OF MY FATHER'S ANABASIS; AND THE DIFFERENT TEMPERS OF AN ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN AND A WILD SHEEP OF CORSICA.
"Bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and
generous honesty are the gems of noble minds; wherein
(to derogate from none) the true heroick English Gentleman hath
no peer."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
"La domesticite n'a eu aucune influence sur le developpement
intellectuel des _mouflons_ que nous avons possedes. . . .
Les hommes ne les effrayaient plus; il semblait meme que ces
animaux eussent acquis plus de confiance dans leur force en
apprenant a nous connaitre. Sans doute on ne peut point
conclure de quelques individus a l'espece entiere; mais on peut
assurer sans rien hasarder, que le _mouflon_ tient une des
dernieres places parmis les mammiferes quant a
l'intelligence.--"
SAINT-HILIAR ET CUVIER, _Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes_.
"You will find them very good fighters," said my uncle. "The most of
them, as I understand from Dom Basilio, were soldiers at one time or
another before they embraced their present calling."
"But the devil of it is," said I, "how you contrived to enlist 'em?"
My uncle stood still and rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know,
Prosper, that I used any arguments. I just put the case to them;
through Dom Basilio, you understand."
"In other words, you made them an eloquent speech."
"I did nothing of the sort," he corrected me hastily. "In the first
place because I have never made a speech and couldn't manage one if I
tried; and next, because it is against their rules. I just put the
case to Dom Basilio. All the credit belongs to him."
Dom Basilio--for the coxswain of the boat proved to be he and no
other--gave me a different account as we pulled toward the
_Gauntlet_. Yet it agreed with my uncle's in the main.
"In faith," said he, "if there be any credit in what we have done or
are about to do, set it down to your uncle. Against goodness so
simple no man can strive, though he bind himself by vows.
Gratitude may have helped a little; but you can say, and you will not
be far out, that for very shame we are here."
Captain Pomery who hailed me over the ship's side, proudly invited me
to row around and inspect the repairs in her--particularly her new
stern-post--before climbing on board. For my part, while
congratulating him upon them and upon his despatch, I admired more
the faces of Mike Halliday and Roger Wearne, grinning welcome to me
over the bulwarks. They, too, called my attention to the repairs; to
the new rudder, fitted with chains in case of accident to the helm,
to the grain of the new mizzen-mast (a beautiful spar, and without a
knot), to the teak hatch-coverings which had replaced those shattered
by the explosion. They desired me to marvel at everything; but that
they themselves after past perils should be here again and ready, for
no more than seamen's pay, to run their heads into perils yet
unhandselled, was to these honest fellows no matter worth
considering.
"But whither be we bound, Master Prosper?" demanded Captain Jo.
"For 'tis ill biding for orders after cracking on to be punctual; and
tho' I say naught against the anchorage _as_ an anchorage, the wind,
what with these hills and gullies, is like Mulligan's blanket, always
coming and going; and by fits an' starts as the ague took the goose;
and likewise backwards and forwards, like Boscastle fair: so that our
cables be twisted worse than a pig's tail."
"As for that," said I, "your next rendezvous, I hear, is the island
of Giraglia; but, for the whole plan of campaign, you must come and
hear it from Billy Priske, who will tell you what my father has done
and what he intends."
Accordingly, after breakfasting aboard, we were landed again and went
up the mountain together--my uncle Gervase, Captain Pomery, Dom
Basilio and I: and on the slope below the Princess's cave we sat and
listened to Billy's story, the Trappist translating it to
Marc'antonio, who sat with his gun across his knees and his eyes
fastened on my uncle's gentle venerable face.
BILLY PRISKE'S STORY OF MY FATHER'S CAMPAIGN.
"As Master Prosper has told you, gentlemen all, we left him sitting
alongside poor Mr. Fiennes, and took the path that leads down and
across the valley yonder and out again on the north side. There were
four of us--my master, myself, and the creatures Fett and Badcock--
each man with his gun and good supply of ammunition. Besides this
Sir John carried his camp-stool and spy-glass, and in his pocket a
map along with his Bible and tobacco pouch; I the wine and his spare
gun: Fett the bag of provisions; and Badcock his flute and a
gridiron."
