamed of after a hot supper
and cold ale, when the whisky had been forgotten--horrible, changing,
vague, glimmering, and undefined; and as if something was still wanting
to complete the utter frightfulness of his aspect, the splinter wound in
his head burst out afresh from his violent agitation, and streamed down
in heavy drops from his forehead, falling warm on my hand. I was much
shaken at being adjured in this tremendous way, with the hot blood
gluing our hands together, but I returned his grasp as steadily as I
could, while I replied, with all the composure he had left me, and that
would not have quite filled a Winchester bushel.

"He never left my side from the time he offered to take your place after
you had been wounded."

He fell back against the locker as if he had been shot through the
heart. His grasp relaxed, he drew his breath very hard, and I thought
he had fainted.

"Then it was not him that stood by me; I thought it might have been him,
but I was a fool, it was impossible."

He made a desperate effort to recover his composure, and succeeded.

"And, pray, Master Obediah," quoth I, "what did you see?"

He answered me sharply--"Never mind, never mind--here, Potomac, lend us
a hand to sling a cot for this gentleman; there now, see the lanyard is
sound, and the lacing all tight and snug--now put that mattrass into it,
and there is linen in the chest."

In a trice my couch was rigged, all comfortable, snow-white linen, nice
pillow, soft mattrass, &c. and Obed, filling me another tumbler, helped
himself also; he then drank to my health, wished me a sound sleep,
promised to call me at daylight, and as he left the cabin he said, "Mr
Cringle, had it been my object to have injured you, I would not have
waited until now. You are quite safe so far as depends on me, so take
your rest--good night, once more."

I tumbled into bed, and never once opened my eyes until Obed called me
at daylight, that is, at five in the morning, according to his promise.

By this time we were well in with the Cuba shore; the land might be two
miles from us, as we could see the white surf. Out at sea, although all
around was clear as crystal, there was nothing to be seen of the Gleam
or Firebrand, but there were ten or twelve fishing canoes, each manned
with from four to six hands, close aboard of us;--we seemed to have got
becalmed in the middle of a small fleet of them. The nearest to us
hailed in Spanish, in a very friendly way.

"Como estamos Capitan, que hay de nuevo; hay algo de bueno, para los
pobres Pescadores?" and the fellow who had spoken laughed loudly.

The Captain desired him to come on board, and then drew him aside,
conversing earnestly with him. The Spanish fisherman was a very
powerful man; he was equipped in a blue cotton shirt, Osnaburg trowsers,
sandals of untanned bullock's hide, a straw hat, and wore the eternal
greasy red sash and long knife. He was a bold, daring looking fellow,
and frequently looked frowningly on me, and shook his head impatiently,
while the Captain, as it seemed, was explaining to him who I was. Just
in this nick of time my friend Potomac handed up my uniform coat, (I had
previously been performing my ablutions on deck in my shirt and
trowsers,) which I put on, swab and all, thinking no harm. But there
must have been mighty great offence nevertheless, for the fisherman, in
a twinkling, casting a fierce look at me, jumped overboard like a
feather, clearing the rail like a flying fish, and swam to his canoe
that had shoved off a few paces.

When he got on board he stood up and shook his clenched fist at Obed,
shouting, "Picaro, traidor, Ingleses hay abordo, quieres enganarnos!" He
then held up the blade of his paddle, a signal which all the canoes
answered in a moment in the same manner, and then pulled towards the
land, from whence a felucca, invisible until that moment, now swept out,
as if she had floated up to the surface by magic, for I could see
neither creek nor indentation on the shore, nor the smallest symptom of
any entrance to a port or cove. For a few minutes the canoes clustered
round this necromantic craft, and I could notice that two or three hands
from each of them jumped on board; they then paddled off in a string,
and vanished one by one amongst the mangrove bushes as suddenly as the
felucca had appeared. All this puzzled me exceedingly I looked at Obed
he was evidently sorely perplexed.

"I had thought to have put you on board a British vessel before this, or
failing that, to have run down, and landed you at St Jago, Mr Cringle,
as I promised; but you see I am prevented by these honest men there.
Get below, and as you value your life, and, I may say, mine, keep your
temper, and be civil."

I did as he suggested but peeped out of the cabin skylight to see what
was going on, notwithstanding. The felucca was armed with a heavy
carronade on a pivot, and as full of men as she could hold, fierce, half
naked, savage looking fellows,--she swept rapidly up to us, and closing
on our larboard quarter, threw about five-and-twenty of her genteel
young people on board, who immediately secured the crew, and seized
Obed. However, they, that is, the common sailors, seemed to have no
great stomach for the job, and had it not been for the fellow I had
frightened overboard, I don't think one of them would have touched him.
Obed bore all this with great equanimity.

"Why, Francisco," he said, to this personage, in good Spanish, "why,
what madness is this? your suspicions are groundless; it is as I tell
you, he is my prisoner, and whatever he may have been to me, he can be
no spy on you."

"Cuchillo entonces," was the savage reply.

"No, no," persisted Obediah, "get cool, man, get cool; I am pledged that
no harm shall come to him; and farther I have promised to put him ashore
at St Jago, and I will be as good as my word."

"You can't if you would," rejoined Francisco; "the Snake is at anchor
under the Moro."

"Then he must go with us."

"We shall see as to that," said the other; then raising his voice he
shouted to his ragamuffins, "Comrades, we are betrayed; there is an
English officer on board, who can be nothing but a spy; follow me!"

And he dashed down the companion ladder, knife in hand, while I sprung
through the small scuttle, like a rat out of one hole when a ferret is
put in at the other, and crept as close to Obed as I could; Francisco
when he missed me, came on deck again. The Captain had now seized a
cutlass in one hand, and held a cocked pistol in the other. It appeared
he had greater control, the nature of which I now began to comprehend,
over the felucca's people, than Francisco bargained for, as the moment
the latter went below, they released him, and went forward in a body.
My persecutor again advanced close up to me, seized me by the collar
with one hand, and tried to drag me forward, brandishing his naked knife
aloft in the other.

Obed promptly caught his sword-arm--"Francisco," he exclaimed, still in
Spanish, "fool, madman, let go your hold! let go, or by the Heaven above
us, and the hell we are both hastening to, I will strike you dead!"

The man paused, and looked round to his own people, and seeing one or
two encouraging glances and gestures amongst them, he again attempted to
drag me away from my hold on the tafferel. Something flashed in the
sun, and the man fell! his left arm, the hand of which still clutched my
throat, while mine grasped its wrist, had been shred from his body by
Obed's cutlass, like a twig; and, oh God, my blood curdles to my heart
even now when I think of it! the dead fingers kept the grasp
sufficiently long to allow the arm to fall heavily against my side,
where it hung for some seconds, until the muscles relaxed and it dropped
on the deck. The instant that Obed struck the blow, he caught hold of
my hand, threw away his cutlass, and advanced towards the group of the
felucca's men, pistol in hand.

"Am I not your captain, ye cowards--have I ever deceived you yet--have I
ever flinched from heading you where the danger was greatest--have you
not all that I am worth in your hands, and will you murder me now?"

"Viva, el noble capitan, viva!"

And the tide turned as rapidly in our favour as it had lately ebbed
against us.

"As for that scoundrel, he has got no more than he deserves," said he,
turning to where Francisco lay, bleeding like a carcass in the shambles;
"but tie up his arm some of ye, I would be sorry he bled to death."

It was unavailing, the large arteries had emptied his whole lifeblood
he had already gone to his account.

This most miserable transaction, with all its concomitant horrors, to my
astonishment, did not seem to make much impression on Obed, who now,
turning to me, said, with perfect composure,--"You have there another
melancholy voucher for my sincerity," pointing to the body; "but time
presses, and you must now submit to be blindfolded, and that without
further explanation at present."

I did so with the best grace I could, and was led below, where two
beauties, with loaded pistols, and a drawn knife each, obliged me with
their society, one seated on each side of me on the small locker, like
two deputy butchers ready to operate on an unfortunate veal. It had now
fallen dead calm, and, from what I heard, I conjectured that the felucca
was sweeping in towards the land with us in tow, for the sound of the
surf grew louder and louder. By and by we seemed to slide beyond the
long smooth swell into broken water, for the little vessel pitched sharp
and suddenly, and again all was still, and we seemed to have sailed into
some landlocked cove. From the loud echo of the voices on deck, I
judged that we were in a narrow canal, the banks of which were
reflecting the sound; presently this ceased, and although we skimmed
along as motionless as before, I no longer heard the splash of the
felucca's sweeps; the roar of the sea gradually died away, until it
sounded like distant thunder, and I thought we touched the ground now
and then, although slightly. All at once the Spanish part of the crew,
for we still had a number of the felucca's people with us, sang out
"Palanca," and we began to pole along a narrow marshy lagoon, coming so
near the shore occasionally, that our sides were brushed by the branches
of the mangrove bushes. Again the channel seemed to widen, and I could
hear the felucca once more ply her sweeps. In about ten minutes after
this the anchor was let go, and for a quarter of an hour, nothing was
heard on deck but the bustle of the people furling sails, coiling down
the ropes, and getting every thing in order, as is usual in coming into
port. It was evident that several boats had boarded us soon after we
anchored, as I could make out part of the greetings between the
strangers and Obed, in which my own name recurred more than once. In a
little while all was still again, and Obed called down the companion to
my guards, that I might come on deck,--a boon I was not long in availing
myself of.

We were anchored nearly in the centre of a shallow swampy lagoon, about
a mile across, as near as I could judge; two very large schooners,
heavily armed, were moored ahead of us, one on each bow, and another
rather smaller lay close under our stern; they all had sails bent, and
every thing apparently in high order, and were full of men. The shore,
to the distance of a bow-shot from the water all around us, was low,
marshy, and covered with an impervious jungle of thick strong reeds and
wild canes, with here and there a thicket of mangroves; a little farther
off, the land swelled into lofty hills, covered to the very summit with
heavy timber, but every thing had a moist, green, steamy appearance, as
if it had been the region of perpetual rain. "Lots of yellow fever
here," thought I, as the heavy rank smell of decayed vegetable matter
came off on the faint sickly breeze, and the sluggish fog banks crept
along the dull clay-coloured motionless surface of the tepid water.
The sea view was quite shut out--I looked all round and could discern no
vestige of the entrance. Right ahead there was about a furlong of land
cleared at the only spot which one could call a beach,--that is, a hard
shore of sand and pebbles. Had you tried to get ashore at any other
point, your fate would have been that of the Master of Ravenswood; as
fatal, that is, without the gentility; for you would have been
suffocated in black mud, in place of clean sea-sand. There was a long
shed in the centre of this cleared spot, covered in with boards, and
thatched with palm leaves; it was open below, a sort of capstan-house,
where a vast quantity of sails, anchors, cordage, and most kinds of sea
stores were stowed, carefully covered over with tarpawling. Overhead
there was a flooring laid along the couples of the roof, the whole
length of the shed, forming a loft of nearly sixty feet long, divided by
bulkheads into a variety of apartments, lit by small rude windows in the
thatch, where the crews of the vessels, I concluded, were occasionally
lodged during the time they might be under repair. The boat was manned,
and Obed took me ashore with him.

We landed near the shed I have described, beneath which we encountered
about forty of the most uncouth and ferocious-looking rascals that my
eyes had ever been blessed withal; they were of every shade, from the
woolly Negro and long-haired Indian, to the sallow American and fair
Biscayan; and as they intermitted their various occupations of mending
sails, fitting and stretching rigging, splicing ropes, making spun-yam,
coopering gun carriages, grinding pikes and cutlasses, and filling
cartridges, to look at me, they grinned and nodded to each other, and
made sundry signs and gestures which made me regret many a past
peccadillo that in more prosperous times I little thought on or repented
of, and I internally prayed that I might be prepared to die as became a
man, for my fate appeared to be sealed. The only ray of hope that shot
into my mind, through all this gloom, came from the respect the thieves,
one and all, paid the Captain; and, as I had reaped the benefit of
assuming an outward recklessness and daring, which I really did not at
heart possess, I screwed myself up to maintain the same port still, and
swaggered along, jabbering in my broken Spanish, right and left, and
jesting even with the most infamous-looking scoundrels of the whole
lot, while, God he knows, my heart was palpitating like a girl's when
she is asked to be married. Obed led the way up a ladder into the loft,
where we found several messes at dinner; and passing through various
rooms, in which a number of hammocks were slung, we at length arrived at
the eastern end, which was boarded off into an apartment eighteen or
twenty feet square, lighted by a small port-hole in the end, about ten
feet from the ground. I could see several huts from this window, built
just on the edge of the high wood, where some of the country people
seemed to be moving about, and round which a large flock of pigs and
from twenty to thirty bullocks were grazing. All beyond, as far as the
eye could reach, was one continuous forest, without any vestige of a
living thing; not even a thin wreath of blue smoke evinced the presence
of a fellow-creature; I seemed to be hopelessly cut off from all
succour, and my heart again died within me.

"I am sorry to say you must consider yourself a prisoner here for a few
days," said Obed.

I could only groan.

"But the moment the coast is clear, I will be as good as my word, and
land you at St Jago."

I groaned again. The man was moved.

"I would I could do so sooner," he continued; "but you see by how
precarious a tenure I hold my control over these people; therefore I
must be cautious, for your sake as well as my own, or they would make
little of murdering both of us, especially as the fellow who would have
cut your throat this morning has many friends amongst them; above all, I
dare not leave them for any purpose for some days. I must recover my
seat, in which, by the necessary severity you witnessed, I have been
somewhat shaken. So goodbye; there is cold meat in that locker, and
some claret to wash it down with. Don't, I again warn you, venture out
during the afternoon or night. I will be with you betimes in the
morning. So goodbye so long. Your cot, you see, is ready slung."

He turned to depart, when, as if recollecting himself, he stooped down,
and taking hold of a ring, he lifted up a trap door, from which there
was a ladder leading down to the capstan-house. "I had forgotten this
entrance; it will be more convenient for me in my visits."

In my heart I believe he intended this as a hint that I should escape
through the hole at some quiet opportunity; and he was descending the
ladder, when he stopped and looked round, greatly mortified, as it
struck me.

"I forgot to mention that a sentry has been placed, I don't know by
whose orders, at the foot of the ladder, to whom I must give orders to
fire at you, if you venture to descend. You see how the land lies; I
can't help it."

This was spoken in a low tone, then aloud--"There are books on that
shelf behind the canvass screen; if you can settle to them, they may
amuse you."

He left me, and I sat down disconsolate enough. I found some Spanish
books, and a volume of Lord Byron's poetry, containing the first canto
of Childe Harold, two numbers of Blackwood, with several other English
books and magazines, the names of the owners on all of them being
carefully erased.

But there was nothing else that indicated the marauding life of friend
Obediah, whose apartment I conjectured was now my prison, if I except a
pretty extensive assortment of arms, pistols, and cutlasses, and a range
of massive cases, with iron clamps, which were ranged along one side of
the room. I paid my respects to the provender and claret; the hashed
chicken was particularly good; bones rather large or so, but flesh white
and delicate. Had I known that I was dining upon a guana, or large wood
lizard, I scarcely think I would have made so hearty a meal. Long cork,
No. 2, followed ditto, No. 1; and as the shades of evening, as poets
say, began to fall by the time I had finished it, I toppled quietly into
my cot, said my prayers such as they were, and fell asleep.

It must have been towards morning, from the damp freshness of the air
that came through the open window, when I was roused by the howling of a
dog, a sound which always moves me. I shook myself; but before I was
thoroughly awake, it ceased; it appeared to have been close under my
window.

I was turning to go to sleep again, when a female, in a small suppressed
voice, sung the following snatch of a vulgar Port Royal ditty, which I
scarcely forgive myself for introducing here to polite society.

     "Young hofficer come home at night,
     Him give me ring and kisses;
     Nine months, one picaniny white,
     Him white almost like missis.
     But missis fum my back wid switch,
     Him say de shild for massa;
     But massa say him"


The singer broke off suddenly, as if disturbed by the approach of some
one.

"Hush, hush, you old foolish--" said a man's voice, in the same low
whispering tone; "you will waken de dronken sentry dere, when we shall
all be put in iron. Hush, he will know my voice more better."

It was now clear that some one wished to attract my attention; besides,
I had a dreamy recollection of having heard both the male and female
voices before. I listened, therefore, all alive. The man began to sing
in the same low tone.

"Newfoundland dog love him master de morest
Of all de dog ever I see;
Let him starve him, and kick him, and cuff him de sorest,
Difference none never makee to he."

There was a pause for a minute or two.

"It no use," the same voice continued; "him either no dere, or he won't
hear us."

"Stop," said the female, "stop; woman head good for someting. I know who
he shall hear.--Here, good dog, sing psalm; good dog, sing psalm,' and
thereupon a long loud melancholy howl rose wailing through the night
air.

"If that be not my dear old dog Sneezer, it is a deuced good imitation
of him," thought I.

The woman again spoke--"Yowl leetle piece more, good dog," and the howl
was repeated.

I was now certain. By this time I had risen, and stood at the open
window; but it was too dark to see any thing distinctly below. I could
barely distinguish two dark figures, and what I concluded was the dog
sitting on end between them.

"Who are you?" "What do you want with me?"

"Speak softly, massa, speak softly, or the sentry may hear us, for all
de rum I give him."

Here the dog recognised me, and nearly spoiled sport altogether; indeed
it might have cost us our lives, for he began to bark and frisk about,
and to leap violently against the end of the capstan-house, in vain
endeavours to reach the window.. "Down, Sneezer, down, sir; you used to
be a dog of some sense; down."

But Sneezer's joy had capsized his discretion, and the sound of my voice
pronouncing his name drove him mad altogether, and he bounded against
the end of the shed, like a battering-ram.

"Stop, man, stop," and I held down the bight of my neckcloth, with an
end in each hand. He retired, took a noble run, and in a trice hooked
his forepaws in the handkerchief, and I hauled him in at the window.
"Now, Sneezer, down with you, sir, down with you, or your rampaging will
get all our throats cut." He cowered at my feet, and was still as a lamb
from that moment. I stepped to the window. "Now, who are you, and what
do you want?" said I.


"Ah, massa, you no know me?"

"How the devil should I? Don't you see it is as dark as pitch?"

"Well, massa, I will tell you; it is me, massa."

"I make no great doubt of that; but who may you be?"

"Lord, you are de foolis person now; make me talk to him," said the
female. "Massa, never mind he, dat stupid fellow is my husband, and
surely massa know me?"

"Now, my very worthy friends, I think you want to make yourselves known
to me; and if so, pray have the goodness to tell me your names, that is,
if I can in any way serve you."

"To be sure you can, massa; for dat purpose I come here."

The woman hooked the word out of his mouth. "Yes, massa, you must know
me is Nancy, and dat old stupid is my husband Peter Mangrove, him who"
here Peter chimed in--"Yes, massa, Peter Mangrove is de person you have
de honour to address, and"--here he lowered his voice still more,
although the whole dialogue from the commencement had been conducted in
no higher tone than a loud whisper--"we have secured one big large
canoe, near de mout of dis dam hole, which, wid your help, I tink we
shall be able to launch troo de surf; and once in smoot water, den no
fear but we shall run down de coast safely before de wind till we reach.
St Jago."

My heart jumped against my ribs. Here's an unexpected chance, thought
I. "But, Peter, how in the name of mumbo jumbo, came you here?"

"Why, massa, you do forget a leetle, dat I am a Creole negro, and not a
naked tatooed African, whose exploits, dat is de wonderful ting him
never do in him's own country, him get embroidered and pinked in
gunpowder on him breach; beside, I am a Christian gentleman like
youshef; so d----n mumbo jumbo, Massa Cringle."

I saw where I had erred. "So say I, Peter, d----n mumbo jumbo
particularly; but how came you here, man? tell me that."

"Why, massa, I was out in de pilot boat schooner, wid my wife here, and
five more hands, waiting for de outward bound, finking no harm, when dem
piratical rascal catch we, and carry us off. Yankee privateer bad
enough; but who ever hear of pilot being carry off? blasphemy dat--carry
off pilot!  Who ever dream of such a ting? every shivilized peoples
respect pilot--carry off pilot!--oh Lord" and he groaned in spirit for
several seconds.

"And the dog?" enquired I.

"Oh, massa, I could not leave him at home; and since you was good enough
to board him wid us, he has messed wid us, ay and slept wid us; and when
we started last, although he showed some dislike at going on board, I
had only to say, Sneezer, we go look for you master and he make such a
bound, dat he capsize my old woman dere, heel, over head; oh dear, what
display, Nancy, you was exhibit!"

"Hold your tongue, Peter; you hab no decency, you old willain."

"Well, but, Peter, speak out; when are we to make the attempt? where are
the rest of your crew?"

"Oh dear! oh dear! dat is de worstest; oh dear!" and he began to cry and
sob like the veriest child. "Oh, massa,"--after he had somewhat
recovered himself;--"Oh, massa, dese people debits. Why, de make all de
oder on board walk de plank, wid two ten pound shot, one at each foot.
Oh, if you had seen de clear shining blue skin, as de became leetle and
leetle, and more leetler, down far in de clear green sea!  Oh dear! oh
dear!  Only to tink dat each wavering black spot was fellow-creature
like one-shef, wid de heart's blood warm in his bosom at de very
instant of time we lost sight of him for ever!"

"God bless me," said I; "and how did you escape, and the black dog, and
the black--ahem--beg pardon--your wife I mean; how were you spared?"

"Ah, massa! I can't say; but bad as de were, de seemed to have a liking
for brute beasts, so dem save Sneezer, and my wife, and myshef; we were
de only quadrupeds saved out of de whole crew Oh dear!  Oh dear!"

"Well, well; I know enough now. I will spare you the pain of any farther
recital, Peter; so tell me what I am to do."

"Stop, massa, till I see if de sentry be still sound. I know de fellow,
he was one on dem; let me see"--and I heard him through the loose
flooring boards walk to the foot of the trap ladder leading up to my
berth. The soliloquy that followed was very curious of its kind. The
negro had excited himself by a recapitulation of the cruelties exercised
on his unfortunate shipmates, and the unwarrantable caption of himself
and rib, a deed that in the nautical calendar would rank in atrocity
with the murder of a herald or the bearer of a flag of truce. He kept
murmuring to himself, as he groped about in the dark for the sentry
"Catch pilot! who ever hear of such a ting? I suppose dem would have
pull down light-house, if dere had been any for pull. Where is dis
sentry rascal?--him surely no sober yet?"

The sentry had fallen asleep as he leant back on the ladder, and had
gradually slid down into a sitting position, with his head leaning
against one of the steps, as he reclined with his back towards it, thus
exposing his throat and neck to the groping paw of the black pilot.

"Ah--here him is, snoring heavy as my Nancy--well, dronk still; no fear
of him overhearing we--nice position him lie in--quite convenient--could
cut his troat now--slice him like a pumpkin--de debil is surely busy wid
me, Peter. I find de very clasp--knife in my starboard pocket beginning
to open of himshef."

I tapped on the floor with my foot.

"Ah, tank you, Massa Tom--de debil nearly get we all in a scrape just
now. However, I see him is quite sound--de sentry dat is, for de oder
never sleep, you know." He had again come under the window. "Now,
Lieutenant, in two word, to-morrow night at two bells, in de middle
watch, I will be here, and we shall make a start of it; will you
venture, sir?"

"Will I?--to be sure I will; but why not now, Peter? why not now?"

"Ah, massa, you no smell de daylight; near daybreak already, sir. Can't
make try dis night, but to-morrow night I shall be here punctual."

"Very well, but the dog, man? If he be found in my quarters, we shall
be blown, and I scarcely think he will leave me."

"Garamighty! true enough, massa; what is to be done? De people know de
dog was catch wid me, and if he be found wid you, den de will sospect we
communication togidder. What is to be done?"

I was myself not a little perplexed, when Nancy whispered, "De dog have
more sense den many Christian person. Tell him he must go wid us dis
one night, no tell him dis night, else him won't; say dis one night, and
dat if him don't, we shall all be deaded; try him, massa."

I had benefited by more extraordinary hints before now, although, well
as I knew the sagacity of the poor brute, I could not venture to hope it
would come up to the expectations of Mrs Mangrove. But I'll try. "Here,
Sneezer, here, my boy; you must go home with Peter tonight, or we shall
all get into a deuced mess; so here, my boy, here is the bight of the
handkerchief again, and through the window you must go; come, Sneezer,
come."

To my great joy and surprise, the poor dumb beast rose from where he had
coiled himself at my feet, and after having actually embraced me, by
putting his forepaws on my shoulders, as he stood on his hind legs, and
licked my face from ear to ear, uttering a low, fondling, nuzzling sort
of whine, like a nurse caressing a child, he at once leapt on the window
sill, put his forepaws through the handkerchief, and was dropped to the
ground again. I could immediately perceive the two dark figures of the
pilot and his wife, followed by the dog, glide away as noiselessly as if
they had been spirits of the night, until they were lost under the shade
of the thick jungle.

I turned in, and--what will not youth and fatigue do?--I fell once more
fast asleep, and never opened my eyes until Obed shook me in my cot
about eight o'clock in the morning.

"Good morning, Lieutenant. I have sent up your breakfast, but you don't
seem inclined to eat it."

"Don't you believe it, my dear Obed. I have been sound asleep till this
moment; only stop till I have slipped on my--those shoes, if you please
thank you--waistcoat--that will do. Now--coffee, fish, yams, and
plantains, and biscuit, white as snow, and short as--and eggs and
zounds! claret to finish with?--Why, Obed, you surely don't desire that
I should enjoy all these delicacies in solitary blessedness?"

"Why, I intend to breakfast with you, if my society be not
disagreeable."

"Disagreeable!  Not in the least, quite the contrary. That black
grouper looks remarkably beautiful. Another piece of yam, if you
please.--Shall I fill you a cup of coffee, Obed? For my own part, I
always stow the ground tier of my cargo dry, and then take a
topdressing. Write this down as an approved axiom with all thorough
breakfast eaters. Why, man, you are off your feed; what are you turning
up your ear for, in that incomprehensible fashion, like a duck in
thunder? A little of the claret--thank you. The very best butter I
have ever eaten out of Ireland--now, some of that avocado pear--and as
for biscuit, Leman never came up to it. I say, man,--hillo, where are
you?--rouse ye out of your brown study, man."

"Did you hear that, Mr Cringle?"

"Hear what?--I heard nothing," rejoined I; "but hand me over that land
crab.--Thank you, and you may send the spawl of that creeping thing
along with it; that guana. I had a dislike to eating a lizard at first,
but I have got over it somehow;--and a  slice of ham, a small taste of
the unclean beast, Obed--peach-fed, I'll warrant."

There was a pause. The report of a great gun came booming along,
reverberated from side to side of the lagoon, the echoes growing shorter
and shorter, and weaker and weaker, until they growled themselves asleep
in a hollow rumble like distant thunder.

"Ha, ha!  Dick Casket for a thousand!  Old Blowhard has stuck in your
skirts, Master Obed--but Lord help me, man! let us finish our breakfast;
he won't be here this half hour."

I expected to see mine host's forehead lowering like a thunder cloud
from my ill-timed funning; but to my surprise, his countenance
exhibited more amenity than I thought had been in the nature of the
beast, as he replied,--

"Why, lieutenant, the felucca put to sea last night, to keep a bright
look-out at the mouth of our cove here. I suppose that is him
overhauling some vessel."

"It may be so;--hush! there's another gun--Two!"

Obed changed countenance at the double report.

"I say, Obed, the felucca did not carry more than one gun when I saw
her, and she has had no time to load and fire again."

He did not answer a word, but continued, with a piece of guana on the
end of, his fork in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, as if he
had been touched by the wand of a magician. Presently we heard one or
two dropping shots, quickly thickening into a rattle of musketry. He
threw down his food, picked up his hat, and trundled down stairs, as if
the devil had kicked him. "Pedro, que hay?" I could hear him say to
some one below, who appeared to have arrived in great haste, for he
gasped for breath.

"Aqui viene la feluca," answered Pedro; "perseguido por dos Lanchas
Canoneras llenas de Gente."

"Abordo entonces, abordo todo el mundo; arma arma, aqui vienen los
Engleses; arma, arma!"

And all from that instant was a regular hillabaloo. The drums on board
the schooners beat to quarters, a great bell, formerly the ornament of
some goodly ship, no doubt, which had been slung in the fork of a tree,
clanged away at a furious rate, the crews were hurrying to and fro,
shouting to each other in Creole Spanish, and Yankee English, while
every cannon-shot from the felucca or the boat guns came louder and
louder, and the small arms peppered away sharper and sharper. The
shouts of the men engaged, both friends and foes, were now heard, and I
could hear Obed's voice on board the largest schooner, which lay full in
view from my window, giving orders, not only to his own crew, but to
those of the others. I heard him distinctly sing out, after ordering
them to haul upon the spring on his cable, "Now, men, I need not tell
you to fight bravely, for if you are taken every devil of you will be
hanged, so hoist away the signal," and a small black ball flew up
through the rigging, until it reached the main topgallant-masthead of
the schooner, where it hung a moment, and in the next blew out in a
large black swallow-tailed flag, like a commodore's broad pennant.

"Now," shrieked he, "let me see who dares give in with this voucher for
his honesty flying aloft!" I twisted and craned myself out of the
window, to get a view of what--was going on elsewhere; however, I could
see nothing but Obed's large schooner from it, all the other craft were
out of the range of my eye, being hid by the projecting roof of the
shed. The noise continued--the shouting rose higher than ever--the
other schooners opened their fire, both cannon and musketry; and from
the increasing vehemence of the Spanish exclamations, and the cheering
on board Obed's vessels, I concluded the attacking party were having the
worst of it. My dog Sneezer now came jumping and scrambling up the trap
stair, his paws slipping between the bars at every step, his mouth wide
open, and his tongue hanging out, while he barked, and yelled, and
gasped to get at me, as if his life depended on it. After him I could
see the round woolly pate of Peter Mangrove, Esquire, as excited
apparently as the dog, and as anxious to get up; but they got jammed
together in the small hatch, and stuck there, man and beast. At length
Peter spoke--

"Now, sir, now!  Nancy has run on before to the beach wid two paddles;
now for it, now for it."

Down trundled master, and dog, and pilot. By this time there was no one
in the lower part of the shed, which was full of smoke, while the
infernal tumult on the water still raged as furiously as ever, the shot
of all sorts and sizes hissing, and splashing, and ricochetting along
the smooth surface of the harbour, as if there had been a sleet of
musket and cannonballs and grape. Peter struck out at the top of his
speed, Sneezer and I followed: we soon reached the jungle, dashed
through a path that had been recently cleared with a cutlass or
billhook, for the twigs were freshly shred, and in about ten minutes
reached the high wood. However, no rest for the wicked, although the
row seemed lessening now.

"Some one has got the worst of it," said I.

"Never mind, massa," quoth Peter, "or we shan't get de betterest
ourshef."

And away we galloped again, until I had scarcely a rag an inch square on
my back, or anywhere else, and my skin was tom in pieces by the prickly
bushes and spear grass. The sound of firing now ceased entirely,
although there was still loud shouting now and then.

"Push on, massa--dem will soon miss we."

"True enough, Peter--but what is that?" as we came to a bundle of clouts
walloping about in the morass.

"De debil it must be, I tink," said the pilot. "No, my Nancy it is,
sticking in the mud up to her waist; what shall us do? you fink, massa,
we hab time for can stop to pick she out?"

"Heaven have mercy, Peter--yes, unquestionably."

"Well, massa, you know best."

So we tugged at the sable heroine, and first one leg came home out of
the tenacious clay, with a plop, then the other was drawn out of the
quagmire. We then relieved her of the paddles, and each taking hold of
one of the poor half-dead creature's hands, we succeeded in getting
down to the beach, about half a mile to leeward of the entrance to the
cove. We found the canoe there, plumped Nancy stem foremost into the
bottom of it for ballast, gathered all our remaining energies for a
grand shove, and ran her like lightning into the surf, till the water
flashed over and over us, reaching to our necks. Next moment we were
both swimming, and the canoe, although full of water, beyond the surf,
rising and falling on the long swell. We scrambled on board, set Nancy
to bale with Peter's hat, seized our paddles, and skulled away like fury
for ten minutes right out to sea, without looking once about us, until a
musket-shot whistled over our heads, then another, and a third; and I
had just time to hold up a white handkerchief, to prevent a whole
platoon being let drive at us from the deck of his Britannic Majesty's
schooner Gleam, lying-to about a cable's length to windward of us, with
the Firebrand a mile astern of her out at sea. In five minutes we got
on board of the former.

"Mercy on me, Tom Cringle, and is this the way we are to meet again?"
said old Dick Gasket, as he held out his large, bony, sunburnt hand to
me. "You have led me a nice dance, in a vain attempt to redeem you from
bondage, Tom; but I am delighted to see you although I have not had the
credit of being your deliverer--very glad to see you, Tom; but come
along man, come down with me, and let me rig you, not quite a Stultze's
fit, you know, but a jury rig you shall have, as good as Dick Casket's
kit can furnish forth, for really you are in a miserable plight, man."

"Bad enough indeed. Mr Casket--many thanks though--bad enough, as you
say; but I would that your boats crew were in so good a plight."

Mr Gasket looked earnestly at me--"Why, I have my own misgivings,
Cringle; this morning at day-break, the Firebrand in company, we fell
in with an armed felucca. It was dead calm, and she was out of gun shot,
close in with the land. The Firebrand immediately sent the cutter on
board full armed, with instructions to me to man the launch, and arm
her with the boat-gun, and then to send both boats to overhaul the
felucca. I did so, standing in as quickly as the light air would take
me, to support them; the felucca all this while sweeping in shore as
fast as she could pull. But the boats were too nimble for her, and our
launch had already saluted her twice from the six pounder in the bow,
when the sea-breeze came thundering down in a white squall, that reefed
our gaff-topsail in a trice, and blew away a whole lot of light sails,
like so many paper-kites. When it cleared away, the devil a felucca,
boat, or any thing else, was to be seen. Capsized they could not have
been, for all three were not likely to have gone that way; and as to any
creek they could have run into, why we could see none. That they had
pulled in shore, however, was our conclusion; but here have we been, the
whole morning, firing signal guns every five minutes without success."

"Did you hear no firing after the squall?" said I.

"Why, some of my people thought they did, but it was that hollow,
tremulous, reverberating kind of sound, that it might have been thunder;
and the breeze blew too strong to have allowed us to hear musketry a
mile and a half to windward. I did think I saw some smoke rise, and blow
off now and then, but" "But me no buts, Master Richard Casket; Peter
Mangrove here, as well as myself, saw your people pursue the felucca
into the lion's den, and I fear they have been crushed in his jaws." I
briefly related what we had seen--Casket was in great distress.

"They must have been taken, Cringle. The fools! to allow themselves to
be trepanned in this way. We must stand out and speak the corvette.
All hands make sail!"

I could not help smiling at the grandeur of Dick's emphasis on the all,
when twenty hands, one-third of them boys, and the rest landsmen,
scrambled up from below, and began to pull and haul in no very
seamanlike fashion. He noticed it.

"A--h, Tom, I know what you are grinning at, but I fear it has been no
laughing matter to my poor boats crew--all my best hands gone, God help
me!"

Presently being under the Firebrand's lee quarter, we lowered down the
boat and went on board, where, for the first time, the extreme
ludicrousness of my appearance and following flashed on me. There we
were all in a bunch, the dog, Mr and Mrs Mangrove, and Thomas Cringle,
gentleman, such in appearance as I shall shortly describe them.

Old Richard Gasket, Esq., first clambered up the side and made his bow
to the Hon. Captain Transom, who was standing near the gangway, on the
snow-white deck, amidst a group of officers, where every thing was in
the most apple-pie order, himself, both in mind and apparel, the most
polished concern in the ship; while the whole crew, with the exception
of the unfortunate absentees in the cutter, were scrambling, to get a
good view of us.

I have already said, that my uniform was torn to pieces; trowsers ditto;
my shoes had parted company in the quagmire; and as for hat, it was left
in my cot. I had a dirty bandage tied round my neck, performing the
twofold office of a cravat and a dressing to my wound; while the blood
from the scratches had dried into black streaks adown and across my face
and paws, and I was altogether so begrimed with mud that my mother would
not have known me. Dick made his salaam, and then took up a position
beside the sally-port, with an important face, like a showman
exhibiting wild beastesses, a regular "stir-him-up-with-a-long
pole" sort of look. I followed him "This is Lieutenant Cringle, Captain
Transom."

"The devil it is!" said Transom, trying in vain to keep his gravity.
"Why, I see it is--How do you do, Mr Cringle? glad to see you."

"This is Peter Mangrove, branch-pilot," continued Casket, as Peter,
bowing, tried to slide past out of sight.

Till this instant I had not time to look at him--he was even a much
queerer-looking figure than myself. He had been encumbered with no
garment besides his trowsers when we started, and these had been
reduced, in the scramble through the brake, to a waistband and two knee
bands, from which a few shreds fluttered in the breeze, the rest of his
canvass having been entirely torn out of the bolt-ropes. For an upper
dress he had borrowed a waistcoat without sleeves from the purser of the
schooner, which hung loose and unbuttoned before, while behind, being
somewhat of the shortest, some very prominent parts of his stem frame
were disclosed, as even an apology for a shirt he had none. Being a
decent man, however, he had tied his large straw hat round his waist, by
strings fastened to the broad brims, which nearly met behind, so that
the crown covered his loins before, like a petard, while the sameness of
his black naked body was relieved by being laced with blood from
numberless lacerations.

Next came the female--"This is the pilot's wife, Captain Transom," again
sung out old Dick; but decency won't let me venture on a description of
poor Nancy's equipment, beyond mentioning, that one of the Gleam's crew
had given her a pair of old trowsers, which, as a sailor has no bottom,
and Nancy was not a sailor, were most ludicrously scanty at top, and
devil another rag of any kind had the poor creature on, but a
handkerchief across her bosom. There was no standing all this; the crew
forward and in the waist were all on the broad grin, while the officers,
after struggling to maintain their gravity until they were nearly
suffocated, fairly gave in, and the whole ship echoed with the most
uproarious laughter; a young villain, whether a Mid or no I could not
tell, yelling out in the throng, "Hurra for Tom Cringle's Tail!"

I was fairly beginning to lose countenance, when up jumped Sneezer to my
relief out of the boat, with an old cocked hat lashed on his head, a
marine's jacket buttoned round his body, and his coalblack muzzle
bedaubed with pipe-clay, regularly monkeyfied, the momentary handiwork
of some wicked little reefers, while a small pipe sung out quietly, as
if not intended to reach the quarterdeck, although it did do so, "And
here comes the last joint of Mr Cringle's Tail." The dog began
floundering and jumping about, and walloping amongst the people, most of
whom knew him, and immediately drew their attention from me and my party
to himself; for away they all bundled forward, dog and men tumbling and
scrambling about like so many children, leaving the coast clear to me
and my attendants. The absurdity of the whole exhibition had for an
instant, even under the very nose of a proverbially taught hand, led to
freedoms which I had believed impossible in a man-of-war. However,
there was too much serious matter in hand, independently of any other
consideration, to allow the merriment created by our appearance to last
long.

Captain Transom, immediately on being informed how matters stood, with
seamanlike promptitude determined to lighten the Gleam, and send her in
with the boats, for the purpose of destroying the haunt of the pirates,
and recovering the men, if they were still alive; but before any thing
could be done, it came on to blow, and for a week we had great
difficulty in maintaining our position off the coast against the
strength of the gale and lee current.

It was on the Sunday morning after I had escaped that it moderated
sufficiently for our purpose, when both vessels stood close in, and
Peter and I were sent to reconnoitre the entrance of the port in the
gig. Having sounded and taken the bearings of the land, we returned on
board, when the Gleam's provisions were taken out and her water started.
The ballast was then shifted, so as to bring her by the head, that she
might thus draw less water by being on an even keel, all sharp vessels
of her class requiring much deeper water aft than forward; the
corvette's launch, with a 12-pound carronade fitted, was then manned
and armed with thirty seamen and marines, under the command of the
second lieutenant; the jolly boat and the two quarter boats, each with
twelve men, followed in a string, under the third lieutenant, the
master, and the senior midshipman; thirty picked hands were added to the
schooner's crew, and I was desired to take the gig with six smart hands
and Peter Mangrove, and to accompany the whole as pilot; but to pull out
of danger so soon as the action commenced, so as to be ready to help any
disabled boat, or to carry orders from the commanding officer.

At nine in the morning, we gave three cheers, and leaving the corvette,
with barely forty hands on board, the Gleam made sail towards the
harbour's mouth, with the boats in tow; but when we got within musket
shot of the entrance, the breeze failed us, when the order of sailing
was reversed, the boats now taking the schooner in tow, preceded by your
humble servant in the gig. We dashed safely through the small canal of
blue water, which divided the surf at the harbour's mouth, having hit it
to a nicety; but when about a pistolshot from the entrance, the channel
narrowed to a muddy creek, not more than twenty yards wide, with high
trees, and thick underwood close to the water's edge. All was silent,
the sun shone clown upon us like the concentrated rays of a burning
glass, and there was no breeze to dissipate the heavy dank mist that
hovered over the surface of the unwholesome canal, nor was there any
appearance of a living thing, save and except a few startled waterfowl,
and some guanoes on the trees, and now and then an alligator, like a
black log of charred wood, would roll off a slimy bank of brown mud,
with a splash into the water.

We rowed on, the schooner every now and then taking the ground, but she
was always quickly warped off again by a kedge; at length, after we had
in all proceeded, it might be, about a mile from the beach, we came to a
boom of strong timber clamped with iron, stretching across the creek.
We were not unprepared for this; one of two old 32-pound carronades,
which, in anticipation of some obstruction of the sort, had been got on
deck from amongst the Gleam's ballast, and properly slung, was now made
fast to the middle timber of the boom, and let go, when the weight of it
sunk it to the bottom, and we passed on. We pulled on for about half a
mile further, when I noticed, high up on a sunny cliff, that shot boldly
out into the clear blue heavens, a small red flag suddenly run up to the
top of a tall, scathed, branchless palm tree, where it flared for a
moment in the breeze like the flame of a torch, and then as suddenly
disappeared. "Come, they are on the look-out for us I see."

The hills continued to close on us as we advanced, and that so
precipitously, that we might have been crushed to pieces had half-a
dozen active fellows, without any risk to themselves, for the trees
would have screened them, simply loosened some of the fragments of rock
that impended over us, so threateningly, it seemed, as if a little
finger could have sent them bounding and thundering down the mountain
side; but this either was not the game of the people we were in search
of, or Obed's spirit and energy had been crushed out of him by the heart
depressing belief that his hours were numbered, for no active
obstruction was offered.

We now suddenly rounded an abrupt corner of the creek, and there we were
full in front of the schooners, who, with the felucca in advance, were
lying in line of battle, with springs on their cables. The horrible
black pennant was, in the present instance, nowhere to be seen; indeed,
why such an impolitic step as ever to have shown it at all was taken in
the first attack, I never could understand; for the force was too small
to have created any serious fear of being captured, (unless indeed it
had been taken for an advanced guard, supported by a stronger,) while it
must have appeared probable to Obediah, that the loss of the two boats
would in all likelihood lead to a more powerful attempt, when, if it
were successful, the damning fact of having fought under such an
infernal emblem must have ensured a pirate's death on the gibbet to
every soul who was taken, unless he had intended to have murdered all
the witnesses of it. But since proof in my person and the pilot's
existed, now, if ever, was the time for mortal resistance, and to have
hoisted it, for they knew that they all fought with halters about their
necks. They had all the Spanish flag flying except the Wave, which
showed American colours, and the felucca, which had a white flag
hoisted, from which last, whenever our gig appeared, a canoe shoved off,
and pulled towards us. The officer, if such he might be called, also
carried a white flag in his hand. He was a daring-looking fellow, and
dashed up along-side of me. The incomprehensible folly of trying at
this time of day to cloak the real character of the vessels, puzzled me,
and does so to this hour. I have never got a clew to it, unless it was
that Obed's strong mind had given way before his superstitious fears,
and others had now assumed the right of both judging and acting for him
in this his closing scene. The pirate officer at once recognised me,
but seemed neither surprised nor disconcerted at the strength of the
force which accompanied me. He asked me in Spanish if I commanded it; I
told him I did not, that the captain of the schooner was the senior
officer.

"Then will you be good enough, to go on board with me, to interpret for
me?"


"Certainly."

In half a minute we were both on the Gleam's deck, the crews of the
boats that had her in tow lying on their oars.

"You are the commander of this force?" said the Spaniard.

"I am," said old Gasket, who had figged himself out in full puff, after
the manner of the ancients, as if he had been going to church, instead
of to fight; "and who the hell are you?"

"I command one of these Spanish schooners, sir, which your boats so
unwarrantably attacked a week ago, although you are at peace with Spain.
But even had they been enemies, they were in a friendly port, which
should have protected them."

"All very good oysters," quoth old Dick; "and pray was it an honest
trick of you to cabbage my young friend, Lieutenant Cringle there, as if
you had been slavers kidnapping the Bungoes in the Bight of Biafra, and
then to fire on and murder my people when sent in to claim him?"

"As to carrying off that young gentleman, it was no affair of ours; he
was brought away by the master of that American schooner; but so far as
regards firing on your boats, I believe they fired first. But the crews
are not murdered; on the contrary, they have been well used, and are now
on board that felucca. I am come to surrender the whole fifteen to
you."

"The whole fifteen! and what have you made of the other twelve?"

"Gastados," said the fellow, with all the sangfroid in the world,
"gastados, (spent or expended) by their own folly."

"Oh, they are expended, are they? then give us the fifteen."

"Certainly, but you will in this case withdraw your force, of course."

"We shall see about that--go and send us the men." He jumped down into
the canoe, and shoved off;--whenever he reached the felucca, he struck
the white flag, and hoisted the Spanish in its stead, and by hauling on
a spring, he brought her to cover the largest schooner so effectually,
that we could not fire a shot at her without going through the felucca.
We could see all the men leave this latter vessel in two canoes, and go
on board one of the other craft. There was now no time to be lost, so I
dashed at the felucca in the gig, and broke open the hatches, where we
found the captured seamen and their gallant leader, Lieutenant----, in a
sorry plight, expecting nothing but to be blown up, or instant death by
shot or the knife. We released them, and, sending to the Gleam for
ammunition and small arms, led the way in the felucca, by Mr Gasket's
orders, to the attack, the corvette's launch supporting us; while the
schooner with the other craft were scraping up as fast as they could.
We made straight for the largest schooner, which with her consorts now
opened a heavy fire of grape and musketry, which we returned with
interest. I can tell little of what took place till I found myself on
the pirate's quarterdeck, after a desperate tussle, and having driven
the crew overboard, with dead and wounded men thickly strewn about, and
our fellows busy firing at their surviving antagonists, as they were
trying to gain the shore by swimming.

Although the schooner we carried was the Commodore, and commanded by
Obediah in person, yet the pirates, that is, the Spanish part of them,
by no means showed the fight I expected. While we were approaching, no
fire could be hotter, and their yells and cheers were tremendous; but
the instant we laid her along-side with the felucca, and swept her
decks with a discharge of grape from the carronade, under cover of which
we boarded on the quarter, while the launch's people scrambled up at the
bows, their hearts failed, a regular panic overtook them, and they
jumped overboard, without waiting for a taste either of cutlass or
boarding-pike. The captain himself, however, with about ten Americans,
stood at bay round the long gun, which, notwithstanding their great
inferiority in point of numbers to our party, they manfully fired three
several times at us, after we had carried her aft; but we were so close
that the grape came past us like a round shot, and only killed one hand
at each discharge, whereas at thirty yards farther off, by having had
room to spread, it might have made a pretty tableau of the whole party.
I hailed Obed twice to surrender, while our people, staggered by the
extreme hardihood of the small group, hung back for an instant; but he
either did not hear me, or would not, for the only reply he seemed
inclined to make was by slewing round the gun so as to bring me on with
it, and the next moment a general rush was made, when the whole party
was cut down, with three exceptions, one of whom was Obed himself, who
getting on the gun, made a desperate bound over the men's heads, and
jumped overboard. He struck out gallantly, the shot pattering round him
like the first of a thunder shower, but he dived apparently unhurt, and
I lost sight of him.

The other vessels having also been carried, the firing was all on our
side by this time, and I, along with the other officers, was exerting
myself to stop the butchery.

"Cease firing, men; for shame, you see they no longer resist." And my
voice was obeyed by all except the fifteen we had released, who were
absolutely mad with fury-perfect fiends; such uncontrollable fierceness
I had never witnessed, indeed, I had nearly cut one of them down before
I could make them knock off firing.

"Don't fire, sir," cried I to one.

"Ay, ay, sir; but that scoundrel made me wash his shirts," and he let
drive at a poor devil, who was squattering and swimming away towards the
shore, and shot him through the head.

"By heavens!  I will run you through, if you fire at that man!" shouted
I to another, a marine, who was taking aim at no less a personage than
friend Obed, who had risen to breathe, and was swimming after the
others, but the very last man of all.

"No, by G--? he made me wash his trowsers, sir."

He fired--the pirate stretched out his arms, turned slowly on his back,
with his face towards me. I thought he gave me a sort of "Et tu, Brute"
look, but I dare say it was fancy--his feet began to sink, and he
gradually disappeared, a few bubbles of froth and blood marking the spot
where he went down. He had been shot dead. I will not attempt to
describe my feelings at this moment, they burned themselves in on my
heart at the time, and the impression is indelible. Whether I had or
had not acted, in one sense, unjustly, by ousting myself so
conspicuously forward in the attempt to capture him, after what had
passed between us, forced itself upon my judgment. I had certainly
promised that I would, in no way that I could help, be instrumental in
his destruction or seizure, provided he landed me at St Jago, or put me
on board a friendly vessel. He did neither, so his part of the compact
might be considered broken; but then it was out of his power to have
fulfilled it; besides, he not only threatened my life subsequently, but
actually wounded me; still, however, on great provocation. But what "is
writ, is writ." He has gone to his account, pirate as he was, murderer
if you will; yet I had, and still have, a tear for his memory,--and many
a time have I prayed on my bare knees that his blue agonized dying look
might be erased from my brain; but this can never be. What he had been
I never learned; but it is my deliberate opinion, that, with a clear
stage and opportunity, he would have forced himself out from the surface
of society for good or for evil. The unfortunates who survived him, but
to expiate their crimes on the gibbet at Port Royal, said he had joined
them from a New York privateer, but they knew nothing farther of him
beyond the fact, that by his skill and desperate courage, within a month
he had by common acclaim been elected captain of the whole band. There
was a story current on board the corvette, of a small trading craft,
with a person answering his description, having been captured in the
Chesapeake, by one of the squadron, and sent to Halifax for
adjudication, (the master, as in most cases of the kind, being left on
board,) which from that hour had never been heard of, neither vessel,
nor prize crew, nor captain, until two Americans were taken out of a
slaver, off the Cape de Verds by the Firebrand, about a year afterwards,
after a most brave and determined attempt to escape, both of whom were
however allowed to enter, but subsequently deserted off Sandy Hook by
swimming ashore, in consequence of a pressed hand hinting that one of
them, surmised to be Obed, had been the master of the vessel above
mentioned.

All resistance having ceased, the few of the pirates who escaped having
scampered into the woods, where it would have been vain to follow them,
we secured our prisoners, and at the close of a bloody day, for fatal
had it been to friend and foe, the prizes were got under weigh, and
before nightfall we were all at sea, sailing in a fleet, under convoy of
the corvette and Gleam.



CHAPTER X.--Vomito Prieto.


     "This disease is beyond my practice."

     Macbeth, Vi.59.


The second and acting third-lieutenants were on board the prizes--the
purser was busy in his vocation--the doctor ditto Indeed, he and his
mates had more on their hands than they could well manage. The first
lieutenant was engaged on deck, and the master was in his cot, suffering
from a severe contusion; so when got on board the corvette, and dived
into the gunroom in search ol some crumbs of comfort, the deuce a living
soul was there to welcome me, except the gunroom steward, who speedily
produced some cold meat, and asked me if I would take a glass of swizzle.

The food I had no great fancy to, although I had not tasted a morsel
since six o'clock in the morning, and it was now eight in the evening;
but the offer of the grog sounded gratefully in mine ear, and I was about
tackling to a stout rummer of the same, when a smart dandified shaver,
with gay mother-of-pearl buttons on his jacket, as thick set as peas,
presented his tallow chops at the door.

"Captain Transom desires me to say, that he will be glad of your company
in the cabin, Mr Cringle."

"My compliments--I will wait on him so soon as I have had a snack. We
have had no dinner in the gunroom to-day yet, you know, Mafame."

"Why, it was in the knowledge of that the Captain sent me, sir. He has
not had any dinner either; but it is now on the table, and he waits for
you."

I was but little in spirits, and, to say sooth, was fitter for my bed
than society; but the Captain's advances had been made with so much
kindliness, that I got up, and made a strong endeavour to rouse myself;
and, having made my toilet as well as my slender means admitted, I
followed the Captain's steward into the cabin.

I started--why, I could not well tell--as the sentry at the door stood to
his arms when I passed in; and, as if I had been actually possessed by
some wandering spirit, who had taken the small liberty of using my
faculties and tongue without my concurrence, I hastily asked the man if
he was an American?--He stared in great astonishment for a short space,
turned his quid--and then rapped out, as angrily as respect for a
commissioned officer would let him,--"No, by ----, sir!"

This startled me as much as the question I had almost unconsciously--and,
I may say, involuntarily--put to the marine had surprised him, and I made
a full stop, and leant back against the door-post. The Captain, who was
walking up and down the cabin, had heard me speak, but without
comprehending the nature of my question, and now recalled me in some
measure to myself, by enquiring if I wanted any thing. I replied,
hurriedly, that I did not.

"Well, Mr Cringle, dinner is ready--so take that chair at the foot of the
table, will you?"

I sat down, mechanically, as it appeared to me--for a strange swimming
dizzy sort of sensation had suddenly overtaken me, accompanied by a
whoreson tingling, as Shakespeare hath it, in my ears. I was unable to
eat a morsel; but I could have drunk the ocean, had it been claret or
vin-de-grave-to both of which I helped myself as largely as good
manners would allow, or a little beyond, mayhap. All this while the
Captain was stowing his cargo with great zeal, and tifting away at the
fluids as became an honest sailor after so long a fast, interlarding his
operations with a civil word to me now and then, without any especial
regard as to the answer I made him, or, indeed, caring greatly whether I
answered him or not.

"Sharp work you must have had, Mr Cringle--should have liked to have been
with you myself. Help yourself, before passing that bottle--zounds, man,
never take a bottle by the bilge--grasp the neck, man, at least in this
fervent climate--thank you. Pity you had not caught the captain though.
What you told me of that man very much interested me, coupled with the
prevailing reports regarding him in the ship--daring dog he must have
been--can't forget how gallantly he weathered us when we chased him."

I broke silence for the first time. Indeed, I could scarcely have done
so sooner, even had I chosen it, for the gallant officer was rather
continuous in his yam-spinning. However, he had nearly dined, and was
leaning back, allowing the champaigne to trickle leisurely from a glass
half a yard long, which he had applied to his lips, when I said, "Well,
the imagination does sometimes play one strange tricks--I verily believe
in second sight now, Captain, for at this very instant I am regularly the
fool of my senses,----but pray don't laugh at me;" and I lay back on my
chair, and pressed my hands over my shut eyes and hot burning temples,
which were now throbbing as if the arteries would have burst.

The Captain, who was evidently much surprised at my abruptness, said
something hurriedly and rather sharply in answer, but I could not for the
life of me mark what it was. I opened my eyes again, and looked towards
the object that had before riveted my attention. It was neither more nor
less than the Captain's cloak, a plain, unpretending, substantial blue
garment, lined with white, which, on coming below, he had cast carelessly
down on the locker, that ran across the after part of the cabin behind
him. It was about eighteen feet from me, and as there was no light
nearer it than the swinging lamp over the table at which we were seated,
the whole of the cabin thereabouts was thrown considerably into shade.
The cape of the cloak was turned over, showing the white lining, and was
rather bundled as it were into a round heap, about the size of a man's
head. When first I looked at it, there was a dreamy, glimmering
indistinctness about it that I could not well understand, and I would
have said, had it been possible, that the wrinkles and folds in it were
beginning to be instinct with motion, to creep and crawl as it were. At
all events, the false impression was so strong as to jar my nerves, and
make me shudder with horror. I knew there was no such d--ting, as well
as Macbeth--, but nevertheless it was with an indescribable feeling of
curiosity, dashed with awe, that I stared intently at it, as if
fascinated, while almost unwittingly I made the remark already mentioned.

I had expected that the unaccountable appearance which had excited my
attention so strongly would have vanished with the closing of my eyes;
but it did not, for when I looked at it again, the working and shifting
of the folds of the cloth still continued, and even more distinctly than
before.

"Very extraordinary all this," I murmured to myself.

"Pray, Mr Cringle, be sociable, man," said the Captain; "what the deuce
do you see, that you stare over my shoulder in that way? Were a woman
now, I should tremble to look behind me, while you were glaring aft in
that wild, moonstruck sort of fashion."

"By all that is astonishing," I exclaimed in great agitation, "if the
folds of the cape have not arranged themselves into the very likeness of
his dying face!  Why it is his face, and no fanciful grouping of my
heated brain. Look there, sir--look there--I know it can't be but there
he lies,--the very features and upper part of the body, lith and limb, as
when he disappeared beneath the water when he was shot dead."

I felt the boiling blood, that had been rushing through my system like
streams of molten lead, suddenly freeze and coagulate about my heart,
impeding my respiration to a degree that I thought I should have been
suffocated. I had the feeling as if my soul was going to take wing. It
was not fear, nor could I say I was in pain, but it was so utterly unlike
any thing I had ever experienced before, and so indescribable, that I
thought to myself--"this may be death."

"Why, what a changeable rose you are, Master Cringle," said Captain
Transom, good-naturedly; "your face was like the north-west moon in a
fog but a minute ago, and now it is as pale as a lily@blue white, I
declare. Why, my man, you must be ill, and seriously too."

His voice dissipated the hideous chimera--the folds fell, and relapsed
into their own shape, and the cloak was once more a cloak, and nothing
more--I drew a long breath. "Ah, it is gone at last, thank God!"--and
then aware of the strange effect my unaccountable incoherence must have
had on the skipper, I thought to brazen it out by trying the free and
easy line, which was neither more nor less than arrant impertinence in
our relative positions. "Why, I have been heated a little, and amusing
myself with sundry vain imaginings, but allow me to take wine with you,
Captain," filling a tumbler with vin-de-grave to the brim, as I spoke.
"Success to you, sir--here's to your speedy promotion--may you soon get a
crack frigate; as for me I intend to be Archbishop of Canterbury, or maid
of honour to the Queen of Sheba, or something in the heathen mythology."

I drank off the wine, although I had the greatest difficulty in steadying
my trembling hand, and carrying it to my lips; but notwithstanding my
increasing giddiness, and the buzzing in my ears, and swimming of mine
eyes, I noticed the Captain's face of amazement as he exclaimed, "The boy
is either mad or drunk, by Jupiter!"

I could not stand his searching and angry look, and in turning my eye, it
again fell on the cloak, which now seemed to be stretched out at greater
length, and to be altogether more voluminous than it was before. I was
forcibly struck with this, for I was certain no one had touched it.

"By heavens! it heaves," I exclaimed, much moved--"how is this? I
never thought to have believed such things,----it stirs again--it takes
the figure of a man--as if it were a pall covering his body. Pray,
Captain Transom, what trick is this?--Is there any thing below that cloak
there?"

"What cloak do you mean?"

"Why, that blue one lying on the locker there--is there any cat or dog in
the cabin? "--and I started on my legs.--"Captain Transom," I continued,
with great vehemence, "for the love of God tell me what is there below
that cloak."

He looked surprised beyond all measure.

"Why, Mr Cringle, I cannot for the soul of me comprehend you; indeed I
cannot; but, Mafame, indulge him. See if there be any thing below my
cloak."

The servant walked to the locker, and lifted up the cape of it, and was
in the act of taking it from the locker, when I impetuously, desired the
man to leave it alone.

"I can't look on him again," said I; while the faintishness increased, so
that I could hardly speak. "Don't move the covering from his face, for
God's sake--don't remove it," and I lay back in my chair, screening my
eyes from the lamp with my hands, and shuddering with an icy chill from
head to foot.

The Captain, who had hitherto maintained the well-bred, patronizing,
although somewhat distant, air of a superior officer to an inferior who
was his guest, addressed me now in an altered tone, and with a brotherly
kindness.

"Mr Cringle, I have some knowledge of you, and I know many of your
friends; so I must take the liberty of an old acquaintance with you.
This day's work has been a severe one, and your share in it, especially
after your past fatigues, has been very trying, and as I will report it,
I hope it may clap a good spoke in your wheel; but you are overheated,
and have been over-excited; fatigue has broken you down, and I must
really request you will take something warm, and turn in.--Here, Mafame,
get the carpenter's mate to secure that cleat on the weather-side there,
and sling my spare cot for Mr Cringle. You will be cooler here than in
the gunroom."

I heard his words without comprehending their meaning. I sat and stared
at him, quite conscious, all the time, of the extreme impropriety, not to
say indecency, of my conduct; but there was a spell on me; I tried to
speak, but could not; and, believing that I was either possessed by some
dumb evil, or struck with palsy, I rose up, bowed to Captain Transom, and
straightway hied me on deck.

I could hear him say to his servant, as I was going up the ladder, "Look
after that young gentleman, Mafame, and send Isaac to the doctor, and bid
him come here now;" and then, in a commiserating tone--"Poor young
fellow, what a pity!"

When I got on deck all was quiet. The cool fresh air had an
instantaneous effect on my shattered nerves, the violent throbbing in my
head ceased, and I began to hug myself with the notion that my distemper,
whatever it might have been, had beaten a retreat.

Suddenly I felt so collected and comfortable, as to be quite alive to the
loveliness of the scene. It was a beautiful moonlight night; such a
night as is nowhere to be seen without the Tropics, and not often within
them. There was just breeze enough to set the sail to sleep, although
not so strong as to prevent their giving a low murmuring flap now and
then, when the corvette rolled a little heavier than usual on the long
swell. There was not a cloud to be seen in the sky, not even a stray
shred of thin fleecy gauzelike vapour, to mark the direction of the upper
current of the air, by its course across the moon's disk, which was now
at the full, and about half-way up her track in the liquid heavens.

The small twinkling lights from millions of lesser stars, in that part of
the firmament where she hung, round as a silver pot-lid shield I mean,
were swamped in the flood of greenish-white radiance shed by her, and it
was only a few of the first magnitude, with a planet here and there, that
were visible to the naked eye, in the neighbourhood of her crystal bright
globe; but the clear depth, and dark translucent purity of the profound,
when the eye tried to pierce into it at the zenith, where the stars once
more shone and sparkled thick and brightly, beyond the merging influence
of the pale cold orb, no man can describe now----one could, once--but
rest his soul, he is dead and then to look forth far into the night,
across the dark ridge of many a heaving swell of living water--but,
"Thomas Cringle, ahoy where the devil are you cruising to" So, to come
back to my story. I went aft, and mounted the small poop, and looked
towards the aforesaid moon, a glorious resplendent tropical moon, and not
the paper lantern affair hanging in an atmosphere of fog and smoke, about
which your blear-eyed poets haven't so much. By the by, these gentry
are fond of singing of the blessed sun--were they sailors they would
bless the moon also, and be--to them, in place of writing much
wearisome poetry regarding her blighting propensities. But I have lost
the end of my yarn once more, in the strands of these parentheses. Lord,
what a word to pronounce in the plural!--I can no more get out now, than
a girl's silk worm from the innermost of a nest of pill boxes, where, to
ride the simile to death at once, I have warped the thread of my story so
round and round me, that I can't for the life of me unravel it. Very odd
all this. Since I have recovered of this fever, every thing is slack
about me; I can't set up the shrouds and backstays of my mind, not to
speak of bobstays, if I should die for it. The running rigging is all
right enough, and the canvass is there; but I either can't set it, or
when I do, I find I have too little ballast, or I get involved amongst
shoals, and white water, and breakers--don't you hear them roar?--which I
cannot weather, and crooked channels, under some lee-shore, through
which I cannot scrape clear. So down must go the anchor, as at present,
and there--there goes the chain cable, rushing and rumbling through the
hausehole. But I suppose it will be all right by and by, as I get
stronger.

"But rouse thee, Thomas!  Where is this end of your yarn, that you are
blameying about?"

"Avast heaving, you swab you--avast--if you had as much calomel in your
corpus as I have at this present speaking--why you would be a lad of more
mettle than I take you for, that is all.--You would have about as much
quicksilver in your stomach, as I have in my purse, and all my silver has
been quick, ever since I remember, like the jests of the gravedigger in
Hamlett--but, as you say, where the devil is the end of this yarn?"

Ah, here it is! so off we go again--and looked forward towards the rising
moon, whose shining wake of glow-worm-coloured light, sparkling in the
small waves, that danced in the gentle wind on the heaving bosom of the
dark blue sea, was right a-head of us, like a river of quicksilver with
its course diminished in the distance to a point, flowing towards us,
from the extreme verge of the horizon, through a rolling sea of ink, with
the waters of which for a time it disdained to blend. Concentrated, and
shining like polished silver afar off--intense and sparkling as it
streamed down nearer, but becoming less and less brilliant as it Widened
in its approach to us, until, like the stream of the great Estuary of the
Magdalena, losing itself in the salt waste of waters, it gradually melted
beneath us and around us into the darkness.

I looked aloft--every object appeared sharply cut out against the dark
firmament, and the swaying of the mast-heads to and fro, as the vessel
rolled, was so steady and slow, that they seemed stationary, while it was
the moon and stars which appeared to vibrate and swing from side to side,
high over head, like the vacillation of the clouds in a theatre, when the
scene is first let down.

The masts, and yards, and standing and running rigging, looked like black
pillars, and bars, and wires of iron, reared against the sky, by some
mighty spirit of the night; and the sails, as the moon shone dimly
through them, were as dark as if they had been tarpawlings. But when I
walked forward and looked aft, what a beauteous change!  Now each mast,
with its gently swelling canvass, the higher sails decreasing in size,
until they tapered away nearly to a point, though topsail, topgallant
sail, royal and skysails, showed like towers of snow, and the cordage
like silver threads, while each dark spar seemed to be of ebony, fished
with ivory, as a flood of cold, pale, mild light streamed from the
beauteous planet over the whole stupendous machine, lighting up the sand
white decks, on which the shadows of the men, and of every object that
intercepted the moonbeams, were cast as strongly as if the planks had
been inlaid with jet.

There was nothing moving about the decks. The lookouts, aft, and at the
gangways, sat or stood like statues half bronze, half alabaster. The old
quartermaster, who was cunning the ship, and had perched himself on a
carronade, with his arm leaning on the weather nettings, was equally
motionless. The watch had all disappeared forward, or were stowed out of
sight under the lee of the boats; the first Lieutenant, as if captivated
by the serenity of the scene, was leaning with folded arms on the weather
gangway, looking abroad upon the ocean, and whistling now and then
either for a wind, or for want of thought. The only being who showed
sign of life was the man at the wheel, and he scarcely moved, except now
and then to give her a spoke or two, when the cheep of the tiller-rope,
running through the well-greased leading blocks, would grate on the ear
as a sound of some importance; while in daylight, in the ordinary bustle
of the ship, no one could say he ever heard it.

Three bells!--"Keep a bright look-out there," sung out the Lieutenant.

"Ay, ay, sir," from the four look-out men, in a volley.

Then from the weather-gangway, "All's well" rose shrill into the night
air.

The watchword was echoed by the man on the forecastle, re-echoed by the
lee-gangway look-out, and ending with the response of the man on the
poop. My dream was dissipated--and so was the first lieutenant's, who
had but little poetry in his composition, honest man.

"Fine night, Mr Cringle. Look aloft, how beautifully set the sails are;
that mizzen-topsail is well cut, eh? Sits well, don't it? But confound
the lubbers!  Boatswain's mate, call the watch."

Whi--whew, whi--whew, chirrup, chip, chip--the deck was alive in an
instant, "as bees biz out wi" angry fyke.

"Where is the captain of the mizzen-top?" growled the man in authority.

"Here, sir."

"Here, sir!--look at the weather-clew of the mizzen-topsail, sir, look
at that sail, sir,--how many turns can you count in that clew, sir?
Spring it, you no--sailor you--spring it, and set the sail again."

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable all this appeared to me at the
time I will remember; but the obnoxious turns were shaken out, and the
sail set again so as to please even the fastidious eye of the Lieutenant,
who, seeing nothing more to find fault with, addressed me once more.

"Have had no grub since morning, Mr Cringle; all the others are away in
the prizes; you are as good as one of us now, only want the order to
join, you know--so will you oblige me, and take charge of the deck, until
I go below and change my clothes, and gobble a bit?"

"Unquestionably,--with much pleasure."

He forthwith dived, and I walked aft a few steps towards where the old
quartermaster was standing on the gun.

"How is her head, Quartermaster?"

"South-east and by south, sir. If the wind holds, we shall weather
Morant Point, I think, sir."

"Very like, very like.--What is that glancing backwards and forwards
across the port-hole there, Quartermaster?"

"I told you so, Mafame," said the man; "what are you skylarking about the
mizen-chains for, man?--Come in, will you, come in."

The Captain's caution to his servant flashed on me.

"Come in, my man, and give my respects to the Captain, and tell him that
I am quite well now; the fresh air has perfectly restored me."

"I will, sir," said Mafame, half ashamed at being detected in his office
of inspector-general of my actions; but the Doctor, to whom he had been
sent, having now got a leisure moment from his labour in the shambles,
came up and made enquiries as to how I felt.

"Why, Doctor, I thought I was in for a fever half an hour ago, but it is
quite gone off, or nearly so--there, feel my pulse."--It was regular, and
there was no particular heat of skin.

"Why, I don't think there is much the matter with you. Mafame, tell the
Captain so; but turn in and take some rest as soon as you can, and I will
see you in the morning--and here," feeling in his waistcoat pocket, "here
are a couple of capers for you; take them now, will you?" (And he handed
me two blue pills, which I the next moment chucked overboard, to cure
some bilious dolphin of the liver complaint.) I promised to do so
whenever the Lieutenant relieved the deck, which would, I made no
question, be within half an hour.

"Very well, that will do--good-night. I am regularly done up myself,"
quoth the Medico, as he descended to the gunroom.

At this time of night, the prizes were all in a cluster under our lee
quarter, like small icebergs covered with snow, and carrying every rag
they could set. The Gleam was a good way a-stern, as if to whip them
in, and to take care that no stray piccaroon should make a dash at any of
them. They slid noiselessly along like phantoms of the deep, every thing
in the air and in the water was so still--I crossed to the lee side of
the deck to look at them--The Wave, seeing some one on the hammock
nettings, sheered close to, under the Firebrand's lee quarter, and some
one asked, "Do you want to speak us?" The man's voice, reflected from the
concave surface of the schooner's mainsail, had a hollow, echoing sound,
that startled me.

"I should know that voice," said I to myself, "and the figure steering
the schooner."

The throbbing in my head and the dizzy feel, which had capsized my
judgment in the cabin, again returned with increased violence--"It was no
deception after all," thought I, "no cheat of the senses--I now believe
such things are."

The same voice now called out, "Come away, Tom, come away," no doubt to
some other seaman on board the little vessel, but my heated fancy did not
so construe it. The col real again overtook me, and I ejaculated, "God
have mercy upon me a sinner!"

"Why don't you come, Tom?" said the voice once more.

It was Obed's. At this very instant of time, the Wave forged a-head
into the Firebrand's shadow, so that her sails, but a moment before white
as wool in the bright moonbeams suffered a sudden eclipse, and became
black as ink.

"His dark spirit is there," said I, audibly, "and calls me--go I will,
whatever may befall."

I hailed the schooner, or rather I had only to speak, and that in a low
tone, for she was now close under the counter "Send your boat, for since
you call, I know I must come."

A small canoe slid off her deck; two ship boys got into it, and pulled
under the starboard mizzen-chains, which entirely concealed them, as
they held on for a moment with a boat-hook in the dark shadow of the
ship. This was done so silently, that neither the lookout on the poop,
who was rather on the weather-side at the moment, nor the man at the lee
gangway, who happened to be looking out forward, heard them, or saw me,
as I slipped down unperceived.

"Pull back again, my lads; quick now, quick."

In a moment, I was along-side, the next I was on deck, and in this short
space a change had come over the spirit of my dream, for I now was again
conscious that I was on board the Wave with a prize crew. My imagination
had taken another direction.

"Now Mr----, I beg pardon, I forget your name,"--I had never heard it,
"make more sail, and haul out from the fleet for Mancheoneal Bay; I have
despatches for the admiral--So, crack on."

The midshipman who was in charge of her never for an instant doubted but
that all was right; sail was made, and as the light breeze was the very
thing for the little Wave, she began to snorer through it like smoke.
When she had shot a cable's length a-head of the Firebrand, we kept away
a point or two, so as to stand more in for the land, and, like most
maniacs, I was inwardly exulting at the success of my manoeuvre, when we
heard the corvette's bell struck rapidly. Her maintop-sail was suddenly
laid to the mast, whilst a loud voice echoed amongst the sails--"Any one
see hi--in in the waist--anybody see him forward there?"

"No, sir, no."

"After guard, fire, and let go the life--buoy--lower away the quarter
boats--jolly-boat also."

We saw the flash, and presently the small blue light of the buoy, blazing
and disappearing, as it rose and fell on the waves, in the corvette's
wake, sailed away astern, sparkling fitfully, like an ignis fatuus. The
cordage rattled through the davit blocks, as the boats dashed into the
water--the splash of the oars was heard, and presently the twinkle of the
life-buoy was lost in the lurid glare of the blue lights, held aloft in
each boat, where the crews were standing up, looking like spectres by the
ghastly blaze, and anxiously peering about for some sign of the drowning
man.

"A man overboard," was repeated from one to another of the prize crew.

"Sure enough," said I.

"Shall we stand back, sir?" said the midshipman.

"To what purpose?--there are enough there without us--no, no; crack on,
we can do no good--carry on, carry on!"

We did so, and I now found severe shooting pains, more racking than the
sharpest rheumatism I had ever suffered, pervading my whole body. They
increased until I suffered the most excruciating agony, as if my bones
had been converted into red-hot tubes of iron, and the marrow in them
had been dried up with fervent heat, and I was obliged to beg that a
hammock might be spread on deck, on which I lay down, pleading great
fatigue and want of sleep as my excuse.

My thirst was unquenchable; the more I drank, the hotter it became. My
tongue, and mouth, and throat, were burning, as if molten lead had been
poured down into my stomach, while the most violent retching came on
every ten minutes. The prize crew, poor fellows, did all they could
once or twice they seemed about standing back to the ship, but, "make
sail, make sail," was my only cry. They did so, and there I lay without
any thing between me and the wet planks but a thin sailor's blanket and
the canvass of the hammock, through the livelong night, and with no
covering but a damp boatcloak, raving at times during the hot fits, at
others having my power of utterance frozen up during the cold ones. The
men, once or twice, offered to carry me below, but the idea was horrible
to me.

"No, no--not there--for heaven's sake not there!  If you do take me down,
I am sure I shall see him, and the dead mate--No, no overboard rather,
throw me overboard rather."

Oh, what would I not have given for the luxury of a flood of tears!--But
the fountains of mine eyes were dried up, and seared as with a red-hot
iron--my skin was parched, and hot, hot, as if every pore had been
hermetically sealed; there was a hell within me and about me as if the
deck on which I lay had been steel at a white heat, and the gushing
blood, as under the action of a force-pump, throbbed through my head,
like it would have burst on my brain--and such a racking, splitting
headache--no language can describe it, and yet ever and anon in the midst
of this raging fire, this furnace at my heart, seven times heated, a
sudden icy shivering chill would shake me, and pierce through and through
me, even when the roasting fever was at the hottest.

At length the day broke on the long, long, moist, steamy night, and once
more the sun rose to bless every thing but me. As the morning wore on,
my torments increased with the heat, and I lay sweltering on deck, in a
furious delirium, held down forcibly by two men, who were relieved by
others every now and then, while I raved about Obed, and Paul, and the
scenes I had witnessed on board during the chase, and in the attack.
None of my rough but kind nurses expected I could have held on till
nightfall; but shortly after sunset I became more collected, and, as I
was afterwards told, whenever any little office was performed for me,
whenever some drink was held to my lips, I would say to the gruff
sunburnt, black-whiskered, square shouldered topman who might be my
Ganymede for the occasion, "Thank you, Mary; Heaven bless your pale face,
Mary; bless you, bless you!"

It  seemed  my fancy had shaken itself clear of the fearful objects  that
had  so  pertinaciously  haunted me before, and  occupying  itself  with
pleasing recollections, had produced a corresponding cahn in the  animal;
but the poor fellow to whom I had expressed myself so endearingly, was, I
learned, most awfully put out and dismayed. He twisted and  turned  his
iron  features  into  all  manner of ludicrous  combinations, under  the
laughter  of  his mates--"Now, Peter, may I be--but I would  rather  be
shot at, than hear the poor young gentleman so quiz me in his madness."

Then  again--as I praised his lovely taper fingers--they were  more  like
bunches of frosted carrots, dipped in a tar-bucket, with the tails snapt
short off, where about an inch thick.

"My taper fingers--oh lord!  Now, Peter, I can't stomach this any longer,
I'll  give you my grog for the next two days, if you will take my  spell
here--My taper fingers--murder!"

As  the evening closed in we saw the high land of Jamaica, but it was the
following  afternoon before we were off the entrance of Mancheoneal  Bay.
All  this  period, although  it must have been  one  of  great  physical
suffering, has  ever, to my ethereal part, remained a dead  blank.  The
first  thing I remember afterwards, was being carried ashore in the  dark
in  a  hammock slung on two oars, so as to form a sort of rude palanquin,
and  laid  down  at a short distance from the overseer's house  where  my
troubles  had originally commenced. I soon became perfectly sensible  and
collected, but I was so weak I could not speak; after resting  a  little,
the  men  again  lifted me and proceeded. The door of the  dining-hall,
which was the back entrance into the overseer's house, opened flush  into
the  little  garden through which we had come in--there were lights, and
sounds  of music, singing, and jovialty within. The farther end  of  the
room, at the door of which I now rested, opened into the piazza, or  open
veranda, which crossed it at right angles, and constituted the front  of
the  house, forming, with this apartment, a figure  somewhat  like  the
letter  T. I stood at the foot of the letter, as it were, and as I looked
towards  the  piazza, which was gaily lit up, I could see it was  crowded
with  male  and  female  negroes in their  holyday  apparel, with  their
wholesome clear brown-black skins, not blue-black as they appear in our
cold  country, and  beautiful white teeth, and  sparkling  black  eyes,
amongst  whom  were  several  gumbie-men and  flute-players, and  John
Canoes, as  the negro Jack Pudding is called; the latter distinguishable
by  wearing white false faces, and enormous shocks of horsehair, fastened
on  to their woolly pates. Their character hovers somewhere between that
of  a harlequin and a clown, as they dance about, and thread through  the
negro  groups, quizzing the women and slapping the men; and at  Christmas
time, the grand negro carnival, they don't confine their practical jokes
to  their  own colour, but take all manner of comical liberties with  the
whites equally with their fellow bondsmen.

The blackamoor visitors had suddenly, to all appearance, broken off their
dancing, and  were now clustered behind a rather remarkable  group, who
were  seated  at  supper  in the dining-room, near  to  where  I  stood,
forming, as it were, the foreground in the scene. Mr Fyall himself  was
there, and a rosy-gilled, happy-looking man, who I thought I had  seen
before; this  much I could discern, for the light fell strong  on  them,
especially  on  the face of the latter, which shone like a  star  of  the
first  magnitude, or a lighthouse in the red gleam--the usual  family  of
the  overseer, the book-keepers that is, and the worthy who had been the
proximate  cause of all my sufferings, the overseer himself, were  there
too, as  if they had been sitting still at table where I saw  them  now,
ever  since I left them three weeks before--at least my fancy did me  the
favour  to  annihilate, for the nonce, all intermediate time between  the
point  of  my  departure on the night of the cooper's  funeral, and  the
moment when I now revisited them.

I  was  lifted out of the hammock, and supported to the door between  two
seamen.  The  fresh, nice-looking man before  mentioned, Aaron  Bang,
Esquire, by name, an incipient planting attorney in the neighbourhood, of
great  promise, was in the act of singing a song, for it was during  some
holyday-time, which had broken down the stiff observances of  a  Jamaica
planter's life. There he sat, lolling back on his chair, with  his  feet
upon  the table, and a cigar, half consumed, in his hand. He had twisted
up  his  mouth  and  mirth-provoking nose, which, by  an  unaccountable
control over some muscle, present in the visage of no other human  being,
he  made  to  describe a small circle round the centre of his  face, and
slewing  his  head  on  one  side, he was  warbling, ore  Yotundo, some
melodious  ditty, with infinite complacency, and, to all  appearance, to
the great delight of his auditory, when his eyes lighted on me,--he was
petrified  in  a  moment, I seemed to have blasted  him,----his  warbling
ceased  instantaneously, the colour faded from his cheeks, but  there  he
sat, with open mouth, and in the same attitude as if he still sung, and I
had  suddenly become deaf, or as if he and his immediate compotators, and
the group of blackies beyond, had all been on the instant turned to stone
by a slap from one of their own John Canoes. I must have been in truth a
terrible  spectacle; my skin was yellow, not as saffron, but as the  skin
of a ripe lime; the white of my eyes, to use an Irishism, ditto; my mouth
and  lips had festered and broke out, as we say in Scotland; my head  was
bound  round with a napkin--none of the cleanest, you may swear; my dress
was  a  pair  of dirty duck trowsers, and my shirt, with the  boat-cloak
that  had been my only counterpane on board of the little vessel, hanging
from my shoulders.

Lazarus  himself could scarcely have been a more appalling  object, when
the  voice  of  him  who spoke as never man spake, said, "Lazarus  come
forth."

I  made  an unavailing attempt to cross the threshold, but could not.  I
was  spellbound, or there was an invisible barrier erected  against  me,
which  I  could  not  overleap. The buzzing in my  ears, the  pain  and
throbbing in my head, and racking aches, once more bent me to the earth,
ill  and  reduced as I was, a relapse, thought I; and I felt my  judgment
once  more giving way before the sweltering fiend, who had retreated  but
for  a  moment  to renew his attacks with still greater fierceness.  The
moment  he once more entered into me--the instant that I was possessed--I
cannot  call  it  by  any other name--an unnatural strength  pervaded  my
shrunken muscles and emaciated frame, and I stepped boldly into the hall.
While I had stood at the door, listless and feeble as a child, hanging on
the  arms  of the two topmen, after they had raised me from the  hammock,
the  whole  party  had  sat silently gazing at me, with  their  faculties
paralysed  with terror. But now, when I stumped into the room  like  the
marble  statue  in Don Juan, and glared on them, my eyes  sparkling  with
unearthly brilliancy under the fierce distemper which had anew thrust its
red  hot fingers into my maw, and was at the moment seething my brain  in
its  hellish caldron, the negroes in the piazza, one and all, men, women,
and  children, evanished into the night, and  the  whole  party  in  the
foreground  started  to  their  legs, as  if  they  had  been   suddenly
galvanized; the  table and chairs were overset, and  whites  and  blacks
trundled, and scrambled, and bundled over and over each other, neck  and
crop, as if the very devil had come to invite them to dinner in  propria
personal horns, tail, and all.

"Duppy come!  Duppy come!  Massa Tom Cringle ghost stand at for we  door;
we  all shall dead, oh--we all shall go dead, oh!" bellowed the father of
gods, my old ally Jupiter.

"Guid guide us, that's an awful sicht!" quod the Scotch bookkeeper.

"By the hockeytt speak if you be a ghost, or I'll exercise [exorcise]  ye
wid  this  butt of a musket," quoth the cowboy@an Irishman  to  be  sure,
whose  round bullet head was discernible in the human mass, by his black,
twinkling, half-drunken-looking eyes.

"Well-a-day,"  groaned another of them, a Welshman, I believe, with  a
face  as  long as my arm, and a drawl worthy of a Methodist parson; "and
what can it be-flesh and blood, it is not--can these dry bones live?"

Ill as I was, however, I could perceive that all this row had now more of
a  tipsy frolic in it--whatever it might have had at first--than absolute
fear; for  the  red-faced visitor, and Mr Fyall, as  if  half  ashamed,
speedily  extricated  themselves from the  chaos  of  chairs  and  living
creatures, righted the table, replaced the candles, and having sat  down,
looking as grave as judges on the bench, Aaron Bang exclaimed--"I'll  bet
a  dozen, it is the poor fellow himself returned on our hands, half-dead
from  the  rascally  treatment he has met with  at  the  hands  of  these
smuggling thieves!"

"Smugglers, or no," said Fyall, "you are right for once, my peony rose, I
do believe."

But Aaron was a leetle staggered, notwithstanding, when I stumped towards
him, as  already described, and he shifted back and back as I  advanced,
with  a  most  laughable cast of countenance, between jest  and  earnest,
while  Fyall kept shouting to him--"If it be his ghost, try him in Latin,
Mr  Bang--speak Latin to him, Aaron Bang--nothing for a ghost like Latin,
it is their mother tongue."

Bang, who, it seemed, plumed himself on his erudition, forthwith began
"Quae  maribus solum tribuunter." Aaron's conceit of exorcising a  spirit
with the fag-end of an old grammar rule would have tickled me under most
circumstances; but I was far past laughing. I had more need, God  help
me, to pray. I made another step. He hitched his chair back. "Bam, Bo,
Rem!"  shouted  the  incipient planting attorney. Another  hitch, which
carried  him clean out of the supper-room, and across the narrow piazza;
but, in this last movement, he made a regular false step, the two back
feet  of  his  chair  dropping over the first step of the  front  stairs,
whereupon  he  lost  his  balance, and  toppling  over, vanished  in  a
twinkling, and rolled down half-a-dozen steps, heels over head, until
he lay sprawling on the manger or mule-trough before the door, where the
Ceases  are fed under busha's own eye on all estates--for this  excellent
and  most  cogent  reason, that  otherwise  the  maize  or  guinea-com,
belonging of right to poor mulo, would generally go towards improving the
condition, not of the quadruped, but of the biped quashiet who had charge
of him--and there he lay in a convulsion of laughter.

The  two  seamen, who  supported  me between  them, were  at  first  so
completely  dumfoundered  by all this, that they  could  not  speak.  At
length, however, Timothy Tailtackle lost his patience, and  found  his
tongue.

"This may be Jamaica frolic, good gentlemen, and all very comical in  its
way; but, d----n me, if it be either gentlemanlike or Christian like, to be
after  funning  and fuddling, while a fellow creature, and his  Majesty's
commissioned officer to boot, stands before you, all but dead of  one  of
your blasted fevers."

The  honest  fellow's straightforward appeal, far from giving offence  to
the  kindhearted people to whom it was made, was not only taken  in  good
part, but  Mr Fyall himself took the lead in setting the whole household
immediately to work, to have me properly cared for. The best room in the
house  was  given up to me. I was carefully shifted and put to  bed; but
during  all that night and the following day, I was raving in  a  furious
fever, so  that I had to be forcibly held down in my bed, sometimes  for
half an hour at a time.

I  say, messmate, have you ever had the yellow fever, the vomito prieto,
black  vomit, as the Spaniards call it?--No?--have you ever  had  a  bad
bilious fever then? No bad bilious fever either?--Why, then, you  are  a
most unfortunate creature; for you have never known what it was to be  in
Heaven, nor eke the other place. Oh the delight, the blessedness of  the
languor of recovery, when one finds himself in a large airy room, with  a
dreamy  indistinct  recollection of great past suffering, endured  in  a
small  miserable vessel within the tropics, where you have  been  roasted
one moment by the vertical rays of the sun, and the next annealed hissing
hot  by  the  salt sea spray;--in a broad luxurious bed, some cool  sunny
morning, with  the fresh sea breeze whistling through the  open  windows
that  look  into the piazza, and rustling the folds of the  clean  wire
gauze  musquitto net that serves you for bed-curtains; while beyond  you
look  forth  into the sequestered court-yard, overshadowed by  one  vast
umbrageous  kennip tree, that makes every thing look green and  cool  and
fresh beneath, and whose branches the rushing wind is rasping cheerily on
the  shingles of the roof-and oh, how passing sweet is the lullaby  from
the  humming of numberless glancing bright-hued flies, of all sorts  and
sizes, sparkling among the green leaves like chips of a prism, and  the
fitful whirring of the fairy-flitting humming bird, now here, now there,
like  winged gems, or living atoms of the rainbow, round which their tiny
wings, moving too quickly to be visible, form little haloes--and the palm
tree at the house-corner is shaking its long hard leaves, making a sound
for  all the world like the pattering of rain; and the orange-tree  top,
with  ripe fruit, and green fruit, and white blossoms, is waving  to  and
fro  flush  with the window-sill, dashing the fragrant odour  into  your
room  at  every whish; and the double Jessamine is twining up  the  papaw
(whose fruit, if rubbed on a bull's hide, immediately converts it into  a
tender  beef-steak) and absolutely stifling you with sweet perfume; and
then  the sangaree old Madeira, two parts of water, no more, and nutmeg
and  not  a  taste out of a thimble, but a rummerful of it, my boy, that
would  drown your first-born at his christening, if he slipped into  it,
and  no stinting in the use of this ocean; on the contrary, the tidy  old
brown nurse, or mayhap a buxom young one, at your bedside, with ever  and
anon a lettle more panada, (d----n panada, I had forgotten that!) "and  den
some  more sangaree; it will do massa good, strengthen him tomack"--and,
but I am out of breath, and must lie to for a brief space.

I opened my eyes late in the morning of the second day after landing, and
saw Mr Fyall and the excellent Aaron Bang sitting one on each side of  my
bed. Although weak as a sucking infant, I had a strong persuasion on  my
mind  that all danger was over, and that I was convalescent.  I  had  no
feverish symptom whatsoever, but felt cool and comfortable, with  a  fine
balmy  moisture  on  my  skin; as  yet, however, I  spoke  with  great
difficulty.

Aaron noticed this.

"Don't  exert yourself too much, Tom; take it coolly, man, and thank  God
that you are now fairly round the corner. Is your head painful?"

"No--why should it?"

Mr  Fyall  smiled, and I put up my hand--it was all I could  do, for  my
limbs  appeared loaded with lead at the extremities, and when  I  touched
any  part of my frame, with my hand for instance, there was no concurring
sensation conveyed by the nerves of the two parts; sometimes I felt as if
touched by the hand of another; at others, as if I had touched the person
of  some  one  else.  When I raised my hand to my forehead, my  fingers
instinctively moved to take hold of my hair, for I was in no small degree
proud  of  some  luxuriant brown curls, which the women used  to  praise.
Alas and alack-a-day! in place of ringlets, glossy with Macassar oil, I
found a cool young tender plantain-leaf bound round my temples.

"What is all this?" said I. "A kale-blade, where my hair used to be!"

"How came this kale-blade here,
And how came it here?"

Sung  friend Bang, laughing, for he had great powers of laughter, and  I
saw he kept his quizzical face turned towards some object at the head  of
the bed, which I could not see.

"You may say that, Aaron--where's my wig, you rogue, eh?"

"Never mind, Tom," said Fyall, "your hair will soon grow again, won't it,
miss?"

"Miss!  miss!" and I screwed my neck round, and lo!--"Ah, Mary, and  are
you  the  Delilah who have shorn my locks--you wicked young  female  lady
you!"

She  smiled  and  nodded to Aaron, who was a deuced  favourite  with  the
ladies, black, brown, and white, (I give the pas to the  staple  of  the
country--hope no offence,) as well as with every one else who  ever  knew
him.

"How dare you, friend Bang, shave and blister my head, you dog?" said I.
"You cannibal Indian, you have scalped me; you are a regular Mohawk."

"Never mind, Tom--never mind, my boy," said he. "Ay, you may blush, Mary
Palma.  Cringle  there will fight, but he will have 'Palmam  qui  meruit
ferat' for his motto yet, take my word for it."

The  sight  of  my cousin's lovely face, and the heavenly  music  of  her
tongue, made me so forgiving, that I could be angry with no one.--At this
moment a nice-looking elderly man slid into the room as noiselessly as a
cat.

"How  are  you, Lieutenant? Why, you are positively gay  this  morning!
Preserve me!--why have you taken off the dressing from your head?"

"Preserve  me--you may say that, Doctor--why, you seem to have  preserved
me, and pickled me after a very remarkable fashion, certainly!  Why, man,
do you intend to make a mummy of me, with all your swaddlings? Now, what
is that crackling on my chest? More plantain-leaves, as I live!"

"Only another blister, sir."

"Only another blister--and my feet--Zounds! what have you been doing with
my feet? The soles are as tender as if I had been bastinadoed."

"Only cataplasms, sir; mustard and bird-pepper poultices nothing more."

"Mustard and bird-pepper poultices!--and pray, what is that long fiddle
case supported on two chairs in the piazza!"

"What  case?" said the good Doctor, and his eye followed mine.  "Oh, my
gun-case.  I  am a great sportsman, you must know--but draw  down  that
blind, Mr Bang, if you please, the breeze is too strong."