"Why a gridiron?" asked my uncle.
"The reason he gave, sir, was that it's just these little things that
get left behind, on a picnic; which Sir John, when I reported it,
pronounced to be a very good reason. 'And, as it happens,' said he,
''tis the very reason why Mr. Badcock himself goes with us: for my
son, when he becomes king, will need a Fool, and I have brought a
couple in case of accidents.'
"We started then, as Master Prosper will remember, a little before
dark; and having lanterns to light the track, and now and then the
north star between the tree-tops to give us our bearings, we crossed
the valley and came out through a kind of pass upon a second slope, a
little nor'-west of the spot where I happened yesterday on Master
Prosper. By this, Sir John's watch marked ten o'clock and finding us
dead-beat by the roughness of the track, he commanded us to lie down
and sleep.
"The next morning, after studying his map, he started afresh, still
holding northward in the main but bearing back a little to the left--
that is, toward the sea, which before noon we brought in sight at a
place he called La Piana, where, he said, was a fishing village; and
so no doubt there was, for we spied a two-three boats moored a little
way out from the shore--looking down upon them through a cleft in the
rocks. The village itself we did not see, but skirted it upon high
ground and came down to the foreshore a short two miles beyond it;
where we found a beach and a spit of rock, and on the spit a
tumble-down tower standing, as lonely as a combed louse. Above the
beach ran a tolerable coast road, which divided itself into two,
after crossing a bridge behind the tower; the one following the
shore, the other striking inland up the devil of a gorge.
This inland road we took, for two reasons; the first, that by the map
it appeared to cut off a corner of our journey; the second, because
the map showed a village, not three miles up the gorge, where we
might get advice.
"After an hour's climbing then (for the road twisted uphill along the
edge of the torrent) we came to the village, which was called Otta.
Now, the first thing to happen to us in Otta was that we found it
empty--not so much as a dog in the street--but all the inhabitants on
the hill above, in a crowd before a mighty great stone: and Badcock
would have it that they were gathered together in fear of us.
But the true reason turned out to be something quite different.
For this stone overhangs the village, which is built on a stiff
slope; and though it has hung there for hundreds of years without
moving, the villagers can never be easy that it will not tumble on
top of them; and once a year regularly, and at odd times when the
panic takes them, they march up and tie it with ropes. This very
thing they were doing as we arrived, and all because some old woman
had dreamed of an earthquake. We took notice that in the crowd and
in the gang binding the stone there was no man the right side of
fifty (barring a cripple or two); the reason being that all their
young men had enlisted in the militia.
"These people made us welcome (and I will say, gentlemen, once for
all and in spite of what has happened to Master Prosper here, that
there is no such folk as the Corsicans for kindness to strangers),
but they told us we were on the wrong road. By following the pass we
should find ourselves in forest-tracks which indeed would lead us
down to the great plain of the Niolo and across it to Corte, whence a
good road ran north to Cape Corso; but our shorter way was the
coast-road, which (they added) we must leave before reaching Calvi--
for fear of the Genoese--and take a southerly one which wound through
the mountains to Calenzana. They explained this many times to Sir
John, and Sir John explained it to us; and learning that we were
English, and therefore friends of liberty, they forced us to drink
wine with them--lashins of wine--until just as my head was beginning
to feel muzzy, some one called out that we were heroes and must drink
the wine of heroes, the pride of Otta, the Invincible St. Cyprien.
"By this time we were all as sociable together as mice in malt,
except that these Corsicans never laughed at all, but stared at us
awsome-like even when the creature Fett put one foot on a chair and
another on the table and made 'em a long tom-fool speech in English,
calling 'em friends Romans and countrymen and asking them to lend him
their ears, as though his own weren't long enough. Then they brought
in the Invincible St. Cyprien, and Sir John poured out a glass, and
sniffed and tasted it and threw up his head, gazing round on the
company and looking every man full in the eyes. I can't tell you
why, gentlemen, but his bearing seemed so noble to me at that moment
I felt I could follow him to the death (though of course there wasn't
the leastest need for it, just then). I reached out for the bottle,
filled myself a glass, drank it off, and stared around just as
defiant. It gave me a very pleasant feeling in the pit of the
stomach, and the taste of it didn't seem calculated to hurt a fly.
So I took two more glasses quickly, one after the other; and every
one looked at me with their faces very bright all of a sudden--and
the room itself grown brighter--and to my astonishment I heard them
calling upon me in English for a speech. Whereby, being no public
speaker, I excused myself and walked out into the village street,
which was bright as day with the moon well over the cliffs on the
other side of the gorge, and (to my surprise) crowded with people so
that I couldn't have believed the whole City of London held half the
number, let alone a god-forsaken hole like Otta. I stood for a while
on the doorstep counting 'em, and the next thing I remember was
crossing the street to a low wall overhanging the gorge and leaning
upon it and watching the cliffs working up and down like mine-stamps.
This struck me as curious, and after thinking it over I made up my
mind to climb across and discover the reason."
"I fear, Billy," said my uncle, "that you must have been
intoxicated."
"But the worst, sir, was the moon; which was not like any ordinary
moon, but kept swelling and bursting in showers of the most beautiful
fireworks, so that I said to myself, 'O for the wings of a dove,' I
said, 'so that I fetch some one to put a stop to this!' And I'd
hardly said the words before it was broad day, and me lying in the
street with a small crowd about me, very solemn and curious, and my
head in the lap of a middle-aged woman that smelt of garlic, but
without any pretensions to looks. And she was lifting up her head
and singing a song, and the sound of it as melancholy as a gib-cat in
a garden of cucumbers. Whereby the whole crowd stood by and stared,
without offering to help. Whereby I said to myself, 'This is a
pretty business, and no mistake.' Whereby I saw Sir John come forth
from the house where the drinking had been, and his face was white
but his step steady; and says he, 'What have you been doing to this
woman?' 'Nothing at all,' said I; 'or, leastways, nothing to warrant
this behaviour on her part.' 'Well,' said he, 'you may be surprised
to hear it, but she maintains that you are betrothed to her.'
'A man,' said I, 'may woo where he will, but must wed where his wife
is. If this woman be my fate, I'll say no more except that 'tis
hard; but as for courting her, I never did so.' 'You are in a worse
case than you guess,' said he; 'for, to begin with, the lady is a
widow; and, secondly, she is marrying you, not for your looks, but
for revenge.' 'Why, what have I done?' said I. 'Nothing at all,'
said he; 'but from what I can hear of it, five years ago a man of
Evisa, up the valley, stole a goat belonging to this woman's husband;
whereupon the husband took a gun and went to Evisa and shot the
thief's cousin, mistaking him for the thief; whereupon the thief came
down to Otta and shot the honest man one day while he was gathering
olives in his orchard. He himself left neither chick nor child; but
his kinsmen of the family of Paolantonuccio (I can pronounce the
name, gentlemen, if you will kindly look the other way) took up the
quarrel, and with so much liveliness that to-day but three of them
survive, and these are serving just now with the militia. For the
while, therefore, the Widow Paolantonuccio has no one to carry on the
custom of the country; nor will have, until a husband offers.'
'For pity's sake, Sir John,' said I, `get me out of this! Tell them
that if any man has been courting this woman 'tis not I, William
Priske, but another in my image.' 'Why, to be sure!' cried Sir John.
'It must have been the Invincible St. Cyprien!'
"So stepping back and seating himself again upon the doorstep, he
began to argue with the villagers, the woman standing sullen all the
while and holding me by the arm. I could not understand a word, of
course, but later on he told me the heads of his discourse.
"'I began,' he said, 'by expounding to 'em all the doctrine of
cross-revenge, or _vendetta trasversa_, as they call it; and this I
did for two reasons--the first because in an argument there's naught
so persuasive as telling a man something he knows already--the second
because it proved to them, and to me, that I wasn't drunk. For the
doctrine has more twists in it than a conger.
"'Next I taught them that the doctrine was damnable; and that it
robbed Corsica of men who should be fighting the Genoese, on which
errand we were bound.