"Gun-case!  I  would  rather have taken it for your  game-box, Doctor.
However, thanks be to Heaven, you have not bagged me this bout."

At  this moment, I heard a violent scratching and jumping on the roof  of
the house, and presently a loud croak, and a strong rushing noise, as  of
a large bird taking flight--"What is that, Doctor?"

"The  devil," said he, laughing, "at least your evil genius, Lieutenant,
it  is  the  carrion crows, the large John--Crows, as  they  are  called,
flying  away.  They have been holding a council of war  upon  you  since
early dawn, expecting (I may tell you, now you are so well) that it might
likely soon turn into a coroner's inquest."

"John--Crow!--Coroner's inquest!--Cool shavers those  West  India  chaps,
after  all!" muttered I; and again I lay back, and offered up my  heart,
warm thanks to the Almighty, for his great mercy to me a sinner.

My aunt and cousin had been on a visit in the neighbourhood, and overnight
Mr Fyall had kindly sent for them to receive my last sigh, for  to all
appearance  I was fast going. Oh, the gratitude of  my  heart, the
tears  of joy I wept in my weak blessedness, and the overflowing of heart
that I experienced towards that almighty and ever-merciful Being who had
spared me, and brought me out of my great sickness, to look round on dear
friends, and on the idol of my heart, once more, after all  my  grievous
sufferings!   I  took  Mary's hand--I could not  raise  it  for  lack  of
strength, or  I would have kissed it; but, as she leant over  me, Fyall
came behind her and gently pressed her sweet lips to mine, while the dear
girl  blushed as red as Aaron Bang's face. By this my aunt  herself  had
come  into  the room, and a warm congratulations, and last, although  not
least, Timothy  Tailtackle made his appearance  in  the  piazza  at  the
window, with  a  clean, joyful, well shaven countenance.  He  grinned,
turned his quid, pulled up his trowsers, smoothed down his hair with  his
hand, and  gave a sort of half-tipsy shamble, meant for a  bow, as  he
entered the bedroom.

"You have forereached on Davy this time, sir. Heaven be praised for  it!
He  was  close aboard of you, howsomdever, sir, once or twice."  Then  he
bowed round the room again, with a sort of swing or caper, whichever  you
choose  to  call  it, as if he had been the party obliged. "Kind  folk,
these, sir," he continued, in what was meant for sotto voce, and for  my
ear  alone, but it was more like the growling of a mastiff puppy than any
thing else. "Kind folk, sir--bad as their mountebanking looked the first
night, sir--why, Lord bless your honour, may they make a marine of me, if
they  han't  set a Bungo to wait on us, Bill and I, that is--and  we  has
grog more than does us good--and grub, my eye!--only think, sir--Bill and
Timothy  Tailtackle waited on by a black Bungo!" and he  doubled  himself
up, chuckling and hugging himself, with infinite glee.

"All  now  went  merry as a marriage bell." I was carefully  conveyed  to
Kingston, where  I rallied under my aunt's hospitable roof, as  rapidly
almost  as I had sickened, and within a fortnight, all bypast strangeness
explained  to  my  superiors, I  at length  occupied  my  berth  in  the
Firebrand's gunroom, as third lieutenant of the ship.



CHAPTER XI.--More Scenes in Jamaica.


     There be land-rats and water-rats--water-thieves
     and land-thieves I mean pirates.

     The Merchant Of Venice, I. iii. 22--24.


The malady from whose fangs I had just escaped, was at this time making
fearful ravages amongst the troops and white inhabitants of Jamaica
generally; nor was the squadron exempted from the afflicting visitation,
although it suffered in a smaller degree.

I had occasion at this time to visit Uppark camp, a military post about
a mile and a half from Kingston, where two regiments of infantry, and a
detachment of artillery, were stationed.

In the forenoon, I walked out in company with an officer, a relation of
my own, whom I had gone to visit; enjoying the fresh sea breeze that
whistled past us in half a gale of wind, although the sun was vertical,
and shining into the bottom of a pint pot, as the sailors have it.

The barracks were built on what appeared to me a very dry situation
(although I have since heard it alleged that there was a swamp to
windward of it, over which the sea breeze blew, but this I did not see,)
considerably elevated above the hot sandy plain on which Kingston
stands, and sloping gently towards the sea. They were splendid, large,
airy two story buildings, well raised off the ground on brick pillars,
so that there was a perfectly free ventilation of air between the
surface of the earth and the floor of the first story, as well as
through the whole of the upper rooms. A large balcony, or piazza, ran
along the whole of the south front, both above and below, which shaded
the brick shell of the house from the sun, and afforded a cool and
convenient lounge for the men. The outhouses of all kinds were well
thrown back into the rear, so that in front there was nothing to
intercept the sea-breeze. The officers' quarters stood in advance of
the men's barracks, and were, as might be expected, still more
comfortable; and in front of all were the field-officer's houses, the
whole of substantial brick and mortar. This superb establishment stood
in an extensive lawn, not surpassed in beauty by any nobleman's park
that I had ever seen. It was immediately after the rains when I visited
it; the grass was luxuriant and newly cut, and the trees, which grew in
detached clumps, were most magnificent. We clambered up into one of
them, a large umbrageous wild cotton-tree, which cast a shadow on the
ground--the sun being, as already mentioned, right overhead--of thirty
paces in diameter; but still it was but a dwarfish plant of its kind,
for I have measured others whose gigantic shadows, at the same hour,
were upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and their
trunks, one in particular that overhangs the Spanish Town road, twenty
feet through of solid timber; that is, not including the enormous spurs
that shoot out like buttresses, and end in strong twisted roots, that
strike deep into the earth, and form stays, as it were, to the tree in
all directions.

Our object, however--publish it not in Askalon was, not so much to
admire the charms of nature, as to enjoy the luxury of a real Havannah
cigar, in solitary comfort; and a glorious perch we had selected. The
shade was grateful beyond measure. The fresh breeze was rushing, almost
roaring, through the leaves and groaning branches, and every thing
around was green, and fragrant, and Cool, and delicious; by comparison
that is, for the thermometer would, I daresay, have still vouched for
eighty degrees. The branches overhead were alive with a variety of
beautiful lizards, and birds of the gayest plumage; amongst others, a
score of small chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and
playing at bopeep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild
pine, (a sort of Brobdignag parasite, that grows, like the mistletoe, in
the clefts of the larger trees,) to which they clung, as green and
shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping their little
heads and shoulders over to peer at us; while the red-breasted
woodpecker kept drumming on every hollow part of the bark, for all the
world, like old Kelson, the carpenter of the Torch, tapping along the
top sides for the dry rot. All around us the men were lounging about in
the shade, and sprawling on the grass in their foraging caps and light
jackets, with an officer here and there lying reading, or sauntering
about, bearding Phoebus himself, to watch for a shot at a swallow, as it
skimmed past; while goats and horses, sheep and cattle, were browsing
the fresh grass, or sheltering themselves from the heat beneath the
trees. All nature seemed alive and happy--a little drowsy from the heat
or so, but that did not much signify--when two carts, each drawn by a
mule, and driven by a negro, approached the tree whereon we were
perched. A solitary sergeant accompanied them, and they appeared, when
a bowshot distant, to be loaded with white deal boxes.

I paid little attention to them until they drove under the tree.

"I say, Snowdrop," said the non-commissioned officer, "where be them
black rascals, them pioneers--where is the fateague party, my Lily
white, who ought to have the trench dug by this time?"

"Dere now," grumbled the negro, "dere now--easy ting to deal wid white
gentleman, but debil cannot satisfy dem worsted sash." Then aloud--"Me
no know, sir--me can't tell--no for me business to dig hole--I only
carry what you fill him up wid;" and the vampire, looking over his
shoulder, cast his eye towards his load, and grinned until his white
teeth glanced from ear to ear.

"Now," said the Irish sergeant, "I could brain you, but it is not worth
while!"--I question if he could, however, knowing as I did the thickness
of their skulls, "Ah, here they come!"--and a dozen half drunken, more
than half-naked, bloated, villainous-looking blackamoors, with shovels
and pick-axes on their shoulders, came along the road, laughing and
singing most lustily. They passed beneath where we sat, and, when about
a stonecast beyond, they all jumped into a trench or pit, which I had
not noticed before, about twenty feet long, by eight wide. It was
already nearly six feet deep, but it seemed they had instructions to
sink it further, for they first plied their pickaxes, and then began to
shovel out the earth. When they had completed their labour, the
sergeant, who had been superintending their operations, returned to
where the carts were still standing beneath the tree. One of them had
six coffins in it, with the name of the tenant of each, and number of
his company, marked in red chalk on the smallest end!

"I say, Snowdrop," said the sergeant, "how do you come to have only five
bodies, when Cucumbershin there has six?"

"To be sure I hab no more as five, and weight enough too. You no see
Corporal Bumblechops dere? You knows how big he was."

"Well, but where is Sergeant Heavystern? why did you not fetch him away
with the others?"

The negro answered doggedly, "Massa Sergeant, you should remember dem no
die of consumption--cough you call him--nor fever and ague, nor any ting
dat waste dem--for tree day gone--no more--all were mount guard--tout and
fat; so as for Sergeant Heavystern, him left in de dead-house at de
hospital."

"I guessed as much, you dingy tief," said the sergeant, "but I will
break your bones, if you don't give me a sufficing reason why you left
him."--And he approached Snowdrop, with his cane raised in act to
strike.

"Top, massa," shouted the negro; "me will tell you--Dr Plaget desire dat
Heavystern should be leave."

"Confound Dr Plaget"--and he smote the pioneer across the pate, whereby
he broke his stick, although, as I anticipated, without much hurting his
man--but the sergeant instantly saw his error, and with the piece of the
baton he gave Snowdrop a tap on the shin-bone, that set him pirouetting
on one leg, with the other in his hand, like a tee-totum.

"Why, sir, did you not bring as many as Cucumbershin, sir?" "Becaase"
screamed  Snowdrop, in great wrath, now all alive and kicking  from  the
smart--"Becaase Cucumbershin is loaded wid light infantry, sir, and  all
of mine are grenadier, Massa Sergeant--dat dem good reason surely!"

"No, it is not, sir; go back and fetch Heavystern immediately, or by the
powers but I will"--"Massa Sergeant, you must be mad--Dr Plaget--you
won't yeerie--but him say, five grenadier--especially wid Corporal
Bumblechop for one--is good load--ay, wery tif load--equal to seven
tallion company [battallion, I presume], and more better load, great
deal, den six light infantry--beside him say, tell Sergeant Pivot to
send you back at five in de afternoon wid four more coffin, by which
time he would have anoder load, and in trute de load was ready prepare
in de deadhouse before I come away, only dem were not well cold just
yet."

I was mightily shocked at all this--but my chum took it very coolly.--He
slightly raised one side of his mouth, and, giving a knowing wink with
his eye, lighted a fresh cigar, and continued to puff away with all the
composure in the world.

At length the forenoon wore away, and the bugles sounded for dinner,
when we adjourned to the messroom. It was a very large and handsome
saloon, standing alone in the lawn, and quite detached from all the
other buildings, but the curtailed dimensions of the table in the middle
of it, and the ominous crowding together of the regimental plate, like a
show-table in Rundle and Bridge's back shop, gave startling proofs of
the ravages of the "pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the
destruction that wasteth at noonday;" for although the whole regiment
was in barracks, there were only nine covers laid, one of which was for
me. The lieutenant-colonel, the major, and, I believe, fifteen other
officers, had already been gathered to their fathers, within four months
from the day on which the regiment landed from the transports. Their
warfare was o'er, and they slept well. At the first, when the insidious
disease began to creep on apace, and to evince its deadly virulence, all
was dismay and anxiety--downright, slavish, unmanly fear, even amongst
casehardened veterans, who had weathered the whole Peninsular war, and
finished off with Waterloo. The next week passed over--the mortality
increasing, but the dismay decreasing and so it wore on, until it
reached its horrible climax, at the time I speak of, by which period
there was absolutely no dread at all. A reckless gaiety had succeeded
not the screwing up of one's courage for the nonce, to mount a breach,
or to lay an enemy's frigate aboard, where the substratum of fear is
present, although cased over by an energetic exertion of the will; but
an unnatural light-heartedness, for which account, ye philosophers, for
I cannot--and this, too, amongst men who, although as steel in the
field, yet whenever a common cold overtook them in quarters, or a small
twinge of rheumatic pain, would, under other circumstances, have caudled
and beflannelled themselves, and bored you for your sympathy, at no
allowance, as they say.

The major elect, that is, the senior captain, was in the chair; as for
the lieutenant-colonel's vacancy, that was too high an aspiration for
any man in the regiment. A stranger of rank, and interest, and money,
would of course get that step, for the two deaths in the regimental
staff made but one captain a major, as my neighbour on the left hand
feelingly remarked. All was fun and joviality; we had a capital dinner,
and no allusion whatever, direct or indirect, was made to the prevailing
mortal epidemic, until the surgeon came in, about eight o'clock in the
evening.

"Sit down, doctor," said the president--"take some wine; can recommend
the Madeira, claret but so, so your health."

The doctor bowed, and soon became as happy and merry as the rest; so we
carried on, until about ten o'clock, when the lights began to waltz a
little, and propagate also, and I found I had got enough, or,
peradventure, a little more than enough, when the senior captain rose,
and walked very composedly out of the room--but I noticed him pinch the
doctor's shoulder as he passed.

The Medico thereupon stole quietly after him; but we did not seem to
miss either--a young sub had usurped the deserted throne, and there we
were all once more in full career, singing and bousing, and cracking.
bad jokes to our hearts' content. By-and-by, in comes the doctor once
more.

"Doctor," quoth young sub, "take some wine; can't recommend the Madeira
this time," mimicking his predecessor very successfully; "the claret,
you know, has been condemned, but a little hot brandy and water, eh?"

The doctor once more bowed his pate, made his hot stuff, and volunteered
a song.--After he had finished, and we had all hammered on the table to
his honour and glory, until every thing danced again as if it had been a
matter of very trivial concern, he said, "Sorry I was away so long; but
old Spatterdash has got a damned thick skin, I can tell you--could
scarcely get the lancet into him--I thought I should have had to send
for a spring phleme--to tip him the veterinary, you know--and he won't
take physic: so I fear he will have but a poor chance."

Spatterdash was no other than mine host who had just vacated!

"What, do you really think he is in for it?" said the second oldest
captain who sat next me; and as he spoke he drew his leg from beneath
the table, and, turning out his dexter heel, seemed to contemplate the
site of the prospective fixed spur.

"I do, indeed," quoth Dr Plaget. He died within three days!

But as I do not intend to write an essay on yellow fever, I will make an
end, and get on shipboard as fast as I can, after stating one strong
fact, authenticated to me by many unimpeachable witnesses. It is this;
that this dreadful epidemic, or contagious fever--call it which you will,
has never appeared, or been propagated at or beyond an altitude of 3000
feet above the level of the sea, although people seized with it on the
hot sultry plains, and removed thither, have unquestionably died. In a
country like Jamaica, with a range of lofty mountains, far exceeding
this height, intersecting the island through nearly its whole length,
might not Government, after satisfying themselves of the truth of the
fact, improve on the hint? Might not a main-guard suffice in Kingston,
for instance, while the regiments were in quarters half-way up the
Liguanea Mountains, within twelve miles actual distance from the town,
and within view of it, so that during the day, by a semaphore on the
mountain, and another at the barrack of the outpost, a constant and
instantaneous communication could be kept up, and, if need were, by
lights in the night?

The admiral, for instance, had a semaphore in the stationary flagship at
Port Royal, which communicated with another at his Pen, or residence,
near Kingston; and this again rattled off the information to the
mountain retreat, where he occasionally retired to careen; and it is
fitting to state also, that in all the mountain districts of Jamaica
which I visited, there is abundance of excellent water and plenty of
fuel. These matters are worth consideration, one would think; however,
allons--it is no business of Tom Cringle's.

Speaking of telegraphing, I will relate an anecdote here, if you will
wait until I mend my pen. I had landed at Greenwich wharf on duty--this
was the nearest point of communication between Port Royal and the
Admiral's Pen--where, finding the flag lieutenant, he drove me up in his
ketureen to lunch. While we were regaling ourselves, the old signalman
came into the piazza, and with several most remarkable obeisances, gave
us to know that there were flags hoisted on the signalmast, at the
mountain settlement, of which he could make nothing, the uppermost was
neither the interrogative, the affirmative, nor the negative, nor in
fact any thing that with the book he could make sense of.

"Odd enough," said the lieutenant; "hand me the glass," and he peered
away for half a minute. "Confound me if I can make heads or tails of it
either; there, Cringle, what do you think? How do you construe it?"

I took the telescope. Uppermost there was hoisted on the signal mast a
large tablecloth, not altogether immaculate, and under it a towel, as I
guessed, for it was too opaque for bunting, and too white, although I
could not affirm that it was fresh out of the fold either.

"I am puzzled," said I, as I spied away again. Meanwhile there was no
acknowledgment made at our semaphore--"There, down they go," I continued
"Why, it must be a mistake, Stop, here's a new batch going up above the
green trees--There goes the tablecloth once more, and the towel, and
deuce take me, if I can compare the lowermost to any thing but a
dishclout--why, it must be a dishclout."

The flags, or substitutes for them, streamed another minute in the
breeze, but as there was still no answer made from our end of the
string, they were once more hauled down--We waited another minute--"Why,
here goes the same signal up again, tablecloth, towel, dishclout, and
all--What the diable have we got here? A red ball, two pennants under.
What can that mean?--Ball--it is the bonnet-rouge, or I am a Dutchman,
with two short streamers" Another look--"A red night-cap and a pair of
stockings, by all that is portentous!" exclaimed I.

"Ah, I see, I see!" said the lieutenant, laughing, "signal-man,
acknowledge it."

It was done, and down came all the flags in a trice. It appeared, on
enquiry, that the washing cart, which ought to have been sent up that
morning, had been forgotten; and the Admiral and his secretary having
ridden out, there was no one who could make the proper signal for it.
So the old housekeeper took this singular method of having the cart
despatched, and it was sent off accordingly.

For the first week after I entered on my new office, I was busily
engaged on board; during which time my mind was quite made up, that the
most rising man in his Majesty's service, beyond all compare, was
Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, third of the Firebrand. During this eventful
period I never addressed a note to any friend on shore, or to a brother
officer, without writing in the left-hand lower corner of the envelope,
"Lieutenant Cringle," and clapping three dashing, &c. &c. &c below the
party's name for whom it was intended.

"Must let 'em know that an officer of my rank in the service knows
somewhat of the courtesies of life, eh?"

In about ten days, however, we had gotten the ship into high order and
ready for sea, and now the glory and honour of command, like my only
epaulet, that had been soaked while on duty in one or two showers, and
afterwards regularly bronzed in the sun, began to tarnish, and lose the
new gloss, like every thing else in this weary world. It was about this
time, while sitting at breakfast in the gunroom one fine morning, with
the other officers of our mess, gossiping about I hardly remember what,
that we heard the captain's voice on deck.

"Call the first lieutenant."

"He is at breakfast, sir," said the man, whoever he might have been, to
whom the order was addressed.

"Never mind then--Here, boatswain's mate--Pipe away the men who were
captured in the boats; tell them to clean themselves, and send
Mr----to me"--(This was the officer who had been taken prisoner along
with them in the first attack)--"they are wanted in Kingston at the trial
today. Stop, tell Mr Cringle also to get ready to go in the gig."

The pirates, to the amount of forty-five, had been transferred to
Kingston jail some days previously, preparatory to their trial, which,
as above-mentioned, was fixed for this day.

We pulled cheerily up to Kingston, and, landing at the Wherry wharf,
marched along the hot dusty streets, under a broiling sun, Captain
Transom, the other Lieutenant, and myself, in full puff, leading the
van, followed by about fourteen seamen, in white straw hats, with broad
black ribbons, and clean white frocks and trowsers, headed by a
boatswain's mate, with his silver whistle hung round his neck--as
respectable a tail as any Christian could desire to swinge behind him;
and, man for man, I would willingly have perilled my promotion upon
their walloping, with no offensive weapons but their stretchers, the
Following, claymores and all, of any proud, disagreeable, would-be
mighty mountaineer, that ever turned up his supercilious, whisky
blossomed snout at Bailie Jarvie. On they came, square-shouldered,
narrow-flanked, tall, strapping fellows, tumbling and rolling about the
piazzas in knots of three and four, until, at the corner of King Street,
they came bolt up upon a well-known large, fat, brown lady, famous for
her manufacture of spruce beer.

"Avast, avast a bit"--sung out one of the topmen--"let the nobs heave a
head, will ye, and let's have a pull."

"Here, old mother Slush," sung out another of the cutter's crew. "Hand
us up a dozen bottles of spruce, do you hear?"

"Dozen battle of pruce!" groaned the old woman--"who shall pay me?"

"Why, do you think the Firebrands are thieves, you old canary, you?"

"How much, eh?" said the boatswain's mate.

"Twelve feepennies," quoth the matron.

"Oh, ah!" said one of the men--"Twelve times five is half a crown;
there's a dollar for you, old mother Popandchokem--now give me back five
shillings."

"Eigh, oh!" whined out the spruce merchant; "you dem rascal, who tell
you dat your dollar more wort den any one else money eh? How can give
you back five shilling and keep back twelve feepenny--eh?" The culprit,
who had stood the Cocker of the company, had by this time gained his
end, which was to draw the fat damsel a step or two from the large tub
half-full of water, where the bottles were packed, and to engage her
attention by stirring up her bile, or corruption, as they call it in
Scotland, while his messmates instantly seized the opportunity, and a
bottle a-piece also, and, as I turned round to look for them, there
they all were in a circle taking the meridian altitude of the sun, or as
if they had been taking aim at the pigeons on the eaves of the houses
above them with Indian mouth tubes.

They then replaced the bottles in the tub, paid the woman more than she
asked; but, by way of taking out the change, they chucked her stern
foremost into the water amongst her merchandise, and then shouldered the
vessel, old woman and all, and away they staggered with her, the empty
bottles clattering together in the water, and the old lady swearing and
bouncing and squattering amongst them, while jack shouted to her to hold
her tongue, or they would let her go by the run bodily. Thus they
stumped in the wake of their captain, until he arrived at the door of
the Courthouse, to the great entertainment of the bystanders, cutting
the strings that confined the corks of the stone bottles as they bowled
along, popping the spruce into each other's faces, and the faces of the
negroes, as they ran out of the stores to look at jack in his frolic,
and now and then taking a shot at the old woman's cockemony itself, as
she was held kicking and spurring high above their heads.

At length the captain, who was no great way ahead, saw what was going
on, which was the signal for doucinog the whole affair, spruce-woman,
tub, and bottles; and the party gathering themselves up, mustered close
aboard of us, as grave as members of the General Assembly.

The regular courthouse of the city being under repair, the Admiralty
Sessions were held in a large room occupied temporarily for the purpose.
At one end, raised two steps above the level of the floor, was the
bench, on which were seated the Judge of the Admiralty Court, supported
by two post captains in full uniform, who are ex-officio judges of this
court in the colonies, one on each side. On the right, the jury,
composed of merchants of the place, and respectable planters of the
neighbourhood, were enclosed in a sort of box, with a common white pine
railing separating it from the rest of the court. There was a long
table in front of the bench, at which a lot of blackrobed devil's limbs
of lawyers, were ranged--but both amongst them, and on the bench, the
want of the cauliflower wigs was sorely felt by me, as well as by the
seamen, who considered it little less than murder, that men in
crops-black shock-pated fellows--should sit in judgment on their
fellow-creatures, where life and death were in the scales.

On the left hand of the bench, the motley public, white, black, and of
every intermediate shade--were grouped; as also in front of the dock,
which was large. It might have been made with a view to the possibility
of fifteen unfortunates or so being arraigned at one time; but now there
were no fewer than forty-three jammed and pegged together into it, like
sheep in a Smithfield pen the evening before market-day. These were
the forty thieves--the pirates. They were all, without exception,
clean, well shaven, and decently rigged in white trowsers, linen or
check shirts, and held their broad Panama sombreros in their hands.

Most of them wore the red silk sash round the waist. They had generally
large bushy whiskers, and not a few had earrings of massive gold, (why
call wearing earrings puppyism? Shakspeare wore earrings, or the
Chandos portrait lies,) and chains of the same metal round their necks,
supporting, as I concluded, a crucifix, hid in the bosom of the shirt.
A Spaniard can't murder a man comfortably, if he has not his crucifix
about him.

They were, collectively, the most daring, intrepid, Salvator Rosa
looking men I had ever seen. Most of them were above the middle size,
and the spread of their shoulders, the grace with which their arms were
hung, and finely developed muscles of the chest and neck, the latter
exposed completely by the folding back of their shirt collars, cut large
and square, after the Spanish fashion, beat the finest boat's-crew we
could muster all to nothing. Some of them were of mixed blood, that is,
the cross between the European Spaniard and the aboriginal Indian of
Cuba, a race long since sacrificed on tile altar of Mammon, the white
man's god.

Their hair, generally speaking, was long, and curled over the forehead
black and glossy, or hung down to their shoulders in ringlets, that a
dandy of the second Charles's time would have given his little finger
for. The forehead in most was high and broad, and of a clear olive, the
nose straight, springing boldly from the brow, the cheeks oval, and the
mouth--every Spaniard has a beautiful mouth, until he spoils it with the
beastly cigar, as far as his well-formed firm lips can be spoiled; but
his teeth he generally does destroy early in life. Take the whole,
however, and deduct for the teeth, I had never seen so handsome a set of
men; and I am sure no woman, had she been there, would have gainsayed
me. They stood up, and looked forth upon their judges and the jury like
brave men, desperadoes though they were. They were, without exception,
calm and collected, as if aware that they had small chance of escape,
but still determined not to give that chance away. One young man
especially attracted my attention, from the bold, cool self-possession
of his bearing. He was in the very front of the dock, and dressed in no
way different from the rest, so far as his under garments were
concerned, unless it were that they were of a finer quality. He wore a
short green velvet jacket, profusely studded with knobs and chains, like
small chain-shot, of solid gold, similar to the shifting button lately
introduced by our dandies in their waistcoats. It was not put on, but
hung on one shoulder, being fastened across his breast by the two empty
sleeves tied together in a knot. He also wore the red silk sash,
through which a broad gold cord ran twining like the strand of a rope.
He had no earrings, but his hair was the most beautiful I had ever seen
in a male--long and black, jet black and glossy. It was turned up and
fastened in a club on the crown of his head with a large pin, I should
rather say skewer, of silver; but the outlandishness of the fashion was
not offensive, when I came to take into the account the beauty of the
plaiting, and of the long raven lovelocks that hung down behind each of
his small transparent ears, and the short Hyperion-like curls that
clustered thick and richly on his high, pale, broad forehead. His eyes
were large, black, and swimming, like a woman's; his nose straight and
thin; and such a mouth, such an under-lip, full and melting; and teeth
regular and white, and utterly free from the pollution of tobacco; and a
beautifully moulded small chin, rounding off, and merging in his round,
massive, muscular neck.

I had never seen so fine a face, such perfection of features, and such a
clear, dark, smooth skin. It was a finer face than Lord Byron's, whom I
had seen more than once, and wanted that hellish curl of the lip; and,
as to figure, he could, to look at him, at any time have eaten up his
lordship stoop and roop to his breakfast. It was the countenance, in a
word, of a most beautiful youth, melancholy, indeed, and anxious
evidently anxious; for the large pearls that coursed each other down his
forehead and cheek, and the slight quivering of the under-lip, every
now and then evinced the powerful struggle that was going on within.
His figure was, if possible, superior to his face. It was not quite
filled up, set, as we call it, but the arch of his chest was
magnificent, his shoulders square, arms well put on; but his neck--"Have
you seen the Apollo, neighbour?"--"No, but the cast of it at Somerset
House."--"Well, that will do--so you know the sort of neck he had."
His waist was fine, hips beautifully moulded; and although his under
limbs were shrouded in his wide trowsers, they were evidently of a piece
with what was seen and developed; and this was vouched for by the turn
of his ankle and well-shaped foot on which he wore a small Spanish
grass slipper, fitted with great nicety. He was at least six feet two
in height, and such as I have described him; there he stood, with his
hands grasping the rail before him and looking intently at a wigless
lawyer who was opening the accusation, while he had one ear turned a
little towards the sworn interpreter of the court, whose province it
was, at every pause, to explain to the prisoners what the learned
gentleman was stating. From time to time he said a word or two to a
square-built, dark, ferocious-looking man standing next him,
apparently about forty years of age, who, as well as his fellow
prisoners, appeared to pay him great respect; and I could notice the
expression of their countenances change as his rose or fell.

The indictment had been read before I came in, and, as already
mentioned, the lawyer was proceeding with his accusatory speech, and, as
it appeared to me, the young Spaniard had some difficulty in
understanding the interpreter's explanation. Whenever he saw me, he
exclaimed, "Ah! aqui viene, el Senor Teniente--ahora sabremos ahora,
ahora;" and he beckoned to me to draw near. I did so.

"I beg pardon, Mr Cringle," he said in Spanish, with the ease and grace
of a nobleman "but I believe the interpreter to be incapable, and I am
certain that what I say is not fittingly explained to the judges;
neither do I believe he can give me a sound notion of what the advocate
(avocado) is alleging against us. May I entreat you to solicit the
bench for permission to take his place? I know you will expect no
apology for the trouble from a man in my situation."

This unexpected address in open court took me fairly aback, and I
stopped short while in the act of passing the open space in front of the
dock, which was kept clear by six marines in white jackets, whose
muskets, fixed bayonets, and uniform caps, seemed out of place to my
mind in a criminal court. The lawyer suddenly suspended his harangue,
while the judges fixed their eyes on me, and so did the audience,
confound them!  To be the focus of so many eyes was trying to my
modesty; for, although unacquainted with bettermost society, still,
below any little manner that I had acquired, there was, and always will
be, an under stratum of bashfulness, or sheepishness, or mauvaise honte,
call it which you will; and the torture, the breaking on the wheel, with
which a man of that temperament perceives the eyes of a whole courthouse,
for instance, attracted to him, none but a bashful man can
understand. At length I summoned courage to speak.

"May it please your honours, this poor fellow, on his own behalf, and on
the part of his fellow-prisoners, complains of the incapacity of the
sworn interpreter, and requests that I may be made the channel of
communication in his stead."

This was a tremendous effort, and once more the whole blood of my body
rushed to my cheeks and forehead, and I "sweat extremely." The judges,
he of the black robe and those of the epaulet, communed together.

"Have you any objection to be sworn, Mr Cringle?"

"None in the least, provided the court considers me competent, and the
accused are willing to trust to me."

"Si, si!" exclaimed the young Spaniard, as if comprehending what was
going on--"Somos contentos--todos, todos!" and he looked round, like a
prince, on his fellow--culprits. A low murmuring, "Si, si--contento,
contento!" passed amongst the group.

"The accused, please your honours, are willing to trust to my
correctness."

"Pray, Mr Cringle, don't make yourself the advocate of these men, mind
that," said the--, lawyer sans wig.

"I don't intend it, sir," I said, slightly stung; "but if you had
suffered what I have done at their hands, peradventure such a caution to
you would have been unnecessary."

The  sarcasm  told, I was glad to see; but remembering where  I  was, I
hauled but of action with the man of words, simply giving the last shot
"I am sure no English gentleman would willingly throw any difficulty in
the  way  of  the  poor fellows being made aware of  what  is  given  in
evidence against them, bad as they may be."

He was about rejoining, for a lawyer would as soon let you have the last
word as a sweep or a baker the wall, when the officer of court
approached and swore me in, and the trial proceeded.

The whole party were proved by fifty witnesses to have been taken in
arms on board of the schooners in the Cove; and farther, it was proved
that no commission or authority to cruise whatsoever was found on board
any of them, a strong proof that they were pirates.

"Que dice, que dice?" enquired the young Spaniard already mentioned.

I said that the court seemed to infer, and were pressing it on the jury,
that the absence of any commission or letter of marque from a superior
officer, or from any of the Spanish authorities, was strong evidence
that they were marauders--in fact pirates.

"Ah!" he exclaimed; "gracias, gracias!" Then, with an agitated hand, he
drew from his bosom a parchment, folded like the manifest of a merchant
ship, and at the same moment the gruff fierce-looking elderly man did
the same, with another similar instrument from his own breast.

"Here, here are the commissions--here are authorities from the Captain
General of Cuba. Read them."

I looked over them; they were regular to all appearance; at least as
there were no autographs in court of the Spanish Viceroy, or any of his
officers, whose signatures, either real or forged, were affixed to the
instruments, with which to compare them, there was a great chance, I
conjectured, so far as I saw, that they would be acquitted: and in this
case we, his majesty's officers, would have been converted into the
transgressing party; for if it were established that the vessels taken
were bona fide Guarda Costas, we should be placed in an awkward
predicament, in having captured them by force of arms, not to take into
account the having violated the sanctity of a friendly port.

But I could see that this unexpected production of regular papers by
their officers had surprised the pirates themselves, as much as it had
done me,--whether it was a heinous offence of mine or not to conceal
this impression from the court, (there is some dispute about the matter
to this hour between me and my conscience,) I cannot tell; but I was
determined to stick scrupulously to the temporary duties of my office,
without stating what I suspected, or even translating some sudden
expressions overheard by me, that would have shaken the credibility of
the documents.

"Comissiones, comissiones!" for instance, was murmured by a weather
beaten Spaniard, with a fine bald head, from which two small tufts of
grey hair stood out above his ears, and with a superb Moorish face
"Comissiones es decir patentes--Si hay comissiones, el Diablo, mismo,
les ha hecho!"

The court was apparently nonplussed--not so the wigless man of law. His
pea green visage assumed a more ghastly hue, and the expression of his
eyes became absolutely blasting. He looked altogether like a cat sure
of her mouse, but willing to let it play in fancied joy of escaping, as
he said softly to the Jew crier, who was perched in a high chair above
the heads of the people, like an ugly corbie in its dirty nest--"Crier,
call Job Rumbletithump, mate of the Porpoise."

"Job Rumbletithump, come into court!"

"Here," quoth Job, as a stout, bluff honest-looking sailor rolled into
the witnessbox.

"Now, clerk of the crown, please to swear in the mate of the Porpoise."
It was done. "Now, my man, you were taken going through the Caicos
Passage in the Porpoise by pirates, in August last--were you not?"

"Yes, sir."

"Turn your face to the jury, and speak up, sir. Do you see any of the
honest men who made free with you in that dock, sir? Look at them,
sir."

"The mate walked up to the dock, stopped, and fixed his eyes intently on
the young Spaniard. I stared breathlessly at him also. He grows pale as
death--his lip quivers--the large drops of sweat once more burst from
his brow. I grew sick, sick.

"Yes, your honour," said the mate.

"Yes--ah!" said the devil's limb, chuckling--"we are getting on the
trail at last. Can you swear to more than one?"

"Yes, your honour."

"Yes!" again responded the sans wig. "How many?"

The man counted them off. "Fifteen, sir. That young fellow there is
the man who cut Captain Spurtel's throat, after violating his wife
before his eyes."

"God forgive me, is it possible?" gasped Thomas Cringle.

"There's a monster in human form for you, gentlemen," continued devil's
limb. "Go on, Mr Rumbletithump."

"That other man next him hung me up by the heels, and seared me on the
bare"--Here honest job had just time to divert the current of his speech
into a loud "whew."

"Seared you on the whew!" quoth the facetious lawyer, determined to have
his jest, even in the face of forty-three of his fellow creatures
trembling on the brink of eternity. "Explain, sir, tell the court where
you were seared, and how you were seared, and all about your being
seared."

Job twisted and lolloped about, as if he was looking out for some
opening to bolt through; but all egress was shut up.

"Why, please your honour," the eloquent blood mantling in his honest
sunburnt cheeks; while from my heart I pitied the poor fellow, for he
was absolutely broiling in his bashfulness--"He seared me onon--why,
please your honour, he seared me on--with a redhot iron!"

"Why, I guessed as much, if he seared you at all; but where did he sear
you? Come now," coaxingly, "tell the court where and how he applied the
actual cautery."

Job being thus driven to his wit's end, turned and stood at bay. "Now I
will tell you, your honour, if you will but sit down for a moment, and
answer me one question."

"To be sure; why, Job, you brighten on us. There, I am down now for
your question."

"Now, sir," quoth Rumbletithump, imitating his tormentor's manner much
more cleverly than I expected, "what part of your honour's body touches
your chair?"

"How, sir!" said the man of words--"how dare you, sir, take such a
liberty, sir?" while a murmuring laugh hummed through the court.

"Now, sir, since you won't answer me, sir," said Job, elevated by his
victory, while his hoarse voice roughened into a loud growl, "I will
answer myself. I was seared, sir, where"--

"Silence!" quoth the crier at this instant drowning the mate's voice, so
that I could not catch the words he used.

"And there you have it, sir. Put me in jail, if you like, sir."

The murmur was bursting out into a guffaw, when the judge interfered.
But there was no longer any attempt at ill-timed jesting on the part of
the bar, which was but bad taste at the best on so solemn an occasion.

Job continued, "I was burnt into the very muscle until I told where the
gold was stowed away."

"Aha!" screamed the lawyer, forgetting his recent discomfiture in the
gladness of his success. "And all the rest were abetting, eh?"

"The rest of the fifteen were, sir."

But the prosecutor, a glutton in his way, had thought he had bagged the
whole forty-three. And so he ultimately did before the evening closed
in, as most of the others were identified by other witnesses; and when
they could not actually be sworn to, the piracies were brought home to
them by circumstantial evidence; such, for instance, as having been
captured on board of the craft we had taken, which again were identified
as the very vessels which had plundered the merchantmen and murdered
several of their crews, so that by six o'clock the jury had returned a
verdict of Guilty--and I believe there never was a juster--against the
whole of them. The finding, and sentence of death following thereupon,
seemed not to create any strong effect upon the prisoners. They had all
seen how the trial was going; and, long before this, the bitterness of
death seemed to be past.

I could hear one of our boat's crew, who was standing behind me, say to
his neighbour, "Why, Jem, surely he is in joke. Why, he don't mean to
condemn them to be hanged seriously, without his wig, eh?"

Immediately after the judgment was pronounced, which, both as to import,
and literally, I had translated to them, Captain Transom, who was
sitting on the bench beside his brother officers, nodded to me, "I say,
Mr Cringle, tell the coxswain to call Pearl, if you please."

I passed the word to one of the Firebrand's marines, who was on duty,
who again repeated the order to a seaman who was standing at the door.

"I say, Moses, call the clergyman."

Now this Pearl was no other than the seaman who pulled the stroke-oar
in the gig; a very handsome negro, and the man who afterwards forked
Whiffle out of the water--tall, powerful, and muscular, and altogether
one of the best men in the ship. The rest of the boat's crew, from his
complexion, had fastened the sobriquet of the clergyman on him.

"Call the clergyman."

The superseded interpreter, who was standing near, seemingly  took no
notice, immediately traduced this literally to the unhappy men. A
murmur arose amongst them.

"Que--el padre ya!  Somos en Capilla entonces--poco tiempo, poco
tiempo!"

They had thought that the clergyman having been sent for, the sentence
was immediately to be executed, but I undeceived them; and, in ten
minutes after they were condemned, they were marched off under a strong
escort of foot to the jail.

I must make a long story short. Two days afterwards, I was ordered with
the launch to Kingston, early in the morning, to receive twenty-five of
the pirates who had been ordered for execution that morning at Gallows
Point. It was little past four in the morning when we arrived at the
Wherry wharf, where they were already clustered, with their hands
pinioned behind their backs, silent and sad, but all of them calm, and
evincing no unmanly fear of death.

I don't know if other people have noticed it, but this was one of
several instances where I have seen foreigners--Frenchmen, Italians, and
Spaniards, for instance--meet death, inevitable death, with greater
firmness than British soldiers or sailors. Let me explain. In the
field, or grappling in mortal combat, on the blood-slippery quarterdeck
of an enemy's vessel, British soldier or sailor is the bravest of the
brave. No soldier or sailor of any other country, saving and excepting
those damned Yankees, can stand against them--they would be utterly
overpowered--their hearts would fail them--they would either be cut down
thrust through, or they would turn and flee. Yet those same men who
have turned and fled, will meet death, but it must be as I said,
inevitable, unavoidable death, not only more firmly than their
conquerors would do in their circumstances, but with an intrepidity oh,
do not call it indifference!--altogether astonishing. Be it their
religion, or their physical conformation, or what it may, all I have to
do with, is the fact, which I record as undeniable. Out of five-and
twenty individuals, in the present instance, not a sigh was heard, nor a
moan, nor a querulous word. They stepped lightly into the boats, and
seated themselves in silence. When told by the seamen to make room, or
to shift so as not to be in the way of the oars, they did so with
alacrity, and almost with an air of civility, although they knew that
within half an hour their earthly career must close for ever.

The young Spaniard who had stood forward so conspicuously on the trial,
was in my boat; in stepping in he accidentally trod on my foot in
passing forward; he turned and apologized, with much natural politeness
"he hoped he had not hurt me?"

I answered kindly, I presume--who could have done so harshly? This
emboldened him apparently, for he stopped, and asked leave to sit by me.
I consented, while an incomprehensible feeling crept over me; and when
once I had time to recollect myself, I shrunk from him, as a blood
stained brute, with whom even in his extremity it was unfitting for me
to hold any intercourse. When he noticed my repugnance to remain near
him, he addressed me hastily, as if afraid that I would destroy the
opportunity he seemed to desire.

"God did not always leave me the slave of my passions," he said, in a
low, deep, most musical voice. "The day has been when I would have
shrunk as you do--but time presses. You have a mother?" said he--I
assented--"and an only sister?" As it happened, he was right here too.
"And--and"--here he hesitated, and his voice shook and trembled with the
most intense and heart-crushing emotion--"y una mas cara que ambos?"
Mary, you can tell whether in this he did not also speak truth. I
acknowledged there was another being more dear to me than either.
"Then," said he, "take this chain from my neck, and the crucifix, and a
small miniature from my bosom; but not yet--not till I leave the boat.
You will find an address affixed to the string of the latter. Your
course of service may lead you to St Jago if not, a brother officer may."
His voice became inaudible; his hot scalding tears dropped fast on my
hand, and the ravisher, the murderer, the pirate, wept as an innocent
and helpless infant. "You will deliver it. Promise a dying
man--promise a great sinner." But it was momentary--he quelled the
passion with a fierce and savage energy, as he said sternly, "Promise!
promise!" I did so, and I fulfilled it.

The day broke. I took the jewels and miniature from his neck, as he led
the way with the firm step of a hero, in ascending the long gibbet. The
halters were adjusted, when he stepped towards the side I was on, as far
as the rope would let him, "Dexa me verla--dexa me verla, una vez mas!"
I held up the miniature. He looked--he glared intensely at it. "Adios,
Maria, seas feliz mi querida, feliz--feliz Maria--adios--adios--Maria
Mar".

The rope severed thy name from his lips, sweet girl; but not until it
also severed his soul from his body, and sent him to his tremendous
account--young in years, but old in wickedness--to answer at that
tribunal, where we must all appear, to the God who made him, and whose
gifts he had so fearfully abused, for thy broken heart and early death,
amongst the other scarlet atrocities of his short but ill spent life.

The signal had been given--the lumbering flap of the long drop was
heard, and five-and-twenty human beings were wavering in the sea
breeze in the agonies of death!  The other eighteen suffered on the same
spot the week following; and for long after, this fearful and bloody
example struck terror into the Cuba fishermen.

"Strange now, that the majority--ahem--of my beauties and favourites
through life have been called Mary. There is my own Mary--un peu passee
certainly--but deil mean her, for half a dozen lit"--"Now, Tom Cringle,
don't bother with your sentimentality, but get along, do."--"Well, I
will get along--but have patience, you Hottentot Venus--you Lord Nugent,
you. So once more we make sail."


Next morning, soon after gunfire, I landed at the Wherry wharf in Port
Royal. It was barely daylight, but, to my surprise, I found my friend
Peregrine Whiffle seated on a Spanish chair, close to the edge of the
wharf, smoking a cigar. This piece of furniture is an arm-chair
strongly framed with hard-wood, over which, back and bottom, a tanned
hide is stretched, which, in a hot climate, forms a most luxurious seat,
the back tumbling out at an angle of 45 degrees, while the skin yields
to every movement, and does not harbour a nest of biting ants, or a
litter of scorpions, or any other of the customary occupants of a
cushion that has been in Jamaica for a year.

He did not know me as I passed; but his small glimmering red face
instantly identified the worthy little old man to me.

"Good morning, Mr Whiffle--the top of the morning to you, sir."

"Hillo," responded Peregrine--"Tom, is it you?--how d'ye do, man--how
d'ye do?" and he started to his feet, and almost embraced me.

Now, I had never met the said Peregrine Whiffle but twice in my life;
once at Mr Fyall's, and once during the few days I remained in Kingston,
before I set out on my travels; but he was a warm hearted kindly old
fellow, and, from knowing all my friends there very intimately, he, as a
matter of course, became equally familiar with me.

"Why the diable came you not to see me, man? Have been here for change
of air, to recruit, you know, after that demon, the gout, had been so
perplexing me, ever since you came to anchor--the Firebrand, I mean--as
for you, you have been mad one while, and philandering with those
inconvenient white ladies the other. You'll cure of that, my boy
you'll come to the original comforts of the country soon, no fear!"

"Perhaps I may, perhaps not."

"Oh, your cousin Mary, I forgot--fine girl, Tom--may do for you at home
yonder," (all Creoles speak of England as home, although they may never
have seen it,) "but she can't make pepper-pot, nor give a dish of land
crabs as land crabs should be given, nor see to the serving up of a
ringtail pigeon, nor rub a beefsteak to the rotting turn with a bruised
papaw, nor compose a medicated bath, nor, nor--oh, confound it, Tom, she
will be, when you marry her, a cold, comfortless, motionless Creole
icicle!"

I let him have his swing. "Never mind her then, never mind her, my dear
sir; but time presses and I must be off, I must indeed, so good morning;
I wish you a good morning, sir."

He started to his feet, and caught hold of me. "Sha'n't go, Tom,
impossible--come along with me to my lodgings, and breakfast with me.
Here, Pilfer, Pilfer," to his black valet, "give me my stick, and massu
the chair, and run home and order breakfast--cold calipiver--our Jamaica
salmon, you know, Tom-tea and coffee pickled mackerel, eggs, and cold
tongue--any thing that Mother Dingychops can give us; so bolt, Pilfer,
bolt!"

I told him that before I came ashore I had heard the gig's-crew piped
away, and that I therefore expected, as Jonathan says, that the captain
would be after me immediately; so that I wished at all events to get
away from where we were, as I had no desire to be caught gossiping about
when my superior might be expected to pass.

"True, boy, true"--as he shackled himself to me, and we began to crawl
along towards the wharf-gate leading into the town. Captain Transom by
this time had landed, and came up with us.

"Ah, Transom," said Whiffle, "glad to see you. I say, why won't you
allow Mr Cringle here to go over to Spanish Town with me for a couple of
days, eh?"

"Why, I don't remember that Mr Cringle has ever asked leave."

"Indeed, sir, I neither did ask leave, nor have I thought of doing so,"
said I.

"But I do for you," chimed in my friend Whiffle. "Come, captain, give
him leave, just for two days, that's a prime chap. Why, Tom, you see
you have got it, so off with you and come to me with your kit as soon as
possible; I will hobble on and make the coffee and chocolate; and,
Captain Transom, come along and breakfast with me too. No refusal, I
require society. Nearly drowned yesterday, do you know that? Off this
same cursed wharf too--just here. I was looking down at the small fish
playing about the piles, precisely in this position; one of them was as
bright in the scales as a gold fish in my old grandmother's glass globe,
and I had to crane over the ledge in this fashion," suiting the action
to the word, "when away I went"--

And, to  our  unutterable  surprise, splash  went  Peregrine  Whiffle,
Esquire, for the second time, and there--he was shouting, and  puffing,
and  splashing  in the water. We were both so convulsed  with  laughter
that  I  believe he would have been drowned for us; but the boat-keeper
of  the gig, the strong athletic negro before mentioned, promptly jumped
on  the wharf with his boat-hook, and caught the dapper little old beau
by  the  waistband  of his breeches, swaying him up, frightened  enough,
with his little coat skirts fluttering in the breeze, and no wonder, but
not much the worse for it all.

"Diable porte l'amour," whispered Captain Transom.

"Swallowed  a  Scotch  pint of salt water to a  certainty--run, Pilfer,
bring  me  some brandy--gout will be into my stomach, sure as fate--feel
him  now--run, Pilfer, run, or gout will beat you--a dead heat that will
be!" And he keckled at his small joke very complacently.

We  had him carried by our people to his lodgings, where, after shifting
and  brandying  to some tune, he took his place at the breakfast  table,
and did the honours with his usual amenity and warm heartedness.

After  breakfast  Peregrine remembered, what the  sly  rogue  had  never
forgotten  I  suspect, that he was engaged to dine with  his  friend  Mr
Pepperpot Wagtail, in Kingston.

"But it don't signify, Wagtail will be delighted to see you, Tom
hospitable fellow Wagtail--and, now I recollect myself, Fyall and Aaron
Bang are to be there; dang it, were it not for the gout, we should have
a night on't!"

After breakfast we started in a canoe for Kingston, touching at the
Firebrand for my kit.

Moses Yerk, the unpoetical first lieutenant, was standing well forward
on the quarterdeck as I passed over the side to get into the canoe, with
the gunroom steward following me, carrying my kit under his arm.

"I say, Tom, good for you, one lark after another."

"Don't like that fellow," quoth Whiffle; "he is quarrelsome in his drink
for a thousand, I know it by the cut of his jib."

He had better have held his tongue, honest man; for as he looked up
broad in Yerk's face, who was leaning over the hammocks, the scupper
immediately over head, through whose instrumentality I never knew, was
suddenly cleared, and a rush of dirty water, that had been lodged there
since the decks had been washed down at daydawn, splashed slapdash over
his head and shoulders and into his mouth, so as to set the dear little
man a-coughing so violently that I thought he would have been
throttled. Before he had recovered sufficiently to find his tongue, we
had pulled fifty yards from the ship, and a little farther on we
overtook the captain, who had preceded us in the cutter, into which we
transhipped ourselves. But Whiffle never could acquit Yerk of having
been, directly or indirectly, the cause of his suffering from the impure
shower.

This day was the first of the Negro Carnival or Christmas Holydays, and
at the distance of two miles from Kingston the sound of the negro drums
and horns, the barbarous music and yelling of the different African
tribes, and the more mellow singing of the Set Girls, came off upon the
breeze loud and strong.

When we got nearer, the wharfs and different streets, as we successively
opened them, were crowded with blackamoors, men, women, and children,
dancing and singing and shouting, and all rigged out in their best.
When we landed on the agents wharf we were immediately surrounded by a
group of these merry-makers, which happened to be the Butchers John
Canoe party, and a curious exhibition it unquestionably was. The
prominent character was, as usual, the John Canoe or Jack Pudding. He
was a light, active, clean made young Creole negro, without shoes or
stockings; he wore a pair of light jean small-clothes, all too wide,
but confined at the knees, below and above, by bands of red tape, after
the manner that Malvolio would have called cross-gartering. He wore a
splendid blue velvet waistcoat, with old-fashioned flaps coming down
over his hips, and covered with tarnished embroidery. His shirt was
absent on leave, I suppose, but at the wrists of his coat he had tin or
white iron frills, with loose pieces attached, which tinkled as he
moved, and set off the dingy paws that were stuck through these strange
manacles, like black wax tapers in silver candlesticks. His coat was an
old blue artillery uniform one, with a small bell hung to the extreme
points of the swallow-tailed skirts, and three tarnished epaulets; one
on each shoulder, and, O ye immortal gods! O Mars omnipotent! the
biggest of the three stuck at his rump, the point d'appuit for a sheep's
tail. He had an enormous cocked hat on, to which was appended in front
a white false-face or mask, of a most methodistical expression, while,
Janus like, there was another face behind, of the most quizzical
description, a sort of living Antithesis, both being garnished and
overtopped with one coarse wig, made of the hair of bullocks tails, on
which the chapeau was strapped down with a broad band of gold lace.
He skipped up to us with a white wand in one hand and a dirty
handkerchief in the other, and with sundry moppings and mowings, first
wiping my shoes with his mouchoir, then my face, (murder, what a flavour
of salt fish and onions it had!) he made a smart enough pirouette, and
then sprung on the back of a nondescript animal, that now advanced
capering and jumping about after the most grotesque fashion that can be
imagined. This was the signal for the music to begin. The performers
were two gigantic men, dressed in calf-skins entire, head, four legs,
and tail. The skin of the head was made to fit like a hood, the two
fore-feet hung dangling down in front, one over each shoulder, while
the other two legs, or hind-feet, and the tail, trailed behind on the
ground; deuce another article they had on in the shape of clothing
except a handkerchief, of some flaming pattern, tied round the waist.
There were also two flute-players in sheepskins, looking still more
outlandish from the horns on the animals heads being preserved; and
three stout fellows, who were dressed in the common white frock and
trowsers, who kept sounding on bullocks horns. These formed the band
as it were, and might be considered John's immediate tail or following;
but he was also accompanied by about fifty of the butcher negroes, all
neatly dressed-blue jackets, white shirts, and Osnaburgh trowsers, with
their steels and knife-cases by their sides, as bright as Turkish
yataghans, and they all wore clean blue and white striped aprons. I
could see and tell what they were; but the Thing John Canoe had perched
himself upon I could make nothing of. At length I began to comprehend
the device.

The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician, the
nondescript already mentioned, was no less than the boatswain of the
butcher-gang, answering to the driver in an agricultural one. He was
clothed in an entire bullock's hide horns, tail, and the other
particulars, the whole of the skull being retained, and the effect of
the voice growling through the jaws of the beast was most startling.
His legs were enveloped in the skin of the hind-legs, while the arms
were cased in that of the fore, the hands protruding a little above the
hoofs, and, as he walked reared up on his hind-legs, he used, in order
to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders,
like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch
top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then.
After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had
capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute
or two, it came to a stand-still, and, sticking the end of the sprit
into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under its chin, it
motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon handed, of all things
in the world, a fiddle to the ox. He then shook off the John Canoe, who
began to caper about as before, while the Device set up a deuced good
pipe, and sung and played, barbarously enough, I will admit, to the tune
of Guinea Corn, the following ditty:

     "Massa Buccra lobfor see,
     Bullock caper like monkee,
     Dance, and shump, and poke him toe,
     Like one humane person--just so."

And  hereupon the tail of the beast, some fifty strong, music men, John
Canoe and all, began to rampauge about, as if they had been possessed by
a devil whose name was Legion:

     "But Massa Buccra have white love,
     soft and silken like one dove.
     To brown girl--him barely shivel,
     to black girl--oh, Lord, de Devil!"

Then  a  tremendous  gallopading, in the  which  Tailtackle  was  nearly
capsized over the wharf. He looked quietly over the edge of it.

"Boat  keeper, hand me up that switch of a stretcher," (Friend, if  thou
be'st  not  nautical, thou knowest what a rack-pin, something  of  the
stoutest is.)

The  boy  did so, and Tailtackle, after moistening well his dexter  claw
with  tobacco juice, seized the stick with his left by the  middle, and
balancing it for a second or two, he began to fasten the end of it  into
his right fist, as if he had been screwing a bolt into a socket. Having
satisfied himself that his grip was secure, he let go the hold with  his
left  hand, and  crossed  his  arms on  his  breast, with  the  weapon
projecting over his left shoulder, like the drone of a bagpipe.

The Device continued his chant, giving the seaman a wide berth, however:

     "But when him once two tree year here,
     Him tink white lady wery great boder;
     De coloured peoples, never fear,
     Ah, him lob him de morest nor any oder."

Then another tumblification of the whole party.


     "But top-one time bad fever catch him,
     colour'd peoples kindly watch him
     in sick-room, nurse voice like music
     from him hand taste sweet de physic.
     Another trampoline."

     "So alway come--in two tree year,
     and so wid you, massa never fear
     brown girl for cook--for wife--for nurse:
     buccra lady--poo--no wort a curse."

"Get away, you scandalous scoundrel," cried I; "away with you, sir!"

Here  the morrice-dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, keeping
him on the move, spinning round like a weathercock in a whirlwind, while
they shouted, "Oh, massa, one macaronilt if you please." To get quit  of
their importunity, Captain Transom gave them one. "Ah, good massa, tank
you, sweet massa!" And away danced John Canoe and his tail, careering up
the street.

In the same way all the other crafts and trades had their Gumbimen,
Hornblowers, John Canoes, and Nondescript. The Gardeners came nearest
of any thing I had seen before to the Mayday boys in London; with this
advantage, that their jack-in-the--Green was incomparably more
beautiful, from the superior bloom of the larger flowers used in
composing it.

The very workhouse people, whose province it is to guard the Negro
culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict punishment on them,
when required, had their John Canoe and Device; and their prime jest
seemed to be every now and then to throw the fellow down who enacted the
latter at the corner of a street, and to administer a sound flogging to
him. The John Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a
lawyer's cast off gown and bands, black silk breeches, no stockings nor
shoes, but with sandals of bullock's hide strapped on his great splay
feet, a small cocked hat on his head, to which were appended a large
cauliflower wig, and the usual white false-face, bearing a very
laughable resemblance to Chief-justice S----, with whom I happened to
be personally acquainted.

The whole party which accompanied these two worthies, musicians and
tail, were dressed out so as to give a tolerable resemblance of the Bar
broke loose, and they were all pretty considerably well drunk. As we
passed along, the Device was once more laid down, and we could notice a
shield of tough hide strapped over the fellow's stem frame, so as to
save the lashes of the cat, which John Canoe was administering with all
his force, while the Device walloped about and yelled, as if he had been
receiving the punishment on his naked flesh. Presently, as he rolled
over and over in the sand, bellowing to the life, I noticed the leather
shield slip upwards to the small of his back, leaving the lower story
uncovered in reality; but the driver and his tail were too drunk to
observe this, and the former continued to lay on and laugh, while one of
his people stood by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a
first Lieutenant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the
gangway,--"Twenty-twenty-one twenty-two"--and so on, while the patient
roared you, an it were any thing but a nightingales At length he broke
away from the men who held him, after receiving a most sufficient
flogging, to revenge which he immediately fastened on the John Canoe,
wrenched his cat from him, and employed it so scientifically on him and
his followers, giving them passing taps on the shins now and then with
the handle, by way of spice to the dose, that the whole crew pulled foot
as if Old Nick had held them in chase.

The very children, urchins of five and six years old, had their
Lilliputian John Canoes and Devices. But the beautiful part of the
exhibition was the Set Girls. They danced along the streets, in bands
of from fifteen to thirty. There were brown sets, and black sets, and
sets of all the intermediate gradations of colour. Each set was dressed
pin for pin alike, and carried umbrellas or parasols of the same colour
and size, held over their nice showy, well put on toques, or Madras
handkerchiefs, all of the same pattern, tied round their heads, fresh
out of the fold.--They sang, as they swam along the streets, in the most
luxurious attitudes. I had never seen more beautiful creatures than
there were amongst the brown sets--clear olive complexions, and fine
faces, elegant carriages, splendid figures,--full, plump, and magnificent.

Most of the Sets were as much of a size as Lord----'s eighteen
daughters, sailing down Regent Street, like a Charity School of a
Sunday, led by a rum-looking old beadle--others again had large Roman
matron-looking women in the leading files, the figurantes in their
tails becoming slighter and smaller, as they tapered away, until they
ended in leetle picaniny, no bigger as my tumb, but always preserving
the uniformity of dress, and colour of the umbrella or parasol.
Sometimes the breeze, on opening a corner, would strike the stern most
of a set composed in this manner of small fry, and stagger the little
things, getting beneath their tiny umbrellas, and fairly blowing them
out of the line, and ruffling their ribbons and finery, as if they had
been tulips bending and shaking their leaves before it. But the colours
were never blended in the same set--no blackie ever interloped with the
browns, nor did the browns in any case mix with the sables--always
keeping in mind--black woman--brown lady.

But, as if the whole city had been tom-fooling, a loud burst of
military music was now heard, and the north end of the street we were
ascending, which leads out of the Place d'Armes or parade, that occupies
the centre of the town, was filled with a cloud of dust, that rose as
high as the house tops, through which the head of a column of troops
sparkled; swords, and bayonets, and gay uniforms glancing in the sun.
This was the Kingston regiment marching down to the Court-house in the
lower part of the town, to mount the Christmas guards, which is always
carefully attended to, in case any of the John Canoes should take a
small fancy to burn or pillage the town, or to rise and cut the throats
of their masters, or any little innocent recreation of the kind, out of
compliment to Dr Lushington, or Messrs Macauley and Babington.

First came a tolerably good band, a little too drummy, but still not
amiss--well dressed, only the performers being of all colours, from
white, down to jet-black, had a curious hodge-podge, or piebald
appearance. Then came a dozen mounted officers at the very least
colonels-in-chief, and colonels, and lieutenant-colonels, and majors
all very fine, and very bad horsemen. Then the grenadier company,
composed of white clerks of the place, very fine-looking young men
indeed--another white company followed, not quite so smart looking--then
came a century of the children of Israel, not over military in
appearance--the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, had passed away, the
glory had long departed from their house,--a phalanx of light browns
succeeded, then a company of dark browns, or mulattoes; the regular half
and--half in this, as well as in grog, is the best mixture after all,
then quashie himself, or a company of free blacks, who, with the browns,
seemed the best soldiers of the set, excepting the flank companies--and
after blackie the battalion again gradually whitened away, until it
ended in a very fine light company of buccras, smart young fellows as
need be--all the officers were white, and all the soldiers, whatever
their caste or colour, free of course. Another battalion succeeded,
composed in the same way, and really I was agreeably surprised to find
the indigenous force of the colony so efficient. I had never seen any
thing more soldier-like amongst our volunteers at home. Presently a
halt was called, and a mounted officer, evidently desirous of showing
off, galloped up to where we were standing, and began to swear at the
drivers of a wagon, with a long team of sixteen bullocks, who had placed
their vehicle, whether intentionally or not I could not tell, directly
across the street, where being met by another wagon of the same kind,
coming through the opposite lane, a regular jam had taken place, as they
had contrived, being redolent of new rum, to lock their wheels, and
twist their lines of bullocks together in much admired confusion.

"Out of the way, sir, out of the way, you black rascals--don't you see
the regiment coming?"

The men spanked their long whips, and shouted to the steers by name
"Back, back--Caesar--Antony--Crab, back, sir, back;" and they whistled
loud and long, but Caesar and the rest only became more and more
involved.

"Order arms," roared another officer, fairly beaten by the bullocks and
wagons--"Stand at ease."

On this last signal, a whole cloud of spruce-beer sellers started
fiercely from under the piazzas.

"An insurrection of the slave population, mayhap,"--thought I, but their
object was a very peaceable one, for presently, I verily believe, every
man and officer in the regiment, had a tumbler of this, to me, most
delicious beverage at his head--the drawing of the corks was more like
street--firing than any thing else--a regular feu de joue. In the
meantime, a council of war seemed to be holden by the mounted officers,
as to how the obstacle in front was to be overcome; but at this moment
confusion became worse confounded, by the approach of what I concluded
to be the white man's John Canoe party, mounted by way of preeminence.
First came a trumpeter John Canoe with a black face, which was all in
rule, as his black counterparts wore white ones; but his Device, a
curious little old man, dressed in a sort of blue uniform, and mounted
on the skeleton, or ghost, of a gig-horse, I could make nothing of. It
carried a drawn sword in its hand, with which it made various
flourishes, at each one of which I trembled for its Rosinante's ears.
The Device was followed by about fifty other odd-looking creatures all
on horseback; but they had no more seat than so many pairs of tongs,
which in truth they greatly resembled, and made no show, and less fun.
So we were wishing them out of the way, when some one whispered that the
Kingston Light Horse mustered strong this morning. I found afterwards
that every man who kept a good horse, or could ride, invariably served
in the foot--all free persons must join some corps or other; so that the
troop, as it was called, was composed exclusively of those who could not
ride, and who kept no saddle horses.

The line was now formed, and after a variety of cumbrous manoeuvres out
of Dundas, sixteen at the least, the regiment was countermarched, and
filed along another street, where they gave three cheers, in honour of
their having had a drink of spruce, and of having circumvented the
bullocks and wagons. A little farther on we encountered four beautiful
nine-pounder fieldpieces, each lumbering along, drawn by half a dozen
mules, and accompanied by three or four negroes, but with no escort
whatsoever.

"I say, quashie, where are the bombardiers, the artillerymen?"

"Oh, massa, dem all gone to drink pruce."

"What, more spruce!--spruce--nothing but spruce!" quoth I.

"Oh, yes, massa--after dem drink pruce done, dem all go to him
breakfast, massa--left we for take de gun to de barrack--beg one
feepenny, massa"--as the price of the information, I suppose.

"Are the guns loaded?" said I.

"Me no sabe, massa--top, I shall see." And the fellow to whom I
addressed myself stepped forward, and began to squint into the muzzle of
one of the fieldpieces, slewing his head from side to side, with absurd
gravity, like a magpie peeping into a marrow-bone. "Him most be load--
no daylight come troo de touch-hole--take care make me try him." And
without more ado he shook out the red embers from his pipe right on the
touch-hole of the gun, when the fragment of a broken tube spun up in a
small jet of flame, that made me start and jump back.

"How dare you, you scoundrel?" said the captain.

"Eigh, massa, him no hax me to see if him be load--so I was try see.
Indeed, I tink him is load after all yet."

He stepped forward, and entered his rammer into the cannon, after an
unavailing attempt to blow with his blubber-lips through the touch
hole.

Noticing that it did not produce the ringing sound it would have done in
an empty gun, but went home with a soft thud, I sung out, "Stand clear,
sir. By Jupiter, the gun is loaded."

The negro continued to bash at it with all his might.

Meanwhile, the fellow who was driving the mules attached to the
fieldpiece, turned his head, and saw what was going on. In a trice he
snatched up another rammer, and, without any warning, came crack over
the fellow's cranium to whom we had been speaking, as hard as he could
draw, making the instrument quiver again.

"Dem you, ye, ye Jericho--ah so you bash my brokefast--eh? You no see
me tick him into de gun before we yoke de mule, dem, eh? You tief you,
eh?"

"No!" roared the other--"You Walkandyam, you hab no brokefast, you liard,
at least I never see him."

"Dem lie dat!" replied Walkandnyam--"look in de gun." Jericho peered
into it again.

"Dere, you son of a--" (I sha'n't say what)--"dere, I see de red
flannin wadding over de cartridge--Your brokefast!--you be dem!" roared
Jericho.

And he made at him as if he would have eaten him alive.

"You be dem youshef!" shrieked Walkandnyam--"and de red wadding be dem!"
as he took a screw, and hooked out, not a cartridge certainly, but his
own nightcap, full of yams and salt fish, smashed into a paste by
Jericho's rammer.

In the frenzy of his rage, he dashed this into his opponent's face, and
they both stripped in a second. Separating several yards, they levelled
their heads like two telescopes on stands, and ran butt at each other
like ram-goats, and quite as odoriferous, making the welkin ring again
as their flint-hard skulls cracked together. Finding each other
invulnerable in this direction, they closed, and began scrambling and
biting and kicking, and tumbling over and over in the sand; while the
skipper and I stood by cheering them on, and nearly suffocated with
laughter. They never once struck with their closed fists I noticed; so
they were not much hurt. It was great cry and little wool; and at
length they got tired, and hauled off by mutual consent, finishing off
as usual with an appeal to us--"beg one feepenny, massa!"

At six o'clock we drove to Mr Pepperpot Wagtail's. The party was a
bachelor's one, and, when we walked up the front steps, there was our
host in person, standing to receive us at the door; while, on each side
of him, there were five or six of his visitors, all sitting with their
legs cocked up, their feet resting on a sort of surbase, above which the
jealousies, or movable blinds of the piazza, were fixed.

I was introduced to the whole party seriatim--and as each of the cock
legs dropped his trams, he started up, caught hold of my hand, and wrung
it as if I had been his dearest and oldest friend.

Were I to designate Jamaica as a community, I would call it a
handshaking people. I have often laughed heartily upon seeing two
cronies meeting in the streets of Kingston after a temporary separation;
when about pistol-shot asunder, both would begin to tug and rug at the
right-hand glove, but it is frequently a mighty serious affair in that
hissing hot climate to get the gauntlet off; they approach,--one, a
smart urbane little man, who would not disgrace St James's Street, being
more kiln-dried and less moist in his corporeals than his country
friend, has contrived to extract his paw, and holds it out in act to
shake.

"Ah! how do you do, Ratoon?" quoth the Kingston man.

"Quite well, Shingle," rejoins the gloved, a stout red-faced
sudoriferous yam-fed planter, dressed in blue-white jean trowsers and
waistcoat, with long Hessian boots drawn up to his knee over the former,
and a spannew square-skirted blue coatee, with lots of clear brass
buttons: a broad brimmed black silk hat, worn white at the edge of the
crown--wearing a very small neckcloth, above which shoots up an enormous
shirt collar, the peaks of which might serve for winkers to a starting
horse, and carrying a large whip in his hand--"Quite well, my dear
fellow," while he persists in dragging at it--the other homo all the
while standing in the absurd position of a finger-post--at length off
comes the glove--piecemeal perhaps--a finger first, for instance--then a
thumb--at length they tackle to, and shake each other like the very
devil--not a sober pump-handle shake, but a regular jiggery jiggery, as
if they were trying to dislocate each other's arms--and, confound them,
even then they don't let go--they cling like sucker fish, and talk and
wallop about, and throw themselves back and laugh, and then another
jiggery jiggery.

On horseback, this custom is conspicuously ridiculous--I have nearly
gone into fits at beholding two men careering along the road at a hand
gallop each on a goodish horse, with his negro boy astern of him on a
mule, in clean frock and trowsers, and smart glazed hat with broad gold
band, with massa's umbrella in a leathem case slung across his
shoulders, and his portmanteau behind him on a mail pillion covered with
a snow white sheep's fleece--suddenly they pull up on recognising each
other, when, tucking their whips under their arms, or crossing them in
their teeth, it may be they commence the rugging and riving operation.
In this case, Shingle's bit of blood swerves, we may assume--Ratoon
rides at him--Shingle fairly turns tail, and starts out at full speed,
Ratoon thundering in his rear, with out-stretched arm; and it does
happen, I am assured, that the hot pursuit often continues for a mile,
before the desired clapperclaw is obtained. But when two lusty planters
meet on horseback, then indeed Greek meets Greek. They, begin the
interview by shouting to each other, while fifty yards off, pulling away
at the gloves all the while--"How are you, Canetop?--glad to see you,
Canetop. How do you do, I hope."--"How are you, Yamfu, my dear fellow?"
their horses fretting and jumping all the time--and if the Jack
Spaniards or gadflies be rife, they have, even when denuded for the
shake, to spur at each other, more like a Knight Templar and a Saracen
charging in mortal combat, than two men merely struggling to be civil;
an after all they have often to get their black servants alongside to
hold their horses, for shake they must, were they to break their necks
in the attempt. Why they won't shake hands with their gloves on, I am
sure I can't tell. It would be much cooler and nicer--lots of Scotchmen
in the community too.

This hand-shaking, however, was followed by an invitation to dinner
from each individual in the company. I looked at Captain Transom, as
much as to say, "Can they mean us to take them at their word?" He
nodded.

"We are sorry, that being under orders to go to sea on Sunday morning,
neither Mr Cringle nor myself can have the pleasure of accepting such
kind invitations."

"Well, when you come back you know--one day you must give me."

"And I won't be denied," quoth a second.

"Liberty Hall, you know, so to me you must come, no ceremony," said a
third--and so on.

At length, no less a man drove up to the door, than Judge----. When he
drew up, his servant, who was sitting behind on a small projection of
the ketureen, came round and took a parcel out of the gig, closely
wrapped in a blanket--"Bring that carefully in, Leonidas," said the
Judge, who now stumped up stairs with a small saw in his hand. He
received the parcel, and, laying it down carefully in a corner, he
placed the saw on it, and then came up and shook hands with Wagtail, and
made his bow very gracefully.

"What--can't you do without your ice and sour claret yet?" said Wagtail.

"Never mind, never mind," said the Judge; and here dinner being
announced, we all adjourned to the dining room, where a very splendid
entertainment was set out, to which we set to, and in the end, as it
will appear, did the utmost justice to it.

The wines were most exquisite. Madeira, for instance, never can be
drunk in perfection anywhere out of the Tropics. You may have the wine
as good at home, although I doubt it, but then you have not the climate
to drink it in--I would say the same of most of the delicate French
wines--that is, those that will stand the voyage--Burgundy of course not
included; but never mind, let us get along.

All the decanters were covered with cotton bags, kept wet with saltpetre
and water, so that the evaporation carried on powerfully by the stream
of air that flowed across the room, through the open doors and windows,
made the fluids quite as cool as was desirable to worthies sitting
luxuriating with the thermometer at 80 or thereby; yet, from the free
current, I was in no way made aware of this degree of heat by any
oppressive sensation; and I found in the West Indies as well as in the
East, although the wind in the latter is more dry and parching, that a
current of heated air, if it be moderately dry, even with the
thermometer at 95 in the shade, is really not so enervating or
oppressive as I have found it in the stagnating atmosphere on the sunny
side of Pall Mall, with the mercury barely at 75. A cargo of ice had a
little before this arrived at Kingston, and at first all the inhabitants
who could afford it iced every thing, wine, water, cold meats, fruits,
and the Lord knows what all, tea, I believe, amongst other things; (by
the way, I have tried this, and it is a luxury of its kind;) but the
regular old stagers, who knew what was what, and had a regard for their
interiors, soon began to eschew the ice in every way, saving and
expecting to cool the water they washed their thin faces and hands in;
so we had no ice, nor did we miss it, but the judge had a plateful of
chips on the table before him, one of which he every now and then popped
into his long thin bell-glass of claret, diluting it, I should have
thought, in rather a heathenish manner; but n'importe, he worked away,
sawing off pieces now and then from the large lump in the blanket, (to
save the tear and wear attending a fracture,) which was handed to him by
his servant, so that by eleven o'clock at night, allowing for the water,
he must have concealed his three bottles of pure claret, besides
garnishing with a lot of white wines. In fine, we all carried on
astonishingly, some good singing was given, a practical joke was tried
on now and then by Fyall, and we continued mighty happy. As to the
singing part of it,--the landlord, with a bad voice, and worse ear,
opened the rorytory, by volunteering a very extraordinary squeak;
fortunately it was not very long, but it gave him a plea to screw a song
out of his right-hand neighbour, who in turn acquired the same right of
compelling the person next to him to make a fool of himself; at last it
came to Transom, who, by the by, sung exceedingly well, but he had got
more wine than usual, and essayed the coquette a bit.

"Bring the wet nightcap!" quoth our host.

"Oh, it is that you are at?" said Transom, and he sung as required; but
it was all pearls before swine, I fear.

At last we stuck fast at Fyall. Music! there was not one particle in
his whole composition; so the wet nightcap already impended over him,
when I sung out, "Let him tell a story, Mr Wagtail!  Let him tell a
story!"

"Thank you, Tom," said Fyall; "I owe you a good turn for that, my boy."

"Fyall's story--Mr Fyall's story!" resounded on all hands. Fyall, glad
to escape the song and wet nightcap, instantly began.

"Why, my friends, you all know Isaac Grimm, the Jew snuff merchant and
cigar maker, in Harbour Street. Well, Isaac had a brother, Ezekiel by
name, who carried on business in Curacao; you may have heard of him too.
Ezekiel was often down here for the purpose of laying in provisions, and
purchasing dry goods. You all know that?"

"Certainly!" shouted both Captain Transom and myself in a breath,
although we had never heard of him before.

"Hah, I knew it!"--Well then, Ezekiel was very rich; he came down in
August last, in the Pickle schooner, and, as bad luck would have it, he
fell sick of the fever.--"Isaac," quoth Ezekiel, "I am wery sheek; I
tink I shall tie." "Hope note, dear proder; you hab no vife, nor
shildir; pity you should tie, Ezekiel. Ave you make your vill, Ezekiel?"
"Yesh; de vill is make. I leavish every ting to you, Isaac, on von
condition, dat you send my pody to be bury in Curacao. I love dat place;
twenty years since I lef de Minories, all dat time I cheat dere, and
tell lie dere, and lif dere happily. Oh, you most sent my pody for its
puryment to Curacao!" "I will do dat, mine proder." "Den I depart in
peace, dear Isaac;" and the Israelite was as good as his word for once.
He did die. Isaac, according to his promise, applied to the captains of
several schooners; none of them would take the dead body. "What shall I
do?" thought Isaac, "de monish mosh not be loss." So he straightway had
Ezekiel (for even a Jew won't keep long in that climate) cut up and
packed with pickle into two barrels, marked, "Prime mess pork,
Leicester, M'Call and Co. Cork" He then shipped the same in the Fan
Fan, taking bills of lading in accordance with the brand, deliverable to
Mordecai Levi of Curacao, to whom he sent the requisite instructions.
The vessel sailed. Off St Domingo she carried away a mast, tried to
fetch Carthagena under a jury-spar--fell to leeward, and finally
brought up at Honduras.

Three months after, Isaac encountered the master of the schooner in the
streets of Kingston. "Ah, mine goot captain--how is you you lookish tin
ave you been sheek?" "No, Moses I am well enough, thank you--poor a
bit, but sound in health, thank God. You have heard of my having
carried away the mainmast, and, after kicking about fifteen days on
short allowance, having been obliged to bear up for Honduras?"  "I know
noting of all dat," said Isaac; "sorry for it, captain--very sad inteed"
"Sad--you may say that, Moses. But I am honest although poor, and here
is your bill of lading for your two barrels of provisions; Prime mess,
it says damned tough, say I--Howsomedever," pulling out his purse, "the
present value on Bogle, Jopp, and Co's. wharf is L.5, 6s. 8d. the
barrel; so there are two doubloons, Moses, and now discharge the account
on the back of the bill of lading, will you?" "Vy should I take payment,
captain? if de"--(pork stuck in his throat like 'amen' in Macbeth,)
"if de barrel ish lost, it can't be help--de act of God, you know." "I
am an honest man, Isaac," continued the captain, "although a poor one,
and I must tell the truth--we carried on with our own as long as it
lasted, at length we had to break bulk, and your two barrels being
nearest the hatchway, why we ate them first, that's all. Lord, what has
come over you?"--Isaac grew pale as a corpse.--"Oh, mine Got--mine poor
proder, dat you ever was live, to tie in Jamaic--Oh tear, oh tear!"

"Did they eat the head and hands and--"

"Hold your tongue, Tom Cringle, don't interrupt me; you did not eat
them; I tell it as it was told to me. So Isaac Grimm," continued Fyall,
"was fairly overcome; the kindly feelings of his nature were at length
stirred up, and as he turned away, he wept--blew his nose hard, like a
Chaldean trumpet in the new moon--and while the large tears coursed each
other down his care-worn cheeks, he exclaimed, wringing the captain's
hand, in a voice tremulous and scarcely audible from extreme emotion,"
"Oh, Isaac Grimm, Isaac Grimm--tid not your heart mishgive you, ven you
vas commit te great blasphemy of invoish Ezekiel--flesh of your flesh,
pone of your pone--as por--de onclean peast, I mean. If you hat put
invoish him ash peef, surely te earthly tabernacle of him, as always
sheet in de high places in te Sinacogue, would never have been allow to
pass troo te powels of te pershicuting Nazareen. Ah, mine goot captain
mine very tear friend--vat--vat--vat av you done wid de cask, captain?"

"Oh most lame and impotent conclusion," sung out the judge, who by this
time had become deucedly prosy, and all hands arose, as if by common
consent, and agreed that we had got enough.

So off we started in groups.--Fyall, Captain Transom, Whiffle, Aaron
Bang, and myself, sallied forth in a bunch, pretty well inclined for a
lark, you may guess. There are no lamps in the streets of Kingston, and
as all the decent part of the community are in their cavies by
half-past nine in the evening, and as it was now "the witching time o'
night," there was not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a
solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under
the piazzas. These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough
in the daytime, had become unaccountably narrow and intricate since six
o'clock in the evening; and, although the object of the party was to
convoy Captain Transom and myself to our boat at the Ordnance Wharf, it
struck me that we were as frequently on a totally different tack.

"I say, Cringle, my boy," stuttered out my superior, Lieutenant and
Captain being both drowned in and equalized by the claret--"why, Tom,
Tom Cringle, you dog--don't you hear your superior officer speak, sir,
eh?"

My superior officer, during this address, was standing with both arms
round a pillar of the piazza.

"I am here, sir," said I.

"Why, I know that; but why don't you speak when I Hillo where's Aaron,
and Fyall, and the rest, eh?"

They had been attracted by sounds of revelry in a splendid mansion in
the next street, which we could see was lit up with great brilliancy,
and had at this time shot about fifty yards ahead of us, working to
windward, tack and tack, like Commodore Trunnion.

"Ah, I see," said Transom; "let us heave ahead, Tom--now, do ye hear?--
stand you with your white trowsers against the next pillar." The ranges
supporting the piazza were at distances of about twenty feet from each
other.--"Ah, stand there now--I see it."--So he weighted from the one he
had tackled to, and making a staggering bolt of it, ran up to the pillar
against which I stood, its position being marked by my white vestments,
where he again hooked on for a second or two, until I had taken up a new
position.

"There, my boy, that's the way to lay out a warp--right in the wind's
eye, Tom--we shall fairly beat those lubbers who are tacking in the
stream--nothing like warping in the dead water near the shore--mark that
down, Tom--never beat in a tideway when you can warp up along shore in
the dead water--Damn the judge's ice" (hiccup) "he has poisoned me with
that piece he plopped in my last whitewash of Madeira. He a judge!  He
may be a good crim--criminal judge, but no judge of wine--Why don't you
laugh, Tom, eh?--and then his saw--the rasp of a saw I hate--wish it,
and a whole nest more, had been in his legal stomach--full of old saws
Shakespeare--he, he--why don't you laugh, Tom?--Poisoned by the judge,
by Jupiter--Now, here we are fairly abreast of them--Hillo! Fyall, what
are you after?"

"Hush, hush," said Fyall, with drunken gravity.

"And hush, hush," said Aaron Bang.

"Come here, Tom, come here," said Whiffle, in a whisper. We were now
directly under the piazza of the fine house, in the first floor of which
some gay scene was enacting. "Here, Tom, here--now stand there--hold by
that pillar there. I say, Transom, give me a lift."

"Can't, Whiffle, can't, for the soul of me, Peregrine, my dear--but
I see, I see."

With that the gallant captain got down on all fours; Whiffle, a small
light man, got on his back, and, with the aid of Bang and Fyall, managed
to scramble up on my shoulders, where he stood, holding by the window
sill above, with a foot on each side of my head. His little red face
was thus raised flush with the window sill, so that he could see into
the dark piazza on the first floor, and right through into the
magnificent and sparkling drawing room beyond.

"Now tell us what's to be seen," said Aaron.

"Stop, stop," rejoined Whiffle--"My eye, what a lot of splendid women
no men--a regular lady party--Hush! a song." A harp was struck, and a
symphony of Beethoven's played with great taste--A song, low and
melancholy, from two females followed.

"The music of the spheres!" quoth Whiffle.

We were rapt--we had been inspired before--and, drunk as we were, there
we sat or stood, as best suited us, exhibiting the strange sight of a
cluster of silent tipsy men. At length, at one of the finest swells, I
heard a curious gurgling sound overhead, as if some one was being
gagged, and I fancied Peregrine became lighter on my shoulders--Another
fine dieaway note--I was sure of it.

"Bang, Bang--Fyall--He is evaporating with delight--no weight at all,
growing more and more ethereal--lighter and lighter, as I am a gentleman
he is off--going, going, gone--exhaled into the blue heavens, by all
that is wonderful!"

Puzzled beyond measure, I stept hurriedly back, and capsized over the
captain, who was still enacting the joint-stool on all-fours behind
me, by which Whiffle had mounted to my crosstrees, and there we rolled
in the sand, master and man.

"Murdered, Tom Cringle--murdered--you have hogged me like the old
Ramilies--broke my back, Tom--spoiled my quadrilling for ever and a day;
d----n the judge's ice though, and the saw particularly."

"Where is he--where is Whiffle?" enquired all hands, in a volley.

"The devil only knows," said I; "he has flown up into the clouds, catch
him who can. He has left this earth anyhow, that is clear."

"Ha, ha!" cried Fyall, in great glee, who had seen him drawn into the
window by several white figures, after they had tied a silk handkerchief
over his mouth; "Follow me, my boys;" and we all scrambled after him to
the front door of the house, to which we ascended by a handsome flight
of marble steps, and when there, we began to thunder away for
admittance. The door was opened by a very respectable looking elderly
gentleman, with well powdered hair, and attended by two menservants in
handsome liveries, carrying lights. His bearing and gentlemanlike
deportment had an immediate effect on me, and I believe on the others
too. He knew Fyall and Whiffle, it appeared.

"Mr Fyall," he said, with much gentleness, "I know it is only meant as a
frolic, but really I hope you will now end it. Amongst yourselves,
gentlemen, this may be all very well, but considering my religion, and
the slights we Hebrews are so often exposed to, myself and my family are
more sensitive and pervious to insult than you can well understand."

"My dear fellow," quoth Fyall, "we are all very sorry; the fact is, we
had some d----d bad shaddock after dinner, which has made us very giddy
and foolish somehow. Do you know, I could almost fancy I had been
drinking wine."

"Cool and deliciously impudent that same, (hiccup,)" quoth the skipper.

"But hand us back little Whiffle," continued Fyall, "and we shall be
off."

Here Whiffie's voice was heard from the drawing room. "Here, Fyall!--
Tom Cringle!--Here, here, or I shall be murdered!"

"Ah!  I see," said Mr H. "this way, gentlemen. Come, I will deliver the
culprit to you;" and we followed him into the drawing room, a most
magnificent saloon, at least forty feet by thirty, brilliantly lit up
with crystal lamps, and massive silver candelabra, and filled with
elegant furniture, which was reflected, along with the chandeliers that
hung from the centre of the coach roof, by several large mirrors, in
rich frames, as well as in the highly polished mahogany floor.

There, in the middle of the room, the other end of it being occupied by
a bevy of twelve or fifteen richly-dressed females, visitors, as we
conjectured, sat our friend Peregrine, pinioned into a large easy chair,
with shawls and scarfs, amidst a sea of silk cushions, by four beautiful
young women, black hair and eyes, clear white skins, fine figures, and
little clothing. A young Jewess is a beautiful animal, although, like
the unclean--confound the metaphor--which they abhor--they don't improve
by age.

When we entered, the blushing girls, who had been beating Whiffle over
his spindle shins, with their large garden fans, dashed through a side
door, unable to contain their laughter, which we heard long after they
had vanished, echoing through the lofty galleries of the house. Our
captive knight being restored to us, we made our bows to the other
ladies, who were expiring with laughter, and took our leave, with little
Whiffle on our shoulders--the worthy Hebrew, whom I afterwards knew in
London, sending his servant and gig with Captain Transom and myself to
the wharf. There we tumbled ourselves into the boat, and got on board
the Firebrand about three in the morning. We were by this time pretty
well sobered; at four a gun was fired, the topsails were let fall, and
sheeted home, and topgallant-sails set over them, the ship having
previously been hove short; at half-past, the cable being right up and
down--another gun the drums and fifes beat merrily, spin flew the
capstan, tramp went the men that manned it. We were under weigh--
Eastward, ho!--for Santiago de Cuba.



CHAPTER XII.--The Cruise o the Firebrand


     Shewing, amongst other pleasant matters well worthy of being
     recorded, how Thomas communed with his two Consciences.


     "Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
     And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide,
     The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play,
     That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?"

     Byron, The Corsair, 1.9--16.


We had to beat up for three days before we could weather the east end of
Jamaica, and tearing work we had of it. I had seen bad weather and
heavy seas in several quarters of the globe--I had tumbled about under a
close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, on the long seas in the
Bay of Biscay--I had been kicked about in a seventy-four, off the
Cape of Good Hope, as if she had been a cork--I had been hove hither and
thither, by the short jumble of the North Sea, about Heligoland, and the
shoals lying off the mouth of the Elbe, when every thing over head was
black as thunder, and all beneath as white as snow--I had enjoyed the
luxury of being tom in pieces by a northwester, which compelled us to
lie-to for ten days at a stretch, under storm stay-sails, off the
coast of Yankeeland, with a clear, deep, cold, blue sky above us,
without a cloud, where the sun shone brightly the whole time by day, and
a glorious harvest moon by night, as if they were smiling in derision
upon our riven and strained ship, as she reeled to and fro like a
wounded Titan; at one time buried in the trough of the sea, at another
cast upwards towards the heavens by the throes of the tormented waters,
from the troubled bosom of the bounding and roaring ocean, amidst
hundreds of miniature rainbows, (ay, rainbows by night as well as by
day,) in a hissing storm of white, foaming, seething spray, torn from
the curling and rolling bright green crests of the mountainous billows.
And I have had more than one narrow squeak for it in the neighbourhood
of the "still vexed Bermoothes," besides various other small affairs,
written in this Boke; but the devil such another tumblefication had I
ever experienced-not as to danger, for there was none except to our
spars and rigging, but as to discomfort as I did in that short, cross,
splashing, and boiling sea, off Morant Point. By noon, however, on the
second day, having had a slant from the land wind in the night previous,
we got well to windward of the long sandy spit that forms the east end
of the island, and were in the act of getting a small pull of the weather
braces, before edging away for St Jago, when the wind fell suddenly, and
in half an hour it was stark calm--'una furiosa calma,' as the Spanish
sailors quaintly enough call it.

We got rolling tackles up, and the topgallant-masts down, and studding
sails out of the tops, and lessened the lumber and weight aloft in
every way we could think of, but, nevertheless, we continued to roll
gunwale under, dipping the main-yardarm into the water every now and
then, and setting every thing adrift, below and on deck, that was not
bolted down, or otherwise well secured.

When I went down to dinner, the scene was extremely good. Old Yerk, the
first lieutenant, was in the chair--one of the boys was jammed at his
side, with his claws fastened round the foot of the table, holding a
tureen of boiling pease-soup, with lumps of pork swimming in it, which
the aforesaid Yerk was baling forth with great assiduity to his
messmates. Hydrostatics were much in vogue--the tendency of fluids to
regain their equilibrium (confound them, they have often in the shape of
claret destroyed mine) was beautifully illustrated, as the contents of
each carefully balanced soup-plate kept swaying about on the principle
of the spirit level. The Doctor was croupier, and as it was a return to
dinner to the captain, all hands were regularly figged out, the
lieutenants, with their epaulets and best coats, and the master, purser,
and doctor, all fittingly attired. When I first entered, as I made my
obeisance to the captain, I thought I saw an empty seat next him, but
the matter of the soup was rather an engrossing concern, and took up my
attention, so that I paid no particular regard to the circumstance;
however, when we had all discussed the same, and were drinking our first
glass of Tenerife, I raised my eyes to hob and nob with the master, when
ye gods and little fishes--who should they light on, but the merry phiz
merry, also! no more--of Aaron Bang, Esquire, who, during the soup
interlude, had slid into the vacant chair unperceived by me.

"Why, Mr Bang, where, in the name of all that is comical, where have you
dropped from?" Alas! poor Aaron--Aaron in a rolling sea was of no
kindred to Aaron ashore. His rosy gills were no longer rosy, his round
plump face seemed to be covered with parchment from an old bass drum,
cut out from the centre where most bronzed by the drumstruck--there was
no speculation in his eyes that he did glare withal--and his lips, which
were usually firm and open, disclosing his nice teeth, in frequent grin,
were held together, as if he had been in grievous pain. At length he
did venture to open them--and, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, "it
lifted up its head and did address itself to motion, as it would speak."
But they began to quiver, and he once more screwed them together, as if
he feared the very exertion of uttering a word or two might unsettle his
moniplies.

The master was an odd garrulous small man, who had a certain number of
stated jokes, which, so long as they were endured, he unmercifully
inflicted on his messmates. I had come in for my share, as a new comer,
as well as the rest; but even with me, although I had been but recently
appointed, they had already began to pall, and wax wearisome; and blind
as the beetle of a body was, he could not help seeing this. So poor
Bang, unable to return a shot, sea-sick and crestfallen, offered a
target that he could not resist taking aim at. Dinner was half over,
and Bang had not eaten any thing, when, unseasonable as the hour was,
the little pot--valiant master, primed with two tumblers of grog, in
defiance of the captain's presence, fairly fastened on him, like a
remora, and pinned him down with one of his longwinded stories about
Captain David Jones, in the Phantome, during a cruise off Cape Flyaway,
having run foul of a whale, and thereby nearly foundered; and that at
length having got the monster harpooned and speared, and the devil knows
what, but it ended in getting her alongside, when they scuttled the
leviathan, and then, wonderful to relate, they found a Greenlandman,
with royal yards crossed, in her maw, and the captain and mate in the
cabin quarrelling about the reckoning.