"'And lastly I proved to them out of the mouths of several wise men
(some of Greece, and others of my own inventing) that a man with
three glasses of their wine in his belly was a man possessed, and
therefore that either nothing had happened, or, if anything had
happened, the fellow to blame must be that devil of a warrior the
Invincible St. Cyprien.
"'Yet (as so often happens) the argument that really persuaded them,
as I believe, was one I never used at all; which was, that the woman
had money and a parcel of land, and albeit no man could pick up
courage to marry her, they did not relish a stranger stepping in and
cutting them out.'
"Be that as it may, gentlemen, in twenty minutes the crowd had come
round to Sir John's way of thinking; and they not only sold us mules
at thirty livres apiece--which Sir John knew to be the fair current
price--but helped us to truss up Mr. Fett and Mr. Badcock, each on
his beast, and walked with us back to the cross-roads, singing hymns
about Corsican liberty. Only we left the woman sadly cast down.
"From the cross-roads, where they left us and turned back, our road
led through a great forest of pines. Among these pines hung
thousands of what seemed to be balls of white cotton, but were the
nests of a curious caterpillar; which I only mention because Mr.
Fett, coming to, picked up one of these caterpillars and slipped it
down the nape of Mr. Badcock's neck, whereby the poor man was made
uncomfortable all that day and the next; for the hairs of the insect
turned out to be full of poison. In the end we were forced to strip
him and use the gridiron upon him for a currycomb; so it came in
handy, after all.
"On the second day, having crossed a river and come to a village
which, if I remember, was called Manso, we bore away southward among
the most horrible mountains. Among these we wandered four days,
relying always on Sir John's map: but I reckon the man who made it
must have drawn the track out of his own head and trusted that no
person would ever be fool enough to go there. Hows'ever, the weather
keeping mild, we won through the passes with no more damage than the
loss of Mr. Fett's mule (which tumbled over a precipice on the third
day), and a sore on Mr. Fett's heel, brought about by his having to
walk the rest of the way into Calenzana.
"Now at Calenzana, a neat town, we found ourselves nearly in sight of
Calvi and plumb in sight of the Genoese outposts that were planted a
bare gunshot from the house where we lodged, on the road leading
northward to Calvi gate. To the south, as we heard--though we never
saw them--lay a regiment of Paoli's militia; and, between the two
forces Calenzana stood as a sort of no-man's-land, albeit the Genoese
claimed what they called a 'supervision' over it. In fact they never
entered it, mistrusting its defences, and also the temper of its
inhabitants, who were likely enough to rise at their backs if the
patriots gave an assault.
"They contented themselves, then, with advancing their outposts to a
bend on the Calvi road not fifty yards from our lodging, which
happened to be the last house in the suburbs; and from his window,
during the two days we waited for Mr. Fett's sore to heal, Sir John
would watch the guard being relieved, and sometimes pick up his gun
and take long aim at the sentry, but lay it down with a sort of sigh:
for though the sight of a Genoese was poison to him, he reckoned
outpost-shooting as next door to shooting a fox.
"Our hosts, I should tell you, were an old soldier and his wife.
The man, by his own account, followed the trade of a bird-stuffer;
which was just an excuse for laziness, for no soul ever entered his
shop but to hear him talk of his campaigning under Gaffori and under
the great Pascal Paoli's father, Hyacinth Paoli. This he would do at
great length, and, for the rest, lived on his wife, who was a
well-educated woman and kept a school for small children when they
chose to come, which again was seldom.
"This Antonio, as we called him, owned a young ram, which was his pet
and the pride of Calenzana: for, to begin with, it was a wild ram;
and in addition to this it was tame; and, to cap all, it wasn't a bit
like a ram. And yet it was a wild ram--a wild Corsican ram.
"Being an active sort of man in his way, though well over fifty, and
given to wandering on the mountains above Calenzana, he had come one
day upon a wild sheep with a lamb running at her heels. He let fly a
shot (for your Corsican, Master Prosper, always carries a gun) and
ran forward. The mother made off, but the lamb sat and squatted like
a hare; and so Antonio took him up and carried him home.
"By the time we came to Calenzana the brute had grown to full size,
with horns almost two feet long. As we should reckon, they were
twisted the wrong way for a ram's, and for fleece he had a coat like
a Gossmoor pony's, brown and hairy. But a ram he was; and, the first
night, when Mr. Badcock obliged us with a tune on the flute, he came
forward and stared at him for a time and then butted him in the
stomach.
"We had to carry the poor man to bed. We slept, all four of us, in a
loft, which could only be reached by a ladder; and a ram, as you
know, can't climb a ladder. It's out of nature. Yet the brute tried
its best, having taken such a fancy to Badcock, and wouldn't be
denied till his master beat him out of doors with a fire-shovel and
penned him up for the night.
"The next morning, being loosed, he came in to breakfast with the
family, and butted a crock of milk all over the kitchen hearth, but
otherwise bore himself like a repentant sinner; the only difference
being that from breakfast onward he turned away from his master and
took to following Mr. Fett, who didn't like the attention at all.
Badcock kept to his bed; and Mr. Fett too, who could only manage to
limp a little, climbed up to the loft soon after midday and lay down
for a rest.
"Sir John and I, left alone downstairs, took what we called a siesta,
each in his chair, and Sir John's chair by the shaded window.
For my part, I was glad enough for forty winks, and could have
enlisted among the Seven Sleepers after those cruel four days in the
mountains. So, with Sir John's permission, I dozed off; and sat up,
by-and-by--awake all of a sudden at the sound of my master's
stirring--to see him at the window with his gun half-lifted to his
shoulder, and away up the road a squad of Genoese soldiers marching
down to relieve guard.
"With that there came a yell from the loft overhead. I sprang up,
rubbing my eyes, and, between rubbing 'em, saw Sir John lower his gun
and stand back a pace. The next instant--_thud, thud!_--over the
eaves upon the roadway dropped Fett and Badcock and picked themselves
up as if to burst in through the window. No good! A second later
that ram was on top of them.
"How he had contrived to climb up the ladder and butt the pair over
the roof, there's no telling. But there he was; and gathering up his
legs from the fall as quick as lightning he headed them off from the
house and up the road. There was no violence. So far as one could
tell from the clouds of dust, he never hurt 'em once, but through the
dust we could see the Genoese staring as he nursed the pair up the
road straight into their arms. The queer part of it," wound up
Billy, reflectively, "was that, after the first moment, Sir John had
never the chance of a shot. You may doubt me, gentlemen, but Sir
John is a shot in a thousand, and, what with the dust and the
confusion, there was never a chance without risk to human life.
The Genoese giving back, in less than half a minute the road was
clear."
"But what happened?" asked my uncle.
"Well, sir, this here Corsica being an island, it follows that they
must have stopped somewhere. But where there's no telling."
"You never saw them again."
"Never," said Billy, solemnly; and, having asked and received
permission to light his pipe, resumed the tale.
"There being now no reason to loiter in Calenzana, we left the town
next morning and rode along the hill tracks to Muro, when again we
struck the high road running northward to the coast. Sir John had
sold Mr. Badcock's mule to our hosts in Calenzana, and here in Muro
he parted with our pair also, reck'nin' it safer to travel the next
stage on foot; since by all accounts we were about to skirt the
Genoese outposts to the east of Calvi. The Corsicans, to be sure,
held and patrolled the high road (by reason that every week-day a
train of waggons travelled along it with material for the new town
a-building on the seashore, at Isola Rossa), yet not so as to
guarantee it safe for a couple of chance riders. Also Sir John had
no mind to be stopped a dozen times and questioned by the Corsican
patrols. We kept, therefore, along the hills to the east of the
road; and on our way, having halted and slept a night in an olive
orchard about five miles from the coast, we woke up a little after
daylight to the sound of heavy guns firing.
"The meaning of this was made plain to us as we fetched our way round
to the eastward and came out upon the face of a steep hill that broke
away in steep cliffs to the very foreshore. There, below us, lay a
neat deep-water roadstead covered to westward by a small island with
a tower on it and a battery. The shore ran out towards the island,
and the two had been joined by a mole, or the makings of one, about
thirty yards long; and well back in the bight of the shore, where it
curved towards us, was a half-built town, all of new stone, with
scaffoldings standing everywhere, yet not a soul at work on 'em.