"What do you think of that, Mr Bang--as well they might be, Mr Bang--as
well they might be?" Bang said nothing, but at the moment--whether the
said Aaron lent wings to the bird or no I cannot tell--a goose, swimming
in apple sauce, which he was, with a most stern countenance, endeavouring
to carve, fetched away right over the gunwale of the dish; and taking a
whole boat of melted butter with it, splashed across the table during a
tremendous roll, that made every thing creak and groan again, right into
the small master's lap who was his vis-a-vis. I could hear Aaron
grumble out something about--"Strange affinity-birds of a feather." But
his time was up, his minutes were numbered, and like a shot he bolted
from the table, skulling or rather clawing away towards the door, by the
backs of the chairs, like a green parrot, until he reached the marine at
the bottom of the ladder, at the door of the captain's cabin, round
whose neck he immediately fetterlocked his fins.

He had only time to exclaim to his new ally, "My dear fellow, get me
some brandy and water, for the love of mercy"--when he blew up, with an
explosion like the bursting of a steam-boiler--"Oh dear, oh dear," we
could hear him murmuring in the lulls of his agony then another loud
report--"there goes my yesterday's supper-hot grog and toasted cheese"
another roar, as if the spirit was leaving its earthly tabernacle
"dinner-claret--Madeira--all cruel bad in a second edition-cheese,
teal, and ringtail pigeon--black crabs calapi and turtle soup"--as his
fleshly indulgences of the previous day rose up in judgment against him,
like a man's evil deeds on his death-bed. At length-the various
strata of his interior were entirely excavated--"Ah!--I have got to my
breakfast-to the simple tea and toast at last.--Brandy and water, my
dear Transom, brandy and water, my darling, hot, without sugar"--and
"Brandy and water" died in echoes in the distance as he was stowed away
into his cot in the captain's cabin. It seems that it had been all
arranged between him and Transom, that he was to set off for St Thomas
in the East, the morning on which we sailed, and to get a shove out in
the pilot-boat schooner, from Morant Bay, to join us for the cruise;
and accordingly he had come on board the night previous when I was
below, and being somewhat qualmish he had wisely kept his cot; the fun
of the thing depending, as it seemed, on all hands carefully keeping it
from me that he was on board.

I apprehend most people indulge in the fancy that they have Consciences,
such as they are. I myself now--even I, Thomas Cringle, Esquire,
amongst sundry vain imaginings, conceive that I have a Conscience
somewhat of the caoutchouc order I will confess stretching a little upon
occasion, when the gale of my passions blows high, nevertheless a highly
respectable Conscience, as things go a stalwart unchancy customer, who
will not be gainsaid or contradicted; but he may be disobeyed, although
never with impunity. It is all true that a young, well-fledged
gentlewoman, for she is furnished with a most swift pair of wings,
called Prosperity, sometimes gets the better of Master Conscience, and
smothers the Grim Feature for a time, under the bed of eider down,
whereon you and her ladyship are reposing. But she is a sad jilt in
many instances, this same Prosperity; for some fine morning, with the
sun glancing in through the crevices of the window-shutters, just at
the nick when, after turning yourself, and rubbing your eyes, you
courageously thrust forth one leg, with a determination to don your
gramashes without more delay. "Tom," says she "Tom Cringle, I have got
tired of you, Thomas; besides, I hear my next door neighbour, Madame
Adversity, tirling at the door pin; so give me my down bed, Tom, and
I'm off." With that she bangs open the window, and before I recover from
my surprise, launches forth, with a loud whir, mattrass and all, leaving
me, Pilgarlic, lying on the paillasse. Well, her nest is scarcely cold,
when in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit
gizzened anatomy of an old woman--"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is
it no enough that you consort with that scarlet limmer, who has just
yescaped thorough the winday, but ye maun smoors my firstborn, puir
Conscience, atween ye? Whare hae ye stowed him, mantell me that?" And
the ancient damosel gives me a shrewd clip on the skull with the poker.
"That's right, mother," quoth Conscience, from beneath the straw
mattrass--"Give it to him--he'll no hear me another devel, mother." And
I found that my own weight, deserted as I was by that--ahem--Prosperity,
was no longer sufficient to keep him down. So up he rose, with a loud
pech; and while the old woman keelhauled me with a poker on one side, he
yerked at me on the other, until at length he gave me a regular cross
buttock, and then between them they diddled me outright. When I was
fairly floored, "Now, my man," said Adversity, "I bear no spite; if you
will but listen to my boy there, we shall be good friends still. He is
never unreasonable. He has no objections to your consorting even with
Madame Prosperity, in a decent way; but he will not consent to your
letting her get the better of you, nor to your doting on her, even to
the giving her a share of your bed, when she should never be allowed to
get farther than the servants hall, for she should be kept in
subjection, or she'll ruin you for ever, Thomas.--Conscience is a rough
lad, I grant you, and I am keen and snell also; but never mind, take his
advice, and you'll be some credit to your freens yet, ye scoonrel." I did
so, and the old lady's visits became shorter and shorter, and more and
more distant, until at length they ceased altogether; and once more
Prosperity, like a dove with its heaven-borrowed hues all glowing in
the morning sun, pitched one morning on my windowsill. It was in June.
"Tom, I am come back again." I glowered at her with all my bir. She made
a step or two towards me, and the lesson of Adversity was fast
evaporating into thin air, when, lo! the sleeping lion himself awoke.
"Thomas," said Conscience, in a voice that made my flesh creep, "not
into your bed, neither into your bosom, Thomas. Be civil to the young
woman, but remember what your best friend Adversity told you, and never
let her be more than your handmaiden again; free to come, free to go,
but never more to be your mistress." I screw myself about, and twist,
and turn in great perplexity--Hard enough all this, and I am half
inclined to try to throttle Conscience outright.

But to make a long story short--I was resolute--"Step into the parlour,
my dearest I hope we shall never part any more; but you must not get the
upper hand, you know. So step into the other room, and whenever I get
my inexpressibles on, I will come to you there."

But this Conscience, about which I am now hovering, seldom acts the
monitor in this way, unless against respectable crimes, such as murder,
debauching your friend's wife, or stealing. But the chield I have to do
with for the present, and who has led to this rigmarole, is a sort of
deputy Conscience, a looker--out after small affairs--peccadilloes. The
grewsome carle, Conscience Senior, you can grapple with, for he only
steps forth on great occasions, when he says sternly--and the mischief
is, that what he says, we know to be true--says he, "Thomas Cringle"--he
never calls me Tom, or Mister, or Lieutenant--"Thomas Cringle," says he,
"if you do that thing, you shall be damned." "Lud-a mercy," quoth I,
Thomas, "I will perpend, Master Conscience" and I set myself to eschew
the evil deed, with all my might. But Conscience the Younger--whom I
will take leave to call by Quashie's appellative hereafter, Conshy--is a
funny little fellow, and another guess sort oft a chap altogether. An
instance--"I say, Tom, my boy--Tom Cringle--why the deuce now"--he
won't say "the Devil" for the world--"Why the deuce, Tom, don't you
confine yourself to a pint of wine at dinner, eh?" quoth Conshy. "Why
will you not give up your toddy after it? You are ruining your
interior, Thomas, my fine fellow--the gout is on the look out for you,
your legs are spindling, and your paunch is increasing. Read Hamlet's
speech to Polonius, Tom, and if you don't find all the marks of
premature old age creeping on you, then am I, Conshy, a Dutchman, that's
all." Now Conshy always lectures you in the watches of the night; I
generally think his advice is good at breakfast time, and during the
forenoon, egad, I think it excellent and most reasonable, and I determine
to stick by it and if Conshy and I dine alone, I do adhere to his maxims
most rigidly; but if any of my old allies should topple in to dinner,
Conshy, who is a solitary mechanic, bolts instanter. Still I remember
him for a time--we sit down--the dinner is good. "I say, Jack, a glass
of wine, Peter what shall we have?" and until the pint a-piece is
discussed, all is right between Conshy and I. But then comes some
grouse. Hook, in his double-refined nonsense, palavers about the
blasphemy of white wine after brown game--and he is not far wrong
either;--at least I never thought he was, so long as my Hermitage
lasted; but at the time I speak of, it was still to the fore--so the
moment the pint a-piece was out, "Hold hard, Tom, now," cheeps little
Conshy. "Why, only one glass of Hermitage, Conshy." Conshy shakes his
head. Cheese--after the manner of the ancients--Hook again--"Only one
glass of port, Conshy." He shakes his head, and at length the cloth is
drawn, and a confounded old steward of mine, who is now installed as
butler, brings in the crystal decanters, sparkling to the wax lights
poor as I am, I consider mutton fat still damnable--and every thing as
it should be, down to a finger-glass. "Now, Mary, where are the
children?" I am resolute. "Jack, I can't drink--out of sorts, my boy
so mind yourself, you and Peter.--Now, Conshy," says I, "where are you
now, my boy?" But just at this instant, jack strikes out, with "Cringle,
order me a tumbler--something hot--I don't care what it is."--"Ditto,"
quoth Peter; and down crumbles all my fine fabric of resolutions, only
to be rebuilt tomorrow, before breakfast again, or at any odd moment,
when one's flesh is somewhat fishified. Another instance. "I say, Tom,"
says Conshy, "do give over looking at that smart girl tripping it along
t'other side of the street."--"Presently, my dear little man," says I.
"Tight little woman that, Conshy; handsome bows; good bearings forward;
tumbles home sweetly about the waist, and tumbles out well above the
hips; what a beautiful run! and spars clean and tight; back-stays well
set up."--"Now, Tom, you vagabond, give over. Have you not a wife of
your own?"--"To be sure I have, Conshy, my darling; but toujours per"
"Have done, now, you are going too far," says Conshy.--"Oh, you be--".
"Thomas," cries a still stern voice, from the very inmost recesses of
my heart. Wee Conshy holds up his finger, and pricks his ear. "Do you
hear him?" says he.--"I hear," says I, "I hear and tremble." Now, to
apply. Conshy has been nudging me for this half hour to hold my tongue
regarding Aaron Bang's sea-sickness.--"It is absolutely indecent,"
quoth he. "Can't help it, Conshy; no more than the extra tumbler; those
who are delicate need not read it; those who are indelicate won't be the
worse of it."--"But," persists Conshy--"I have other hairs in your neck,
Master Tommy--you are growing a bit of a buffoon on us, and sorry am I
to say it, sometimes not altogether, as a man with a rank imagination
may construe you, a very decent one. Now, my good boy, I would have you
to remember that what you write is condemned in the pages of Old
Christopher to an amber immortalization," (Ohon for the Provost!) "nay,
don't perk and smile, I mean no compliment, for you are but the straw in
the amber, Tom, and the only wonder is, how the deuce you got there."

"But, my dear Conshy"

"Hold your tongue, Tom--let me say out my say, and finish my advice--and
how will you answer to my father, in your old age, when youth, and
health, and wealth, may have flown, if you find any thing in this your
Log calculated to bring a blush on an innocent cheek, Tom, when the time
shall have for ever passed away wherein you could have remedied the
injury? For Conscience will speak to you then, not as I do now, in
friendly confidence, and impelled by a sincere regard for you, you right
hearted, but thoughtless, slapdash vagabond."

There must have been a great deal of absurd perplexity in my visage, as
I sat receiving my rebuke, for I noticed Conshy smile, which gave me
courage.

"I will reform, Conshy, and that immediately; but my moral is good,
man."

"Well, well, Tom, I will take you at your word, so set about it, set
about it."

"But, Conshy--a word in your starboard lug--why don't you go to the
fountain-head--why don't you try your hand in a curtain lecture on Old
Kit North himself, the hoary sinner who seduced me?"

Conshy could no longer contain himself; the very idea of Old Kit having
a conscience of any kind or description whatever, so tickled him, that
he burst into a most uproarious fit of laughter, which I was in great
hopes would have choked him, and thus made me well quit of him for ever.
For some time I listened in great amazement, but there was something so
infectious in his fun, that presently I began to laugh too, which only
increased his cachinnation, so there were Conshy and I roaring, and
shouting, with the tears running down our cheeks.

"Kit listen to me!--Oh, Lord"

"You are swearing, Conshy," said I, rubbing my hands at having caught
him tripping.

"And enough to make a Quaker swear," quoth he, still laughing. "No, no,
Kit never listens to me--why, he would never listen even to my father,
until the gout and the Catholic Relief Bill, and last of all, the Reform
Bill, broke him down, and softened his heart."

So there is an allegory for you, worthy of John Bunyan.

Next morning we got the breeze again, when we bore away for Santiago de
Cuba, and arrived off the Moro Castle on the fifth evening at sunset,
after leaving Port Royal harbour. The Spaniards, in their better days,
were a kind of coral worms; wherever they planted their colonies, they
immediately set to covering themselves in with stone and mortar;
applying their own entire energies, and the whole strength of their
Indian captives, first to the erection of a fort; their second object
(postponed to the other only through absolute necessity) being then to
build a temple to their God. Gradually vast fabrics appeared, where
before there was nothing but one eternal forest, or a howling
wilderness; and although it does come over one, when looking at the
splendid moles, and firm-built bastions, and stupendous churches of the
New World--the latter surpassing, or at the lest equalling in
magnificence and grandeur those of Old Spain herself--that they are all
cemented by the blood and sweat of millions of gentle Indians, of whose
harmless existence in many quarters, they remain the only monuments,
still it is a melancholy reflection to look back and picture to one's
self what Spain was, and to compare her, in her high and palmy state,
with what she is now--to compare her present condition even with what
she was when, as a young midshipman, I first visited her glorious
Transatlantic colonies.

Until the Peninsula was overrun by the French, Buenos Ayres, La Guayra,
Porto Cavello, Maracaibo, Santa Martha, and that stronghold of the west,
the key of the Isthmus of Darien, Cartagena de las Indias, with Porto
Bello, and Vera Cruz, on the Atlantic shores of South America, were all
prosperous and happy--"Llenas de plata;" and on the Western coast,
Valparaiso, Lima, Panama, and San Bias, were thriving and increasing in
population and wealth. England, through her colonies, was at that time
driving a lucrative trade with all of them; but the demon of change was
abroad, blown thither by the pestilent breath of European liberalism.
What a vineyard for Abbe Sieyes to have laboured in!  Every Capitania
would have become a purchaser of one of his cut and dried constitutions.
Indeed he could not have turned them out of hand fast enough. The
enlightened few, in these countries, were as a drop in the bucket to the
unenlightened many; and although no doubt there were numbers of the
former who were well-meaning men, yet they were one and all guilty of
that prime political blunder, in common with our Whig friends at home,
of expecting a set of semi-barbarians to see the beauty of, and to
conform to, their newfangled codes of free institutions, for which they
were as ready as I am to die at this present moment. Bolivar, in his
early fever of patriotism, made the same mistake, although his shrewd
mind, in his later career, saw that a despotism, pure or impure--I will
not qualify it--was your only government for the savages he had at one
time dignified with the name of fellow-patriots. But he came to this
wholesome conclusion too late; he tried backs it is true, but it would
not do; the fiend had been unchained, and at length hunted him broken
hearted into his grave.

But the men of mind tell us, that those countries are now going through
the political fermentation, which by and by will clear, when the
sediment will be deposited, and the different ranks will each take their
acknowledged and undisputed stations in society; and the United States
are once and again quoted against we of the adverse faction, as If there
were the most remote analogy between their population, originally
composed of all the cleverest scoundrels of Europe, and the barbarians
of Spanish America, where a few master spirits, all old Spaniards, did
indeed for a season stick fiery off from the dark mass of savages
amongst whom their lot was cast, like stars in a moonless night, but
only to suffer a speedy eclipse from the clouds and storm which they
themselves had set in motion. We shall see. The scum as yet is
uppermost, and does not seem likely to subside, but it may boil over.
In Cuba, however, all was at the time quiet, and still is, I believe,
prosperous, and that too without having come through this said blessed
political fermentation.

During the night we stood off and on under easy sail, and next morning,
when the day broke, with a strong breeze and a fresh shower, we were
about two miles off the Moro Castle, at the entrance of Santiago de
Cuba.

I went aloft to look round me. The sea-breeze blew strong, until it
reached within half a mile of the shore, where it stopped short,
shooting in cat's-paws occasionally into the smooth belt of water
beyond, where the long unbroken swell rolled like molten silver in the
rising sun, without a ripple on its surface, until it dashed its
gigantic undulations against the face of the precipitous cliffs on the
shore, and flew up in smoke. The entrance to the harbour is very
narrow, and looked from my perch like a zig-zag chasm in the rock,
inlaid at the bottom with polished blue steel; so clear, and cahn, and
pellucid was the still water, wherein the frowning rocks, and
magnificent trees on the banks, and the white Moro, rising with its
grinning tiers of cannon, battery above battery, were reflected veluti
in speculum, as if it had been in a mirror.

We had shortened sail, and fired a gun, and the signal for a pilot was
flying, when the Captain hailed me. "Does the sea breeze blow into the
harbour yet, Mr Cringle?"

"Not yet, sir; but it is creeping in fast."

"Very well. Let me know when we can run in. Mr Yerk, back the main
topsail, and heave the ship to."

Presently the pilot canoe, with the Spanish flag flying in the stem,
came alongside; and the pilot, a tall brown man, a Moreno, as the
Spaniards say, came on board. He wore a glazed cocked hat, rather an
out-of-the-way finish to his figure, which was rigged in a simple
Osnaburg shirt, and pair of trowsers. He came on the quarterdeck, and
made his bow to the captain with all the ease in the world, wished him a
good morning, and taking his place by the quartermaster at the conn, he
took charge of the ship. "Senor," quoth he to me, "is de harbour blow
up yet? I mean, you see de viento walking into him?--de terral--dat is
land-wind--has he cease?"

"No," I answered; "the belt of smooth water is growing narrower fast;
but the sea breeze does not blow into the channel yet. Now it has
reached the entrance."

"Ah, den make sail, Senior Capitan; fill de main-topsail." We stood in,
the scene becoming more and more magnificent as we approached the land.

The fresh green shores of this glorious island lay before us, fringed
with white surf, as the everlasting ocean in its approach to it
gradually changed its dark blue colour, as the water shoaled, into a
bright joyous green under the blazing sun, as if in sympathy with the
genius of the fair land, before it tumbled at his feet its gently
swelling billows, in shaking thunders on the reefs and rocky face of the
coast, against which they were driven up in clouds, the incense of their
sacrifice. The undulating hills in the vicinity were all, either
cleared, and covered with the greenest verdure that imagination can
picture, over which strayed large herds of cattle, or with forests of
gigantic trees, from amongst which, every now and then, peeped out some
palm thatched mountain settlement, with its small thread of blue smoke
floating up into the calm clear morning air, while the blue hills in the
distance rose higher and higher, and more and more blue, and dreamy, and
indistinct, until their rugged summits could not be distinguished from
the clouds through the glimmering hot haze of the tropics.

"By the mark seven," sung out the leadsman in the starboard chains.
"Quarter less three," responded he in the larboard, showing that the
inequalities of the surface at the bottom of the sea, even in the
breadth of the ship, were at least as abrupt as those presented above
water by the sides of the natural canal into which we were now running.
By this time, on our right hand, we were within pistol shot of the Moro,
where the channel is not above fifty yards across; indeed there is a
chain, made fast to a rock on the opposite side, that can be hove up by
a capstan until it is level with the water, so as to constitute an
insurmountable obstacle to any attempt to force an entrance in time of
war. As we stood in, the golden flag of Spain rose slowly on the staff
at the Water Battery, and Cast its large sleepy folds abroad in the
breeze; but, instead of floating over mailclad men, or Spanish soldiers
in warlike array, three poor devils of half naked mulattoes stuck their
heads out of an embrasure under its shadow. "Senor Capitan," they
shouted, 'una Botella de Roma, por el honor del pais.' We were mighty
close upon leaving the bones of the old ship here, by the by; for at the
very instant of entering the harbour's mouth, the land wind checked us
off, and very nearly hove us broadside on upon the rocks below the
castle, against which the swell was breaking in thunder.

"Let go the anchor," sung out the captain.

"All gone, sir," promptly responded the boatswain from the forecastle.
And as he spoke, we struck once, twice, and very heavily the third time.
But the breeze coming in strong, we fetched away again; and as the cable
was promptly cut, we got safely off. However, on weighing the anchor
afterwards, we found the water had been so shoal under the bows, that
the ship, when she stranded, had struck it, and broken the stock short
off by the ring. The only laughable part of the story consisted in the
old cook, an Irishman, with one leg and half an eye, scrambling out of
the galley nearly naked, in his trowsers, shirt, and greasy nightcap,
and sprawling on all fours after two tubsful of yams, which the third
thump had capsized all over the deck. "Oh you scurvy-looking tief,"
said he, eying the pilot; "if it was running us ashore you were set on,
why the blazes couldn't ye wait until the yams, were in the copper, bad
luck to ye--and them all scraped too! I do believe, if they even had
been taties, it would have been all the same to you." We stood on, the
channel narrowing still more the rocks rising to a height of at least
five hundred feet from the water's edge, as sharply and precipitously as
if they had only yesterday been split asunder; the splintered
projections and pinnacles on one side, having each their corresponding
fissures and indentations on the other, as if the hand of a giant could
have closed them together again.

Noble trees shot out in all directions wherever they could find a little
earth and a crevice to hold on by, almost meeting overhead in several
places, and alive with all kinds of birds and beasts incidental to the
climate; parrots of all sorts, great and small, clomb, and hung, and
fluttered amongst the branches; and pigeons of numberless varieties; and
the glancing woodpecker, with his small hammer like tap, tap, tap; and
the West India nightingale, and humming birds of all hues; while cranes,
black, white, and grey, frightened from their fishing-stations, stalked
and peeped about, as awkwardly as a warrant-officer in his long
skirted coat on a Sunday; while whole flocks of ducks flew across the
mastheads and through the rigging; and the dragon-like guanas, and
lizards of many kinds, disported themselves amongst the branches, not
lazily or loathsomely, as we, who have only seen a lizard in our cold
climate, are apt to picture, but alert, and quick as lightning, their
colours changing with the changing light or the hues of the objects to
which they clung, becoming literally in one respect portions of the
landscape.

And then the dark, transparent crystal depth of the pure waters under
foot, reflecting all nature so steadily and distinctly, that in the
hollows, where the overhanging foliage of the laurel-like bushes
darkened the scene, you could not for your life tell where the elements
met, so blended were earth and sea.

"Starboard," said I. I had now come on deck. "Starboard, or the main
topgallant-masthead will befoul of the limb of that tree. Foretop,
there--lie out on the larboard fore-yardarm, and be ready to shove her
off, if she sheers too close."

"Let go the anchor," struck in the first lieutenant.

Splash--the cable rumbled through the hause-hole.

"Now here are we brought up in paradise," quoth the doctor.

"Curukity coo-curukity coo," sung out a great bushy-whiskered sailor
from the crows nest, who turned out to be no other than our old friend
Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilffied by the laughing scene. "Here am
I, Jack, a booby amongst the singing-birds," crowed he to one of his
messmates in the maintop, as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand,
and swung himself up into it. But the ship, as Old Nick would have it,
at the very instant dropped astern a yew yards in swinging to her
anchor, and that so suddenly, that she left him on his perch in the
tree, converting his jest, poor fellow, into melancholy earnest. "Oh
Lord, sir!" sung out Timotheus, in a great quandary. "Captain, do heave
ahead a bit--Murder--I shall never get down again!  Do, Mr Yerk, if you
please, sir!" And there he sat twisting and craning himself about, and
screwing his features into combinations evincing the most comical
perplexity.

The captain, by the way of a bit of fun, pretended not to hear him.
"Maintop, there," quoth he.

The midshipman in the top answered him, "Ay, ay, sir."

"Not you, Mr Reefpoint; the captain of the top I want."

"He is not in the top, sir," responded little Reefpoint, chuckling like
to choke himself.

"Where the devil is he, sir?"

"Here, sir," squealed Timothy, his usual gruff voice spindling into a
small cheep through his great perplexity. "Here, sir."

"What are you doing there, sir? Come down this moment, sir. Rig out
the main-topmast-studding-sail-boom, Mr Reefpoint, and tell him to
slew himself down by that long water-withe."

To hear was to obey. Poor Timothy clambered down to the fork of the
tree, from which the withe depended, and immediately began to warp
himself down, until he reached within three or four yards of the
starboard fore-topsail-yardarm; but the corvette still dropped astern,
so that, after a vain attempt to hook on by his feet, he swung off into
mid air, hanging by his hands.

It was no longer a joke. "Here, you black fellows in the pilot canoe,"
shouted the captain, as he threw them a rope himself. "Pass the end of
that line round the stump yonder--that one below the cliff, there--now
pull like devils, pull."

They did not understand a word he said; but, comprehending his
gestures, did what he wished.

"Now haul on the line, men--gently, that will do. Missed it again,"
continued the skipper, as the poor fellow once more made a fruitless
attempt to swing himself on to the yard.

"Pay out the warp again," sung out Tailtackle--"quick, quick, let the
ship swing from under, and leave me scope to dive, or I shall be obliged
to let go, and be killed on the deck."

"God bless me, yes," said Transom, "stick out the warp, let her swing to
her anchor."

In an instant all eyes were again fastened with intense anxiety on the
poor fellow, whose strength was fast failing, and his grasp plainly
relaxing.

"See all clear to pick me up, messmates."

Tailtackle slipped down to the extreme end of the black withe, that
looked like a scorched snake, pressed his legs close together, pointing
his toes downwards, and then steadying himself for a moment, with his
hands right above his head, and his arms at the full stretch, he
dropped, struck the water fairly, entering its dark blue depths without
a splash, and instantly disappeared, leaving a white frothy mark on the
surface.

"Did you ever see any thing better done?" said Yerk. "Why he clipped
into the water with the speed of light, as clean and clear as if he had
been a marlinspike."

"Thank heaven!" gasped the captain; for if he had struck the water
horizontally, or fallen headlong, he would have been shattered in pieces
every bone would have been broken--he would have been as completely
smashed as if he had dropped upon one of the limestone rocks on the
ironbound shore.

"Ship, ahoy!" We were all breathlessly looking over the side where he
fell, expecting to see him rise again; but the hail came from the water
on t'other side. "Ship, ahoy--throw me a rope, good people--a rope, if
you please. Do you mean to careen the ship, that you have all run to
the starboard side, leaving me to be drowned to port here?"

"Ah, Tailtackle! well done, old boy," sung out a volley of voices, men
and officers, rejoiced to see the honest fellow alive. He clambered on
board, in the bight of one of twenty ropes that were hove to him.

When he came on deck the captain slyly said, "I don't think you'll go a
bird nesting in a hurry again, Tailtackle."

Tim looked with a most quizzical expression at his captain, all blue and
breathless and dripping as he was; and then sticking his tongue slightly
in his cheek, he turned away, without addressing him directly, but
murmuring as he went, "A glass of grog now."

The Captain, with whom he was a favourite, took the hint. "Go below
now, and turn in till eight bells, Tailtackle. Mafame," to his steward,
"send him a glass of hot brandy grog."

"A northwester," whispered Tim aside to the functionary; "half and half,
tallow chops--eh!"

About an hour after this a very melancholy accident happened to a poor
boy on board, of about fifteen years of age, who had already become a
great favourite of mine from his modest, quiet deportment, as well as of
all the gunroom-officers, although he had not been above a fortnight in
the ship. He had let himself down over the bows by the cable to bathe.
There were several of his comrades standing on the forecastle looking at
him, and he asked one of them to go out on the spritsail-yard, and look
round to see if there were any sharks in the neighbourhood; but all
around was deep, clear, green water. He kept hold of the cable,
however, and seemed determined not to put himself in harm's way, until a
little wicked urchin, who used to wait on the warrant-officers mess, a
small meddling snipe of a creature, who got flogged in well-behaved
weeks only once, began to taunt my little mild favourite.

"Why, you chicken-heart, I'll wager a thimbleful of grog, that such a
tailor as you are in the water can't for the life of you swim out to the
buoy there."

"Never you mind, Pepperbottom," said the boy, giving the imp the name he
had richly earned by repeated flagellations. "Never you mind. I am not
ashamed to show my naked hide, you know. But it is against orders in
these seas to go overboard, unless with a sail underfoot; so I sha'n't
run the risk of being tattooed by the boatswain's mate, like some one I
could tell of."

"Coward," muttered the little wasp, "you are afraid, sir;" and the other
boys abetting the mischief-maker, the lad was goaded to leave his hold
of the cable, and strike out for the buoy. He reached it, and then
turned, and pulled towards the ship again, when he caught
my eye.

"Who is that overboard? How dare you, sir, disobey the standing order
of the ship? Come in, boy; come in."

My hailing the little fellow shoved him off his balance, and he lost his
presence of mind for a moment or two, during which he, if any thing,
widened his distance from the ship.

At this instant the lad on the spritsail-yard sung out quick and
suddenly, "A shark, a shark!"

And the monster, like a silver pillar, suddenly shot up perpendicularly
from out the dark green depths of the sleeping pool, with the waters
sparkling and hissing around him, as if he had been a sea demon rushing
on his prey.

"Pull for the cable, Louis," shouted fifty voices at once--"pull for
the cable."

The boy did so--we all ran forward. He reached the cable grasped it
with both hands, and hung on, but before he could swing himself out of
the water, the fierce fish had turned. His whitish green belly glanced
in the sun--the poor little fellow gave a heart splitting yell, which
was shattered amongst the impending rocks into piercing echoes, and
these again were reverberated from cavern, to cavern, until they died
away amongst the hollows in the distance, as if they had been the faint
shrieks of the damned--yet he held fast for a second or two--the
ravenous tyrant of the sea tug, tugging at him, till the stiff, taught
cable shook again. At length he was torn from his hold, but did not
disappear; the animal continuing on the surface crunching his prey with
his teeth, and digging at him with his jaws, as if trying to gorge a
morsel too large to be swallowed, and making the water flash up in foam
over the boats in pursuit, by the powerful strokes of his tail, but
without ever letting go his hold. The poor lad only cried once more
but such a cry--oh God, I never shall forget it!--and, could it be
possible, in his last shriek, his piercing expiring cry, his young voice
seemed to pronounce my name--at least so I thought at the time, and
others thought so too. The next moment he appeared quite dead. No less
than three boats had been in the water alongside when the accident
happened, and they were all on the spot by this time. And there was the
bleeding and mangled boy, torn along the surface of the water by the
shark, with the boats in pursuit, leaving a long stream of blood,
mottled with white specks of fat and marrow in his wake. At length the
man in the bow of the gig laid hold of him by the arm, another sailor
caught the other arm, boat-hooks and oars were dug into and launched at
the monster, who relinquished his prey at last, stripping off the flesh,
however, from the upper part of the right thigh, until his teeth reached
the knee, where he nipped the shank clean off, and made sail with the
leg in his jaws.

Poor little Louis never once moved after we took him in.--I thought I
heard a small still stem voice thrill along my nerves, as if an echo of
the beating of my heart had become articulate. "Thomas, a fortnight ago
you impressed that poor boy--who was, and now is not--out of a Bristol
ship." Alas conscience spoke no more than the truth.

Our instructions were to be at St Jago, until three British ships, then
loading, were ready for sea, and then to convey them through the Caicos,
or windward passage. As our stay was therefore likely to be ten days or
a fortnight at the shortest, the boats were hoisted out, and we made our
little arrangements and preparations for taking all the recreation in
our power; and our worthy skipper, taught and stiff as he was at sea,
always encouraged all kinds of fun and larking, both amongst the men and
the officers, on occasions like the present. Amongst his other pleasant
qualities, he was a great boat racer, constantly building and altering
gigs and pulling boats, at his own expense, and matching the men against
each other for small prizes.

He had just finished what the old carpenter considered his chef
d'oeuvre, and a curious affair this same masterpiece was. In the first
place it was forty-two feet long over all, and only three and a half
feet beam--the planking was not much above an eighth of an inch in
thickness, so that if one of the crew had slipped his foot off the
stretcher, it must have gone through the bottom. There was a standing
order that no man was to go into it with shoes on. She was to pull six
oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in
the ship, and the steersman, no less a character than the skipper
himself.

Her name, for I love to be particular, was the Dragonfly; she was
painted out and in of a bright red, amounting to a flame colour, oars red
the men wearing trowsers and shirts of red flannel, and red net
nightcaps--which common uniform the captain himself wore. I think I
have said before, that he was a very handsome man, but if I have not I
say so now, and when he had taken his seat, and the gigs, all fine men,
were seated each with his oar held upright upon his knees ready to be
dropped into the water at the same instant, the craft and her crew
formed to my eye as pretty a plaything for grown children as ever was
seen. "Give way, men," the oars dipped as clean as so many knives,
without a sparkle, the gallant fellows stretched out, and away shot the
Dragonfly, like an arrow, the green water foaming into white smoke at
the bows, and hissing away in her wake.

She disappeared in a twinkling round a reach of the canal where we were
anchored, and we, the officers, for we must needs have our boat also,
were making ready to be off, to have a shot at some beautiful cranes
that, floating on their large pinions, slowly passed us with their long
legs stuck straight out astern, and their longer necks gathered into
their crops, when we heard a loud shouting in the direction where the
Captain's boat had vanished. Presently the Devil's Darning Needle, as
the Scotch part of the crew loved to call the Dragonfly, stuck her long
snout round the headland, and came spinning along with a Spanish canoe
manned by four negroes, and steered by an elderly gentleman, a sharp
acute-looking little man, in a gingham coat, in her wake, also pulling
very fast; however, the Don seemed dead beat, and the captain was in
great glee. By this time, both boats were alongside, and the old
Spaniard, Don Ricardo Campana, addressed the captain, judging that he
was one of the seamen. "Is the Captain on board?" said he in Spanish.
The Captain, who understood the language, but did not speak it, answered
him in French, which Don Ricardo seemed to speak fluently, "No, sir, the
Captain is not on board; but there is Mr Yerk, the first lieutenant, at
the gangway." He had come for the letter-bag he said, and if we had any
newspapers, and could spare them, it would be conferring a great favour
on him.

He got his letters and newspapers handed down, and very civilly gave the
Captain a dollar, who touched his cap, tipped the money to the men, and
winking slightly to old Yerk and the rest of us, addressed himself to
shove off. The old Don, drawing up his eyebrows a little, (I guess he
rather saw who was who, for all his make-believe innocence,) bowed to
the officers at the gangway, sat down, and desiring his people to use
their broad-bladed, clumsy looking oars, or paddles, began to move
awkwardly away. We, that is the gunroom officers, all except the
second Lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master, now got into our
own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all went in a covey; the
purser and doctor, and three of the middies forward, Thomas Cringle,
gentleman, pulling the stroke oar, with old Moses Yerk as coxswain; and as
the Dragonflies were all red, so we were all seagreen, boat, oars,
trowsers, shirts, and nightcaps. We soon distanced the cumbrous looking
Don, and the strain was between the Devil's Darning Needle and our boat
the Watersprite, which was making capital play, for although we had not
the bottom of the topmen, yet we had more blood, so to speak, and we had
already beaten them, in their last gig, all to sticks. But Dragonfly
was a new boat, and now in the water for the first time.

We were both of us so intent on our own match, that we lost sight of the
Spaniard altogether, and the Captain and the first Lieutenant were
bobbing in the stern sheets of their respective gigs like a couple of
souple Tams, as intent on the game as if all our lives had depended on
it, when in an instant the long black dirty prow of the canoe was thrust
in between us, the old Don singing out, "Dexa mi lugar, paysanos, dexa
mi lugar, mis hijos." We kept away right and left, to look at the
miracle;--and there lay the canoe, rumbling and splashing, with her crew
walloping about, and grinning and yelling like incarnate fiends, and as
naked as the day they were born, and the old Don himself so staid and so
sedate and drawley as he was a minute before, now all alive, shouting
"Tira diablitos, tira!" flourishing a small paddle, with which he
steered, about his head like a wheel, and dancing and jumping about in
his seat, as if his bottom had been a haggis with quicksilver in it.

"Zounds," roared the skipper,--"why, topmen--why, gentlemen, give way
for the honour of the ship--Gentlemen, stretch out--Men, pull like
devils; twenty pounds if you beat him."

We pulled, and they pulled, and the water roared, and the men strained
their muscles and sinews to cracking, and all was splash, splash, and
whiz, whiz, and pech, pech, about us, but it would not do the canoe
headed us like a shot, and in passing, the cool old Don again subsided
into a calm as suddenly as he had been roused from it, and sitting once
more, stiff as a poker, turned round and touched his sombrero, "I will
tell that you are coming, gentlemen."

It was now the evening, near nightfall, and we had been so intent on
beating our awkward-looking opponent, that we had none of us time to
look at the splendid scene that burst upon our view, on rounding a
precipitous rock, from the crevices of which some magnificent trees shot
up--their gnarled trunks and twisted branches overhanging the canal
where we were pulling, and anticipating the fast-falling darkness that
was creeping over the fair face of nature; and there we floated, in the
deep shadow of the cliff and trees Dragonflies and Water Sprites,
motionless and silent, the boats floating so lightly that they scarcely
seemed to touch the water, the men resting on their oars, and all of us
rapt with the magnificence of the scenery around us, beneath us, and
above us.

The left or western bank of the narrow entrance to the harbour, from
which we were now debauching, ran out in all its precipitousness and
beauty, (with its dark evergreen bushes overshadowing the deep blue
waters, and its gigantic trees shooting forth high into the glowing
western sky, their topmost branches gold-tipped in the flood of
radiance shed by the rapidly sinking sun, while all below where we lay
was grey cold shade,) until it joined the northern shore, when it sloped
away gradually towards the east; the higher parts of the town sparkled
in the evening sun, on this dun ridge, like golden turrets on the back
of an elephant, while the houses that were in the shade covered the
declivity with their dark masses, until it sank down to the water's
edge. On the right hand the haven opened boldly out into a basin about
four miles broad by seven long, in which the placid waters spread out
beyond the shadow of the western bank into one vast sheet of molten
gold, with the canoe tearing along the shining surface, her side
glancing in the sun, and her paddles flashing back his rays, and leaving
a long train of living fire sparkling in her wake.

It was now about six o'clock in the evening; the sun had set to us, as
we pulled along under the frowning brow of the cliff, where the birds
were fast settling on their nightly perches, with small happy
twitterings, and the lizards and numberless other chirping things began
to send forth their evening hymn to the great Being who made them and
us, and a solitary white sailing owl would every now and then flit
spectre like from one green tuft, across the bald face of the cliff, to
another, and the small divers around us were breaking up the black
surface of the waters into little sparkling circles as they fished for
their suppers. All was becoming brown and indistinct near us; but the
level beams of the setting sun still lingered with a golden radiance
upon the lovely city, and the shipping at anchor before it, making their
sails, where loosed to dry, glance like leaves of gold, and their spars,
and masts, and rigging like wires of gold, and gilding their flags,
which were waving majestically and slow from the peaks in the evening
breeze; and the Moorish-looking steeples of the churches were yet
sparkling in the glorious blaze, which was gradually deepening into
gorgeous crimson, while the large pillars of the cathedral, then
building on the highest part of the ridge, stood out like brazen
monuments, softening even as we looked into a Stonehenge of amethysts.
One half of every object, shipping, houses, trees, and hills, was
gloriously illuminated; but even as we looked, the lower part of the
town gradually sank into darkness, and faded from our sight--the
deepening gloom cast by the high bank above us, like the dark shadow of
a bad spirit, gradually crept on, and on, and extended farther and
farther; the sailing water-fowl in regular lines, no longer made the
water flash up like flame; the russet mantle of eve was fast extending
over the entire hemisphere; the glancing minarets, and the tallest
trees, and the topgallant-yards and masts of the shipping, alone
flashed back the dying effulgence of the glorious orb, which every
moment grew fainter and fainter, and redder and redder, until it shaded
into purple, and the loud deep bell of the convent of La Merced swung
over the still waters, announcing the arrival of even-song and the
departure of day.

"Had we not better pull back to supper, sir?" quoth Moses Yerk to the
captain. We all started, the men dipped their oars, our dreams were
dispelled, the charm was broken--"Confound the matter-of-fact
blockhead," or something very like it, grumbled the captain--"but give
way, men," fast followed, and we returned towards the ship. We had not
pulled fifty yards, when we heard the distant rattle of the muskets of
the sentries at the gangways, as they discharged them at sundown, and
were remarking, as we were rowing leisurely along, upon the strange
effect produced by the reports, as they were frittered away amongst the
overhanging cliffs in chattering reverberations, when the captain
suddenly sung out, "Oars!" All hands lay on them. "Look there," he
continued--"There--between the gigs--saw you ever any thing like that,
gentlemen?" We all leant over; and although the boats, from the way they
had, were skimming along nearer seven than five knots--there lay a large
shark; he must have been twelve feet long at the shortest, swimming
right in the middle, and equidistant from both, and keeping way with us
most accurately.

He was distinctly visible, from the strong and vivid phosphorescence
excited by his rapid motion through the sleeping waters of the dark
creek, which lit up his jaws, and head, and whole body; his eyes were
especially luminous, while a long wake of sparkles streamed away astern
of him from the lashing of his tail. As the boats lost their speed, the
luminousness of his appearance faded gradually as he shortened sail
also, until he disappeared altogether. He was then at rest, and
suspended motionless in the water; and the only thing that indicated his
proximity, was an occasional sparkle from the motion of a fin. We
brought the boats nearer together, after pulling a stroke or two, but he
seemed to sink as we closed, until at last we could merely perceive an
indistinct halo far down in the clear black profound. But as we
separated, and resumed our original position, he again rose near the
surface; and although the ripple and dip of the oars rendered him
invisible while we were pulling, yet the moment we again rested on them,
there was the monster, like a persecuting fiend, once more right between
us, glaring on us, and apparently watching every Motion. It was a
terrible spectacle, and rendered still more striking by the melancholy
occurrence of the forenoon.

"That's the very identical, damnable baste himself, as murthered poor
little Louis this morning, yeer honour; I knows him from the tom flesh
of him under his larboard blinker, sir--just where Wiggens's boathook
punished him," quoth the Irish captain of the mizentop.
"A water-kelpie," murmured another of the Captain's gigs, a Scotchman.

The men were evidently alarmed. "Stretch out, men; never mind the
shark. He can't jump into, the boat surely," said the skipper. "What
the deuce are you afraid of?"

We arrived within pistol-shot of the ship. As we approached, the
sentry hailed, "Boat, ahoy!"

"Firebrand," sung out the skipper, in reply.

"Man the side-gangway lanterns there," quoth the officer on duty; and
by the time we were close to, there were two sidesmen over the side with
the manropes ready stuck out to our grasp, and two boys with lanterns
above them. We got on deck, the officers touching their hats, and
speedily the Captain dived down the ladder, saying, as he descended, "Mr
Yerk, I shall be happy to see you and your boat's crew at supper, or
rather to a late dinner, at eight o'clock; but come down a moment as you
are. Tailtackle, bring the gigs into the cabin to get a glass of grog,
will you?"

"Ay, ay, sir," responded Timothy. "Down with you, you flaming thieves,
and see you don't snort and sniffle in your grog, as if you were in your
own mess, like so many pigs slushing at the same trough.'

"Lord love you, Tim," rejoined one of the topmen, "who made you master
of the ceremonies, old Ironfist, eh? Where learnt you your breeding?
Among the cockatoos up yonder?"

Tim laughed, who, although he ought to have been in his bed, had taken
his seat in the Dragonfly when her crew were piped over the side in the
evening, and thereby subjected himself to a rap over the knuckles from
the Captain; but where the offence might be said to consist in a too
assiduous discharge of his duty, it was easily forgiven, unfortunate as
the issue of the race had been. So down we all trundled into the cabin,
masters and men. It was brilliantly lighted up, the table sparkling
with crystal and wine, and glancing with silver plate; and there on a
sofa lay Aaron Bang in all his pristine beauty, and fresh from his
toilet, for he had just got out of his cot after an eight-and-forty
hours sojourn therein--nice white neck cloth white jean waistcoat and
trowsers, and span--new blue coat He was reading when we entered; and
the Captain, in his flame-coloured costume, was close aboard of him
before he raised his eyes, and rather staggered him a bit; but when
seven sea-green spirits followed, he was exceedingly nonplussed, and
then came the six red Dragonflies, who ranged themselves three on each
side of the door, with their net-bags in their hands, smoothing down
their hair, and sidling and fidgeting about at finding themselves so far
out of their element as the cabin.

"Mafame," said the Captain, "a glass of grog apiece to the Dragonflies"
and a tumbler of liquid amber (to borrow from my old friend Cooper)
sparkled in the large bony claw of each of them. "Now, drink Mr Bang's
health." They, as in duty bound, let fly at our amigo in a volley.

"Your health, Mr Bang."

Aaron sprung from his seat, and made his salaam, and the Dragonflies
bundled out of the cabin again.

"I say, Transom, John Canoeing still--always some frolic in the wind."

We, the Water Sprites, had shifted and rigged, and were all mustered aft
on the poop, enjoying the little air there was, as it fanned gently, and
waiting for the announcement of supper. It was a pitch-dark night,
neither moon nor stars. The murky clouds seemed to have settled down on
the mastheads, shrouding every object in the thickest gloom.

"Ready with the gun forward there, Mr Catwell?" said Yerk.

"All ready, sir."

"Fire!"

Pent up as we were in a narrow channel, walled in on each side with
towering precipitous rocks, the explosion, multiplied by the echoes into
a whole broadside, was tremendous, and absolutely deafening.

The cold, grey, threatening rocks, and the large overhanging twisted
branches of the trees, and the clear black water, and the white Moro in
the distance, glanced for an instant, and then all was again veiled in
utter darkness, and down came a rattling shower of sand and stones from
the cliffs, and of rotten branches, and heavy dew from the trees,
sparkling in the water like a shower of diamonds; and the birds of the
air screamed, and, frightened from their nests and perches in crevices,
and on the boughs of the trees, took flight with a strong rushing noise,
that put one in mind of the rising of the fallen angels from the
infernal council in Paradise Lost; and the cattle on the mountain-side
lowed, and the fish, large and small, like darts and arrows of fire,
sparkled up from the black abyss of waters, and swam in haloes of flame
round the ship in every direction, as if they had been the ghosts of a
shipwrecked crew, haunting the scene of their destruction; and the
guanas and large lizards which had been shaken from the trees, skimmed
and struggled on the surface in glances of fire, like evil spirits
watching to seize them as their prey. At length the screaming and
shrieking of the birds, and clang of their the cattle, ceased; and the
startled fish oozy caverns at the bottom of the sea, disappeared; and
all was again black and undistinguishable, the deathlike silence being
only broken by the hoarse murmuring of the distant surf.

"Magnificent!" burst from the Captain. "Messenger, send Mr Portfire
here." The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared.
"Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him bum a blue
light."

The lurid glare blazed up balefully amongst the spars and rigging,
lighting up the decks, and blasting the crew into the likeness of the
host of Sennacherib, when the day broke on them, and they were all dead
corpses. A--stem of us, indistinct from the distance, the white Moro
Castle reappeared, and rose frowning, tier above tier, like a Tower of
Babel, with its summit veiled in the clouds, and the startled sea-fowl
wheeling above the higher batteries, like snowflakes blown about in
storm; while, near at hand, the rocks on each side of us looked as if
fresh splintered asunder, with the sulphurous flames which had split
them still burning; the trees looked no longer green, but were sicklied
o'er with a pale ashy colour, as if sheeted ghosts were holding their
midnight orgies amongst their branches-cranes, and waterfowl, and birds
of many kinds, and all the insect and reptile tribes, their gaudy
noontide colours merged into one and the same fearful deathlike
sameness, flitted and sailed and circled above us, and chattered, and
screamed, and shrieked; and the unearthly-looking guanas, and
numberless creeping things, ran out on the boughs to peer at us, and a
large snake twined itself up a scathed stump that shot out from a
shattered pinnacle of rock that overhung us, with its glossy skin,
glancing like the brazen serpent set up by Moses in the camp of the
Israelites; and the cattle on the beetling summit of the cliff craned
over the precipitous ledge to look down upon us; and while every thing
around us and above us was thus glancing in the blue and ghastly
radiance, the band struck up a low moaning air; the light burnt out, and
once more we were cast, by the contrast, into even more palpable
darkness than before. I was entranced, and stood with folded arms,
looking forth into the night, and musing intensely on the appalling
scene which had just vanished like a feverish dream--"Dinner waits,
sir," quoth Mafame.

"Oh! I am coming;" and kicking all my romance to Old Nick, I descended,
and we had a pleasant night of it, and some wine and some fun, and there
an end--but I have often dreamed of that dark pool, and the scenes I
witnessed there that day and night.



CHAPTER XIII.--The Pirate's Leman

     "When lovely woman stoops to folly,
     And finds too late that men betray,
     What charm can soothe her melancholy,
     What art can wash her guilt away?"

     "The only art her guilt can cover,
     To hide her shame from every eye,
     To give repentance to her lover,
     And wring his bosom, is to die."

     --Oliver Goldsmith, "Song" From The Vicar Of Wakefield.


     "Ay Dios, si sera possible que he ya hallado lugar que pueda
     servir de escondida sepultura a la carga pesada deste
     cuerpo, que tan contra mi voluntad sostengo?"

     --Don Quixote De La Mancha.


The next morning after breakfast I proceeded to Santiago, and landed at
the custom house wharf, where I found everything bustle, dust, and heat;
several of the captains of the English vessels were there, who
immediately made up to me, and reported how far advanced in their lading
they were, and enquired when we were to give them convoy, the latest
news from Kingston, &c. At length I saw our friend Ricardo Campana going
along one of the neighbouring streets, and I immediately made sail in
chase. He at once recognised me, gave me a cordial shake of the hand,
and enquired how he could serve me. I produced two letters which I had
brought for him, but which had been forgotten in the bustle of the
preceding day; they were introductory, and although sealed, I had some
reason to conjecture that my friend, Mr Pepperpot Wagtail, had done me
much more than justice. Campana, with great kindness, immediately
invited me to his house. "We foreigners," said he, "don't keep your
hours; I am just going home to breakfast." It was past eleven in the
forenoon. I was about excusing myself on the plea of having already
breakfasted, when he silenced me. "Why, I guessed as much, Mr
Lieutenant, but then you have not lunched; you can call it lunch, you
know, if it will ease your conscience." There was no saying nay to all
this civility, so we stumped along the burning streets, through a mile
of houses, large massive buildings, but very different in externals from
the gay domiciles of Kingston. Aaron Bang afterwards used to say that
they looked more like prisons than dwelling-houses, and he was not in
this very much out. Most of them were built of brick and plastered
over, with large windows, in front of each of which, like the houses in
the south of Spain, there was erected a large heavy wooden balcony,
projecting far enough from the wall to allow a Spanish chair, such as I
have already described, to be placed in it. The front of these verandas
was closed in with a row of heavy balustrades at the bottom, of a
variety of shapes, and by clumsy carved woodwork above, which
effectually prevented you from seeing into the interior. The whole had
a Moorish air, and in the upper part of the town there was a Sabbath--
like stillness prevailing, which was only broken now and then by the
tinkle of a guitar from one of the aforesaid verandas, or by the
rattling of a crazy volante, a sort of covered gig, drawn by a broken
kneed and broken winded mule, with a kiln dried old Spaniard or dona in
it.

The lower part of the town had been busy enough, and the stir and hum of
it rendered the quietude of the upper part of it more striking.

A shovel hatted friar now suddenly accosted us.

"Senor Campana--ese pobre familia de Cangrejo!  Lastima!  Lastima!"
"Cangrejo--Cangrejo!" muttered I; "why, it is the very name attached to
the miniature."

Campana turned to the priest, and they conversed earnestly together for
some moments, when he left him, and we again held on our way. I could
not help asking him what family that was, whose situation the "padre"
seemed so feelingly to bemoan.

"Never mind," said he, "never mind; they were a proud family once, but
that is all over now--come along."

"But," said I, "I have a very peculiar cause of interest with regard to
this family. You are aware, of course, of the trial and execution of
the pirates in Kingston, the most conspicuous of whom was a young man
called Federico Cangrejo, from whom...."

"Mr Cringle," said he, solemnly, "at a fitting time I will hear you
regarding that matter; at present I entreat you will not press it."

Good manners would not allow me to push it farther, and we trudged along
together, until we arrived at Don Ricardo Campana's door. It was a
large brick building, plastered over as already described, and
whitewashed. There was a projecting stair in front, with a flight of
steps to the right and left, with a parapet wall towards the street.
There were two large windows, with the wooden veranda or lattice already
described, on the first floor, and on the second a range of smaller
windows, of the same kind. What answered to our ground floor was used
as a warehouse, and filled with dry goods, sugar, coffee, hides, and a
vast variety of miscellaneous articles. We ascended the stairs, and
entered a lofty room, cool and dark, and paved with large diamond--
shaped bricks, and every way desirable for a West India lounge, all to
the furniture, which was meagre enough; three or four chairs, a worm--
eaten old leathern sofa, and a large clumsy hardwood table in the midst.

There were several children playing about, little sallow devils,
although, I dare say, they could all of them have been furnished with
certificates of white parentage, upon whom one or two negro women were
hovering in attendance beyond a large folding door that fronted the
entrance.

When we entered, the eldest of the children, a little girl of about
eight years old, was sitting in the doorway, playing with a small blue
toy that I could make nothing of, until on a nearer inspection I found
it to be a live land-crab, which the little lady had manacled with a
thread by the foot, the thread being fastened to a nail driven into a
seam of the floor.

As an article of food, I was already familiar with this creature, but I
had never seen a living one before; it was in every respect like a sea
crab, only smaller, the body being at the widest not above three inches
across the back. It fed without any apparent fear, and while it
pattered over the tiled floor, with its hard claws, it would now and
then stop and seize a crum of bread in its forceps, and feed itself like
a little monkey. By the time I had exchanged a few words with the
little lady, the large door that opened into the hall on the right hand
moved, and mine hostess made her appearance; a small woman, dressed in a
black gown, very laxly fitted. She was the very converse of our old
ship, she never missed stays, although I did cruelly.

"This is my friend, Lieutenant Cringle," said mine host.

"A las pies de usted, senora," responded your humble servant.

"I am very glad to see you," said the lady; "but breakfast is ready;
welcome, sir, welcome."

The food was not amiss, the coffee decidedly good, and the chocolate,
wherein, if you had planted a teaspoon, it would have stood upright, was
excellent. When we had done with substantials, dulce, that is the fruit
of the guava preserved, in small wooden boxes, (like drums of figs,)
after being made into a kind of jam, was placed on the table, and mine
host and his spouse had eaten a bushel of it apiece, and drank a gallon
of that most heathenish beverage, cold clear water, before the repast
was considered ended. After a hearty meal and a pint of claret, I felt
rather inclined to sit still, and expatiate for an hour or so, but
Campana roused me, and asked whether or not I felt inclined to go and
look at the town. I had no apology, and although I would much rather
have sat still, I rose to accompany him, when in walked Captain Transom
and Mr Bang. They were also kindly received by Don Ricardo.

"Clad of the honour of this visit," said he in French, with a slight
lift of the corner of his mouth; "I hope neither you nor your boat's
crew took any harm after the heat of yesterday."

Transom laughed.

"Why, you did beat us very neatly, Don Ricardo. Pray, where got you
that canoe? But a lady Mrs Campana, I presume?--Have the goodness to
introduce me."

The skipper was presented in due form, the lady receiving him without
the least mauvaise honte, which, after all, I believe to be indigenous
to our island. Aaron was next introduced, who, as he spoke no lingo, as
I knows of, to borrow Timotheus Tailtackle's phraseology but English,
was rather posed in the interview.

"I say, Tom, tell her I wish she may live a thousand years. Ah, so,
that will do."

Madama made her conge, and hoped "El Senora Maria un asiento." "Mucho,
mucho," sung out Bang, who meant by that that he was much obliged.

At length Don Ricardo came to our aid. He had arranged a party into the
country for next morning, and invited us all to come back to a tertulia
in the evening, and to take beds in his house, he undertaking to provide
bestias to carry us.

We therefore strolled out, a good deal puzzled what to make of ourselves
until the evening, when we fell in with one of the captains of the
English ships then loading, who told us that there was a sort of hotel a
little way down the street, where we might dine at two o'clock at the
table d'hote. It was as yet only twelve, so we stumbled into this hotel
to reconnoitre, and a sorry affair it was. The public room was fitted
with rough wooden tables, at which Spaniards, Americans, and Englishmen,
sat and smoked, and drank sangaree, hot punch, or cold grog, as best
suited them, and committed a vast variety of miscellaneous abominations
during their potations. We were about giving up all thoughts of the
place, and had turned to go to the door, when in popped our friend Don
Ricardo. He saw we were somewhat abroad.

"Gentlemen," said he, "if I may ask, have you any engagement to dinner?"

"No, we have none."

"Well, then, will you do me the honour of partaking of my family fare,
at three o'clock? I did not venture to invite you before, because I
knew you had other letters to deliver, and I wished to leave you masters
of your own time." We gladly accepted his kind offer; he had made his
bow, and was cruising amongst the smokers, and punch drinkers, where the
blue coated masters of the English merchantmen and American skippers,
were hobbing and nobbing with the gingham-coated Dons, for the whole
Spanish part of the community were figged out in Glasgow and Paisley
ginghams; when the priest, who had attracted our attention in the
morning, came up to him, and drew him aside. They talked earnestly
together, the clerigo, every now and then, indicating by significant
nods and glances towards us, that we formed the burden of his song,
whatever that might be. Campana seemed exceedingly unwilling to
communicate the message, which we guessed he had been entreated to carry
to us, and made one or two attempts to shove the friar in propria
persona towards us, that he might himself tell his own story. At length
they advanced together to where we stood, when he addressed me.

"You must pardon me, Lieutenant; but as the proverb hath it, strange
countries, strange manners; my friend here, Padre Carera, brings a
message from El Senor Picador Cangrejo, one of our magnates, that he
will consider it an especial favour if you will can on him, either this
forenoon or tomorrow."

"Why, who is this Cangrejo, Don Ricardo? if he be not the father of the
poor fellow I mentioned, there must be some mystery about him."

"No mystery," chimed in the monk; "no mystery, God help us, but mucha,
mucha miseria, hijo mio; much misery, sir, and more impending, and none
to help save only"--He did not finish the sentence, but taking off his
shovel hat, and shewing his finely turned bald head, he looked up to
heaven, and crossed himself, the tears trickling down his wrinkled
cheeks. "But," continued he, "you will come, Mr Cringle?"

"Certainly," said I, "tomorrow I will call, if my friend Don Ricardo
will be my guide." This being fixed, we strolled about until dinnertime,
friend Aaron making his remarks regarding the people and their domiciles
with great naivety.

"Strange now, Tom, I had expected to see little else amongst the slave
population here than misery and starvation; whereas, so far as I can
observe, they are all deucedly well cared for, and fat, and contented;
and from the enquiries I was making amongst the captains of the
merchantmen"--("Masters," interjected Captain Transom, "Master of a
merchantman, Captain of a man-of-war.") "Well, captains of
merchantmen,--masters, I mean,--I find that the people whom they employ
are generally free; and, farther, that the slaves are not more than
three to one free person, yet they export a great deal of produce,
Captain Transom--must keep my eyes about me." And so he did, as will be
seen by and by. But the dinner hour drew near, and we repaired to Don
Ricardo's, where we found a party of eight assembled, and our appearance
was the signal for the repast being ordered in. It was laid out in the
entrance hall. The table was of massive mahogany, the chairs of the
same material, with stuffed bottoms, covered with a dingy-coloured
morocco, which might have been red once. But devil a dish of any kind
was on the snow-white table-cloth when we sat down, and our
situations, or the places we were expected to fill at the board, were
only indicated by a large knife and silver fork and spoon laid down for
each person. The company consisted of Don Ricardo Campana, la Senora
Campana, and a brother of hers, two dark young men, who were Don
Ricardo's clerks, and three young women, ladies, or senoras, as I ought
to have called them, who were sitting so far back into the shade, at the
dark end of the room, when we entered, that I could not tell what they
were. Our hostess was, although a little woman, a good looking dark
Spaniard, not very polished, but very kind; and seeing that our friend
Aaron was the most helpless amongst us, she took him under her especial
care, and made many a civil speech to him, although her husband did not
fail to advertise her, that he understood not one word of Spanish, that
is, of all she was saying to him. However, he replied to her kindnesses
by his never-failing exclamation of "mucho, mucho," and they appeared to
be getting on extremely well. "Bring dinner," quoth Don Ricardo, "trae
la comida;" and four black female domestics entered, the first with a
large dish of pillaffe, or fowls smothered in rice and onions; the second
with a nondescript melange, flesh, fish, and fowl apparently, strongly
flavoured with garlic; the third bore a dish of jerked beef, cut into
long shreds, and swimming in seba or lard; and the fourth bore a large
dish full of that indescribable thing known by those who read Don
Quixote, as an olla podrida. The sable handmaidens began to circulate
round the table, and every one helped himself to the dish that he most
fancied. At length they placed them on the board, and brought massive
silver salvers, with snow white bread, twisted into strands in the
baking, like junks of a cable; and water jars, and yams nicely roasted
and wrapped in plantain leaves. These were in like manner handed round,
and then deposited on the table, and the domestics vanished.

We all got on cheerily enough, and both the Captain and myself were
finishing off with the olla podrida, with which, it so happened, we were
familiar, and friend Bang, taking the time from us, took heart of grace
and straightway followed our example. There was a pause rather an
irksome one from its continuance, so much so indeed, that knocking off
from my more immediate business of gorging the aforesaid olla podrida, I
looked up, and as it so happened, by accident towards our friend Bang
and there he was munching and screwing up his energies to swallow a
large mouthful of the mixture, against which his stomach appeared to
rebel. "Smollet's feast after the manner of the ancients," whispered
Transom. At length he made a vigorous effort and straightway sung out
"l'eau de vie, Don Ricardibus--some brandy, mon ami--for the love of all
the respectable saints in your heathenish calendar."

Mine host laughed, but the females were most confoundedly posed. The
younger ones ran for aromatic salts, while the lady of the house fetched
some very peculiar distilled waters. She, in her kindness, filled a
glass and helped Bang, but the instant he perceived the flavour, he
thrust it away.

"Anniseed--damn anniseed--no, no--obliged--mucho, mucho but brandy
plaino, that is simple of itself, if you please--that's it Lord love
you, my dear madam--may you live a thousand years though."

The pure brandy was administered, and once more the dark beauties
reappeared, the first carrying a bottle of vin-de-grave, the second
one of vino tinto, or claret, and the third one of l'eau de vie, for
Aaron's peculiar use. These were placed before the landlord, who helped
himself to half a pint of claret, which he poured into a large tumbler,
and then putting a drop or two of water into it, tasted it, and sent it
to his wife. In like manner, he gave a smaller quantity to each of the
other Senoras, when the whole female part of the family drank our
healths in a volley. But all this time the devil a thing drinkable was
there before we males, but goblets of pure cold water. Bang's "mucho
mucho" even failed him, for he had only in his modesty got a thimbleful
of brandy to qualify the olla podrida. However, in a twinkling a
beautiful long-necked bottle of claret was planted at each of our right
hands, and of course we lost no time in returning the unlooked-for
civility of the ladies. Until this moment I had not got a proper
glimpse of the three Virgins of the Sun, who were seated at table with
us. They were very pretty Moorish-looking girls, as like as peas, dark
hair, black eyes, clear colourless olive complexion, and no stays; but
young and elastic as their figures were, this was no disadvantage. They
were all three dressed in black silk petticoats, over a sort of cambric
chemise, with large frills hanging down at the bosom, but gown, properly
so called, they had none, their arms being unencumbered with any
clothing heavier than a shoulder-strap. The eldest was a fine full
young woman of about nineteen; the second was more tall and stately, but
slighter; and the youngest, was--oh, she was an angel of light--such
hair, such eyes, and such a mouth; then her neck and bosom when the
wearer is, as in the present case she was, young and beautiful. They
all wore a long plain white gauze strap, like a broad ribbon, (little
Reefpoint afterwards said they wore boat pennants at their mastheads,) I
don't know what Madam Maradon Carson would call it, in their hair, which
fell down from amongst the braids nearly to their heels, and then they
replied in their magnificent language, when casually addressed during
dinner, with so much naivete. We, the males of the party, had drank
little or nothing, a bottle of claret or so apiece, and a dram of
brandy, to qualify a little vin-de-grave that we had flirted with
during dinner, when our landlord rose, along with his brother-in-law,
wished us a good afternoon, and departed to his counting house, saying
he would be back by dark, leaving the Captain and I, and friend Bang, to
amuse the ladies the best way we could, as the clerks had taken wing
along with their master. Don Ricardo's departure seemed to be the
signal for all hands breaking loose, and a regular romping match took
place, the girls producing their guitars, and we were all mighty
frolicsome and happy, when a couple of padres from the convent of La
Merced, in their white flannel gowns, black girdles, and shaven crowns,
suddenly entered the hall. We the foreign part of the society,
calculated on being pulled up by the clerigos, but deuce a bit; on the
contrary, the young females clustered round them, laughing and joking,
while the Senora Campana presented them with goblets of claret, in which
they drank our healths, once and again, and before long they were
gamboling about, all shaven and shorn, like a couple of three-year
olds. Bang had a large share of their assiduity, and to see him
waltzing with a fine active, and what I fancy to be a rarity, a clean
looking priest, with his ever recurring "mucho, mucho," was rather
entertaining.

The director of the postoffice, and a man who was called the "Corregidor
de  Tabaco," literally the "corrector of tobacco," dropped in about this
time, and one or two ladies, relatives of Mrs Campana, and Don  Ricardo
returning  soon after, we had sweet meats and liqueurs, and coffee, and
chocolate, and a game at monte, and maco, and were, in fact, very happy.
But  the happiest day, as well as the most miserable, must have an  end,
and  the merry party dropped off, one after another, until we were  left
all alone with our host's family. Madama soon after took her departure,
wishing  us  a  goodnight. She had no sooner gone, than Bang  began  to
shoot  out his horns a bit. "I say, Tom, ask the Don to let us  have  a
drop of something hot, will you, a tumbler of hot brandy and water after
the  waltzing, eh? I don't see the bedroom candles yet." Nor would  he,
if  we  had  sat there till doomsday. Campana seemed to have understood
Bang, the  brandy was immediately forthcoming, and we drew  in  to  the
table to enjoy ourselves, Bang waxing talkative. "Now what odd names,--
why, what a strange office it must be for his Majesty of Spain to employ
at every port a corrector of tobacco; that his liege subjects may not be
imposed  on, I  suppose--what capital cigars this same  corrector  must
have, eh?"

I  suppose it is scarcely necessary to mention, that throughout all  the
Spanish American possessions, tobacco is a royal monopoly, and that  the
officer  above  alluded to is the functionary who has the management  of
it.  Don  Ricardo, hearing something about cigars, took the  hint, and
immediately  produced a straw case from his pocket, and  handed  it  to
Bang.

"Mucho, mucho," quoth Bang; "capital, real Havannah."

So  now, since we had all gotten fairly into the clouds, there  was  no
saying how long we should have remained in the seventh heaven much would
have  depended  upon  the continuance of the supply of  brandy--but  two
female slaves presently made their appearance, each carrying a quatre. I
believe I have already described this easily rigged couch somewhere; it
is  a  hard-wood frame, like what supports the loose top of  a  laundry
table, with canvass stretched over the top of it, but in such a  manner
that  it  can be folded up flat, and laid against the wall when  not  in
use, while a bed can be immediately constructed by simply opening it and
stretching  the  canvass. The handmaidens accordingly set  to  work  to
arrange  two  beds, or quatres, one on each side of the table  where  we
were  sitting, while  Bang  sat eyeing  them  askance, in  a  kind  of
wonderment as to the object of the preparations, which were by no  means
new  either  to  the Captain or me, who, looking on them as  matters  of
course, continued  in close confabulation with Don Ricardo  during  the
operations.

"I  say, Tom," at length quoth Bang, "are you to be laid out on  one  of
those outlandish pieces of machinery--eh?"

"Why, I suppose so; and comfortable enough beds they are, I can  assure
you."

"Don't  fancy  them  much, however,"  said  Bang; "rather  flimsy  the
framework."

The  servants now very unceremoniously, no leave asked, began  to  clear
away all the glasses and tumblers on the table.

"Hillo!" said the skipper, casting an enquiring glance at Campana, who,
however, did not return it, but, as a matter of course apparently, rose,
and taking a chair to the other end of the room, close by the door of an
apartment  which  opened  from it, began in cold  blood  to  unlace  and
disburden himself of all his apparel, even unto his shirt.

This  surprised us all a good deal, but our wonderment was lost  on  the
Don, who  got  up  from his seat, and in his linen garment, which  was
deucedly  laconic, made  his  formal  bow, wished  us  goodnight, and
presenting the reverse of his medal, which was extremely picturesque, he
vanished  through the door. By this, the ebony ladies had  cleared  the
table  of the crystal, and had capped it with a yellow leather mattrass,
with pillows of the same, both embossed with large tufts of red silk; on
this  they placed one sheet, and leaving a silver apparatus at the head,
they disappeared--"Buenos noches, senores--las camas estan listas."

Bang  had  been  unable  to speak from excess of astonishment; but  the
skipper  and I, finding there was no help for it, had followed Campana's
example, and kept pace with him in our peeling, so that by the  time  he
disappeared, we  were  ready  to topple  into  our  quatres, which  we
accordingly did, and by this time we were both at full length, with  our
heads  cased  each in one of Don Ricardo's silk nightcaps, contemplating
Bang's  appearance, as he sat in disconsolate mood in his chair  at  the
head  of  the table, with the fag-end of a cigar in the corner  of  his
cheek.

"Now, Bang," said Transom, "turn in, and let us have a snooze, will ye?"

Bang did not seem to like it much.

"Zounds, Transom, did you ever hear of a gentleman being put to bed on a
table? Why, it must be a quiz. Only fancy me dished out and served  up
like  a great calipi in the shell!  However, here goes--But surely  this
is  in  sorry taste; we had our chocolate a couple of hours ago--capital
it  was  by the by--in vulgar Staffordshire china, and now they give  us
silver...."

"Be  decent, Bang," cut in the skipper, who was by this time  more  than
half asleep. "Be decent, and go to bed--that's a good fellow."

"Ah, well" Aaron undressed himself, and lay down; and there he was laid
out, with a candle on each side of his head, his red face surmounted  by
a  redder handkerchief tied round his head, sticking out above the white
sheet; and  supported by Captain Transom and myself, one on each  side.
All  was  now  quiet. I got up and put out the candles, and  as  I  fell
asleep, I could hear Aaron laughing to himself "Dished, and served  up,
deuced  like  Saint Barts. I was intended for a doctor, Tom, you  must
know. I hope the Don is not a medical amateur; I trust he won't have  a
touch at me before morning. Rum subject I should make. Possibly he may
want to practice cutting for the stone--he! he!" All was silent for some
time.

"Hillo--what is that?" said Aaron again, as if suddenly aroused from his
slumbers--"I say, none of your fun, Transom."

A  large bat was flaffing about, and I could hear him occasionally  whir
near our faces.

"Oh, a  bat--hate  bats--how the skipper snores!  I hope  there  be  no
resurrection-men in St Jago, or I shall be stolen away to  a  certainty
before morning. How should I look as a skeleton in a glass-case, eh?"

I  heard  no  more, until, it might be, about  midnight, when  I  was
awakened, and frightened out of my wits, by Bang rolling off the  table
on  to  my  quatre, which he broke in his fall, and then we both  rolled
over and over on the floor.

"Murder!"  roared  Bang.  "I am bewitched and  bedevilled.  Murder!  a
scorpion  has dropped from the roof into my mouth, and stung me  on  the
nose.  Murder!   Tom--Tom Cringle--Captain--Transom, my  dear  fellows,
awake and send for the doctor. Oh my wig--oh dear oh dear."

At  this uproar I could hear Don Ricardo striking a light, and presently
he  appeared  with a candle in his hand, more than half naked, with  la
senora peering through the half-opened door behind him.

"Ave Maria purissima--what is the matter? Where is el Senior
Bang?"

"Mucho, mucho,"  shouted  Bang  from below  the  table.  "Send  for  a
doctoribus, Senor Richarsum. I am dead and t'other thing help!--help!"

"Dios guardo usted," again ejaculated Campana. "What has befallen him?"
addressing the skipper, who was by this time on his head's antipodes  in
bed, rubbing his eyes, and in great amazement.

"Tell  him, my  dear Transom, that a scorpion fell from the  roof, and
stung me on the nose."

"What says he?" enquired the Spaniard.

Poor  Transom's  intellect was at this time none of the clearest, being
more than half asleep, and not quite so sober as a hermit is wont to be;
besides, he  must  needs speak Spanish, of which he  was  by  no  means
master, which led to a very comical blunder. Alacran, in Spanish, means
scorpion, and Cayman, an alligator, not very similar in sound certainly,
but  the termination being the same, he selected in the hurry the  wrong
phrase.

"He  says,"  replied Transom in bad Spanish, "that he has  swallowed  an
alligator, or something of that sort, sir." Then a loud yawn.

"Swallowed a what?" rejoined Campana, greatly astonished.

"No, no," snorted the captain--"I am wrong--he says he has been stung by
an alligator."

"Stung by an alligator!--impossible."

"Why, then," persisted the skipper, "if he be not stung by an alligator,
or  if  he has not really swallowed one, at all events an alligator  has
either stung or swallowed him--so make the most of it, Don Ricardo."

"Why  this is absurd, with all submission," continued Campana; "how  the
deuce  could he swallow an alligator, or an alligator get into my  house
to annoy him?"

"D--n  it," said Transom, half tipsy and very sleepy, "that's  his  look
out. You are very unreasonable, Don Ricardo; all that is the affair  of
friend  Bang  and  the  alligator; my purpose is solely  to  convey  his
meaning faithfully"--a loud snore.

"Oh,"  said  Campana, laughing, "I see, I see; I left your friend  sobre
mesa, [on the table,] but now I see he is sub rosa."

"Help, good  people, help!" roared Bang--"help, or my nose  will  reach
from this to the Moro Castle--Help!"

We  got him out, and were I to live a thousand years, which would  be  a
tolerably good spell, I don't think I could forget his appearance.  His
nose, usually the smallest article of the kind that I ever saw, was  now
swollen as large as my fist, and as purple as a mulberry--the distension
of  the  skin, from the venomous sting of the reptile--for stung he  had
been by a scorpion--made it semi--transparent, so that it looked like  a
large blob of currant jelly hung on a peg in the middle of his face, or
a  gigantic leech, gorged with blood, giving his visage the semblance of
some grotesque old-fashioned dial, with a fantastic gnomon.

"A  poultice--a poultice--a poultice, good people, or I shall  presently
be  all  nose together,"--and a poultice was promptly manufactured  from
mashed pumpkin, and he was put to bed, with his face covered up with it,
as  if  an  Italian  artist had been taking a cast of  his  beauties  in
plaster of Paris.

In  the  application  of  this said poultice, however, we  had  nearly
extinguished poor Aaron amongst us, by suffocating him outright; for the
skipper, who was the operating surgeon in the first instance, with  me
for  his mate, clapped a whole ladleful over his mouth and nose, which,
besides  being  scalding  hot, sealed those  orifices  effectually, and
indeed  about a couple of tablespoonfuls had actually been  forced  down
his gullet, notwithstanding his struggles, and exclamations of "Pumpkin
bad--softened  with castor oil--d----n it, skipper, you'll  choke  me"
spurt--sputter--sputter--"choke me, man."

"Cuidado," said Don Ricardo; "let me manage"--and he got a small tube of
wild  cane, which he stuck into Bang's mouth, through  a  hole  in  the
poultice-cloth, and set a negro servant to watch that it did  not  sink
into  his  gullet, as he fell asleep, and with instructions to take  the
poultice  off  whenever the pain abated; and there he lay on  his  back,
whistling through this artificial beak, like a sick snipe.

At  length, however, all hands of us seemed to have fallen asleep, but
towards  the  dawning  I was awakened by repeated bursts  of  suppressed
laughter, and  upon  looking in the direction from  whence  the  sounds
proceeded, I was surprised beyond all measure to observe Transom  in  a
corner of the room in his trowsers and shirt, squatted like a tailor  on
his  hams, with one of the sable damsels on her knees beside him holding
a  candle, while his Majesty's Post Captain was plying his needle  in  a
style  and  with a dexterity that would have charmed our friend  Stultze
exceedingly, and every now and then bending double over his  work, and
swinging his body backwards and forwards with the water welling from his
eyes, laughing all the while like to choke himself. As for his  bronze
candlestick, I  thought she would have expired on the  spot, with  her
white  teeth glancing like ivory, and the tears running down her cheeks,
as she every now and then clapped a handkerchief on her mouth to smother
the uncontrollable uproariousness of her mirth.

"Why, captain, what spree is this?" said I.

"Never  you  mind, but come here. I say, Mr Cringle, do  you  see  him
piping  away  there"--and  there he was, sure  enough, still  gurgling
through the wild cane--with his black guardian, whose province it was to
have  removed the poultice, sound asleep, snoring in the huge  chair  at
Bang's head, wherein he had established himself, while the candle at his
patient's cheek was flickering in the socket.

My superior was evidently bent on wickedness.

"Get up and put on your trowsers, man."

I did so.

"Now wait a bit till I cooper him--Here, my darling"--to the sable
virgin who was now on the qui vive, bustling about--"here," said the
captain, sticking out a leg of Bang's trowsers, "hold you there, my
dear."

She happened to be a native of Haiti, and comprehended his French.

"Now hold you that, Mr Cringle."

I took hold of the other leg, and held it in a fitting position, while
Transom deliberately sewed them both up.

"Now for the coat sleeves"

We sealed them in a similar manner.

"So--now for his shirt."

We sewed up the stem, and then the stern, converting it into an
outlandish-looking pillow-case, and finally both sleeves; and last of
all, we got two live land-crabs from the servants, by dint of
persuasion and a little plata, and clapped one into each stocking foot.

We then dressed ourselves, and when all was ready, we got a piece of
tape for a landyard, and made one end fast to the handle of a large
earthen water-jar, full to the brim, which we placed on Bangs pillow,
and passed the other end round the neck of the sleeping negro.

"Now get you to bed," said the captain to the dingy handmaiden, "and
stand by to be off, Mr Cringle."

He stepped to Don Ricardo's bedroom door, and tapped loudly.

"Hillo!" quoth the Don. On this hint, like men springing a mine, the
last who leave the sap, we sprang into the street, when the skipper
turned, and taking aim with a large custard apple which he had armed
himself with (I have formerly described this fruit as resembling a
russet bag of cold pudding), he let fly. Spin flew the apple--bash on
the blackamoor's obtuse snout. He started  back, and in his terror and
astonishment threw a somersault over the back of his chair--gush poured
the water--smash fell the pipkin--"murder" roared Bang, dashing off the
poultice--cast, with such fury that it lighted in the street--and away
we raced at the top of our speed.

We ran as fast as our legs could carry us for two hundred yards, and
then turning, walked deliberately home again, as if we had been out
taking a walk in the cool morning air.

As we approached, we heard the yells of a negro, and Bang high in oath.

"You black rascal, nothing must serve your turn but practising your John
Canoe tricks upon a gentleman--take that, you villain, as a small
recompense for floating me out of my bed--or rather off the table," and
the ludicrousness of his couch seemed to come over the worthy fellow
once more, and he laughed loud and long--"Poor devil, I hope I have not
hurt you? here, Quashi, there's a pistole, go buy a plaster for your
broken pate."

By this we had returned in front of the house, and as we ascended the
front stairs, we again heard a loud racketing within; but blackie's
voice was now wanting in the row, wherein the Spaniard and our friend
appeared to be the dramatis personae--and sure enough there was Don
Ricardo and Bang at it, tooth and nail.

"Allow me to assist you," quoth the Don.

"Oh no--mucho--mucho," quoth Bang, who was spinning round and round in
his shirt on one leg, trying to thrust his foot into his trowsers; but
the garment was impervious; and after emulating Noblet in a pirouette,
he sat down in despair. We appeared--"Ah, Transom, glad to see you
some evil spirit has bewitched me, I believe--overnight I was stung to
death by a scorpion--half an hour ago I was deluged by an invisible
spirit--and just now when I got up, and began to pull on my stockings,
Lord! a land crab was in the toe part, and see how he has scarified me"
forking up his peg--"I then tried my trowsers," he continued in a most
doleful tone--"and lo! the legs are sealed. And look at my face, saw
you ever such an unfortunate? But the devil take you, Transom, I see
through your tricks now, and will pay you off for this yet, take my word
for it."

The truth is, that our amigo Aaron had gotten an awful fright on his
first awakening after his cold bath, for he had given the poor black
fellow an ugly blow upon the face, before he had gathered his senses
well about him, and the next moment seeing the blood streaming from his
nose, and mixing with the custard-like pulp of the fruit with which his
face was plastered, he took it into his noodle that he had knocked the
man's brains out. However, we righted the worthy fellow the best way we
could, and shortly afterwards coffee, was brought, and Bang having got
himself shaven and dressed began to forget all his botherations. But
before we left the house, madama, Don Ricardo's better-half, insisted
on anointing his nose with some mixture famous for reptile-bites. His
natural good-breeding made him submit to the application, which was
neither more nor less than an infusion of indigo and ginger, with which
the worthy lady painted our friend's face and muzzle in a most ludicrous
manner--it was heads and tails between him and an ancient Briton.
Reefpoint at this moment appeared at the door with a letter from the
merchant captains, which had been sent down to the corvette, regarding
the time of sailing, and acquainting us when they would be ready. While
Captain Transom was perusing it, Bang was practising Spanish at the
expense of Don Ricardo, whom he had boxed into a corner; but all his
Spanish seemed to be scraps of schoolboy Latin, and I noticed that
Campana had the greatest difficulty in keeping his countenance. At
length Don Ricardo approached us--"Gentlemen, I have laid out a little
plan for the dav; it is my wife's saint's day, and a holyday in the
family, so we propose going to a coffee property of mine about ten miles
from Santiago, and staying till morning--What say you?"

I chimed in--"I fear, sir, that I shall be unable to accompany you, even
if Captain Transom should be good enough to give me leave, as I have an
errand to do for that unhappy young fellow that we spoke about last
evening--some trinkets which I promised to deliver here they are"--and I
produced the miniature and crucifix.

Campana winced--"Unpleasant, certainly, Lieutenant"--said he.

"I know it will be so myself, but I have promised"

"Then far be it from me to induce you to break your promise," said the
worthy man. "My son," said he, gravely, "the friar you saw yesterday is
confessor to Don Picador Cangrejo's family; his reason for asking to
obtain an interview with you was from its being known that you were
active in capturing the unfortunate men with whom young Federico
Cangrejo, his only son, was leagued. Oh that poor, poor boy!  Had you
known him, gentlemen, as I knew him, poor, poor Federico!"

"He was an awful villain, however, you must allow," said the Captain.

"Granted in the fullest sense, my dear sir," rejoined Campana; "but we
are all frail, erring creatures, and he was hardly dealt by. He is now
gone to his heavy, heavy account, and I may as well tell you the poor
boy's sad story at once. Had you but seen him in his prattling infancy,
in his sunny boyhood!"

"He was the only son of a rich old father, an honest worldly man, and of
a most peevish, irascible temper. Poor Federico, and his sister
Francisca, his only sister, were often cruelly used; and his orphan
cousin, my sweet god-daughter, Maria Olivera, their playmate, was, if
any thing, more harshly treated; for although his mother was and is a
most excellent woman, and always stood between them and the old man's
ill temper, yet at the time I speak of she had returned to Spain, where
a long period of ill health detained her for upwards of three years.
Federico by this time was nineteen years of age, tall, handsome, and
accomplished beyond all the youth of his rank and time of life in Cuba:
But you have seen him, gentlemen--in his extremity; it is true--yet,
fallen as he was, I mistake if you thought him a common man or good, or
for evil, my heart told me he would be conspicuous, and I was, alas the
day! too true a prophet. His attachment to his cousin, who, on the death
of her mother, had become an inmate of Don Picador's house, had been
evident to all but the purblind old man for a long time; and when he did
discover it, he imperatively forbade all intercourse between them, as,
forsooth, he had projected a richer match for him, and shut Maria up in
a corner of his large mansion, Federico, haughty and proud, could not
stomach this. He ceased to reside at his father's estate, which had
been confided to his management, and began to frequent the billiard
table, and monte-tables, and taverns, and in a thousand ways gave, from
less to more, such unendurable offence, that his father at length shut
his door against him, and turned him, with twenty doubloons in his
pocket, into the street."

"Friends interceded, for the feud soon became public, and, amongst
others, I essayed to heal it; and with the fond, although passionate
father, I easily succeeded; but how true it is, 'that evil communication
corrupts good manners!' I found Federico, by this time, linked in bands
of steel with a junto of desperadoes, whose calling was any thing but
equivocal; and implacable to a degree, that, knowing him as I had known
him, I had believed impossible. But, alas, the human heart is indeed
desperately wicked. I struggled long with the excellent Father Carera
to bring about a reconciliation, and thought we had succeeded, as
Federico was induced to return to his father's house once more, and for
many days and weeks we all flattered ourselves that he had reformed;
until one morning, about four months ago, he was discovered coming out
of his cousin's room about the dawning by his father, who immediately
charged him with seducing his ward. High words ensued. Poor Maria
rushed out and threw herself at her uncle's feet. The old man, in a
transport of fury, kicked her on the face as she lay prostrate;
whereupon, God help me, he was felled to the earth by his own flesh, and
bone, and blood--by his abandoned son."

     'What rein can hold licentious wickedness,
     When down the hill he holds his fierce career?'


"The rest is soon told;--he joined the pirate vessels at Puerto
Escondido, and, from his daring and reckless intrepidity, soon rose to
command amongst them, and was proceeding in his infernal career, when
the God whom he had so fearfully defied at length sent him to expiate
his crimes on the scaffold."

"But the priest"--said I, much excited.

"True," continued Don Ricardo, "Padre Carera brought a joint message
from his poor mother, and sister, and--and, oh my darling god-child, my
heart--dear Maria!". And the kind old man wept bitterly. I was much
moved.

"Why, Mr Cringle," said Transom, "if you have promised to deliver the
trinkets in propria persona, there's an end, take leave--nothing doing
down yonder--send Tailtackle for clothes. Mr Reefpoint, go to the boat
and send up Tailtackle; so go you must to these unfortunates, and we
shall then start on our cruise to the Coffee Estate with our worthy
host."

"Why," said Campana; "the family are in the country; they live about
four miles from Santiago, on the very road to my property, and we shall
call on our way; but I don't much admire these interviews there will be
a scene, I fear."

"Not on my part," said I; "but call I must, for I solemnly promised,"
and presented the miniature to Don Ricardo.

Campana looked at it. It was exquisitely finished, and represented a
most beautiful girl, a dark, large-eyed, sparkling, Spanish beauty.
"Oh, my dear, dear child," murmured Don Ricardo, "how like this was to
what you were; how changed you are now from what it is--alas! alas!  But
come, gentlemen, my wife is ready, and my two nieces," the pretty girls
who were of our party the previous evening--"and here are the horses."

At this moment the little midshipman, Master Reefpoint, a great
favourite of mine, by the by, reappeared, with Tailtackle behind him,
carrying my bundle. I was regularly caught, as the clothes, on the
chance of a lark, had been brought from the ship, although stowed out of
sight under the stern-sheets of the boat.

"Here are your clothes, Mr Cringle," quoth middy.

"Devil confound your civility," internally murmured I.

The captain twigged, and smiled. Upon which little Reefy stole up to me
"Lord, Mr Cringle, could you but get me leave to go, it would be such
a...."

"Hold your tongue, boy, how can I...."

Transom struck in--"Master Reefpoint, I see what you are driving at; but
how shall the Firebrand be taken care of when you are away, eh? besides,
you have no clothes, and we shall be away a couple of days most
probably."

"Oh, yes, sir, I have clothes; I have a hair-brush and a tooth-brush,
and two shirt collars, in my waistcoat pocket."

"Very well, can we venture to lumber our kind friends with this giant,
Mr Cringle, and can we really leave the ship without him?" Little Reefy
was now all alive. "Tailtackle, go on board--say we shall be back to
dinner the day after tomorrow," said the Captain.

We now made ready for the start, and certainly the cavalcade was rather
a remarkable one. First, there was an old lumbering family volante, a
sort of gig, with four posts or uprights supporting a canopy covered
with leather, and with a high dash-iron or splashboard in front. There
were curtains depending from this canopy, which on occasion could be let
down, so as to cover in the sides and front. The whole was of the most
clumsy workmanship that can be imagined, and hung by untanned leather
straps in a square wooden frame, from the front of which again protruded
two shafts, straight as Corinthian pillars, and equally substantial,
embracing an uncommonly fine mule, one of the largest and handsomest of
the species which I had seen. The harnessing partook of the same kind
of unwieldy strength and solidity, and was richly embossed with silver
and dirt. Astride on this mulo sat a household negro, with a huge thong
of bullock's hide in one hand, and the reins in the other. In this
voiture were ensconced La Senora Campana, a portly concern, as already
mentioned, two of her bright black-eyed laughing nieces, and Master
Reefpoint, invisible as he lay smothered amongst the ladies, all to his
little glazed cocked hat, and jabbering away in a most unintelligible
fashion, so far as the young ladies, and eke the old one, were
concerned. However, they appeared all mightily tickled by little Reefy,
either mentally or physically, for off they trundled, laughing and
skirting loud above the noise and creaking of the volante. Then came
three small, ambling, stoutish long-tailed ponies, the biggest not
above fourteen hands high; these were the barbs intended for mine host,
the skipper, and myself, caparisoned with high demipique old-fashioned
Spanish saddles, mounted with silver stirrups, and clumsy bridles, with
a ton of rusty iron in each poor brute's mouth for a bit, and curbs like
a piece of our chain cable, all very rich, and, as before mentioned with
regard to the volante, far from clean. Their pace was a fast run, a
compound of walk, trot, and canter, or rather of a trot and a canter,
the latter broken down and frittered away through the instrumentality of
a ferocious Mameluke bit, but as easy as an armchair; and this was, I
speak it feelingly, a great convenience, as a sailor is not a Centaur,
not altogether of a piece with his horse, as it were; yet both Captain
Transom and myself were rather goodish horsemen for nauticals, although
rather apt to go over the bows upon broaching-to suddenly. Don
Ricardo's costume would have been thought a little out of the way in
Leicestershire; most people put on their boots when they do a riding
go, but he chose to mount in shoes and white cotton stockings, and
white jean small-clothes, with a flowing yellow-striped gingham coat,
the skirts of which fluttered in the breeze behind him, his withered
face shaded by a huge Panama hat, and--with enormous silver spurs on his
heels, the rowels two inches in diameter.

Away lumbered the volante, and away we pranced after it. For the first
two miles the scenery was tame enough; but after that, the gently
swelling eminences on each side of the road rose abruptly into rugged
mountains; and the dell between them, which had hitherto been verdant
with waving guinea grass, became covered with large trees, under the
dark shade of which we lost sight of the sun, and the contrast made
every thing around us for a time almost undistinguishable. The forest
continued to overshadow the high-road for two miles further, only
broken by a small cleared patch now and then, where the sharp-spiked
limestone rocks shot up like minarets, and the fire scathed stumps of
the felled trees stood out amongst the rotten earth in the crevices,
from which, however, sprang yams and cocoas, and peas of all kinds, and
granadillos, and a profusion of herbs and roots, with the greatest
luxuriance.

At length we came suddenly upon a cleared space; a most beautiful spot
of ground, where, in the centre of a green plot of velvet grass,
intersected with numberless small walks, gravelled from a neighbouring
rivulet, stood a large one-story wooden edifice, built in the form of a
square, with a court-yard in the centre. From the moistness of the
atmosphere, the outside of the unpainted weatherboarding had a green
damp appearance, and so far as the house itself was concerned, there was
an air of great discomfort about the place. A large open balcony ran
round the whole house on the outside; and fronting us there was a clumsy
wooden porch supported on pillars, with the open door yawning behind it.

The hills on both sides were cleared, and planted with most luxuriant
coffee-bushes, and provision grounds, while the house was shaded by
several splendid star-apple and kennip-trees, and there was a border
of rich flowering shrubs surrounding it on all sides. The hand of woman
had been there!

A few half-naked negroes were lounging about, and on hearing our
approach they immediately came up and stared wildly at us.

"All fresh from the ship these," quoth Bang.

"Can't be," said Transom. "Try and see."

I spoke some of the commonest Spanish expressions to them, but they
neither understood them, nor could they answer me. But Bang was more
successful in Eboe and Mandingo, both of which he spoke fluently
accomplishments which I ought to have expected, by the by, when I
declared he was little skilled in any tongue but English.

Large herds of cattle were grazing on the skirts of the wood, and about
one hundred mules were scrambling and picking their food in a rocky
river-course which bisected the valley. The hills, tree-covered, rose
around this solitary residence in all directions, as if it had been
situated in the bottom of a punch-bowl; while a small waterfall, about
thirty feet high, fell so near one of the corners of the building, that
when the wind set that way, as I afterwards found, the spray moistened
my hair through the open window in my sleeping apartment. We proceeded
to the door and dismounted, following the example of our host, and
proceeded to help the gentlewomen to alight from the volante. When we
were all accounted for in the porch, Don Ricardo began to shout,
"Criados, criados, ven aca-pendejos, ven aca!" the call was for some
time unattended to; at length, two tall, good-looking, decently--
dressed negroes made their appearance, and took charge of our bestias
and carriage; but all this time there was no appearance by any living
creature belonging to the family.