Out in the roadstead five small gunboats were tacking and blazing
away, two at the mole and three at the town itself; and the town and
the island blazing and banging back at the gunboats. We could not
see the town battery, but the island one mounted three guns, and Sir
John's spy-glass showed the people there running from one to another
like emmets.
"Sir John studied the boats and the town through his glass for five
minutes, and after them the inshore water and the beach on our side
of the town, that was of white sand with black rocks here and there,
and ran down pretty steep as it neared the foot of our hill.
'If those fellows had any sense--' he began to say, and with that, as
if struck by a sudden thought, he looked close around him, and
towards the edge of the cliff where it broke away below us. The next
moment he was down on his stomach and crawling to the brink for a
look below. I did the same, of course; and overtook him just as he
drew back his head, and gave a sort of whistle, looking me in the
face--as well he might; for right underneath us lay a sixth gunboat,
and the crew of her ashore already with a six-pounder and hoisting it
by a tackle to a slab of rock about fifty feet above the water's
edge. A neater spot they couldn't have chosen, for it stood at an
angle the town battery couldn't answer to (which was plain, from its
sending no shot in this direction), and yet it raked the whole town
front as easy as ninepins.
"To make things a bit fairer, this landing-party offered us as simple
pretty a target as any man could wish for; nothing to do but fire
down on 'em at forty yards, bob back and reload, with ne'er a chance
of their climbing up to do us a mischief or even to count how many we
were. I touched Sir John's elbow and tapped my gun-stock, and for
the moment he seemed to think well of it. 'Cut the tackle first,'
said he, lifting his gun. ''Twill be as good as hamstringing 'em':
and for him the shot would have been child's play. But after a
second or two he lowered his piece and drew back. 'Damme,' said he,
'I'm losing my wits. Let 'em do their work first, and we'll get
cannon and all. If only'--and here he looked nervous-like over his
shoulder up the hill--'if only those fellows from the town don't
hurry up and spoil sport!'
"I couldn't see his face, but I could feel that he was chuckling as
the fellows below us swung up the gun and fixed it in position and
handed up the round shot. But when they followed up with two kegs of
powder and dumped 'em on to the platform, my dear master's hand went
up and he rubbed the back of his head in pure delight. After that--
as I thought, for nothing but frolic--he even let 'em load and train
the gun for us, and only lifted his musket when the gunner--a
dark-faced fellow with a red cap on his head--was act'lly walking up
with the match alight in his linstock.
"'I don't want to hurt that man afore 'tis necessary,' says Sir John;
and with that he takes aim and lets fly, and shears the linstock
clean in two, right in the fellow's hand. I saw the end of it--match
and all--fly halfway across the platform, and popped back my head as
the dozen Genoese there turned their faces up at us. The pity was,
we hadn't time for a look at 'em!
"Sir John had warned me to hold my fire. But neither he nor I were
prepared for what happened next. For first one of them let out a
yell, and right on top of it half a dozen were screaming '_Imboscata!
Imboscata!_"--and with that we heard a rush of feet and, looking
over, saw the last two or three scrambling for dear life off the edge
of the platform and down the rocks to their boat.
"'Quick, Billy--quick! Damme, but we'll risk it!' cried Sir John,
snatching up his spare gun. 'If we make a mess of it,' says he,
'plug a bullet into one of the powder kegs! Understand?' says he.
"'Sakes alive, master!' says I. 'You bain't a-going to clamber down
that gizzy-dizzy place sure 'nuff!'
"'Why, o' course I be,' says he, and already he had his legs over and
was lowering himself. 'Turn on your back, stick out your heels, and
hold your gun wide of you, _so_,' says he; 'and you'll come to no
harm.'
"Well, as it happened, I didn't. Not for a hundred pound would I go
down that cliff again in cold blood, and my stomach turns wambly in
bed o' nights when I dream of it. But down it I went on the flat of
my back with my heels out, as Sir John recommended, and with my eyes
shut, about which he'd said nothing. I felt my jacket go rip from
tail to collar--you can see the rent in it for yourselves--and my
shirt likewise; and what happened to the seat of my breeches 'twould
be a scandal to mention. But in two shakes or less we were at the
bottom of the cliff together, safe and sound, and not a moment too
soon, neither: for as I picked myself up I saw Sir John lurch across
and catch up the burning fuse that lay close alongside one of the
powder kegs. Whereby, although the danger was no sooner seen than
over, I pretty near turned sick on the spot.
"But Sir John gave me no time. 'Hooray!' he sings out. 'Help me to
slew this blessed gun round, and we'll sink boat and all for 'em
unless she slips her moorings quick!'
"Well, sir, that was the masterpiece. We heaved and strained, and
inside of two minutes we had it trained upon the gunboat. The men
that had quitted the platform were down by the shore before this; and
a dozen had pushed their boat off and sat in her, some pulling,
others backing, and all jabbering and disputing whether to return and
take off the five or six that stood in a huddle by the water's edge
and were crying out not to be left behind. And mean time on the
gunboat some were shouting to 'em not to be a pack of cowards--for
the crew on board could see us on the platform (which the others
couldn't) and that we were only two--and others were running to cut
her cable, seeing the gun trained on 'em and not staying to think
that the wind was light and the current setting straight onshore.
And in the midst of this Sir John finds a fresh fuse, and lights it
from the old one, and bang! says we.
"It took her plump in the stern-works, knocking her wheel and
taffrail to flinders and ripping out a fair six feet of her larboard
bulwarks. This much I saw while the smoke cleared; but Sir John was
already calling for the reload. The Genoese by good luck had left a
rammer; and the pair of us had charged her and were pushing home shot
number two as merry as crickets, when we heard a horn blown on the
hill above us, and at the same instant spied a body of Corsicans on
the beach below, marching towards us from the town.
"Well, Sir John decided that we might just as well have a second shot
at the boat while our hand was in; and so we did, but trained it too
high in our excitement and did no damage beyond knocking a hole in
her mainsail. And our ears hadn't lost the noise of it before a man
put his head over the cliff above and spoke to us very politely in
Corsican.
"He seemed to be asking the way down; for Sir John pointed to the way
we had come. Whereby he laughed and shook his head. And a dozen
others that had gathered beside him looked down too and laughed and
waved their hands to us. By-and-by they went off, still waving, to
look for a better way down: but they took a good twenty minutes to
reach us, and before this the gunboat had drifted close upon the
rocks and no hope for it but to surrender to the party marching along
the beach and now close at hand.
"Well, sirs, the upshot was that this party, which had marched out
for a forlorn hope, took the gunboat and her crew as easily as a man
gathers mushrooms. And the rest of the boats, dispirited belike,
sheered off after another hour's banging and left the roadstead in
peace. But, while this was happening, the party on the cliffs had
worked their way down to our rock by a sheep-track on the western
side, and the first man to salute us was the man who had first spoken
to us from the top of the cliff: and this, let me tell you, was no
less a person than the General himself."
"The General?" exclaimed my uncle.
"The General Paoli, sir: a fresh-complexioned man and fairer-skinned
than any Corsican we had met on our travels; tall, too, and
upstanding; dressed in green-and-gold, with black spatter-dashes, and
looking at one with an eye like a hawk's. Compliments fly when
gentlefolks meet. Though as yet I didn't know him from Adam, 'twas
easy to mark him for a person of quality by the way he lifted his hat
and bowed. Sir John bowed back, though more stiffly; and the more
compliments the General paid him, the stiffer he grew and the shorter
his answers, till by-and-by he said in English, 'I think you know a
little of my language, sir: enough, at any rate, to take my meaning?'
"The General bowed again at this, still keeping his smile.
'You do not wish my men to overhear? Yes, yes, I speak the English--
a very little--and can understand it, if you will be so good as to
speak slowly.'
"'Very well, then, sir,' said Sir John; 'if I and my man here have
been of some small service to you to-day I reckon myself happy to
have obliged so noble a patriot as Signor Pascal Paoli.' And here
they both bowed again. 'But I must warn you, sir, that my service
here is due only to the Queen Emilia, whom you also should serve, and
whom I am sworn to seek and save. The Genoese have shut her, I
believe, in Nonza, in Cape Corso.'