The dark hall, into which the porch opened was paved with the usual
diamond-shaped bricks or tiles, but was not ceiled, the rafters of the
roof being exposed; there was little or no furniture in it, that we
could see, except a clumsy table in the centre of the room, and one or
two of the leather-backed reclining chairs, such as Whiffle used to
patronize. Several doors opened from this comfortless saloon, which was
innocent of paint, into other apartments, one of which was ajar.

"Estrailo," murmured Don Ricardo, "muy estrailo!"

"Coolish reception this, Tom." quoth Aaron Bang.

"Deucedly so," said the skipper.

But Campana, hooking his little fat wife under his arm, while we did the
agreeable to the nieces, now addressed himself to enter, with the
constant preliminary ejaculation of all well-bred Spaniards in crossing
a friend's threshold, "Ave Maria purissima," when we were checked by a
loud tearing fit of coughing, which seemed almost to suffocate the
patient, and female voices in great alarm, proceeding from the room
beyond.

Presently a little anatomy of a man presented himself at the door of the
apartment, wringing his hands, and apparently in great misery. Campana
and his wife, with all the alacrity of kind hearted people, immediately
went up to him, and said something which I did not overhear, but the
poor creature to whom they spoke appeared quite bewildered. "What is
it, Don Picador?" at length we could hear Campana say,--"what is it? Is
it my poor dear Maria who is worse, or what--speak, man--may my wife
enter?"

"Si, si--yes, yes," said the afflicted Don Picador--"yes, yes, let her
go in--send--for I am unable to think or act--send one of my people back
post to Santiago for the doctor--haste, haste. Sangre--hecha sangre por
la boca."

"Good God, why did you not say so before?" rejoined Campana.

Here his wife called loudly to her husband, "Ricardo, Ricardo, por amor
de su alma, manda por el medico, she has burst a blood vessel Maria is
dying!"

"Let me mount myself; I will go myself."--And the excellent man rushed
for the door, when the poor heart-broken Picador clung to his knees.

"No, no, don't leave me. Send some one else"

"Take care, man, let me go"

Transom and I volunteered in a breath--"No, no, I will go myself,"
continued Don Ricardo; "let go, man--God help me, the old creature is
crazed,--el viejo no vale."

"Here, here! help, Don Ricardo!" cried his wife.

Off started Transom for the doctor, and into the room rushed Don Picador
and Campana, and, from the sounds in the sick-chamber, all seemed
bustle and confusion; at length the former appeared to be endeavouring
to lift the poor sufferer, so as to enable her to sit up in bed; in the
meantime her coughing had gradually abated into a low suffocating
convulsive gasp.

"So, so, Ii ft her up, man,' we could hear Campana say; 'lift her up
quick--or she will be suffocated."

At length, in a moment of great irritation, excited on the one hand by
his intense interest in the poor suffering girl, and anger at the
peevish, helpless Don Picador, Don Ricardo, to our unutterable surprise,
rapped out, in gude broad Scotch, as he brushed away Senor Cangrejo from
the bedside with a violence that spun him out of the door--"God--the
auld doited deevil is as fusionless as a docken."

My jaw dropped--I was thunderstruck--Bang's eye met mine "Murder!" quoth
Bang, so soon as his astonishment let him collect breath enough, "and
here I have been for two whole days practising Spanish, to my great
improvement no doubt, upon a Scotchman how Edified he must have been!"

"But the docken, man," said I--"fusionless as a docken--how classic!
what an exclamation to proceed from the mouth of a solemn Don!"

"No gibes regarding the docken," promptly chimed in Bang; "it is a
highly respectable vegetable, let me tell you, and useful on occasion,
which is more."

The noise in the room ceased, and presently Campana joined us. "We must
proceed," said he, "it will never do for you to deliver the jewels now,
Mr Cringle; she is too much excited already, even from seeing me."

But it was more easy to determine on proceeding than to put it in
execution, for a heavy cloud, that had been overhanging the small valley
the whole morning, had by this time spread out and covered the entire
face of nature like a sable pall; the birds of the air flew low, and
seemed perfectly gorged with the superabundance of flies, which were
thickly betaking themselves for shelter under the evergreen leaves of
the bushes. All the winged creation, great and small, were fast
hastening to the cover of the leaves and branches of the trees. The
cattle were speeding to the hollows under the impending rocks; negroes,
men, women, and children, were hurrying with their hoes on their
shoulders past the windows to their huts. Several large bloodhounds had
ventured into the hall, and were crouching with a low whine at our feet.
The huge carrion crows were the only living things which seemed to brave
the approaching chubasco, and were soaring high up in the heavens,
appearing to touch the black agitated fringe of the lowering
thunderclouds. All other kinds of winged creatures, parrots, and
pigeons, and cranes, had vanished by this time under the thickest trees,
and into the deepest coverts, and the wild-ducks were shooting past in
long lines, piercing the thick air with outstretched neck and clanging
wing.

Suddenly the wind fell, and the sound of the waterfall increased, and
grew rough and loud, and the undefinable rushing noise that precedes a
heavy fall of rain in the tropics, the voice of the wilderness, moaned
through the high woods, until at length the clouds sank upon the valley
in boiling mists, rolling halfway down the surrounding hills; and the
water of the stream, whose scanty rill but an instant before hissed over
the precipice, in a small transparent ribbon of clear glass-green,
sprinkled with white foam, and then threaded its way round the large
rocks in its capacious channel, like a silver eel twisting through a dry
desert, now changed in a moment to a dark turgid chocolate colour; and
even as we stood and looked, lo! a column of water from the mountains
pitched in thunder over the face of the precipice, making the earth
tremble, and driving up from the rugged face of the everlasting rocks in
smoke, and forcing the air into eddies and sudden blasts which tossed
the branches of the trees that overhung it, as they were dimly seen
through clouds of drizzle, as if they had been shaken by a tempest,
although there was not a breath stirring elsewhere out of heaven; while
little wavering spiral wreaths of mist rose up thick from the surface of
the boiling pool at the bottom of the cataract, like miniature water
spouts, until they were dispersed by the agitation of the air above.

At length the swollen torrent rolled roaring down the narrow valley,
filling the whole water-course, about fifty yards wide, and advancing
with a solid front a fathom high--a fathom deep does not convey the idea
like a stream of lava, or as one may conceive of the Red Sea, when, at
the stretching forth of the hand of the prophet of the Lord, its mighty
waters rolled back and stood heaped up as a wall to the host of Israel.
The channel of the stream, which but a minute before I could have leaped
across, was the next instant filled, and utterly impassable.

"You can't possibly move," said Don Picador; "you can neither go on nor
retreat; you must stay until the river subsides." And the rain now began
pattering in large drops, like scattering shots preceding an engagement,
on the wooden shingles with which the house was roofed, gradually
increasing to a loud rushing noise, which, as the rooms were not ceiled,
prevented a word being heard.

Don Ricardo began to fret and fidget most awfully,--"Beginning of the
seasons--why, we may not get away for a week and all the ships will be
kept back in their loading."

All this time, the poor sufferer's tearing cough was heard in the lulls
of the rain; but it gradually became less and less severe, and the lady
of the house, and Senora Campana, and Don Picador's daughter, at length
slid into the room on tiptoe, leaving one of Don Ricardo's nieces in the
room with the sick person.

"She is asleep--hush." The weather continued as bad as ever, and we
passed a very comfortless forenoon of it, Picador, Campana, Bang, and
myself, perambulating the large dark hall, while the ladies were
clustered together in a corner with their work. At length the weather
cleared, and I could get a glimpse of mine hostess and her fair
daughter. The former was a very handsome woman, about forty; she was
tall, and finely formed; her ample figure set off by the very simple,
yet, to my taste, very elegant dress formerly described: it was neither
more nor less than the plain black silk petticoat over a chemise, made
full at the bosom, with a great quantity of lace frills; her dark glossy
hair was gathered on the crown of her head in one long braid, twisted
round and round, and rising up like a small turret. Over all she wore a
loose shawl of yellow silk crape. But the daughter, I never shall
forget her!  Tall and full, and magnificently shaped--every motion was
instinct with grace. Her beautiful black hair hung a yard down her
back, long and glossy, in three distinct braids, while it was shaded,
Madonna-like, off her high and commanding forehead; her eyebrows--to
use little Reefy's simile--looked as if cut out of a mouse's skin; and
her eyes themselves, large, dark, and soft, yet brilliant and sparkling
at the same time, however contradictory this may, read; her nose was
straight, and her cheeks firm and oval, and her mouth, her full lips,
her ivory teeth, her neck and bosom, were perfect, the latter if any
giving promise of too matronly a womanhood; but at the time I saw her,
nothing could have been more beautiful; and, above all, there was an
inexpressible charm in the clear transparent darkness of her colourless
skin, into which you thought you could look; her shoulders, and the
upper part of her arms, were peculiarly beautiful. Nothing is so
exquisitely lovely as the upper part of a beautiful woman's arm, and yet
we have lived to see this admirable feature shrouded and lost in those
abominable gigots.--Why won't you, Master Kit North, lend a hand, and
originate a crusade against those vile appendages? I will lead into
action if you like--"Woe unto the women that sew pillows to all
armholes," Ezekiel, xiii. 18. May I venture on such a quotation in such
a place?--She was extremely like her brother; and her fine face was
overspread with the pale cast of thought a settled melancholy, like the
shadow of a cloud in a calm day on a summer landscape, mantled over her
fine features; and although she moved with the air of a princess, and
was possessed of that natural politeness which far surpasses all
artificial polish, yet the heaviness of her heart was apparent in every
motion, as well as in all she said.

Many people labour under an unaccountable delusion, imagining, in their
hallucination, that a Frenchwoman, for instance, or even an Englishwoman
nay, some in their madness have been heard to say that a Scotchwoman
has been known to walk. Egregious errors all!  An Irishwoman of the
true Milesian descent can walk a step or two sometimes, but all other
women, fair or brown, short or tall, stout or thin, only stump, shuffle,
jig, or amble--none but a Spaniard can walk.

Once or twice she tried to enter into conversation with me on
indifferent subjects; but there was a constant tendency to approach
(against her own prearranged determination) the one, all-absorbing one,
the fate of her poor brother. "Oh, had you but known him, Mr Cringle
had you but known him in his boyhood, before bad company had corrupted
him!" exclaimed she, after having asked me if he died penitent and she
turned away and wept. "Francisca," said a low hoarse female voice from
the other room; "Francisca, ven aca, mi querida hermana." The sweet girl
rose, and sped across the floor with the grace of Taglioni, (oh, the
legs Taglionis! as poor dear Bang would have ventured to have said, if
the sylphide had then been known,) and presently returning, whispered
something to her mother, who rose and drew Don Picador aside. The
waspish old man shook himself clear of his wife, as he said with
indecent asperity--"No, no, she will but make a fool of herself."

His wife drew herself up.

"She never made a fool of herself, Don Picador, but once; and God
forgive those who were the cause of it. It is not kind of you, it is
not kind."

"Well, well," rejoined the querulous old man, "do as you will, do as you
will,--always crossing me, always crossing."

His wife took no farther notice, but stepped across the room to me,
"Our poor dying Maria knows you are here; and probably you are not aware
that he wrote to her after his"--her voice quavered after his
condemnation, the night before he suffered, that you were the only one
who shewed him kindness; and she has also read the newspapers giving an
account of the trial. She wishes to see you will you pleasure her?
Senora Campana has made her acquainted that you are the bearer of some
trinkets belonging to him, from which she infers you witnessed his last
moments, as one of them, she was told, was her picture, poor dear girl;
and she knew that must have grown to his heart till the last. But it
will be too agitating. I will try and dissuade her from the interview
until the doctor comes, at all events.'

The worthy lady stepped again into Maria's apartment, and I could not
avoid hearing what passed.

"My dear Maria, Mr Cringle has no objection to wait on you; but after
your severe attack this morning, I don't think it will be wise. Delay
it until Dr Bergara comes--at any rate, until the evening, Maria."

"Mother," she said, in a weak, plaintive voice, although husky from the
phlegm which was fast coagulating in her throat--"Mother, I already have
ceased to be of this world; I am dying, dearest mother, fast dying; and
oh, thou All-good and All-merciful Being, against whom I have fearfully
sinned, would that the last struggle were now o'er, and that my weary
spirit were released, and my shame hidden in the silent tomb, and my
sufferings and very name forgotten!" She paused and gasped for breath; I
thought it was all over with her; but she rallied again and proceeded
"Time is rapidly ebbing from me, dearest mother,--for mother I must call
you, more than a mother have you been to me--and the ocean of eternity
is opening to my view. If I am to see him at all, I must see him now; I
shall be more agitated by the expectation of the interview than by
seeing him at once. Oh! let me see him now, let me look on one who
witnessed his last moments."

I could see Senora Cangrejo where she stood. She crossed her hands on
her bosom, and looked up towards heaven, and then turned mournfully
towards me, and beckoned me to approach. I entered the small room,
which had been fitted up by the poor girl with some taste; the furniture
was better than any I had seen in a Spanish house before, and there was
a mat on the floor, and some exquisite miniatures and small landscapes
on the walls. It was her boudoir, opening apparently into a bedroom
beyond. It was lighted by a large open unglazed window, with a row of
wooden balustrades beyond it, forming part of a small balcony. A
Carmelite friar, a venerable old man, with the hot tears fast falling
from his old eyes over his wrinkled cheeks, whom I presently found to be
the excellent Padre Carera, sat in a large chair by the bedside, with a
silver cup in his hand, beside which lay a large crucifix of the same
metal; he had just administered extreme unction, and the viaticum, he
fondly hoped, would prove a passport for his dear child to another and a
better world. As I entered he rose, held out his hand to me, and moved
round to the bottom of the bed.

The shutters had been opened, and, with a suddenness which no one can
comprehend who has not lived in these climates, the sun now shone
brightly on the flowers and garden plants which grew in a range of pots
on the balcony, and lighted up the pale features of a lovely girl,
lovely even in the jaws of death, as she lay with her face towards the
light, supported in a reclining position on cushions, on a red morocco
mattrass, laid on a sort of frame or bed.

"Light was her form, and darkly delicate, that brow, whereon her native
sun had sat, but had not marr'd."

She was tall, so far as I could judge, but oh, how attenuated!  Her
lower limbs absolutely made no impression on the mattrass, to which her
frame appeared to cling, giving a ghastly conspicuousness to the
oedematoust swelling of her feet, and to her person, for, alas! She was
in a way to have become a mother.

     The offspring of his wayward youth,
     When he betrayed Bianca's truth;
     The maid whose folly could confide
     In him, who made her not his bride.

Her hand, grasping her pocket-handkerchief, drenched, alas, with blood,
hung over the side of the bed, thin and pale, with her long taper
fingers as transparent as if they had been fresh cut alabaster, with the
blue veins winding through her wrists, and her bosom wasted and shrunk,
and her neck no thicker than her arm, with the pulsations of the large
arteries as plain and evident as if the skin had been a film, and her
beautiful features, although now sharpened by the near approaching death
agony, her lovely mouth, her straight nose, her arched eyebrows, black,
like pencilled jet lines, and her small ears,--and oh, who can describe
her rich black raven hair, lying combed out, and spread all over the bed
and pillow? She was dressed in a long loose gown of white crape; it
looked like a winding-sheet; but the fire of her eyes--I have purposely
not ventured to describe them--the unearthly brilliancy of her large,
full, swimming eye!

When I entered, I bowed, and remained standing near the door. She said
something, but in so low a voice that I could not catch the words; and
when I stepped nearer, on purpose to hear more distinctly, all at once
the blood mantled in her cheeks and forehead and throat, like the last
gleam of the setting sun; but it faded as rapidly, and once more she lay
pale as her smock.

     "Yet not such blush, as mounts when health would show,
     All the heart's hue in that delightful glow;
     But 'twas a hectic tint of secret care,
     That for a burning moment fever'd there;
     And the wild sparkle of her eye seemd caught
     From high, and lighten'd with electric thought;
     Though its black orb these long low lashes fringe,
     Had temper'd with a melancholy tinge."

Her voice was becoming more and more weak, she said, so she must be
prompt. "You have some trinkets for me, Mr Cringle?" I presented them.
She kissed the crucifix fervently, and then looked mournfully on her own
miniature. "This was thought like once, Mr Cringle.--Are the newspaper
accounts of his trial correct?" she next asked. I answered, that in the
main facts they were. "And do you believe in the commission of all
these alleged atrocities by him?" I remained silent. "Yes, they are but
too true. Hush, hush," said she "look there."

I did as she requested. There, glancing bright in the sunshine, a most
beautiful butterfly fluttered in the air, in the very middle of the open
window. When we first saw it, it was flitting gaily and happily amongst
the plants and flowers that were blooming in the balcony, but it
gradually became more and more slow on the wing, and at last poised
itself so unusually steadily for an insect of its class, that even had
Maria not spoken, it would have attracted my attention. Below it, on
the window sill, near the wall, with head erect, and its little basilisk
eyes upturned towards the lovely fly, crouched a camelion lizard; its
beautiful body, when I first looked at it, was a bright sea-green. It
moved into the sunshine, a little away from the shade of the laurel
bush, which grew on the side it first appeared on, and suddenly the back
became transparent amber, the legs and belly continuing green. From its
breast under the chin, it every now and then shot out a semicircular
film of a bright scarlet colour, like a leaf of a tulip stretched
vertically, or the pectoral fin of a fish.

This was evidently a decoy, and the poor fly was by degrees drawn down
towards it, either under the impression of its being in reality a flower,
or impelled by some impulse which it could not resist. It gradually
fluttered nearer and more near, the reptile remaining all the while
steady as a stone, until it made a sudden spring, and in the next moment
the small meally wings were quivering on each side of the camelion's
tiny jaws. While in the act of gorging its prey, a little fork, like a
wire, was projected from the opposite corner of the window; presently a
small round black snout, with a pair of little fiery blasting eyes,
appeared, and a thin black neck glanced in the sun. The lizard saw it.
I could fancy it trembled. Its body became of a dark blue, then ashy
pale; the imitation of the flower, the gaudy fin was withdrawn, it
appeared to shrink back as far as it could, but it was nailed or
fascinated to the window sill, for its feet did not move. The head of
the snake approached, with its long forked tongue shooting out and
shortening, and with a low hissing noise. By this time about two feet
of its body was visible, lying with its white belly on the wooden beam,
moving forward with a small horizontal wavy motion, the head and six
inches of the neck being a little raised. I shrunk back from the
serpent, but no one else seemed to have any dread of it; indeed, I
afterwards learned, that this kind being good mousers, and otherwise
quite harmless, were, if any thing, encouraged about houses in the
country. I looked again; its open mouth was now within an inch of the
lizard, which by this time seemed utterly paralysed and motionless; the
next instant its head was drawn into the snake's mouth, and by degrees
the whole body disappeared, as the reptile gorged it, and I could
perceive from the lump which gradually moved down the snake's neck, that
it had been sucked into its stomach. Involuntarily I raised my hand,
when the whole suddenly disappeared.

I turned, I could scarcely tell why, to look at the dying girl. A
transient flush had again lit up her pale wasted face. She was
evidently greatly excited. "Can you read me that riddle, Mr Cringle?
Does no analogy present itself to you between what you have seen,
between the mysterious power possessed by these subtle reptiles, and
Look--look again."

A large and still more lovely butterfly suddenly rose from beneath where
the snake had vanished, all glittering in the dazzling sunshine, and
after fluttering for a moment, floated steadily up into the air, and
disappeared in the blue sky. My eye followed it as long as it was
visible, and when it once more declined to where we had seen the snake,
I saw a most splendid dragonfly, about three inches long, like a golden
bodkin, with its gauze-like wings moving so quickly, as it hung
steadily poised in mid air, like a hawk preparing to stoop, that the
body seemed to be surrounded by silver tissue, or a bright halo, while
it glanced in the sunbeam.

"Can you not read it yet, Mr Cringle? can you not read my story in the
fate of the first beautiful fly, and the miserable end of my Federico,
in that of the lizard? And oh, may the last appearance of the ethereal
thing, which but now rose, and melted into the lovely sky, be a true
type of what I shall be!  But that poor insect, that remains there
suspended between heaven and earth, shall I say hell, what am I to think
of it?"

The dragonfly was still there. She continued--"En purgatorio, ah Dios,
tu quedas en purgatorio," as if the fly had represented the unhappy
young pirate's soul in limbo. Oh, let no one smile at the quaintness of
the dying fancy of the poor heart-crushed girl. The weather began to
lower again, the wind came past us moaningly--the sun was obscured
large drops of rain fell heavily into the room--a sudden dazzling flash
of lightning took place, and the dragonfly was no longer there. A long
low wild cry was heard. I started, and my flesh creeped. The cry was
repeated. "Es el--el mismo, y ningun otro. Me venga, Federico; me
venga, mi querido!" shrieked poor Maria, with a supernatural energy, and
with such piercing distinctness that it was heard shrill even above the
rolling thunder.

I turned to look at Maria--another flash. It glanced on the crucifix
which the old priest had elevated at the foot of the bed, full in her
view. It was nearer, the thunder was louder. "Is that the rain-drops
which are falling heavily on the floor through the open window?" Oh God!
Oh God! it is her warm heart's-blood, which was bubbling from her mouth
like a crimson fountain. Her pale fingers were clasped on her bosom in
the attitude of prayer--a gentle quiver of her frame and the poor broken
hearted girl, and her unborn babe, "sleeped the sleep that knows no
waking."



CHAPTER XIV.--Scenes in Cuba


     Ariel.--Safely in harbour,
     Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where, once,
     Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew,
     From the still--vexed Bermoothes--there she's hid.

     The Tempest, I. ii 227--29.


The spirit had indeed fled--the ethereal essence had departed--and the
poor wasted and blood-stained husk which lay before us, could no longer
be moved by our sorrows, or gratified by our sympathy. Yet I stood
riveted to the spot, until I was aroused by the deep-toned voice of
Padre Carera, who, lifting up his hands towards heaven, addressed the
Almighty in extempore prayer, beseeching his mercy to our erring sister
who had just departed. The unusualness of this startled me.--"As the
tree falls, so must it lie," had been the creed of my forefathers, and
was mine; but now for the first time I heard a clergyman wrestling in
mental agony, and interceding with the God who hath said, "Repent before
the night cometh, in which no man can work," for a sinful creature,
whose worn-out frame was now as a clod of the valley. But I had little
time for consideration, as presently all the negro servants of the
establishment set up a loud howl, as if they had lost their nearest and
dearest. "Oh, our poor dear young mistress is dead!  She has gone to
the bosom of the Virgin!  She is gone to be happy!"--"Then why the deuce
make such a yelling?" quoth Bang in the other room, when this had been
translated to him. Clad to leave the chamber of death, I entered the
large hall, where I had left our friend.

"I say, Tom--awful work. Hear how the rain pours, and murder--such a
flash!  Why, in Jamaica, we don't startle greatly at lightning, but
absolutely I heard it hiss--there, again"--the noise of the thunder
stopped further colloquy, and the wind now burst down the valley with a
loud roar.

Don Ricardo joined us. "My good friends--we are in a scrape here--what
is to be done?--a melancholy affair altogether."--Bang's curiosity here
fairly got the better of him.

"I say, Don Ricardibus--do--beg pardon, though--do give over this
humbugging outlandish lingo of yours--speak like a Christian, in your
mother tongue, and leave off your Spanish, which now, since I know it is
all a bam, seems to sit as strangely on you as my grandmother's toupe
would on Tom Cringle's Mary."

"Now do pray, Mr Bang," said I, when Don Ricardo broke in "Why, Mr Bang,
I am, as you now know, a Scotchman."

"How do I know any such thing--that is, for a certainty--while you keep
cruising amongst so many lingoes, as Tom there says?"

"The docken, man," said I.--Don Ricardo smiled.

"I am a Scotchman, my dear sir; and the same person who, in his youth,
was neither more nor less than wee Richy Cloche, in the long town of
Kirkaldy, and in his old age Don Ricardo Campana of St Jago de Cuba.
But more of this anon,--at present we are in the house of mourning, and
alas the day! that it should be so."

By this time the storm had increased most fearfully, and as Don Ricardo,
Aaron, and myself, sat in the dark damp corner of the large gloomy hall,
we could scarcely see each other, for the lightning had now ceased, and
the darkness was so thick, that had it not been for the light from the
large funeral wax tapers, which had been instantly lit upon poor Maria's
death, in the room where she lay, that streamed through the open door,
we should have been unable to see our very fingers before us.

"What is that?" said Campana; "heard you nothing, gentlemen?"

     "By this the storm grew loud apace,
     The water-wraith was shrieking;
     And in the scowl of heaven each face,
     Grew dark as they were speaking."

In  the lulls of the rain and the blast, the same long low cry was heard
which had startled me by Maria's bedside, and occasioned the sudden  and
fatal  exertion which had been the cause of the bursting out  afresh  of
the blood vessel.

"Why," said I, "it is little more than three o'clock in the afternoon
yet, dark as it is; let us sally out, Mr Bang, for I verify believe that
the hollo we have heard is my Captain's voice, and, if I conjecture
rightly, he must have arrived at the other side of the river, probably
with the Doctor."

"Why, Tom," quoth Aaron, "it is only three in the afternoon, as you say,
although by the sky I could almost vouch for its being midnight,--but I
don't like that shouting--Did you ever read of a water-kelpie, Don
Richy?"

"Poo, poo, nonsense," said the Don; "Mr Cringle is, I fear, right
enough." At this moment the wind thundered at the door and window
shutters, and howled amongst the neighbouring trees and round the roof,
as if it would have blown the house down upon our devoted heads. The
cry was again heard, during a momentary pause.

"Zounds!" said Bang, "it is the skipper's voice, as sure as fate--he
must be in danger--let us go and see, Tom."

"Take me with you," said Campana,--the foremost always when any good
deed was to be done----and, in place of clapping on his great-coat to
meet the storm, to our unutterable surprise, he began to disrobe
himself, all to his trowsers and large straw hat. He then called one of
the servants, "Trae me un lasso." The lasso, a long thong of plaited
hide, was forthwith brought; he coiled it up in his left hand. "Now,
Pedro," said he to the negro servant who had fetched it, (a tall
strapping fellow,) "you and Caspar follow me. Gentlemen, are you
ready?" Caspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one
hand and a thong similar to Don Ricardo's in the other, he as well as
his comrade being stark naked all to their waistcloths. "Ah, well done,
my sons," said Don Ricardo, as both the negroes prepared to follow him.
So off we started to the door, although we heard the tormenta raging
without with appalling fury. Bang undid the latch, and the next moment
he was flat on his back, the large leaf having flown open with
tremendous violence, capsizing him like an infant.

The Padre from the inner chamber came to our assistance, and by our
joint exertions we at length got the door to again and barricaded, after
which we made our exit from the lee-side of the house by a window.
Under other circumstances, it would have been difficult to refrain from
laughing at the appearance we made. We were all drenched in an instant
after we left the shelter of the house, and there was old Campana, naked
to the waist, with his large sombrero and long pigtail hanging down his
back, like a mandarin of twenty buttons. Next followed his two black
assistants, naked as I have described them, all three with their coils
of rope in their hands, like a hangman and his deputies; then advanced
friend Bang and myself, without our coats or hats, with handkerchiefs
tied round our heads, and our bodies bent down so as to stem the gale as
strongly as we could.

But the planting attorney, a great schemer, a kind of Will Wimble in his
way, had thought fit, of all things in the world, to bring his umbrella,
which the wind, as might have been expected, reversed most
unceremoniously the moment he attempted to hoist it, and tore it from
the staff, so that, on the impulse of the moment, he had to clutch the
flying red silk and thrust his head through the centre, where the stick
had stood, as if he had been some curious flower. As we turned the
corner of the house, the full force of the storm met us right in the
teeth, when flap flew Don Ricardo's hat past us; but the two blackamoors
had taken the precaution to strap each of theirs down with a strong
grass lanyard. We continued to work to windward, while every now and
then the hollo came past us on the gale louder and louder, until it
guided us to the fording which we had crossed on our first arrival. We
stopped there;--the red torrent was rushing tumultuously past us, but we
saw nothing save a few wet and shivering negroes on the opposite side,
who had sheltered themselves under a cliff, and were busily employed in
attempting to light a fire. The holloing continued.

"Why, what can be wrong?" at length said Don Ricardo, and he shouted to
the people on the opposite side.

He might as well have spared his breath, for, although they saw his
gestures and the motion of his lips, they no more heard him than we did
them, as they very considerately in return made mouths at us, bellowing
no doubt that they could not hear us.

"Don Ricardo--Don Ricardo!" at this crisis sung out Caspar, who had
clambered up the rock, to have a peep about him--"Ave Maria--Alla son
dos pobres, que peresquen pronto, si nosotros no pueden Hydros."

"Whereabouts?" said Campana--"whereabouts? speak, man, speak."

"Down in the valley--about a quarter of a league, I see two men on a
large rock, in the middle of the stream; the wind is in that direction,
it must be them we heard."

"God be gracious to us! true enough--true enough--let us go to them
then, my children." And we again all cantered off after the excellent
Don Ricardo. But before we could reach the spot, we had to make a
detour, and come down upon it from the precipitous brow of the beetling
cliff above, for there was no beach nor shore to the swollen river,
which was here very deep and surged, rushing under the hollow bank with
comparatively little noise, which was the reason why we heard the cries
so distinctly.

The unfortunates who were in peril, whoever they might be, seemed to
comprehend our motions, for one of them held out a white handkerchief,
which I immediately answered by a similar signal, when the shouting
ceased, until, guided by the negroes, we reached the verge of the cliff,
and looked down from the red crumbling bank on the foaming water, as it
swept past beneath. It was here about thirty yards broad, divided by a
rocky wedge like islet, on which grew a profusion of dark bushes and one
large tree, whose topmost branches were on a level with us where we
stood. This tree was divided, about twelve feet from the root, into two
limbs in the fork of which sat, like a big monkey, no less a personage
than Captain Transom himself, wet and dripping, with his clothes
besmeared with mud, and shivering with cold. At the foot of the tree
sat in rueful mood, a small antique beau of an old man in a coat which
had once been blue silk, wearing breeches, the original colour of which
no man could tell, and without his wig, his clear bald pate shining
amidst the surrounding desolation like an ostrich's egg. Beside these
worthies stood two trembling way-worn mules with drooping heads, their
long ears hanging down most disconsolately. The moment we came in
sight, the skipper hailed us.

"Why, I am hoarse with bawling, Don Ricardo, but here am I and el Doctor
Pavo Real, in as sorry a plight as any two gentlemen need be. On
attempting the ford two hours ago, blockheads as we were beg pardon, Don
Pavo"--the doctor bowed, and grinned like a baboon--"we had nearly been
drowned; indeed, we should have been drowned entirely, had we not
brought up on this island of Barataria here.--But how is the young lady?
tell me that," said the excellent-hearted fellow, even in the midst of
his own danger.

"Mind Yourself, my beautiful child," cried Bang. "How are we to get you
on terra firma?"

"Poo--in the easiest way possible," rejoined he, with true seamanlike
self-possession. "I see you have ropes--Tom Cringle, heave me the end
of the line which Don Ricardo carries, will you?"

"No, no--I can do that myself," said Don Ricardo, and with a swing he
hove the leathern noose at the skipper, and whipped it over his neck in
a twinkling. The Scotch Spaniard, I saw, was pluming himself on his
skill, but Transom was up to him, for in an instant he dropped out of
it, while in slipping through he let it fall over a broken limb of the
tree.

"Such an eel--such an eel!" shouted the attendant negroes, both expert
hands with the lasso themselves.

"Now, Don Ricardo, since I am not to be had, make your end of the thong
fast round that large stone there." Campana did so. "Ah, that will do."
And so saying, the skipper warped himself to the top of the cliff with
great agility. He was no sooner in safety himself, however, than the
idea of having left the poor doctor in peril flashed on him.

"I must return--I must return!  If the river rises, the body will be
drowned out and out."

And notwithstanding our entreaties, he did return as he came, and
descending the tree, began apparently to argue with the little Medico,
and to endeavour to persuade him to ascend, and make his escape as he
himself had done; but it would not do. Pavo Real--as brave a little man
as ever was seen--made many salaams and obeisances, but move he would
not. He shook his head repeatedly, in a very solemn way, as if he had
said, "My very excellent friends, I am much obliged to you, but it is
impossible; my dignity would be compromised by such a proceeding."

Presently Transom appeared to wax very emphatic, and pointed to a
pinnacle of limestone rock, which had stood out like a small steeple
above the surface of the flashing, dark red eddies, when we first
arrived on the spot, but now only stopped the water with a loud gurgle,
the top rising and disappearing as the stream surged past, like, buov
jangling in a tideway. The small man still shook his head, but the
water now rose so rapidly, that there was scarcely dry standing room for
the two poor devils of mules, while the doctor and the skipper had the
greatest difficulty in finding a footing for themselves.

Time and circumstances began to press, and Transom, after, another
unavailing attempt to persuade the doctor, began apparently to rouse
himself, and muster his energies. He first drove the mules forcibly
into the stream at the side opposite where we stood, which was the
deepest water, and least broken by rocks and stones, and we had the
pleasure to see them scramble out safe and sound; he then put his hand
to his mouth, and hailed us to throw him a rope, it was done--he caught
it, and then by a significant gesture to Campana, gave him to understand
that now was the time. The Don, comprehending him, hove his noose with
great precision, right over the little doctor's head, and before he
recovered from his surprise, the captain slipped it under his arms, and
signed to haul taught, while the Medico kicked, and spurred, and backed
like a restive horse. At one and the same moment, Transom made fast a
guy round his waist, and we hoisted away, while he hauled on the other
line, so that we landed the Lilliputian Esculapius safe on the top of
the bank, with the wind nearly out of his body, however, from his
violent exertions, and the running of the noose.

It was now the work of a moment for the Captain to ascend the tree and
again warp himself ashore, when he set himself to apologize with all his
might and main, pleading strong necessity; and having succeeded in
pacifying the offended dignity of the doctor, we turned towards the
house.

"Look out there," sung out Campana sharply.

Time indeed, thought I, for right ahead of us, as if an invisible
gigantic ploughshare had passed over the woods, a valley or chasm was
suddenly opened down the hill-side with a noise like thunder, and
branches and whole limbs of trees were instantly torn away, and
tossed into the air like straws.

"Down on your noses, my fine fellows," cried the skipper. We were all
flat in an instant except the Medico, the stubborn little brute, who
stood until the tornado reached him, when in a twinkling he was cast on
his back, with a violence sufficient, as I thought, to have driven his
breath for ever and aye out of his body. While we lay we heard all
kinds of things hurtle past us through the air, pieces of timber,
branches of trees, coffee-bushes, and even stones. Presently it lulled
again, and we got on end to look round us.

"How will the old house stand all this, Don Ricardo?" said the drenched
skipper. He had to shout to be heard. The Don was too busy to answer,
but once more strode on towards the dwelling, as I expected something
even worse than we had experienced to be still awaiting us. By the time
we reached it, it was full of negroes, men, women, and children, whose
huts had already been destroyed, poor, drenched, miserable devils, with
scarcely any clothing and to crown our comfort, we found the roof
leaking in many places. By this time the night began to fall, and our
prospects were far from flattering. The rain had entirely ceased, nor
was there any lightning, but the storm was most tremendous, blowing in
gusts, and veering round from east to north with the speed of thought.
The force of the gale, however, gradually declined, until the wind
subsided altogether, and every thing became quite still. The low
murmured conversation of the poor negroes who environed us, was heard
distinctly; the hard breathing of the sleeping children could even be
distinguished. But I was by no means sure that the hurricane was over,
and Don Ricardo and the rest seemed to think as I did, for there was not
a word interchanged between us for some time.

"Do you hear that?" at length said Aaron Bang, as a low moaning sound
rose wailing into the night air. It approached and grew louder.

"The voice of the approaching tempest amongst the higher branches of the
trees," said the Captain.

The rushing noise overhead increased, but still all was so calm where we
sat, that you could have heard a pin drop. Poo, thought I, it has
passed over us after all--no fear now, when one reflects how completely
sheltered we are. Suddenly, however, the lights in the room where the
body lay were blown out, and the roof groaned and creaked as if it had
been the bulkheads of a ship in a tempestuous sea.

"We shall have to cut and run from this anchorage presently, after all,"
said I; "the house will never hold on till morning."

The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when, as if a thunderbolt had
struck it, one of the windows in the hall was driven in with a roar, as
if the Falls of Niagara had been pouring overhead, and the tempest
having thus forced an entrance, the roof of that part of the house where
we sat was blown up, as if by gunpowder--ay, in the twinkling of an eye;
and there we were with the bare walls, and the angry heaven overhead,
and the rain descending in bucketfuls. Fortunately, two large joists or
couples, being deeply embedded in the substance of the walls, remained,
when the rafters and ridgepole were torn away, or we must have been
crushed in the ruins.

There was again a deathlike lull, the wind fell to a small melancholy
sough amongst the tree-tops, and once more, where we sat, there was not
a breath stirring. So complete was the calm now, that after a light had
been struck, and placed on the floor in the middle of the room, showing
the surrounding group of shivering half-naked savages, with fearful
distinctness, the flame shot up straight as an arrow, clear and bright,
although the distant roar of the storm still thundered afar off as it
rushed over the mountain above us.

This unexpected stillness frightened the women even more than the
fierceness of the gale when at the loudest had done.

"We must go forth," said Senora Campana; "the elements are only
gathering themselves for a more dreadful hurricane than what we have
already experienced. We must go forth to the little chapel in the wood,
or the next burst may, and will, bury us under the walls;" and she moved
towards Maria's room, where, by this time, lights had again been placed.
"We must move the body," we could hear her say; "we must all proceed to
the chapel; in a few minutes the storm will be raging again louder than
ever."

"And my wife is very right," said Don Ricardo; "so, Caspar, call the
other people; have some mats, and quatres, and mattresses carried down
to the chapel, and we shall all remove, for, with half of the roof gone,
it is but tempting the Almighty to remain here longer."

The word was passed, and we were soon under weigh, four negroes leading
the van, carrying the uncoffined body of the poor girl on a sofa; while
two servants, with large splinters of a sort of resinous wood for
flambeaux, walked by the side of it. Next followed the women of the
family, covered up with all the cloaks and spare garments that could be
collected; then came Don Picador Cangrejo, with Ricardo Campana, the
skipper, Aaron Bang, and myself; the procession being closed by the
household negroes, with more lights, which all burned steadily and
clear.

We descended through a magnificent natural avenue of lofty trees (whose
brown moss-grown trunks and fantastic boughs were strongly lit up by
the blaze of the torches; while the fresh white splinter-marks where
the branches had been tom off by the storm, glanced bright and clear,
and the rain-drops on the dark leaves sparkled like diamonds) towards
the river, along whose brink the brimful red-foaming waters rushed past
us, close by the edge of the path, now ebbing suddenly a foot or so, and
then surging up again beyond their former bounds, as if large stones or
trunks of trees above, were from time to time damming up the troubled
waters, and then giving way. After walking about four hundred yards, we
came to a small but massive chapel, fronting the river, the back part
resting against a rocky bank, with two superb cypress-trees growing,
one on each side of the door; we entered, Padre Carera leading the way.
The whole area of the interior of the building did not exceed a
parallelogram of twenty feet by twelve. At the eastern end, fronting
the door, there was a small altar-piece of hard-wood, richly
ornamented with silver, and one or two bare wooden benches standing on
the tiled floor; but the chief security we had that the building would
withstand the storm, consisted in its having no window or aperture
whatsoever, excepting two small ports, one on each side of the altar
piece, and the door, which was a massive frame of hardwood planking.

The body was deposited at the foot of the altar, and the ladies, having
been wrapped up in cloaks and blankets, were safely lodged in quatres,
while we, the gentlemen of the comfortless party, seated ourselves,
disconsolately enough, on the wooden benches.

The door was made fast, after the servants had kindled a blazing wood
fire on the floor; and although the flickering light cast by the wax
tapers in the six large silver candlesticks which were planted beside
the bier, as it blended with the red glare of the fire, and fell strong
on the pale uncovered features of the corpse, and on the anxious faces
of the women, was often startling enough, yet being conscious of a
certain degree of security from the thickness of the walls, we made up
our minds to spend the night where we were, as well as we could.

"I say, Tom Cringle," said Aaron Bang, "all the females are snug there,
you see; we have a blazing fire on the hearth, and here is some comfort
for we men slaves;" whereupon he produced two bottles of brandy. Don
Ricardo Campana, with whom Bang seemed now to be absolutely in league,
or, in vulgar phrase, as thick as pickpockets, had brought a goblet of
water, and a small silver drinking cup, with him, so we passed the
creature round, and tried all we could to while away the tedious night.
But, as if a sudden thought had struck Aaron, he here tucked the brandy
bottle under his arm, and asking me to carry the vessel with the water,
he advanced, cup in hand, towards the ladies.

"Now, Tom, interpret carefully."

"Ahem--Madam and Senoras, this is a heavy night for all of us, but the
chapel is damp--allow me to comfort you."

"Muchisimos gracias," was the gratifying answer, and Bang accordingly
gave each of our fair friends a heart-warming taste of brandy and
water. There was now calm for a full hour, and the Captain had stepped
out to reconnoitre; on his return he reported that the swollen stream
had very much subsided.

"Well, we shall get away, I hope, tomorrow morning, after all,"
whispered Bang.

He had scarcely spoken when it began to pelt and rain again, as if a
waterspout had burst overhead, but there was no wind.

"Come, that is the clearing up of it," said Cloche.

At this precise moment the priest was sitting with folded arms, beyond
the body, on a stool or trestle, in the alcove or recess where it lay.
Right overhead was one of the small round apertures in the gable of the
chapel, which, opening on the bank, appeared to the eye a round black
spot in the whitewashed wall. The bright wax lights shed a strong
lustre on the worthy Clerigo's figure, face, and fine bald head which
shone like silver, while the deeper light of the embers on the floor was
reflected in ruby tints from the large silver crucifix that hung at his
waist. The rushing of the swollen river prevented me hearing
distinctly, but it occurred to me once or twice, that a strange!
gurgling sound proceeded from the aforesaid round aperture. The Padre
seemed to hear it also, for every now and then he looked up, and once he
rose and peered anxiously through it; but apparently unable to
distinguish any thing, he sat down again. However, my attention, had
been excited, and half asleep as I was, I kept glimmering in the
direction of the Clerigo.

The Captain's deep snore had gradually lengthened out, so as to vouch
for his forgetfulness, and Bang, Ricardo, Dr Pavo Real, and the ladies,
had all subsided into the most perfect quietude, when I noticed, and I
quaked and trembled like an aspen leaf as I did so, a long black paw,
thrust through, and down from the dark aperture immediately over Padre
Carera's head, which, whatever it was, it appeared to scratch sharply,
and then giving the caput a smart cuff, vanished. The Priest started,
put up his hand, and rubbed his head, but seeing nothing, again leant
back, and was about departing to the land of nod, like the others, once
more. However, in a few minutes, the same paw again protruded, and this
time a peering black snout, with two glancing eyes, was thrust through
the hole after it. The paw kept swinging about like a pendulum for a
few seconds, and was then suddenly thrust into the Padre's open mouth as
he lay back asleep, and again giving him another smart crack, vanished
as before.

"Hobble, gobble," gurgled the Priest, nearly choked.

"Ave Maria purissima, que bocado--what a mouthful!--What can that be?"

This was more than I knew, I must confess, and altogether I was
consumedly puzzled, but, from a disinclination to alarm the women, I
held my tongue. Padre Carera this time moved away to the other side
from beneath the hole, but still within two feet of it--in fact, he
could not get in this direction farther for the altar-piece--and being
still half asleep, he lay back once more against the wall to finish his
nap, taking the precaution, however, to clap on his long shovel hat,
shaped like a small canoe, crosswise, with the peaks standing out from
each side of his head, in place of wearing it fore and aft, as usual.
Well, thought I, a strange party certainly; but drowsiness was fast
settling down on me also, when the same black paw was again thrust
through the hole, and I distinctly heard a nuzzling, whining, short
bark. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, but before I was quite awake, the
head and neck of a large Newfoundland dog was shoved into the chapel
through the round aperture, and making a long stretch, with the black
paws thrust down and resting on the wall, supporting the creature, the
animal suddenly snatched the Padre's hat off his head, and giving it an
angry worry--as much as to say, "Confound it--I had hoped to have had
the head in it"--it dropped it on the floor, and with a loud yell,
Sneezer, my own old dear Sneezer, leaped into the midst of us,
floundering amongst the sleeping women, and kicking the firebrands
about, making them hiss again with the water he shook from his shaggy
coat, and frightening all hands like the very devil.

"Sneezer, you villain, how came you here!" I exclaimed, in great
amazement--"How came you here, sir?" The dog knew me at once, and when
benches were reared against him, after the women had huddled into a
corner, and every thing was in sad confusion, he ran to me, and leaped
on my neck, gasping and yelping; but finding that I was angry, and in no
mood for toying, he planted himself on end so suddenly, in the middle of
the floor, close by the fire, that all our hands were stayed, and no one
could find in his heart to strike the poor dumb brute, he sat so quiet
and motionless. "Sneezer, my boy, what have you to say--where have you
come from?" He looked in the direction of the door, and then walked
deliberately towards it, and tried to open it with his paws.

"Now," said the Captain, "that little scamp, who would insist on riding
with me to St Jago, to see, as he said, if he might not be of use in
fetching the surgeon from the ship in case I could not find Dr Bergara,
has come back, although I desired him to stay on board. The puppy must
have returned in his cursed troublesome zeal, for in no other way could
your dog be here. Certainly, however, he did not know that I had fallen
in with Dr Pavo Real;" and the good-natured fellow's heart melted, as
he continued--"Returned--why, he may be drowned--Cringle, take care
little Reefpoint be not drowned."

Sneezer lowered his black snout, and for a moment poked it into the
white ashes of the fire, and then raising it and stretching his neck
upwards to its full length, he gave a short bark, and then a long loud
howl.

"My life upon it, the poor boy is gone," said I.

"But what can we do?" said Don Ricardo; "it is as dark as pitch."

And we again set ourselves to have a small rally at the brandy and
water, as a resolver of our doubts, whether we should sit still till
daybreak, or sally forth now and run the chance of being drowned, with
but small hope of doing any good; and the old priest having left the
other end of the chapel, where the ladies were once more reposing, now
came to join our council of war, and to have his share of the agua
ardiente.

The noise of the rain increased, and there was still a little puff of
wind now and then, so that the Padre, taking an alfombra, or small mat,
used to kneel on, and placing it on the step where the folding doors
opened inwards, took a cloak on his shoulders, and sat himself down with
his back against the leaves, to keep them closed, as the lock or bolt
was broken, and was in the act of swigging off his cupful of comfort,
when a strong gust drove the door open, as if the devil himself had
kicked it, capsized the Padre, blew out the lights once more, and
scattered the brands of the fire all about us. Transom and I started
up, the women shrieked; but before we could get the door to again, in
rode little Reefpoint on a mule, with the doctor of the Firebrand behind
him, bound, or lashed, as we call it, to him by a strong thong. The
black servants and the females took them for incarnate fiends, I fancy,
for the yells and shrieks they set up were tremendous.

"Yo, ho!" sung out little Reefy; "don't be frightened, ladies--Lord love
ye, I am half drowned, and the doctor here is altogether so quite
entirely drowned, I assure you.--I say, Medico, an't it true?" And the
little Irish rogue slewed his head round, and gave the exhausted doctor
a most comical look.

"Not quite," quoth the doctor, "but deuced near it. I say, Captain,
would you have known us? why, we are dyed chocolate colour, you see, in
that river, flowing not with milk and honey, but with something
miraculously like pea soup, water I cannot call it."

"But Heaven help us, why did you try the ford, man?" said Bang.

"You may say that, sir," responded wee Reefy; "but our mule was knocked
up, and it was so dark and tempestuous, that we should have perished by
the road if we had tried back for St Jago; so seeing a light here, the
only indication of a living thing, and the stream looking narrow and
comparatively quiet--confound it, it was all the deeper though--we
shoved across."

"But, bless me, if you had been thrown in the stream, lashed together as
you are, you would have been drowned to a certainty," said the Captain.

"Oh," said little Reefy, "the doctor was not on the mule in crossing
no, no, Captain, I knew better--I had him in tow, sir; but after we
crossed he was so faint and chill, that I had to lash myself to him to
keep him from sliding over the animal's counter, and walk he could not."

"But, Master Reefpoint, why came you back? did I not desire you to
remain on board of the Firebrand, sir?"

The midshipman looked nonplussed. "Why, Captain, I forgot to take my
clothes with me, and--and--in truth, sir, I thought our surgeon would be
of more use than any outlandish Gallipot that you could carry back."

The good intentions of the lad saved him farther reproof, although I
could not help smiling at his coming back for his clothes, when his
whole wardrobe on starting was confined to the two false collars and a
toothbrush.

"But where is the young lady?" said the doctor.

"Beyond your help, my dear doctor," said the skipper; "she is dead--all
that remains of her you see within that small railing there."

"Ah, indeed!" quoth the Medico, "poor girl--poor girl--deep decline,
wasted, terribly wasted," said he, as he returned from the railing of
the altar-piece, where he had been to look down upon the body; and
then, as if there never had been such a being as poor Maria Olivera in
existence, he continued, "Pray, Mr Bang, what may you have in that
bottle?"

"Brandy, to be sure, doctor," said Bang.

"A thimbleful then, if you please."

"By all means"--and the planting attorney handed the black bottle to the
surgeon, who applied it to his lips, without more circumlocution.

"Lord love us!--poisoned--Oh, gemini!"

"Why, doctor," said Transom, "what has come over you?"

"Poisoned, Captain--only taste."

The bottle contained soy. It was some time before we could get the poor
man quieted; and when at length he was stretched along a bench, and the
fire stirred up, and new wood added to it, the fresh air of early
morning began to be scented. At this time we missed Padre Carera, and,
in truth, we all fell fast asleep; but in about an hour or so
afterwards, I was awoke by some one stepping across me. The same cause
had stirred Transom. It was Aaron Bang who had been to look out at the
door.

"I say, Cringle, look here--the Padre and the servants are digging a
grave close to the chapel--are they going to bury the poor girl so
suddenly?"

I stepped to the door; the wind had entirely fallen--but it rained very
fast--the small chapel door looked out on the still swollen, but
subsiding river, and beyond that on the mountain, which rose abruptly
from the opposite bank. On the side of the hill facing us was situated
a negro village, of about thirty huts, where lights were already
twinkling, as if the inmates were preparing to go forth to their work.
Far above them, on the ridge, there was a clear cold streak towards the
east, against which the outline of the mountain, and the large trees
which grew on it, were sharply cut out; but overhead, the firmament was
as yet dark and threatening. The morning star had just risen, and was
sparkling bright and clear through the branches of a magnificent tree,
that shot out from the highest part of the hill; it seemed to have
attracted the Captain's attention as well as mine.

"Were I romantic now, Mr Cringle, I could expatiate on that view. How
cold, and clear, and chaste, every thing looks!  The elements have
subsided into a perfect calm, every thing is quiet and still, but there
is no warmth, no comfort in the scene."

"What a soaking rain!" said Aaron Bang; "why, the drops are as small as
pin points, and so thick!--a Scotch mist is a joke to them. Unusual all
this, Captain. You know our rain in Jamaica usually descends in
bucketfuls, unless it be regularly set in for a week, and them, but then
only, it becomes what in England we are in the habit of calling a
soaking rain. One good thing, however,--while it descends so quietly,
the earth will absorb it all, and that furious river will not continue
swollen."

"Probably not," said I.

"Mr Cringle," said the skipper, "do you mark that tree on the ridge of
the mountain, that large tree in such conspicuous relief against the
eastern sky?"

"I do, Captain. But--heaven help us!--what necromancy is this!  It
seems to sink into the mountain-top--why, I only see the uppermost
branches now. It has disappeared, and yet the outline of the hill is as
distinct and well defined as ever; I can even see the cattle on the
ridge, although, they are running about in a very incomprehensible way
certainly."

"Hush!" said Don Ricardo, "hush!--the Padre is reading the funeral
service in the chapel, preparatory to the body being brought out."

And so he was. But a low grumbling noise, gradually increasing was now
distinctly audible. The monk hurried on with the prescribed form--he
finished it--and we were about moving the body to carry it forth--Bang
and I being in the very act of stooping down to lift the bier, when the
Captain sung out sharp and quick,--"Here, Tom!" the urgency of the
appeal abolishing the Mister--"Here!--zounds, the whole hill-side is in
motion!" And as he spoke I beheld the negro village, that hung on the
opposite bank, gradually fetch way, houses, trees, and all, with a loud,
harsh, grating sound.

"God defend us!" I involuntarily exclaimed.

"Stand clear," shouted the skipper; "the whole hill-side opposite is
under weigh, and we shall be bothered here presently."

He was right--the entire face of the hill over against us was by this
time in motion, sliding over the substratum of rock like a first rate
gliding along the well-greased ways at launching--an earthy avalanche.
Presently the rough, rattling, and crashing sound, from the disrupture
of the soil, and the breaking of the branches, and tearing up by the
roots of the largest trees, gave warning of some tremendous incident.
The lights in the huts still burned, but houses and all continued to
slide down the declivity; and anon a loud startled exclamation was heard
here and there, and then a pause, but the low mysterious hurtling sound
never ceased.

At length a loud continuous yell echoed along the hillside. The noise
increased--the rushing sound came stronger and stronger the river rose
higher, and roared louder; it overleaped the lintel of the door--the
fire on the floor hissed for a moment, and then expired in smouldering
wreaths of white smoke--the discoloured torrent gurgled into the chapel,
and reached the altar-piece; and while the cries from the hillside were
highest, and bitterest, and most despairing, it suddenly filled the
chapel to the top of the low doorpost; and although the large tapers
which had been lit near the altar-piece were as yet unextinguished,
like meteors sparkling on a troubled sea, all was misery and
consternation.

"Have patience, and be composed, now," shouted Don Ricardo. "If it
increases, we can escape through the apertures here, behind the altar
piece, and from thence to the high ground beyond. The heavy rain has
loosened the soil on the opposite bank, and it has slid into the river
course, negro houses and all. But be composed, my dears nothing
supernatural in all this; and rest assured, although the river has
unquestionably been forced from its channel, that there is no danger, if
you will only maintain your self-possession."

And there we were--an inhabitant of a cold climate cannot go along with
me in the description. We were all alarmed, but we were not chilled
cold is a great daunter of bravery. At New Orleans, the black
regiments, in the heart of the forenoon, were really the most efficient
corps of the army; but in the morning, when the hoarfrost was on the
long wire-grass, they were but as a broken reed. "Him too cold for
brave today," said the sergeant of the grenadier company of the West
India regiment, which was brigaded in the ill-omened advance, when we
attacked New Orleans; but here, having heat, and seeing none of the
women egregiously alarmed, we all took heart of grace, and really there
was no quailing amongst us.

Senora Campana and her two nieces, Senora Cangrejo and her angelic
daughter, had all betaken themselves to a sort of seat, enclosing the
altar in a semicircle, with the pea soup-coloured water up to their
knees. Not a word--not an exclamation of fear escaped from them,
although the gushing eddies from the open door showed that the soil from
the opposite hill was fast settling down, and usurping the former
channel of the river.

"All very fine this to read of," at last exclaimed Aaron Bang. "Zounds,
we shall be drowned. Look out, Transom; Tom Cringle, look out; for my
part, I shall dive through the door, and take my chance."

"No use in that," said Don Ricardo; "the two round openings there at the
west end of the chapel, open on a dry shelf, from which the ground
slopes easily upward to the house; let us put the ladies through them,
and then we males can shift for ourselves as we best may."

At this moment the water rose so high, that the bier on which the corpse
of poor Maria Olivera lay stark and stiff, was floated off the trestles,
and turning on its edge, after glancing for a moment in the light cast
by the wax tapers, it sank into the thick brown water, and was no more
seen.

The old priest murmured a prayer, but the effect on us was electric.
"Sauve qui peut" was now the cry; and Sneezer, quite in his element,
began to cruise all about, threatening the tapers with instant
extinction.

"Ladies, get through the holes," shouted Don Ricardo. "Captain, get you
out first."

"Can't desert my ship," said the gallant fellow; "the last to quit where
danger is, my dear sir. It is my charter; but, Mr Cringle, go you, and
hand the ladies out."

"I'll be d----d if I do," said I. "Beg pardon, sir; I simply mean to say,
that I cannot usurp the pas from you."

"Then," quoth Don Ricardo--a more discreet personage than any one of us
"I will go myself;" and forthwith he screwed himself through one of the
round holes in the wall behind the altar-piece. "Give me out one of
the wax tapers--there is no wind now," said Don Ricardo "and hand out my
wife, Captain Transom."

"Ave Maria!" said the matron, "I shall never get through that hole."

"Try, my dear madam," said Bang, for by this time we were all deucedly
alarmed at our situation. "Try, madam;" and we lifted her towards the
hole--fairly entered her into it head foremost, and all was smooth, till
a certain part of the excellent woman's earthly tabernacle stuck fast.

We could hear her invoking all the saints in the calendar on the
outside to "make her thin;" but the flesh and muscle were obdurate
through she would not go, until--delicacy being now blown to the winds,
Captain Transom placed his shoulder to the old lady's extremity, and
with the regular "Oh, heave oh!" shot her through the aperture into her
husband's arms. The young ladies we ejected much more easily, although
Francesca Cangrejo did stick a little too. The priest was next passed,
then Don Picador; and so we went on, until in rotation we had all made
our exit, and were perched shivering on the high bank. God defend us!
we had not been a minute there when the rushing of the stream increased
the rain once more fell in torrents several large trees came down with
a fearful impetus in the roaring torrent, and struck the corner of the
chapel. It shook--we could see the small cross on the eastern gable
tremble. Another stump surged against it--it gave way--and in a minute
afterwards there was not a vestige remaining of the whole fabric.

"What a funeral for thee, Maria!" said Don Ricardo.

Not a vestige of the body was ever found.

There was nothing now for it. We all stopped, and turned, and looked,
there was not a stone of the building to be seen--all was red
precipitous bank, or dark flowing river--so we turned our steps towards
the house. The sun by this time had risen. We found the northern range
of rooms still entire, so we made the most of it; and, by dint of the
Captain's and my nautical skill, before dinner-time, there was rigged a
canvass jury-roof over the southern part of the fabric, and we were
once-more seated in comparative comfort at our meal. But it was all
melancholy work enough. However, at last we retired to our beds; and
next morning, when I awoke, there was the small stream once more
trickling over the face of the rock, with  the slight spray wafting into
my bedroom, a little discoloured certainly, but as quietly as if no
storm had taken place.

We were kept at Don Picador's for three days, as, from the shooting of
the soil from the opposite hill, the river had been dammed up, and its
channel altered, so that there was no venturing across. Three Negroes
were unfortunately drowned, when the bank shot, as Bang called it. But
the wonder passed away; and by nine o'clock on the fourth morning, when
we mounted our mules to proceed, there was little apparently on the fair
face of nature to mark that such fearful scenes had been. However, when
we did get under weigh, we found that the hurricane had not passed over
us without leaving fearful evidences of its violence.

We had breakfasted--the women had wept--Don Ricardo had blown his nose--
Aaron Bang had blundered and fidgeted about and the bestias were at the
door. We embraced the ladies.

"My son," said Senora Cangrejo, "we shall most likely never meet again.
You have your country to go to--you have a mother. Oh, may she never
suffer the pangs which have wrung my heart But I know--I know that she
never will." I bowed. "We may never indeed, in all likelihood we shall
never meet again!" continued she, in a rich, deep-toned, mellow voice;
"but if your way of life shall ever lead you to Cordova, you will be
sure of having many visitors, and many a door will open to you, if you
will but give out that you have shown kindness to Maria Olivera, or to
any one connected with her." She wept--and bent over me, pressing both
her hands on the crown of my head. "May that great God, who careth not
for rank or station, for nation or for country, bless you, my son--bless
you!"

All this was sorry work. She kissed me on the forehead, and turned
away. Her daughter was standing close to her, "like Niobe, all tears."
"Farewell, Mr Cringle--may you be happy!" I kissed her hand--she turned
to the Captain. He looked inexpressible things, and taking her hand,
held it to his breast; and then, making a slight genuflection, pressed
it to his lips. He appeared to be amazingly energetic, and she seemed
to struggle to be released. He recovered himself, however--made a
solemn bow----the ladies vanished. We shook hands with old Don Picador,
mounted our mules, and bid a last adieu to the Valley of the Hurricane.

We ambled along for some time in silence. At length the skipper dropped
astern, until he got alongside of me. "I say, Tom"--I was well aware
that he never called me Tom unless he was fou, or his heart was full,
honest man--"Tom, what think you of Francesca Cangrejo?"

Oh  ho!  sits  the wind in that quarter? thought I. "Why, I don't  know,
Captain--I  have  seen her to disadvantage--so much  misery  fine  woman
though--rather large to my taste--but...."

"Confound your buts," quoth the Captain. "But, never mind push on, push
on."--I  may tell the gentle reader in his ear, that the worthy  fellow,
at  the moment when I send this chapter to the press, has his flag, and
that Francesca Cangrejo is no less a personage than his wife.

However, let us get along. "Doctor Pavo Real," said Don Ricardo,.now
since  you have been good enough to spare us a day, let us get the heart
of  your  secret  out  of  you. Why, you must  have  been  pretty  well
frightened on the island there.'

"Never  so much frightened in my life, Don Ricardo; that English captain
is a most tempestuous man--but all has ended well; and after having seen
you to the crossing, I will bid you good-by."

"Poo--nonsense."  "Come along--here is the English Medico, your  brother
Esculapius; so, come along, you can return in the morning."  "But  the
sick folk in Santiago...."

"Will  be none the sicker for your absence, Doctor Pavo Real," responded
Don Ricardo.

The  little  Doctor  laughed, and away  we  all  cantered--Don  Ricardo
leading, followed by his wife and nieces, on three stout mules, sitting,
not  on side-saddles, but on a kind of chair, with a foot-board on the
larboard  side  to support the feet--then followed the two  Calens, and
little  Reefpoint, while the Captain and I brought up the rear. We  had
not proceeded five hundred yards, when we were brought to a stand-still
by  a  mighty tree, which had been thrown down by the wind fairly across
the road. On the right hand there was a perpendicular rock rising up to
a  height  of  five hundred feet; and on the left an equally precipitous
descent, without  either ledge or parapet to prevent one  from  falling
over.  What  was to be done? We could not by any exertion of  strength
remove the tree; and if we sent back for assistance, it would have  been
a  work of time. SO we dismounted, got the ladies to alight, and  Aaron
Bang, Transom, and myself, like true knights-errant, undertook to  ride
the mulos over the stump.

Aaron  Bang  led gallantly, and made a deuced good jump of  it, Transom
followed, and made not quite so clever an exhibition--I then rattled  at
it, and down came mule and rider. However, we were accounted for on the
right side.

"But what shall become of us?" shouted the English doctor.

"And as for me, I shall return," said the Spanish Medico.

"Lord  love you, no," said little Reefpoint; "here, lash me to my beast,
and  no  fear." The doctor made him fast, as desired, round  the  mule's
neck  with a stout thong, and then drove him at the barricade, and  over
they  came, man  and beast, although, to tell the truth, little  Reefy
alighted  well out on the neck with a hand grasping each ear.  However,
he  was  a  gallant  little  fellow, and in nowise  discouraged, so  he
undertook to bring over the other quadrupeds; and in little more than  a
quarter of an hour we were all under weigh on the opposite side, in full
sail towards Don Ricardo's property. But as we proceeded up the valley,
the  destruction  caused  by the storm became more  and  more  apparent.
Trees  were strewn about in, all directions, having been tom up  by  the
roots--road  there was literally none; and by the time  we  reached  the
coffee  estate, after a ride, or scramble, more properly  speaking, of
three  hours, we were all pretty much tired. In some places the  road
at  the  best  was  but a rocky shelf of Limestone not exceeding  twelve
inches  in width, where, if you had slipped, down you would have gone  a
thousand  feet. At this time it was white and clean, as if it had  been
newly  chiselled, all the soil and sand having been washed away  by  the
recent heavy rains.

The  situation was beautiful; the house stood on a platform scraped  out
of  the hillside, with a beautiful view of the whole country down to  St
Jago. The accommodation was good; more comforts, more English comforts,
in the mansion than I had yet seen in Cuba; and as it was built of solid
slabs of limestone, and roofed with strong hardwood timbers and rafters,
and  tiled, it had sustained comparatively little injury, as it had  the
advantage of being at the same time sheltered by the overhanging  cliff.
It  stood  in  the  middle of a large platform of hard sun-dried  clay,
plastered  over, and as white as chalk, which extended about forty  feet
from the eaves of the house, in every direction, on which the coffee was
cured. This platform was surrounded on all sides by the greenest  grass
I  had  ever seen, and overshadowed, not the house alone, but the  whole
level space, by one vast wild fig-tree.

"I say, Tom, do you see that Scotchman hugging the Creole, eh?"

"Scotchman!" said I, looking towards Don Ricardo, who certainly did  not
appear  to  be  particularly  amorous; on  the  contrary, we  had  just
alighted, and the worthy man was enacting groom.

"Yes,"  continued Bang, "the Scotchman hugging the Creole; look at  that
tree--do you see the trunk of it?"

I  did  look  at  it. It was a magnificent cedar, with a tall  straight
stem, covered over with a curious sort of fretwork, wove by the branches
of  some  strong  parasitical plant, which had warped itself  round  and
round  it, by numberless snakelike convolutions, as if it  had  been  a
vegetable  Laocoon. The tree itself shot up branchless to the  uncommon
height  of  fifty  feet; the average girth of the hunk  being  four-and
twenty  feet, or  eight-feet in diameter. The leaf of  the  cedar  is
small, not  unlike the ash; but when I looked up, I  noticed  that  the
feelers  of  this ligneous serpent had twisted round the larger  boughs,
and blended their broad leaves with those of the tree, so that it looked
like two trees grafted into one; but, as Aaron Bang said, in a very  few
years the cedar would entirely disappear, its growth being impeded, its
pith extracted, and its core rotted, by the baleful embraces of the wild
fig, of "this Scotchman hugging the Creole." After we had fairly shaken
into our places, there was every promise of a very pleasant visit.  Our
host had a tolerable cellar, and although there was not much of style in
his  establishment, still there was a fair allowance of  comfort, every
thing considered. The evening after we arrived was most beautiful. The
house, situated  on  its  white plateau of  barbicues, as  the  coffee
platforms  are  called, where large piles of the berries  in  their  red
cherry like husks had been blackening in the sun the whole forenoon, and
on  which  a  gang  of negroes was now employed covering  them  up  with
tarpawlins  for  the  night, stood in the centre of an  amphitheatre  of
mountains, the front box, as it were, the stage part opening on a bird's
eye-view  of the distant town and harbour, with the everlasting  ocean
beyond  it, the currents and flaws of wind making its surface look  like
ice, as we were too distant to discern the heaving of the swell, or the
motion of the billows. The fast falling shades of evening were deepened
by the sombrous shadow of the immense tree overhead, and all down in the
deep  valley  was now becoming dark and undistinguishable, through  the
blue  vapours that were gradually floating up towards us. To the  left,
on  the shoulder of the Horseshoe Hill, the sunbeams still lingered, and
the  gigantic shadows of the trees on the right hand prong were strongly
cast  across the valley on a red precipitous bank near the  top  of  it.
The  sun  was descending beyond the wood, flashing through the branches,
as  if  they  had been on fire. He disappeared. It was a  most  lovely
still evening--the air--but hear the skipper.

     "It is the hour when from the boughs,
     The nightingale's high note is heard;
     It is the hour when lovers vows,
     Seem sweet in every whisper'd word;
     And gentle winds and waters near,
     Make music to the lonely ear.
     Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
     And in the sky the stars are met,
     And on the wave is deeper blue,
     And on the leaf is browner hue,
     And in the heaven that clear obscure,
     So softly dark, and darkly pure,
     Which follows the decline of day,
     When twilight melts beneath the moon away."

"Well  recited, skipper," shouted Bang. "Given  as  the  noble  poet's
verses   should   be  given. I  did  not  know  the  extent   of   your
accomplishments; grown poetical ever since you saw Francesca  Cangrejo,
eh?"

The darkness hid the gallant captain's blushes, if blush he did.

"I  say, Don Ricardo, who are those?"--half-a-dozen well-clad negroes
had  approached  the house by this time--"Ask them, Mr Bang; take  your
friend Mr Cringle for an interpreter."

"Well, I will. Tom, who are they? Ask them--do."

I put the question, "Do you belong to the property?"

The  foremost, a  handsome Negro answered me, "No, we  don't, sir; at
least, not till tomorrow."

"Not till tomorrow?"

"No, sir; somos caballeros hoy" (we are gentlemen to-day.)

"Gentlemen today; and, pray, what shall you be tomorrow?"

"Esclavos  otra  ves," (slaves again, sir,) rejoined  the  poor  fellow,
nowise daunted.

"And  you, my darling," said I to a nice well-dressed girl, who  seemed
to be the sister of the spokesman, ".what are you today, may I ask?"

She laughed--"Esclava, a slave to-day, but to-morrow I shall be free."

"Very strange."

"Not  at all, senor; there are six of us in a family, and one of  us  is
free  each  day, all to father there," pointing to an old  grey-headed
negro, who stood by, leaning on his staff--"he is free two days in  the
week; and as I am going to have a child,"--a cool admission,--"I want to
buy  another day for myself too--but Don Ricardo will tell you all about
it."

The Don by this time chimed in, talking kindly to the poor creatures;
but we had to retire, as dinner was now announced, to which we sat down.

Don Ricardo had been altogether Spanish in Santiago, because he lived
there amongst Spaniards, and every thing was Spanish about him; so with
the tact of his countrymen he had gradually been merged into the society
in which he moved, and having married a very high caste Spanish lady, he
at length became regularly amalgamated with the community. But here, in
his mountain retreat, sole master, his slaves in attendance on him, he
was once more an Englishman, in externals, as he always was at heart,
and Richie Cloche, from the Lang Toon of Kirkaldy, shone forth in all
his glory as the kind hearted landlord. His head household servant was
an English, or rather a Jamaica negro; his equipment, so far as the
dinner set out was concerned, was pure English; he would not even speak
any thing but English himself.

The entertainment was exceedingly good,--the only thing that puzzled us
uninitiated subjects, was a fricassee of Macaca worms, that is, the worm
which breeds in the rotten trunk of the cotton-tree, a beautiful little
insect, as big as a miller's thumb, with a white trunk and a black head
in one word, a gigantic caterpillar.

Bang fed thereon--he had been accustomed to it in Jamaica in some Creole
families where he visited, he said--but it was beyond my compass.
However, all this while we were having a great deal of fun, when Senora
Campana addressed her husband--"My dear, you are now in your English
mood, so I suppose we must go." We had dined at six, and it might now be
about eight. Don Ricardo, with all the complacency in the world, bowed,
as much as to say, you are right, my dear, you may go, when his youngest
niece addressed him.

"Tio--my uncle," said she, in a low silver-toned voice, "Juana and I
have brought our guitars"--

"Not another word to be said," quoth Transom--"the guitars by all
means."

The girls in an instant, without any preparatory blushing, or other
botheration, rose, slipped their heads and right arms through the black
ribbons that supported their instruments, and stepped into the middle of
the room.

"The Moorish Maid of Granada," said Senora Campana. They nodded.

"You shall take Fernando, the sailor's part," said Senora Candalaria,
the youngest sister, to Juana, "for your voice is deeper than mine, and
I shall be Anna."

"Agreed," said Juana, with a lovely smile, and an arch twinkle of her
eye towards me, and then launched forth in full tide, accompanying her
sweet and mellow voice on that too much neglected instrument, the
guitar. It was a wild, irregular sort of ditty, with one or two
startling arabesque bursts in it. As near as may be, the following
conveys the meaning, but not the poetry.

     The Moorish Maid of Granada

     FERNANDO

     The setting moon hangs over the hill;
     On the dark pure breast of the mountain lake
     Still trembles her greenish silver wake,
     And the blue mist floats over the rill.
     And the cold streaks of dawning appear,
     Giving token that sunrise is near;
     And the fast clearing east is flushing,
     And the watery clouds are blushing;
     And the day-star is sparkling on high,
     Like the fire of my Anna's dark eye.
     The ruby-red clouds in the east
     Float like islands upon the sea,
     When the winds are asleep on its breast;
     Ah, would that such calm were for me!

     And see, the first streamer-like ray
     From the unrisen god of day,
     Is piercing the ruby-red clouds,
     Shooting up like golden shrouds:
     And like silver gauze falls the shower,
     Leaving diamonds on bank, bush, and bower,
     Amidst many unopened flower.
     Why walks the dark maid of Granada?

     ANNA

     At evening when labour is done,
     And cool'd in the sea is the sun;
     And the dew sparkles clear on the rose,
     And the flowers are beginning to close,
     Which at nightfall again in the calm.

     Their incense to God breathe in balm;
     And the bat flickers up in the sky,
     And the beetle hums moaningly by;
     And to rest in the brake speeds the deer,
     While the nightingale sings loud and clear.

     Scorched by the heat of the sun's fierce light,
     The sweetest flowers are bending most
     Upon their slender stems;
     More faint are they than if tempest tost,
     Till they drink of the sparkling gems
     That fall from the eye of night.

     Hark! from lattices guitars are tinkling,
     And though in heaven the stars are twinkling,
     No tell-tale moon looks over the mountain,
     To peer at her pale cold face in the fountain;
     And serenader's mellow voice,
     Wailing of war, or warbling of love,
     Of love, while the melting maid of his choice,
     Leans out from her bower above.

     All is soft and yielding towards night,
     When blending darkness shrouds all from the sight;
     But chaste, chaste, is this cold, pure light,
     Sang the Moorish maid of Granada.

After the song, we all applauded, and the ladies having made their
conges, retired. The Captain and I looked towards Aaron Bang and Don
Ricardo; they were tooth and nail at something which we could not
understand. So we wisely held our tongues.

"Very strange all this," quoth Bang.

"Not at all," said Ricardo. "As I tell you, every slave here can have
himself or herself appraised, at any time they may choose, with liberty
to purchase their freedom day by day."

"But that would be compulsory manunmission," quoth Bang.

"And if it be," said Ricardo, "what then? The scheme works well here
why should it not do so there--I mean with you, who have so many
advantages over us?"

This is an unentertaining subject to most people, but having no bias
myself, I have considered it but justice to insert in my log the
following letter, which Bang, honest fellow, addressed to me, some years
after the time I speak of.


MY DEAR CRINGLE,

"Since I last saw you in London, it is nearly, but not quite, three
years ago. I considered at the time we parted, that if I lived at the
rate of L3000 a-year, I was not spending one-half of my average
income, and on the faith of this I did plead guilty to my house in Park
Lane, and a carriage for my wife,----and, in short, I spent my L3000 a
year. Where am I now? In the old shop at Mammee Gully--my two eldest
daughters, little things, in the very middle of their education, hastily
ordered out, shipped as it were, like two bales of goods to Jamaica--my
eldest nephew, whom I had adopted, obliged to exchange from the--Light
Dragoons, and to enter a foot regiment, receiving the difference, which
but cleared him from his mess accounts. But the world says I was
extravagant. Like Timon, however--No, d----n Timon. I spent money when I
thought I had it, and therein I did no more than the Duke of Bedford, or
Lord Grosvenor or many another worthy peer; and now when I no longer
have it, why, I cut my coat by my cloth, have made up my mind to
perpetual banishment here, and I owe no man a farthing."

But all this is wandering from the subject. We are now asked in direct
terms to free our slaves. I will not even glance at the injustice of
this demand, the horrible infraction of rights that it would lead to;
all this I will leave untouched; but, my dear fellow, were men in your
service or the army to do us justice, each in his small sphere in
England, how much good might you not do us? Officers of rank are, of
all others, the most influential witnesses we could adduce, if they,
like you, have had opportunities of judging for themselves. But I am
rambling from my object. You may remember our escapade into Cuba, a
thousand years ago, when you were a lieutenant of the Firebrand. Well,
you may also remember Don Ricardo's doctrine regarding the gradual
emancipation of the negroes, and how we saw his plan in full operation
at least I did, for you knew little of these matters. Well, last year I
made a note of what then passed, and sent it to an eminent West India
merchant in London, who had it published in the Courier, but it did not
seem to please either one party or the other; a signal proof, one would
have thought, that there was some good in it. At a later period, I
requested the same gentleman to have it published in Blackwood, where it
would at least have had a fair trial on its own merits, but it was
refused insertion. My very worthy friend, who acted for old Kit at that
time as secretary of state for colonial affairs, did not like it, I
presume; it trenched a little, it would seem, on the integrity of his
great question; it approached to something like compulsory manumission,
about which he does rave. Why will he not think on this subject like a
Christian man? The country--I say so--will never sanction the retaining
in bondage of any slave, who is willing to pay his master his fair
appraised value.

Our friend----injures us, and himself too, a leetle by his ultra
notions. However, hear what I propose, and what, as I have told you
formerly, was published in the Courier by no less a man than Lord----.

Scheme for the gradual Abolition of Slavery.

The following scheme of redemption for the slaves in our colonies is
akin to a practice that prevails in some of the Spanish settlements.

We have now bishops, (a most excellent measure,) and we may presume that
the inferior clergy will be much more efficient than heretofore. It is
therefore proposed,--That every slave, on attaining the age of twenty
one years, should be, by act of Parliament, competent to apply to his
parish clergyman, and signify his desire to be appraised. The
clergyman's business would then be to select two respectable appraisers
from amongst his parishioners, who should value the slave, calling in an
umpire if they disagreed.

As men even of good principles will often be more or less swayed by the
peculiar interests of the body to which they belong, the rector should
be instructed, if he saw any flagrant swerving from an honest
appraisement, to notify the same to his bishop, who, by application to
the governor, if need were, could thereby rectify it. When the slave
was thus valued, the valuation should be registered by the rector, in a
book to be kept for that purpose, an attested copy of which should be
annually lodged amongst the archives of the colony.

We shall assume a case, where a slave is valued for L120, Jamaica
currency. He soon, by working by-hours, selling the produce of his
provision grounds, etc. Acquires L20; and how easily and frequently
this is done, every one knows, who is at all acquainted with West India
affairs.

He then shall have a right to pay to his owner this L20 as the price of
his Monday for ever, and his owner shall be bound to receive it. A
similar sum would purchase him his freedom on Tuesday; and other four
instalments, to use a West India phrase, would buy him free altogether.
You will notice, I consider that he is already free on the Sunday. Now,
where is the insurmountable difficulty here? The planter may be put to
inconvenience, certainly, great inconvenience, but he has compensation,
and the slave has his freedom--if he deserves it; and as his
emancipation in nine cases out of ten would be a work of time, he would,
as he approached absolute freedom, become more civilized, that is, more
fit to be free; and as he became more civilized, new wants would spring
up, so that when he was finally free, he would not be content to work a
day or two in the week for subsistence merely. He would work the whole
six to buy many little comforts, which, as a slave suddenly emancipated,
he never would have thought of.

As the slave becomes free, I would have his owner's allowance of
provisions and clothing decrease gradually.

It may be objected--suppose slaves partly free, to be taken in
execution, and sold for debt. I answer, let them be so. Why cannot
three days of a man's labour be sold by the deputy marshal as well as
six?

Again--Suppose the gang is mortgaged, or liable to judgments against the
owner of it. I still answer, let it be so--only, in this case let the
slave pay his instalments into court, in place of paying them to his
owners, and let him apply to his rector for information in such a case.

By the register I would have kept, every one could at once see what
property an owner had in his gang--that is, how many were actually
slaves, and how many were in progress of becoming free. Thus well
disposed and industrious slaves would soon become freemen. But the idle
and worthless would still continue slaves, and why the devil shouldn't
they?

(Signed) A. B----.


There does seem to be a rough, yet vigorous sound sense in all this.
But I take leave of the subject, which I do not profess to understand;
only I am willing to bear witness in favour of my old friends, so far as
I can, conscientiously.

We returned next day to Santiago, and had then to undergo the bitterness
of parting. With me it was a slight affair, but the skipper! However, I
will not dwell on it. We reached the town towards evening. The women
were ready to weep, I saw; but we all turned in, and next morning at
breakfast we were moved, I will admit--some more, some less. Little
Reefy, poor fellow, was crying like a child; indeed he was little more,
being barely fifteen.

"Oh!  Mr Cringle, I wish I had never seen Miss Candalaria de los
Dolores; indeed I do."

This was Don Ricardo's youngest niece.

"Ah, Reefy, Reefy," said I, "you must make haste, and be made post, and
then...."

"What does he call her?" said Aaron.

"Senora Tomassa Candalaria de los Dolores Gonzales y Vallejo," blubbered
out little Reefy.

"What a complicated piece of machinery she must be!" gravely rejoined
Bang.

The meal was protracted to a very unusual length, but time and tide wait
for no man. We rose. Aaron Bang advanced to make his bow to our kind
hostess; he held out his hand, but she, to Aaron's great surprise
apparently, pushed it on one side and regularly closing with our friend,
hugged him in right earnest. I have before mentioned that she was a very
small woman; so, as the devil would have it, the golden pin in her hair
was thrust into Aaron's eye, which made him jump back, wherein he lost
his balance, and away he went, dragging Madama Campana down on the top
of him. However, none of us could--laugh now; we parted, jumped into
our boat, and proceeded straight to the anchorage, where three British
merchantmen were by this time riding all ready for sea. We got on
board. "Mr Yerk," said the Captain, "fire a gun, and hoist blue Peter
at the fore. Loose the foretopsail." The masters came on board for
their instructions; we passed but a melancholy evening of it, and next
morning I took my last look of Santiago de Cuba.



CHAPTER XV.--The Cruise of the Wave. The Action with the Slaver.


    'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
    Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
    Far as the breeze can bear the billow's foam,
    Survey our empire, and behold our home.
    These are our realms, no limits to their sway.
    Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.'

    Byron, The Corsair, I. 1-6.


At  three o'clock next morning, about an hour and a half before daydawn,
I  was  roused from my cot by the gruff voice of the boatswain on deck
"All hands up anchor."

The  next  moment the gunroom steward entered with a lantern, which  he
placed on the table--"Gentlemen, all hands up anchor, if you please."

"Botheration!" grumbled one.

"Oh dear!" yawned another.

"How  merrily  we live that sailors be!" sung another in a most  doleful
strain, and  in all the bitterness of heart consequent on being  roused
out of a warm nest so unceremoniously. But no help for it; so up we all
got, and opening the door of my berth, I got out, and sat me down on the
bench that ran along the starboard side of the table.

For  the benefit of the uninitiated, let me describe a gunroom on  board
of  a  sloop of war. Everybody knows that the Captain's cabin  occupies
the  after  part  of  the ship; next to it, on the  same  deck, is  the
gunroom.  In a corvette, such as the Firebrand, it is a room, as, near
as  may  be, twenty  feet long by twelve wide, and lighted  by  a  long
scuttle, or skylight, in the deck above. On each side of this room runs
a  row of small chambers, seven feet long by six feet wide, boarded  off
from  the  main  saloon, or, in nautical phrase, separated  from  it  by
bulkheads, each with a door and small window opening into the same, and,
generally speaking, with a small scuttle in the side of the ship towards
the  sea.  These are the officers' sleeping apartments, in  which  they
have  each  a  chest  of  drawers and basin-stand; while  overhead  is
suspended  a cot, or hammock, kept asunder by a wooden frame, six  feet
long by about two broad, slung from cleats nailed to the beams above, by
two  lanyards fastened to rings, one at the head, and the other  at  the
foot; from which radiate a number of smaller cords, which are  fastened
to the canvass of the cot; while a small strip of canvass runs from head
to  foot  on  each side, so as to prevent the sleeper from rolling  out.
The  dimensions  of  the  gunroom  are, as  will  be  seen, very  much
circumscribed  by the side berths; and when you take into account, that
the  centre is occupied by a long table, running the whole length of the
room, flanked by a wooden bench, with a high back to it, on each  side,
and  a  large  clumsy chair at the head, and another at  the  foot, not
forgetting  the  sideboard at the head of the table, (full  of  knives,
forks, spoons, tumblers, glasses &c. &c. &c. stuck  into  mahogany
sockets,)  all of which are made fast to the deck by strong  cleats  and
staples, and bands of spunyarn, so as to prevent them fetching  way, or
moving, when the vessel pitches or rolls, you will understand that there
is  no  great  scope to expatiate upon, free of the table, benches, and
bulkheads of the cabins. While I sat monopolizing the full light of the
lantern, and accoutring myself as decently as the hurry would admit  of,
I  noticed  the officers, in their nightgowns and night-caps, as  they
extricated   themselves  from  their  coops; and   picturesque-looking
subjects enough there were amongst them, in all conscience. At  length,
that  is in about ten minutes from the time we were called, we were  all
at stations--a gun was fired, and we weighed, and then stood out to sea,
running  along about four knots, with the land--wind right aft.  Having
made  an  offing  of three miles or so, we outran the  terral, and  got
becalmed in the belt of smooth water between it and the sea-breeze. It
was  striking to see the three merchant-ships gradually draw  out  from
the land, until we were all clustered together in a bunch, with a half a
gale  of wind curling the blue waves within musket-shot, while all  was
long  swell and smooth water with us. At length the breeze reached  us,
and  we  made  sail with our convoy to the southward and  eastward, the
lumbering  merchantmen crowding every inch of canvass, while  we  could
hardly  keep  astern, under close-reefed topsails, foresail, jib, and
spanker.

"Pipe to breakfast," said the Captain to Mr Yerk.

"A sail abeam of us to windward!"

"What  is she?" sung out the skipper to the man at the masthead who  had
hailed.

"A  small schooner, sir; she has fired a gun, and hoisted an ensign  and
pennant."

"How is she steering?"

"She has edged away for us, sir."

"Very well.--Mr Yerk, make the signal for the convoy to stand on."  Then
to the boatswain--

"Mr Catwell, have the men gone to breakfast?"

"No, sir, but they are just going."

"Then pipe belay with breakfast for a minute, will you? All hands  make
sail!"

"Crack on, Mr Yerk, and let us overhaul this small swaggerer."

In  a  trice  we  had  all sail set, and were staggering  along  on  the
larboard tack, close upon a wind. We hauled out from the merchant ships
like  smoke, and presently the schooner was seen from the deck.--"Go  to
breakfast  now." The crew disappeared, all to the officers, man  at  the
helm, quartermaster at the conn, and signalman.

The first lieutenant had the book open on the drum of the capstan before
him. "Make our number," said the Captain. It was done. "What does she
answer?"

The  signalman  answered from the fore-rigging, where  he  had  perched
himself  with his glass--"She makes the signal to telegraph, sir--3, 9,
2, at the fore, sir"--and so on; which translated was simply this--"The
Wave, with despatches from the admiral."

"Oh, ho," said Transom; "what is she sent for? Whenever the people have
got their breakfast, tack, and stand towards her, Mr Yerk."

The  little  vessel approached.--"Shorten sail, Mr Yerk, and  heave  the
ship to," said the Captain to the first lieutenant.

"Ay, ay, sir."

"All hands, Mr Catwell."

Presently the boatswain's whistle rung sharp and clear, while his  gruff
voice, to  which  his mates bore any thing but mellow  burdens, echoed
through the ship--"All hands shorten sail-fore and mainsails haul
up-haul down to jib--in topgallant sails--now back the main-topsail."

By  heaving-to, we brought the Wave on our weather bow.  She  was  now
within a cable's length of the corvette; the captain was standing on the
second  foremost, gun, on the larboard side. "Mafame," to his  steward,
"hand  me  up  my trumpet." He hailed the little vessel "Ho, the  Wave,
ahoy!"

Presently  the  responding "hillo" came down the wind  to  us  from  the
officer in command of her, like an echo--"Run under our stern and heave
to, to leeward."

"Ay, ay, sir."

As  the  Wave  came  to  the wind, she lowered down  her  boat, and  Mr
Jigmaree, the boatswain of the dockyard in Jamaica, came on board, and,
touching his hat, presented his despatches to the Captain. Presently he
and  the  skipper retired into the cabin, and all hands were  inspecting
the  Wave  in  her  new  character of one  of  his  Britannic  Majesty's
cruisers.  When  I  had last seen her she was a most  beautiful  little
craft, both in hull and rigging, as ever delighted the eye of a sailor;
but  the  dockyard riggers and carpenters had fairly bedeviled  her, at
least  so  far as appearances went. First, they had replaced the  light
rail  on her gunwale, by heavy solid bulwarks four feet high, surmounted
by  hammock  nettings, at least another foot, so that  the  symmetrical
little vessel, that formerly floated on the foam light as a seagull, now
looked  like a clumsy dish-shaped Dutch dogger. Her long slender  wands
of masts, which used to swig about, as if there were neither shrouds nor
stays  to  support them, were now as taut and stiff as church  steeples,
with  four heavy shrouds of a side, and stays and back-stays, and  the
Devil knows what all.

"Now,"  quoth Tailtackle, "if them heave'em taughts at the yard have  not
taken the speed out of the little beauty, I am a Dutchman." Timotheus, I
may  state in the bygoing, was not a Dutchman; he was fundamentally  any
thing but a Dutchman; but his opinion was sound, and soon verified to my
cost. Jigmaree now approached.

"The Captain wants you in the cabin, sir," said he.
I  descended, and found the skipper seated at a table  with  his  clerk
beside  him, and several open letters lying before him. "Sit  down, Mr
Cringle."  I  took a chair. "There--read that," and he  threw  an  open
letter across the table to me, which ran as follows:

SIR,

"The  Vice--Admiral, commanding on the Jamaica station, desires  me  to
say, that  the bearer, the boatswain of the dockyard, Mr Luke Jigmaree,
has  instructions to cruise for, and if possible to fall  in  with  you,
before  you  weather Cape Maize, and falling in with you, to deliver  up
charge  of  the vessel to you, as well as of the five negroes, and  the
pilot, Peter Mangrove, who are on board of her. The Wave  having  been
armed  and fitted with every thing considered necessary, you are to  man
her with thirty-five of your crew, including officers, and to place her
under  the  command of Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, who is to be furnished
with  a copy of this letter authenticated by your signature, and to whom
you will give written instructions, that he is first of all to cruise in
the  great  Cuba channel, until the 14th proximo, for the prevention  of
piracy, and the suppression of the slave-trade carried on between  the
island  of  Cuba and the coast of Africa, and to detain and  carry  into
Havanna, or Nassau, New Providence, all vessels having slaves on  board,
which  he  may  have  reason to believe have  been  shipped  beyond  the
prescribed  limits on the African coast as specified in the margin; and
after   the  14th  he  is  to  proceed  direct  to  New  Providence   if
unsuccessful, there to land Mr Jigmaree, and the dockyard  negroes, and
await  your return from the northward, after having seen the merchantmen
clear of the Caicos passage. When you have rejoined the Wave at Nassau,
you  are to proceed with her as your tender to Crooked Island, and there
to await instructions from the Vice-Admiral, which shall be transmitted
by  the  packet  to  sail  on  the 9th proximo, to  the  care  of  the
postmaster. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant."

--------, Sec.


To the Hon. Captain Transom, etc.


To  say sooth, I was by no means amorous of this independent command, as
an  idea  had, at  the time I speak of, gone abroad in  the  navy, the
lieutenants, commanding  small  vessels, seldom  rose  higher, unless
through  extraordinary interest, and I took the liberty  of  stating  my
repugnance to my captain.

He  smiled, and threw over another letter to me; it was a  private  one
from the Admiral's Secretary, and was as follows:(Confidential.)

My DEAR TRANSOM,

"The Vice Admiral has got a hint from Sir----, to kick that wild splice,
young  Cringle, about a bit. It seems he is a nephew of Old Blueblazes,
and  as he has taken a fancy to the lad, he has promised his mother that
he  will do his utmost to give him opportunities of being knocked on the
head, for  all of which the old lady has professed herself  wonderfully
indebted.  As  the  puppy  has  peculiar  notions, hint, directly  or
indirectly, that he is not to be permanently bolted down to  the  little
and that if half a dozen skippers (you, my darling, among the rest) were
to  evaporate during the approaching hot months, he may have some  small
chance of t'other swab. Write me, and mind the claret and curacoa.  Put
no  address  on  either; and on coming to anchor, send  notice  to  old
Peterkin in the lodge at the Master Attendant's, and he will relieve you
and  the  pies  de  gallo, some calm evening, of  all  farther  trouble
regarding  them. Don't forget the turtle from Crooked Island, and  the
cigars."

"Always, my dear Transom,"

"Yours sincerely,"

"Oh, I forgot. The Admiral begs you will spare him some steady old
hands to act as gunner, boatswain, &c.--elderly men, if you please, who
will shorten sail before the squall strikes him. If you float him away
with a crew of boys, the little scamp will get bothered, or capsized, in
a jiffy. All this for your worship's government. How do you live with
your passenger--prime follow, an't he? My love to him. Lady----is
dying to see him again."

"WELL, MR CRINGLE, what say you?"

"Of course, I must obey, sir;--highly flattered by Mr Secretary's good
opinion, any how."

The Captain laughed heartily.

"It is nearly calm, I see. We must set about manning this seventy four
for you, without delay. So, come along, Captain Cringle."

When we got on deck,--"Hail the Wave to close, Mr Yerk," said Transom.
"Lower away the boat, and pipe away the yaulers, boatswain's mate."

Presently the Captain and I were on the Wave's deck, where I was much
surprised to find no less personages than Pepperpot Wagtail, and Paul
Gelid, Esquires. Mr Gelid, a conch, or native of the Bahamas, was the
same yawning, drawling, long-legged Creole as ever. He had been ill
with fever, and had asked a passage to Nassau, where his brother was
established. At bottom, however, he was an excellent fellow, warm
hearted, honourable, and upright. As for little Wagtail--oh, he was a
delight!--a small round man, with all the Jamaica Creole irritability of
temper, but also all the Jamaica warmth of heart about him
straightforward, and scrupulously conscientious in his dealings, but
devoted to good cheer in every shape. He had also been ailing, and had
adventured on the cruise in order to recruit. I scarcely know how to
describe his figure better than by comparing his corpus to an egg, with
his little feet stuck through the bottom of the shell; but he was
amazingly active withal.

Both the Captain and myself were rejoiced to see our old friends; and it
was immediately fixed that they should go on board the corvette, and
sling their cots alongside of Mr Bang, so long as the courses--of the
two vessels lay together. This being carried into execution, we set
about our arrangements. Our precious blockheads at the dockyard had
fitted a thirty-two pound carronade on the pivot, and stuck two long
sixes, one on each side of the little vessel. I hate carronades. I had,
before now, seen thirty-two pound shot thrown by them jump off a ship's
side with a rebound like a football, when a shot from an eighteen--
pounder long gun went crash, at the same range, through both sides of
the ship, whipping off a leg and arm, or aiblins a head or two, in its
transit.

"My dear sir," said I, "don't shove me adrift with that old pot there
do lend me one of your long brass eighteen-pounders."

"Why, Master Cringle, what is your antipathy to carronades?"

"I have no absolute antipathy to them, sir--they are all very well in
their way. For instance, I wish you would fit me with two twelvepound
carronades instead of those two popgun long sixes. These, with thirty
muskets, and thirty-five men or so, would make me very complete."

"A modest request," said Captain Transom.

"Now, Tom Cringle, you have overshot your mark, my fine fellow," thought
I; but it was all right, and that forenoon the cutter was hoisted out
with the guns in her, and the others dismounted and sent back in
exchange; and in fine, after three days' hard work, I took the command
of H.B.M. schooner, Wave, with Timothy Tailtackle as gunner, the senior
midshipman as master, one of the carpenter's crew as carpenter, and a
boatswain's-mate as boatswain, a surgeon's mate as surgeon, the
captain's clerk as purser, and thirty foremast-men, besides the
blackies, as the crew. But the sailing of the little beauty had been
regularly spoiled. We could still in light winds weather on' the
corvette, it is true, but then she was a slow top, unless it blew half a
gale of wind; and as for going any thing free, why a sand barge would
have beaten us.--We kept company with the Firebrand until we weathered
Cape Maize. It was near five o'clock in the afternoon, the corvette was
about half a mile on our lee-bow, when, while walking the deck, after
an early dinner, Tailtackle came up to me.

"The Commodore has hove-to, sir."

"Very like," said I; "to allow the merchant-ships to close, I presume."

"A gun," said little Reefpoint. "Ah--what signal now?"--It was
the signal to close.

"Put the helm up and run down to him," said I. It was done--and
presently the comfortable feeling of bowling along before the breeze,
succeeded the sharp yerking digging motion of the little vessel, tearing
and pitching through a head sea, close upon a wind. The water was
buzzing under our bows, and we were once more close under the stern of
the corvette. There was a boat alongside ready manned. The Captain
hailed, "I sent your orders on board, Mr Cringle, to bear up on your
separate cruise." At the same moment, the Firebrand's ensign and pennant
were hoisted--we did the same--a gun from the Commodore--ditto from the
tidy little Wave--and lo!  Thomas Cringle, esquire, launched for the
first time on his own bottom.

By this time the boat was alongside, with Messieurs Aaron Bang,
Pepperpot Wagtail, and Paul Gelid--the former with his cot, and half a
dozen cases of wine, and some pigs, and some poultry, all under the
charge of his black servant.

"Hillo," said I--"Mr Wagtail is at home here, you know, Mr Bang, and so
is Mr Gelid; but to what lucky chance am I indebted for your society, my
dear sir?"

"Thank your stars, Tom--Captain Cringle, I beg pardon--and be grateful;
I am sick of rumbling tumbling in company with these heavy tools of
merchantmen, so I entreated Transom to let me go and take a turn with
you, promising to join the Firebrand again at Nassau."

"Why, I am delighted,"--and so I really was. "But, my dear sir--I may
lead you a dance, and, peradventure into trouble--a small vessel may
catch a Tartar, you know.

"D--n the expense," rejoined my jovial ally; "why, the hot little
epicurean Wagtail, and Gelid, cold and frozen as he is, have both taken
a fancy to me--and no wonder, knowing my pleasant qualities as they do
ahem; so, for their sakes, I volunteer on this piece of knight-errantry
as much as'--

"Poo--you be starved, Aaron dear," rapped out little Wagtail; "you came
here, because you thought you should have more fun, and escape the
formality of the big ship, and eke the Captain's sour claret."

"Ah," said Gelid, "my fine fellow," with his usual Creole drawl, "you
did not wait for my opinion. Ah--oh--why, Captain Cringle, a thousand
pardons. Friend Bang, there, swears that he can't do without you; and
all he says about me is neither more nor less than humbug--ah."

"My lovely yellowsnake," quoth Aaron, "and my amiable dumpling,
gentlemen both, now, do hold your tongues.--Why, Tom, here we are, never
you mind how, after half a quarrel with the skipper--will you take us,
or will you send us back, like rejected addresses?"

"Send you back, my boys!  No, no, too happy to get you." Another gun
from the corvette. "Firebrands, you must shove off. My compliments,
Wiggins, to the Captain, and there's a trifle for you to drink my
health, when you get into port." The boat shoved off--the corvette
filled her maintopsail. "Put the helm down--ease off the mainsheet
stand by to run up the squaresail. How is her head, Mr Tailtackle?"

Timothy gave a most extraordinary grin at my bestowing the Mister on him
for the first time.

"North-west, sir."

"Keep her so"--and having bore up, we rapidly widened our distance from
the Commodore and the fleet.

All men know, or should know, that on board of a man-of-war, there is
never any "yo heave oh'ing." That is confined to merchant vessels. But
when the crew are having a strong pull of any rope, it is allowable for
the man next the belaying pin, to sing out, in order t@6 give unity to
the drag, "one-two-three," the strain of the other men increasing with
the figure. The tack of the mainsail had got jammed somehow, and on my
desiring it to be hauled up, the men, whose province it was, were unable
to start it.

"Something foul aloft," said I.

Tailtackle came up. "What are you fiddling at, men? Give me here-one
two-three."

Crack went the strands of the rope under the paws of the Titan, whereby
the head of the outermost sailor pitched right into Gelid's stomach,
knocked him over and capsized him head foremost into the wind sail
which was let down through the skylight into the little well cabin of
the schooner. It so happened that there was a bucket full of Spanish
brown paint standing on the table in the cabin, right below the hoop of
the canvass funnel, and into it plopped the august pate of Paul Gelid,
esquire. Bang had, in the meantime, caught him by the heels, and with
the assistance of Pearl, the handsome negro formerly noticed, who, from
his steadiness, had been spared to me as a quartermaster, the conch was
once more hoisted on deck, with a scalp of red paint, reaching down over
his eyes.

"I say," quoth Bang, "Gelid, my darling, not quite so smooth as the real
Macassar, eh? Shall I try my hand--can shave beautifully--eh?"

"Ah," drawled Gelid, "don't require it--lucky my head was shaved in that
last fever, Aaron dear. Ah--let me think--you tall man--you sailor--
fellow--ah--do me the favour to scrape me with your knife--ah--and pray
call my servant."

Timothy, to whom he had addressed himself, set to, and scraped the red
paint off his poll; and having called his servant, Chew Chew, handed him
over to the negro, who, giving his arm to him, helped him below, and
with the assistance of Cologne water, contrived to scrub him decently
clean.

As the evening fell, the breeze freshened; and during the night it blew
strong, so that from the time we bore up, and parted company with the
Firebrand, until day-dawn next morning, we had run 130 miles or thereby
to the northward and westward, and were then on the edge of the Great
Bahama Bank. The breeze now failed us, and we lay roasting in the sun
until mid-day, the current sweeping us to the northward, and still
farther on to the bank, until the water shoaled to three fathoms. At
this time the sun was blazing fiercely right overhead; and from the
shallowness of the water, there was not the smallest swell, or
undulation of the surface. The sea, as far as the eye could reach, was
a sparkling light green, from the snow-white sand at the bottom, as if
a level desert had been suddenly submerged under a few feet of crystal
clear water, which formed a cheery spectacle, when compared with the
customary leaden, or dark blue-colour of the rolling fathomless ocean.
It was now dead calm.--"Fishing lines there--Idlers, fishing lines,"
said I; and in a minute there were forty of them down over the side.

In Europe, fish in their shapes partake of the sedate character of the
people who inhabit the coasts of the seas or rivers in which they swim
at least I think so. The salmon, the trout, the cod, and all the other
tribes of the finny people, are reputable in their shapes, and
altogether respectable-looking creatures. But, within the tropics,
Dame Nature plays strange vagaries; and here, on the great Bahama Bank,
every new customer, as he floundered in on deck--no joke to him, poor
fellow--elicited shouts of laughter from the crew. They were in no
respect shaped like fish of our cold climates; some were all head
others all tail-some, so far as shape went, had their heads where, with
submission, I conceived their tails should have been; and then the
colours, the intense brilliancy of the scales of these monstrous
looking animals!  We hooked up a lot of bonitos, 10 Lbs apiece, at the
least. But Wagtail took small account of them.

"Here," said Bang, at this moment, "by all that is wonderful, look
here!" And he drew up a fish about a foot long, with a crop like a
pigeon of the tumbler kind, which began to make a loud snorting noise.

"Ah," drawled Gelid, "good fish, with claret sauce."

"Daresay," rejoined Aaron; "but do your Bahama fish speak, Paul, eh?
Balaam's ass was a joke to this fellow."

I have already said that the water was not quite three fathoms deep, and
it was so clear that I could see down to the very sand, and there were
the fish cruising about in great numbers.

"Haul in, Wagtail--you have hooked him," and up came a beautiful black
grouper, about four pounds weight.

"Ah, there is the regular jiggery-jiggery," sung out little Reefpoint,
at the same moment, as he in turn began to pull up his line. "Stand by
to land him," and a red snapper, for all the world like a gigantic gold
fish, was hauled on board; and so we carried on, black snappers, red
snappers, and rock fish, and a vast variety, for all of which, however,
Wagtail had names pat, until at length I caught a most lovely dolphin--a
beauty to look at--but dry, terribly dry to eat. I cast it on the deck,
and the chameleon tints of the dying fish, about which so many lies have
been said and sung, were just beginning to fade, and wax pale, and ashy,
and deathlike, when I felt another strong jiggery jiggery at my line,
which little Reefpoint had, in the meantime, baited afresh. "Zounds!  I
have caught a whale--a shark at the very least" and I pulled him in,
hand over hand.

"A most noble Jew fish," said I.

"A Jew fish!" responded Wagtail.

"A Jew fish!" said Aaron Bang.

"A Jew fish!" said Paul Gelid.

"My dear Cringle," continued Wagtail, "when do you dine?"

"At three, as usual."

"Then, Mr Reefpoint, will you have the great kindness to cast off your
sink, and hook that splendid fellow by the tail--only through the
gristle--don't prick him in the flesh--and let him meander about till
half-past two?"

Reefy was half inclined to be angry at the idea of his Majesty's officer
being converted into a cook's mate.

"Why," said I, "we shall put him in a tub of water, here on deck, Mr
Wagtail, if you please."

"God bless me, no!" quoth the gastronome. "Why, he is strong as an
eagle, and will smash himself to mummy in half an hour in a tub. No--no
see, he weighs twelve pounds at the very lightest. Lord!  Mr Cringle,
I am surprised at you."

The fish was let overboard again, according to his desire, and hauled in
at the very moment he indicated by his watch, when, having seen him cut
up and cleaned, with his own eyes--I believe I may say with his own
hands--he betook himself to his small crib to dress.

At dinner our Creole friend was very entertaining. Bang drew him out,
and had him to talk on all his favourite topics in a most amusing
manner. All at once Gelid lay back on his chair.

"My God," said he, "I have broken my tooth with that confounded hard
biscuit--terrible--really: ah!"--and he screwed up his face, as if he
had been eating sourcrout, or had heard of the death of a dear friend.

"Poo," quoth Aaron, "any comb maker will furnish you forth as good as
new; those grinders you brag of are not your own, Gelid, you know that."

"Indeed, Aaron, my dear, I know nothing of the kind; but this I know,
that I have broken a most lovely white front tooth, ah!"

"Oh, you be hanged," said Aaron; "why, you have been bechopped any time
these ten years, I know."

The time wore on, and it might have been half past seven when we went on
deck.

It was a very dark night--Tailtackle had the watch. "Any thing in
sight, Mr Tailtackle?"

"Why, no, sir; but I have just asked your steward for your night glass,
as, once or twice--but it is so thick--Pray, sir, how far are we off the
Hole in the Wall?"

"Why, sixty miles at the least."

The Hole in the Wall is a very remarkable rock in the Crooked Island
Passage, greatly resembling, as the name betokens, a wall breached by
the sea, or by battering cannon, which rises abruptly out of the water,
to a height of forty feet.

"Then," quoth Tailtackle sharply, "there must be a sail close aboard of
us, to windward there."

"Where?" said I. "Quick, send for my night-glass."

"I have it here in my hand, sir."

"Let me see"--and I peered through it until my eyes ached again. I
could see nothing, and resumed my walk on the quarterdeck. Tailtackle,
in the meantime, continued to look through the telescope, and as I
turned from aft to walk forward, a few minutes after this--"Why, sir,"
said he, "it clears a bit, and I see the object that has
puzzled me again."

"Eh? give me the glass"--in a second I caught it. "By Jupiter, you say
true, Tailtackle! beat to quarters--quick--clear away the long gun
forward there!"

All was bustle for a minute. I kept my eye on the object, but I could
not make out more, than that it was a strange sail; I could neither
judge of her size nor her rig, from the distance, and the extreme
darkness of the night. At length I handed the glass to Tailtackle
again. We were at this time standing in towards the Cuba shore, with a
fine breeze, and going along seven knots, as near as could be.

"Give the glass to Mr Jigmaree, Mr Tailtackle, and come forward here,
and see all snug."

The long gun was slewed round--both carronades were run out, all three
being loaded, double shotted, and carefully primed--the whole crew, with
our black supernumeraries, being at quarters.

"I see her quite distinct now, sir," sung out Timotheus.

"Well, what looks she like?"

"A large brig, sir, by the wind on the same tack--you can see her now
without the glass--there--with the naked eye."

I looked, and certainly fancied I saw some towering object rising high
and dark to windward, like some mighty spectre walking the deep, but I
could discern nothing more.

"She is a large vessel, sure enough, sir," said Timothy once more "now
she is hauling up her courses, sir--she takes in topgallant sails why,
she is bearing up across our bows, sir--mind she don't rake us."

"The deuce!" said I. I now saw the chase very distinctly bear up. "Put
the helm up--keep her away a bit--steady at that will do--fire a shot
across her bows, Mr Tailtackle--and, Mr Reefpoint, show the private
signal." The gun was fired, and the lights shown, but our spectral
friend was all darkness and silence. "Mr Scarfemwell," said I to the
carpenter, "stand by the long gun. Tailtackle, I don't like that chap
open the magazine." By this time the strange sail was on our quarter, we
shortened sail, while he, finding that his manoeuvre of crossing our
bows had been foiled by our bearing up also, got the foretack on board
again, and set his topgallant sails, all very cleverly. He was not far
out of pistol-shot. Tailtackle, in his shirt and trowsers, and felt
shoes, now stuck his head up the main hatchway.

"I would recommend your getting the hatches on, sir--that fellow is not
honest, sir, take my word for it."

"Never mind, Mr Tailtackle, never mind. Forward, there; Mr Jigmaree,
slap a round shot into him, since he won't speak, or heave-to--right
between his masts, do you hear--are you ready?"

"All ready, sir."

"Fire." The gun was fired, and simultaneously we heard a crash on board
the strange sail, followed by a piercing yell, similar to what the
negroes raise over a dead comrade, and then a long melancholy howl.

"A slaver, and the shot has told, sir," said Mr Handlead, the master.

"Then we shall have some fun for it," thought I. I had scarcely spoken,
when the brig once more shortened sail; and the instant that the
foresail rose, he let fly his bow gun at us--then another, another, and
another.

"Nine guns of a side, as I am a sinner," quoth jigmaree; and three of
the shot struck us, mortally wounded one poor fellow, and damaged poor
little Reefy by a splinter in the side.

"Stand by, men--take good aim--fire"--and we again let drive the long
gun and carronade; but our friend was too quick for us, for by this time
he had once more hauled his wind, and made sail as close to it as he
could stagger. We crowded every thing in chase, but he had the heels of
us, and in an hour he was once more nearly out of sight in the dark
night, right to windward.

"Keep, at him, Mr Jigmaree;" and as I feared he was running us in under
the land, I dived to consult the chart. There, in the cabin, I found
Wagtail, Gelid, and Bang, sitting smoking on each side of the small
table, with some brandy and water before them.

"Ah," quoth Gelid, "ah! fighting a little? Not pleasant in the evening,
certainly."

"Confound you," said Aaron, "why will you bother at this awkward
moment?"

Meanwhile Wagtail was a good deal discomposed.

"My dear fellow, hand me over that deviled biscuit."

Bang handed him over the dish, slipping into it some fragments of ship
biscuit, as hard as flint. All this time I was busy poring over the
chart. Wagtail took up a piece and popt it into his mouth.

"Zounds, Bang--my dear Aaron, what dentist are you in league with?
Gelid first breaks his pet fang, and now you"--

"Poo, poo," quoth his friend, "don't bother now--hillo--what the deuce
I say, Wagtail--Gelid, my lad, look there"--as one of the seamen, with
another following him, brought down on his back the poor fellow who had
been wounded, and laid his bloody load on the table.

To those who are unacquainted with these matters, it may be right to
say, that the captain's cabin, in a small vessel like the Wave, is often
in an emergency used as a cockpit--and so it was in the present
instance.

"Beg pardon, Captain and gentlemen," said the surgeon, "but I must, I
fear, perform an ugly operation on this poor fellow. I fancy you had
better go on deck, gentlemen."

Now I had an opportunity to see of what sterling metal my friends were
at bottom made. Mr Bang in a twinkling had his coat off.

"Doctor, I can be of use, I know it--no skill, but steady nerves,"
although he had reckoned a leetle without his host here,--"And I can
swathe a bandage too, although no surgeon," said Wagtail.

Gelid said nothing, but he was in the end the best surgeon's mate
amongst them. The poor fellow, Wiggins, one of the captain's gigs, and
a most excellent man, in quarterdeck parlance, was now laid on the table
a fine handsome young fellow, faint and pale, very pale, but courageous
as a lion, even in his extremity. It appeared that a round shot had
shattered his leg above the knee. A tourniquet had been applied on his
thigh, and there was not much bleeding.

"Captain," said the poor fellow, while Bang supported him in his arms,
"I shall do yet, sir; indeed I have no great pain."

All this time the surgeon was cutting off his trowsers, and then, to be
sure, a terrible spectacle presented itself. The foot and leg, blue and
shrunk, were connected with the thigh by a band of muscle about two
inches wide, and an inch thick; that fined away to a bunch of white
tendons or sinews at the knee, which again swelled out as they melted
into the muscles of the calf of the leg; but as for the knee bone, it
was smashed to pieces, leaving white spikes protruding from the
shattered limb above, as well as from the shank beneath. The doctor
gave the poor fellow a large dose of laudanum in a glass of brandy, and
then proceeded to amputate the limb, high up on the thigh. Bang stood
the knife part of it very steadily, but the instant the saw rasped
against the shattered bone he shuddered.

"I am going, Cringle--can't stand that--sick as a dog"--and he was so
faint that I had to relieve him in supporting the poor fellow. Wagtail
had also to go on deck, but Paul Gelid remained firm as a rock. The
limb was cut off, the arteries taken up very cleverly, and the surgeon
was in the act of slacking the tourniquet a little, when the thread that
fastened the largest, or femoral artery, suddenly gave way and a gush
like the jet from a fire-engine took place. The poor fellow had just
time to cry out, "Take that cold hand off my heart!" when his chest
collapsed, his jaw fell, and in an instant his pulse stopped.


"Dead as Julius Caesar, Captain," said Gelid, with his usual
deliberation. Dead enough, thought I; and I was leaving the cabin to
resume my post on deck, when I stumbled against something at the ladder
foot.

"My, what is that?" grumbled I.

"It is me, sir," said a small faint voice.

"You!--who are you?"

"Reefpoint, sir."

"Bless me, boy, what are you doing here? Not hurt, I hope?"

"A little, sir--a graze from a splinter, sir--the same shot that struck
poor Wiggins knocked it off, sir."

"Why did you not go to the doctor, then, Mr Reefpoint?"

"I waited till he was done with Wiggins, sir; but now, since it is all
over with him, I will go and be dressed."

His voice grew fainter and fainter, until I could scarcely hear him. I
got him in my arms, and helped him into the cabin, where, on stripping
the poor little fellow, it was found that he was much hurt on the right
side, just above the hip. Bang's kind heart, for by this time a glass
of water had cured him of his faintness, shone conspicuous on this
occasion.

"Why, Reefy--little Reefy--you are not hurt, my man--Surely you are not
wounded--such a little fellow,--I should have as soon thought of firing
at a musquitto."

"Indeed, sir, but I am; see here."--Bang looked at the hurt, as he
supported the wounded midshipman in his arms.

"God help me," said the excellent fellow, "you seem to me fitter for
your mother's nursery, my poor dear boy, than to be knocked about in
this coarse way here."

Reefy, at this moment, fell over into his arms, in a dead faint.

"You must take my berth, with the Captain's permission," said Aaron,
while he and Wagtail undressed him with the greatest care, and placed
him in the narrow crib.

"Thank you, my dear sir," moaned little Reefpoint; "were my mother here,
sir she would thank you too."

Stern duty now called me on deck, and I heard no more. The night was
still very dark, and I could see nothing of the chase, but I made all
the sail I could in the direction which I calculated she would steer,
trusting that, before morning, we might get another glimpse of her. In
a little while Bang came on deck.

"I say, Tom, now since little Reefy is asleep--what think you big craft
that--nearly caught a Tartar--not very sorry he has escaped, eh?"

"Why, my dear sir, I trust he has not escaped; I hope, when the day
breaks, now since we have less wind, that we may have a tussle with him
yet."

"No, you don't wish it, do you, really and truly?"

"Indeed, I do, sir; and the only thing which bothers me is the peril
that you and your friends must necessarily encounter."

"Poo, poo, don't mind us, Tom, don't mind us; but an't he too big for
you, Tom?"

He said this in such a comical way, that, for the life of me, I could
not help laughing.

"Why, we shall see; but attack him I must, and shall, if I can get at
him. However, we shall wait till morning; so I recommend your turning
in, now since they have cleared away the cockpit out of the cabin; so
good-night, my dear sir--I must stay here, I fear."

"Good-night, Tom; God bless you. I shall go and comfort Wagtail and
Paul."

I  was  at this time standing well aft on the larboard side of the deck,
close abaft of the tiller-rope, so that, with no earthly disposition to
be  an  eavesdropper, I could neither help seeing nor hearing  what  was
going  on in the cabin, as the small open skylight was close to  my  All
vestiges  of the cockpit had been cleared away, and the table  was  laid
for  supper. Wagtail and Gelid were sitting on the side I stood on, so
that  I  could  not  see them, although I heard every  word  they  said.
Presently  Bang entered, and sat down opposite his allies.  He  crossed
his arms, and leant down over the table, looking at them steadily.

"My dear Aaron," I could hear little Wagtail say, "speak, man, don't
frighten a body so."

"Ah, Bang," drawled out Paul, "jests are good, being well-timed; what
can you mean by that face of yours now, since the fighting is all over?"

My curiosity fairly overcame my good manners, and I moved round more
amidships, so as to command a view of both parties, as they sat opposite
each other at the narrow table.

Bang still held his peace for another minute; at length, in a very
solemn tone, he said, "Gentlemen, do you ever say your prayers?" I don't
know if I mentioned it before, but Aaron had a most musical deep mellow
voice, and now it absolutely thrilled to my very soul.

Wagtail and Paul looked at him, and then at each other, with a most
absurd expression--between fear and jest--between crying and laughing
but gave him no answer.

"Are you, my lads, such blockheads as to be ashamed to acknowledge that
you say your prayers?"

"Ah," aid Gelid, "why, ah no--not--that is"

"Oh, you Catholics are all so bigoted,--I suppose we should cross
ourselves, eh?" said Wagtail hastily.

"I am a Catholic, Master Wagtail," rejoined Bang--"better that than
nothing. Before sunrise, we may both have proved the truth of our
creeds, if you have one; but if you mean it as a taunt, Wagtail, it does
discredit to your judgment to select such a moment, to say nothing of
your heart. However, you cannot make me angry with you, Pepperpot, you
little Creole wasp, do as you will." A slight smile here curled Aaron's
lip for an instant, although he immediately resumed the solemn tone in
which he had previously spoken.--"But I had hoped that two such old
friends, as you both have been to me, would not altogether have made up
their minds in cold blood, if advertised of their danger, to run the
chance of dying like dogs in a ditch, without one preparatory thought
towards that tremendous Being, before whom we may all stand before
morning."

"Murder!" quoth Wagtail, fairly frightened; "are you really serious,
Aaron? I did not--would not, for the world, hurt your feelings in
earnest, my dear; why do you desire so earnestly to know whether or not
I ever say my prayers?"

"Oh, don't bother, man," rejoined Bang, resuming his usual friendly
tone; "you had better say boldly that you do not, without any
roundaboutation."

"But why, my dear Bang, why do you ask the question?" persisted Wagtail,
in a deuced quandary.

"Simply,"--and here our friend's voice once more fell to the low deep
serious tone in which he had opened the conference,--"simply because, in
my humble estimation, if you don't say your prayers tonight, it is three
to one you shall never pray again."

"The deuce!" said Pepperpot, twisting himself in all directions, as if
his inexpressibles had been nailed to his seat, and he was trying to
escape from them. "What, in the devil's name, mean you, man?"

"I mean neither more nor less than what I say. I speak English, don't I?
I say, that that pestilent young fellow Cringle told me half an hour
ago, that he was determined, as he words it, to stick to this Guineaman,
who is three times his size, has eighteen guns, while Master Tommy has
only three; and whose crew, I will venture to say, triples our number;
and the snipe, from what I know of him, is the very man to keep his word
so what say you, my darling, eh?"

"Ah, very inconvenient, ah,--I shall stay below," said Paul.

"So shall I," quoth Pepperpot; "won't stick my nose on deck, Aaron
dear, no, not for the whole world."

"Why," said Bang, in the same steady low tone, "you shall do as you
please, ah,"--and here he very successfully imitated our amigo Gelid's
drawl--"and as best suits you, ah; but I have consulted the gunner, an
old ally of mine, who, to be plain with you--ah--says that the danger
from splinter wounds below, is much greater than from their musketry on
deck--ah--the risk from the round shot being pretty equal--ah--in either
situation." At this announcement you could have jumped down either
Wagtail's or Gelid's throat,--Wagtail's for choice--without touching
their teeth. "Farther, the aforesaid Timothy, and be hanged to him,
deponeth, that the only place in a small vessel where we could have had
a moderate chance of safety was the Run,--so called, I presume, from
people running to it for safety; but where the deuce this sanctuary is
situated I know not, nor does it signify greatly, for it is now
converted into a spare powder magazine, and of course sealed to us. So
here we are, my lads, in as neat a taking as ever three unfortunate
gentlemen were in, in this weary world. However, now since I have
comforted you, let us go to bed-time enough to think on all this in the
morning, and I am consumedly tired."

I heard no more, and resumed my solitary walk on deck, peering every now
and then through the night-glass, until my eyes ached again. The
tedious night at length wore away, and the grey dawn found me sound
asleep, leaning out at the gangway. They had scarcely begun to wash
down the decks, when we discerned our friend of the preceding night,
about four miles to windward, close hauled on the same tack, apparently
running in for the Cuba shore, as fast as canvass could carry him. If
this was his object, we had proved too quick for him, as by casting off
stays, and slacking shrouds, and, in every way we could think of,
loosening the rigid trim of the little vessel, we had in a great measure
recovered her sailing; so when he found he was cut off from the land, he
resolutely bore up, took in his top-gallant sails, hauled up his
courses, fired a gun, and hoisted his large Spanish ensign, all in
regular man-of-war fashion. By this time it was broad daylight, and
Wagtail, Gelid, and Bang, were all three on deck, performing their
morning ablutions. As for myself, I was well forward, near the long
gun. Pegtop, Mr Bang's black valet, came up to me.

"Please, Massa Captain, can you spare me any muskets?"

"Any muskets?" said I; "why, half a dozen if you choose."

"De wery number my massa told me to hax for. Tank you, Massa Captain."
And forthwith he and the other two black servants in attendance on
Wagtail and Gelid, each seized his two muskets out of the arm-chest,
with the corresponding ammunition, and, like so many sable Robinson
Crusoes, were stumping aft, when I again accosted the aforesaid Pegtop.

"I say, my man, now since you have got the muskets, does your master
really intend to fight?" The negro stopped short, and faced right round,
his countenance expressing very great surprise and wonderment. "Massa
Bang fight? Massa Aaron Bang fight?" and he looked up in my face with
the most seriocomic expression that could be imagined. "Ah, massa,"
continued the poor fellow,--"you is joking--surely you is joking--my
Massa Aaron Bang fight? Oh, massa, surely you can't know he--surely you
never see him shoot snipe, and wild-duck--oh dear, why him kill wild
duck on de wing--ah, me often see him knock down teal wid single ball,
one hundred--ah, one hundred and fifty yards--and man surely more big
mark den teal?"

"Granted," I said; "but a teal has not a loaded musket in its claws, a
Spanish buccaneer may have a small difference, Master Pegtop, that?"

"None at all, master," chimed in Pegtop, "very energetically myshef,
Gabriel Pegtop, Christian man as me is, am one of de Falmouth black
shot. Ah, I have been in de woods wid Massa Aaron, one time particular,
when dem wery debils, Sambo Moses, Corromantee Tom, and Eboe Peter,
took to de bush, at Crabyaw estate--after breakfast--ten black shot
me was one, go out along wid our good massa, Massa Aaron. Oh Lord, we
walk troo de cool wood, and over de hot cleared ground, six hour, when
every body say,--No use dis, Massa Bang--all we tired too much--must
stop here--kindle fire--cook wittal. Ah, top dem who hab white liver,
said Massa Aaron; you, Pegtop, take you fusee and cutlass, and follow
me, my shild--Massa Aaron alway call me him shild, and troo enough, as
parson Calaloo say, him family wery much like Joseph coat--many colour
among dem, massa--though none quite so deep as mine eider"--and here the
negro grinned at his own jest. "Well, I was follow him, or rader was go
before him, opening up de pass wid me cutlass, troo de wery tangle
underwood. We walk four hour--see no one, all still and quiet--no breeze
shake de tree--oh, I sweat too much--dem hot, massa, sun shine right down,
when we could catch glimpse of him--yet no trace of de runaways. At
length, on turning corner, perched on small platform of rock,
overshadowed by plumes of bamboos, like ostrich feather lady wear at de
ball, who shall we see but dem wery dividual d----rascail I was mention,
standing all tree, each wid one carabine pointed at us, at him shoulder,
and cutlass at him side? Pegtop, my boy, said Massa Aaron, we is in
for it--follow me, but don't fire. So him pick off Sambo Moses--oh!
cool as one cucumber. Now, say he, man to man,--and wid dat him tro
him gun on de ground, and drawing him cutlass, we push up--in one moment
him and Corromantee Tom close. Tom put up him hand to fend him head
whip--ah--massa cutlass shred de hand at de wrist, like one carrot
down Tom go--atop of him jump Massa Aaron. I master de leetle one, Eboe
Peter, and we carry dem both prisoners into Falmouth.--Massa Aaron
fight? Ah, massa, no hax dat question again."

"Well, but will Mr Gelid fight?" said I.

"I tink him will too--great friend of Massa Bang--good duck--shot too
oh yes, fink Massa Paul will fight."

"Why," said I, "your friends are all heroes, Pegtop--will Mr Wagtail
fight also?" He stole close up to me, and exchanged his smart Creole
gibberish for a quiet sedate accent, as he whispered.

"Not so sure of he--nice little fat man, but too fond of him belly.
When I wait behind Massa Aaron chair, Pegtop sometime hear funny ting.
One gentleman say--Ah, dat month we hear Lord Wellington take Saint
Sebastian--when dat is, what time we hear dat news, Massa Wagtail? him
say.--Eh, say Massa Wagtail--oh, we hear of dem news, dat wery day de
first of de ringtail pigeon come to market. Den again, Dat big fight
dem had at soch anoder place, when we hear of dat, Massa Wagtail?--say
somebody else. Oh, oh, de wery day we hab dat beautiful grouper wid
claret sauce at Massa Whiffie's. Oh, make me laugh to hear white
gentleman mark great fight in him memory by what him eat de day de news
come; so, Massa Captain Cringle, me no quite sure weder Massa Wagtail
will fight or no."

So saying, Pegtop, Chew Chew, and Yampea, each shouldered two muskets
apiece, and betook themselves to the after part of the schooner, where
they forthwith set themselves to scour, and oil, and clean the same, in
a most skilful manner. I expected the breeze would have freshened as
the day broke, but I was disappointed; it fell, towards six o'clock,
nearly calm. Come, thought I, we may as well go to breakfast; and my
guests and I forthwith sat down to our morning meal. Soon after, the
wind died away altogether--and "out sweeps" was the word; but I soon saw
we had no chance with the chase at this game, and as to attacking him
with the boats, it was entirely out of the question; neither could I, in
the prospect of a battle, afford to murder the people, by pulling all
day under a roasting sun, against one who could man his sweeps with
relays of slaves, without one of his crew putting a finger to them; so I
reluctantly laid them in, and there I stood looking at him the whole
forenoon, as he gradually drew ahead of us. At length I piped to
dinner, and the men having finished theirs, were again on deck; but the
calm still continued; and seeing no chance of it freshening, about four
in the afternoon we sat down to ours in the cabin. There was little
said; my friends, although brave and resolute men, were naturally happy
to see the brig creeping away from us, as fighting could only bring them
danger; and my own feelings were of that mixed quality, that while I
determined to do all I could to bring him to action, it would not have
broken my heart had he escaped. We had scarcely finished dinner,
however, when the rushing of the water past the run of the little
vessel, and the steadiness with which she skimmed along, shewed that the
light air had freshened.

Presently Tailtackle came down. "The breeze has set down, sir; the
strange sail has got it strong to windward, and brings it along with him
cheerily."

"Beat to quarters, then, Tailtackle; all hands stand by to shorten sail.
How is she standing?"

"Right down for us, sir."

I went on deck, and there was the Guineaman about two miles to windward,
evidently cleared for action, with her decks crowded with men, bowling
along steadily under her single-reefed topsails.

I saw all clear. Wagtail and Gelid had followed me on deck, and were
now busy with their black servants inspecting the muskets. But Bang
still remained in the cabin. I went down. He was gobbling his last
plantain, and forking up along with it most respectable slices of
cheese, when I entered.

I had seen before I left the deck that an action was now unavoidable,
and judging from the disparity of force, I had my own doubts as to the
issue. I need scarcely say that I was greatly excited. It was my first
command: My future standing in the service depended on my conduct now,
and, God help me, I was all this while a mere lad, not more than twenty
one years old. A strange indescribable feeling had come over me, and
an irresistible desire to disburden my mind to the excellent man before
me. I sat down.

"Hey day," quoth Bang, as he laid down his coffee cup; "why, Tom, what
ails you? You look deuced pale, my boy."


"Up  all  night, sir, and bothered all day," said I; "wearied enough, I
can tell you."

I  felt a strong tremor pervade my whole frame at this moment; and I was
impelled to speak by some unknown impulse, which I could not account for
nor analyze.

"Mr  Bang, you  are  the only friend whom I could  count  on  in  these
countries; you  know  all  about me and mine, and, I  believe, would
willingly do a kind action to my father's son."

"What are you at, Tom, my dear boy? come to the point, man."

"I  will. I  am distressed beyond measure at having led  you  and  your
excellent friends, Wagtail and Gelid, into this danger; but I could  not
help  it, and I have satisfied my conscience on that point; so  I  have
only  to entreat that you will stay below, and not unnecessarily  expose
yourselves.  And  if I should fall--may I take this  liberty, my  dear
sir," and I involuntarily took his hand,--"if I should fall, and I doubt
if  I shall ever see the sun set again, as we are fearfully overmatched"
Bang struck in.

"Why, if  our friend be too big--why not be off then? Pull foot, man,
eh?--Havannah under your lee?"

"A thousand reasons against it, my dear sir. I am a young man and a
young officer, my character is to make in the service--No, no, it is
impossible--an older and more tried hand might have bore up, but I must
fight it out. If any stray shot carries me off, my dear sir, will you
take"--Mary, I would have said, but I could not pronounce her name for
the soul of me--"will you take charge of her miniature, and say I died
as I have"--a choking lump rose in my throat, and I could not proceed for
a second; "and will you send my writing desk to my poor mother, there
are letters in"--the lump grew bigger, the hot tears streamed from my
eyes in torrents. I trembled like an aspen leaf, and grasping my
excellent friend's hand more firmly, I sunk down on my knees in a
passion of tears, and wept like a woman, and fervently prayed to that
great God, in whose almighty hand I stood, that I might that day do my
duty as an English seaman. Bang knelt by me. Presently the passion was
quelled. I rose, and so did he.

"Before you, my dear sir, I am not ashamed to have...."

"Don't mention  it my  good boy--don't mention it; neither of us, as the
old general  said, will fight a bit the worse."

I looked at him. "Do you then mean to fight?" said I.

"To  be sure I do--why not? I have no wife,"--he did not say he had  no
children--"Fight? To be sure I do."

"Another gun, sir," said Tailtackle, through the open skylight. Now all
was  bustle, and we hastened on deck. Our antagonist was a large  brig,
three  hundred tons at the least, a long low vessel, painted black, out
and  in, and her sides round as an apple, with immensely square  yards.
She  was  apparently full of men. The sun was getting low, and she  was
coming  down fast on us, on the verge of the dark blue water of the  sea
breeze.  I could make out ten ports and nine guns of a side. I inwardly
prayed  they might not be long ones, but I was not a little startled  to
see  through  the  glass  that there were crowds  of  naked  negroes  at
quarters, and  on the forecastle and poop. That she was  a  contraband
Guineaman, I had already made up my mind to believe; and that  she  had
some  fifty  hands  of a crew, I also considered likely; but  that  her
captain  should  have resorted to such a perilous measure, perilous  to
themselves  as  well as to us, as arming the captive slaves, was  quite
unexpected, and not a little alarming, as it evinced his  determination
to make the most desperate resistance.

Tailtackle was standing beside me at this time, with his jacket off, his
cutlass girded on his thigh, and the belt drawn very tight. All the
rest of the crew were armed in a similar fashion; the small-arm-men
with muskets in their hands, and the rest at quarters at the guns; while
the pikes were cast loose from the spars round which they had been
stopped, with tubs of wadding, and boxes of grape, all ready ranged, and
every thing clear for action.

"Mr Tailtackle" said I, "you are gunner here, and should be in the
magazine. Cast off that cutlass; it is not your province to lead the
boarders." The poor fellow blushed, having, in the excitement of the
moment, forgotten that he was any thing more than captain of the
Firebrand's maintop.

"Mr Timotheus," said Bang, "have you one of these bodkins to spare?"

Timothy laughed. "Certainly, sir; but you don't mean to head the
boarders, sir--do you?"

"Who knows, now since I have learned to walk on this dancing cork of a
craft?" rejoined Aaron, with a grim smile, while he pulled off his coat,
braced on his cutlass, and tied a large red cotton shawl round his head.
He then took off his neckerchief and fastened it round his waist, as
tight as he could draw.

"Strange that all men in peril--on the uneasiness, like," said he,
"should always gird themselves as tightly as they can."

The slaver was now within musket-shot, when he put his helm to port,
with the view of passing under our stem. To prevent being raked, we had
to luff up sharp in the wind, and fire a broadside. I noticed the white
splinters glance from his black wales; and once more the same sharp yell
rung in our ears, followed by the long melancholy howl, already
described.

"We have pinned some of the poor blacks again," said Tailtackle, who
still lingered on the deck; small space for remark, for the slaver again
fired his broadside at us, with the same cool precision as before.

"Down with the helm, and let her come round," said I; "that will do
master, run across his stern--Out sweeps forward, and keep her there
get the other carronade over to leeward--that is it--now, blaze away
while he is becalmed--fire, small-arm-men, and take good aim."

We were now right across his stern, with his spanker boom within ten
yards of us; and although he worked his two stem chasers with great
determination, and poured whole showers of musketry from his rigging,
and poop, and cabin-windows, yet, from the cleverness with which our
sweeps were pulled, and the accuracy with which we were kept in our
position, right athwart his stern, our fire, both from the cannon and
musketry, the former loaded with round and grape, was telling, I could
see, with fearful effect.

Crash--"There, my lads, down goes his main-topmast--pepper him well,
while they are blinded and confused among the wreck. Fire away--there
goes the peak, shot away cleverly, close by the throat. Don't cease
firing, although his flag be down--it was none of his doing. There, my
lads, there he has it again; you have shot away the weather fore
topsail sheet, and he cannot get from under you."

Two men at this moment lay out on his larboard foreyard-arm, apparently
with the intention of splicing the sheet, and getting the clew of the
fore-topsail once more down to the yard; if they had succeeded in this,
the vessel would again have fetched way, and drawn out from under our
fire. Mr Bang and Paul Gelid had all this time been firing with
murderous precision, from where they had ensconced themselves under the
shelter of the larboard bulwark, close to the taffrail, with their three
black servants in the cabin, loading the six muskets, and little
Wagtail, who was no great shot, sitting on the deck, handing them up and
down.

"Now, Mr Bang," cried I, "for the love of Heaven"--and may Heaven
forgive me for the ill-placed exclamation--"mark these two men--down
with them?"

Bang turned towards me with all the coolness in the world "What, those
chaps on the end of the long stick?"

"Yes--yes," (I here spoke of the larboard foreyard-arm,) "yes, down
with them."

He lifted his piece as steadily as if he had really been duck shooting.

"I say, Gelid, my lad, take you the innermost."

"Ah!" quoth Paul. They fired--and down dropped both men, and squattered
for a moment in the water, like wounded waterfowl, and then sank for
ever, leaving two small puddles of blood on the surface.

"Now, master," shouted I, "put the helm up and lay him alongside--there
stand by with the grapplings--one round the backstay the other through
the chainplate there--so,--you have it." As we ranged under his counter
"Mainchains are your chance, men--boarders, follow me." And in the
enthusiasm of the moment I jumped into the slaver's main channel,
followed by twenty-eight men. We were in the act of getting over the
netting when the enemy rallied, and fired a volley of small arms, which
sent four out of the twenty-eight to their account, and wounded three
more. We gained the quarterdeck, where the Spanish captain, and about
forty of his crew, shewed a determined front, cutlass and pistol in hand
we charged them--they stood their ground. Tailtackle (who, the moment
he heard the boarders called, had jumped out of the magazine, and
followed me) at a blow clove the Spanish captain to the chine; the
lieutenant, or second in command, was my bird, and I had disabled him by
a sabre-cut on the sword-arm, when he drew his pistol, and shot me
through the left shoulder. I felt no pain, but a sharp pinch, and then a
cold sensation, as if water had been poured down my neck.

Jigmaree was close by me with a boarding-pike, and our fellows were
fighting with all the gallantry inherent in British sailors. For a
moment the battle was poised in equal scales. At length our antagonists
gave way, when about fifteen of the slaves, naked barbarians, who had
been ranged with muskets in their hands on the forecastle, suddenly
jumped down into the waist with a yell, and came to the rescue of the
Spanish part of the crew.

I thought we were lost. Our people, all but Tailtackle, poor Handlead,
and Jigmaree, held back. The Spaniards rallied, and fought with renewed
courage, and it was now, not for glory, but for dear life, as all
retreat was cut off by the parting of the grapplings and warps, that had
lashed the schooner alongside of the slaver, for the Wave had by this
time forged a-head, and lay across the brig's bows, in place of being
on her quarter, with her foremast jammed against the slaver's bowsprit,
whose spritsail-yard crossed our deck between the masts. We could not
therefore retreat to our own vessel if we had wished it, as the
Spaniards had possession of the waist and forecastle; all at once,
however, a discharge of round and grape crashed through the bridleport
of the brig, and swept off three of the black auxiliaries before
mentioned, and wounded as many more, and the next moment an unexpected
ally appeared on the field. When we boarded, the Wave had been left
with only Peter Mangrove; the five dockyard negroes; Pearl, one of the
Captain's gigs, the handsome black already introduced on the scene; poor
little Reefpoint, who, as already stated, was badly hurt; Aaron Bang,
Paul Gelid, and Wagtail. But this Pearl without price, at the very
moment of time when I thought the game was up, jumped on deck through
the bowport, cutlass in hand, followed by the five black carpenters and
Peter Mangrove, after whom appeared no less a personage than Aaron Bang
himself and the three blackamoor valets, armed with boarding-pikes.
Bang flourished his cutlass for an instant.

"Now, Pearl, my darling, shout to them in Coromantee--shout;" and
forthwith the black quartermaster sung out, "Coromantee Sheik Cocoloo,
kockemony populorum fiz;" which, as I afterwards learned, being
interpreted, is, "Behold the Sultan Cocoloo, the great ostrich, with a
feather in his tail like a palm branch; fight for him, you sons of
female dogs." In an instant the black Spanish auxiliaries sided with
Pearl, and Bang, and the negroes, and joined in charging the white
Spaniards, who were speedily driven down the main hatchway, leaving one
half of their number dead, or badly wounded, on the blood slippery deck.
But they still made a desperate defence, by firing up the hatchway. I
hailed them to surrender.

"Zounds," cried Jigmaree, "there's the clink of hammers they are
knocking off the fetters of the slaves."

"If you let the blacks loose," I sung out in Spanish, "by the Heaven
above us, I will blow you up, although I should go with you!  Hold your
hands, Spaniards!  Mind what you do, madmen!"

"On with the hatches, men," shouted Tailtackle.

They had been thrown overboard, or put out of the way, they could
nowhere be seen. The firing from below continued.

"Cast loose that carronade there; clap in a canister of grape, so now run
it forward, and fire down the hatchway." It was done, and taking effect
amongst the pent-up slaves, such a yell arose--oh God! oh God!--I never
can forget it. Still the maniacs continued firing up the hatchway.

"Load and fire again." My people were now furious, and fought more like
incarnate fiends broke loose from hell than human beings.

"Run the gun up to the hatchway once more." They ran the carronade so
furiously forward, that the coaming, or ledge, was split off, and down
went the gun, carriage and all, with a crash into the hold. Presently
smoke appeared rising up the fore-hatchway.

"They have set fire to the brig; overboard!--regain the schooner, or we
shall all be blown into the air like peels of onions!" sung out little
Jigmaree.

But where was the Wave? She had broke away, and was now a cable's
length ahead, apparently fast leaving us, with Paul Gelid and Wagtail,
and poor little Reefpoint, who, badly wounded as he was, had left his
hammock, and come on deck in the emergency, making signs of their
inability to cut away the halyards; and the tiller being shot away, the
schooner had become utterly unmanageable.

"UP,--and let fall the foresail, men--down with the fore tack cheerily
now--get way on the brig, and overhaul the Wave promptly, or we are
lost," cried I. It was done with all the coolness of desperate men. I
took the helm, and presently we were once more alongside of our own
vessel. Time we were so, for about one hundred and fifty of the slaves,
whose shackles had been knocked off, now scrambled up the fore hatchway,
and we had only time to jump overboard, when they made a rush aft; and
no doubt, exhausted as we were, they would have massacred us on the
spot, frantic and furious as they evidently were from the murderous fire
of grape that had been directed down the hatchway.

But the fire was quicker than they. The smouldering smoke that was
rising like a pillar of cloud from the fore hatchway, was now streaked
with tongues of red flame, which, licking the masts and spars, ran up
and caught the sails and rigging. In an instant, the fire spread to
every part of the gear aloft, while the other element, the sea, was also
striving for the mastery in the destruction of the doomed vessel; for
our shot, or the fall of the carronade into the hold, had started some
of the bottom planks, and she was fast settling down by the head. We
could hear the water rushing in like a mill stream. The fire increased
her guns went off as they became heated--she gave a sudden heel--and
while five hundred human beings, pent up in her noisome hold, split the
heavens with their piercing death-yells, down she went with a heavy
lurch, head foremost, right in the wake of the setting sun, whose level
rays made the thick dun wreaths that burst from her as she disappeared,
glow with the hue of the amethyst; and while the whirling clouds, gilded
by his dying radiance, curled up into the blue sky, in rolling masses,
growing thinner and thinner, until they vanished away, even like the
wreck whereout they arose,--and the circling eddies, created by her
sinking, no longer sparkled and flashed in the red light--and the
stilled waters where she had gone down, as if oil had been cast on them,
were spread out like polished silver, shining like a mirror, while all
around was dark blue ripple,--a puff of fat black smoke, denser than any
we had yet seen, suddenly emerged with a loud gurgling noise, from out
the deep bosom of the calmed sea, and rose like a balloon, rolling
slowly upwards, until it reached a little way above our mastheads, where
it melted and spread out into a dark pall, that overhung the scene of
death, as if the incense of such a horrible and polluted sacrifice could
not ascend into the pure heaven, but had been again crushed back upon
our devoted heads, as a palpable manifestation of the wrath of Him who
hath said--"Thou shalt not kill."

For a few moments all was silent as the grave, and I felt as if the air
had become too thick for breathing, while I looked up like another Cain.

Presently, about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, men, women, and
children, who had been drawn down by the vortex, rose amidst numberless
pieces of smoking wreck, to the surface of the sea; the strongest
yelling like fiends in their despair, while the weaker, the women, and
the helpless gasping little ones, were choking, and gurgling, and
sinking all around. Yea, the small thin expiring cry of the innocent
sucking infant tom from its sinking mother's breast, as she held it for
a brief moment above the waters, which had already for ever closed over
herself, was there. But we could not perceive one single individual of
her white crew; like desperate men, they had all gone down with the
brig. We picked up about one half of the miserable Africans, and--my
pen trembles as I write it--fell necessity compelled us to fire on the
remainder, as it was utterly impossible for us to take them on board.
Oh that I could erase such a scene for ever from my memory!  One
incident I cannot help relating. We had saved a woman, a handsome clear
skinned girl, of about sixteen years of age. She was very faint when
we got her in, and was lying with her head over a port--sill, when a
strong athletic young negro swam to the part of the schooner where she
was. She held down her hand to him; he was in the act of grasping it,
when he was shot through the heart from above. She instantly jumped
overboard, and, clasping him in her arms, they sank, and disappeared
together. "Oh, woman, whatever may be the colour of your skin, your
heart is of one only!" said Aaron.

Soon all was quiet; a wounded black here and there was shrieking in his
great agony, and struggling for a moment before he sank into his watery
grave for ever; a few pieces of wreck were floating and sparkling on the
surface of the deep in the blood red sunbeams, which streamed in a flood
of glorious light on the bloody deck, shattered hull, and torn rigging
of the Wave, and on the dead bodies and mangled limbs of those who had
fallen; while some heavy scattering drops of rain fell sparkling from a
passing cloud, as if Nature had wept in pity over the dismal scene; or
as if they had been blessed tears, shed by an angel, in his heavenward
course, as he hovered for a moment, and looked down in pity on the
fantastic tricks played by the worm of a day--by weak man, in his little
moment of power and ferocity. I said something--ill and hastily. Aaron
was close beside me, sitting on a carronade slide, while the surgeon was
dressing a pike wound in his neck. He looked up solemnly in my face,
and then pointed to the blessed luminary, that was now sinking in the
sea, and blazing up into the resplendent heavens--"Cringle, for shame
for shame--your impatience is blasphemous. Remember this morning and
thank Him"--here he looked up and crossed himself--"thank Him who, while
he has called poor Mr Handlead, and so many brave fellows to their last
awful reckoning, has mercifully brought us to the end of this fearful
day;--oh, thank Him, Tom, that you have seen the sun set once more!"



CHAPTER XVI.--The Second Cruise of the Wave


     "I longed to see the Isles that gem,
     Old Ocean's purple diadem,
     I sought by turns, and saw them all."

     Byron, The Bride Of Abydos, II. 355--57.


The  puncture  in Mr Bang's neck from the boarding-pike  was  not  very
deep, still it was an ugly lacerated wound; and if The had not  to  use
his  own  phrase, been somewhat bullnecked, there is no saying what  the
consequences might have been.

"Tom, my boy," said he, after the doctor was done with him, "I am nicely
coopered  now--nearly as good as new--a little stiffish or so  lucky  to
have  such a comfortable coating of muscle, otherwise the carotid  would
have  been in danger. So come here, and take your turn, and I will hold
the candle."

It  was dead calm, and as I had desired the cabin to be again used as  a
cockpit, it was at this time full of poor fellows, waiting to have their
wounds  dressed, whenever the surgeon could go below. The  lantern  was
brought, and sitting down on a wadding tub, I stripped. The ball, which
I  knew had lodged in the fleshy part of my left shoulder, had first  of
all  struck  me right over the collar-bone, from which it had  glanced,
and  then  buried itself in the muscle of the arm, just below the  skin,
where  it stood out, as if it had been a sloe both in shape and  colour.
The  collar-bone  was  much shattered, and my chest  was  a  good  deal
shaken, and greatly bruised; but I had perceived nothing of all this  at
the  time I was shot; the sole perceptible sensation was the feeling  of
cold  water  running  down, and the pinch in the  shoulder, as  already
described. I  was much surprised (every man who has been seriously  hit
being  entitled to expatiate) with the extreme smallness of the puncture
in  the  skin  through which the ball had entered; you  could  not  have
forced a pea through it, and there was scarcely any flow of blood.

"A very simple affair this, sir," said the surgeon, as he made a minute
incision right over the ball, the instrument cutting into the cold dull
lead with a cheep, and then pressing his fingers, one on each side of
it, it jumped out nearly into Aaron's mouth.

"A pretty sugar-plum, Tom--if that collar-bone of yours had not been
all the harder, you would have been embalmed in a gazette, to use your
own favourite expression. But, my good boy, your bruise on the chest is
serious; you must go to bed, and take care of yourself."

Alas! there was no bed for me to go to. The cabin was occupied by the
wounded, where the surgeon was still at work. Out of our small crew,
nine had been killed, and eleven wounded, counting passengers--twenty
out of forty-two--a fearful proportion.

The night had now fallen.

"Pearl, send some of the people aft, and get a spare square-sail from
the sailmaker, and...."

"Will the awning not do, sir?"

"To be sure it will," said I--it did not occur to me. "Get the awning
triced up to the stancheons, and tell my steward to get the beds on deck
a few flags to shut us in will make the thing complete."

It was done; and while the sharp cries of the wounded, who were
immediately under the knife of the doctor, and the low moans of those
whose wounds had been dressed, or were waiting their turn, reached our
ears distinctly through the small skylight, our beds were arranged on
deck, under the shelter of the awning, a curtain of flags veiling our
quarters from the gaze of the crew. Paul Gelid and Pepperpot occupied
the starboard side of the little vessel; Aaron Bang and myself the
larboard. By this time it was close on eight o'clock in the evening. I
had merely looked in on our friends, ensconced as they were in their
temporary hurricane house; for I had more work than I could accomplish
on deck in repairing damages. Most of our standing, and great part of
our running rigging, had been shot away, which the tired crew were
busied in splicing and knotting the best way they could. Our mainmast
was very badly wounded close to the deck. It was fished as
scientifically as our circumstances admitted. The foremast had
fortunately escaped--it was untouched; but there were no fewer than
thirteen round shot through our hull, five of them between wind and
water.

When every thing had been done which ingenuity could devise, or the most
determined perseverance execute, I returned to our canvass--shed aft,
and found Mr Wagtail sitting on the deck, arranging, with the help of my
steward, the supper equipment to the best of his ability. Our meal, as
may easily be imagined, was frugal in le extreme--salt beef, biscuit,
some roasted yams, and cold grog--some of Aaron's excellent rum. But I
mark it down, that I question if any one of the four who partook of it,
ever made so hearty a supper before or since. We worked away at the
junk until we had polished the bone, clean as an elephant's tusk, and
the roasted yams disappeared in bushelfuls; while the old rum sank in
the bottle, like mercury in the barometer indicating an approaching
gale.

"I say, Tom," quoth Aaron, "how do you feel, my boy?"

"Why, not quite so buoyant as I could wish. To me it has been a day of
fearful responsibility."

"And well it may," said he. "As for myself, I go to rest with the
tremendous consciousness that even I, who am not a professional butcher,
have this blessed day shed more than one fellow-creature's blood-a
trembling consideration-and all for what, Tom? You met a big ship in
the dark, and desired her to stop. She said she would not--You said,
'You shall.'--She rejoined, 'I'll be d----d if I do.' And thereupon you
set about compelling her; and certainly you have interrupted her course
to some purpose, at the trivial cost of the lives of only five or six
hundred human beings, whose hearts were beating cheerily in their bosoms
within these last six hours, but whose bodies are now food for fishes."

I was stung.

"At your hands, my dear sir, I did not expect this, and"

"Hush," said he, "I don't blame you--it is all right; but why will not
the Government at home arrange by treaty that this nefarious trade
should be entirely put down? Surely all our victories by sea and land
might warrant our stipulating for so much, in place of huggermuggering
with doubtful ill-defined treaties, specifying that you Johnny Crapeau,
and you Jack Spaniard, shall steal men, and deal in human flesh, in such
and such a degree of latitude only, while, if you pick up one single
slave a league to the northward or southward of the prescribed line of
coast, then we shall blow you out of the water wherever we meet you.
Why should poor devils, who live in one degree of latitude, be allowed
to be kidnapped, whilst we make it felony to steal their immediate
neighbours?" Aaron waxed warm as he proceeded. "Why will not Englishmen
lend a hand to put down the slave-trade amongst our opponents in sugar
growing, before they so recklessly endeavour to crush slavery in our own
worn-out colonies, utterly disregardless of our rights and lives?
Mind, Tom, I don't defend slavery, I sincerely wish we could do without
it, but am I to be the only one to pay the piper in compassing its
extinction? If, however, it really be that Upas-tree, under whose
baleful shade every kindly feeling in the human bosom, whether of master
or servant, withers and dies, I ask, who planted it? If it possess the
magical, and incredible, and most pestilential quality, that the English
gentleman, who shall be virtuous and beneficent, and just in all his
ways, before he leaves home, and after he returns home, shall, during
his temporary sojourn within its influence become a very Nero for
cruelty, and have his warm heart of flesh smuggled out of his bosom, by
some hocus pocus, utterly unintelligible to any unprejudiced rational
being, or indurated into the flint of the nether millstone, or frozen
into a lump of ice."

"Lord!" ejaculated Wagtail, "only fancy a snowball in a man's stomach,
and in Jamaica too!"

"Hold your tongue, Waggy, my love," continued Aaron; "if all this were
so, I would again ask, who planted it?--say not that we did it--I am a
planter, but I did not plant slavery. I found it growing and
flourishing, and fostered by the Government, and made my home amongst
the branches like a respectable corbie craw, or a pelican in a wild--
duck's nest, with all my pretty little tender black branchers hopping
about me, along with numberless other unfortunates, and now find that
the tree is being uprooted by the very hands that planted and nourished
it, and seduced me to live in it, and all...."

I laughed aloud--"Come, come, my dear sir, you are a perfect Lord
Castlereagh in the congruity of your figures. How the deuce can any
living thing exist among the poisonous branches of the Upas-tree--or a
wild-duck build...."

"Get along with your criticism, Tom--and don't laugh, hang it, don't
laugh--but who told you that a corbie cannot?"

"Why there are no corbies in Java."

"Pah--botheration--there are pelicans then; but you know it is not an
Upas-tree, you know it is all a chimera, and, like the air-drawn
dagger of Macbeth, 'that there is no such thing.' Now, that is a good
burst, Gelid, my lad, a'nt it?" said Bang, as he drew a long breath, and
again launched forth.

"Our Government shall quarrel about sixpence here or sixpence there of
discriminative duty in a foreign port, while they have clapped a knife
to our throats, and a flaming fagot to our houses, by absurd edicts and
fanatical intermeddling with our own colonies, where the slave-trade
has notoriously, and to their own conviction, entirely ceased; while, I
say it again, they will not put out their little finger to prevent, nay,
they calmly look on, and permit a traffic utterly repugnant to all the
best feelings of our nature, and baneful to an incalculable degree to
our own West Indian possessions; provided, forsooth, the slaves be
stolen within certain limits, which, as no one can prove, naturally
leads to this infernal contraband, the suppression of which--Lord, what
a thing to think of!--has nearly deprived the world of the invaluable
services of me, Aaron Bang, Esquire, Member of Council of the Island of
Jamaica, and Custos Rotulorum Populorum Jig of the Parish of----"

"Lord," said Wagtail, "why, the yam is not half done."

"But the rum is--ah!" drawled Gelid.

"D----n the yam and the rum too," rapped out Bang. "Why, you belly-gods,
you have interrupted such a torrent of eloquence!"

I began to guess that our friends were waxing peppery. "Why, gentlemen,
I don't know how you feel, but I am regularly done up--it is quite calm,
and I hope we shall all sleep, so good-night."

We nestled in, and the sun had risen before I was called next morning.
I hope "I rose a sadder and a wiser man. Upon that morrow's morn."

"On  deck, there," said I, while dressing. Mr Peter Swop, one  of  the
Firebrand's  master-mates, and now, in consequence of  poor  Handlead's
death, acting-master  of the Wave, popped  in  his  head  through  the
opening in the flags. "How is the weather, Mr Swop?"

"Calm all night, sir; not a breath stirring, sir."

"Are  the  sails  shifted?"  said I, "and  the  starboard  main-shrouds
replaced?"

"They  are not yet, sir; the sails are on deck, and the rigging  is  now
stretching, and will be all ready to get over the masthead by breakfast
time, sir."

"How is her head?"

"Why,"  rejoined Swop, "it has been boxing all round the  compass, sir,
for  these  last twelve hours; at present it is north-east."  "Have  we
drifted much since last night, Mr Swop?"

"No, sir--much where we were, sir," rejoined the master. "There are
several pieces of wreck, and three dead bodies floating close to, sir."

By this time I was dressed, and had gone from under the awning on deck.
The first thing I did was to glance my eye over the nettings, and there
perceived on our quarter, three dead bodies, as Mr Swop had said,
floating----one a white Spaniard, and the others the corpses of two
unfortunate Africans, who had perished miserably when the brig went
down. The white man's remains, swollen as they were, from the heat of
the climate, and sudden putrefaction consequent thereon, floated quietly
within pistol-shot, motionless and still; but the bodies of the two
negroes were nearly hidden by the clustering sea-birds which had
perched on them. There were at least two dozen shipped on each carcass,
busy with their beaks and claws, while, on the other hand, the water in
the immediate neighbourhood seemed quite alive, from the rushing and
walloping of numberless fishes, who were tearing the prey piecemeal.
The view was any thing but pleasant, and I naturally turned my eyes
forward to see what was going on in the bows of the schooner. I was
startled from the number of black faces which I saw.

"Why, Mr Tailtackle, how many of these poor creatures have we on board?"

"There are fifty-nine, sir, under hatches in the fore-hold," said
Timothy, "and thirty-five on deck; but I hope we shan't have them long,
sir. It looks like a breeze to windward. We shall have it before long,
sir."

At this moment Mr Bang came on deck.

"Lord, Tom, I thought it was a flea-bite, last night, but, mercy, I am
as stiff and sore as a gentleman need be. How do you feel? I see you
have one of your fins in a sling--eh?"

"I am a little stiff, certainly; however, that will go off; but come
forward here, my dear sir; come here, and look at this shot-hole--saw
you ever anything like that?"

This was the smashing of one of our pumps from a round shot, the
splinters from which were stuck into the bottom of the launch, which
overhung it, forming really a figure very like the letter A.

"Don't take it to myself, Tom--no, not at all."

At this moment the black savages on the forecastle discovered our
friend, and shouts of "Sheik Cocoloo" rent the skies. Mr Bang, for a
moment, appeared startled, so far as I could judge, he had forgotten
that part of his exploit, and did not know what to make of it, until at
last the actual meaning seemed to flash on him, when, with a shout of
laughter, he bolted in through the opening of the flags to his former
quarters below the awning. I descended to the cabin, breakfast having
been announced, and sat down to our meal, confronted by Paul Gelid and
Pepperpot Wagtail. Presently we heard Aaron sing out, the small skuttle
being right overhead, "Pegtop, come here, Pegtop, I say, help me on with
my neckcloth--so--that will do; now I shall go on deck. Why, Pearl, my
boy, what do you want?" and before Pearl could get a word in, Aaron
continued, "I say, Pearl, go to the other end of the ship, and tell your
Coromantee friends that it is all a humbug that I am not the Sultan
Cocoloo; farther more, that I have not a feather in my tail like a palm
branch, of the truth of which I offer to give them ocular proof."

Pearl made his salaam. "Oh, sir, I fear that we must not say too much
on that subject; we have not irons for one half of them savage negirs;"
the fellow was as black as a coal himself; "and were they to be
undeceived, why, reduced as our crew is, they might at any time rise on,
and massacre the whole watch."

"The devil!" we could hear friend Aaron say; "oh, then, go forward, and
assure them that I am a bigger ostrich than ever, and I shall astonish
them presently, take my word for it. Pegtop, come here, you scoundrel,"
he continued; "I say, Pegtop, get me out my uniform coat,"--our friend
was a captain of Jamaica militia--"so--and my sword--that will do--and
here, pull off my trowsers it will be more classical to perambulate in
my shirt, in case it really be necessary to persuade them that the palm
branch was all a figure of speech. Now, my hat--there--walk before me,
and fan me with the top of that herring barrel."

This was a lid of one of the wadding-tubs, which, to come up to
Jigmaree's notions of neatness, had been fitted with covers, and forth
stumped Bang, preceded by Pegtop doing the honours. But the instant he
appeared from beneath the flags, the same wild shout arose from the
captive slaves forward, and such of them as were not fettered,
immediately began to bundle and tumble round our friend, rubbing their
flat noses and woolly heads all over him, and taking hold of the hem of
his garment, whereby his personal decency was so seriously periled,
that, after an unavailing attempt to shake them off, he fairly bolted,
and ran for shelter, once more, under the awning, amidst the suppressed
mirth of the whole crew, Aaron himself laughing louder than any of them
all the while. "I say, Tom, and fellow sufferers," quoth he, after he
had run to earth under the awning, and looking down the scuttle into the
cabin where we were at breakfast, "how am I to get into the cabin? if I
go out on the quarterdeck but one arm's length, in order to reach the
companion, these barbarians will be at me again. Ah, I see."

Whereupon, without more ado, he stuck his legs down through the small
hatch right over the breakfast table, with the intention of descending,
and the first thing he accomplished, was to pop his foot into a large
dish of scalding hominy, or hasty-pudding, made of Indian corn meal,
with which Wagtail was in the habit of commencing his stowage at
breakfast. But this proving too hot for comfort, he instantly drew it
out, and in his attempt to reascend, he stuck his bespattered toe into
Paul Gelid's mouth. "Oh! oh!" exclaimed Paul, while little Wagtail lay
back laughing like to die; but the next instant Bang gave another
struggle, or wallop, like a pelloch in shoal-water, whereby Pepperpot
borrowed a good kick on the side of the head, and down came the Great
Ostrich, Aaron Bang, but without any feather in his tail, as I can
avouch, slap upon the table, smashing cups and saucers, and hominy, and
devil knows what all, to pieces, as he floundered on the board. This
was so absurd, that we were all obliged to give uncontrolled course to
our mirth for a minute or two, when, making the best of the wreck, we
contrived to breakfast in tolerable comfort.

Soon after the meal was finished, a light air enabled us once more to
lie our course, and we gradually crept to the northward, until twelve
o'clock in the forenoon, after which time it fell calm again. I went
down to the cabin; Bang had been overhauling my small library, when a
shelf gave way (the whole affair having been injured by a round shot in
the action, which had tom right through the cabin), so down came several
scrolls, rolled up, and covered with brown paper.

"What are all these?" I could hear our friend say. "They are my logs,"
said I.

"Your what?"

"My private journals."

"Oh, I see," said Aaron. "I will have a turn at them, with your
permission. But what is this so carefully bound with red tape, and
sealed, and marked--let me see, 'Thomas Cringle, his log-book.'"

He looked at me.--"Why, my dear sir, to say the truth, that is my first
attempt; full of trash, believe me;--what else could you expect, from so
mere a lad as I was when I wrote it?"

"The child is father to the man, Tom, my boy; so may I peruse it; may
I read it for the edification of my learned allies,--Pepperpot
Wagtail, and Paul Gelid, esquires?"

"Certainly," I replied, "no objection in the world, but you will laugh
at me, I know; still, do as you please, only, had you not better have
your wound dressed first?"

"My wound!  Poo, poo! just enough to swear by--a flea-bite never mind
it; so here goes"--and he read aloud what is detailed in the "Launching
of the Log," making his remarks with so much naivete, that I daresay the
reader will be glad to hear a few of them. His anxiety, for instance,
when he read of the young aide-de-camp being shot and dragged by the
stirrup, to know "what became of the empty horse," was very
entertaining; and when he had read the description of Davoust's face and
person, where I describe his nose, as neither fine nor dumpy--a fair
enough proboscis as noses go, he laid down the Log with the most
laughable seriousness.

"Now," quoth he, "very inexplicit all this, Tom. Why, I am most curious
in noses. I judge of character altogether from the nose. I never lose
sight of a man's snout, albeit I never saw the tip of my own. You may
rely on it, that it is all a mistake to consider the regular Roman nose,
with a curve like a shoemaker's paring knife, or the straight Grecian,
with a thin transparent ridge, that you can see through, or the Deutsch
meerschaum, or the Saxon pump-handle, or the Scotch mull, or any other
nose, that can be taken hold of, as the standard gnomon. No, no; I
never saw a man with a large nose who was not a blockhead--eh!  Gelid,
my love? The pimple for me--the regular pimple but allons."--And where,
having introduced the German refugees to Captain Deadeye, I go on to say
that I thereupon dived into the midshipmen's berth for a morsel of
comfort, and was soon "far into the secrets of a pork pie,"--he lay
back, and exclaimed with a long drawling emphasis--"A pork pie!"

"A pork pie!" said Paul Gelid.

"Why, do you know," said Mr Wagtail--"I--why, I never in all my life saw
a pork pie."

"My dear Pepperpot," chimed in Gelid, "we both forget. Don't you
remember the day we dined with the Admiral at the pen, in July last?"

"No," said Wagtail, "I totally forget it." Bang, I saw was all this
while chuckling to himself--"I absolutely forget it altogether."

"Bless me," said Gelid, "don't you remember the beautiful calipeever we
had that day?"

"Really I do not," said Pepperpot, "I have had so many good feeds
there."

"Why," continued Gelid, "Lord love you, Wagtail, not remember that
calipeever, so crisp in the broiling?"

"No," said Wagtail, "really I do not."

"Lord, man, it had a pudding in its belly."

"Oh, now I remember," said Wagtail.

Bang laughed outright, and I could not help making a hole in my manners
also, even prepared as I was for my jest by my sable crony Pegtop.--To
proceed.

Aaron looked at me with one of his quizzical grins; "Cringle, my
darling, do you keep these Logs still?"

"I do, my dear sir, invariably."

"What," struck in little Wagtail, "the deuce!--for instance shall I, and
Paul, and Aaron there, all be embalmed or preserved" ("Say pickled,"
quoth the latter) "in these said Logs of yours?" This was too absurd,
and I could not answer my allies for laughing. As for Gelid, he had
been swaying himself backwards and forwards, half asleep, on the hind
legs of his chair all this while, puffing away at a cigar.

"Ah!" said he half asleep, and but partly overhearing what was going on;
"ah, Tom, my dear, you don't say that we shall all be handed down to our
poster"--a long yawn--"to our poster" another yawn--when Bang, watching
his opportunity as he sat opposite, gently touched one of the fore-legs
of the balanced chair with his toe, while he finished Gelid's sentence
by interjecting, "iors," as the conch fell back and floundered over on
his stem; his tormentor drawling out in wicked mimicry.

"Yes, dear Gelid, so sure as you have been landed down on your
posteriors now--ah--you shall be handed down to your posterity
hereafter, by that pestilent little scamp Cringle. Ah, Tom, I know you.
Paul, Paul, it will be paulo postfuturum with you, my lad."

Here we were interrupted by my steward's entering with his tallow face.
"Dinner on the table, sir." We adjourned accordingly.

After dinner we carried on very much as usual, although the events of
the previous day had their natural effect; there was little mirth, and
no loud laughter. Once more we all turned in, the calm still
continuing, and next morning after breakfast, friend Aaron took to the
Log again.


But the most amusing exhibition took place when he came to the
description of the row in the dark stair at the agent's house, where the
negroes fight for the scraps, and capsize Treenail, myself, and the
brown lady, down the steps.

"Why, I say, Tom," again quoth Aaron, "I never knew before, that you
were in Jamaica at the period you here write of."

"Why, my dear sir, I scarcely can say that I was there, my visit was
so hurried."

"Hurried!" rejoined he, "hurried--by no means; were you not in the
island for four or five hours? Ah, long enough to have authorized your
writing an anti-slavery pamphlet of one hundred and fifty pages."

I smiled.

"Oh, you may laugh, my boy, but it is true--what a subject for an anti--
slavery lecture--listen and be instructed." Here our friend shook
himself as a bruiser does to ascertain that all is right before he
throws up his guard, and for the first five minutes he only jerked his
right shoulder this way and his left shoulder t'other way, while his
fins walloped down against his sides like empty sleeves; at length, as
he warmed, he stretched forth his arms like Saint Paul in the Cartoon
and although he now and then could not help sticking his tongue in his
cheek, still the exhibition was so true and so exquisitely comical, that
I never shall forget it.--"The whole white inhabitants of Kingston are
luxurious monsters, living in more than Eastern splendour; and their
universal practice, during their magnificent repasts, is to entertain
themselves, by compelling their black servants to belabour each other
across the pate with silver ladles, and to stick drumsticks of turkeys
down each other's throats. Merciful heaven! only picture the miserable
slaves, each with the spaul of a turkey sticking in his gob; dwell upon
that, my dearly beloved hearers, dwell upon that--and then let those who
have the atrocious hardihood to do so, speak of the kindliness of the
planters hearts. Kindliness! kindliness, to cram the leg of a turkey
down a man's throat, while his yoke-fellow in bondage is fracturing his
tender woolly skull--for all negroes, as is well known, have craniums,
much thinner, and more fragile than an egg-shell--with so tremendous a
weapon as a silver ladle? Ay, a silver ladle!!!  Some people make light
of a silver ladle as an instrument of punishment--it is spoken of as a
very slight affair, and that the blows inflicted by it are mere child's
play. If any of you, my beloved hearers, labour under this delusion,
and will allow me, for your edification, to hammer you about the chops
with one of the aforesaid silver soup-ladles of those yellow tyrants,
for one little half hour, I pledge myself the delusion shall be
dispelled once and for ever. Well then, after this fearful scene has
continued for, I dare not say how long--the black butler--ay, the black
butler, a slave himself--oh, my friends, even the black butlers are
slaves the very men who minister the wine in health which maketh their
hearts glad, and the castor oil in sickness, which maketh them any thing
but of a cheerful countenance--this very black butler is desired, on
peril of having a drumstick stuck into his own gizzard also, and his
skull fractured by the aforesaid iron ladles--red hot, it may be--ay,
and who shall say they are not full of molten lead? yes, molten lead--
does not our reverend brother Lachrimac Roarem say that the ladles might
have been full of molten lead, and what evidence have we on the other
side, that they were not full of molten lead? Why, none at all, none--
nothing but the oaths of all the naval and military officers who have
ever served in these pestilent settlements; and of all the planters and
merchants in the West Indies, the interested planters--those planters
who suborn all the navy and army to a man--those planters whose molasses
is but another name for human blood. (Here a large puff and blow, and a
swabification of the white handkerchief, while the congregation blow a
flourish of trumpets.) My friends--(another puff)--my friends--we all
know, my friends, that bullocks blood is largely used in the sugar
refineries in England, but, alas! there is no bullocks  blood used in
the refineries in the West Indies. This I will prove to you on the oath
of six dissenting clergymen. No. What then is the inference? Oh, is it
not palpable? Do you not every day, as jurors, hang men on
circumstantial evidence? Are not many of yourselves hanged and
transported every year, on the simple fact being proved, of your being
found stooping down in pity over some poor fellow with a broken head,
with your hands in his breeches pockets in order to help him up? And can
you fail to draw the proper inference in the present case? Oh, no! no!
my friends, it is the blood of the negroes that is used in these
refining pandemoniums of the poor negroes, who are worth one hundred
pounds apiece to their masters, and on whose health and capacity for
work these same planters absolutely and entirely depend."

Here our friend gathered all his energies, and began to roar like a
perfect bull of Bashan, and to swing his arms about like the sails of a
windmill, and to stamp and jump, and lollop about with his body as he
went on.

"Well, this butler, this poor black butler--this poor black slave butler
this poor black Christian slave butler--for he may have been a
Christian, and most likely was a Christian, and indeed must have been a
Christian--is enforced, after all the cruelties already related, on pain
of being choked with the leg of a turkey himself, and having molten lead
poured down his own throat, to do what?--who would not weep?--to--to--to
chuck each of his fellow-servants, poor miserable creatures! each with
a bone in his throat, and molten lead in his belly, and a fractured
skull--to chuck them, neck and croup, one after another, down a dark
staircase, a pitch-dark staircase, amidst a chaos of plates and dishes,
and the hardest and most expensive china, and the finest cut crystal--
that the wounds inflicted may be the keener and silver spoons, and
knives and forks. Yea, my Christian brethren, carving knives and
pitchforks right down on the top of their brown mistresses, who are
thereby invariably bruised like the clown in the pantomime--at least as
I am told he is, for I never go to such profane Places--oh, no!--bruised
as flat as pancakes, and generally murdered outright on the spot. Last
of all the landlord gets up, and kicks the miserable butler himself down
after his mates, into the very heart of the living mass; and this not
once and away, but every day in the week, Sundays not excepted. Oh, my
dear, dear hearers, can you can you, with your fleshy hearts thumping
and bumping against your small ribs, forget the black butler, and the
mulatto concubines, and the pitchforks, and the iron ladles full of
molten lead? My feelings overpower me, I must conclude. Go in peace,
and ponder these things in your hearts, and pay your sixpences at the
doors.--Exeunt omnes, piping their eyes, and blowing their noses."

Our shouts of laughter interrupted our friend, who never moved a muscle.

Again, where old Crowfoot asks his steward--"How does the privateer
lay?"

"There again now," said Aaron, with an irritable grin,--"why, Tom, your
style is most pestilent--you lay here and you lay there--are you sure
that you are not a hen, Tom?"

One more touch at Massa Aaron, and I have done. After coming to the
description of the horrible carnage that the fire from the Transport
caused on the privateer's deck before she sheered off, I remarked "I
never recall that early and dismal scene to my recollection,--the awful
havoc created on the schooner's deck by our fire, the struggling, and
crawling, and wriggling of the dark mass of wounded men, as they
endeavoured, fruitlessly, to shelter themselves from our guns, even
behind the dead bodies of their slain shipmates--without conjuring up a
very fearful and harrowing image."

"Were you ever at Biggleswade, my dear sir?"

"To be sure I have," said Mr Bang.

"Then did you ever see an eel-pot, with the water drawn off, when the
snake-like fish were twining, and twisting, and crawling, like
Brobdignag maggots, in living knots, a horrible and disgusting mass of
living abomination, amidst the filthy slime at the bottom?"

"Ach--have done, Tom--hang your similes. Can't you cut your coat by me,
man? Only observe the delicacy of mine."

"The corby craw for instance," said I, laughing.

"Ever at Biggleswade!" struck in Paul Gelid. "Ever at Biggleswade!
Lord love you, Cringle, we have all been at Biggleswade. Don't you
know," (how he conceived I should have known, I am sure I never could
tell,) "don't you know that Wagtail and I once made a voyage to England,
ay, in the hurricane months, too--ah--for the express purpose of eating
eels there,--and Lord, Tom, my dear fellow," (here he sunk his voice
into a most dolorous key,) "let me tell you that we were caught in a
hurricane, in the Gulf, and very nearly lost, when, instead of eating
eels, sharks would have eaten usah--and at length driven into Havannah--
ah. And when we did get home"--(here I thought my excellent friend
would have cried outright)--"Lord, sir! we found that the fall was not
the season to eat eels in after all--ah--that is, in perfection. But we
found out from Whiffle, whom we met in town, and who had learned it from
the guard of the North mail, that one of the last season's pots was
still on hand at Biggleswade; so down we trundled in the mail that very
evening."

"And don't you remember the awful cold I caught that night, being
obliged to go outside?" quoth Waggy.

"Ah, and so you did, my dear fellow," continued his ally.

"But gracious--on alighting, we found that the agent of a confounded
gormandizing Lord Mayor had that very evening boned the entire contents
of the only remaining pot, for a cursed livery dinnerah. Eels, indeed!
we got none but those of the new catch, full of mud, and tasting of mud
and red worms. Wagtail was really very ill in consequence--ah."

Pepperpot had all this while listened with mute attention, as if the
narrative had been most moving, and I question not he thought so; but
Bang--oh, the rogue!--looked also very grave and sympathizing, but there
was a laughing devil in his eye, that showed he was inwardly enjoying
the beautiful rise of his friends.

We were here interrupted by a hail from the look-out man at the
masthead,----'Land right a-head.'

"What does it look like?" said I.

"It makes in low hummocks, sir. Now I see houses on the highest one."

"Hurrah, Nassau, New Providence, ho!"

Shortly after we made the land about Nassau, the breeze died away, and
it fell nearly calm.

"I say, Thomas," quoth Aaron, "for this night at least we must still be
your guests, and lumber you on board of your seventy-four. No chance,
so far as I see, of getting into port to-night; at least if we do, it
will be too late to go on shore."

He said truly, and we therefore made up our mind to sit down once more
to our rough and round dinner, in the small, hot, choky cabin of the
Wave. As it happened, we were all in high glee. I flattered myself
that my conduct in the late affair would hoist me up a step or two on
the roster for promotion, and my excellent friends were delighted at the
idea of getting on shore.

After the cloth had been drawn, Mr Bang opened his fire.

"Tom, my boy, I respect your service, but I have no great ambition to
belong to it. I am sure no bribe that I am aware of could ever tempt me
to make 'my home upon the deep,' and I really am not sure that it is a
very gentlemanly calling after all.--Nay, don't look glum; what I meant
was, the egregious weariness of spirit you must all undergo from
consorting with the same men day after day, hearing the same jokes
repeated for the hundredth time, and, whichever way you turn, seeing the
same faces morning, noon, and night, and listening to the same voices.
Oh! I should die in a year's time were I to become a sailor."

"But," rejoined I, "you have your land bores in the same way that we
have our sea bores; and we have this advantage over you, that if the
devil should stand at the door, we can always escape from them sooner or
later, and can buoy up our souls with the certainty that we can so
escape from them at the end of the cruise at the farthest; whereas if
you happen to have taken root amidst a colony of bores on shore, why you
never can escape, unless you sacrifice all your temporalities for that
purpose; ergo, my dear sir, our life has its advantages, and yours has
it disadvantages."

"Too true--too true," rejoined Mr Bang. "In fact, judging from my own
small experience, Borism is fast attaining a head it never reached
before. Speechifying is the crying and prominent vice of the age. Why
will the ganders not recollect that eloquence is the gift of heaven,
Thomas? A man may improve it unquestionably, but the Promethean fire,
the electrical spark, must be from on high. No mental perseverance or
education could ever have made a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, in the ages
long past; nor an Edmund Burke."

"Nor an Aaron Bang in times present," said I.

"Hide my roseate blushes, Thomas," quoth Aaron, as he continued--"Would
that men would speak according to their gifts, study Shakspeare and Don
Quixote, and learn of me; and that the real blockhead would content
himself with speaking when he is spoken to, drinking when he is drunken
to, and ganging to the kirk when the bell rings. You never can go into
a party nowadays, that you don't meet with some shallow, prosing,
pestilent ass of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversation;
and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the blockhead's
composition; but a creature of this calibre you can wither, for it is
not worth crushing, by withholding the sunshine of your countenance from
it, or by leaving it to drivel on, until the utter contempt of the whole
company claps to change the figure--a wet night--cap as an extinguisher
on it, and its small stinking flame flickers and goes out of itself.
Then there is your sentimental water-fly, who blaws in the lugs of the
women, and clips the King's English, and your high-flying dominie body,
who whumles them outright. I speak in a figure. But all these are as
dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the
solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happen to be rich,
fancies himself entitled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir
Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld
parritch in his pate into pregnant brain. There is a plateful of P's
for you at any rate, Tom. Beautiful exemplification of the art
alliterative--an't it?"

     'Oh that Heaven the gift would gie us,
     To see ourselves as others see us!'

My   dear  boy, speechifying  has  extinguished  conversation.  Public
meetings, God  knows, are rife enough, and why will the  numskulls  not
confine  their  infernal dullness to them? why  not  be  satisfied  with
splitting the ears of the groundlings there? why will they not  consider
that convivial conversation should be lively as the sparkle of musketry,
brilliant, sharp, and sprightly, and not like the thundering  of  heavy
cannon, or  heavier bombs.--But no--you shall ask one of  the  Drawleys
across the table to take wine. 'Ah,' says he--and how he makes out  the
concatenation, God only knows--'this puts me in mind, Mr Thingumbob, of
what  happened when I was chairman of the county club, on  such  a  day.
Alarming times these were, and deucedly nervous I was when I got  up  to
return  thanks. My friends, said I, this unexpected and most unlooked--
for  honour--this'--Here blowing all your breeding to  the  winds, you
fire a question across his bows into the fat pleasant fellow, who speaks
for  society  beyond him, and expect to find that the  dull  sailor  has
hauled  his  wind, or dropped astern--(do you twig how nautical  I  have
become  in  my  lingo under Tailtackle's tuition, Tom?)--but, alas!  no
sooner  has  the  sparkle  of our fat friend's  wit  lit  up  the  whole
worshipful  society, than at the first lull, down comes  Drawley  again
upon you, like a heavy-sterned Dutch dogger, right before the wind--'As
I  was saying--this unexpected and most unlooked-for honour'--and there
you  are pinned to the stake, and compelled to stand the fire of all his
blunt  bird-boltst for half an hour on end. At length his mud has  all
dribbled  from him, and you hug yourself--'Ah,--come, here is a  talking
man  opening his fire, so we shall have some conversation at last.'  But
alas and alack a day!  Prosey the second chimes in, and works away, and
hems  and  haws, and  hawks up some old scraps of schoolboy  Latin  and
Greek, which  are  all Hebrew to you, honest man, until  at  length  he
finishes  off by some solemn twaddle about fossil turnips and  vitrified
brickbats; and thus concludes Fozy No. 2. Oh, shade of Edie  Ochiltree!
that we should stand in the taunt of such unmerciful spendthrifts of our
time  on earth!  Besides, the devil of it is, that whatever may be  said
of the flippant palaverers, the heavy bores are generally most excellent
and  amiable men, so that one can't abuse the sumphs with any thing like
a quiet conscience."

"Come," said I, "my dear sir, you are growing satirical."

"Quarter less three," sung out the leadsman in the chains.

We were now running in past the end of Hog Island to the port of Nassau,
where the lights were sparkling brightly. We anchored, but it was too
late to go on shore that evening, so, after a parting glass of swizzle,
we all turned in for the night.

To be near the wharf, for the convenience of refitting, I had run the
schooner close in, being aware of the complete security of the harbour,
so that in the night I could feel the little vessel gently take the
ground. This awoke me and several of the crew, for accustomed as
sailors are to the smooth bounding motion of a buoyant vessel, rising
and falling on the heaving bosom of the ocean, the least touch on the
solid ground, or against any hard floating substance, thrills to their
hearts with electrical quickness. Through the thin bulkhead I could
hear the officers speaking to each other.

"We are touching the ground," said one.

"And if we be, there is no sea here--all smooth-land-locked entirely,"
quoth another.

So all hands of us, except the watch on deck, snoozed away once more
into the land of deep forgetfulness. We had all for some days
previously been over-worked, and over-fatigued; indeed, ever since the
action had caused the duty of the little vessel to devolve on one half
of her original crew, those who had escaped had been subjected to great
privations, and were nearly worn out.

It might have been four bells in the middle watch, when I was awakened
by the discontinuance of Mr Swop's heavy step over head; but judging
that the poor fellow might have toppled over into a slight temporary
snooze, I thought little of it, persuaded as I was that the vessel was
lying in the most perfect safety. In this belief I was falling over
once more, when I heard a short startled grunt from one of the men in
the steerage,--then a sudden sharp exclamation from another--a louder
ejaculation of surprise from a third--and presently Mr Wagtail, who was
sleeping on a matrass spread on the locker below me, gave a spluttering
cough. A heavy splash followed, and, simultaneously, several of the men
forward shouted out "Ship MI of water--water up to our hammocks;" while
Waggy, who had rolled off his narrow couch, sang out at the top of his
pipe, "I am drowned, Bang. Tom Cringle, my dear--Gelid, I am drowned--
we are all drowned--the ship is at the bottom of the sea, and we shall
have eels enough here, if we had none at Biggleswade. Oh! murder!
murder!"

"Sound the well," I could hear Tailtackle, who had run on deck, sing
out.

"No use in that," I called out, as I splashed out of my warm cot, up to
my knees in water.

"Bring a light, Mr Tailtackle; a bottom plank must have started, or a
but, or a hidden-end. The schooner is full of water beyond doubt, and
as the tide is still making, stand by to hoist out the boats, and get
the wounded into them. But don't be alarmed, men; the schooner is on
the ground, and it is near high-water. So be cool and quiet. Don't
bother now--don't."

By the time I had finished my extempore speech I was on deck, where I
soon found that, in very truth, there was no use in sounding the well,
or manning the pumps either, as some wounded plank had been crushed out
bodily by the pressure of the vessel when she took the ground; and there
she lay--the tidy little Wave--regularly bilged, with the tide flowing
into her.

Every one of the crew was now on the alert. Bedding and bags and some
provisions were placed in the boats of the schooner; and several craft
from the shore, hearing the alarm, were now alongside; so danger there
was none, except that of catching cold, and I therefore bethought me of
looking in on my guests in the cabin. I descended and waded into our
late dormitory with a candle in my hand and the water nearly up to my
waist. I there found my steward, also with a light, splashing about in
the water, catching a stray hat here, and fishing up a spare coat there,
and anchoring a chair, with a piece of spunyarn, to the pillar of the
small side-berth on the starboard side, while our friend Massa Aaron
was coolly lying in his cot on the larboard, the bottom of which was by
this time within an inch of the surface of the water, and bestirring
himself in an attempt to get his trowsers on, which by some lucky chance
he had stowed away under his pillow overnight, and there he was sticking
up first one peg and then another, until by sidling and shifting in his
narrow lair, he contrived to rig himself in his nether garments. "But,
steward, my good man," he was saying when I entered, "where is my coat,
eh?" The man groped for a moment down in the water, which his nose
dipped into, with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his arm-pits, and
then held up some dark object, that, to me at least, looked like a piece
of black cloth hooked out of a dyer's vat. Alas! this was Massa Aaron's
coat; and while the hats were bobbing at each other in the other corner
like seventy-fours, with a squadron of shoes in their wakes, and
Wagtail was sitting in the side-berth with his wet night-gown drawn
about him, his muscular development in high relief through the clinging
drapery, and bemoaning his fate in the most pathetic manner--that can be
conceived, our ally Aaron exclaimed, "I say, Tom, how do you like the
cut of my Sunday coat, eh?" while our friend Paul Gelid, who it seems
had slept through the whole row, was at length startled out of his
sleep, and sticking one of his long shanks over the side of his cot in
act to descend, immersed it in the cold salt brine.

"Lord!  Wagtail," he exclaimed, "my dear fellow, the cabin is full of
water--we are sinking--ah!  Deucedly annoying to be drowned in this
hole, amidst dirty water, like a tubful of ill--washed potatoes--ah."

"Tom--Tom Cringle," shouted Mr Bang at this juncture, while he looked
over the edge of his cot on the stramash below, "saw ever any man the
like of that? Why, see there--there, just under your candle, Tom--a
bird's nest floating about with a mavis in it, as I am a gentleman."

"D----n your bird's nest and mavis too, whatever that may be," roared
little Mr Pepperpot.

"By Jupiter, it is my wig, with a live rat in it."

"Confound your wig!--ah," quoth Paul, as the steward fished up what I
took at first for a pair of brimfull water-stoups. "Zounds! look at my
boots."

"And confound both the wig and boots, say I," sung out Mr Bang. "Look
at my Sunday coat. Why, who set the ship onfire, Tom?"

Here his eye caught mine, and a few words sufficed to explain how we
were situated, and then the only bother was how to get ashore, and where
we were to sojourn, so as to have our clothes dried, as nothing could
now be done until daylight. I therefore got our friends safely into a
Nassau boat alongside, with their wet trunks and portmanteaus in charge
of their black servants, and left them to fish their way to their
lodging-house as they best could. By this, the wounded and the sound
part of the crew had been placed on board of two merchant brigs, that
lay close to us; and the masters of them proving accommodating men, I
got them alongside, as the tide flowed, one on the starboard, the other
on the larboard side, right over the Wave; and next forenoon, when they
took the ground, we rigged two spare topmasts from one vessel to another,
and making the main and fore rigging of the schooner fast to them, as the
tide once more made, we weighed her, and floated her alongside of the
sheer-hulk, against which we were enabled to heave her out, so as to get
at the leak, and then by rigging bilge-pumps, we contrived to free her
and keep her dry. The damaged plank was soon removed; and, being in a
fair way to surmount all my difficulties, about half-past five in the
evening I equipped myself in dry clothes, and proceeded on shore to call
on our friends at their new domicile. When I entered. I was shown into
the dining hall by my ally, Pegtop.

"Massa will be here presently, sir."

"Oh--tell him he need not hurry himself:--But how are Mr Bang and his
friends?"

"Oh, dem all wery so so, only Massa Wagtail hab take soch a terrible
cold, dat him tink he is going to dead; him wery sorry for himshef, for
true massa."

"But where are the gentlemen, Pegtop?"

"All, every one on dem, is in him bed. Wet clothes have been drying all
day."

"And when do they mean to dine?"

Here Pegtop doubled himself up, and laughed like to split himself.

"Dem is all dining in bed, Massa. Shall I show you to dem?"

"I shall be obliged; but don't let me intrude. Give my compliments, and
say I have looked in simply to enquire after their health."

Here Mr Wagtail shouted from the inner apartment.

"Hillo!  Tom, my boy!  Tom Cringle!--here, my lad, here!"

I was shown into the room from whence the voice proceeded, which
happened to be Massa Aaron's bedroom: and there were my three friends
stretched on sofas, in their night-clothes, with a blanket, sheet, and
counterpane over each, forming three sides of a square round a long
table, on which a most capital dinner was smoking, with wines of several
kinds, and a perfect galaxy of wax candles, and their sable valets, in
nice clean attire, and smart livery coats, waiting on them.

"Ah, Tom," quoth Massa Paul, "delighted to see you,--come, you seem to
have dry clothes on, so take the head of the table."

I did so; and broke ground forthwith with great zeal.

"Tom, a glass of wine, my dear," said Aaron. "Don't you admire us
classical, after the manner of the ancients, eh? Wagtail's head-dress,
and Paul's night-cap--oh, the comforts of a woollen one!  Ah, Tom, Tom,
the Greeks had no Kilmamock--none."

We all carried on cheerily, and Bang began to sparkle.

"Well, now since you have weighed the schooner and found not much
wanting I feel my spirits rising again.--A glass of champagne, Tom,
your health, boy.--The dip the old hooker has got must have surprises
the rats and cockroaches. Do you know, Tom, I really have an idea of
writing a history of the cruise; only I am deterred from the melancholy
consciousness that every blockhead nowadays fancies he can write."

"Why, my dear sir, are you not coquetting for a compliment? Don't we
all know, that many of the crack articles in Ebony's Mag" "Bah,"
clapping his hand on my mouth; "hold your tongue; all wrong in that...."

"Well, if it be not you then, I scarcely know to whom to attribute them.
Until lately, I only knew you as the warm hearted West Indian
gentleman; but now I am certain I am to...."

"Tom, hold your tongue, my beautiful little man. For, although I must
plead guilty to having mixed a little in literary society in my younger
days--Alas! my heart, those days are gane."

"Ah, Mr  Swop," continued Mr Bang, as the master was ushered  into  the
room. "Plate and glasses for Mr Swop."

The  sailor  bowed, perched himself on the  very  edge  of  his  chair,
scarcely  within  long  arm's  length of the  table, and  sitting  bolt
upright, as if he had swallowed a spare studdingsail-boom, drank  our
healths, and smoothed down his hair on his brow.

"Captain, I come to report the schooner ready to..."

"Poo,"  rattled  out  Mr  Bang; "time for your  tale  by  and  by;--help
yourself  to  some  of  that  capital beef, Peter,--So--Yes, my  love,"
continued  our friend, resuming his yarn. "I once coped even with  John
Wilson  himself. Yea, in the fullness of my powers, I feared  not  even
the Professor."

"Indeed!" said I.

"True, as  I am a gentleman. Why, I once, in a public trial of  skill,
beat him, even him, by eighteen measured inches, from toe to heel."

I stared.

"I was the slighter man of the two, certainly. Still, in a flying leap,
I always had the best of it, until he astonished the world with the Isle
of  Palms. From that day forth, my springiness and elasticity  left  me.
Fallen  was my muscles brawny vaunt. I quailed. My genius stood rebuked
before  him.  Nevertheless, at hop-step-and-jump  I  was  his  match
still.  When  out  came the City of the Plague! From  that  the  Great
Ostrich  could not hold the candle to the Flying Philosopher. And  now,
heaven  help  me!   I  can  scarcely cover  nineteen  feet, with  every
advantage  of ground for the run. It is true, the Professor was  always
in condition, and never required training; now, unless I had time for my
hard food, I was seldom in wind."

Mr  Peter  Swop, emboldened  and brightened  by  the  wine  he  had  so
industriously  swilled, and  willing  to  contribute   his   quota   of
conversation, having previously jumbled in his noddle what Mr  Bang  had
said  about an ostrich, and hard food, asked, across the table  "Do  you
believe ostriches eat iron, Mr Bang?"

Mr   Bang  slowly  put  down  his  glass, and  looking  with  the  most
imperturbable  seriousness  the  innocent  master  right  in  the  face,
exclaimed:

"Ostriches eat iron!--Do I believe ostriches eat iron, did you  say, Mr
Swop?  Will  you have the great kindness to tell me if  this  glass  of
madeira be poison, Mr Swop? Why, when Captain Cringle there was in  the
Bight  of  Benin, from which 'One comes out where a hundred go  in,'  on
board of the--what--d'ye-call-her? I forget her name--they had a  tame
ostrich, which was the wonder of the whole squadron. At the first  go
off  it  had plenty of food, but at length they had to put it  on  short
allowance of a Winchester bushel of tenpenny nails and a pump-bolt  a
day; but their supplies failing, they had even to reduce this quantity,
whereby  the poor bird, after unavailing endeavours to get at  the  iron
ballast, was driven to pick out the iron bolts of the ship in the  clear
moonlight  nights, when no one was thinking of it; so  that  the  craft
would  soon have been a perfect wreck. And as the commodore  would  not
hear  of  the creature being killed, Tom there undertook to keep  it  on
copper bolts and sheathing until they reached Cape Coast. But it  would
not  do; the  copper soured on its stomach, and it  died.  Believe  an
ostrich eats iron, quotha!  But to return to the training for the jump
I  used  to  stick to beef-steaks and a thimbleful of Burton  ale; and
again I tried the dried knuckle parts of legs of five-year-old black
faced  muttons; but, latterly, I trained best, so  far  as  wind  was
concerned, on birsled pease and whisky...."

"On what?" shouted I, in great astonishment. "On what?"

"Yes, my boys; parched pease and whisky. Charge properly with birsled
pease, and if you take a caulkers just as you begin your run, there is
the linstock to the gun for you, and away you fly through the air on the
self-propelling principle of the Congreve Rocket. Well might that
amiable, and venerable, and most learned Theban, Cockibus Bungo, who
always held the stakes on these great occasions, exclaim, in his
astonishment, to Cheesey, the janitor of many days--as 'Like fire from
flint I glanced away,' disdaining the laws of gravitation--by Mercury, I
swear,--yea, by his winged heel, I shall have at the Professor yet, if I
live, and whisky and birsled pease fail me not."

Here  Paul and I laughed outright; but Mr Wagtail appeared out of sorts,
somehow; and Swop looked first at one, and then at another, with a  look
of  the  most  ludicrous uncertainty as to whether Mr Bang was  quizzing
him, or telling a verity.

"Why, Wagtail," said Gelid, "what ails you, my boy?"

I  looked  towards  our little amiable fat friend. His  face  was  much
flushed, although I learned that he had been unusually abstemious, and
he  appeared  heated and restless, and had evidently  feverish  symptoms
about him.

"Who's  there?"  said Wagtail, looking towards the door  with  a  raised
look.

It was Tailtackle, with two of the boys carrying a litter, followed by
Peter Mangrove, as if he had been chief mourner at a funeral. Out of
the litter a black paw, with fishes or splints whipped round it by a
band of spunyam, protruded, and kept swaying about like a pendulum.

"What have you got there, Mr Tailtackle?"

The gunner turned round.

"Oh, it is a vagary of Peter Mangrove's, sir. Not contented with
getting the doctor to set Sneezer's starboard foreleg, he insists on
bringing him away from amongst the people at the capstan-house."

"True, Massa--Massa Tailtackle say true; de poor dumb dog never shall
cure him leg none at all, mong de men dere; dey all love him so mosh,
and make of him so mosh, and stuff him wid salt wittal so mosh, till him
blood inflammation like a hell; and den him so good temper, and so
gratify wid dere attention, dat I believe him will eat till him
kickeriboo of sorefut, [surfeit, I presumed;] and, beside, I know de dog
healt will instantly mend if him see you. Oh, Massa Aaron, [our friend
was smiling,] it not like you to make fun of poor black fellow, when him
is take de part of soch old friend as poor Sneezer. De Captain dere
cannot laugh, dat is if him will only tink on dat fearful cove at Puerto
Escondido, and what Sneezer did for bote of we dere."

"Well, well, Mangrove, my man," said Mr Bang, "I will ask leave of my
friends here to have the dog bestowed in a corner of the piazza, so let
the boys lay him down there, and here is a glass of grog for you--so.
Now go back again,"--as the poor fellow had drank our health's.

Here Sneezer, who had been still as a mouse all this while, put his
black snout out of the hammock, and began to cheep and whine in his
gladness at seeing his master, and the large tears ran down his coal
black muzzle as he licked my hand, while every now and then he gave a
short fondling bark, as if he had said, "Ah, master, I thought you had
forgotten me altogether, ever since the action where I got my leg broke
by a grape-shot, but I find I am mistaken."

"Now, Tailtackle, what say you?"

"We may ease off the tackles to-morrow afternoon," said the gunner,
"and right the schooner, sir; we have put in a dozen cashew knees, as
tough as leather, and bolted the planks tight and fast. You saw these
heavy quarters did us no good, sir; I hope you will beautify her again,
now since the Spaniard's shot has pretty well demolished them already.
I hope you won't replace them, sir. I hope Captain Transom may see her
as she should be, as she was when your honour had your first pleasure
cruise in her." Here--but I may have dreamed it I thought the quid in
the honest fellow's cheek stuck out in higher relief than usual for a
short space.

"We shall see, we shall see," said I.

"I say, Don Timotheus," quoth Bang, "you don't mean to be off without
drinking our healths?" as he tipped him a tumbler of brandy grog of very
dangerous strength.

The warrant officer drank it, and vanished, and presently Mr Gelid's
brother, who had just returned from one of the out islands, made his
appearance, and after the greeting between them was over, the stranger
advanced, and with much grace invited us en masse to his house. But by
this time Mr Wagtail was so ill, that we could not move that night, our
chief concern now being to see him properly bestowed; and very soon I
was convinced that his disease was a violent bilious fever.

The old brown landlady, like all her caste, was a most excellent nurse;
and after the most approved and skilful surgeon of the town had seen
him, and prescribed what was thought right, we all turned in. Next
morning, before any of us were up, a whole plateful of cards were handed
to us, and during the forenoon these were followed by as many
invitations to dinner. We had difficulty in making our election, but
that day I remember we dined at the beautiful Mrs C----'s, and in the
evening adjourned to a ball--a very gay affair; and I do freely avow,
that I never saw so many pretty women in a community of the same size
before. Oh! it was a little paradise, and not without its Eve. But
such an Eve! I scarcely think the old Serpent himself could have found
it in his heart to have beguiled her.

"I say, Tom, my dear boy," said Mr Bang, "do you see that darling? Oh,
who can picture to himself, without a tear, that such a creature of
light, such an ethereal-looking thing, whose step 'would ne'er wear out
the everlasting flint,' that floating gossamer on the thin air, shall
one day become an anxious-looking, sharp-featured, pale-faced, loud
tongued, thin-bosomed, broad bottomed wife!"

The next day, or rather in the same night, his Majesty's ship Rabo
arrived, and the first tidings we had of it in the morning were
communicated by Captain Qeuedechat himself, an honest, uproarious
sailor, who chose to begin, as many a worthy ends, by driving up to the
door of the lodging in a cart.

"Is the Captain of the small schooner that was swamped, here?" he asked
of Massa Pegtop.

Free and easy this, thought I.

"Yes, sir, Captain Cringle is here, but him no get up yet."
"Oh, never mind, tell him not to hurry himself; but where is the table
laid for breakfast?"

"Here, sir," said Pegtop, as he showed him into the piazza.

"Ah, that will do--so give me the newspaper--tol de rol," and he began
reading and singing, in all the buoyancy of mind consequent on escaping
from shipboard after a three months cruise.

I dressed and came to him as soon as I could; and the gallant Captain,
whom I had figured to myself a fine light gossamer lad of twenty-two,
stared me in the face as a fat elderly cock of forty at the least; and
as to bulk, I would not have guaranteed that eighteen stone could have
made him kick the beam. However, he was an excellent fellow, and that
day he and his crew were of most essential service in assisting me in
refitting the Wave, for which I shall always be grateful. I had spent
the greater part of the forenoon in my professional duty, but after two
o'clock I had knocked off, in order to make a few calls on the families
to whom I had introductions, and who were afterwards so signally kind to
me. I then returned to our lodgings in order to dress for dinner, before
I sallied forth to worthy old Mr N----'s, where we were all to dine,
when I met Aaron.

"No chance of our removing to Peter Gelid's this evening."

"Why?" I asked.

"Oh, poor Pepperpot Wagtail is become alarmingly ill; inflammatory
symptoms have appeared, and"--Here the colloquy was cut short by the
entrance of Mrs Peter Celid--a pretty woman enough. She had come to
learn herself from our landlady, how Mr Wagtail was, and with the
kindliness of the country, she volunteered to visit poor little Waggy in
his sick-bed. I did not go into the room with her; but when she
returned, she startled us all a good deal, by stating her opinion that
the worthy man was really very ill, in which she was corroborated by the
doctor, who now arrived. So soon as the medico saw him, he bled him,
and after prescribing a lot of effervescing draughts, and various
febrifuge mixtures, he left a large blister with the old brown landlady,
to be applied over his stomach if the wavering and flightiness did not
leave him before morning. We returned early after dinner from Mr N----'s
to our lodgings, and as I knew Gelid was expected at his brother's in
the evening, to meet a large assemblage of kindred, and as the night was
rainy and tempestuous, I persuaded him to trust the watch to me; and as
our brown landlady had been up nearly the whole of the previous night, I
sent for Tailtackle to spell me, while the black valets acted with great
assiduity in their capacity of surgeon's mates. About two in the
morning Mr Wagtail became delirious, and it was all that I could do,
aided by my sable assistants, and an old black nurse, to hold him down
in his bed. Now was the time to clap on the blister, but he repeatedly
tore it off, so that at length we had to give it up for an impracticable
job; and Tailtackle, whom I had called from his pallet, where he had
gone to lie down for an hour, placed the caustico, as the Spaniards call
it, at the side of the bed.

"No use in trying this any more at present," said I; "we must wait until
he gets quieter, Mr Tailtackle; so go to your bed, and I shall lie down
on this sofa here, where Marie Paparoche" (this was our old landlady)
"has spread sheets, I see, and made all comfortable. And send Mr Bang's
servant, will you;" (friend Aaron had ridden into the country after
dinner to visit a friend, and the storm, as I conjectured, had kept him
there;) "he is fresh, and will call me in case I be wanted, or Mr
Wagtail gets worse."

I lay down, and soon fell fast asleep, and I remembered nothing, until I
awoke about eleven o'clock next morning, and heard Mr Bang speaking to
Wagtail, at whose bedside he was standing.

"Pepperpot, my dear, be thankful--you are quite cool--a fine moisture on
your skin this morning--be thankful, my little man how did your blister
rise?"

"My good friend," quoth Wagtail, in a thin weak voice, "I can't tell--I
don't know; but this I perceive, that I am unable to rise, whether it
has risen or no."

"Ah--weak," quoth Gelid, who had now entered the room.

"Nay," said Pepperpot, "not so weak as deucedly sore, and on a very
unromantic spot, my dears."

"Why," said Aaron, "the pit of the stomach is not a very genteel
department, nor the abdomen neither."

"Why," said Wagtail, "I have no blister on either of those places, but
if it were possible to dream of such a thing, I would say it had been
clapped on...."

Here his innate propriety tongue-tied him.

"Eh?" said Aaron; "what--has the caustico that was intended for the
frontiers of Belgium been clapped by mistake on the broad Pays Bas?"

And so in very truth it turned out; for while we slept, the patient had
risen, and sat down on the blister that lay, as already mentioned, on a
chair at his bedside, and again toppling into bed, had fallen into a
sound sleep, from which he had but a few moments before the time I write
of awoke.

"Why, now," continued Aaron, to the doctor of the Wave who had just
entered--"why, here is a discovery, my dear doctor. You clap a hot
blister on a poor fellow's head to cool it, but Doctor Cringle there has
cooled Master Wagtail's brain, by blistering his stern--eh?--Make notes,
and mind you report this to the College of  Surgeons."

I cleared myself of these imputations. Wagtail recovered; our refitting
was completed; our wood, and water, and provisions, replenished; and,
after spending one of the happiest fortnights of my life, in one
continued round of gaiety, I prepared to leave--with tears in my eyes, I
will confess--the clear waters, bright blue skies, glorious climate, and
warm hearted community of Nassau, New Providence. Well might that old
villain Blackbeard have made this sweet spot his favourite rendezvous.
By the way, this same John Teach or Blackbeard, had fourteen wives in
the lovely island; and I am not sure but I could have picked out
something approximating to the aforesaid number myself, with time and
opportunity, from among such a galaxy of loveliness as then shone and
sparkled in this dear little town. Speaking of the pirate Blackbeard, I
ought to have related that one morning when I was at breakfast at
Mrs C----'s, the amiable, and beautiful, and innocent girl matron ay, you
supercilious son of a sea-cook, you may turn up your nose at the
expression, but if you could have seen the burden of my song as I saw
her, and felt the elegancies of her manner and conversation as I felt
them--but let us stick to Blackbeard, if you please. We were all
comfortably seated at breakfast; I had finished my sixth egg, had
concealed a beautiful dried snapper, before which even a rizzard haddock
sank into insignificance, and was bethinking me of finishing off with a
slice of Scotch mutton-ham, when in slid Mr Bang. He was received with
all possible cordiality, and commenced operations very vigorously.

He was an amazing favourite of our hostess, (as where was he not a
favourite?) so that it was some time before he even looked my way. We
were in the midst of a discussion regarding the beauty of New
Providence, and the West India Islands in general; and I was remarking
that nature had been liberal, that the scenery was unquestionably
magnificent in the larger islands, and beautiful in the smaller; but
there were none of those heart-stirring reminiscences, none of those
thrilling electrical associations, which vibrate to the heart at
visiting scenes in Europe famous in antiquity--famous as the spot in
which recent victories had been achieved--famous even for the very
freebooters, who once held unlawful sway in the neighbourhood. "Why,
there never has flourished hereabouts, for instance, even one thoroughly
melodramatic thief." Massa Aaron let me go on, until he had nearly
finished his breakfast. At length he fired a shot at me.

"I say, Tom, you are expatiating, I see. Nothing heart stirring, say
you? In new countries it would bother you to have old associations
certainly; and you have had your Rob Roy, I grant you, and the old
country has had her Robin Hood. But has not Jamaica had her Three
fingered Jack? Ay, a more gentlemanlike scoundrel than either of the
former. When did jack refuse a piece of yam, and a cordial from his
horn, to the wayworn man, white or black? When did he injure a woman?
When did Jack refuse food and a draught of cold water, the greatest
boon, in our ardent climate, that he could offer, to a wearied child?
Oh, there was much poetry in the poor fellow!  And here, had they not
that most melodramatic (as you choose to word it) of thieves,
Blackbeard, before whom Bluebeard must for ever hide his diminished
head? Why, Bluebeard had only one wife at a time, although he murdered
five of them, whereas Blackbeard had seldom fewer than a dozen, and he
was never known to murder above three. But I have fallen in with such a
treasure!  Oh, such a discovery!  I have been communing with Noah
himself with an old negro, who remembers this very Blackbeard--the
pirate Blackbeard."

"The deuce," said I; "impossible!"
"But it is true. Why it is only ninety-four years ago since the
scoundrel flourished, and this old cock is one hundred and ten. I have
jotted it down--worth a hundred pounds. Read, my adorable Mrs C----,
read."

"But, my dear Mr Bang," said she, "had you not better read it yourself?"

"You, if you please," quoth Aaron, who forthwith set himself to make the
best use of his time.

    MEMOIR OF JOHN TEACH, ESQUIRE VULGARLY CALLED BLACKBEARD.
    BY AARON BANGS, ESQUIRE, F.R.S.

    "He was the mildest mannered man.
    That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat;
    With such true breeding of a gentleman,
    You never could discern his real thought.
    Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,
    He was so great a loss to good society."


John Teach, or Blackbeard, was a very eminent man--a very handsome man,
and a very devil amongst the ladies.

He was a Welshman, and introduced the leek into Nassau about the year
1718, and was a very remarkable personage, although, from some singular
imperfection in his moral constitution, he never could distinguish
clearly between meum and tuum.

He found his patrimony was not sufficient to support him; and as he
disliked agricultural pursuits as much as mercantile, he got together
forty or fifty fine young men one day, and borrowed a vessel from some
merchants that was lying at the Nore, and set sail for the Bahamas. On
his way he fell in with several West Indiamen, and, sending a boat on
board of each, he asked them for the loan of provisions and wine, and
all their gold, and silver, and clothes, which request was in every
instance but one civilly acceded to; whereupon, drinking their good
healths, he returned to his ship. In the instance where he had been
uncivilly treated, to show his forbearance, he saluted them with twenty
one guns; but by some accident the shot had not been withdrawn, so that
unfortunately the contumacious ill bred craft sank, and as Blackbeard's
own vessel was very crowded, he was unable to save any of the crew. He
was a great admirer of fine air, and accordingly established himself on
the island of New Providence, and invited a number of elegant young men,
who were fond of pleasure cruises, to visit him, so that presently he
found it necessary to launch forth in order to borrow more provisions.

At this period he was a great dandy; and amongst other vagaries, he
allowed his beard to grow a foot long at the shortest, and then plaited
it into three strands, indicating that he was a bashaw of no common
dimensions. He wore red breeches, but no stockings, and sandals of
bullock's hide. He was a perfect Egyptian in his curiousness in fine
linen, and his shirt was always white as the driven snow when it was
clean, which was the first Sunday of every month. In waistcoats he was
especially select; but the cut of them very much depended on the fashion
in favour with the last gentleman he had borrowed from. He never wore
any thing but a full dress purple velvet coat, under which bristled
three brace of pistols, and two naked stilettoes, only eighteen inches
long, and he had generally a lighted match fizzing in the bow of his
cocked scraper whereat he lighted his pipe, or fired off a cannon, as
pleased him.

One of his favourite amusements, when he got half slewed, was to adjourn
to the hold with his compotators, and kindling some brimstone matches,
to dance and roar, as if he had been the devil himself, until his allies
were nearly suffocated. At another time he would blow out the candles
in the cabin, and blaze away with his loaded pistols at random, right
and left, whereby he severely wounded the feelings of some of his
intimates by the poignancy of his wit, all of which he considered a most
excellent joke. But he was kind to his fourteen wives so long as he was
sober, as it is known that he never murdered above three of them. His
borrowing, however, gave offence to our government, no one can tell how;
and at length two of our frigates, the Lime and Pearl, then cruising off
the American coast, after driving him from his, stronghold, hunted him
down in an inlet in North Carolina, where, in an eight-gun schooner,
with thirty desperate fellows, he made a defence worthy of his
honourable life, and fought so furiously that he killed and wounded more
men of the attacking party than his own crew consisted of; and following
up his success, he boarded, sword in hand, the headmost of the two armed
sloops, which had been detached by the frigates, with ninety men on
board, to capture him; and being followed by twelve men and his trusty
lieutenant, he would have carried her out and out, maugre the disparity
of force, had he not fainted from loss of blood, when, falling on his
back, he died where he fell, like a hero--"His face to the sky, and his
feet to the foe" leaving eleven forlorn widows, being the fourteen
wives, minus the three that he had throttled.

"NO CHIVALROUS ASSOCIATIONS indeed!  Match me such a character as this."

We  all  applauded to the echo. But I must end my song, for  I  should
never  tire  in  dwelling  on  the happy days  we  spent  in  this  most
enchanting  little island. The lovely blithe girls, and the  hospitable
kind  hearted men, and the children! I never saw such cherubs, with  all
the  sprightliness of the little pale-faced creoles of the West Indies,
while the healthy bloom of Old England blossomed on their cheeks.

"I say, Tom," said Massa Aaron, on one occasion when I was rather
tedious on the subject, "all those little cherubs, as you call them, at
least the most of them, are the offspring of the cotton bales captured
in the American war."

"The what?" said I.

"The children of the American war--and I will prove it thus taking the
time from no less an authority than Hamlet, when he chose to follow the
great Dictator, Julius Caesar himself, through all the corruption of our
physical nature, until he found him stopping a beer barrel--(only
imagine the froth of one of our disinterested friend Buxton's beer
barrels, savouring of quassia, not hop, fizzing through the clay of
Julius Caesar the Roman!)--as thus: If there had been no Yankee war,
there would have been no prize cargoes of cotton sent into Nassau; if
there had been no prize cargoes sent into Nassau, there would have been
little money made; if there had been little money made, there would have
been fewer marriages; if there had been fewer marriages, there would
have been fewer cherubs. There is logic for you, my darling."

"Your last is a non sequitur, my dear sir," said I, laughing. "But, in
the main, Parson Malthus is right, out of Ireland that is, after all."

That evening I got into a small scrape, by impressing three apprentices
out of a Scotch brig, and if Mr Bang had not stood my friend, I might
have, got into serious trouble. Thanks to him, the affair was soldered.

When on the eve of sailing, my excellent friends, Messrs Bang, Gelid,
and Wagtail, determined, in consequence of letters which they had
received from Jamaica, to return home in a beautiful armed brig that was
to sail in a few days, laden with flour. I cannot well describe how much
this moved me. Young and enthusiastic as I was, I had grappled myself
with hooks of steel to Mr Bang; and now, when he unexpectedly
communicated his intention of leaving me, I felt more forlorn and
deserted than I was willing to plead to.

"My dear boy," said he, "make my peace with Transom. If urgent business
had not pressed me, I would not have broken my promise to rejoin him;
but I am imperiously called for in Jamaica, where I hope soon to see
you." He continued, with a slight tremor in his voice, which thrilled to
my heart, as it vouched for the strength of his regard,--"If ever I am
where you may come, Tom, and you don't make my house your home, provided
you have not a better of your own, I will never forgive you." He paused.
"You young fellows sometimes spend faster than you should do, and
quarterly bills are long of coming round. I have drawn for more money
than I want. I wish you would--let me be your banker for a hundred
pounds, Tom."

I squeezed his hand. "No, no--many, many thanks, my dear sir but I
never outrun the constable. Goodbye, God bless you. Farewell, Mr
Wagtail--Mr Gelid, adieu." I tumbled into the boat and pulled on board.
The first thing I did was to send the wine and sea stock, a most
exuberant assortment unquestionably, belonging to my Jamaica friends,
ashore; but, to my surprise, the boat was sent back, with Mr Bang's
card, on which was written in pencil, "Don't affront us, Captain
Cringle." Thereupon I got the schooner under weigh, and no event worth
narrating turned up until we anchored close to the post office at
Crooked Island, two days after.

We found the Firebrand there, and the post-office mail-boat, with her
red flag and white horse in it, and I went on board the corvette to
deliver my official letter, detailing the incidents of the cruise, and
was most graciously received by my captain.

There was a sail in sight when we anchored, which at first we took for
the Jamaica packet; but it turned out to be the Tinker, friend Bang's
flour-loaded brig; and by five in the evening our friends were all
three once more restored to us, but, alas! so far as regarded two of
them, only for a moment. Messrs Gelid and Wagtail had, on second
thoughts, it seems, hauled their wind to lay in a stock of turtle at
Crooked Island, and I went ashore with them, and assisted in the
selection from the turtle crawls filled with beautiful clear water, and
lots of fine lively fresh-caught fish, the postmaster being the turtle
merchant.

"I say, Paul, happier in the fish way here than you were at Biggleswade
eh?" said Aaron.

After we had completed our purchases, our friends went on board the
corvette, and I was invited to meet them at dinner, where the aforesaid
postmaster, a stout conch, with a square-cut coatee and red cape and
cuffs, was also a guest.

He must have had but a dull time of it, as there were no other white
inhabitants that I saw, on the island besides himself; his wife having
gone to Nassau, which he looked on as the prime city of the world, to be
confined, as he told us. Bang said, that she must rather have gone to
be delivered from confinement; and, in truth, Crooked Island was a most
desolate domicile for a lady; our friend the postmaster's family, and a
few negroes employed in catching turtle, and making salt, and dressing
some scrubby cotton-trees, composing the whole population. In the
evening the packet did arrive, however, and Captain Transom received his
orders.

"Captain Transom, my boy," quoth Bang towards nightfall, "the best of
friends must part--we must move--good--night--we shall be off presently
good--by"--and he held out his hand.

"Devil a bit," said Transom; "Bang, you shall not go, neither you nor
your friends. You promised, in fact shipped with me for the cruise, and
Lady----has my word and honour that you shall be restored to her longing
eye, sound and safe--so you must all remain, and send down the flour
brig to say you are coming."

To make a long story short, Massa Aaron was boned, but his friends were
obdurate, so we all weighed that night; the Tinker bearing up for
Jamaica, while we kept by the wind, steering for Conaives in St Domingo.

The third day we were off Cape St Nicholas, and getting a slant of wind
from the westward, we ran up the Bight of Leogane all that night, but
towards morning it fell calm; we were close in under the highland, about
two miles from the shore, and the night was the darkest I ever was out
in anywhere. There were neither moon nor stars to be seen, and the dark
clouds settled down, until they appeared to rest upon our mastheads,
compressing, as it were, the hot steamy air upon us until it became too
dense for breathing. In the early part of the night it had rained in
heavy showers now and then, and there were one or two faint flashes of
lightning, and some heavy peals of thunder, which rolled amongst the
distant hills in loud shaking reverberations, which gradually became
fainter and fainter, until they grumbled away in the distance in hoarse
murmurs, like the low notes of an organ in one of our old cathedrals;
but now there was neither rain nor wind--all nature seemed fearfully
hushed; for where we lay, in the smooth bight, there was no swell, not
even a ripple on the glasslike sea; the sound of the shifting of a
handspike, or the tread of the men, as they ran to haul on--a rope, or
the creaking of the rudder, sounded loud and distinct. The sea in our
neighbourhood was strongly phosphorescent, so that the smallest chip
thrown overboard struck fire from the water, as if it had been a piece
of iron cast on flint; and when you looked over the quarter, as I
delight to do, and tried to penetrate into the dark clear profound
beneath, you every now and then saw a burst of pale light, like a halo,
far down in the depths of the green sea, caused by the motion of some
fish, or of what Jack, no great natural philosopher, usually calls
blubbers; and when the dolphin or skip-jack leapt into the air, they
sparkled out from the still bosom of the deep dark water like rockets,
until they fell again into their element in a flash of fire. This
evening the corvette had showed no lights, and although I conjectured
she was not far from us, still I could not with any certainty indicate
her whereabouts. It might now have been about three o'clock, and I was
standing on the aftermost gun on the starboard side, peering into the
impervious darkness over the tafferel, with my dear old dog Sneezer by
my side, nuzzling and fondling after his affectionate fashion, while the
pilot, Peter Mangrove, stood within handspike length of me. The dog had
been growling, but all in fun, and snapping at me, when in a moment he
hauled off, planted his paws on the rail, looked forth into the night,
and gave a short, anxious bark, Ii e the solitary pop of the sentry's
musket to alarm the main guard in outpost work.

Peter Mangrove advanced, and put his arm round the dog's neck. "What
you see, my shild?" said the black pilot.

Sneezer uplifted his voice, and gave a long continuous growl.

"Ah!" said Mangrove sharply, "Massa Captain, something near we--never
doubt dat--de dog yeerie someting we can't yeerie, and see someting we
can't see."

I had lived long enough never to despise any caution, from whatever
quarter it proceeded. So I listened, still as a stone. Presently I
thought I heard the distant splash of oars. I placed my hand behind my
ear, and waited with breathless attention. Immediately I saw the
sparkling dip of them in the calm black water, as if a boat, and a large
one, was pulling very fast towards us. "Look out, hail that boat," said
I.

"Boat ahoy!" sung out the man, to whom I had spoken. No answer.
"Coming here?" reiterated the seaman. No better success. The boat or
canoe, or whatever it might be, was by this time close aboard of us,
within pistol-shot at the farthest--no time to be lost, so I hailed
myself, and this time the challenge did produce an answer.

"Sore boat-fruit and wegitab."

"Shore boat, with fruit and vegetables, at this time of night--I don't
like it," said I. "Boatswain's mate,--all hands--pipe away the boarders.
Cutlasses, men--quick, a piratical row--boat is close to." And verily we
had little time to lose, when a large canoe or row--boat, pulling twelve
oars at the fewest, and carrying twenty--five men, or thereabouts, swept
up on our larboard quarter, hooked on, and the next moment upwards of
twenty unlooked--for visitors scrambled up our shallow side, and jumped
on board. All this took place so suddenly that there were not ten of my
people ready to receive them, but those ten were the prime men of the
ship.

"Surrender, you scoundrels--surrender. You have boarded a man-of-war.
Down with your arms, or we shall kill you to a man."

But they either did not understand me, or did not believe me, for the
answer was a blow from a cutlass, which, if I had not parried with my
night-glass, which it broke in pieces, might have effectually stopped
my promotion.

"Cut them down, boarders, down with them--they are pirates," shouted I;
"heave cold shot into their boat alongside--all hands, Mr Rousemout," to
the boatswain, "call all hands."

We closed. The assailants had no firearms, but they were armed with
swords and long knives, and as they fought with desperation, several of
our people were cruelly haggled; and after the first charge, the
combatants on both sides became so blended, that it was impossible to
strike a blow, without running the risk of cutting down a friend. By
this time all hands were on deck; the boat alongside had been swamped by
the cold shot that had been hove crashing through her bottom, when down
came a shower from the surcharged clouds, or waterspout--call it which
you will--that absolutely deluged the decks, the scuppers being utterly
unable to carry off the water. So long as the pirates fought in a body,
I had no fears, as, dark as it was, our men, who held together, knew
where to strike and thrust; but when the torrent of rain descended in
bucketfuls, the former broke away, and were pursued singly into various
corners about the deck, all escape being cut off from the swamping of
their boat. Still they were not vanquished, and I ran aft to the
binnacle, where a blue light was stowed away,--one of several that we
had got on deck to bum that night, in order to point out our whereabouts
to the Firebrand. I fired it, and rushing forward cutlass-in-hand, we
set on the gang of black desperadoes with such fury, that after killing
two of them outright, and wounding and taking prisoners seven, we drove
the rest overboard into the sea, where the small-armed men, who by this
time had tackled to their muskets, made short work of them, guided as
they were by the sparkling of the dark water, as they struck out and
swam for their lives. The blue light was immediately answered by
another from the corvette, which lay about a mile off; but before her
boats, two of which were immediately armed and manned, could reach us,
we had defeated our antagonists, and the rain had increased to such a
degree, that the heavy drops, as they fell with a strong rushing noise
into the sea, flashed it up into one entire sheet of fire.

We--secured our prisoners, all blacks and mulattoes, the most villainous
looking scoundrels I had ever seen, and shortly after it came on to
thunder and lighten, as if heaven and earth had been falling together.
A most vivid flash--it almost blinded me. Presently the Firebrand burnt
another blue light, whereby we saw that her maintopmast was gone close
by the cap, with the topsail, and upper spars, and yards, and gear, all
hanging down in a lumbering mass of confused wreck; she had been struck
by the levin brand, which had killed four men, and stunned several more.

By  this  time the cold grey streaks of morning appeared in the  eastern
horizon, and  soon  after the day broke; and  by  two  o'clock  in  the
afternoon, both corvette and schooner were at anchor at Conaives.  The
village, for town it could not be called, stands on a low hot plain, as
if  the  washings of the mountains on the left hand side as we stood  in
had  been  carried out into the sea, and formed into a white plateau  of
sand; all was hot and stunted, and scrubby. We brought up inside of  the
corvette, in  three fathoms water. My superior officer  had  made  the
private  signal to come on board and dine. I dressed, and the boat  was
lowered  down, and we pulled for the corvette, but our course lay  under
the stern of the two English ships that were lying there loading cargoes
of coffee.

"Pray, sir," said a decent-looking man, who leant on the tafferel of
one of them--"Pray, sir, are you going on board of the Commodore?"

"I am," I answered.

"I am invited there too, sir; will you have the kindness to say I will
be there presently?"

"Certainly--give way, men."

Presently we were alongside the corvette, and the next moment we stood
on her deck, holystoned white and clean, with my stanch friend Captain
Transom and his officers, all in full fig, walking to and fro under the
awning, a most magnificent naval lounge, being thirty two feet wide at
the gangway, and extending fifty feet or more aft, until it narrowed to
twenty at the tafferel. We were all--the two masters of the
merchantmen, decent respectable men in their way, included--graciously
received, and sat down to an excellent dinner, Mr Bang taking the lead
as usual in all the fun; and we were just on the verge of cigars and
cold grog, when the first lieutenant came down and said that the captain
of the port had come off, and was then on board.

"Show him in," said Captain Transom, and a tall, vulgar-looking
blackamoor, dressed apparently in the cast-off coat of a French
grenadier officer, entered the cabin with his chapeau in his hand, and a
Madras handkerchief tied round his woolly skull. He made his bow, and
remained standing near the door.

"You are the captain of the port?" said Captain Transom. The man
answered in French, that he was. "Why, then, take a chair, sir, if you
please."

He begged to be excused and after tipping off his bumper of claret, and
receiving the Captain's report, he made his bow and departed.

I returned to the Wave, and next morning I breakfasted on board of the
Commodore, and afterwards we all proceeded on shore to Monsieur B----'s,
to whom Massa Aaron was known. The town, if I may call it so, had
certainly a very desolate appearance. There was nothing stirring; and
although a group of idlers, amounting to about twenty or thirty, did
collect about us on the end of the wharf, which, by the by, was terribly
out of repair, yet they all appeared ill clad, and in no way so well
furnished as the blackies in Jamaica; and when we marched up through a
hot, sandy, unpaved street into the town, the low, one-story, shabby
looking houses were falling into decay, and the streets more resembled
river-courses than thoroughfares, while the large carrion crows were
picking garbage on the very crown of the causeway, without apparently
entertaining the least fear of us, or of the negro children who were
playing close to them, so near, in fact, that every now and then one of
the urchins would aim a blow at one of the obscene birds, when it would
give a loud discordant croak, and jump a pace or two, with outspread
wings, but without taking flight. Still many of the women, who were
sitting under the small piazzas, or projecting eaves of the houses, with
their little stalls, filled with pullicate handkerchiefs, and pieces of
muslin, and ginghams for sale, were healthy-looking, and appeared
comfortable and happy. As we advanced into the town, almost every male
we met was a soldier, all rigged and well dressed, too, in the French
uniform; in fact, the remarkable man, King Henry, or Christophe,
took care to have his troops well fed and clothed in every case. On
our way we had to pass by the Commandant, Baron B----'s house, when it
occurred to Captain Transom that we ought to stop and pay our respects;
but Mr Bang, being bound by no such etiquette, bore up for his friend
Monsieur B----'s. As we approached the house--a long, low, one-story
building, with a narrow piazza, and a range of unglazed windows, staring
open, with their wooden shutters, like ports in a ship's side, towards
the street--we found a sentry at the door, who, when we announced
ourselves, carried arms all in regular style. Presently a very good
looking negro, in a handsome aide-de-camp's uniform, appeared, and, hat
in hand, with all the grace in the world, ushered us into the presence
of the Baron, who was lounging in a Spanish chair half asleep, but on
hearing us announced he rose, and received us with great amenity. He
was a fat elderly negro, so far as I could judge, about sixty years of
age, and was dressed in very wide jean trowsers, over which a pair of
well polished Hessian boots were drawn, which, by adhering close to his
legs, gave him, in contrast with the wide puffing of his garments above,
the appearance of being underlimbed, which he by no means was, being a
stout old Turk.

After a profusion of congees and fine speeches, and superabundant
assurances of the esteem in which his master King Henry held our master
King George, we made our bows and repaired to Monsieur B----'s, where I
was engaged to dine. As for Captain Transom, he went on board that
evening to superintend the repairs of the ship.

There was no one to meet us but Monsieur B----and his daughter, a tall
and very elegant brown girl, who had been educated in France, and did
the honours incomparably well. We sat down, Massa Aaron whispering in
my lug, that in Jamaica it was not quite the thing to introduce brown
ladies at dinner; but, as he said, "Why not? Neither you nor I are high
caste creoles--so en avant."

Dinner was nearly over, when Baron B----'s aide-de-camp slid into the
room. Monsieur B----rose. "Captain Latour, you are welcome--be seated.
I hope you have not dined?"

"Why no," said the negro officer, as he drew a chair, while he exchanged
glances with the beautiful Eugenie, and sat himself down close to el
Senor Bang.

"Hillo, Quashie!  Whereaway, my lad? a little above the salt, an't you?"
ejaculated our amigo; while Pegtop, who had just come on shore, and was
standing behind his master, stared and gaped in the greatest wonderment.
But Mr Bang's natural good breeding, and knowledge of the world,
instantly recalled him to time and circumstances; and when the young
officer looked at him, regarding him with some surprise, he bowed, and
invited him, in the best French he could muster, to drink wine. The
aide-de-camp was, as I have said, jet-black as the ace of spades, but
he was, notwithstanding, so far as figure went, a very handsome man
tall and well made, especially about the shoulders, which were
beautifully formed, and, in the estimation of a statuary, would probably
have balanced the cucumber curve of the shin; his face, however, was
regular negro-flat nose, heavy lips, fine eyes, and beautiful teeth,
and he wore two immense gold earrings. His woolly head was bound round
with a pullicate handkerchief, which we had not noticed until he took
off his laced cocked hat. His coat was the exact pattern of the French
staff uniform at the time--plain blue, without lace, except at the cape
and cuffs, which were of scarlet cloth, covered with rich embroidery.
He wore a very handsome straight sword, with steel scabbard, and the
white trowsers, and long Hessian boots, already described as part of the
costume of his general.

Mr Bang, as I have said, had rallied by this time, and with the tact of
a gentleman, appeared to have forgotten whether his new ally was black,
blue, or green, while the claret, stimulating him into self possession,
was evaporating in broken French. But his man Pegtop had been pushed
off his balance altogether; his equanimity was utterly gone. When the
young officer brushed past him, at the first go off, while he was
rinsing some glasses in the passage, his sword banged against Pegtop's
derriere as he stooped down over his work. He started and looked round,
and merely exclaimed--"Eigh, Massa Niger, wurra dat!" But now, when,
standing behind his master's chair, he saw the aide-de-camp consorting
with him whom he looked upon as the greatest man in existence, on terms
of equality, all his faculties were paralysed.

"Pegtop," said I, "hand me some yam, if you please."

He looked at me all agape, as if he had been half strangled.

"Pegtop, you scoundrel," quoth massa Aaron, "don't you hear what Captain
Cringle says, sir?"

"Oh yes, massa;" and thereupon the sable valet brought me a bottle of
fish sauce, which he endeavoured to pour into my wineglass. All this
while Eugenie and the aide-de-camp were playing the agreeable--and in
very good taste, too, let me tell you.

I had just drank wine with mine host, when I cast my eye along the
passage that led out of the room, and there was Pegtop dancing, and
jumping, and smiting his thigh, in an ecstasy of laughter, as he doubled
himself up, with the tears welling over his cheeks.

"Oh, Lord!  Oh!--Massa Bang bow, and make face, and drink wine, and do
every ting shivil, to one dam black rascall nigger!--Oh, blackee more
worser clan me, Gabriel Pegtop----Oh, Lard!--ha! ha! ha!"--Thereupon he
threw himself down in the piazza, amongst plates and dishes and shouted
and laughed in a perfect frenzy, until Mr Bang got up, and thrust the
poor fellow out of doors, in a pelting shower, which soon so far quelled
the hysterical passion, that he came in again, grave as a judge, and
took his place behind his master's chair once more, and every thing went
on smoothly. The aide-de-camp, who appeared quite unconscious that he
was the cause of the poor fellow's mirth, renewed his attentions to
Eugenie; and Mr Bang, Monsieur B----, and myself, were again engaged in
conversation, and our friend Pegtop was in the act of handing a slice of
melon to the black officer, when a file of soldiers, with fixed
bayonets, stept into the piazza, and ordered arms, one taking up his
station on each side of the door. Presently another aide-de-camp,
booted and spurred, dashed after them; and, as soon as he crossed the
threshold, sung out, "Place, pour Monsieur le Baron."

The electrical nerve was again touched--"Oh!--oh!--oh!  Caramighty! here
comes anoder on dem," roared Pegtop, sticking the slice of melon, which
was intended for Mademoiselle Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the
paroxysm, if possible, (while he fractured the plate on the black aide's
skull,) and immediately blew it out again, with an explosion, and a
scattering of the fragments, as if it had been the blasting of a stone
quarry.

"Zounds, this is too much,"--exclaimed Bang, as he rose and kicked the
poor fellow out again, with such vehemence, that his skull, encountering
the paunch of our friend the Baron, who was entering from the street at
that instant, capsized him outright, and away rolled his Excellency the
General de Division, Commandant de L'Arrondissement, &c. &c. digging his
spurs into poor Pegtop's transom, and sacring furiously, while the black
servant roared as if he had been harpooned by the very devil. The aides
started to their feet and one of them looked at Mr Bang, and touched the
hilt of his sword, grinding the word 'satisfaction' between his teeth,
while the other ordered the sentries to run the poor fellow, whose mirth
had been so uproarious, through. However, he got off with one or two
brogues in a very safe place; and when Monsieur B----explained how
matters stood, and that the "pauvre diable," as the black Baron coolly
called him, was a mere servant, and an uncultivated creature, and that
no insult was meant, we had all a hearty laugh, and every thing rolled
right again. At length the Baron and his black tail rose to wish us a
good evening, and we were thinking of finishing off with a cigar and a
glass of cold grog, when Monsieur B----'s daughter returned into the
piazza, very pale, and evidently much frightened. "Mon pere," said she
while her voice quavered from excessive agitation--"My father--why do
the soldiers remain?"

We all peered into the dark passage, and there, true enough, were the
black sentries at their posts beside the doorway, still and motionless
as statues. Monsieur B----, poor fellow, fell back in his chair at the
sight, as if he had been shot through the heart.

"My fate is sealed--I am lost--oh, Eugenie!" were the only words he
could utter.

"No, no," exclaimed the weeping girl, "God forbid--the Baron is a kind
hearted man--King Henry cannot--no, no--he knows you are not
disaffected, he will not injure you."

Here one of the black aides-de-camp suddenly returned. It was the
poor fellow who had been making love to Eugenie during the
entertainment. He looked absolutely blue with dismay; his voice shook,
and his knees knocked together as he approached our host.

He tried to speak, but could not. "Oh, Pierre, Pierre," moaned, or
rather gasped Eugenie, "what have you come to communicate? what dreadful
news are you the bearer of?" He held out an open letter to poor B----,
who, unable to read it from excessive agitation, handed it to me. It
ran thus:

"MONSIEUR LE BARON,
Monsieur--has been arrested here this morning; he is a white
Frenchman, and there are strong suspicions against him. Place his
partner M. B----under the surveillance of the police instantly. You are
made answerable for his safe custody."

"Witness his Majesty's hand and seal, at Sans Souci, this----"

The Count.


"Then I am doomed," groaned poor Mr B----. His daughter fainted, the
black officer wept, and having laid his senseless mistress on a sofa, he
approached and wrung B----'s hand. "Alas, my dear sir--how my heart
bleeds!  But cheer up--King Henry is just--all may be right--all may
still be right; and so far as my duty to him will allow, you may count
on nothing being done here that is not absolutely necessary for holding
ourselves blameless with the Government."

Enough and to spare of this. We slept on shore that night, and a very
neat catastrophe was likely to have ensued thereupon. Intending to go
on board ship at daybreak, I had got up and dressed myself, and opened
the door into the street to let myself out, when I stumbled unwittingly
against the black sentry, who must have been half asleep, for he
immediately stepped several paces back, and presenting his musket, the
clear barrel glancing in the moonlight, snapped it at me. Fortunately it
missed fire, which gave me time to explain that it was not M. B----,
attempting to escape; but that day week he was marched to the prison of
La Force, near Cape Henry, where his partner had been previously lodged;
and from that hour to this, neither of them were ever heard of. Next
evening I again went ashore, but I was denied admittance to him; and, as
my orders were imperative not to interfere in any way, I had to return
on board with a heavy heart.

The day following, Captain Transom and myself paid a formal I visit to
the black Baron, in order to leave no stone unturned to obtain poor
B----'s release if we could. Mr Bang accompanied us. We found the sable
dignitary lounging in a grass hammock, (slung from corner to corner of a
very comfortless room, for the floor was tiled, the windows were
unglazed, and there was no furniture whatsoever but an old-fashioned
mahogany sideboard and three wicker chairs) apparently half-asleep, or
ruminating after his breakfast. On our being announced by a half-naked
negro servant, who aroused him, he got up and received us very kindly I
beg his lordship's pardon, I should write graciously--and made us take
wine and biscuit, and talked and rattled; but I saw he carefully avoided
the subject which he evidently knew was the object of our visit. At
length, finding it would be impossible for him to parry it much longer
single-handed, with tact worthy of a man of fashion, he called out
"Marie!  Marie!" Our eyes followed his, and we saw a young and very
handsome brown lady rise, whom we had perceived seated at her work when
we first entered, in a small dark back porch, and advance after
curtseying to us seriatim, with great elegance, as the old fat niger
introduced her to us as "Madame la Baronne."

"His wife?" whispered Aaron; "the old rank goat!"

Her brown ladyship did the honours of the wine-ewer with the perfect
quietude and ease of a well-bred woman. She was a most lovely clear
skinned quadroon girl. She could not have been twenty; tall and
beautifully shaped. Her long coal-black tresses were dressed high on
her head, which was bound round with the everlasting Madras
handkerchief, in which pale blue was the prevailing colour; but it was
elegantly adjusted, and did not come down far enough to shade the fine
development of her majestic forehead--Pasta's in Semiramide was not more
commanding. Her eyebrows were delicately arched and sharply defined,
and her eyes of jet were large and swimming; her nose had not utterly
abjured its African origin, neither had her lips, but, notwithstanding,
her countenance shone with all the beauty of expression so conspicuous
in the Egyptian sphinx Abyssinian, but most sweet--while her teeth were
as the finest ivory, and her chin and throat, and bosom, as if her bust
had been an antique statue of the rarest workmanship. The only
ornaments she wore were two large virgin gold ear-rings, massive yellow
hoops without any carving, but so heavy that they seemed to weigh down
the small thin transparent ears which they perforated; and a broad black
velvet band round her neck, to which was appended a large massive
crucifix of the same metal. She also wore two broad bracelets of black
velvet clasped with gold. Her beautifully moulded form was scarcely
veiled by a cambric chemise, with exceedingly short sleeves, over which
she wore a rose-coloured silk petticoat, short enough to display a
finely formed foot and ankle, with a well-selected pearl white silk
stocking, and a neat low-cut French black kid shoe. As for gown, she
had none. She wore a large-sparkling diamond ring on her marriage
finger, and we were all bowing before the deity, when our attention was
arrested by a cloud of dust at the top of the street, and presently a
solitary black dragoon sparked out from it, his accoutrements and
headpiece blazing in the sun, then three more abreast, and immediately a
troop of five-and-twenty cavaliers, or thereabouts, came thundering
down the street. They formed opposite the Baron's house, and I will say
I never saw a better appointed troop of horse anywhere. Presently an
aide-de-camp scampered up; and having arrived opposite the door,
dismounted, and entering, exclaimed, "Les Comtes de Lemonade et
Marmalade."--"The who?" said Mr Bang; but presently two very handsome
young men of colour, in splendid uniforms, rode up, followed by a
glittering staff, of at least twenty mounted officers. They alighted,
and entering, made their bow to Baron B----. The youngest, the Count
Lemonade, spoke very decent English, and what between Mr Bang's and my
bad, and Captain Transom's very good, French, we all made ourselves
agreeable. I may state here, that Lemonade and Marmalade are two
districts of the island of St Domingo, which had been pitched on by
Christophe to give titles to two of his fire--new nobility. The
grandees had come on a survey of the district, and although we did not
fail to press the matter of poor B----'s release, yet they either had no
authority to interfere in the matter, or they would not acknowledge that
they had, so we reluctantly took leave, and went on shipboard.

"Tom, you villain," said Mr Bang, as we stepped into the boat, "if my
eye had caught yours when these noblemen made their entree, I should
have exploded with laughter, and most likely have had my throat cut for
my pains. Pray, did his highness of Lemonade carry a punch-ladle in
his hand? I am sure I expected he of Marmalade to have carried a jelly
can? Oh, Tom, at the moment I heard them announced, my dear old mother
flitted before my mind's eye, with the bright, well-scoured, large
brass pans in the background, as she superintended her handmaidens in
their annual preservations."

After the fruitless interview, we weighed, and sailed for Port au
Prince, where we arrived the following evening.

I had heard much of the magnificence of the scenery in the Bight of
Leogane, but the reality far surpassed what I had pictured to myself.
The breeze, towards noon of the following day, had come up in a gentle
air from the westward, and we were gliding along before it like a spread
eagle, with all our light sails abroad to catch the sweet zephyr, which
was not even strong enough to ruffle the silver surface of the
landlocked sea, that glowed beneath the blazing midday sun, with a
dolphin here and there cleaving the shining surface with an arrowy
ripple, and a brown-skinned shark glaring on us, far down in the deep,
clear, green profound, like a water fiend, and a slow-sailing pelican
overhead, after a long sweep on poised wing, dropping into the sea like
lead, and flashing up the water like the bursting of a shell, as we
sailed up into a glorious amphitheatre of stupendous mountains, covered
with one eternal forest, that rose gradually from the hot sandy plains
that skirted the shore; while what had once been smiling fields, and
rich sugar plantations, in the long misty level districts at their
bases, were now covered with brushwood, fast rising up into one
impervious thicket; and as the Island of Conave closed in the view
behind us to seaward, the sun sank beyond it, amidst rolling masses of
golden and blood-red clouds, giving token of a goodly day to-morrow,
and gilding the outline of the rocky islet (as if to a certain depth it
had been transparent) with a golden halo, gradually deepening into
imperial purple. Beyond the shadow of the tree-covered islet, on the
left hand, rose the town of Port-au-Prince, with its long streets
rising like terraces on the gently swelling shore, while the mountains
behind it, still gold tipped in the declining sunbeams, seemed to impend
frowningly over it, and the shipping in the roadstead at anchor off the
town were just beginning to fade from our sight in the gradually
increasing darkness, and a solitary light began to sparkle in a cabin
window and then disappear, and to twinkle for a moment in the piazzas of
the houses on shore like a will-of-the-wisp, and the chirping buzz of
myriads of insects and reptiles was coming off from the island a-stem
of us, borne on the wings of the light wind, which, charged with rich
odours from the closing flowers, fanned us "like the sweet south, soft
breathing o'er a bed of violets," when a sudden flash and a jet of white
smoke puffed out from the hill-fort above the town, the report
thundering amongst the everlasting hills, and gradually rumbling itself
away into the distant ravines and valleys, like a lion growling itself
to sleep, and the shades of night fell on the dead face of nature like a
pall, and all was undistinguishable.--When I had written thus far--it
was at Port-au-Prince, at Mr S----'s--Mr Bang entered--"Ah!  Tom--at
the log, polishing--using the plane--shaping out something for Ebony
let me see."

Here our friend read the preceding paragraphs. They did not please him.

"Don't like it, Tom."

"No? Pray, why, my dear sir?--I have tried to" "Hold your tongue, my
good boy."

     "Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer,
     List old ladies o'er your tea,
     At description Tom's a tailor,
     When he is compared to me.
     Tooral looral loo."

"Attend--brevity is the soul of wit,--ahem. Listen how I shall crush
all your lengthy yam into an eggshell. 'The Bight of Leogane is a
horseshoe--Cape St Nicholas is the caulker on the northern heel Cape
Tiberoon, the ditto on the south--Port-au-Prince is the tip at the toe
towards the east--Conaives, Leogane, Petit Trouve, &c. &c. &c. are the
nails, and the Island of Gonave is the frog.' Now every human being who
knows that a horse has four legs and a tail--of course this includes all
the human race, excepting tailors and sailors--must understand this at
once; it is palpable and plain, although no man could have put it so
perspicuously, excepting my friend William Cobbettt or myself. By the
way, speaking of horses, that blood thing of the old Baron's nearly gave
you your quietus t'other day, Tom. Why will you always pass the flank
of a horse in place of going ahead of him, to use your own phrase?
Never ride near a led horse on passing when you can help it; give him a
wide berth, or clap the groom's corpus between you and his heels; and
never, never go near the croup of any quadruped bigger than a cat, for
even a cow's is inconvenient, when you can by any possibility help it."

I laughed--"Well, well, my dear sir--but you undervalue my equestrian
capability somewhat too, for I do pretend to know that a horse has four
legs and a tail."

There was no pleasing Aaron this morning, I saw.

"Then, Tummas, my man, you know a deuced deal more than I do. As for
the tail, conceditur--but devilish few horses have four legs nowadays,
take my word for it. However, here comes Transom; I am off to have a
lounge with him, and I will finish the veterinary lecture at some more
convenient season. Tol lol de rol."--Exit singing.

The morning after this I went ashore at daylight, and, guided by the
sound of military music, proceeded to the Place Republicain, or square
before President Petion's palaces where I found eight regiments of foot
under arms, with their bands playing, and in the act of defiling before
General Boyer who commanded the arrondissement. This was the garrison
of Port-au-Prince, but neither the personal appearance of the troops,
nor their appointments, were at all equal to those of King Henry's well
dressed and well drilled cohorts that we saw at Conaives. The
President's guards were certainly fine men, and a squadron of dismounted
cavalry, in splendid blue uniforms, with scarlet trowsers richly laced,
might have vied with the elite of Nap's own, barring the black faces.
But the materiel of the other regiments was not superfine, as M. Boyer,
before whom they were defiling, might have said.

I went to breakfast with Mr S----, one of the English merchants of the
place, a kind and most hospitable man; and under his guidance, the
Captain, Mr Bang, and I, proceeded afterwards to call on Petion.
Christophe, or King Henry, had some time before retired from the siege
of Port-au-Prince, and we found the town in a very miserable state.
Many of the houses were injured from shot; the President's palace, for
instance, was perforated in several places, which had not been repaired.
In the antechamber you could see the blue heavens through the shot
holes in the roof.--"Next time I come to court, Tom," said Mr Bang, "I
will bring an umbrella." Turning out of the parade, we passed through a
rickety, unpainted open gate, in a wall about six feet high; the space
beyond was an open green or grass-plot, parched and burned up by the
sun, with a common fowl here and there fluttering and hotching in the
hole she had scratched in the and soil; but there was neither sentry nor
servant to be seen, nor any of the usual pomp and circumstance about a
great man's dwelling. Presently we were in front of a long, low, one
story building, with a flight of steps leading up into an entrance hall,
furnished with several gaudy sofas, and half-a-dozen chairs with a
plain wooden floor, on which a slight approach to the usual West India
polish had been attempted, but mightily behind the elegant domiciles of
my Kingston friends in this respect. In the centre of this room stood
three young officers, fair mulattoes, with their plumed cocked-hats in
their hands, and dressed very handsomely in French uniforms; and it
always struck me as curious, that men who hated the very name of
Frenchman, as the devil hates holy water, should copy all the customs
and manners of the detested people so closely. I may mention here once
for all, that Petion's officers, who, generally speaking, were all men
of colour, and not negroes, were as much superior in education, and, I
fear I must say, in intellect, as they certainly were in personal
appearance, to the black officers of King Henry, as his soldiery were
superior to those of the neighbouring black republic.

"Ah, Monsieur S----, comment vous portez vous? je suis bien aise de vous
voir," said one of the young officers; "how are you, how have you been?"

"Vous devenez tout a fait rare," quoth a second. "Le President will be
delighted to see you. Why, he says he thought you must have been dead,
and les messieurs La...."

"Who?--introduce us."

It was done in due form--the Honourable Captain Transom, Captain Cringle
of his Britannic Majesty's schooner, Wave, and Aaron Bang, Esquire. And
presently we were all as thick as pickpockets.

"But come, the President will be delighted to see you." We followed the
officer who spoke, as he marshalled us along, and in an inner chamber,
wherein there were also several large holes in the ceiling through which
the sun shone, we found President Petion, the black Washington, sitting
on a very old ragged sofa, amidst a confused mass of papers, dressed in
a blue military undress frock, white trowsers, and the everlasting
Madras handkerchief bound round his brows. He was much darker than I
expected to have seen him, darker than one usually sees a mulatto, or
the direct cross between the negro and the white, yet his features were
in no way akin to those of an African. His nose was as high, sharp, and
well defined as that of any Hindoo I ever saw in the Hoogly, and his
hair was fine and silky. In fact, dark as he was, he was at least three
removes from the African; and when I mention that he had been long in
Europe--he was even for a short space acting adjutant general of the
army of Italy with Napoleon--his general manner, which was extremely
good, kind and affable, was not matter of so much surprise.

He rose to receive us with much grace, and entered into conversation
with all the ease and polish of a gentleman--"le me porte assez bien
aujourd'hui; but I have been very unwell, M. S----, so tell me the
news." Early as it was, he immediately ordered in coffee; it was brought
by two black servants, followed by a most sylph-like girl, about twelve
years of age, the President's natural daughter; she was fairer than her
father, and acquitted herself very gracefully. She was rigged, pin for
pin, like a little woman, with a perfect turret of artificial flowers
twined amongst the braids of her beautiful hair; and although her neck
was rather overloaded with ornaments, and her poor little ears were
stretching under the weight of the heavy gold and emerald earrings,
while her bracelets were like manacles, yet I had never seen a more
lovely little girl. She wore a frock of green Chinese crape, beneath
which appeared the prettiest little feet in the world.

We were invited to attend a ball in the evening, given in honour of the
President's birthday, and after a sumptuous dinner at our friend
M. S----'s, we all adjourned to the gay scene. There was a company of
grenadiers of the President's guard, with their band, on duty in front
of the palace, as a guard of honour; they carried arms as we passed, all
in good style; and at the door we met two aides-de-camp in full dress,
one of whom ushered us into an anteroom, where a crowd of brown, with a
sprinkling of black ladies, and a whole host of brown and black
officers, with a white foreign merchant here and there, were drinking
coffee, and taking refreshments of one kind or another. The ladies were
dressed in the very height of the newest Parisian fashion of the day
hats and feathers, and jewellery, real or fictitious, short sleeves, and
shorter petticoats fine silks, and broad blonde trimmings and flounces,
and low-cut corsages--some of them even venturing on rouge, which gave
them the appearance of purple dahlias; but as to manner, all lady-like
and proper; while the men, most of them militaires, were as fine as gold
and silver lace, and gay uniforms, and dress-swords could make them
and all was blaze, and sparkle, and jingle; but the black officers, in
general, covered their woolly pates with Madras handkerchiefs, as if
ashamed to show them, the brown officers alone venturing to show their
own hair. Presently a military band struck up with a sudden crash in
the inner-room, and the large folding doors being thrown open, the
ballroom lay before us, in the centre of which stood the President,
surrounded by his very splendid staff, with his daughter on his arm. He
was dressed in a plain blue uniform, with gold epaulets, and acquitted
himself extremely well, conversing freely on European politics, and
giving his remarks with great shrewdness, and a very peculiar naivete.
As for his daughter, however much she might appear to have been
overdressed in the morning, she was now simple in her attire as a little
shepherdesses plain white muslin frock, white sash, white shoes, white
gloves, pearl ear-rings and necklace, and a simple, but most beautiful,
camilla japonica in her hair. Dancing now commenced, and all that I
shall say is, that before I had been an hour in the room, I had
forgotten whether the faces around me were black, brown, or white; every
thing was conducted with such decorum. However, I could see that the
fine jet was not altogether the approved style of beauty, and that many
a very handsome woolly-headed belle was destined to ornament the walls,
until a few of the young white merchants made a dash amongst them, more
for the fun of the thing, as it struck me, than any thing else, which
piqued some of the brown officers, and for the rest of the evening
blackee had it hollow. And there was friend Aaron waltzing with a very
splendid woman, elegantly dressed, but black as a coal, with long kid
gloves, between which and the sleeve of her gown, a space of two inches
of the black skin, like an ebony armlet, was visible; while her white
dress, and rich white satin hat, and a lofty plume of feathers, with a
pearl necklace and diamond earrings, set off her loveliness most
conspicuously. At every wheel round Mr Bang slewed his head a little on
one side, and peeped in at one of her bright eyes, and then tossing his
cranium on t'other side, took a squint in at the other, and then cast
his eyes towards the roof, and muttered with his lips as if he had been
shot all of a heap by the blind boy's but-shaft; but every now and then
as we passed, the rogue would stick his tongue in his cheek, yet so
slightly as to be perceptible to no one but myself. After this heat,
Massa Aaron and myself were perambulating the ballroom, quite satisfied
with our own prowess and I was churming to myself, "Voulez vous dansez,
mademoiselle"--"De tout mon coeur," said a buxom brown dame, about
eighteen stone by the coffee-mill in St James's Street. That devil
Aaron gave me a look that I swore I would pay him for, the villain; as
the extensive mademoiselle, suiting the action to the word, started up,
and hooked on, and as a cotillion had been called, there I was, figuring
away most emphatically, to Bang and Transom's great entertainment. At
length the dance was at an end, And a waltz was once more called, and
having done my duty, I thought I might slip out between the acts; so I
offered to hand my solid armful to her seat--"Certainement vouz pouvez
bien restez encore un moment."

The devil confound you and Aaron Bang, thought I--but waltz I must, and
away we whirled until the room spun round faster than we did, and when I
was at length emancipated, my dark fair and fat one whispered, in a
regular die-away, "J'espere vous revoir bientot." All this while there
was a heavy firing of champagne and other corks, and the fun grew so
fast and furious, that I remembered very little more of the matter,
until the morning breeze whistled through my muslin curtains, or
musquitto net, about noon on the following day.

I arose, and found mine host setting out to bathe at Madame Le Clerc's
bath, at Marquesan. I rode with him; and after a cool dip we breakfasted
with President Petion at his country-house there, and met with great
kindness. About the house itself there was nothing particularly to
distinguish it from many others in the neighbourhood; but the little
statues, and fragments of marble steps, and detached portions of old
fashioned wrought-iron railing, which had been grouped together, so as
to form an ornamental terrace below it, facing the sea, showed that it
had been a compilation from the ruins of the houses of the rich French
planters, which were now blackening in the sun on the plain of Leogane.
A couple of Buenos Ayrean privateers were riding at anchor in the bight
just below the windows, manned, as I afterwards found, by Americans.
The President, in his quiet way, after contemplating them through his
glass, said, "Ces pavilions sont bien neuf."

The next morning, as we were pulling in my gig, no less a man than Massa
Aaron steering, to board the Arethusa, one of the merchantmen lying at
anchor off the town, we were nearly run down by getting athwart the bows
of an American schooner standing in for the port. As it was, her
cutwater gave us so smart a crack that I thought we were done for; but
our Palinurus, finding he could not clear her, with his inherent self
possession put his helm to port, and kept away on the same course as the
schooner, so that we got off with the loss of our two larboard oars,
which were snapped off like parsnips, and a good heavy bump that nearly
drove us into staves.

"Never mind, my dear sir, never mind," said I; "but hereafter listen to
the old song:"

'Steer clear of the stem of a sailing ship.'

"Massa Aaron was down on me like lightning"

"Or the stern of a kicking horse, Tom."

While I continued--

'Or you a wet jacket may catch, and a dip.'

He again cleverly clipped the word out of my mouth,

"Or a kick on the croup, which is worse, Tom."


"Why, my dear sir, you are an improvisatore of the first quality."

We  rowed ashore, and nothing particular happened that day, until we sat
down  to  dinner  at Mr S--'s. We had a very agreeable party.  Captain
Transom and Mr Bang were, as usual, the life of the company; and it  was
verging  towards  eight o'clock in the evening, when an English  sailor,
apparently belonging to the merchant service, came into the piazza, and
planted himself opposite to the window where I sat.

He  made  various nautical salaams, until he had attracted my attention.
"Excuse  me,"  I  said to Mr S----, "there is some  one  in  the  piazza
wanting me." I rose.

"Are you Captain Transom?" said the man.

"No, I am not. There is the Captain; do you want him?"

"If you please, sir," said the man.

I called my superior officer into the narrow dark piazza.

"Well, my man," said Transom, "what want you with me?"

"I am sent, sir, to you from the Captain of the Haytian ship, the E----,
to request a visit from you, and to ask for a prayer book."

"A what?" said Transom.

"A prayer book, sir. I suppose you know that he and the Captain of that
other  Haytian  ship, the  P----, are condemned  to  be  shot  tomorrow
morning."

"I know nothing of all this," said Transom. "Do you, Cringle?"

"No, sir," said I.

"Then let us adjourn to the dining room again; or, stop, ask Mr S----and
Mr Bang to step-here for a moment."

They  appeared; and  when  Transom explained  the  affair, so  far  as
consisted with his knowledge, Mr S----told us that the two unfortunates
in  question were, one of them, a Guernsey man, and the other a  man  of
colour, a native of St Vincent's, whom the President had promoted to the
command  of two Haytian ships that had been employed in carrying  coffee
to  England; but  on their last return voyage, they  had  introduced  a
quantity  of  base Birmingham coin into the Republic; which fact  having
been  proved on their trial, they had been convicted of treason  against
the  state, condemned, and were now under sentence of  death; and  the
government being purely military, they were to be shot tomorrow morning.
A  boat  was  immediately sent on board, the messenger returned  with  a
prayer book; and we prepared to visit the miserable men.

Mr Bang insisted on joining us--ever first where misery was to be
relieved--and we proceeded towards the prison. Following the sailor,
who was the mate of one of the ships, presently we arrived before the
door of the place where the unfortunate men were confined. We were
speedily admitted; but the building had none of the common appurtenances
of a prison. There were neither long galleries, nor strong ironbound
and clamped doors, to pass through; nor jailers with rusty keys
jingling; nor fetters clanking; for we had not made two steps past the
black grenadiers who guarded the door, when a sergeant showed us into a
long ill-lighted room, about thirty feet by twelve--in truth, it was
more like a gallery than a room--with the windows into the street open,
and no precautions taken, apparently at least, to prevent the escape of
the condemned. In truth, if they had broken forth, I imagine the kind
hearted President would not have made any very serious enquiry as to the
how.

There was a small rickety old card table, covered with tattered green
cloth, standing in the middle of the floor, which was composed of dirty
unpolished pitch pine planks, and on this table glimmered two brown wax
candles, in old fashioned brass candlesticks. Between us and the table,
forming a sort of line across the floor, stood four black soldiers, with
their muskets at their shoulders, while beyond them sat, in old
fashioned armchairs, three figures, whose appearance I never can forget.

The man fronting us rose on our entrance. He was an uncommonly handsome
elderly personage; his age I should guess to have been about fifty. He
was dressed in white trowsers and shirt, and wore no coat; his head was
very bald, but he had large and very dark whiskers and eyebrows, above
which towered a most splendid forehead, white, massive, and spreading.
His eyes were deep-set and sparkling, but he was pale, very pale, and
his fine features were sharp and pinched. He sat with his hands clasped
together, and resting on the table, his fingers twitching to and fro
convulsively, while his under jaw had dropped a little, and from the
constant motion of his head, and the heaving of his chest, it was clear
that he was breathing quick and painfully.

The figure on his right hand was altogether a more vulgar-looking
personage. He was a man of colour, his caste being indicated by his
short curly black hair, and his African descent vouched for by his
obtuse features; but he was composed and steady in his bearing. He was
dressed in white trowsers and waistcoat, and a blue surtout; and on our
entrance he rose, and remained standing. But the person on the elder
prisoner's left hand riveted my attention more than either of the other
two. She was a respectable looking, little, thin woman, but dressed
with great neatness, in a plain black silk gown. Her sharp features
were high and well formed; her eyes and mouth were not particularly
noticeable, but her hair was most beautiful--her long shining auburn
hair--although she must have been forty years of age, and her skin was
like the driven snow. When we entered, she was seated on the left hand
of the eldest prisoner, and was lying back on her chair, with her arms
crossed on her bosom, her eyes wide open, and staring upwards towards
the roof, with the tears coursing each other down over her cheeks, while
her lower jaw had fallen down, as if she had been dead--her breathing
was scarcely perceptible--her bosom remaining still as a frozen sea, for
the space of a minute, when she would draw a long breath, with a low
moaning noise, to which succeeded a convulsive crowing gasp, like a
child in the hooping-cough, and all would be still again.

At length Captain Transom addressed the elder prisoner. "You have sent
for us, Mr----what can we do for you, in accordance with our duty as
English officers?"

The poor man looked at us with a vacant stare--but his fellow sufferer
instantly spoke. "Gentlemen, this is kind--very kind. I sent my mate
to borrow a prayer book from you, for our consolation now must flow from
above--man cannot comfort us."

The female, who was the elder prisoner's wife, suddenly leant forward in
her chair, and peered intently into Mr Bang's face "Prayer book," said
she--"prayer book--why, I have a prayer book I will go for my prayer
book"--and she rose quickly from her seat,

"Restez"--quoth the black sergeant--the word seemed to rouse her--she
laid her head on her hands, on the table, and sobbed out as if her heart
were bursting--"Oh God! oh God! is it come to this--is it come to this?"
the frail table trembling beneath her, with her heart crushing emotion.
His wife's misery now seemed to recall the elder prisoner to himself.
He made a strong effort, and in a great degree recovered his composure.

"Captain Transom," said he, "I believe you know our story. That we have
been justly condemned I admit, but it is a fearful thing to die,
Captain, in a strange country, and by the hands of these barbarians, and
to leave my own dear"--Here his voice altogether failed him--presently
he resumed. "The Government have sealed up my papers and packages, and
I have neither Bible nor prayer book--will you spare us the use of one,
or both, for this night, sir?"

The Captain said, he had brought a prayer book, and did all he could to
comfort the poor fellows. But, alas! their grief "knew not
consolation's name."

Captain Transom read prayers, which were listened to by both of the
miserable men with the greatest devotion, while all the while, the poor
woman never moved a muscle, every faculty appearing to be once more
frozen up by grief and misery. At length, the elder prisoner again
spoke. "I know I have no claim on you, gentlemen; but I am an Englishman
at least I hope I may call myself an Englishman, and my wife there is
an Englishwoman--when I am gone oh, gentlemen, what is to become of her?
If I were but sure that she would be cared for, and enabled to return
to her friends, the bitterness of death would be past." Here the poor
woman threw herself round her husband's neck, and gave a shrill sharp
cry, and relaxing her hold, fell down across his knees, with her head
hanging back, and her face towards the roof, in a dead faint. For a
minute or two, the husband's sole concern seemed to be the condition of
his wife.

"I will undertake that she shall be sent safe to England, my good man,"
said Mr Bang.

The felon looked at him--drew one hand across his eyes, which were misty
with tears, held down his head, and again looked up at length he found
his tongue. "That God who rewardeth good deeds here, that God whom I
have offended, before whom I must answer for my sins by daybreak to
morrow, will reward you--I can only thank you." He seized Mr Bang's hand
and kissed it.

With heavy hearts we left the miserable group, and I may mention here,
that Mr Bang was as good as his word, and paid the poor woman's passage
home, and, so far as I know, she is now restored to her family.

We slept that night at Mr S----'s, and as the morning dawned we mounted
our horses, which our worthy host had kindly desired to be ready, in
order to enable us to take our exercise in the cool of the morning. As
we rode past the Place d'armes, or open space in front of the
President's palace, we heard sounds of military music, and asked the
first chance passenger what was going on. "Execution militaire; or
rather," said the man, "the two sea captains, who introduced the base
money, are to be shot this morning--there against the rampart." Of the
fact we were aware, but we did not dream that we had ridden so near the
whereabouts.

"Ay, indeed?"--said Mr Bang. He looked towards the Captain. "My dear
Transom, I have no wish to witness so horrible a sight, but still--what
say you--shall we pull up, or ride on?"

The truth was that Captain Transom and myself were both of us desirous
of seeing the execution--from what impelling motive, let learned
blockheads, who have never gloated over a hanging, determine; and
quickly it was determined that we should wait and witness it.

First advanced a whole regiment of the President's guards, then a
battalion of infantry of the line, close to which followed a whole bevy
of priests clad in white, which contrasted conspicuously with their
brown and black faces. After them marched two firing parties of twelve
men each, drafted indiscriminately, as it would appear, from the whole
garrison; for the grenadier cap was there intermingled with the glazed
shako of the battalion company, and the light morion of the dismounted
dragoon. Then came the prisoners. The elder culprit, respectably
clothed in white shirt, waistcoat, and trowsers, and blue coat, with an
Indian silk yellow handkerchief bound round his head. His lips were
compressed together with an unnatural firmness, and his features were
sharpened like those of a corpse. His complexion was ashy blue. His
eyes were half shut, but every now and then he opened them wide, and
gave a startling rapid glance about him, and occasionally he staggered a
little in his gait. As he approached the place of execution, his
eyelids fell, his under-jaw dropped, his arms hung dangling by his side
like empty sleeves; still he walked on, mechanically keeping time, like
an automaton, to the measured tread of the soldiery. His fellow
sufferer followed him. His eye was bright, his complexion healthy, his
step firm, and he immediately recognised us in the throng, made a bow to
Captain Transom, and held out his hand to Mr Bang, who was nearest to
him, and shook it cordially. The procession moved on. The troops
formed into three sides of a square, the remaining one being the earthen
mound, that constituted the rampart of the place. A halt was called.
The two firing parties advanced to the sound of muffled drums, and
having arrived at the crest of the glacis, right over the counterscarp,
they halted on what, in a more regular fortification, would have been
termed the covered way. The prisoners, perfectly unfettered, advanced
between them, stepped down with a firm step into the ditch, led each by
a grenadier. In the centre of it they turned and kneeled, neither of
their eyes being bound. A priest advanced, and seemed to pray with the
brown man fervently; another offered spiritual consolation to the
Englishman, who seemed now to have rallied his torpid faculties, but he
waved him away impatiently, and taking a book from his bosom, seemed to
repeat a prayer from it with great fervour. At this very instant of
time, Mr Bang caught his eye. He dropped the book on the ground, placed
one hand on his heart, while he pointed upwards towards heaven with the
other, calling out in a loud clear voice, "Remember!" Aaron bowed. A
mounted officer now rode quickly up to the brink of the ditch, and
called out, "Depechez."

The priests left the miserable men, and all was still as death for a
minute. A low solitary tap of the drum--the firing parties came to the
recover, and presently taking the time from the sword of the staff
officer who had spoken, came down to the present, and fired a rattling,
straggling volley. The brown man sprang up into the air three or four
feet, and fell dead; he had been shot through the heart; but the white
man was only wounded, and had fallen, writhing, and struggling, and
shrieking, to the ground. I heard him distinctly call out, as the
reserve of six men stepped into the ditch, "Dans la tete dans la tete."
One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close to his
face, fired. The ball splashed into his skull, through the left eye,
setting fire to his hair and clothes, and the handkerchief bound round
his head, and making the brains and blood flash up all over his face,
and the person of the soldier who had given him the coup de grace.

A strong murmuring noise, like the rushing of many waters, growled
amongst the ranks and the surrounding spectators, while a short sharp
exclamation of horror every now and then gushed out shrill and clear,
and fearfully distinct above the appalling monotony.

The miserable man stretched out his legs and arms straight and rigidly,
a strong shiver pervaded his whole frame, his jaw fell, his muscles
relaxed, and he and his brother in calamity became a portion of the
bloody clay on which they were stretched.



CHAPTER XVII.--The Third Cruise of the Wave


     'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
     Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain:
     Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
     Stops with the shore,--upon the watery plain
     The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
     A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
     When for a moment, like a drop of rain
     He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
     Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

     Byron, Childe Harold, IV 1603--11.


I  had  been invited to breakfast on board the corvette, on the  morning
after  this; and Captain Transom, Mr Bang, and myself, were comfortably
seated at our meal on the quarterdeck, under the awning, skreened off by
flags from the view of the men. The ship was riding to a small westerly
breeze, that was rippling up the bight. The ports on each quarter, as
well  as  the  two  in the stern, were open, through  which  we  had  an
extensive view of Port-au-Prince, and the surrounding country.

"Now, Transom," said our amigo Massa Aaron, "I am quite persuaded that
the town astern of us there must always have been, and is now,
exceedingly unhealthy. Only reflect on its situation; it fronts the
west, with the hot sickening afternoon's sun blazing on it every
evening, along the glowing mirror of the calm bight, under whose
influence the fat black mud that composes the beach must send up most
pestilent effluvia; while in the forenoon it is shut out from the
influence of the regular easterly sea-breeze, or trade-wind, by the
high land behind. However, as I don't mean to stay here longer than I
can help, it is not my affair; and as Mr. S----will be waiting for us,
pray order your carriage, my dear fellow, and let us go on shore."

The carriage our friend spoke of, was the captain's gig, by this time
alongside, ready manned, each of the six seamen who composed her crew,
with his oar resting between his knees, the blade pointed upwards
towards the sky. We all go in "Shove off" dip fell the oars into the
water "Give way, men" the good ash staves groaned, and cheeped, and the
water buzzed, and away we shot towards the wharf. We landed, and having
proceeded to Mr S---'s, we found horses ready for us, to take our
promised ride into the beautiful plain of the Cul de Sac, lying to the
northward and eastward of the town; the cavalcade being led by Massa
Aaron and myself, while Mr S----rode beside Captain Transom.

Aforetime, from the estates situated on this most magnificent plain,
(which extends about fifteen miles into the interior, while its width
varies from ten to five miles, being surrounded by hills on three
sides,) there used to be produced no less than thirty thousand hogsheads
of sugar. This was during the ancient regime; whereas, now, I believe,
the only articles it yields beyond plantains, yams, and pot herbs for
the supply of the town, are a few gallons of syrup, and a few puncheons
of tafla, a very inferior kind of rum. The whole extent of the sea
like plain, for there is throughout scarcely any inequality higher than
my staff, was once covered with well-cultivated fields and happy homes;
but now, alas! with brushwood from six to ten feet high,--in truth, by
one sea of jungle, through which you have to thread your difficult way
along narrow, hot, sandy bridle-paths, (with the sand flies and
musquittoes flaying you alive,) which every now and then lead you to
some old ruinous court-yard, with the ground strewed with broken
boilers and mill-rollers, and decaying hardwood timbers, and crumbling
bricks; while, a little further on, you shall find the blackened
roofless walls of what was most probably an unfortunate planter's once
happy home, where the midnight brigand came and found peace and comfort,
and all the elegancies of life, and left-blood and ashes; with the wild
flowers growing on the window sills, and the prickly pear on the tops
of the walls, while marble steps, and old shutters, and window hinges,
and pieces of china, are strewn all about; the only tenant now being
most likely an old miserable negro who has sheltered himself in a
coarsely thatched hut, in a corner of what had once been a gay and well
furnished saloon.

After having extended our ride, under a hot broiling sun, until two
o'clock in the afternoon, we hove about, and returned towards the town.
We had not ridden on our homeward journey above three miles, when we
overtook a tall good-looking negro, dressed in white Osnaburg trowsers,
rolled up to his knees, and a check shirt. He wore neither shoes nor
stockings, but his head was bound round with the usual handkerchief,
over which he wore a large glazed cocked hat, with a most conspicuous
Haytian blue-and-red cockade. He was goading on a jackass before him,
loaded with a goodly burden apparently; but what it was we could not
tell, as the whole was covered by a large sheepskin, with the wool
outermost. I was pricking past the man, when Mr S----sung out to me to
shorten sail, and the next moment he startled me by addressing the
pedestrian as Colonel Gabaroche. The colonel returned the salute, and
seemed in no way put out from being detected in this rather unmilitary
predicament. He was going up to Port-au-Prince to take his turn of
duty with his regiment. Presently up came another half-naked black
fellow, with the same kind of glazed hat and handkerchief under it; but
he was mounted, and his nag was not a bad one by any means. It was
Colonel Gabaroche's Captain of Grenadiers, Papotiere by name. He was
introduced to us, and we all moved jabbering along. At the time I write
of, the military force of the Haytian Republic was composed of one
third of the whole male population capable of bearing arms, which third
was obliged to be on permanent duty for four months every year; but the
individuals of the quota were allowed to follow their callings as
merchants, planters, or agriculturists, during the remaining eight
months; they were, I believe, fed by Government during their four months
of permanent duty. The weather, by the time we had ridden a couple of
miles farther, began to lower, and presently, large heavy drops of rain
fell, and preserving their globular shape, rolled like peas, or rather
like bullets, amidst the small finely pulverized dust of the sandy path.
"Umbrella" was the word--but this was a luxury unknown to our military
friends. However, the colonel immediately unfurled a blanket from
beneath the sheepskin, and sticking his head through a hole in the
centre of it, there he stalked like a herald in his tabard, with the
blanket hanging down before and behind him. As for the captain he
dismounted, disencumbered himself of his trowsers, which he crammed
under the mat that served him for a saddle, and taking off his shirt, he
stowed it away in the capacious crown of his cocked hat, while he once
more bestrid his Bucephalus in puris naturalibus, but conversing with
all the ease in the world, and the most perfect sangfroid, while the
thunder shower came down in bucketfuls. In about half an hour, we
arrived at the skirt of the brushwood or jungle, and found on our left
hand some rice fields, which from appearance we could not have
distinguished from young wheat; but on a nearer approach, we perceived
that the soil, if soil it could be called on which there was no walking,
was a soft mud, the only passages through the fields, and along the
ridges, being by planks, on which several of the labourers were standing
as we passed, one of whom turning to look at us, slipped off, and
instantly sunk amidst the rotten slime up to his waist. The
neighbourhood of these rice swamps is generally extremely unhealthy. At
length we got on board the Firebrand, drenched to the skin, to a late
dinner, after which it was determined by Captain Transom--of which
intention, by the by, with all his familiarity, I had not the smallest
previous notice--that I should cross the island to Jacmel, in order to
communicate with the merchant-ships loading there; and by the time I
returned, it was supposed the Firebrand would be ready for sea, when I
was to be detached in the Wave, to whip in the craft at the different
out ports, after which we were all to sail in a fleet to Port Royal.

"I say, skipper," quoth Mr Bang, "I have a great mind to ride with Tom
what say you?"

"Why, Aaron, you are using me ill; that shaver is seducing you
altogether; but come, you won't be a week away, and if you want to go, I
see no objection."

It was fixed accordingly, and on the morrow Mr Bang and I completed our
arrangements, hired horses, and a guide, and all being in order, clothes
packed, and every thing else made ready for the cruise, we rode out
along with Mr S----(we were to dine and sleep at his house) to view the
fortifications on the hill above the town, the site of Christophe's
operations when he besieged the place; and pretty hot work they must
have had of it, for in two different places the trenches of the
besiegers had been pushed on to the very crest of the glacis, and in one
the counterscarp had been fairly blown into the ditch, disclosing the
gallery of the mine behind, as if it had been a cave, the crest of the
glacis having remained entire. We walked into it, and Mr S----pointed
out where the President's troops, in Fort Republicain, had countermined,
and absolutely entered the other chamber from beneath, after the
explosion, and, sword in hand, cut off the storming party, (which had by
this time descended into the ditch,) and drove them up through the
breach into the fort, where they were made prisoners.

The assault had been given three times in one night, and he trembled for
the town; however, Petion's courage and indomitable resolution saved
them all. For by making a sally from the south gate at grey dawn, even
when the firing on the hill was hottest, and turning the enemy's flank,
he poured into the trenches, routed the covering party, stormed the
batteries, spiked the guns, and that evening's sun glanced on the
bayonets of King Henry's troops as they raised the siege, and fell back
in great confusion on their lines, leaving the whole of their battering
train, and a great quantity of ammunition, behind them.

Next morning we were called at daylight, and having accoutred ourselves
for the journey, we descended and found two stout ponies, the biggest
not fourteen hands high, ready saddled, with old fashioned demi piques,
and large holsters at each of the saddlebows. A very stout mule was
furnished for Monsieur Pegtop; and our black guide, who had contracted
for our transit across the island, was also in attendance, mounted on a
very active, well-actioned horse. We had coffee, and started. By the
time we reached Leogane, the sun was high and fierce. Here we
breakfasted in a low one--story building, our host being no smaller man
than Major L----of the Fourth Regiment of the line. We got our
chocolate, and eggs, and fricasseed fowl, and roasted yam, and in fact
made, even according to friend Aaron's conception of matters, an
exceedingly comfortable breakfast.

Mr Bang here insisted on being paymaster, and tendered a sum that the
black major thought so extravagantly great, considering the
entertainment we had received, that he declined taking more than one
half. However, Mr Bang, after several unavailing attempts to press the
money on the man, who, by the by, was simply a good looking blackamoor,
dressed in a check shirt, coarse but clean white duck trowsers, with the
omnipresent handkerchief bound round his head, and finding that he could
not persist without giving offence, was about pocketing the same, when
Pegtop audibly whispered him, "Massa, you ever shee black niger refuse
money before? but don't take it to heart, massa; me, Pegtop, will pocket
him, if dat foolis black person won't."

"Thank you for nothing, Master Pegtop," said Aaron.

We proceeded, and rode across the beautiful plain, gradually sloping up
from the mangrove--covered beach, until it swelled into the first range
of hills that formed the pedestal of the high precipitous ridge that
intersected the southern prong of the island, winding our way through
the ruins of sugar plantations, with fragments of the machinery and
implements employed in the manufacture scattered about, and half sunk
into the soil of the fields, which were fast becoming impervious jungle,
and interrupting our progress along the narrow bridle-paths. At length
we began to ascend, and the comparative coolness of the climate soon
evinced that we were rapidly leaving the hot plains, as the air became
purer, and thinner, at every turn. After a long, hot, hot ride, we
reached the top of the ridge, and turning back had a most magnificent
view of the whole Bight of Leogane, and of the Horseshoe, and Aaron's
Frog; even the tops of the mountains above the Mole, which could not
have been nearer than seventy miles, were visible, floating like islands
or blue clouds in the misty distance. Aaron took off his hat, reined
up, and turning the head of his Bucephalus towards the placid waters we
had left, stretched forth his hand:

     'Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds,
     Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves
     That o'er the  interminable ocean wreathe
     Your crisped smiles, thou all-producing Earth,
     And thee, bright Sun, I call, whose flaming orb
     Views the wide world beneath. See!'


Nearly got a stroke of the sun, Tom--what Whiffle would call a cul de
sac by taking off my chapeau in my poetical frenzy  so shove on.

We continued our journey through most magnificent defiles, and under
long avenues of the most superb trees, until, deeply embosomed in the
very heart of the eternal forest, we came to a shady clump of bamboos,
overhanging, with their ostrich-feather-like plumes, a round pool of
water, mantled or creamed over with a bright green coating, as if it had
been vegetable velvet, but nothing akin to the noisome scum that
ferments on a stagnant pool in England. It was about the time we had
promised ourselves dinner, and in fact our black guide and Pegtop had
dismounted, to make their preparations.

"Why, we surely cannot dine here? you don't mean to drink of that
stagnant pool, my dear sir?"

"Siste paulisper, my boy," said Mr Bang, as he stooped down, and skimmed
off the green covering with his hand, disclosing the water below, pure
and limpid as a crystal-clear fountain. We dined on the brink, and
discussed a bottle of vin-de-grave a-piece, and then had a small pull
at brandy and water; but we ate very little, although I was very hungry,
but Mr Bang would not let me feed largely.

"Now, Tom, you really do not understand things. When one rides a
goodish journey on end--say seventy miles or so--on the same horse, one
never feeds the trusty creature with half a bushel of oats; at least if
any wooden spoon does, the chances are he knocks him up. No, no--you
give him a mouthful of corn, but plenty to drink, little meal and water
here, and a bottle of porter in water there, and he brings you in
handsomely. Zounds! how would you yourself, Tom, like to dine on turtle
soup and venison, in the middle of a hissing hot ride of sixty miles,
thirty of them to be covered after the feed? Lord! what between the
rich food and the punch, you would have fermented like a brewer's vat
before you reached the end of the journey; and if you had not a boll
imperial measure of carbonate of soda with you, the chances are you
would explode like a catamaran, your head flying through some old
woman's window, and capsizing her teapot on the one hand, while on the
other your four quarters are scattered north, south, east, and west. But
Gaudeamus, sweet is pleasure after pains Tom, and all you sailors and
tailors--I love to class you together--are tender--not hearted
creatures. Strange now that there should be three classes of his
Majesty's subjects, who never can be taught to ride,--to whom riding is,
in fact, a physical impossibility; and these three are the aforesaid
sailors and tailors, and dragoon officers. However, hand me the brandy
bottle; and, Pegtop, spate me that black jack that you are rinsing--so.
Useful commodity, a cup of this kind." here our friend dashed in a large
qualifier of cognac, "it not only conceals the quality of the water, for
you can sometimes perceive the animalculae hereabouts without a
microscope, but also the strength of the libation. So--a piece of
biscuit now, and the smallest morsel of that cold tongue--your health,
Thomas"--a long pull--"speedy promotion to you, Thomas." Here our friend
rested the jug on his knee. "Were you ever at a Gaudeamus of
Presbyterian clergymen on the Monday after the Sacrament Sunday, Tom,
that is, at the dinner at the manse?"

"No, my dear sir; you know I am an Episcopalian."

"And I am a Roman Catholic. What then? I have been at a Gaudeamus, and
why might not you have been at one too? Oh the fun of such a meeting!
the feast of reason, and the flow of Ferintosh, I and the rich stories,
ay, fatter than ever I would venture on, and the cricket-like chirps of
laughter of the probationer, and the loud independent guffaw of the
placed minister, and the sly innuendos about the land round the Jordan,
when our freens get half foo. Oh how I honour a Gaudeamus!  And why,"
he continued, "should the excellent men not rejoice, Tom? Are they not
the very men who should be happy? Is a minister to be for ever boxed up
in his pulpit--for ever to be wagging his pow, bald, black, or grizzled
as it may be, beneath his sounding board, like a bullfrog below a
toadstool. And like the aforesaid respectable quadruped or biped (it
has always puzzled me which to call it), is he never to drink any thing
stronger than water? Hath not a minister eyes? hath not a minister
hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the
same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and
summer, that another man is? If you prick them, do they not bleed? If
you tickle them, do they not laugh? And shall we grudge them a
Caudeamus now and then? Shall opera peracta ludemus be in the mouths of
an mankind, from the dirty little greasy-faced schoolboy, who wears a
red gown and learns the Humanities and Whiggery in the Nineveh of the
West, I as the Bailie glories to call it, to the King upon his throne,
and a dead letter, as well as a dead language, to them, and them only?
Forbid it, the Honourable the Lord Provost--forbid it, the Honourable
the Lord Provost and all the Bailies, and those who sit in Council with
them!  Forbid it,--the whole august aggregate of terror to evildoers,
and praise of them who do well!  Forbid it, the Devil and Dr Faustus!"

By this time I had smuggled the jug out of our amigo's claw, and had
done honour to his pledge. "Do you know, my dear Mr Bang, I have always
been surprised that a man of your strong intellect, and clear views of
most matters, should continue, in profession at least, a Roman
Catholic?"

Aaron looked at me with a seriousness, an unaffected seriousness in his
manner, that possessed me with the notion that I had taken an
unwarrantable liberty. "Profession," at length said he, slowly and
deliberately, apparently weighing every word carefully as it fell from
him, as one is apt to do when approaching an interesting subject, on
which you desire not to be misunderstood--"Profession--what right have
you to assume this of me or any man, that my mode of faith is but
profession?" and then the kind-hearted fellow, perceiving that his
rebuke had mortified me, altering his tone, continued, but still with a
strong tinge of melancholy in his manner--"Alas!  Tom, how often will
weak man, in his great arrogance, assume the prerogative of his Maker,
and attempt to judge--honestly, we will even allow, according to his
conception--of the heart and secret things of another, but too often, in
reality, by the evil scale of his own!  Shall the potsherd say to his
frail fellow, Thou art weak, but I am strong? Shall the moudiewort say
to his brother mole--(I say, Quashie, mind that mule of yours don't
snort in the water, will ye?)--Blind art thou, but lo, I see? Ah, Tom,
I am a Roman Catholic; but is it thou who shalt venture down into the
depths of my heart, and then say, whether I be so in profession only, or
in stern unswerving sincerity?"

I found I had unwittingly touched a string that vibrated to his heart.
"I am a Roman Catholic, but, I humbly trust, not a bigoted one; for were
it not against the canons of both our churches, I fear I should incline
to the doctrine of Pope."

'He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'

"My fathers, Tom, were all Catholics before me; they may have been wrong;
but  I am only my father's son--not a better, and, I fear, I fear, not
so  wise  a man.--Pray, Tom, did you ever hear of even a good Jew, who,
being converted, did not become a bad Christian? Have you not all  your
life  had a repugnance to consort with a sinner converted from the faith
of  his  fathers, whether  they  were  Jews  or  Gentiles, Hindoos  or
Mahomedans, dwellers in Mesopotamia, or beyond Jordan? You have such  a
repugnance, Tom, I know; and I have it too."

"Well," I proceeded, on the strength of the brandy grog, "in the case of
an  unenlightened, or ignorant, or half-educated man, I  might  indeed
suspect duplicity, or even hypocrisy, at the bottom of the abjuration of
his  fathers  creed; but  in  a  gentleman  of  your  acquirements  and
knowledge...."

"There  again  now, Cringle, you are wrong. The  clodhopper  might  be
conscientious in a change of creed, but as to the advantage I have  over
him  from superior knowledge!--Knowledge, Tom! what do I know--what does
the greatest and the best of us know--to venture on a saying somewhat of
the tritest--but that he knows nothing? Oh, my dear boy, you and I have
hitherto  consorted together on the deck of life, so to speak, with  the
bright joyous sun sparkling, and the blue heavens laughing overhead, and
the  clear  green sea dancing under foot, and the merry  breeze  buzzing
past us right cheerily. We have seen but the fair-weather side of each
other, Thomas, without  considering  that  all  men  have  their  deep
feelings, that lie far, far down in the hold of their hearts, were  they
but  stirred up. Ay, you smile at my figures, but I repeat  it--in  the
deep  hold  of  their hearts; and may I not follow out  the  image  with
verity  and  modesty, and say that those feelings, often  too  deep  for
tears, are  the ballast that keeps the whole ship in trim, and  without
which  we should be every hour of our existence liable to be driven  out
of  our heavenward course, yea, to broach--to and founder, and sink  for
ever, under one of the many squalls in this world of storms? And here,
in this most beautiful spot, with the deep, dark, crystal-clear pool at
our  feet, fringed with the velvet grass, and the green quivering  leaf
above  flickering between us and the bright blue cloudless sky, and  the
everlasting rocks, with those diamond-like tears trickling  down  their
rugged  cheeks, impending over us,--and those gigantic  gnarled  trees,
with  their  tracery of black withes fantastically tangled, whose  naked
roots  twist  and  twine amongst the fissures, like serpents  trying  to
shelter  themselves  from the scorching rays of the  vertical  sun, and
those  feather-like  bamboos high arching overhead, and  screening  us
under  their  noble canopy,--and the cool plantains, their broad  ragged
leaves  bending under the weight of dew-spangles, and the  half-opened
wild-flowers,--yea, even here, the ardent  noontide  sleeping  on  the
hill, when even the quickeyed lizard lies still, and no longer  rustles
through  the  dry grass, and there is not a breath of air strong  enough
out  of  heaven to stir the gossamer that floats before us, or  to  wave
that  wild flower on its hair like stem, or to ruffle the fairy  plumage
of  the  humming-bird, that, against the custom of  its  kind, is  now
quietly   perched  thereon; and  while  the  bills  of  the  chattering
paroquets, that are peering at us from the branches above, are  closed,
and  the woodpecker interrupts his tapping to look down upon us, and the
only  sound we hear is the moaning of the wood-pigeon, and the  lulling
buzz of myriads of happy insects booming on the ear, loud as the rushing
of  a  distant  waterfall--(Confound these  musquittoes, though!)--Even
here, on this:"

'So sweet a spot of earth, you might, I ween,
Have guessed some congregation of the elves,
To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves.'

Even  in such a place could I look forward without a shudder, to set  up
my  everlasting rest, to lay my weary bones in the earth, and to  mingle
my  clay  with  that whereout it was moulded. No fear of being  houcked
here, Thomas, and preserved in a glass case, like a stuffed woodcock, in
Surgeons  Hall. I  am  a  barbarian, Tom, in these  respects--I  am  a
barbarian, and  nothing of a philosopher. Quiero  Paz  is  to  be  my
epitaph. Quiero Paz--'Cursed be he who stirs these bones.' Did not even
Shakspeare write it? What poetry in this spot, Thomas!  Oh,

     'There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
     There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
     There is society, where none intrudes,
     By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
     I love not man the less, but nature more,
     From these our interviews, in which I steal
     From all I may be, or have been before,
     To mingle with the universe, and feel
     What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.'

"Yes, even here where nature is all beautiful and every thing, and man
abject and nothing even here, Tom, amidst the loneliness of earth,
rugged and half-mad as you must sometimes have thought me, a fellow
wholly made up of quips and jests,--even I at this moment could, like an
aboriginal Charibl of the land, 'lift up my voice to the Great Spirit,'
and kneel, and weep, and pray."

I was much moved.

"You have spoken of knowledge, Tom. Knowledge--what do I know? Of
myself I know as little as I do of any other grub that crawls on the
surface of this world of sin and suffering; and what I do know, adds
little to my self-esteem, Tom, and affords small encouragement to
enquire further.--Knowledge, say you? How is that particle of sand
here? I cannot tell. How grew that blade of grass? I do not know.
Even when I look into that jug of brandy grog, (I'll trouble you for it,
Thomas,) all that I know is, that if I drink it, it will make me drunk,
and a more desperately wicked creature, if that were possible, than I am
already. And when I look forth on the higher and more noble objects of
the visible creation, abroad on this beautiful earth, above on the
glorious universe studded with shining orbs, without number numberless,
what can I make of them? Nothing absolutely nothing--yet they are all
creatures like myself. But--if I try--audaciously try--to strain my
finite faculties, in the futile attempt to take in what is infinite--if
I aspiringly, but hopelessly, grapple with the idea of the immensity of
space, for instance, which my reason yet tells me must of necessity be
boundless--do I not fall fluttering to the earth again, like an owl
flying against the noontide sun? Again, when I venture to think of
eternity--ay, when, reptile as I feel myself to be, I even look up
towards heaven, and bend my erring thoughts towards the Most High, the
Maker of all things, who was, and is, and is to come; whose flaming
minister, even while I speak, is pouring down a flood of intolerable day
on one half of the dry earth, and all that therein is; and when I
reflect on what this tremendous, this inscrutable Being has done for me
and my sinful race, so beautifully shown forth in both our creeds, what
do I know? but that I am a poor miserable worm, crushed before the moth,
whose only song should be the miserere, whose only prayer 'God be
merciful to me a sinner!"

There was a long pause, and I began to fear that my friend was shaken in
his mind, for he continued to look steadfastly into the clear black
water, where he had skimmed off the green velvet coating with his stick.

"Ay, and is it even so? and is it Tom Cringle who thinks and says that I
am a man likely to profess to believe what he knows in his heart to be a
lie? A Roman Catholic!  Had I lived before the Roman Conquest I would
have been a Druid, for it is not under the echoing domes of our
magnificent cathedrals, with all the grandeur of our ritual, the flaming
tapers, and bands of choristers, and the pealing organ, and smoking
censers, and silver-toned bells, and white-robed priests, that the
depths of my heart are stirred up. It is here, and not in a temple made
with hands, however gorgeous--here, in the secret places of the
everlasting forest,--it is in such a place as this that I feel the
immortal spark within me kindling into a flame, and wavering up
heavenward. I am superstitious, Thomas, I am superstitious, when left
alone in such a scene as this. I can walk through a country churchyard
at midnight, and stumble amongst the rank grass that covers the graves
of those I have lived with and loved, even if they be 'green in death,
and festering in their shrouds,' with the wind moaning amongst the
stunted yew-trees, and the rain splashing and scattering on the moss
covered tombstones, and the blinding blue lightning flashing, while the
headstones glance like an array of sheeted ghosts, and the thunder is
grumbling overhead, without a qualm-direness of this kind cannot once
daunt me; it is here and now, when all nature sleeps in the ardent
noontide, that I become superstitious, and would not willingly be left
alone. Thoughts too deep for tears!--ay, indeed, and there be such
thoughts, that, long after time has allowed them to subside, and when,
to the cold eye of the world, all is clear and smooth above, will, when
stirred up, like the sediment of this fountain of the wood, discolour
and embitter the whole stream of life once more, even after the lapse of
long long years. When my heart crushing loss was recent--when the wound
was green, I could not walk abroad at this to me witching time of day,
without a stock or a stone, a distant mark on the hill-side, or the
outline of the grey cliff above, taking the very fashion of her face, or
figure, on which I would gaze, and gaze, as if spell-bound, until I
knew not whether to call it a grouping of the imagination, or a reality
from without--or her, with whom I fondly hoped to have travelled the
weary road of life. Friends approved--fortune smiled--one little month,
and we should have been one; but it pleased Him, to whom in my present
frame of mind I dare not look up, to blight my beautiful flower, to
canker my rose-bud, to change the fair countenance of my Elizabeth, and
send her away. She drooped and died, even like that pale flower under
the scorching sun; and I was driven forth to worship Mammon, in these
sweltering climes; but the sting remains, the barbed arrow sticks fast."

Here the cleared surface of the water, into which he was steadfastly
looking, was gradually contracted into a small round spot about a foot
in diameter, by the settling back of the green floating matter that he
had skimmed aside. His countenance became very pale; he appeared even
more excited than he had hitherto been.

"By heavens! look in that water, if the green covering of it has not
arranged itself round the clear spot into the shape of a medallion into
her features! I had dreamed of such things before, but now it is a
palpable reality--it is her face--her straight nose--her Grecian upper
lip--her beautiful forehead, and her very bust!--even,"

  'As when years apace had bound her lovely waist with woman's zone.'

"Oh, Elizabeth--Elizabeth!"


Here his whole frame shook with the most intense emotion, but at length,
tears, unwonted tears, did come to his relief, and he hid his  face  in
his  hands, and wept bitterly. I was now convinced he was  mad, but  I
durst  not  interrupt him. At length he slowly removed  his  hands, by
which  time, however, a beautiful small black diver, the  most  minute
species of duck that I ever saw--it was not so big as my fist--but which
is  common in woodland ponds in the West Indies, had risen in the centre
of  the  eye  of  the fountain, while all was so still that  it  floated
quietly  like a leaf on the water, apparently without the least fear  of
us.

"The devil appeared in Paradise under the shape of a cormorant," said Mr
Bang, half  angrily, as he gazed sternly at the unlooked  for  visitor;
"what imp art thou?"

Tip--the little fellow dived; presently it rose again in the same place,
and  lifting  up its little foot, scratched the side of its tiny  yellow
bill  and  little red-spotted head, shook its small wings, bright  and
changeable  as shot silk, with a snow-white pen-feather in  each, and
then tipped up its little purple tail, and once more disappeared.

Aaron's  features were gradually relaxing; a change was coming over  the
spirit  of his dream. The bird appeared for the third time, looked  him
in  the  face, first  turning up one little  sparkling  eye, and  then
another, with its neck changing its hues like a pigeon's. Aaron  began
to  smile; he gently raised his stick--"Do you cock your fud at me, you
tiny  thief, you?"--and thereupon he struck at it with his stick. Tip
the  duck  dived, and did not rise again; and all that  he  got  was  a
sprinkling shower in the face, from the water flashing up at  his  blow,
and once more the green covering settled back again, and the bust of his
dead  love, or  what he fancied to be so, disappeared.  Aaron  laughed
outright, arose, and began to shout to the black guide, who, along  with
Pegtop, had  taken  the beasts into the wood in  search  of  provender.
"Ayez  le  bont  de donnez moi mon cheval? Bring us the  horsos, Massa
Bungo-venga los quadrupedos--make haste, vite, mucho, mucho."

Come, there is my Massa Aaron once more, at all events, thought I; but
oh, how unlike the Aaron of five minutes ago!

"So now let us mount, my boy," said he, and we shoved along until the
evening fell, and the sun bid us good-by very abruptly. "Cheep,
Cheep," sung the lizards--"chirp, chirp," sung the crickets, "snore,
snore," moaned the tree-toad--and it was night.

"Dame Nature shifts the scene without much warning here, Thomas," said
Massa Aaron; "we must get along, Doechez, mon cher--doechez, diggez
votre spurs into the flankibus of votre cheval, mon ami," shouted Aaron
to our guide.

"Oui, monsieur," replied the man, 'mais'

I did not like this ominous "but," nevertheless we rode on. No more did
Massa Aaron. The guide repeated his mais again. "Mais, mon filo," said
Bang, "mais--que meanez vous by baaing comme un sheep, eh? Que vizzy
vous, eh?"

We were at this time riding in a bridle-road, to which the worst sheep
paths in Westmoreland would have been a railway, with our horses every
now and then stumbling and coming down on their noses on the deep red
earth, while we as often stood a chance of being pitched bodily against
some tree on the path-side. But we were by this time all alive again,
the dullness of repletion having evaporated; and Mr Bang, I fancied,
began to peer anxiously about him, and to fidget a good deal, and to
murmur and grumble something in his gizzard about "arms--no arms," as,
feeling in his starboard holster, he detected a regular long cork of
claret, where he had hoped to clutch a pistol, while in the larboard, by
the praiseworthy forethought of our guide, a good roasted capon was
ensconced. "I say, Tom tohoo mind I don't shoot you," presenting the
bottle of claret. "If it had been soda water, and the wire not all the
stronger, I might have had a chance in this climate--but we are somewhat
caught here, my dear we have no arms."

"Poo," said I, "never mind--no danger at hand, take my word for it."

"May be not, may be not--but, Pegtop, you scoundrel, why did you not
fetch my pistols?"

"Eigh, you go fight, massa?"

"Fight! no, you booby; but could not your own numscull--the fellow's a
fool--so come--ride on, ride on."

Presently we came to an open space, free of trees, where the moon shone
brightly; it was a round precipitous hollow, that had been excavated
apparently by the action of a small clear stream or spout of water, that
sparkled in the moonbeams like a web of silver tissue, as it leaped in a
crystal arch over our heads from the top of a rock about twenty feet
high, that rose on our right hand, the summit clearly and sharply
defined against the blue firmament, while, on the left, was a small
hollow or ravine, down which the rivulet gurgled and vanished; while
ahead the same impervious forest prevailed, beneath which we had been
travelling for so many hours.

The road led right through this rugged hollow, crossing it about the
middle, or, if any thing, nearer the base of the cliff; and the whole
clear space between the rock and the branches of the opposite trees
might have measured twenty yards. In front of us, the path took a turn
to the left, as if again entering below the dark shadow of the wood; but
towards the right, with the moon shining brightly on it, there was a
most beautiful bank, clear of underwood, and covered with the finest
short velvet grass that could be dreamed of as a fitting sward to be
pressed by fairy feet. We all halted in the centre of the open space.

"See how the moonlight sleeps on yonder bank!" said I.

"I don't know what sleeps there, Tom," said Aaron; "but does that figure
sleep, think you?" pointing to the dark crest of the precipitous
eminence of the right hand, from which the moonlight rill was gushing,
as if it had been smitten by the rod of the Prophet.

I started, and looked--a dark half--naked figure, with an enormous cap
of the shaggy skin of some wild creature, was kneeling on one knee, on
the very pinnacle with a carabine resting across his thigh. I noticed
our guide tremble from head to foot, but he did not speak.

"Vous avez des arms?" said Bang, as he continued with great fluency, but
little grammar; "ayez le bonte de cockez votre pistolettes?"

The man gave no answer. We heard the click of the carabine lock.

"Zounds!" said Aaron, with his usual energy when excited, "if you won't
use them, give them to me;" and forthwith he snatched both pistols from
our guide's holsters. "Now, Tom, get on. Shove t'other blackie a-head
of you, Pegtop, will you? Confound you for forgetting my Mantons, you
villain. I will bring up the rear."

"Well, I will get on," said I. "but here, give me a pistol."

"Ridez vous en avant, blackimoribus ambos--en avant, you black rascals
laissez le Capitan and me pour fightez"--shouted Bang, as the black
guide, guessing his meaning, spurred his horse against the moonlight
bank.

"Ah--ah!" exclaimed the man, as he wheeled about after he had ridden a
pace or two under the shadow of the trees--"Voila ces autres brigands
la."

"Where?" said I.

"There," said the man in an ecstasy of fear--"there"--and peering up
into the forest, where the checkering dancing moonlight was flickering
on the dun, herbless soil, as the gentle night-breeze made the leaves
of the trees twinkle to and fro, I saw three dark figures advancing upon
us.

"Here's a catastrophe, Tom, my boy" quoth Aaron, who, now that he had
satisfied himself that the pistols were properly loaded and primed, had
resumed all his wonted coolness in danger. "Ask that fellow who is
enacting the statue on the top of the rock what he wants. I am a
tolerable shot, you know; and if he means evil, I shall nick him before
he can carry his carabine to his shoulder, take my word for it."

"Who is there, and what do you want?" No answer, the man above us
continued as still as if he had actually been a statue of bronze.
Presently one of the three men in the wood sounded a short snorting note
on a bullock's horn.

It would seem that until this moment their comrade above us had not been
aware of their vicinity, for he immediately called out in the patois of
St Domingo, "advance, and seize the travellers;" and thereupon was in
the act of raising his piece to his shoulder, when crack--Bang tired his
pistol. The man uttered a loud hah, but did not fall.

"Missed him, by all that is wonderful!" said my companion. "Now, Tom,
it is your turn."

I levelled, and was in the very act of pulling the trigger, when the
dark figure fell over slowly and stiffly on his back, and then began to
struggle violently, and to cough loudly, as if he were suffocating. At
length he rolled over and down the face of the rock, where he was caught
by a strong clump of brushwood, and there he hung, while the coughing
and crowing increased, and I felt a warm shower, as of heated water,
sputter over my face. It was hot hot and salt--God of my fathers! it
was blood. But there was no time for consideration; the three figures
by this had been reinforced by six more, and they now, with a most
fiendish yell, jumped down into the hollow basin, and surrounded us.

"Lay down your arms," one of them shouted.

"No," I exclaimed; "we are British officers, and armed, and determined
to sell our lives dearly; and if you do succeed in murdering us, you may
rest assured you shall be hunted down by bloodhounds."

I thought the game was up, and little dreamed that the name of Briton
would, amongst the fastnesses of Haiti, have proved a talisman; but it
did so. "We have no wish to injure you, but you must follow us, and see
our general," said the man who appeared to take the lead amongst them.
Here two of the men scrambled up the face of the rock, and brought their
wounded comrade down from where he hung, and laid him on the bank; he
had been shot through the lungs, and could not speak. After a minute's
conversation, they lifted him on their shoulders; and as our guide and
Monsieur Pegtop had been instantly bound, we were only two to nine armed
men, and accordingly had nothing for it but to follow the bearers of the
wounded man, with our horses tumbling and scrambling up the river
course, into which, by their order, we had now turned.

We proceeded in this way for about half a mile, when it was evident that
the jaded beasts could not travel farther amongst the twisted trunks of
trees and fragments of rock with which the river-course was now
strewed. We therefore dismounted, and were compelled to leave them in
charge of two of the brigands, and immediately began to scramble up the
hill-side, through a narrow footpath, in one of the otherwise most
impervious thickets that I had ever seen. Presently a black savage,
half-naked like his companions, hailed, and told us to stand. Some
password that we could not understand was given by our captors, and we
proceeded, still ascending, until, turning sharp off to the left, we
came suddenly round a pinnacle of rock, and looked down into a deep
dell, with a winding path leading to the brink of it. It was a round
cockpit of a place, surrounded with precipitous limestone-rocks on all
sides, from the fissures of which large trees and bushes sprung, while
the bottom was a level piece of ground, covered with long hay-like
grass, evidently much trodden down. Close to the high bank, right
opposite, and about thirty yards from us, a wood-fire was sparkling
cheerily against the grey rock; while, on the side next us, the roofs of
several huts were visible, but there was no one moving about that we
could see. The moment, however, that the man with the horn sounded a
rough and most unmelodious blast, there was a buzz and a stir below, and
many a short grunt arose out of the pit, and long yawns, and eigh,
eighs! while a dozen splinters of resinous wood were instantly lit, and
held aloft, by whose light I saw fifty or sixty half-naked, but well
armed blacks, gazing up at us from beneath, their white eyes and whiter
teeth glancing. Most of them had muskets and long knives, and several
wore the military shake, while others had their heads bound round with
the never-failing handkerchief. At length a fierce-looking fellow,
dressed in short drawers, a round blue jacket, a pair of epaulets, and a
most enormous cocked hat, placed a sort of rough ladder, a prank with
notches cut in it with a hatchet, against the bank next us, and in a
loud voice desired us to descend. I did so with fear and trembling, but
Mr Bang never lost his presence of mind for a moment; and, in answer to
the black chief's questions, I again rested our plea on our being
British officers, despatched on service from a squadron (and as I used
the word, the poor little Wave and solitary corvette rose up before me)
across the island to Jacmel, to communicate with another British force
lying there. The man heard me with great patience; but when I looked
round the circle of tatterdemalions, for there was ne'er a shirt in the
whole company--Falstaff's men were a joke to them--with their bright
arms sparkling to the red glare of the torches, that flared like tongues
of flame overhead, while they grinned with their ivory teeth, and glared
fiercely with their white eyeballs on us--I felt that our lives were not
worth an hour's purchase.

At length the leader spoke--"I am General Sanchez, driven to dispute
President Petion's sway by his injustice to me--but I trust our quarrel
is not hopeless; will you, gentlemen, on your return to Port-au-Prince,
use your influence with him to withdraw his decree against me?"

This was so much out of the way the idea of our being deputed to
mediate between such great personages as President Petion and one of his
rebel generals, was altogether so absurd, that, under other
circumstances, I would have laughed in the black fellow's face.
However, a jest here might have cost us our lives; so we looked serious,
and promised.

"Upon your honours"--said the poor fellow.

"Upon our words of honour"--we rejoined.

"Then embrace me"--and the savage thereupon, stinking of tobacco and
cocoa-nut oil, hugged me, and kissed me on both cheeks, and then did
the agreeable in a similar way to Mr Bang. Here the coughing and
moaning of the wounded man broke in upon the conference.

"What is that?" said Sanchez. One of his people told him. "Ah!" said
he, with a good deal of savageness in his tone--"A--ha! blood?"

We promptly explained how it happened;--for a few moments, I did not
know how he might take it.

"But I forgive you," at length said he--"however, my men may revenge
their comrade. You must drink and eat with them."

This was said aside to us, as it were. He ordered some roasted
plantains to be brought, and mixed some cruel bad tafia with water in an
enormous gourd. He ate, and then took a pull himself we followed,--and
he then walked round the circle, and carefully observed that every one
had tasted also. Being satisfied on this head, he abruptly ordered us
to ascend the ladder, and to pass on our way.

The poor fellow was mad, I believe. However, some time afterwards, the
President hunted him down, and got hold of him, but I believe he never
punished him. As for the wounded man, whether he did live or die, Tom
Cringle does not know.

We  were  reconducted by our former escort to where we left our  horses,
remounted, and without farther let or hinderance arrived by day dawn  at
the  straggling  town of Jacmel. The situation is very  beautiful, the
town  being  built on the hillside, looking out seaward on a  very  safe
roadstead, the anchorage being defended to the southward by bright  blue
shoals, and white breakers, that curl and roar over the coral reefs  and
ledges.  As  we  rode up to Mr S----'s, the principal merchant  in  the
place, and  a  Frenchman, we were again struck  with  the  dilapidated
condition  of the houses, and the generally ruinous state of  the  town.
The brown and black population appeared to be lounging about in the most
absolute  idleness; and here, as at Port-au-Prince, every  second  man
you  met was a soldier. The women sitting in their little shops, nicely
set  out  with  a  variety of gay printed goods, and the  crews  of  the
English vessels loading coffee, were the only individuals who seemed  to
be capable of any exertion.

"I say, Tom," quoth Massa Aaron, "do you see that old fellow there?"

"What? that old grey-headed negro sitting in the arbour there?"

"Yes--the patriarch is sitting under the shadow of his own Lima bean."

And so in very truth he was. The stem was three inches in diameter, and
the  branches had been trained along and over a sparred arch, and  were
loaded with pods.

"I shall believe in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, henceforth and
for ever," said I.

We were most kindly entertained by Mr S----, and spent two or three days
very happily. The evening of the day on which we arrived, we had
strolled out about nine o'clock to take the air--our host and his clerks
being busy in the counting-house--and were on our way home, when we
looked in on them at their desks, before ascending to the apartments
above. There were five clerks and Mr S----, all working away on the top
of their tall mahogany tripods, by the light of their brown home-made
wax candles, while three masters of merchantmen were sitting in a
corner, comparing bills of lading, making up manifests, and I do not
know what beside.

"It is now about time to close," said Mr S----; "have you any objection
to a little music, gentlemen? or are you too much fatigued?"

"Music--music," said Mr Bang, "I delight in good music, but"--He was
cut short by the whole bunch, the clerks and their master, closing their
ledgers, and journals, and day-books, and cashbooks with a bang, while
one hooked up a fiddle, another a clarionet, another a flute, &c, while
Mr S----offered, with a smile, his own clarionet to Massa Aaron, and
holding out at the same time, with the true good-breeding of a
Frenchman, a span-new reed. To my unutterable surprise he took it
sucked in his lips--wet the reed in his mouth; then passing his hand
across his muzzle, coolly asked Mr S----what the piece was to be?
"Adeste fideles, if you please," said S----, rather taken aback. Mr
Bang nodded--sounded a bar or two gave another very scientific flourish,
and then calmly awaited the opening. He then tendered a fiddle to me
altogether beyond my compass--but I offered to officiate on the
kettledrum, the drummer being competent to something else. At a signal
from our host away they all launched in full crash, and very melodious
it was too, let me tell you, Aaron's instrument telling most famously.

The next day we went to visit a tafia property in the neighbourhood. On
our way we passed a dozen miserable-looking blacks, cleaning canes,
followed by an ugly Turk of a brown man, almost naked, with the
omnipresent glazed cocked-hat, and a drawn cutlass in his hand. He was
abusing the poor devils most lustily as we rode along, and stood so
pertinaciously in the path, that I could not for the life of me pass
without jostling him. "Le vous demands pardon," said I, with a most
abject salaam to my saddle-bow. He knit his brows and shut his teeth
hard, as he ground out between the glancing ivory, "Sacre!--voila ces
foutres blancs la,"--clutching the hilt of his couteau firmly all the
while. I thought he would have struck me. But Mr S----coming up,
mollified the savage, and we rode on.

The tafia estate was a sore affair. It had once been a prosperous sugar
plantation, as the broken panes and ruined houses, blackened by fire,
were melancholy vouchers for; but now the whole cultivation was reduced
to about a couple of acres of wiry sugar canes, and the boiling and
distilling was carried on in a small unroofed nook of the original
works.

Two days after this we returned to Port-au-Prince, and I could not
help admiring the justness of Aaron's former description; for noisome
exhalations were rising thick, as the evening sun shone hot and sickly
on the long bank of fat black mud that covers the beach beneath the
town. We found Captain Transom at Mr S----'s. I made my report of the
state of the merchantmen loading on the south side of the island, and
returned to rest, deucedly tired and stiff with my ride. Next morning
Bang entered my room.

"Hillo, Tom--the skipper has been shouting for you this half hour--get
up, man--get up."

"My dear sir, I am awfully tired."

"Oh!" sung Bang--"'I have a silent sorrow here' eh?"

It  was true enough; no sailor rides seventy miles on end with impunity.
That  same evening we bid adieu to our excellent host Mr S----, and  the
rising  moon shone on us under weigh for Kingston, where two days  after
we  safely anchored with the homeward bound trade. "The roaring seas  Is
not  a place of ease," says a Point ditty. No more is the command of  a
small  schooner in the West Indies. We had scarcely anchored, when  the
boarding  officer  from the flag-ship brought me a  message  to  repair
thither immediately. I did so. As I stepped on deck, the lieutenant was
leaning  on  the  drumhead of the capstan, with  the  signal-book  open
before  him, while the signal-man was telling off the semaphore, which
was rattling away at the Admiral's pen, situated about five miles off.

"Ah!  Cringle," said he, without turning his head, "how are you? glad to
see you--wish you joy, my lad. Here, lend me a hand, will you? it
concerns you." I took the book, and as the man reported, I pieced the
following comfortable sentence together.

"Desire--Wave--fit--wood--water--instantly--to take convoy to Spanish
Main--to-morrow morning--Mr Cringle--remain on board--orders will be
sent--evening."

"Heigh ho, says Rowley," sang I Thomas, in great wrath and bitterness of
spirit.  "D----d  hard--am  I a duck, to live in  the  water  altogether,
entirely?"

"Tom, my  boy," sung out a voice from the water. It was Aaron  Bang's,
who, along  with  Transom, had seen me go on board the receiving  ship.
"Come  along, man--come along--Transom is going to make interest to  get
you a furlough on shore; so come along, and dine with us in Kingston."

"I  am ordered to sea to-morrow morning, my dear sir," said I, like  to
cry.--"No!"--"Too  true, too true." So no help for  it, I  took  a  sad
farewell  of  my friends, received my orders, laid in my provisions  and
water, hauled  out into the fairway, and sailed for Santa  Martha  next
morning at daybreak, with three merchant schooners under convoy one  for
Santa Martha--another for Carthagena--and the third for Porto-Bello.

We  sailed  on the 24th of such a month, and, after a pleasant  passage,
anchored  at  Santa Martha, at 8 AM, on the 31st.  When  we  came  to
anchor, we  saluted, which seemed to have been a  somewhat  unexpected
honour, as  the  return was fired from the fort after a most  primitive
fashion. A black fellow appeared with a shovel of live embers, one  of
which  another sans culotte caught up in his hand, chucking it from  one
palm  to  another, until he ran to the breech of the first  gun, where,
clapping  it  on the touch-hole, he fired it off, and so  on  seriatim,
through the whole battery, until the required number of guns were given,
several  of which, by the by, were shotted, as we could hear  the  balls
whiz overhead. The town lies on a small plain, at the foot of very high
mountains, or  rather on a sand-bank, formed from  the  washings  from
these  mountains. The summit of the highest of them, we could see  from
the deck, was covered with snow, which at sunrise, in the clear light of
the  cool  grey dawn, shone, when struck by the first rays of  the  sun,
like  one entire amethyst. Oh, how often I longed for the wings of  the
eagle, to  waft  me from the hot deck of the little vessel, where  the
thermometer  in  the  shade  stood at 95, far  up  amongst  the  shining
glaciers, to be comforted with cold!

One striking natural phenomenon is exhibited here, arising out of the
vicinity of this stupendous prong of the Cordilleras. The sea breeze
blows into the harbour all day, but in the night, or rather towards
morning, the cold air from the high regions rushes down, and blows with
such violence off the land, that my convoy and myself were nearly blown
out to sea the first night after we arrived; and it was only by
following the practice of the native craft, and anchoring close under
the lee of the beach--in fact, by having an anchor high and dry on the
shore itself--the player, as the Spaniards call it--that we could count
on riding through the night with security or comfort.

There are several small islands at the entrance of the harbour, on the
highest of which is a fort, that might easily be rendered impregnable;
it commands both the town and harbour. The place itself deserves little
notice; the houses are mean, and interspersed with negro huts, but there
is one fine church, with several tolerable paintings in it. One struck
me as especially grotesque, although I had often seen queer things in
Roman Catholic churches in Europe. It was a representation of Hell,
with Old Nicholas, under the guise of a dragon, entertaining himself
with the soul of an unfortunate heretic in his claws, who certainly
appeared far from comfortable; while a lot of his angels were washing
the sins off a set of fine young men, as you would the dirt off scabbit
potatoes, in a sea of liquid fire. But their saints!--I often rejoiced
that Aaron Bang was not with me; we should unquestionably have
quarrelled; for as to the manner in which they were dressed and
decorated, the most fantastic mode a girl ever did up her doll in, was a
joke to it. Still these wooden deities are treated with such
veneration; that I do believe their ornaments, which are of massive gold
and silver, are never, or very rarely, stolen.

On the evening of the 2nd of the following month we sailed again, but
having been baffled by calms and light winds, it was the 4th before we
anchored off the St Domingo gate at Carthagena, and next morning we
dropped down to Boca Chica, and saw our charge, a fine dashing schooner
of 150 tons, safe into the harbour. About 9 AM, we had weighed, but
we had scarcely got the anchor catted, when it came on to blow great
guns from the northwester most unusual thing hereabouts--so it was down
anchor again; and as I had made up my mind not to attempt it again
before morning, I got the gig in the water with all convenient speed;
and that same forenoon I reached the town, and immediately called on the
Viceroy, but under very different circumstances from the time Mr
Splinter and I had entered it along with the conquering army.

We dined with the magnate, and found a very large party assembled.
Amongst others, I especially recollect that the Inquisidor--General was
conspicuous; but every one, with the exception of the Captain General
and his immediate staff, was arrayed in gingham jackets; so there was
not much style in the affair.

I had before dinner an opportunity to inspect the works of Carthagena at
my leisure. It is unquestionably a very strong place, the walls, which
are built of solid masonry, being armed with at least three hundred
pieces of brass cannon, while the continued ebb and flow of the tide in
the ditch creates a current so strong, that it would be next to
impossible to fill it up, as fascines would be carried away by the
current--so that, were the walls even breached, it would be
impracticable to storm them. The appearance of Carthagena from the sea,
that is, from a vessel anchored off the St Domingo gate, is very
beautiful, and picturesque. It is situated on a sandy island, or rather
a group of islands; and the beach here shoals so gradually, that boats
of even very small draught of water cannot approach within musket-shot.
The walls and numerous batteries have a very commanding appearance. The
spires and towers on the churches are numerous, and many of them were
decorated with flags when we were there; and the green trees shooting up
amidst the red-tiled houses afforded a beautiful relief to the
prospect. A little behind the town, on a gentle acclivity, is the
citadel, or fort San Felipe, whose appearance conveys an idea of
impregnable strength; (but all this sort of thing, is it not written in
Roderick Random?) and on the ship like hill beyond it, the only other
eminence in the neighbourhood, stands the convent of the Popa, like a
poop lantern on the high stern of a ship, from which indeed it takes its
name. This convent had been strongly fortified; and, commanding San
Felipe, was of great use to Morillo, who carried it by assault during
the siege, and held it until the insurgents shelled him out from the
citadel. The effect, when I first saw it, was increased by the whole
scene--city, and batteries, and Popa--being reflected in the calm smooth
sea, as distinctly as if it had been glass; so clear, in fact, was the
reflection, that you could scarcely distinguish the shadow from the
reality. We weighed next morning--that is on the sixth of the month,
and arrived safe at Porto-Bello on the 11th, after a tedious passage,
during which we had continual rains, accompanied with vivid lightning
and tremendous thunder. I had expected to have fallen in with one of
our frigates here; but I afterwards learned that, although I had slid
down cheerily along shore, the weather current that prevailed farther
out at sea had swept her away to the eastward; so I ran in and anchored,
and immediately waited on the Governor, who received me in what might
once have been a barn, although it did not now deserve the name.

Porto--Bello was originally called Nombre de Dios, having received the
former name from the English when we took it. It is a miserable, dirty,
damp hole, surrounded by high forest-clad hills, round which
everlasting mists curl and obscure the sun, whose rays, at any chance
moment when they do reach the steamy swamp on which it is built or the
waters of the lead-coloured, land-locked cove that constitutes the
harbour, immediately exhale the thick sickly moisture, in clouds of
sluggish white vapours, smelling diabolically of decayed vegetables, and
slime, and mud. I will venture a remark that will be found, I am
persuaded, pretty near the truth, that there were twenty carrion crows
to be seen in the streets for every inhabitant--the people seem every
way worthy of such an abode, saffron, dingy, miserable, emaciated
looking devils. As for the place itself, it appeared to my eyes one
large hospital, inhabited by patients in the yellow fever. During the
whole of the following day, there was still no appearance of the
frigate, and I had in consequence now to execute the ulterior part of my
orders, which were, that if I did not find her at anchor when I arrived,
or if she did not make her appearance within forty eight hours
thereafter, I was myself to leave the Wave in Porto--Bello, and proceed
overland across the isthmus to Panama, and to deliver, on board of H. M.
S. Bandera, into the Captain's own hands, a large packet with despatches
from the Government at home, as I understood, of great importance,
touching the conduct of our squadron, with reference to the vagaries of
some of the mushroom American Republics on the Pacific. But if I fell
in with the frigate, then I was to deliver the said packet to the
Captain, and return immediately in the Wave to Port Royal.

Having, therefore, obtained letters from the Governor of Porto--Bello to
the Commandant at Chagres, I chartered a canoe with four stout canoemen
and a steersman, or patron, as he is called, to convey me to Cruzes; and
having laid in a good stock of eatables and drinkables, and selected the
black pilot, Peter Mangrove, to go as my servant, accompanied by his
never-failing companion, Sneezer, and taking my hammock and double
barrelled gun, and a brace of pistols with me, we shoved off at Six A.M.
on the morning of the 14th.

It was a rum sort of conveyance this said canoe of mine. In the first
place, it was near forty feet long, and only five broad at the broadest,
being hollowed out of one single wild cotton-tree; how this was to be
pulled through the sea on the coast, by four men, I could not divine.
However, I was assured by the old thief who chartered it to me, that it
would be all right; whereas, had my innocence not been imposed on, I
might, in a caiuco, or smaller canoe, have made the passage in one half
the time it took me.

About ten feet of the after part was thatched with palm leaves, over a
framework of broad ash hoops; which awning, called the toldo, was open
both towards the steersman that guided us with a long broad-bladed
paddle in the stern, and in the direction of the men forward, who, on
starting, stripped themselves stark naked, and, giving a loud yell every
now and then, began to pull their oars, or long paddles, after a most
extraordinary fashion. First, when they lay back to the strain, they
jumped backwards and upwards on to the thwart with their feet, and then,
as they once more feathered their paddles again, they came crack down on
their bottoms with a loud skelp on the seats, upon which they again
mounted at the next stroke, and so on.

When we cleared the harbour it was fine and serene, but about noon it
came on to blow violently from the northeast. All this while we were
coasting it along about pistol-shot from the white coral beach, with
the clear light green swell on our right hand, and beyond it the dark
and stormy waters of the blue rolling ocean; and the snow-white roaring
surf on our left. By the time I speak of, the swell had been lashed up
into breaking waves, and after shipping more salt water than I had
bargained for, we were obliged, about four PM, to shove into a cove
within the reef, called Naranja.

Along this part of the coast there is a chain of salt-water lagoons,
divided from the sea by the coral beach, the crest of which is covered
here and there with clumps of stunted mangroves.

This beach, strangely enough, is higher than the land immediately behind
it, as if it had been a dike, or natural breakwater, thrown up by the
sea. Every here and there, there were gaps in this natural dike, and it
was through one of these we shoved, and soon swung to our grapnel in
perfect security, but in a most outlandish situation certainly.

As we rode to the easterly breeze, there was the beach as described,
almost level with the water, on our left hand, the land or lee side of
it covered with most beautiful white sand and shells, with whole warrens
of land-crabs running out and in their holes like little rabbits, their
tiny green bodies seeming to roll up and down, for I was not near enough
to see their feet, or the mode of their locomotion, like bushels of
grapeshot trundling all about on the shining white shore. Beyond, the
roaring surf was flashing up over the clumps of green bushes, and
thundering on the seaward face. On the right hand, ahead of us, and
astern of us, the prospect was shut in by impervious thickets of
mangroves, while in the distance the blue hills rose glimmering and
indistinct, as seen through the steamy atmosphere. We were anchored in
a stripe of clear water, about three hundred yards long by fifty broad.
There, was a clear space abeam of us landward, of about half an acre in
extent, on which was built a solitary Indian hut close to the water's
edge, with a small canoe drawn up close to the door. We had not been
long at anchor when the canoe was launched, and a monkey--looking naked
old man paddled off, and brought us a most beautiful chicken turtle,
some yams, and a few oranges. I asked him his price. He rejoined, "Por
amor de Dios"--that it was his saint's day, and he meant it as a gift.
However, he did not refuse a dollar when tendered to him before he
paddled away.

That night, when we were all at supper, master and men, I heard and felt
a sharp crack against the side of the canoe. "Hillo, Peter, what is
that?" said I.

"Nothing, sir," quoth Peter, who was enjoying his scraps abaft, with the
headman, patron, or whatever you may call him, of my crew. There was a
blazing fire kindled on a bed of white sand, forward in the bow of the
canoe, round which the four bogas, or canoemen, were seated, with three
sticks stuck up triangularly over the fire, from which depended an
earthen pot, in which they were cooking their suppers.

I had rigged my hammock between the foremost and aftermost hoops of the
toldo, and as I was fatigued and sleepy, and it was now getting late, I
desired to betake myself to rest; so I was just flirting with a piece of
ham, preparatory to the cold grog, when I again felt a similar thump and
rattle against the side of the canoe. There was a small aperture in the
palm thatch, right opposite to where I was sitting, on the outside of
which I now heard a rustling noise, and presently a long snout was
thrust through, and into the canoe, which kept opening and shutting with
a sharp rattling noise. It was more like two long splinters of mud
covered and half-decayed timber, than any thing I can compare it to;
but as the lower jaw was opened, like a pair of Brobdignag scissors, a
formidable row of teeth was unmasked, the snout from the tip to the eyes
being nearly three feet long. The scene at this moment was exceedingly
good, as seen by the light of a small, bright, silver lamp, fed with
spirits of wine, that I always travelled with, which hung from one of
the hoops of the toldo. First, there was our friend Peter Mangrove,
cowering in a corner under the after part of the awning, covered up with
a blanket, and shaken as if with an ague-fit, with the patron peering
over his shoulder, no less alarmed. Sneezer, the dog, was sitting on
end, with his black nose resting on the table, waiting patiently for his
crumbs; and the black boatmen were forward in the bow of the canoe,
jabbering, and laughing, and munching, as they clustered round a
sparkling fire. When I first saw the apparition of the diabolical
looking snout, I was in a manner fascinated, and could neither speak nor
move. Mangrove and the patron were also paralysed with fear, and the
others did not see it; so Sneezer was the only creature amongst us,
aware of the danger, who seemed to have his wits about him, for the
instant he noticed it, he calmly lifted his nose off the table, and gave
a short startled bark, and then crouched and drew himself back as if in
the act to spring, glancing his eyes from the monstrous jaws to my face,
and nuzzling and whining with a laughing expression, and giving a small
yelp now and then, and again riveting his eyes with intense earnestness
on the alligator, telling me as plainly as if he had spoken it--"If you
choose, master, I will attack it, as in duty bound, but really such a
customer is not at all in my way." And not only did he say this, but he
shewed his intellect was clear, and no way warped through fear, for he
now stood on his hind legs, and holding on the hammock with his fore
paws, he thrust his snout below the pillow, and pulled out one of my
pistols, which always garnished the head of my bed, on such expeditions
as the present.

My presence of mind returned at witnessing the courage and sagacity of
my noble dog. I seized the loaded pistol, and as by this time the eyes
of the alligator were inside of the toldo, I clapped the muzzle to the
larboard one, and fired. The creature jerked back so suddenly and
convulsively, that part of the toldo was tom away: and as the dead
monster fell off, the canoe rolled as if in a seaway. My crew shouted
"Que es esto?" Peter Mangrove cheered--Sneezer barked and yelled at a
glorious rate, and could scarcely be held in the canoe--and looking
overboard, we saw the monster, twelve feet long at least, upturn his
white belly to the rising moon, struggle for a moment with his short
paws, and after a solitary heavy lash of his scaly tale, he floated away
astern of us, dead and still. To proceed poor Peter Mangrove, whose
nerves were consumedly shaken by this interlude, was seized during the
night with a roasting fever, brought on in a great measure, I believe,
by fear, at finding himself so far out of his latitude; and that he had
grievous doubts as to the issue of our voyage, and as to where we were
bound for, was abundantly evident. I dosed him most copiously with salt
water, a very cooling medicine, and no lack of it at hand.

We weighed at grey dawn, on the morning of the 15th, and at 11 o'clock,
AM arrived at Chagres, a more miserable place, were that credible, even
than Porto--Bello. The eastern side of the harbour is formed by a small
promontory that runs out into the sea about five hundred yards, with a
bright little bay to windward; while a long muddy mangrove-covered spit
forms the right hand bank as you enter the mouth or estuary of the river
Chagres on the west. The easternmost bluff is a narrow saddle, with a
fort erected on the extreme point facing the sea, which, so far as
situation is concerned, is, or ought to be, impregnable, the rock being
precipitous on three faces, while it is cut off to landward by a deep
dry ditch, about thirty feet wide, across which a movable drawbridge is
let down, and this compartment of the defences is all very regular, with
scarp and counterscarp, covered--way and glacis. The brass guns mounted
on the castle were numerous and beautiful, but every thing was in
miserable disrepair; several of the guns, for instance, had settled down
bodily on the platform, having fallen through the crushed rotten
carriages. I found an efficient garrison in this stronghold of three old
negroes, who had not even a musket of any kind, but the commandant was
not in the castle when I paid my visit; however, one of the invincibles
undertook to pilot me to El Senor Torre's house, where his honour was
dining. The best house in the place this was, by the by, although only
a thatched hut; and here I found his Excellency the Commandant, a little
shrivelled insignificant-looking creature. He was about sitting down
to his dinner, of which he invited me to partake, and as I was very
hungry, I contrived to do justice to the first dish, but my stomach was
grievously offended at the second, which seemed to me to be a compound
of garlic, brick dust, and train oil, so that I was glad to hurry on
board of my canoe, to settle all with a little good Madeira.

At four P.m. I proceeded up the river, which is here about a hundred
yards across, and very deep; it rolls sluggishly along through a low
swampy country, covered to the water's edge with thick sedges and
underwood, below which the water stagnates, and generates myriads of
musquittoes, and other troublesome insects, and sends up whole clouds of
noxious vapours, redolent of yellow fever, and ague, and cramps, and all
manner of comfortable things.

At ten P.M. we anchored by a grapnel in the stream, and I set Peter
Mangrove forthwith to officiate in his new capacity of cook, and really
he made a deuced good one. I then slung my hammock under the toldo, and
lighting a slow match, at the end of it forwards, to smoke away the
musquittoes, having previously covered the aftermost end with a mat, I
wrapped myself in my cloak, and turned in to take my snooze. We weighed
again about two in the morning. As the day dawned the dull grey steamy
clouds settled down on us once more, while the rain fell in a regular
waterspout. It was anything but a cheering prospect to look along the
dreary vistas of the dull brimful Lethe-like stream, with nothing to be
seen but the heavy lowering sky above, the red swollen water beneath,
and the gigantic trees high towering overhead, and growing close to the
water's edge, laced together with black snake-like withes, while the
jungle was thick and impervious, and actually grew down into the water,
for beach, or shore, or cleared bank, there was none,--all water and
underwood, except where a heavy soft slimy steaming black bank of mud
hove its shining back from out the dead waters near the shore, with one
or more monstrous alligators sleeping on it, like dirty rotten logs of
wood, scarcely deigning to lift their abominable long snouts to look at
us as we passed, or to raise their long scaly tails, with the black mud
sticking to the scales in great lumps--oh--horrible--most horrible!  But
the creatures, although no beauties certainly, are harmless after all.
For instance, I never heard a well-authenticated case of their
attacking a human being hereabouts; pigs and fowls they do tithe,
however, like any parson. I don't mean to say that they would not make
free with a little fat dumpling of a piccaniny, if he were thrown to
them, but they seem to have no ferocious propensities. I shot one of
them; he was about twelve feet long; the bullet entered in the joints of
the mail, below the shoulder of the fore paw, where the hide was tender;
but if you fire at them with the scale, that is, with the monster
looking at you, a musket ball will glance. I have often in this my log
spoken of the Brobdignag lizards, the guanas. I brought down one this
day, about three feet long, and found it, notwithstanding its dragon
like appearance, very good eating. At eleven AM on the 18th, we
arrived at the village of Cruzes, the point where the river ceases to be
navigable for canoes, and from whence you take horse, or rather mule,
for Panama. For about fifteen or twenty miles below Cruzes, the river
becomes rapid, and full of shoals, when the oars are laid aside, and the
canoes are propelled by long poles.

The Town, as it is called, is a poor miserable place, composed chiefly
of negro huts; however, a Spanish trader of the name of Villaverde, who
had come over in the Wave as a passenger, and had preceded me in a
lighter canoe, and to whom I had shown some kindness, now repaid it, as
far as lay in his power.

He lodged me for the night, and hired mules for me to proceed to Panama
in the morning; so I slung my hammock in an old Spanish soldier's house,
who keeps a kind of posada, and was called by my friend Villaverde at
daydawn, whose object was, not to tell me to get ready for my journey,
but to ask me if I would go and bathe before starting. Rather a rum
sort of request, it struck me; nevertheless, a purification, after the
many disagreeables I had endured, could not come amiss; and slipping on
my trowsers, and casting my cloak on my shoulders, away we trudged to a
very beautiful spot, about a mile above Cruzes, where, to my surprise, I
found a score of Crusafios, all Altering in the water, puffing and
blowing and shouting. Now an alligator might pick and choose, thought
I; however, no one seemed in the least afraid, so I dashed amongst them.
Presently, about pistol-shot from us, a group of females appeared.
Come, thought I, rather too much for a modest young man this too; and
deuce take me, as I am a gentleman, if the whole bevy did not disrobe in
cold blood, and squatter, naked as their mother Eve was in the garden of
Eden, before she took to the herbage, right into the middle of the
stream, skirting and laughing, as if not even a male musquitto had been
within twenty miles. However, my neighbour took no notice of them; it
seemed all a matter of course. But let that pass. About eight o'clock
A.M. I got under weigh, with Peter Mangrove, on two good stout mules,
and a black guide running before me with a long stick, with which he
sprung over the sloughs and stones in the road with great agility; I
would have backed him against many a passable hunter, to do four miles
over a close country in a steeple-chase.

Panama is distant from Cruzes about seven leagues. The road is somewhat
like what the Highland ones must have been before General Wade took them
in hand, and only passable for mules; indeed, in many places where it
had been hewn out of the rock in zigzags on the face of the hill, it is
scarcely passable for two persons meeting. But the scenery on each side
is very beautiful, as it winds, for the most part, amongst steep rocks,
over shadowed by magnificent trees, amongst which birds of all sizes,
and of the most beautiful plumage, are perpetually glancing, while a
monkey, every here and there, would sit grimacing, and chattering, and
scratching himself in the cleft of a tree.

I should think, judging from my barometer--but I may have made an
inaccurate calculation, and I have not Humboldt by me--that the ridge of
the highest is fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, so that
it would be next to impossible to join the two seas at this point by a
canal with water in it. However, I expect to see a joint Stock Company
set a-going some fine day yet for the purpose of cutting it, that is,
when the national capital next accumulates (and Lord knows when that
will be) to a plethora, and people's purses become so distended that
they require bleeding.

After travelling about twenty miles, the scene gradually opens, and one
begins to dream about Vasco Nunez and the enthusiastic first explorers
of the Isthmus; but my first view of the Pacific was through a drenching
shower of rain, that wet me to the skin, and rather kept my imagination
under, for this said imagination of mine is like a barn-door chuckey
brisk and crouse enough when the sun shines, and the sky is blue, and
plenty of grub at hand, but I can't write poetry when I am could, and
hungry, and drooked. Still, when I caught my first glimpse of the
distant Pacific, I felt that, even through a miserable drizzle, it was a
noble prospect.

As you proceed, you occasionally pass through small open savannahs,
which become larger, and the clear spaces wider, until the forest you
have been travelling under gradually breaks into beautiful clumps of
trees, like those in a gentleman's park, and every here and there a
placid clear piece of water spreads out, full of pond turtle, which I
believe to be one and the same with the tortoise, and eels; the latter
of which, by the by, are very sociable creatures, for in the clear
moonlight nights, with the bright sparkling dew on the short moist
grass, they frequently travel from one pond to another, wriggling along
the grass like snakes. I have myself found them fifty yards from the
water; but whether the errand was love or war, or merely to drink tea
with some of the slippery young females in the next pool, and then
return again, the deponent sayeth not.

As you approach the town, the open spaces before-mentioned become more
frequent, until at length you gain a rising ground, about three miles
from Panama, where, as the sun again shone out, the view became truly
enchanting.

There lay the town of Panama, built on a small tongue of land, jutting
into the Pacific, surrounded by walls, which might have been a
formidable defence once, but I wish my promotion depended on my rattling
the old bricks and stones about their ears, with one single frigate, if
I could only get near enough; but in the impossibility of this lies the
strength of the place, as the water shoals so gradually, that the tide
retires nearly a mile and a half from the walls, rising, I consider,
near eighteen feet at the springs, while, on the opposite side of the
Isthmus, at Chagres for instance, there is scarcely any at all, the gulf
stream neutralizing it almost entirely.

On the right hand a hill overhangs the town, rising precipitously to the
height of a thousand feet or thereabouts, on the extreme pinnacle of
which is erected a signal station, called the Vigia, which, at the
instant I saw it, was telegraphing to some craft out at sea. As for the
city, to assume our friend Mr Bang's mode of description, it was shaped
like a tadpole, the body representing the city, and the suburb the tail;
or a stewpan, the city and its fortifications being the pan, while the
handle, tending obliquely towards us, was the Raval, or long street,
extending Savannahward, without the walls. At the distance from which
we viewed it, the red-tiled houses, cathedral, with its towers, and the
numerous monasteries and nunneries, seemed girt in with a white ribbon,
while a series of black spots here and there denoted the cannon on the
batteries. To the left of the town, there was a whole flotilla of small
craft, brigs, schooners, and vegetable boats; while farther out at sea,
beyond the fortifications, three large ships rode at anchor; and beyond
them again, the beautiful group of islands lying about five miles off
the town, appeared to float on and were reflected in the calm, glasslike
expanse of the Pacific, like emeralds chased in silver, while the ocean
itself, towards the horizon, seemed to rise up like a scene in a
theatre, or a burnished bright silver wall, growing more and more blue,
and hazy and indistinct, as it ascended, until it melted into the
cloudless heaven, so that no one could tell where water and sky met.

        "Thou glorious mirror, in all time,
        Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm,
        Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
        Dark heaving boundless, endless, and sublime,
        The image of Eternity--the throne
        Of the Invisible."

While a sperm whale every now and then rose between us and the islands,
and spouted up a high double jet into the air, like a blast of steam,
and then, with a heavy flounder of his broad tail, slowly sank again;
and a boat here and there glided athwart the scene, and a sleepy sail
arose with a slow motion and a fitful rattle, and a greasy cheep, on the
mast of some vessel, getting all ready to weigh, while small floating
trails of blue smoke were streaming away astern from the tiny cabooses
of the craft at anchor, and a mournful distant "yo heave oh" came
booming past us on the light air, and the everlasting tinkle of the
convent bells sounded cheerily, and the lowing of the kine around us
called up old associations in my bosom, as I looked forth on the
glorious spectacle from beneath a magnificent bower of orange-trees and
shaddocks, while all manner of wild-flowers blossomed and bloomed
around us.

We arrived at Panama about three PM, covered to the eyes with mud, and
after some little difficulty, I found out Senor Hombrecillo Justo's
house, who received me very kindly. Next morning I waited on the
Governor, made my bow and told him my errand. He was abundantly civil;
professing himself ready to serve me in any way, and promising to give
me the earliest intelligence of the arrival of the Bandera. I then
returned to mine host's, to whom I had strong letters of introduction
from some Kingston friends.

I soon found that I had landed amongst a family of originals. Mine host
was a little thin withered body, with a face that might have vied with
the monkey whom the council of Aberdeen took for a sugar planter. He
wore his own grey hair in a long greasy queue, and his costume, when I
first saw him, was white cotton stockings, white jean small clothes and
waistcoat, and a little light-blue silk coat; he wore large solid gold
buckles in his shoes, and knee-buckles of the same. His voice was
small and squeaking, and when heated in argument, or crossed by any
member of family,--and he was very touchy--it became so shrill and
indistinct that it pierced the ear without being in the least
intelligible. In those paroxysms he did not walk, but sprung from place
to place like a grasshopper, with unlooked-for agility, avoiding the
chairs and tables and other movables with great dexterity. I often
thought he would have broken whatever came in his way; but although his
erratic orbit was small, he performed his evolutions with great
precision and security. His general temper, however, was very kind,
humane, and good-humoured, and he seldom remained long under the
influence of passion. His character, both as a man and a merchant, was
unimpeachable, and, indeed, proverbial in the place. His better half
appeared to be some years older, and also a good deal of an original.
She was a little short thick woman; but, stout as she was when I had the
honour of an embrace, she must have been once much stouter, for her skin
appeared from the colour and texture to have come to her at second
hand, and to have originally belonged to a much larger person, for it
bagged and hung in flaps about her jowls and bosom, like an ill-cut
maintopsail, which sits clumsily about the clews. I think I could have
reefed her with advantage, below the chin.

Her usual dress was a shift, with a whole sailroom of frills about the
sleeves and bosom, and a heavy pink taffeta petticoat, (gowns being only
worn by these fair ones as you put on a greatcoat, that is, when they go
abroad,) and a small round apron like a flap of black silk. Over these
she wore a Spanish aroba, or twenty-five pounds weight of gold chains,
saints, and crucifixes, and a large black velvet patch, of the size of a
wafer, on each temple, which I found, by the by, to be an ornament very
much in fashion amongst the fair of Panama. Her hair, or rather the
scanty remnant thereof, was plaited into two grizzled braids, with a
black bow of ribbon at the end of each, and hung straight down her back.
Like may excellent wives, she loved to circulate her spouse's blood by a
little well-timed opposition now and then; but she never tried her
strength too far, and she always softened down in proportion as he waxed
energetic, and began to accelerate his motions, so that by the time he
had given one or two hops, she had either fairly given in, or moved out.
They had no children, but had in a manner adopted a little black
creature about four years old, which, being a female, the lady had
christened by the familiar diminutive of Diablita.

Another curiosity was the maternal aunt of Don Hombrecillo, a little
superannuated woman about four feet high, if she could have stood erect,
but old age had long since bent her nearly double; she was on the verge
of eighty-five years of age, and had outlived all her faculties. This
poor old creature, in place of being respectably lodged and taken care
of, was allowed to go about the house, tame, without any fixed abode so
far as I could learn; nor did she always meet with that attention, I am
sorry to say it, from the family, or even from the servants, that she
was entitled to from her extreme helplessness. She had a droll custom
of eating all her meals walking, and it was her practice to move around
the dinner-table in this her dotage, and to commit pranks, that,
against my will, made me laugh, and even in despite of the feelings of
pity and self-humiliation that arose in my bosom at the sight of such
miserable imbecility in a fellow-creature. Thus keeping on the wing as
I have described, it was her practice to cruise about behind the chairs,
occasionally snatching pieces of food from before the guests, so slyly,
that the first intimation of her intentions was the appearance of her
yellow shrivelled birdlike claw in your plate.

The brother of our host was a little stout man, but still very like
Senor Justo himself. For instance, I always gloried in likening the
latter to a dried prune; then, to conceive of his plump brother, imagine
him boiled, and so swell out the creases in his skin, and there you have
him.

This little dumpling was very asthmatic, and used to blow like a
porpoise by the time he reached the top of the stairs. The only time he
had ever been out of Panama was whilst he made a short visit to Lima,
the wonders of which he used to chant unceasingly. But the continual
cause of my annoyance--I fear I must write disgust--was the stepmother
of mine host, a large fat dirty old woman. She had a pouch under her
chin like a pelican, while her complexion, from the quantity of oil and
foul feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany. She
despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly
devouring her meat with her fingers, whatever its consistency might be;
if flesh, she tore it with both hands; if soup, she--bah! and, as the
devil would have it, the venerable beauty chose to take a fancy to me.
Oh, she was a balloon! I have often expected to see her rise to the
roof.

These polished personages may be called Senor Justo's family, but it was
occasionally increased by various others; none of whom, however, can I
heave-to to describe at present.

The day after my arrival, the operation of covering dollar boxes with
wet hides had been going on in the dinner saloon the whole forenoon,
which drove me forth to look about me; but I returned about half-past
two, this being the hour of dinner, and found all the family, excepting
mine hostess, assembled, and my appearance was the signal for dinner
being ordered in. I may mention here, that this worthy family were all
firmly impressed with the idea, that an Englishman was an ostrich,
possessing a stomach capable of holding and digesting four times as much
as any other person; and under this belief they were so outrageously
kind, that I was often literally stuffed to suffocation when I first
came amongst them; and when at length I resolutely refused to be
immolated after this fashion, they swore I was sick, or did not like my
food, which was next door to insulting them. El Senor Justo's fat
dumpling of a brother thought medical advice ought to be taken, for when
he was in Lima several seamen belonging to an English whaler had died,
and he had remarked, the twaddling body, that they had invariably lost
their appetites previous to their dissolution.

But to return. Dinner being ordered, was promptly placed on the table,
and mine host insisted on planting me at the foot thereof, while he sat
on my left hand; so the party sat down; but the chair opposite, that
ought to have been filled by Madama herself, was still vacant.

"Adonde esta su ama," quoth Don Hombrecillo to one of the black waiting
wenches. The girl said she did not know, but she would go and see. It
is necessary to mention here that the worthy Senor's counting-house was
in a back building, separated from the house that fronted the street by
a narrow court, and in a small closet off this counting-house, my
quatre had been rigged the previous night, and there had my luggage been
deposited. Amongst other articles in my commissariat, there was a
basket with half-a-dozen of champagne, and some hock, and a bottle of
brandy, that I had placed under Peter Mangrove's care to comfort us in
the wilderness. We all lay back in our chairs to wait for the lady of
the house, but neither did she nor Tomassa, the name of the handmaiden
who had been despatched in search of her, seem inclined to make their
appearance. Don Hombrecillo became impatient.

"Josefa,"--to another of the servants--"run and desire your mistress to
come here immediately." Away she flew, but neither did this second
pigeon return. Mine host now lost his temper entirely, and spluttered
out, as loud as he could roar, "Somos comiendo, Panchita, somos
comiendo;" and forthwith, as if in spite, he began to fork up his food,
until he had nearly choked himself. Presently a short startled scream
was heard from the counting-house, then a low suppressed laugh, then a
loud shout, a long uproarious peal of laughter, and the two black
servants came thundering across the wooden gangway or drawbridge, that
connected the room where we sat with the outhouse, driven onwards by
their mistress herself. They flew across the end of the dining room
into the small balcony fronting the lane and began without ceremony to
shout across the narrow street to a Carmelite priest, who was in a
gallery of the opposite monastery, "that their mistress was possessed."

Presently in danced our landlady, in propria persona, jumping and
screaming and laughing, and snapping her fingers, and spinning round
like a Turkish dervish, "mira el fandango, mira el fandangodexa me
baylar, dexa me baylar--See my fandango, see my fandangolet me dance
let me dance--ha, ha, ha."

"Panchita," screamed Justo, in extreme wrath, "tu es loco, you are mad
sit down, por amor de Dios--seas decente--be decent."

She continued gamboling about, "loven soy y virgin--I am young and a
virgin--y tu Viejo diablo que queres tu,--and you, old devil, what do
you want, eh?--Una virgin por Dios soy--I am young," and seizing a
boiled fowl from the dish, she let fly at her husband's head, but missed
him, fortunately; whereupon she made a regular grab at him with her paw,
but he slid under the table, in all haste, roaring out,--"Ave Maria, que
es esso--manda por el Padre--Send for the priest, y trae una puerco, en
donde echar el demonio, manda, manda--send for a priest, and a pig, into
which the demon may be cast,--send--" "Dexa me, dexa me baylar"
continued the old dame--"tu no vale, Bobo viejo, you are of no use, you
old blockhead--you are a forked radish, and not a man--let me catch you,
let me catch you," and here she made a second attempt, and got hold of
his queue, by which she forcibly dragged him from beneath the table,
until fortunately, the ribbon that tied it slid off in her hand, and the
little Senor instantly ran back to this burrow, with the speed of a
rabbit, while his wife sung out, "tu gastas calzones, eh? para que,
damelos damelos, yo los quitare?" and if she had caught the worthy man,
I believe she would really have shaken him out of his garments, peeled
him on the spot, and appropriated them to herself as her threat ran. "I
am a cat, a dog, and the devilhoo--hoo--hoo--let me catch you, you
miserable wretch, you forked radish, and if I don't peel off your
breeches,--I shall wear them, I shall wear them,--Ave Maria." Here she
threw herself into a chair, being completely blown; but after a gasp or
two, she started to her legs again, dancing and singing and snapping her
fingers, as if she had held castanets between them, "Venga--Venga--dexa
me baylar Dankee, Dankee la--Dankee, Dankee la--mi guitarra--mi
guitarra Dankee, Dankee la--ha, ha, ha,"--and away she trundled down
stairs again, where she met the priest who had been sent for, in the
lower hall, who happened to be very handsome young man. Seeing the
state she was in, and utterly unable to account for it, he bobbed, as
she threw herself on him, eluded her embraces, and then bolted up
stairs, followed by Mrs Potiphart at full speed.--"Padre, father," cried
she, "stop till I peel that forked radish there, and I will give you his
breeches--Dankee, Dankee." All this while, Don Hombrecillo was squeaking
out from his lair, at the top of his pipe--"Padre, padre, trae el
puerco, venga el puerco--echar el demonio--echar el demonio bring the
pig, the pig, and cast out the devil."--"Mi guitarra, canta, canta y
bayle, viejo diablito, canta o yo te matarras--Bring my guitar, dance,
dance and sing, you little old devil you, or I'll murder you, dankee,
dankee."

In fine, I was at length obliged to lend a hand, and she was bodily laid
hold of, and put to bed, where she soon fell into a sound sleep, and
next morning awoke in her sound senses, totally unconscious of all that
had passed, excepting that she remembered having taken a glass of the
Englishman's small beer.

Now the secret was out. The worthy woman, like most South American
Spaniards, was distractedly fond of cervesa blanca, or small beer, and
seeing the champagne bottles with their wired corks (beer requiring to
be so secured in hot climates,) in my basket, she could not resist
making free with a bottle, and, as I charitably concluded, small beer
being a rarity in those countries, she did not find out the difference
until it was made evident by the issue; however, I have it from
authority, that she never afterwards ventured on any thing weaker than
brandy, and from that hour, utterly eschewed that most dangerous liquor,
cervesa blanca.



CHAPTER XVIII. Tropical High-links


     "Now, massa, pipe belay
     Wid your weary, weary Log, O;
     Peter sick of him, me say,
     Ah! sick more as one dog, O."

     --The Humble Petition Of
     Peter Mangrove, Branch Pilot.


Like all Portuguese towns, and most Spanish, Panama does not realize the
idea which a stranger forms of it from the first view, as he descends
from the savannah. The houses are generally built of wood, and three
stories high: in the first or ground floor, are the shops; in the
second, the merchants have their warehouses; and in the third, they
usually live with their families. Those three different regions, sorry
am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed they may be said to be the
positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There
are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the
shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture
is miserably scanty--some old fashioned, high backed, hardwood chairs,
with a profusion of tarnished gilding; a table or two, in the same
style, with a long grass hammock slung from corner to corner,
intersecting the room diagonally, which, as they hang very low, about
six inches only from the floor, it was not once only, that entering a
house during the siesta, when the windows were darkened, I have tumbled
headlong over a Don or Dofia, taking his or her forenoon nap. But if
movables were scarce, there was no paucity of silver dishes; basins,
spit boxes, censers, and utensils of all shapes, descriptions, and
sizes, of this precious metal, were scattered about without any order or
regularity, while some nameless articles, also of silver, were thrust
far out of their latitude, and shone conspicuously in the very centre of
the rooms. The floors were usually either of hard-wood plank, ill
kept; or terraced, or tiled; some indeed were flagged with marble, but
this was rare; and as for the luxury of a carpet, it was utterly
unknown, the nearest approach to it being a grass mat, plaited prettily
enough, called an estera. Round the walls of the house are usually hung
a lot of dingy faced, worm eaten pictures of saints, and several
crucifixes, which appear to be held in great veneration. The streets
are paved, but exceedingly indifferently; and the frequent rains, or
rather waterspouts, (and from the position of the place, between the two
vast oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific, they have considerably more
than their own share of moisture,) washing away the soil and sand from
between the stones, render the footing for bass of all kinds extremely
insecure. There are five monasteries of different orders, and a convent
of nuns, within the walls, most of which, I believe, are but poorly
endowed. All these have handsome churches attached to them; that of La
Merced is very splendid. The cathedral is also a fine building, with
some good pictures, and several lay relics of Pizarro, Almagro, and
Vasco Nufiez, that riveted my attention; while their fragments of the
Vera Cruz, and arrow points that had quivered in the muscles of St
Sebastian, were passed by as weak inventions of the enemy.

The week after my arrival was a fast, the men eating only once in the
twenty our hours, (as for the women, who the deuce can tell how often a
woman eats?) and during this period all the houses were stripped of
their pictures, lamps, and ornaments, to dress out the churches, which
were beautifully illuminated in the evenings, while a succession of
friars performed service in them continually. High mass is, even to the
eye of a heretic, a very splendid ceremony; and the music in this
outlandish corner was unexpectedly good, every thing considered; in the
church of La Merced, especially, they had a very fine organ, and the
congregation joined in the Jubilate with very good taste. By the way,
in this same church, on the right of the high altar, there was a deep
and lofty recess, covered with a thick black veil, in which stood
concealed a figure of our Saviour, as large as life, hanging on a great
cross, with the blood flowing from his wounds, and all kinds of horrible
accompaniments. At a certain stage of the service, a drum was beaten by
one of the brethren, upon which the veil was withdrawn, when the whole
congregation prostrated themselves before the image, with every
appearance of the greatest devotion. Even the passengers in the streets
within ear-shot of the drum, stopped and uncovered themselves, and
muttered a prayer; while the inmates of the houses knelt, and crossed
themselves, with all the externals of deep humility; although, very
probably, they were at the moment calculating in their minds the profits
on the last adventure from Kingston. One custom particularly struck me
as being very beautiful. As the night shuts in, after a noisy prelude
on all the old pots in the different steeples throughout the city, there
is a dead pause; presently the great bell of the cathedral tolls slowly,
once or twice, at which every person stops from his employment, whatever
that may be, or wherever he may be, uncovers himself, and says a short
prayer--all hands remaining still and silent for a minute or more, when
the great bell tolls again, and once more every thing rolls on as usual.

On the fourth evening of my residence in Panama, I had retired early to
rest. My trusty knave, Peter Mangrove, and trustier still, my dog
Sneezer, had both fallen asleep on the floor, at the foot of my bed, if
the piece of machinery on which I lay deserved that name, when in the
dead of night I was awakened by a slight noise at the door. I shook
myself and listened. Presently it opened, and the old woman that I have
already described as part and portion of Don Hombrecillo Justo's family,
entered the room in her usual very scanty dress, with a lighted candle
in her hand, led by a little naked negro child. I was curious to see
what she would do, but I was not certain how the dog might relish the
intrusion; so I put my hand over my quatre, and snapping my finger and
thumb, Sneezer immediately rose and came to my bedside. I immediately
judged, from the comical expression of his face, as seen by the taper of
the intruder, that he thought it was some piece of fun, for he walked
quietly up, and confronting the old lady, deliberately took the
candlestick out of her hand. The little black urchin thereupon began
shouting, "Perro Demonio--Perro Demonio" and in their struggle to
escape, she and the old lady tumbled headlong over the sleeping pilot,
whereby the candle was extinguished, and we were left in utter darkness.
I had therefore nothing for it but to get out of bed, and go down to the
cobbler, who lived in the entresol, to get a light. He had not gone to
sleep and I gave him no small alarm; indeed he was near absconding at
my unseasonable intrusion, but at length I obtained the object of my
visit, and returned to my room, when, on opening the door, I saw poor
Mangrove lying on his back in the middle of the floor, with his legs and
arms extended as if he had been on the rack, his eyes set, his mouth
open, and every faculty benumbed by fear. At his feet sat the negro
child, almost as much terrified as he was, and crying most lamentably;
while, at a little distance, sat the spectre of the old woman,
scratching its head with the greatest composure, and exclaiming in
Spanish, "a little brandy for love of the Holy Virgin." But the most
curious part of it was the conduct of our old friend Sneezer. There he
was sitting on end upon the table, grinning and showing his ivory teeth,
his eyes of jet sparkling like diamonds with fun and frolic, and
evidently laughing, after his fashion, like to split himself, as he
every now and then gave a large sweeping whisk of his tail, like a cat
watching a mouse. At length I got the cobbler and his sable rib to take
charge of the wanderers, and once more fell asleep.

On my first arrival, I was somewhat surprised at my Spanish
acquaintances always putting, up their umbrellas when abroad after
nightfall in the streets; the city had its evil customs, it seemed, as
well as others of more note, with this disadvantage, that no one had the
discretion to sing out gardyloo.

There was another solemn fast about this time, in honour of a saint
having had a tooth drawn, or some equally important event, and Don
Hombrecillo and I had been at the evening service in the church of the
convent of La Merced, situated, as I have already mentioned, directly
opposite his house, on the other side of the lane; and this being over,
we were on the eve of returning home, when the flannel-robed superior
came up and invited us into the refectory, whereunto, after some
palaver, we agreed to adjourn, and had a good supper, and some bad
Malaga wine, which, however, seemed to suit the palates of the Frailes,
if taking a very decent quantity thereof were any proof of the same.
Presently two of the lay brothers produced their fiddles, and as I was
determined not to be outdone, I volunteered a song, and, as a key-stone
to my politeness, sent to Don Hombrecillo's for the residue of my
brandy, which, coming after the bad wine, acted most cordially, opening
the hearts of all hands like an oyster knife, the Superior's especially,
who in turn drew on his private treasure also, when out came a large
green vitrified earthen pipkin, one of those round-bottomed jars that
won't stand on end, but must perforce lie on their sides, as if it had
been a type of the predicament in which some of us were to be placed ere
long through its agency. The large cork, buried an inch deep in green
wax, was withdrawn from the long neck, and out gurgled most capital old
Xeres. So we worked away until we were all pretty well fou, and anon we
began to dance; and there were half-a-dozen friars, and old Justo and
myself, in great glee, jumping and gamboling about, and making fools of
ourselves after a very fantastic fashion--the witches in Macbeth as an
illustration.

At length, after being two months in Panama, and still no appearance of
the Bandera, I received a letter from the Admiral, desiring me to rejoin
the Wave immediately, as it was then known that the line of battle ship
had returned to the River Plate. Like most young men, who have hearts
of flesh in their bosoms, I had in this short space begun to have my
likings--may I not call them friendships?--in this, at the time I write
of, most primitive community; and the idea of bidding farewell to it,
most likely for ever, sank deep. However, I was His Majesty's officer,
and my services and obedience were his, although my feelings were my
own; and, accordingly, stifling the latter, I prepared for my departure.

On the very day whereon I was recalled, a sister of mine host's--a most
reverend mechanic, who had been fourteen years married without chick or
child--was brought to bed, to the unutterable surprise of her spouse,
and of all the little world in Panama, of a male infant. It had rained
the whole day, notwithstanding which, and its being the only
authenticated production ever published by the venerable young lady, the
piccaniny was carried to the Franciscan church, a distance of half a
mile, at nine o'clock at night, through a perfect storm, to be
christened, and the evil star of poor Mangrove rose high in the
ascendant on the occasion.

After the ceremony, I was returning home chilled with standing uncovered
for an hour in a cold damp church, and walking very fast, in order to
bring myself into heat, when, on turning a corner, I heard a sound of
flutes and fiddles in the street, and from the number of lanterns and
torches that accompanied it, I conjectured rightly that it was a
Function of no small importance--no less, in fact, than a procession in
honour of the Virgin. Poor Mangrove at this time was pattering close to
my heels, and I could hear him chuckling and laughing to himself.

"What dis can be--I say, Sneezer"--to his never-failing companion
"what you tink, John Canoe--after Spanish fashion, it mosh be, eh?"

The dog began to jump and gambol about.

"Ah," continued the black pilot, "no doubt it must be John Canoe I may
dance--why not--eh?--oh, yes--I shall dance."

And as the music struck into rather a quicker tune at the moment, our
ebony friend began to caper and jump about as if he had been in Jamaica
at Christmas time, whereupon one of the choristers, or music boys, as
they were called, a beautiful youth, about forty years of age, six feet
high, and proportionally strong, without the least warning incontinently
smote our amigo across the pate with a brazen saint that he carried, and
felled him to the earth; indeed, if el Senor Justo had not been on the
spot to interfere, we should have had a scene of it in all likelihood,
as the instant the man delivered his blow, Sneezer's jaws were at his
throat, and had he not fortunately obeyed me, and let go at the sound of
my voice, we might have had a double of Macaire and the dog of
Montargis. As it was, the noble animal, before he let go, brought the
culprit to the ground like a shot. I immediately stood forward, and got
the feud soldered as well as I could, in which the worthy Justo
cordially lent me a hand.

Next morning I rode out on my mule, to take my last dip in the Quebrada
of the Loseria, which was a rapid in a beautiful little rivulet, distant
from Panama about three miles, and a most exquisite bath it was. Let me
describe it. After riding a couple of miles, and leaving the open
savannah, you struck off sharp to the left through a narrow bridle-path
into the wood, with an impervious forest on either hand, and proceeding
a mile farther, you came suddenly upon a small rushing, roaring,
miniature cascade, where the pent-up waters leaped through a narrow gap
in the limestone rock, that you could have stepped across, down a tiny
fall about a fathom high, into a round foaming buzzing basin, twenty
feet in diameter, where the clear cool water bubbled and eddied round
and round like a boiling cauldron, until it rushed away once more over
the lower ledge, and again disappeared, murmuring beneath the thick
foliage of the rustling branches. The pool was about ten feet deep,
and never was any thing more luxurious in a hot climate.

After having performed my morning ablutions, and looking with a heavy
heart at the sweet stream, and at every stock and stone, and shrub and
tree, as objects I was never to see again; I trotted on, followed by
Peter Mangrove, my man-at-arms, who bestrode his mule gallantly, to
Don Hombrecillo's pen, as the little man delighted to call his country
house, situated about five miles from Panama, and which I was previously
informed had been given up to the use of his two maiden sisters. I got
there about half past ten in the forenoon, and found that el Senor Justo
had arrived before me. The situation was most beautiful; the house was
embosomed in high wood; the lowest spurs put forth by the gigantic trees
being far above the ridge-pole of the wooden fabric. It was a low one
story building of unpainted timber, which, from the action of the
weather, had been bleached on the outside into a whitish grey
appearance, streaked by numerous green weather-stains, and raised about
five feet on wooden posts, so that there was room for a flock of goats
to shelter themselves below it. Access was had to the interior by a
rickety rattle-trap of a wooden ladder, or stair of half-a-dozen
steps, at the top of which you landed in an unceiled hall, with the
rafters of the roof exposed, and the bare green vitrified tiles for a
canopy, while a small sleeping apartment opened off each end. In the
centre room there was no furniture except two grass hammocks slung
across the room, and three or four old-fashioned leather, or rather
hide covered chairs, and an old rickety table; while overhead the tiles
were displaced in one or two places, where the droppings from the leaves
of the trees, and the sough of their rustling in the wind, came through.
There were no inmates visible when we entered but a little negro girl,
of whom el Senor Hombrecillo asked "where the Senoras were?"--"En
capillo," said the urchin. Whereupon we turned back and proceeded to a
little tiny stone chapel, little bigger than a dog-house, the smallest
affair in the shape of a church I had ever seen, about a pistol-shot
distant in the wood, where we found the two old ladies and Senor Justo's
natural son engaged at their devotions. On being aware of our presence,
they made haste with the service, and, having finished it, arose and
embraced their brother, while the son approached and kissed his hand.

One of the ancient demoiselles appeared in bad health; nevertheless,
they both gave us a very hearty reception, and prepared breakfast for
us; fricasseed fowls, a little too much of the lard, but still, fish
from the neighbouring stream, &c., and I was doing the agreeable to the
best of my poor ability, when el Senor Justo asked me abruptly if I
would go, and bathe. A curious country, thought I, and a strange way
people have of doing things. After a hearty meal, instead of giving you
time to ruminate, and to allow the gastric juices to operate, away they
lug you to be plumped over head and ears into a pool of ice cold water.
I rose, confoundedly against my inclinations I will confess, and, we
proceeded to a small rocky waterfall, where a man might wash himself
certainly, but as to swimming, which is to me the grand desideratum, it
was impossible, so I prowled away down the stream, to look out for a
pool, and at last I was successful. On returning, as I only took a dip
to swear by, the situation of my venerable Spanish ally was entertaining
enough. There he was, the most forlorn little mandrake eye ever rested
on, cowering like a large frog under the tiny cascade, stark naked, with
his knees drawn up to his chin, and his grey queue gathered carefully
under a green gourd or calabash that he wore on his head, while his
natural son was dashing water in his face, as if the shower bath
overhead had not been sufficient.

"Soy banando--soy banando, capitan--fresco--fresquito," squealed
Hombrecillo; while, splash between every exclamation, his dutiful son
let fly a gourdfull of agua at his head.

That same evening we returned to Panama; and next morning, being the 22d
of such a month, I left my kind friends, and, with Peter Mangrove,
proceeded on our journey to Cruces, mounted on two stout mules. I got
there late in the evening, the road, from the heavy rains, being in sad
condition; but next morning the recua, or convoy of silver, which was to
follow me for shipment on merchants account to Kingston, had not
arrived. Presently I received a letter from Don Justo, sent express, to
intimate that the muleteers had proceeded immediately after we had
started for about a mile beyond the suburbs, where they were stopped by
the officer of a kind of military post or barrier, under pretence of the
passport being irregular; and this difficulty was no sooner cleared up,
than the accounts of a bullfight, that was unexpectedly to take place
that forenoon, reached them, when the whole bunch, half drunk as they
were, started off to Panama again, leaving the money with the soldiers;
nor would they return, or be prevailed on to proceed, until the
following morning. However, on the 24th, at noon, the money did arrive,
which was immediately embarked on board of a large canoe that I had
provided; and, having shipped a beautiful little mule also, of which I
had made a purchase at Panama, we proceeded down the river to the
village of Gorgona, where we slept. My apartment was rather a primitive
concern. It was simply a roof or shed, thatched with palm-tree leaves,
about twelve feet long by eight broad, and supported on four upright
posts at the corners, the eaves being about six feet high. Under this I
slung my grass hammock transversely from corner to corner, tricing it
well up to the rafters, so that it hung about five feet from the ground;
while beneath Mangrove lit a fire, for the twofold purpose, as it struck
me, of driving off the musquittoes, and converting his Majesty's officer
into ham or hung beef; and after having made mulo fast to one of the
posts, with a bundle of malojo, or the green stems of Indian corn or
maize, under his nose, he borrowed a plank from a neighbouring hut, and
laid himself down on it at full length, covered up with a blanket, as if
he had been a corpse, and soon fell fast asleep. As for Sneezer, he lay
with his black muzzle resting on his fore paws, which were thrust out
straight before him, until they almost stirred up the white embers of
the fire; with his eyes shut, and apparently asleep, but from the
constant nervous twitchings and pricking up of his ears, and his
haunches being gathered up well under him, and a small quick switch of
his tail now and then, it was evident he was broad awake, and considered
himself on duty. All continued quiet and silent in our bivouac until
midnight, however, except the rushing of the river hard by, when I was
awakened by the shaking of the shed from the violent struggles of mulo
to break loose, his strong trembling thrilling along the taught cord
that held him, down the lanyard of my hammock to my neck, as he drew
himself in the intervals of his struggles as far back as he could,
proving that the poor brute suffered under a paroxysm of fear. "What
noise is that?" I roused myself. It was repeated. It was a wild cry,
or rather a loud shrill mew, gradually sinking into a deep growl. "What
the deuce is that, Sneezer?" said I. The dog made no answer, but merely
wagged his tail once, as if he had said, "Wait a bit now, master; you
shall see how well I shall acquit myself, for this is in my way." Ten
yards from the shed under which I slept, there was a pigsty, surrounded
by a sort of tiny stockade a fathom high, make of split cane, wove into
wickerwork between upright rails sunk into the ground; and by the clear
moonlight I could, as I lay in my hammock, see an animal larger than an
English bulldog, but with the stealthy pace of the cat, crawl on in a
crouching attitude until within ten feet of the sty, when it stopped,
looked round, and then drew itself back, and made a scrambling jump
against the cane defence, hooking on to the top of it by its fore paws.
the claws of its hind feet scratching and rasping against the dry cane
splits, until it had gathered its legs into a bunch, like the aforesaid
puss, on the top of the enclosure; from which elevation the creature
seemed to be reconnoitring the unclean beasts within. I grasped my
pistols. Mangrove was still sound asleep. The struggles of mulo
increased; I could hear the sweat raining off him; but Sneezer, to my
great surprise, remained motionless as before. We now heard the alarmed
grunts, and occasionally a sharp squeak, from the piggery, as if the
beauties had only now become aware of the vicinity of their dangerous
neighbour, who, having apparently made his selection, suddenly dropped
down amongst them; when mulo burst from his fastenings with a yell
enough to frighten the devil, tearing away the upright to which the
lanyard of my hammock was made fast, whereby I was pitched like a shot
right down on Mangrove's corpus, while a volley of grunting and
squeaking split the sky, such as I never heard before; while, in the
very nick, Sneezer, starting from his lair with a loud bark, sprang at a
bound into the enclosure, which he topped like a first rate hunter; and
Peter Mangrove, awakening all of a heap from my falling on him, jumped
upon his feet as noisy as the rest.

"Caramighty in a tap--wurra all dis--my tomach bruise home to my
backbone like one pancake;" and, while the short fierce bark of the
noble dog was blended with the agonized cry of the gatto del monte, the
shrill treble of the poor porkers rose high above both, and mulo was
galloping through the village with the post after him, like a dog with a
pan at his tail, making the most unearthly noises; for it was neither
bray nor neigh. The villagers ran out of their huts, headed by the
Padre Cura, and all was commotion and uproar. Lights were procured.
The noise in the sty continued, and Mangrove, the warm hearted creature,
unsheathing his knife, clambered over the fence to the rescue of his
four footed ally, and disappeared, shouting, "Sneezer often fight for
Peter, so Peter now will fight for he;" and soon began to blend his
shouts with the cries of the enraged beasts within. At length the mania
spread to me upon hearing the poor fellow shout, "Tiger here, Captain
tiger here tiger too many for we--Lud-a-mercy--tiger too many for we,
sir,--if you no help we, we shall be torn in piece." Then a violent
struggle, and a renewal of the uproar, and of the barking, and yelling,
and squeaking. It was now no joke; the life of a fellow-creature was
at stake. So I scrambled up after the pilot to the top of the fence,
with a loaded pistol in my hand, a young active Spaniard following with
a large brown wax candle, that burned like a torch; and looking down on
the melee below, there Sneezer lay with the throat of the leopard in his
jaws, evidently much exhausted, but still giving the creature a cruel
shake now and then, while Mangrove was endeavouring to throttle the
brute with his bare hands. As for the poor pigs, they were all huddled
together, squeaking and grunting most melodiously in the corner. I held
down the light. "Now, Peter, cut his throat, man--cut his throat."

Mangrove, the moment he saw where he was, drew his knife across the
leopard's weasand, and killed him on the spot. The glorious dog, the
very instant he felt he had a dead antagonist in his fangs, let go his
hold, and making a jump with all his remaining strength, for he was
bleeding much, and terribly torn, I caught him by the nape of the
neck, and, in my attempt to lift him over and place him on the outside,
down I went, dog and all, amongst the pigs, upon the bloody carcass; out
of which mess I was gathered by the Cura and the standers by in a very
beautiful condition; for, what between the filth of the sty and blood of
the leopard, and so forth, I was not altogether a fit subject, for a
side box at the Opera.

This same tiger or leopard had committed great depredations in the
neighbourhood for months before, but he had always escaped, although he
had been repeatedly wounded; so Peter and I became as great men for the
two hours longer that we sojourned in Gorgona, as if we had killed the
dragon of Wantley. Our quarry was indeed a noble animal, nearly seven
feet from, the nose to the tip of the tail. At day dawn, having
purchased his skin for three dollars, I shoved off; and, on the 25th, at
five in the evening, having had a strong current with us the whole way
down, we arrived at Chagres once more. I found a boat from the Wave
waiting for me, and to prevent unnecessary delay, I resolved to proceed
with the canoe along the coast to Porto Bello, as there was a strong
weather current running, and no wind; and, accordingly, we proceeded
next morning, with the canoe in tow, but towards the afternoon it came
on to blow, which forced us into a small cove, where we remained for the
night in a very uncomfortable situation, as the awning proved an
indifferent shelter from the rain, that descended in torrents.

We had made ourselves as snug as it was possible to be in such weather,
under an awning of boat sails, and had kindled a fire in a tub at the
bottom of the boat, at which we had made ready some slices of beef, and
roasted some yams, and were, all hands, master and men, making ourselves
comfortable with a glass of grog, when the warp by which we rode
suddenly parted, from a puff of wind that eddied down on us over the
little cape, and before we could get the oars out, we were tailing on
the beach at the opposite side of the small bay. However, we soon
regained our original position, by which time all was calm again where
we lay; and this time, we sent the end of the line ashore, making it
fast round a tree, and once more rode in safety. But I could not sleep,
and the rain having ceased, the clouds broke away, and the moon once
more shone out cold, bright, and clear. I had stepped forward from
under the temporary awning, and was standing on the thwart, looking out
to windward, endeavouring to judge of the weather at sea, and debating
in my own mind whether it would be prudent to weigh before daylight, or
remain where we were. But all in the offing, beyond the small headland,
under the lee of which we lay, was dark and stormy water, and white
crested howling waves, although our snug little bay continued placid and
clear, with the moonbeams dancing on the twinkling ripple, that was lap,
lapping, an& sparkling like silver on the snow-white beach of sand and
broken shells; while the hills on shore that rose high and abrupt close
to, were covered with thick jungle, from which, here and there, a
pinnacle of naked grey rock would shoot up like a gigantic spectre, or a
tall tree would cast its long black shadow over the waving sea of green
leaves that undulated in the breeze beneath.

As the wind was veering about rather capriciously, I had cast my eye
anxiously along the warp, to see how it bore the strain, when to my
surprise it appeared to thicken at the end next the tree, and presently
something like a screw, about a foot long, that occasionally shone like
glass in the moonlight, began to move along the taught line, with a
spiral motion. All this time one of the boys was fast asleep, resting
on his folded arms on the gunwale, his head having dropped down on the
stem of the boat; but one of the Spanish bogas in the canoe, which was
anchored close to us, seeing me gazing at something, now looked in the
same direction; the instant he caught the object, he thumped with his
palms on the side of the canoe exclaiming, in a loud alarmed tone--
"Culebra--culebra,--a snake, a snake,"--on which the reptile made a
sudden and rapid slide down the line towards the bow of the boat where
the poor lad was sleeping, and immediately afterwards dropped into the
sea.

The sailor rose and walked aft, as if nothing had happened, amongst his
messmates, who had been alarmed by the cries of the Spanish canoe man,
and I was thinking little of the matter, when I heard some anxious
whispering amongst them.

"Fred," said one of the men, "what is wrong, that you breathe so hard?"

"Why, boy, what ails you?" said another.

"Something has stung me," at length said the poor little fellow,
speaking thick, as if he had laboured under sore throat. The truth
flashed on me, a candle was lit, and, on looking at him, he appeared
stunned, complained of cold, and suddenly assumed a wild startled look.

He evinced great anxiety and restlessness, accompanied by a sudden and
severe prostration of strength--still continuing to complain of great
and increasing cold and chilliness, but he did not shiver. As yet no
part of his body was swollen, except very slightly about the wound;
however, there was a rapidly increasing rigidity of the muscles of the
neck and throat, and within half an hour after he was bit, he was
utterly unable to swallow even liquids. The small whip-snake, the most
deadly asp in the whole list of noxious reptiles peculiar to South
America, was not above fourteen inches long; it had made four small
punctures with its fangs, right over the left jugular vein, about an
inch below the chin. There was no blood oozing from them, but a circle
about the size of a crownpiece of dark red surrounded them, gradually
melting into blue at the outer rim, which again became fainter and
fainter, until it disappeared in the natural colour of the skin. By the
advice of he Spanish boatman, we applied an embrocation of the leaves of
the palma Christi, or castor-oil nut, as hot as the lad could bear it,
but we had neither oil nor hot milk to give internally, both of which
they informed us often proved specifics. Rather than lie at anchor,
until morning, under these melancholy circumstances, I shoved out into
the rough water, but we made little of it, and when the day broke, I saw
that the poor fellow's fate was sealed. His voice had become
inarticulate, the coldness had increased, all motion in the extremities
had ceased, the legs and arms became quite stiff, the respiration slow
and difficult, as if the blood had coagulated, and could no longer
circulate through the heart; or as if, from some unaccountable effect of
the poison on the nerves, the action of the former had been impeded;--
still the poor little fellow was perfectly sensible, and his eye bright
and restless. His breathing became still more interrupted--he could no
longer be said to breathe, but gasped--and in another half hour, like a
steam-engine when the fire is withdrawn, the strokes, or contractions
and expansions of his heart became slower and slower, until they ceased
altogether.

From the very moment of his death, the body began rapidly to swell, and
become discoloured; the face and neck, especially, were nearly as black
as ink within half an hour of it, when blood began to flow from the
mouth, and other symptoms of rapid decomposition succeeded each other so
fast, that by nine in the morning we had to sew him up in a boat sail,
with a large stone, and launch the body into the sea.

We continued to struggle against the breeze until eleven o'clock in the
forenoon of the 27th, when the wind again increased to such a pitch,
that we had to cast off our tow, and leave her on the coast under the
charge of little Reefpoint, with instructions to remain in the creek
where he was, until the schooner picked him up; we then pushed once more
through the surf for Porto Bello, where we arrived in safety at five
P.m. Next morning at daylight we got under weigh, and stood down for the
canoe, and having received the money on board, and the Spaniards who
accompanied it, and poor mulo, we made sail for Kingston, Jamaica, and
on the 4th of the following month were off Carthagena once more, having
been delayed by calms and light winds. The captain of the port shoved
out to us, and I immediately recognized him as the officer to whom poor
old Deadeye once gave a deuced fright, when we were off the town, in the
old Torch, during the siege, and about a fortnight before she foundered
in the hurricane; but in the present instance he was all civility; on
his departure we made sail, and arrived at Kingston, safe and sound, in
the unusually short passage of sixty hours from the time we left
Carthagena.

Here the first thing I did was to call on some of my old friends, with
one of whom I found a letter lying for me from Mr Bang, requesting a
visit at his domicile in St Thomas in the Vale so soon as I arrived; and
through the extreme kindness of my Kingston allies, I had, on my
intention of accepting it being known, at least half a dozen gigs
offered to me, with servants and horses, and I don't know what all. I
made my selection, and had arranged to start at day-dawn next morning,
when a cousin of mine, young Palma, came in where I was dining, and said
that his mother and the family had arrived in town that very day, and
were bound on a picnic party next morning to visit the Falls in St
David's. I agreed to go, and to postpone my visit to friend Aaron for
the present; and very splendid scenery did we see; but as I had seen the
Falls of Niagara, of course I was not astonished. There was a favourite
haunt and cave of Three-fingered Jack shown to us in the neighbourhood,
very picturesque and romantic, and all that sort of thing, but I was
escorting my Mary, and the fine scenery and roaring waters were at this
time thrown away on me. However, there was one incident amusing enough.
Mary and I had wandered away from the rest of the party, about a mile
above the cascade, where the river was quiet and still, and divided into
several tiny streams or pools, by huge stones that had rolled from the
precipitous banks, down into its channel; when on turning an angle of
the rock, we came unexpectedly on my old ally Whiffle, with a cigar in
his mouth, seated on a cane bottomed chair, close to the brink of the
water, with a little low table at his right hand, on which stood a plate
of cold meat, over which his black servant held a green branch, with
which he was brushing the flies away, while a large rummer of cold
brandy grog was immersed in the pool at his feet, covered up with a cool
plantain leaf. He held a long fishing rod in his hands, eighteen feet
at the shortest, fit to catch salmon with, which he had to keep nearly
upright, in order to let his hook drop into the pool, which was not
above five feet wide--why he did not heave it by hand I am sure I cannot
tell; indeed, I would as soon have thought of angling for gold fish in
my aunt's glass globe--and there he sat fishing with great complacency.
However, he seemed a little put out when we came up. "Ah, Tom, how do
you do?--Miss, your most obsequious--no rain mullet deucedly shy, Tom--
ah! what a glorious nibble--there--there again--I have him;" and sure
enough, he had hooked a fine mountain mullet, weighing about a pound and
a half, and in the ecstasy of the moment, and his hurry to land him
handsomely, he regularly capsized in his chair, upset the rummer of
brandy grog and table and all the rest of it. We had a good laugh, and
then rejoined our party, and that evening we all sojourned at Lucky
Valley, a splendid coffee estate, with a most excellent man and an
exceedingly obliging fellow for a landlord.

Next day we took a long ride, to visit a German gentleman, who had
succeeded in a wonderful manner in taming fish. He received us very
hospitably, and after lunch, we all proceeded to his garden, through
which ran a beautiful stream of the clearest water. It was about four
feet broad, and a foot deep, where it entered the garden, but gradually
widened in consequence of a dam with stakes at the top having been
erected at the lower part of it, until it became a pool twelve feet
broad, and four feet deep, of the most beautiful crystal clear water
that can be imagined, while the margin on both sides was fringed with
the fairest flowers that Europe or the tropics could afford. We all
peered into the stream, but could see nothing except an occasional
glance of a white scale or fin now and then.--"Liverpool!" shouted the
old German who was doing the honours--"Liverpool, come bring de food for
de fis." Liverpool, a respectable-looking negro, approached, and
stooping down at the water's edge, held a piece of roasted plantain
close to the surface of it. In an instant, upwards of a hundred mullet,
large fine fish, some of them above a foot long, rushed from out the
dark clear depths of the quiet pool, and jumped, and walloped, and
struggled for the food, although the whole party were standing close by.
Several of the ladies afterwards tried their hand, and the fish,
although not apparently quite so confident, after a tack here and a tack
there, always in the end came close to and made a grab at what was held
to them.

That evening I returned to Kingston, where I found an order lying for me
to repair as second-lieutenant on board the Firebrand once more, and to
resign the command of the Wave to no less a man than Moses Yerk,
esquire; and a happy man was Moses, and a gallant fellow he proved
himself in her, and earned laurels and good freights of specie, and is
now comfortably domiciled amongst his friends.

The only two Waves, that I successfully made interest at their own
request to get back with me, were Tailtackle, and little Reefpoint.

Time wore on--days and weeks and months passed away, during which we
were almost constantly at sea, but incidents worth relating had grown
scarce, as we were now in piping times of peace, when even a stray
pirate had become a rarity, and a luxury denied to all but the small
craft people. On one of our cruises, however, we had been working up
all morning to the southward of the Pedro shoals, with the wind strong
at east, a hard fiery sea-breeze. We had hove-about, some three hours
before, and were standing in towards the land, on the starboard tack,
when the look-out at the masthead hailed.

"The water shoals on the weather bow, sir;" and presently, "breakers
right ahead."

"Very well," I replied--"all right."

"We are nearing the reefs, sir," said I, walking aft and addressing
Captain Transom; "shall we stand by to go about, sir?"

"Certainly--heave in stays as soon as you like, Mr Cringle."

At this moment the man aloft again sung out--"There is a wreck on the
weather most point of the long reef, sir."

"Ay! what does she look like?"

"I see the stumps of two lower masts, but the bowsprit is gone, sir--I
think she must be a schooner or a brig, sir."

The Captain was standing by, and looked up to me, as I stood on the long
eighteen at the weather-gangway.

"Is the breeze not too strong, Mr Cringle?"

I glanced my eye over the side--"Why, no, sir--a boat will live well
enough--there is not so much sea in shore here."

"Very well--haul the courses up, and heave-to."

It was done.

"Pipe away the yawlers, boatswain's mate."

The boat over the lee-quarter was lowered, and I was sent to
reconnoitre the object that had attracted our attention. As we
approached, we passed the floating swollen carcasses of several
bullocks, and some pieces of wreck; and getting into smooth water, under
the lee of the reef, we pulled up under the stem of the shattered hull
which lay across it, and scrambled on deck by the boat tackles, that
hung from the davits, as if the jolly-boat had recently been lowered.
The vessel was a large Spanish schooner, apparently about one hundred
and eighty tons burden, nearly new; every thing strong and well fitted
about her, with a beautiful spacious flush-deck, surrounded by high
solid bulwarks. All the boats had disappeared; they might either have
been carried away by the crew, or washed overboard by the sea. Both
masts were gone about ten feet above the deck; which, with the whole of
their spars and canvass, and the wreck of the bowsprit, were lumbering
and rattling against the lee-side of the vessel, and splashing about in
the broken water, being still attached to the hull by the standing
rigging, no part of which had been cut away. The mainsail, foresail,
fore-topsail, fore-staysail, and jib were all set, so she must most
likely have gone on the reef, either under a press of canvass in the
night, in ignorance of its vicinity, or by missing stays.

She lay on her beam-ends across the coral rock, on which there was
about three feet water where shallowest, and had fallen over to leeward,
presenting her starboard broadside to the sea, which surged along it in
a slanting direction, while the lee gunwale was under water. The
boiling white breakers were dashing right against her bows, lifting them
up with every send, and thundering them down again against the flint--
hard coral spikes, with a loud gritting rumble; while every now and then
the sea made a fair breach over them, flashing up over the whole deck
aft to the tafferel in a snow storm of frothy flakes. Forward in the
bows there lay, in one horrible fermenting and putrefying mass, the
carcasses of about twenty bullocks, part of her deck-load of cattle,
rotted into one hideous lump, with the individual bodies of the poor
brutes almost obliterated and undistinguishable, while streams of
decomposed animal matter were ever and anon flowing down to leeward,
although as often washed away by the hissing waters. But how shall I
describe the scene of horror that presented itself in the after part of
the vessel, under the lee of the weather-bulwarks!

There, lashed to the ring-bolts, and sheltered from the sun and sea, by
a piece of canvass, stretched across a broken oar, lay, more than half
naked, the dead bodies of an elderly female, and three young women; one
of the latter with two lifeless children fastened by handkerchiefs to
her waist, while each of the other two had the corpse of an infant
firmly clasped in her arms.

It was the dry season, and as they lay right in the wake of the windward
ports, exposed to a thorough draft of air, and were defended from the
sun and the spray, no putrefaction had taken place; the bodies looked
like mummies, the shrunken muscles, and wasted features, being covered
with a dry horny skin, like parchment; even the eyes remained full and
round, as if they had been covered over with a hard dim scale.

On looking down into the steerage, we saw another corpse, that of a tall
young slip of a Spanish girl, surging about in the water, which reached
nearly to the deck, with her long black hair floating and spread out all
over her neck and bosom, but it was so offensive and decayed, that we
were glad to look another way. There was no male corpse to be seen,
which, coupled with the absence of the boats, evinced but too clearly
that the crew had left the females, with their helpless infants, on the
wreck to perish. There was a small roundhouse on the after-part of the
deck, in which we found three other women alive, but wasted to
skeletons. We took them into the boat, but one died in getting her over
the side; the other two we got on board, and I am glad to say that they
both recovered. For two days neither could speak; there seemed to be
some rigidity about the throat and mouth that prevented them; but at
length the youngest--(the other was her servant)--a very handsome woman,
became strong enough to tell us, "that it was the schooner Caridad that
we had boarded, bound from Rio de la Hache to Savana la Mar, where she
was to have discharged her deck-load of cattle, and afterwards to have
proceeded to Batabano, in Cuba. She had struck, as I surmised, in the
night, about a fortnight before we fell in with her; and next morning,
the crew and male passengers took to the boats, which with difficulty
contained them, leaving the women under a promise to come back that
evening, with assistance from the shore, but they never appeared, nor
were they ever after heard of." And here the poor thing cried as if her
heart would break. "Even my own Juan, my husband, left me and my child
to perish on the wreck. Oh God!  Oh God!  I could not have left him--I
could not have left him."

There had been three families on board, with their servants, who were
emigrating to Cuba, all of whom had been abandoned by the males, who, as
already related, must in all human probability have perished after their
unmanly desertion. As the whole of the provisions were under water, and
could not be got at, the survivors had subsisted on raw flesh so long as
they had strength to cut it, or power to swallow it; what made the poor
creature tell it, I cannot imagine, if it were not to give the most
vivid picture possible, in her conception, of their loneliness and
desolation, but she said, "no sea-bird even ever came near us."

It were harrowing to repeat the heart-rendering description given by
her, of the sickening of the heart when the first night fell, and still
no tidings of the boats; the second sun set--still the horizon was
speckless; the next dreary day wore to an end, and three innocent
helpless children were dead corpses; on the fourth, madness seized on
their mothers, and--but I will not dwell on such horrors.

During these manifold goings and comings I naturally enlarged the circle
of my acquaintance in the island, especially in Kingston, the mercantile
capital; and often does my heart glow within me, when the scenes I have
witnessed in that land of fun and fever rise up before me after the
lapse of many years, under the influence of a good fire and a glass of
old Madeira. Take the following sample of Jamaica High Jinks as one of
many. On a certain occasion I had gone to dine with Mr Isaac Shingle,
and extensive American merchant, and a most estimable man, who
considerately sent his gig down to the wherry wharf for me. At six
o'clock I arrived at my friend's mansion, situated in the upper part of
the town, a spacious one-story house, overshadowed by two fine old
trees, and situated back from the street about ten yards; the
intervening space being laid out in a beautiful little garden, raised
considerably above the level of the adjoining thoroughfare, from which
it was divided by a low parapet wall, surmounted by a green painted
wooden railing. There was a flight of six brick steps from the street
to the garden, and you ascended from the latter to the house itself,
which was raised on brick pillars a fathom high, by another stair of
eight, broad marble slabs. The usual verandah, or piazza, ran along the
whole front, beyond which you entered a large and lofty, but very
darksome hall, answering to our European drawing room into which the
bedrooms opened on each side. It did strike me at first as odd, that
the principal room in the house should be a dark dungeon of a place,
with nothing but borrowed lights, until I again recollected that
darkness and coolness were convertible terms within the tropics.
Advancing through this room you entered, by a pair of folding doors, on
a very handsome dining room, situated in what I believe is called a back
jamb, a sort of outrigger to the house, fitted all round with movable
blinds, or jealousies, and open like a lantern to all the winds of
heaven except the west, in which direction the main body of the house
warded off the sickening beams of the setting sun. And how sickening
they are, let the weary sentries under the pillars of the Jamaica
viceroy's house in Spanish Town tell, reflected as they were there from
the hot brick walls of the palace.

This room again communicated with the back yard, in which the negro
houses, kitchen, and other offices were situated, by a wooden stair of
the same elevation as that in front. Here the table was laid for
dinner, covered with the finest diaper, and snow-white napkins, and
silver wine-coolers, and silver forks, and fine steel, and cut glass,
and cool green finger-glasses with lime leaves floating within, and
tall wax lights shaded from the breeze in thin glass barrels, and an
epergne filled with flowers, with a fragrant fresh-gathered lime in
each of the small leaf-like branches, and salt-cellars with red
peppers in them, &c. &c. all of which made the tout ensemble the most
captivating imaginable to a hungry man.

I found a large party assembled in the piazza and the dark hall, to whom
I was introduced in due form. In Jamaica, of all countries I ever was
in, it is a most difficult matter for a stranger to ascertain the real
names of the guests at a bachelor dinner like the present, where all the
parties were intimate--there were so many soubriquets amongst them; for
instance, a highly respectable merchant of the place, with some fine
young women for daughters, by the way, from the peculiarity of a
prominent front tooth, was generally known as the Grand Duke of Tuscany;
while an equally respectable elderly man, with a slight touch of
paralysis in his head, was christened Old Steady in the West, because he
never kept his head still; so, whether some of the names of the present
party were real or fictitious, I really cannot tell.

First, there was Mr Seco, a very neat gentlemanlike little man,
perfectly well bred, and full of French phrases. Then came Mr Eschylus
Stave, a tall, raw-boned, well-informed personage; a bit of a quiz on
occasion, but withal a pleasant fellow. Mr Isaac Shingle, mine host, a
sallow, sharp, hatchet-faced, small, but warm hearted and kind, as I
often experienced during my sojourn in the west, only sometimes a little
peppery and argumentative. Then came Mr Jacob Bumble, a sleek fat--
pated Scotchman. Next I was introduced to Mr Alonzo Smoothpate, a very
handsome fellow, with an uncommon share of natural good-breeding and
politeness. Again I clapper-clawed, according to the fashion of the
country, a violent shake of the paw being the Jamaica investment to
acquaintanceship, with Mr Percales, whom I took for a foreign Jew
somehow or other at first, from his uncommon name, until I heard him
speak, and perceived he was an Englishman; indeed, his fresh complexion,
very neat person, and gentlemanlike deportment, when I had time to
reflect, would of themselves have disconnected him from all kindred with
the sons of Levi. Then came a long, dark-complexioned, curly-pated
slip of a lad, with white teeth and high strongly marked features,
considerably pitted with small-pox. He seemed the great promoter of
fun and wickedness in the party, and was familiarly addressed as the
Don, although I believe his real name was Mr Lucifer Longtram. Then
there was Mr Aspen Tremble, a fresh-looking, pleasant, well informed
man, but withal a little nervous, his cheeks quivering when he spoke
like shapes of calf's foot jelly; after him came an exceedingly polite
old gentleman, wearing hair-powder and a queue, ycleped Nicodemus; and
a very devil of a little chap, of the name of Rubiochico, a great ally
in wickedness with Master Longtram; the last in this eventful history
being a staid, sedate looking, elderly-young man, of the name of Onyx
Steady, an extensive foreign merchant, with a species of dry caustic
readiness about him that was dangerous enough.--We sat down, Isaac
Shingle doing the honours, confronted by Eschylus Stave, and all was
right, and smooth, and pleasant, and in no way different from a party
of well bred men in England.

When the second course appeared, I noticed that the blackie, who brought
in two nice tender little ducklings, with the concomitant green peas,
both just come in season, was chuckling, and grinning, and showing his
white teeth most vehemently, as he placed both dishes right under Jacob
Bumble's nose. Shingle and Longtram exchanged looks. I saw there was
some mischief toward, and presently, as if by some preconcerted signal,
every body asked for duck, duck, duck. Bumble, with whom the dish was a
prime favourite, carved away with a most stern countenance, until he had
got half through the second bird, when some unpleasant recollection
seemed to come over him, and his countenance fell; and lying back on his
chair, he gave a deep sigh. But "Mr Bumble, that breast, if you please
thank you,"--"Mr Bumble, that back, if you please," succeeded each
other rapidly, until all that remained of the last of the ducklings was
a beautiful little leg, which, under cover of the following story, Jacob
cannily smuggled on to his own plate.

"Why, gentlemen, a most remarkable circumstance happened to me while
dressing for dinner. You all know I am next door neighbour to our
friend Shingle--our premises being only divided by a brick wall, about
eight feet high. Well, my dressing room window looks out on this wall,
between which and the house, I have my duck pen...."

"Your what?" said I.

"My poultry yard--as I like to see the creatures fed myself--and I was
particularly admiring two beautiful ducklings which I had been carefully
fattening for a whole week"--(here our friend's voice shook, and a tear
glistened in his eye)--"when first one and then another jumped out of
the little pond, and successively made a grab at something which I could
not see, and immediately began to shake their wings, and struggle with
their feet, as if they were dancing, until, as with one accord--deuce
take me!"--(here he almost blubbered aloud)--"if they did not walk up
the brick wall with all the deliberation in the world, merely helping
themselves over the top by a small flaff of their wings; and where they
have gone, none of Shingle's people know."

"I'll trouble you for that leg, Julius," said Longtram, at this
juncture, to a servant, who whipped away the plate from under Bumble's
arm, before he could prevent him, who looked after it as if it had been
a pound of his own flesh. It seemed that Longtram, who had arrived
rather early, had found a fishing-tackle in the piazza, and knowing the
localities of Bumble's premises, as well as his peculiarities, he, by
way of adding his quota to the entertainment, baited two hooks with
pieces of raw potatoes, and throwing them over the wall, had, in
conjunction with Julius the black, hooked up the two ducklings out of
the pen, to the amazement of Squire Bumble.

By and by, as the evening wore on, I saw the Longtram lad making
demonstrations to bring on a general drink, in which he was nobly
seconded by Rubiochico; and, I grieve to say it, I was no ways loath,
nor indeed were any of the company.--There had been a great deal of
mirth and frolic during dinner,--all within proper bounds, however,--but
as the night made upon us, we set more sail--more, as it turned out,
than some of us had ballast for--when lo! towards ten of the clock, up
started Mr Eschylus to give us a speech. His seat was at the bottom of
the table, with the back of his chair close to the door that opened into
the yard; and after he had got his breath out, on I forget what topic;
he sat down, and lay back on his balanced chair, stretching out his long
legs with great complacency. However, they did not prove a sufficient
counterpoise to his very square shoulders, which, obeying the laws of
gravitation, destroyed his equilibrium, and threw him a somersault, when
exit Eschylus Stave, esquire, head foremost, with a formidable rumble
tumble and hurry--scurry, down the back steps, his long shanks
disappearing last, and clipping between us, and the bright moon like a
pair of flails.

However, there was no damage done; and, after a good laugh, Stave's own
being loudest of all, the Don and Rubiochico righted him, and helped him
once more into his chair.

Jacob Bumble now favoured us with a song, that sounded as if he had been
barrelled up in a puncheon, and was cantando through the bunghole; then
Rubiochico sang, and the Don sang, and we all sang and bumpered away;
and Mr Seco got on the table, and gave us the newest quadrille step;
and, in fine, we were all becoming dangerously drunk. Longtram,
especially, had become uproarious beyond all bounds, and, getting up
from his chair, he took a short run of a step or two, and sprang right
over the table, whereby he smashed the epergne full of fruit and
flowers, scattering the contents all about like hail, and driving a
volley of preserved limes like grapeshot, in all their syrup and
stickiness, slap into my face--a stray one spinning with a sloppy whit
into Jacob Bumble's open mouth as he sang, like a musket-ball into a
winter turnip; while a fine preserved pineapple flew bash on Isaac
Shingle's sharp snout, like the bursting of a shrapnel shell.

"D----n it," hiccuped Shingle, "wont stand this any longer, by JuJu
jupiter!  Give over your practicals, Lucifer. Confound it, Don, give
over--do, now, you mad long legged son of a gun!"--Here the Don caught
Shingle round the waist, and whipping him bodily out of his chair,
carried him kicking and spurring into the hall, now well lit up, and
laid him on a sofa, and then returning, coolly installed himself in his
seat.

In a little we heard the squeaking of a pig in the street, and our
friend Shingle's voice high in oath. I sallied forth to see the cause of
the uproar, and found our host engaged in single combat with a drawn
sword-stick that sparkled blue and bright in the moonbeam, his
antagonist being a strong porker that he had taken for a town guard, and
had hemmed into a corner formed by the stair and the garden wall, which,
on being pressed, made a dash between his spindleshanks, and fairly
capsized him into my arms. I carried him back to his couch again; and,
thinking it was high time to be off, as I saw that Smoothpate, and
Steady, and Nicodemus, and the more composed part of the company, had
already absconded, I seized my hat, and made sail in the direction of
the former's house, where I was to sleep, when that devil Longtram made
up to me.

"Hillo, my little man of war--heave-to a bit, and take me with you.
Why what is that? what the deuce is that?" We were at this time
staggering along under the dark piazza of a long line of low wooden
houses, every now and then thundering against the thin boards or
bulkheads that constituted the side next the street, making, as we could
distinctly hear, the inmates start and snort in the inside, as they
turned themselves in their beds. In the darkest part of the piazza,
there was the figure of a man in the attitude of a telescope levelled on
its stand, with its head, as it were, counter-sunk or morticed into the
wooden partition. Tipsy as we both were, we stopped in great surprise.

"D--n it, Cringle," said the Don, his philosophy utterly at fault, "the
trunk of a man without a head,--how is this?"

"Why, Mr Longtram," I replied, "this is our friend Mr Smoothpate, or I
mistake greatly."

"Let me see," said Longtram,--"if it be him, he used to have a head
somewhere, I know.--Let me see.--Oh, it is him; you are right, my boy;
and here is his head after all, and a devil of a size it has grown to
since dinner-time to be sure.--But I know his features bald pate--high
forehead and cheekbones."

Nota Bene. We were still in the piazza, where Smoothpate was
unquestionably present in the body, but the head was within the house,
and altogether, as I can avouch, beyond the Don's ken.

"Where?" said I, groping about--"very odd, for deuce take me if I can
see his head.--Why, he has none--a phenomenon--four legs and a tail, but
no head, as I am a gentleman--lively enough, too, he is, don't seem to
miss it much." Here poor Smoothpate made a violent walloping in a vain
attempt to disentangle himself.

We could now hear shouts of laughter within, and a voice that I was sure
belonged to Mr Smoothpate, begging to be released from the pillory he
had placed himself in by removing a board in the wooden partition, and
sliding it up, and then thrusting his caput from without into the
interior of the house, to the no small amazement of the brown fiddler
and his daughter who inhabited the same, and who had immediately secured
their prize by slipping the displaced board down again, wedging it
firmly on the back of his neck, as if he had been fitted for the
guillotine, thus nailing him fast, unless he had bolted, and left his
head in pawn.

We now entered, and perceived it was really Don Alonzo's flushed but
very handsome countenance that was grinning at us from where it was
fixed, like a large peony rose stuck against the wall. After a hearty
laugh we relieved him, and being now joined by Percales, who came up in
his gig, with Mr Smoothpate's following in his wake, we embarked for an
airing at half-past one in the morning--Smoothpate and Percales,
Longtram and Tom Cringle. Amongst other exploits, we broke into a
proscribed conventicle of drunken negroes--but I am rather ashamed of
this part of the transaction, and intended to have held my tongue, had
Aaron managed his, although it was notorious as the haunt of all the
thieves and slight ladies of the place; here we found parson Charley, a
celebrated black preacher, three parts drunk, extorting, as Mawworm
says, a number of devotees, male and female, all very tipsy, in a most
blasphemous fashion, the table being covered with rummers of punch, and
fragments of pies and cold meat; but this did not render our conduct
more excusable, I will acknowledge. Finally, as a trophy, Percales, who
was a wickeder little chap than I took him for, with Longtram's help,
unshipped the bell of the conventicle from the little belfry, and
fastening it below Smoothpate's gig, we dashed back to Mr Shingle's with
it clanging at every jolt. In our progress the horse took fright, and
ran away, and no wonder.

"Zounds, Don, the weather-rein has parted--what shall we do?" said I.

"Do?" rejoined Lucifer, with drunken gravity--"haul on the other, to be
sure--there is one left, an't there?--so hard a-port, and run him up
against that gun at the street corner, will ye? That will stop him, or
the devil is in it."

Crash--it was done--and over the horse's ears we both flew like
skyrockets; but, strange to tell, although we had wedged the wheel of
the ketureen fast as a wreck on a reef, with the cannon that was stuck
into the ground postwise between it and the body, there was no damage
done beyond the springing of the starboard shaft, so, with the
assistance of the negro servant, who had been thrown from his perch
behind, by a shock that frightened him out of his wits, we hove the
voiture off again, and arrived in safety at friend Shingle's once more.
Here we found the table set out with devilled turkey, and a variety of
high-spiced dishes; and, to make a long story short, we had another set
to, during which, as an interlude, Longtram capsized Shingle out of the
sofa he had again lain down on, in an attempt to jump over it, and broke
his arm; and, being the soberest man of the company, I started off,
guided by a negro servant, for Doctor Greyfriars. On our return, the
first thing that met our eyes was the redoubted Don himself, lying on
his back where he had fallen at his leap, with his head over the step at
the door of the piazza. I thought his neck was broken; and the doctor,
considering that he was the culprit to be carved, forthwith had him
carried in, his coat taken off, and was about striking a phleme into
him, when Isaac's voice sounded from the inner apartment, where he had
lain all the while below the sofa like a crushed frog, the party in the
background, who were boosing away, being totally unconscious of his
mishap, as they sat at table in the room beyond, enjoying themselves,
impressed apparently with the belief that the whole affair was a lark.

"Doctor, doctor," shouted he in great pain,--"here, here--it is me that
is murdered--that chap is only dead drunk, but I am really dead, or will
be, if you don't help."

At length the arm was set, and Shingle put to bed, and the whole crew
dispersed themselves, each moving off as well as he could towards his
own home.

But the cream of the jest was richest next day. Parson Charley, who,
drunk as he had been overnight, still retained a confused recollection
of the parties who had made the irruption, in the morning applied to Mr
Smoothpate to have his bell restored, when the latter told him, with the
utmost gravity, that Mr Onyx Steady was the culprit, who, by the by, had
disappeared from Shingle's before the bell interlude, and, in fact, was
wholly ignorant of the transaction. "Certainly," quoth Smoothpate, with
the greatest seriousness, "a most unlikely person, I will confess,
Charley, as he is a grave, respectable man; still, you know, the most
demure cats sometimes steal cream, Charley; so, parson, my good man, Mr
Onyx Steady has your bell, and no one else."

Whereupon, away trudged Charley to Mr Steady's warehouse, pulling off
his hat with a formal salaam, "Good Massa Onyx--sweet Massa Teady--pray
give me de bell." Here the sable clerigo gathered himself up, and leant
composedly on his long staff, hat still in hand, and ear turned towards
Mr Steady, awaiting his answer.

"Bell!" ejaculated Steady, in great amazement,--"bell! what bell?"

"Oh, good, sweet Massa Onyx, dear Massa Onyx Teady, every body know you
good person--quiet, wise somebody you is--all person sabe dat," whined
Charley; then slipping near our friend, he whispered to him--"but de
best of we lob bit of fon now and dende best of we lef to himshef
sometime."

"Confound the fellow!" quoth Onyx, rather pushed off his balance by such
an unlooked--for attack before his clerks; "get out of my house, sir
what the mischief do I know of you or your infernal bell? I wish the
tongue of it was in your stomach--get out, sir, away with you."

Charley could stand this no longer, and losing patience, "D--n me eye,
you is de tief, sir--so give me de bell, Massa Teady, or I sall pull you
go before de Mayor, Massa Teady, and you sall be shame, Massa Teady; and
it may be you sall be export to de Bay of Honduras, Massa Teady. Aha,
how you will like dat, Massa Teady? you sall be export may be for break
into chapel, during sarvice, and teal bell--aha, teal bell--who ever
yeerie one crime equal to dat!"

"My good man," quoth Onyx, who now felt the absurdity of the affair, "I
know nothing of all this--believe me there is a mistake. Who sent you
here?"

"Massa Smoothpate," roared Charley, "Massa Smoothpate, he who neber tell
lie to nobody, Massa Smoothpate sent me, sir, so de debil if you no give
up de bell I sall...."

"Mr Smoothpate--oh ho!" sung out Steady, 'I see, I see'--Finally the
affair was cleared up, a little hush-money made him snug, and Charley
having got back his instrument, bore no malice, so he and Steady resumed
their former friendly footing--the "statu quo ante bellum."

Another story and I have done.

About a week after this, several of the same party again met at dinner,
when my excellent friend Mr Nicodemus amused us exceedingly by the
following story, which, for want of a better title, I shall relate under
the head of:

A Slippery Youth

"We  all know," quoth old Nic, "that house robberies have been very rife
of  late, and on peril even of having the laugh against me, I will  tell
you  how  I suffered, no longer than three nights ago; so, Tom  Cringle,
will  you  and  Bang  have  the charity to hold  your  tongues, and  be
instructed?

"Old  Gelid, Longtram, Steady, and myself, had been eating ratoons, at
the  Fortner's domicile, and it was about nine in the evening when I got
home.  We  had  taken next to no wine, a pint of Madeira apiece  during
dinner, and six bottles of claret between us afterwards, so I  went  to
bed  as  cool as a cucumber, and slept soundly for several hours, until
awakened  by my old gander--now do be quiet, Cringle--by my old watchman
of  a gander, cackling like a hero. I struck my repeater--half past one
so  I  turned  myself, and was once more falling over into the  arms  of
Morpheus, when I thought I saw some dark object flit silently across the
open window that looks into the piazza, between me and the deep blue and
as  yet moonless sky. This somewhat startled me, but it might have been
one  of  the servants. Still I got up and looked out, but I  could  see
nothing. It did certainly strike me once or twice, that there was  some
dark object cowering in the deep gloom caused by the shade of the orange
tree at the end of the piazza, but I persuaded myself it was fancy, and
once more slipped into my nest. However, the circumstance had put sleep
to  flight. Half an hour might have passed, and the deep dark purity of
the  eastern  sky  was  rapidly quickening into a  greenish  azure, the
forerunner  of  the  rising  moon," ("oh, confound  your  poetry,"  said
Rubiochico,) "which was fast swamping the sparkling stars, like a bright
river  flowing  over  diamonds, when the old gander  again  set  up  his
gabblement and trumpeted more loudly than before. 'If you were  not  so
tough, my noisy old cock'--thought I--'next Michaelmas should be your
last.'  So  I  now resolutely shut my eyes, and  tried  to  sleep
perforce, in which usually fruitless attempt, I was actually  beginning
to  succeed, do you know, when a strong odour of palm oil came  through
the  window, and  on opening my eyes, I saw by the increasing  light  a
naked  negro standing at it, with his head and shoulders in sharp relief
against  the  pale broad disk of the moon, at that moment  just  peering
over the dark summit of the Long mountain.

"I rubbed my eyes, and looked again; the dark figure was still there,
but as if aware that some one was on the watch, it gradually sank down,
until nothing but the round bullet head appeared above the window sill.
This was trying enough, but I made an effort, and lay still. The
stratagem succeeded; the figure, deceived by my feigned snoring and
quietude, slowly rose, and once more stood erect. Presently it slipped
one foot into the room, and then another, but so noiselessly that when I
saw the black figure standing before me on the floor, I had some
misgivings as to its being really a being of this world. However, I had
small space for speculation, when it slid past the foot of the bed
towards my open bureau--I seized the opportunity--started up--turned the
key of the door--and planted myself right between the thief and the open
window. 'Now, you scoundrel, surrender, or I will murder you on the
spot.' I had scarcely spoken the word, when with the speed of light, the
fellow threw himself on me--we closed--I fell--when, clip, he slipped
through my fingers like an eel--bolted through the window--cleared the
balcony at a bound, and disappeared. The thief had stripped himself as
naked as he was born, and soaped his woolly scull, and smeared his whole
corpus with palm oil, so that in the struggle I was charmingly
lubricated."

Nicodemus here lay back on his chair, evidently desirous of our
considering this the whole of the story, but he was not to be let off so
easily, for presently Longtram, with a wicked twinkle of his eye, chimed
in.

"Ay, and what happened next, old Nic--did nothing follow, eh?"

Nic's countenance assumed an irresolute expression; he saw he was jammed
up in the wind, so at a venture he determined to sham deafness.

"Take wine, Lucifer--a glass of Hermitage?"

"With great pleasure," said his Satanic majesty. The propitiatory
libation, however, did not work, for no sooner had his glass touched the
mahogany again, than he returned to the charge.

"Now, Mr Nicodemus, since you won't, I will tell the company the reason
of so nice an old gentleman wearing Baltimore flour in his hair instead
of perfumed Mareschale powder, and none of the freshest either, let me
tell you; why, I have seen three weavels take flight from your august
pate since we sat down to dinner."

Old Nic, seeing he was caught, met the attack with the greatest good
humour.

"Why, I will tell the whole truth, Lucifer, if you don't bother." ("The
devil thank you," said Longtram.)--"So you must know," continued
Nicodemus, "that I immediately roused the servants, searched the
premises in every direction without success--nothing could be seen; but,
at the suggestion of my valet, I lit a small spirit lamp, and placed it
on the table at my bed-side, on which it pleased him to place my brace
of Mantons, loaded with slug, and my naked small sword, so that, thought
I, if the thief ventures back, he shall not slip through my fingers
again so easily. I do confess that these imposing preparations did
appear to me somewhat preposterous, even at the time, as it was not, to
say the least of it, very probable that my slippery gentleman would
return the same night. However, my servant in his zeal was not to be
denied, and I was not so fit to judge as usual, from having missed my
customary quantity of wine after dinner the previous day; so, seeing all
right, I turned in, thus bristling like a porcupine, and slept soundly
until daylight, when I bethought me of getting up. I then rose-slipped
on my nightgown--and,"--here Nicodemus laughed more loudly than ever,
"as I am a gentleman, my spirit lamp--naked sword--loaded pistols--my
diamond breast-pin, and all my clothes, even unto my unmentionables,
had disappeared; but what was the cruelest cut of all, my box of
Mareschale powder, my patent puff, and all my pomade divine had also
vanished; and true enough, as Lucifer says, it so happened that from the
delay in the arrival of the running ships, there was not an ounce of
either powder or pomatum to be had in the whole town, so I have been
driven in my extremity--oh most horrible declension!--to keep my tail on
hog's lard and Baltimore flour ever since."

"Well but"--persisted Lucifer--"who the deuce was the man in the moon?
Come, tell us. And what has become of the queue you so tenderly
nourished, for you sport a crop, Master Nic, now, I perceive?"

Here Nicodemus was neither to hold nor to bind; he was absolutely
suffocating with laughter, as he shrieked out, with long intervals
between.

"Why, the robber was my own favourite body-servant, Crabclaw, after
all, and be d----d to him--the identical man who advised the warlike
demonstrations; and as for the pigtail, why, on the very second night of
the flour and grease, it was so cruelly damaged by a rat while I slept,
that I had to amputate the whole affair, stoop and roop, this very
morning." And so saying, the excellent creature fell back in his chair,
like to choke from the uproariousness of his mirth, while the tears
streamed down his cheeks and washed channels in the flour, as if he had
been a tattooed Mandingo.



CHAPTER XIX.--The Last of the Log--Tom Cringle's Farewell.


     "And whether we shall meet again, I know not."

     Julius Caesar, VI. 114.


One fine morning about this time, we had just anchored on our return
from a cruise, when I received, as I was dressing, a letter from the
secretary, desiring me instantly to wait on the Admiral, as I was
promoted to the rank of commander, (how I did dance and sing, my eye!)
and appointed to the Lotus--Leaf, of eighteen guns, then refitting at
the dockyard, and under orders for England.

I accordingly, after calling and making my bow, proceeded to the
dockyard to enter on my new command, and I was happy in being able to
get Tailtackle and Reefpoint once more removed along with me.

The gunner of Lotus--Leaf having died, Timotheus got an acting warrant,
which I rejoice to say was ultimately confirmed, and little Reefy, now a
commander in the service, weathered it many a day with me afterwards,
both as midshipman and lieutenant.

After seeing every thing in a fair train on board, I applied for a
fortnight's leave, which I got, as the trade which I was to convoy had
not yet congregated, nor were they likely to do so before the expiry of
this period.

Having paid my respects at the Admiral's pen, I returned to Kingston.
Most of the houses in the lower part of the town are surmounted by a
small lookout, as it is called, like a little belfry, and usually
furnished with one or more good telescopes, fitted with green blinds.
It is the habit of the Kingstonians to resort in great numbers to those
gardemange-looking boxes, whenever a strange sail appears in the
offing, or any circumstance takes place at sea worth reconnoitring. It
was about nine o'clock on a fine morning, and I had taken my stand in
one of them, peering out towards the east, but no white speck on the
verge of the horizon indicated an approaching sail, so I slewed round
the glass to the westward, to have a squint at the goings on amongst the
squadron, lying at anchor at Port Royal, about six miles off, then
mustering no fewer than eighteen pennants, viz. one line of battle ship,
one fifty, five frigates, two corvettes, one ship-sloop, four eighteen
gun brigs, three schooners, and a cutter. All was quiet, not even one
solitary signal making amongst them; so I again scoured the horizon
towards the east, when I noticed a very dashing schooner, which had
sailed that morning, as she crept along the Palisadoes. She was lying
up the inner channel, taking advantage of the land-wind, in place of
staggering away to the southward through the ship-channel, already
within the influence of the sea breeze, but which was as yet neutralized
close in shore where she was by the terral. The speed of the craft--the
rapidity with which she slid along the land with the light air, riveted
my attention. On enquiry, I found she was the Carthagenian schooner
Josefa. At this moment the splash of oars was heard right below where
we stood, and a very roguish-looking craft, also schooner-rigged,
about a hundred tons burden apparently, passed rapidly beneath us,
tearing up the shining surface of the sleeping harbour, with no fewer
than fourteen sweeps. She was very heavily rigged, with her main mast
raking over the tafferel, and full of men. I noticed she had a long gun
on a pivot, and several carronades mounted. Presently there was a good
deal of whispering amongst the group of half-a-dozen gentlemen who
were with me in the lookout, who, from their conversation, I soon found
were underwriters on the schooner outside.

"Heyday," said one, "the Antonio is off somewhat suddenly this morning."

"Where may that schooner, that is sweeping so handsomely down harbour,
belong to?" said I to the gentleman who had spoken.

'To Havanna,' was the answer; "but I fear he intends to overhaul the
Josefa there, and she would be a good prize to him, now since Carthagena
has thrown off allegiance to Spain."

"But he will never venture to infract the neutrality of the waters
surely," rejoined I, "within sight of the squadron too?"

The gentleman I spoke to smiled incredulously; and as I had nothing
particular to do for a couple of hours, I resolved to remain and see the
issue. In a few minutes, the sea-breeze came thundering down, in half
a gale of wind, singing through the rigging of the ships alongside of
the wharfs, and making the wooden blinds rattle again. The Antonio laid
in her sweeps, spread her canvass in an instant, and was lying-to, off
the fort at Port Royal, to land her pass, in little more than half-an-hour
from the time she passed us, a distance of no less than seven
miles, as she had to sail it. In a minute the jib sheet was again
hauled over to leeward, and away she was like an arrow, crowding all
sail. I had seldom seen a vessel so weatherly before. In an hour more,
she was abreast of the town, and abeam of the Josefa, who, from being
cooped up in the narrow inner channel, had, ever since the sea-breeze
set down, been bothering with short tacks, about, and about, every
minute. Presently the Antonio dashed in through a streak of blue water
in the reef, so narrow, that to look at it, I did not think a boat could
have passed, and got between the Josefa and Port Royal, when he took in
his gaff-topsail, and hauled down his flying-jib, but made no hostile
demonstration, beyond keeping dead to leeward, tack for tack with the
Josefa; and once, when the latter seemed about to bear up and run past
him, I noticed the foot of his foresail lift, and his sails shiver as he
came to the wind, as much as to say, "Luff again, my lady, or I'll fire
at you." It was now clear Josefa did not like her playmate, for she
cracked on all the canvass she could carry; and, having tried every
other manoeuvre to escape without effect, she at length, with reckless
desperation, edged away a point, and flew like smoke through another
gap, even smaller and shallower than the one the Antonio had entered by.
We all held our breath until she got into blue water again, expecting
every moment to see her stick fast, and her masts tumble over the side;
but she scraped clear very cleverly, and the next moment was tearing and
plunging through the tumbling waves outside of the reefs. Antonio, as I
expected, followed her, but all very quietly, still keeping well to
leeward, however. Thus they continued for half an hour, running to the
southward and eastward, when I noticed the Havanero, who had gradually
crept up under the Josefa's lee-quarter, hoist his colours and pennant,
and fire a gun at her. She immediately tacked in great confusion, and
made all sail to get back through the canal into the inner channel, with
the other schooner close at her heels, blazing away from his long gun as
fast as he could load. A Spaniard, who was one of the principal owners
of the Josefa's cargo, happened to be standing beside me in the lookout;
at every shot, he would, with a face of the most intense anxiety, while
the perspiration hailed off his brow, slap his hands on his thighs, and
shrink down on his hams, cowering his head at the same time, as if the
shot had been aimed at him, and he was trying to shun it, apostrophizing
himself, with an agitated voice, as follows:

"Valga me Dios, que demonio, que demonio!  Ah, Pancho Roque, tu es
ruinado, mi amigo." Another shot. "Tu es ruinado, chicatico, tan cierto
como navos no son coles." A third flash. "Oh, rabo de lechon de San
Antonio, que es eso, que es eso!"

Neck and neck, however, in came the Josefa, staggering right through the
narrow channel once more, persecuted by the Antonio, with the white
breakers foaming and flashing close to on each side of her, but by this
time there was a third party in the game. I had noticed a lot of signals
made in the flag-ship. Presently one of the sloops of war fired a gun,
and before the smoke blew off, she was under weigh, with her topsails,
spanker, and fore-topmast-staysail set. This was his Majesty's sloop
of war Seaflower, which had slipped from her moorings, and was now
crowding all sail in chase of the arrogant Don, who had dared to fire a
shot in anger in the sanctuary of British waters. All this while, the
Antonio had been so intent on hooking the Carthagenian, that the sloop
was nearly up to him before he hove about and gave up the chase; and now
the tables were beautifully turned on him, for the Seaflower's shot was
flying over and over him in whole broadsides, and he must have been
taken, when, crack, away went the sloop's foretopgallant mast, which
gave the rogue a start. In an hour he was away to windward as far as
you could see, and his pursuer and the Josefa were once more at anchor
in Port Royal.

That evening I returned to the dockyard, where I found every thing going
on with Lotus--Leaf as I could wish. So I returned, after a three days
sojourn on board, to Kingston, and next afternoon mounted my horse, or
rather a horse that a friend was fool enough to lend me, at the agent's
wharf, with the thermometer at ninety-five in the shade, and cantering
off, landed at my aunt Mrs Palma's mountain residence, where the mercury
stood at sixty-two at nightfall, just in time to dress for dinner. I
need not say that we had a pleasant party, as Mary was there; so, having
rigged very killingly as I thought, I made my appearance at dinner, a
mighty man, indeed, with my two epaulets; but to my great
disappointment, when I walked into the piazza, not a soul seemed to
acknowledge my promotion. How blind people are! thought I. Even my
cousins, little creole urchins, dressed in small transparent cambric
shifts, tied into a knot over their tails, and with devil the thing else
on, seemed to perceive no difference, as they pulled me about, with a
volley of "Cousin Taam, what you bring we?"

At length, dinner was announced, and we adjourned from the dark balcony
to the dining room. "Come, there is light enough here; my rank will be
noticed now, surely--but no, so patience." The only males of the party
were the doctor of the district, two Kingston gentlemen, and Colonel
B---- of the Guards; the ladies at dinner being my aunt, Mary, and her
younger sister. We sat down all in high glee; I was sitting opposite
my dearie. "Deuced strange--neither does she take any notice of my two
epaulets;" and I glanced my eye, to be sure that they were both really
there. I then, with some small misgiving, stole a look towards the
Colonel--a very handsome fellow, with all the ease and polish of a
soldier and a gentleman about him. "The devil, it cannot be, surely,"
for the black-eyed and black-haired pale face, seemed annoyingly
attentive to the militaire. At length this said officer addressed me,
"Captain Cringle, do me the honour to take wine." Mary started at the
Captain.

"She gazed, she redden'd like a rose, Syne pale as ony lily."

Aha, thought I, all right still. She trembled extremely, and her mother
at length noticed it, I saw; but all this while, B---- was balancing a
land-crab on his silver fork, while, with a wine-glass in his other
claw, he was ogling me in some wonderment. I saw the awkwardness of the
affair, and seizing a bottle of catchup for one of sercial, I filled my
glass with such vehemence, that I spilt a great part of it; but even the
colour and flavour did not recover me; so, with a face like a northwest
moon, I swilled off the potion, and instantly fell back in my chair
"Poisoned! by all that is nonsensical--poisoned catchup oh Lord!" and
off I started to my bedroom, where, by dint of an ocean of hot water, I
got quit of the sauce, and clinching the whole with a caulker of brandy,
I returned to the dinner-table a good deal abashed, I will confess, but
endeavouring most emphatically all the while to laugh it off as a good
jest. But my Mary was flown; she had been ailing for some days, her
mother alleged, and she required rest. Presently my aunt rose, and we
were left to our bottle, and sorry am I to say it, I bumpered away, from
some strong unaccountable impulse, until I got three parts drunk, to the
great surprise of the rest of the party, for guzzling wine was not
certainly a failing of mine, unless on the strong provocation of good
fellowship.

Mary did not appear that evening, and I may as well tell the whole
truth, that she was pledged to marry me whenever I got my step; and next
morning all this sort of thing was duly communicated to mamma, &c. &c.
&c., and I was the happiest, and so forth--all of which, as it concerns
no one but myself, if you please, we shall say no more about it.

The beautiful cottage where we were sojourning was situated about three
thousand feet above the level of the sea, and half way up the great
prong of the Blue Mountains, known by the name of the Liguanea range,
which rises behind, and overhangs the city of Kingston. The road to it,
after you have ridden about five miles over the hot plain of Liguanea,
brings you to Hope estate, where an anatomy of an old watchman greeted
me with the negro's constant solicitation--"Massa, me beg you for one
fee-penny." This youth was, as authentic records show, one hundred and
forty years old only.--The Hope is situated in the very gorge of the
pass, wherein you have to travel nine miles farther, through most
magnificent scenery; at one time struggling among the hot stones of the
all but dry river-course; at others, winding along the breezy cliffs,
on mule-paths not twelve inches wide, with a perpendicular wall of rock
rising five hundred feet above you on one side, while a dark gulf, a
thousand feet deep, yawned on the other, from the bottom of which arose
the hoarse murmur of the foliage-screened brook. Noble trees spread
their boughs overhead, and the most beautiful shrubs and bushes grew and
blossomed close at hand, and all was moist, and cool, and fresh, until
you turned the bare pinnacle of some limestone-rock, naked as the
summit of the Andes, where the hot sun, even through the thin attenuated
air of that altitude, would suddenly blaze on you so fiercely, that your
eyes were blinded and your face blistered, as if you had been suddenly
transported within the influence of a sirocco. Well, now, since you
know the road, let us take a walk after breakfast. It shall be a
beautiful clear day--not a speck or cloud in the heavens. Mary is with
me.

"Well, Tom," says she, "you were very sentimental last evening."

"Sentimental! I was deucedly sick, let me tell you--a wineglassful of
cold catchup is rather trying even to a lover's stomach, Mary. Murder,
I never was so sick, even in my first cruise in the old Breeze!  Bah!
Do you know I did not think of you for an hour afterwards?--not until
that bumper of brandy stayed my calamity. But come, when shall we be
married, Maria? Oh! have done with your blushing and botheration
tomorrow or next day? It would not be quite the thing this evening,
would it?"

"Tom, you are crazy. Time enough, surely, when we all meet in England."

"And when may that be?" said I, drawing her arm closer through mine.
"No, no--tomorrow I will call on the admiral; and as you are all going
to England in the fleet at any rate, I will ask his leave to give you a
passage."

All of which, as I said before, being parish news, we shall drop a veil
over it--so a small touch at the scenery again.

Immediately under foot rose several lower ranges of mountains those
nearest us, covered with the laurel-looking coffee-bushes,
interspersed with negro villages hanging amongst the fruit-trees like
clusters of birds nests on the hillside, with a bright green patch of
plantain suckers here and there, and a white painted overseer's house
peeping from out the wood, and herds of cattle in the Guinea-grass
pieces. Beyond these, stretched out the lovely plain of Liguanea,
covered with luxuriant cane-pieces, and groups of negro houses, and
Guinea-grass pastures of even a deeper green than that of the canes;
and small towns of sugar-works rose every here and there, with their
threads of white smoke floating up into the clear sky, while, as the
plain receded, the cultivation disappeared, and it gradually became
sterile, hot, and sandy, until the Long Mountain hove its back like a
whale from out the sea-like level of the plain; while to the right of
it appeared the city of Kingston, like a model, with its parade, or
place d'armes, in the centre, from which its long lines of hot sandy
streets stretched out at right angles, with the military post of Up
park camp, situated about a mile and a half to the northward and
eastward of the town. Through a tolerably good glass, the church spire
looked like a needle, the trees about the houses like bushes, the tall
cocoa-nut trees like harebells; a slow crawling black speck here and
there denoted a carriage moving along, while waggons, with their teams
of eighteen and twenty oxen, looked like so many centipedes. At the
camp, the two regiments drawn out on parade, with two nine-pounders on
each flank, and their attendant gunners, looked like a red sparkling
line, with two black spots at each end, surrounded by small black dots.
Presently the red line wavered, and finally broke up, as the regiments
wheeled into open column, when the whole fifteen hundred men crawled
past three little scarlet spots, denoting the general and his staff.
When they began to manoeuvre, each company looked like a single piece in
a game at chess; and as they fired by companies, the little tiny puffs
of smoke floated up like wreaths of wool, suddenly surmounting and
overlaying the red lines, while the light companies breaking away into
skirmishers, seemed, for all the world, like two red bricks suddenly
cast down, and shattered on the ground, whereby the fragments were
scattered all over the green fields, and under the noble trees, the
biggest of which looked like small cabbages. At length the line was
again formed, and the inspection being over, it broke up once more, and
the minute red fragments presently vanished altogether like a nest of
ants, the guns, looking like so many barleycorns, under the long lines
of barracks, that looked no bigger than houses in a child's toy. As for
the other arm, we of the navy had no reason to glorify ourselves. For,
while the review proceeded on shore, a strange man-of-war hove in
sight in the offing, looming like a mussel-shell, although she was a
forty-four-gun frigate, and ran down before the wind, close to the
Palisadoes, or natural tongue of land, which juts out like a bow from
Rock Fort, to the eastward of Kingston, and hoops in the harbour, and
then lengthens out, trending about five miles due west, where it widens
out into a sandy flat, on which the town and forts of Port Royal are
situated. She was saluting the admiral when I first saw her. A red
spark and a small puff on the starboard side--a puff, but no spark, on
the larboard, which was the side farthest from us, but no report from
either reached our ears; and presently down came the little red flag,
and up went the St George's ensign, white, with a red cross, while the
sails of the gallant craft seemed about the size of those of a little
schoolboy's plaything. After a short interval, the flag ship, a seventy
four, lying at Port Royal, returned the salute. She, again, appeared
somewhat loftier; she might have been an oyster-shell; while the
squadron of four frigates, two sloops of war, and several brigs and
schooners, looked like ants in the wake of a beetle. As for the dear
little Wave, I can compare her to nothing but a musquitto, and the large
500--ton West Indiamen lying off Kingston, five miles nearer, were but
as small cock-boats to the eye. In the offing the sea appeared like
ice, for the waves were not seen at all, and the swell could only be
marked by the difference in the reflection of the sun's rays as it rose
and fell, while a hot haze hung over the whole, making every thing
indistinct, so that the water blended into sky, without the line of
demarcation being visible. But even as we looked forth on this most
glorious scene, a small black cloud rose to windward. At this time we
were both sitting on the grass on a most beautiful bank, beneath an
orange-tree--the ominous appearance increased in size--the sea breeze
was suddenly stifled--the swelling sails of the frigate that had first
saluted, fell, and, as she rolled, flattened in against the masts the
rustling of the green leaves overhead ceased.

The cloud rolled onward from the east, and spread out, and out, as it
sailed in from seaward, and on, and on, until it gradually covered the
whole scene from our view, (shipping, and harbour, and town, and camp,
and sugar estates,) boiling and rolling in black eddies under our feet.
Anon the thunder began to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out
from one dark mass into another, while all, where we sat, was bright and
smiling under the unclouded noon-day sun. This continued for half an
hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the clouds below us
brightened into a sea of white fleecy vapour like wool, which gradually
broke away into detached masses, discovering another layer of still
thinner vapour underneath, which again parted, disclosing through the
interstices a fresh gauze-like veil of transparent mist, through which
the lower ranges of hills, and the sugar estates, and the town and
shipping, were once more dimly visible; but this in turn vanished, and
the clouds, attracted by the hills, floated away, and hung around them
in festoons, and gradually rose and rose until presently we were
enveloped in mist, and Mary spoke. "Tom, there will be thunder here
what shall we do?"

"Poo, never mind. Mary, you have a conductor on the house."

"True," said she; "but the servants, when the post that supported it was
blown down t'other day, very judiciously unlinked the rods, and now,
since I remember me, they are, to use your phrase, 'stowed away' below
the house;" and so they were, sure enough. However, we had no more
thunder, and soon the only indications of the spent storm were the red
discoloured appearance of the margin of the harbour, from the rush of
muddy water off the land, and the chocolate colour of the previously
snow-white sandy roads, that now twisted through the plain like black
snakes, and a fleecy dolphin-shaped cloud here and there stretching
out, and floating horizontally in the blue sky, as if it had been hooked
to the precipitous mountain tops above us. Next day it was agreed that
we should all return to Kingston, and the day after that, we proceeded
to Mr Bangs's Pen, on the Spanish Town road, as a sort of halfway house,
or stepping stone to his beautiful residence in St Thomas in the Vale,
where we were all invited to spend a fortnight. Our friend himself was
on the other side of the island, but he was to join us in the valley,
and we found our comforts carefully attended to; and as the day after
we had set up our tent at the Pen was to be one of rest to my aunt, I
took the opportunity of paying my respects to the admiral, who was then
careening at his mountain retreat in the vicinity with his family.
Accordingly, I took horse, and rode along the margin of the great lagoon,
on the Spanish Town road, through tremendous defiles; and after being
driven into a watchman's hut by the rain, I reached the house, and was
most graciously received by Sir Samuel Semaphore and his lady, and their
lovely daughters. Oh, the most splendid women that ever were built!  The
youngest is now, I believe, the prime ornament of the Scottish Peerage;
and I never can forget the pleasure I so frequently experienced in those
days in the society of this delightful family. The same evening I
returned to the Pen. On my way I fell in with three officers in white
jackets, and broad-brimmed straw hats, wading up to the waist amongst
the reeds of the lagoon, with guns held high above their heads. They
were shooting ducks, it seemed; and their negro servants were heard
ploutering and shouting amidst the thickets of the crackling reeds,
while their dogs were swimming all about them.

"Hillo!" shouted the nearest--"Cringle, my lad--whither bound? how is
Sir Samuel and Lady Semaphore, eh? Capital sport, ten brace of teal
there"--and the spokesman threw two beautiful birds ashore to me. This
wise man of the bulrushes was no less a personage than Sir Jeremy Mayo,
the commander of the forces, one of the bravest fellows in the army, and
respected and beloved by all who ever knew him, but a regular dare
devil of an Irishman, who, not satisfied with his chance of yellow fever
on shore, had thus chosen to hunt for it with his staff, in the Caymanas
Lagoon.

Next morning, we set out in earnest on our travels for St Thomas in the
Vale, in two of our friend Bang's gigs, and my aunt's ketureen, laden
with her black maiden and a lot of bandboxes, while two mounted servants
brought up the rear, and my old friend Jupiter, who had descended, not
from the clouds, but from the excellent Mr Fyall, who was by this time
gathered to his fathers, to Massa Aaron, rode a musket shot ahead of the
convoy to clear away, or give notice of any impediments, of wagons or
carts, or droves of cattle, that might be meeting us.


After driving five miles or so, we reached the seat of government,
Spanish Town. Here we stopped at the Speaker's house--by the way, one
of the handsomest and most agreeable men I ever saw--intending to
proceed in the afternoon to our destination. But the rain in the
forenoon fell so heavily, that we had to delay our journey until next
morning; and that afternoon I spent in attending the debates in the
House of Assembly, where every thing was conducted with much greater
decorum than I ever saw maintained in the House of Commons, and no great
daring in the assertion either. The Hall itself, fitted with polished
mahogany benches, was handsome and well aired, and between it and the
grand court, as it is called, occupying the other end of the building,
which was then sitting, there is a large cool saloon, generally in term
time well filled with wigless lawyers and their clients. The House of
Assembly (this saloon and the court-house forming one side of the
square) is situated over against the Government House; while another
side is occupied by a very handsome temple, covering in a statue erected
to Lord Rodney, the saviour of the Island, as he is always called, from
having crushed the fleet of Count de Grasse.

At length, at grey-dawn the next day, as the report of the morning gun
came booming along the level plain from Port Royal, we weighed and
finally started on our cruise. As we drove up towards St Thomas in the
Vale, from Spanish Town, along the hot sandy road, the plain gradually
roughened into small rocky eminences, covered with patches of bushes
here and there, with luxuriant Guinea-grass growing in the clefts; the
road then sank between abrupt little hills the Guinea corn fields began
to disappear, the grass became greener, the trees rose higher, the air
felt fresher and cooler, and proceeding still farther, the hills on
either side swelled into mountains, and became rocky and precipitous,
and drew together, as it were, until they appeared to impend over us.
We had now arrived at the gorge of the pass, leading into the valley,
through which flowed a most beautiful limpid clear blue stream, along
the margin of which the road wound, while the tree-clothed precipices
rose five hundred feet perpendicularly on each brink. Presently we
crossed a wooden bridge, supported by a stone pier in the centre, when
Jupiter pricked a-head to give notice of the approach of waggons, that
our cavalcade might haul up, out of danger, into some nook in the rock,
to allow the lumbersome teams to pass.

"What is that?"--I was driving my dearie in the leading gig--"is that a
pistol shot?" It was the crack of the long whip carried by the negro
waggoner, reverberated from hill to hill, and from cliff to cliff; and
presently the father of gods came thundering down the steep acclivity
we were ascending.

"Massa, draw up into dat corner; draw up."

I did as I was desired, and presently the shrill whistle of the negro
waggoners, and the increasing sharpness of the reports of their loud
whips, the handles of which were as long as fishing-rods, and their
wild exclamations to their cattle, to whom they addressed themselves by
name, as if they had been reasonable creatures, gave notice of the near
approach of a train of no fewer than seven waggons, each with three
drivers, eighteen oxen, three hogsheads of sugar, and two puncheons of
rum.

Come, thought I--if the negroes are overworked, it is more than the
bullocks are, at all events. They passed us with abundance of yelling
and cracking, and as soon as the coast was clear, we again pursued our
way up the ravine, than which nothing could be more beautiful or
magnificent. On our right hand now rose, almost perpendicularly, the
everlasting rocks, to a height of a thousand feet, covered with the
richest foliage that imagination can picture, while here and there a
sharp steeple-like pinnacle of grey-stone, overgrown with lichens,
shot up, and out from the face of them, into the blue sky, mixing with
the tall forest trees that overhung the road, festooned with ivy and
withes of different kinds, like the rigging of a ship, round which the
tendrils of many a beautiful wild-flower crept twining up, while all
was fresh with the sparkling dew that showered down on us, with every
breath of wind, like rain. On our left foamed the roaring river, and on
the other brink the opposite bank rose equally precipitously, clothed
also with superb trees, that spread their blending boughs over the
chasm, until they wove themselves together with those that grew on the
side we were on, qualifying the noonday fierceness of a Jamaica sun into
a green cool twilight, while the long misty reaches of the blue river,
with white foaming rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them,
lengthened out beneath in the distance. Oh! the very look of it
refreshed one unspeakably.

Presently a group of half-a-dozen country Buccras-overseers, or
coffee-planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either--hove
in sight, all in their blue-white jean trowsers, and long Hessian boots
pulled up over them, and new blue square-cut, bright-buttoned coatees,
and thread-bare silk broad-brimmed hats. They dashed past us on
goodish nags, followed at a distance of three hundred yards by a covey
of negro-servants, mounted on mules, in white Osnaburg trowsers, with a
shirt or frock over them, no stockings, each with one spur, and the
stirrup-iron held firmly between the great and second toes, while a
snow-white sheep's fleece covered their massas portmanteaus, strapped
on to the mail pillion behind. We drove on for about seven miles, after
entering the pass, the whole scenery of which was by far the finest
thing I had ever seen, the precipices on each side becoming more and
more rugged and abrupt as we advanced, until all at once we emerged from
the chasm on the parish of St Thomas in the Vale, which opened on us
like a magical illusion, in all its green luxuriance and freshness. But
by this time we were deucedly tired, and Massa Aaron's mansion, situated
on its little airy hill above a sea of canes, which rose and fell before
the passing breeze like the waves of the ocean, was the most consolatory
object in the view; and thither we drove is fast as our wearied horses
could carry us, and found every thing most carefully prepared for our
reception. Having dressed, we had a glorious dinner, lots of good wine;
and, the happiest of the happy, I tumbled into bed, dreaming of leading
a division of line-of-battle ships into action, and of Mary, and of
our eldest son being my first lieutenant.

"Massa"--quoth Jupiter--"you take cup of coffee, dis marning, massa?"

"Thank you--certainly."

It was by this time grey dawn. My window had been left open the evening
before, when it was hot and sultry enough, but it was now cold and damp,
and a wetting mist boiled in through the open sash, like rolling wreaths
of white smoke.

"What is that--where are we in the North Sea, or on the top of Mont
Blanc? Why, clouds may be all in your way, Massa Jupiter, but...."

"Cloud!" rejoined the Deity--"him no more den marning fag, massa;
always hab him over de Vale in de morning, until de sun melt him. And
where is you?--why, you is in Massa Aaron house, here in St Thomas in de
Vale--and Miss."

"Miss"--said I--"what Miss?"

"Oh, for you Miss," rejoined Jupiter with a grin, "Miss Mary up and
dress already, and de horses are at de door; him wait for you to ride
wid him before breakfast, massa, and to see de clearing of de fag."

"Ride before breakfast!--see the clearing of the fog!" grumbled I.
"Romantic it may be, but consumedly inconvenient." However, my
knighthood was at stake; so up I got, drank my coffee, dressed, and
adjourned to the piazza, where my adorable was all ready rigged with
riding-habit and whip; straightway we mounted, she into her side
saddle with her riding-habit, and who knows how many petticoats beneath
her, while I, Pilgarlic, embarked in thin jean trowsers upon a cold,
damp, indeed wet, saddle, that made me shiver again. But I was
understood to be in love; ergo, I was expected to be agreeable.
However, a damp saddle and a thin pair of trowsers allays one's ardour a
good deal too. But if any one had seen the impervious fog in which we
sat--why, you could not see a tree three yards from you--a cabbage
looked like a laurel bush, and Sneezer became a dromedary, and the
negroes passing the little gate to their work were absolute Titans.
Boom, a long reverberating noise thundered in the distance, and amongst
the hills, gradually dying away in a hollow rumble. "The admiral
tumbling down the hatchway, Tom--the morning gun fired at Port Royal,"
said Mary; and so it was.

The fire-flies were still glancing amongst the leaves of the beautiful
orange-trees in front of the house; but we could see no farther, the
whole view being shrouded under the thick watery veil which rolled and
boiled about us, sometimes thick, and sometimes thinner; hovering
between a mist and small rain, and wetting ones hair, and face, and
clothes, most completely. We descended from the eminence on which the
house stood, rode along the level at the foot of it, and, after a canter
of a couple of miles, we began to ascend a bridle-path, through the
Guinea-grass pastures, which rose rank and soaking wet, as high as
one's saddlebow, drenching me to the skin, in the few patches where I
was not wet before. All this while the fog continued as thick as ever;
at length we suddenly rose above it--rode out of it, as it were.

St Thomas in the Vale is, as the name denotes, a deep valley, about ten
miles long by six broad, into which there is but one inlet comfortably
passable for carriages--the road along which we had come. The hills, by
which it is surrounded on all sides, are, for the most part, covered
with Guinea--grass pastures on the lower ranges, and with coffee
plantations and provision grounds higher up. When we had ridden clear
of the mist, the sun was shining brightly overhead, and every thing was
fresh and sparkling with dewdrops near us; but the vale was still
concealed under the wool-like sea of white mist, only pierced here and
there by a tall cocoa--nut tree rising above it, like the mast of a
foundered vessel. But anon the higher ridges of the grass pieces
appeared, as the fog undulated in fleecy waves in the passing breeze,
which, as it rose and sank like the swell of the ocean, disclosed every
now and then the works on some high-lying sugar estate, and again
rolled over them like the tide covering the shallows of the sea, while
shouts of laughter, and the whooping of the negroes in the fields, rose
from out the obscurity, blended with the signal cries of the sugar
boilers to the stockholemen of "Fire, fire grand copper, grand copper,"
and the ca cawing, like so many rooks, of the children driving the mules
and oxen in the mills, and the everlasting splashing and panting of the
water-wheel of the estate immediately below us, and the crashing and
smashing of the canes, as they were crushed between the mill rollers;
and the cracking of the wain and waggonmen's long whips, and the
rumbling, and creaking, and squealing of the machinery of the mills, and
of the carriage-wheels; while the smoke from the unseen chimney stalks
of the sugar-works rose whirling darkly up through the watery veil,
like spinning waterspouts, from out the bosom of the great deep. Anon
the veil rose, and we were once more gradually enveloped in clouds.
Presently the thickest of the mist floated up, and rose above us like a
gauze-like canopy of fleecy clouds overhanging the whole level plain,
through which the red quenched sun, which a moment before was flaming
with intolerable brightness overhead, suddenly assumed the appearance of
a round red globe in an apothecary's window, surrounded by a broad
yellow sickly halo, which dimly lit up, as if the sun had been in
eclipse, the cane-fields, then in arrow, as it is called, (a lavender
coloured flower, about three feet long, that shoots out from the top of
the cane, denoting that it is mature, and fit to be ground,) and the
Guinea-grass plats, and the nice-looking houses of the bushas, and the
busy mill-yards, and the noisy gangs of negroes in the field, which
were all disclosed, as if by the change of a scene.

At length, in love as we were, we remembered our breakfast; and
beginning to descend, we encountered in the path a gang of about three
dozen little glossy black piccaninies going to their work, the oldest
not above twelve years of age, under the care of an old negress. They
had all their little packies, or calabashes, on their heads, full of
provisions; while an old cook, with a bundle of fagots on her head, and
a fire stick in her hand, brought up the rear, her province being to
cook the food which the tiny little work-people carried. Presently one
or two book-keepers, or deputy white superintendents on the plantation,
also passed,--strong healthy looking young fellows, in stuff jackets and
white trowsers, and all with good cudgels in their hands. The mist,
which had continued to rise up and up, growing thinner and thinner as it
ascended, now rent overhead about the middle of the vale, and the
masses, like scattered clouds, drew towards the ledge of the hills that
surrounded it, like floating chips of wood in a tub of water, sailing in
long shreds towards @he most precipitous peaks, to which as they
ascended they attached themselves, and remained at rest. And now the
fierce sun, reasserting his supremacy, shone once more in all his
tropical fierceness right down on the steamy earth, and all was glare,
and heat, and bustle.

Next morning, I rode out at daylight along with Mr Bang, who had arrived
on the previous evening. We stopped to breakfast at a property of his
about four miles distant, and certainly we had no reason to complain of
our fare-fresh fish from the gully, nicely roasted yams, a capital junk
of salt beef, a dish I always glory in on shore, although a hint of it
at sea makes me quake; and, after our repast, I once more took the road
to see the estate, in company of my learned friend. There was a long
narrow saddle, or ridge of limestone, about five hundred feet high, that
separated the southern quarter of the parish from the northern. The
cane-pieces, and cultivated part of the estate, lay in a dead level of
deep black mould, to the southward of this ridge, from out which the
latter rose abruptly. The lower part of the ridge was clothed with the
most luxuriant orange, shaddock, lime, star-apple, breadfruit, and
custard apple-trees, besides numberless others that I cannot
particularize, while the summit was shaded by tall forest timber.
Proceeding along a rough bridle path for the space of two miles, we
attained the highest part of the saddle, and turned sharp off to the
right, to follow a small footpath that had been billed in the bush,
being the lines recently run by the land-surveyor between Mr Bang's
property and the neighbouring estate, the course of which mine host was
desirous of personally inspecting. We therefore left our horses in
charge of the servants, who had followed us running behind, holding on
by the tails of our horses, and began to brush through the narrow path
cut in the hot underwood. After walking a hundred yards or so, we
arrived at the point where the path ended abruptly, abutting against a
large tree that had been felled, the stump of which remained, being
about three feet high, and at least five in diameter. Mr Bang
immediately perched himself on it to look about him, to see the lay of
the land over the sea of brushwood. I remained below, complaining loudly
of the heat and confined air of my situation, and swabbing all the while
most energetically, when I saw my friend start.

"Zounds, Tom, look behind you!" We had nothing but our riding switches
in our hands. A large snake, about ten feet long, had closed up the
path in our rear, sliding slowly from one branch to another, and hissing
and striking out its forked tongue, as it twisted itself, at the height
of my head from the ground, amongst the trees and bushes, round and
round about, occasionally twining its neck round a tree as thick as my
body, on one side of the path, and its tail round another, larger in
girth than my leg, on the other; when it would, with prodigious
strength, but the greatest ease, and the most oily smoothness, bend the
smaller tree like a hoop, until the trunks nearly touched, although
growing full six feet asunder; as if a tackle fall, or other strong
purchase, had been applied; but continuing all the while it was putting
forth its power, to glide soapily along, quite unconcernedly, and to all
appearance as pliant as a leather thong,--shooting out its glancing
neck, and glowering about with its little blasting fiery eyes,--and
sliding the forepart of the body onwards without pausing, as if there had
been no strain on the tail whatsoever, until the stems of the two trees
were at length brought together, when it let the smaller go with a loud
spank, that shook the dew off the neighbouring branches, and the
perspiration from Tom Cringle's forehead-whose nerves were not more
steady than the tree-like rain, and frightened all the birds in the
neighbourhood; while it, the only unstartled thing, continued steadily
and silently on its course,--turning and looking at us, and poking its
head within arm's length, and raising it with a loud hiss, and a
threatening attitude, on our smallest motion.

"A modern group of the Laocoon--lord, what a neckcloth we shall both have
presently!" thought I.

Meanwhile, the serpent seemed to be emboldened from our quietude, and
came so near, that I thought I perceived the hot glow of its breath,
with its scales glancing like gold and silver, and its diamond-like
eyes sparkling; but all so still and smooth, that unless it were an
occasional hiss, its motions were noiseless as those of an apparition.

At length the devil came fairly between us, and I could stand it no
longer. We had both up to this period been really and truly fascinated;
but the very instant that the coast was clear in my wake, by the snake
heading me, and gliding between me and Mr Bang, my manhood forsook me
all of a heap, and, turning tail, I gave a loud shout, and started off
down the path at speed, never once looking behind, and leaving Bang to
his fate, perched on his pedestal, like the laughing satyr; however, the
next moment I heard him thundering in my rear. My panic had been
contagious, for the instant my sudden motion had frightened the snake
out of his way, he started forth after me at speed, and away we both
raced, until a stump caught my foot, and both of us, after flying
through the air a couple of fathoms or so, trundled head over heels,
over and over, shouting and laughing. Pegtop now came up to us in no
small surprise, but the adventure was at an end, and we returned to Mr
Bangs to dinner.

Here we had an agreeable addition to our party in Sir Jeremy Mayo, and
the family of the Admiral, Sir Samuel Semaphore, his lady, his two most
amiable daughters, and the husband of the eldest.

Next morning we rode out to breakfast with a very worthy man, Mr
Stornaway, the overseer of Mount Olive estate, in the neighbourhood of
which there were several natural curiosities to be seen. Although the
extent of our party startled him a good deal, he received us most
hospitably. He ushered us into the piazza, where breakfast was laid,
when uprose ten thousand flies from the breakfast table, that was
covered with marmalade, and guava jelly, and nicely roasted yams, and
fair white bread; and the fragrant bread-fruit roasted in the ashes,
and wrapped in plantain leaves; while the chocolate and coffee pots--the
latter equal in cubic content to one of the Wave's water-butts
emulated each other in the fragrance of the odours which they sent
forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork hams, and
really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that flanked the main
body of the entertainment on a side table, all strong provocative to
fall to.

"You, Quacco--Peter--Monkey"--shouted Stornaway--"where are you, with
your brushes; don't you see the flies covering the table?" The three
sable pages forthwith appeared, each with a large green branch in his
hand, which they waved over the viands, and we sat down and had a most
splendid breakfast. Lady Semaphore and I--for I have always had a touch
of the old woman in me--were exceedingly tickled with the way in which
the piccaniny mummas, that is, the mothers of the negro children,
received our friend Bang. After breakfast, a regular muster took place
under the piazza of all the children on the property, under eight years
of age, accompanied by their mothers.

"Ah, Massa Bang," shouted one, "why you no come see we oftener? you
forget your poor piccaniny hereabout."

"You grow foolish old man now," quoth another.

"You no wort--you go live in town, an no care about we who make Massa
money here; you no see we all tarving here;" and the nice cleanly
looking fat matron, who made the remark, laughed loudly.

He entered into the spirit of the affair with great kindliness, and
verily, before he got clear, his pockets were as empty as a half-pay
lieutenant's. His fee pennies were flying about in all directions.

After breakfast we went to view the natural bridge, a band of rock that
connects two hills together, and beneath which a roaring stream rushes,
hid entirely by the bushes and trees that grow on each side of the
ravine. We descended by a circuitous footpath into the river course,
and walked under the natural arch, and certainly never was any thing
finer; a regular Der Freyschutz dell. The arch overhead was nearly
fifty feet high, and the echo was superb, as we found, when the sweet
voices of the ladies, blending in softest harmony--(lord, how fine you
become, Tom!)--in one of Moore's melodies, were reflected back on us at
the close with the most thrilling distinctness; while a stone, pitched
against any of the ivy-like creepers, with which the face of the rock
was covered, was sure to dislodge a whole cloud of birds, and not
infrequently a slow-sailing white-winged owl. Shortly after the
Riomagno Gully, as it is called, passes this most interesting spot, it
sinks, and runs for three miles under ground, and again reappears on the
surface, and gurgles over the stones, as if nothing had happened. By
the by, this is a common vagary of nature in Jamaica. For instance, the
Rio Cobre, I think it is, which, after a subterranean course of three
miles, suddenly gushes out of the solid rock at Bybrook estate, in a
solid cube of clear cold water, three feet in diameter; and I remember,
in a cruise that I had at another period of my life, in the leeward part
of the Island, we came to an estate, where the supply of water for the
machinery rose up within the bounds of the mill-dam itself, into which
there was no flow, with such force, that above the spring, if I might so
call it, the bubbling water was projected into a blunt cone, like the
bottom of a cauldron, the apex of which was a foot higher than the level
of the pond, although the latter was eighteen feet deep.

After an exceedingly pleasant day we returned home, and next morning,
when I got out of bed, I complained of a violent itching and pain, a
sort of nondescript sensation, a mixture of pain and pleasure in my
starboard great toe, and on reconnoitring, I discovered it to be a good
deal inflamed on the ball, round a blue spot about the size of a
pinhead. Pegtop had come into the room, and while he was placing my
clothes in order, I asked him "What this could be--gout, think you,
Massa Pegtop--gout?"

"Gote, massa--gote--no, no, him chiger, massa--chiger--little something
like one flea; poke him head under de kin, dere lay egg; ah, great
luxury to creole gentleman and lady, dat chiger; sweet pain, creole miss
say--nice for cratch him, him say."

"Why, it may be a creole luxury, Pegtop, but I wish you would relieve me
of it."

"Surely, massa surely, if you wish it," said Pegtop, in some surprise at
my want of taste. "Lend me your penknife den, massa;" and he gabbled
away as he extracted from my flesh the chiger bag-like a blue pill in
size and colour.

"Oh, massa, top till you marry creole wife,--she will tell you me say
true; ah, daresay Miss Mary himself love chiger to tickle him--to be
sure him love to be tickle--him love to be tickle--ay, all Creole miss
love to be tickle--he, he, he!"

By agreement, Mr Bang and I met Mr Stornaway this morning, in order to
visit some other estates together, and during our ride I was
particularly gratified by his company. He was a man of solid and very
extensive acquirements, and far above what his situation in life at that
time led one to expect. When I revisited the island some years
afterwards, I was rejoiced to find that his intrinsic worth and ability
had floated him up into a very extensive business, and I believe he is
now a man of property. I rather think he is engaged in some statistical
work connected with Jamaica, which, I am certain, will do him credit
whenever it appears. Odd enough, the very first time I saw him, I said
I was sure he would succeed in the world; and I am glad to find I was a
true prophet. To return: Our chief object at present was to visit a
neighbouring estate, the overseer of which was, we were led to believe
from a message sent to Mr Bang, very ill with fever. He was a most
respectable young man, Mr Stomaway told me, a Swede by birth, who had
came over to England with his parents at the early age of eight years,
where both he and his cousin Agatha had continued, until he embarked for
the West Indies. This was an orphan girl whom his father had adopted,
and both of them, as he had often told Mr Stornaway, had utterly
forgotten their Swedish,--in fact, they understood no language but
English at the time he embarked. I have been thus particular, from a
very extraordinary phenomenon that occurred immediately, preceding his
dissolution, of which I was a witness.

We rode up in front of the door, close to the fixed manger, where the
horses and mules belonging to the busha are usually fed, and encountered
a negro servant on a mule, with an umbrella-case slung across his back,
and a portmanteau behind him, covered with the usual sheep's fleece, and
holding a saddle horse.

"Where is your master?" said Mr Bang.

"De dactor is in de hose," replied quashie. "Busha dere upon dying."

We ascended the rocky unhewn steps, and entered the cool, dark hall,
smelling strong of camphor, and slid over the polished floors towards an
open door, that led into the back piazza, where we were received by the
head book-keeper and carpenter. They told us that the overseer had
been seized three days before with fever, and was now desperately ill;
and presently the doctor came forth out of the sick-room.

"Poor Wedderfelt is fast going, sir--cold at the extremities already
very bad fever--the bilious remittent of the country, of the worst type."

All this while the servants, male and female, were whispering to each
other; while a poor little black fellow sat at the door of the room,
crying bitterly--this was the overseer's servant. We entered the room.
which was darkened from the jealousies being, all shut, except one of
the uppermost, which happening to be broken, there was a strong pencil
of light cast across the head of the bed where the sick man lay while
the rest of the room was involved in gloom.

The sufferer seemed in the last stage of yellow fever; his skin was a
bright yellow, his nose sharp, and his general features very much
pinched. His head had been shaven, and there was a handkerchief bound
round it over a plantain leaf, the mark of the blister coming low down
on his forehead, where the skin was shrivelled like dry parchment
apparently it had not risen. There was also a blister on his chest. He
was very restless, clutching the bedclothes, and tossing his limbs
about; his mouth was ulcerated, and blood oozed from the corners; his
eyes were a deep yellow, with the pupil much dilated, and very,
lustrous; he was breathing with a heavy moaning noise when we entered,
and looked wildly round, mistaking Mr Bang and me for some other
persons. Presently he began to speak very quickly, and to lift one of
his hands repeatedly close to his face, as if there was something in it
he wished to look at. I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair
haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see
it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress
him greatly. After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but
his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no
one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively--it
struck me is being like--I was certain of it--it was Swedish, which in
health he had entirely forgotten, but now in his dying moments vividly
remembered. Alas, it was a melancholy and a moving sight, to perceive
all the hitherto engrossing thoughts and incidents of his youth and
manhood, all save the love of one dear object, suddenly vanish from the
tablet of his memory, ground away and abrased, as it were, by his great
agony--or like worthless rubbish, removed from above some beautiful
ancient inscription, which for ages it had hid, disclosing in all their
primeval freshness, sharp cut into his dieing heart, the long
smothered, but never to be obliterated impressions of his early,
childhood. I could plainly distinguish the name Agatha, whenever he
peered with fast glazing eyes on the miniature. All this while a nice
little brown child was lying playing with his watch and seals on the bed
beside him, while a handsome coloured girl, a slight young creature,
apparently its mother, sat on the other side of the dying man,
supporting his head on her lap, and wetting his mouth every now and then
with a cloth dipped in brandy.

As he raised the miniature to his face, she would gently endeavour to
turn away his hand, that he might not look at one whom she, poor thing,
no doubt considered was usurping the place in his fluttering heart, that
she long fancied had been filled by herself solely; and at other times
she would vainly try to coax it out of his cold hand, but the dieing
grasp was now one of iron, and her attempts evidently discomposed the
departing sinner; but all was done kindly and quietly, and a flood of
tears would every now and then stream down her cheeks, as she failed in
her endeavours, or as the murmured, gasped name, Agatha, reached her
ear.

"Ah!" said she, "him heart riot wid me now--it far away in him own
country, him never will make me yeerie what him say again no more."

Oh, woman, woman! who can fathom that heart of thine!  By this time the
hiccup grew stronger, and all at once he sat up strong in his bed
without assistance, "light as if he felt no wound;" but immediately
thereafter gave a strong shudder, ejecting from his mouth a jet of dark
matter like the grounds of chocolate, and fell back dead whereupon the
negroes began to howl and shriek in such a horrible fashion, that we
were glad to leave the scene.

Next day, when we returned to attend the poor fellow's funeral, we found
a complete bivouac of horses and black servants below the trees in front
of the house, which was full of neighbouring planters and overseers, all
walking about, and talking, and laughing, as if it had been a public
meeting on parish business. Some of them occasionally went into the
room to look at the body as it lay in the open coffin, the lid of which
was at length screwed down, and the corpse carried on four negroes
shoulders to its long home, followed by the brown girl and all the
servants, the latter weeping and howling,--but she, poor thing, said not
a word, although her heart seemed, from the convulsive heaving of her
bosom, like to burst. He was buried under a neighbouring orange-tree,
the service being read by the Irish carpenter of the estate, who got
half a page into the marriage service by mistake before either he or any
one else noticed he was wrong.

Three days after this the admiral extended my leave for a fortnight,
which I spent in a tour round this most glorious island with friend
Aaron, whose smiling face, like the sun, (more like the nor'west moon in
a fog, by the by,) seemed to diffuse warmth, and comfort, and happiness,
wherever he went, while Sir Samuel and his charming family, and the
general, and my dearie, and her aunt, returned home; and after a three
weeks philandering, I was married, and all that sort of thing, and a
week afterwards embarked with my treasure for I had half a million of
dollars on freight, as well as my own particular jewel; and don't grin
at the former, for they gave me a handsome sum, and helped to rig us
when we got to Ould England, where Lotus--Leaf was paid off, and I
settled for a time on shore, the happiest, &c. &c. &c., until some years
afterwards, when the wee Cringles began to tumble home so deucedly fast,
that I had to cut and run, and once more betake myself to the salt sea.
My aunt and her family returned at the same time to England, in a
merchant ship under my convoy, and became our neighbours. Bang also got
married soon after to Miss Lucretia Wagtail, by whom he got the Slap
estate. But old Gelid and my other allies remain, I believe, in single
blessedness until this hour.


MY TALE is told--my yarn is ended,--and were I to spin it longer, I fear
it would be only bending it "end for end;" yet still I linger, "like the
sough of an auld sang" on the ear, loath to pronounce that stern heart
crushing word, that yet "has been, and must be," and which, during my
boisterous and unsettled morning, has been, alas! a too familiar one
with me. I hope I shall always bless Heaven for my fair Blinks,
although, as the day has wore on, I have had my own share of lee
currents, hard gales, and foul weather; and many an old and dear friend
has lately swamped alongside of me, while few new ones have shoved out
to replace them. But suffering, that scathes the heart, does not always
make it callous; and I feel much of the woman hanging about mine still,
even now, when the tide is on the turn with me, and the iron voice of
the inexorable First--Lieutenant, Time, has sung out, "Strike the bell
eight,"--every chime smiting on my soul as if an angel spoke, to warn
me, that my stormy forenoon watch is at length over--that the sun, now
passing the meridian, must soon decline towards the western horizon, and
who shall assure himself of a cloudless setting.

I have, in very truth, now reached the summit of the bald spray washed
promontory, and stand on the slippery ledge of the cliff, that trembles
to the thundering of the surge beneath; but the plunge must be made--so
at once, Farewell all hands, and God bless ye. If, while chucking the
cap about at a venture--but I hope and trust there has been no such
thing--it has alighted on the head of some ancient ally, and pinched in
any the remotest degree, I hereby express my most sincere and heartfelt
regret; and to such a one I would say, as he said, who wrote for all
time,

  "I have shot Mine arrow o'er the house, and hurt my brother."


Thus I cut my stick while the play is good, and before the public gets
wearied of me; and, as for the Log, it is now launched, swim, or
founder; if those things be good, it will float from its own buoyancy;
if they be naught, let it sink at once and for ever--all that Tom
Cringle expects at the hands of his countrymen is--A CLEAR STAGE, AND NO
FAVOUR.


THE END.