"The General frowned a bit at this, but in a moment smiled at him in
an open way that was honest too, as any one could see. 'I have later
news of the Queen Emilia,' said he; 'which is that the Genoese have
removed her to the island of Giraglia, off Cape Corso. I fear, sir,
you will not reach her this side of Doomsday.'
"'I will reach her or die,' said Sir John, stoutly.
"The General took a glance at the Genoese gunboats. 'At present it
is hopeless,' said he; 'but I tell you, as man to man, that in two
months I hope to clear the sea of those gentry yonder. Meantime, if
you _will_ press on to Cape Corso, and, without listening to reason,
I'll beg you to accept a pass from me which will save trouble if you
fall in, as you will, with my militia. It's small enough thanks,'
said he, 'for the service you have done us this day.'
"Those were the General's words, sirs, as I heard them and got them
by heart. And Sir John took the pass from him, scribbled there and
then on the fly-leaf of the General's pocket Bible, and put it
carefully between the leaves of his own: and so, having led us back
along the track by which he and his men had come, the General pointed
out our way to us and bade us farewell in the Lord's name.
He saw that my master wanted no thanks, and a gentleman (as they say)
would rather be unmannerly than troublesome.
"That, sirs, is all my story, except that by the help of the
General's pass we made our way up the long length of Cape Corso: and
at first Sir John, learning there were yet some Genoese left in a
valley they call Luri, pitched his camp at the head of it, and day by
day took out his camp-stool and stalked the mountains till little by
little he cleared the valley, driving the enemy down to the _marina_
in terror of his sharp-shooting. After that we lodged for a while in
a tower on the top of a crag, where (the country people said) a
famous old Roman had once lived out his exile. Last of all we moved
to the shore opposite the island of Giraglia; but the Genoese had
burnt the village which stood there. Among the ruins we camped, and
day after day my master conned the island across the strait, waiting
for the time when the _Gauntlet_ should be due. A tower stands in
the island, which is but a cliff of bare rock; and there must be deep
water close inshore, for once a Genoese vessel drew alongside and
landed stores: but, for the rest, day after day, my master could see
through his glass no sign of life but a sentry or two on the platform
above the landing-quay.
"At last there came a day when, from a goatherd who brought us meat
and wine from the next _paese_, we learned that a body of armed men,
Corsicans, had pushed up to Olmeta, near by Nonza, to press the
Genoese garrison there. Sir John, sick of waiting idle, proposed
that we should travel back and help them, if only to fill up the
time. It would be on our way, at any rate, to send word to the
ketch, which was near-about due. So we travelled back to Olmeta; and
behold, we tumbled upon the Princess and her men who had first taken
us prisoners; and the Princess's brother with her--and be dashed if I
like his looks! So Sir John told his tale, and the Princess sent me
along with Master Prosper's letter of release. And here's a funny
thing now!" wound up Billy, glancing at me. "The Prince was willing
enough your release should be sent, and even chose out that fellow
Stephanu to come along with me. But something in his eye--I can't
azackly describe it--warned me he had a sort of reason for thinking
that 'twouldn't do you much good. There was a priest, too: I took a
notion that _he_ didn't much expect to see you again, sir. And this
kept me in a sweat every mile of the journey, so that when you
pointed your gun at me yesterday, as natural as life, you might have
knocked me down with a feather."
"Then it is settled," decided my uncle, as Billy came to a full stop.
"Sir John has gone north again, you say, and will be expecting us off
the island? There's naught to prevent our starting this evening?"
"Nothing at all," agreed Captain Pomery, to whom by a glance he had
appealed. "Leastways and supposing I can get my hawsers out of
curl-papers."
"That suits you, Prosper?" asked my uncle. I looked across the fire
at Marc'antonio, who sat with his eyes lowered upon the gun across
his knees.
"Marc'antonio," said I, "my friends here are proposing to sail
northward to Cape Corso to-night. They require me to sail with them.
Am I free, think you?"
"Beyond doubt you are free, cavalier," answered Marc'antonio, still
without lifting his eyes.
"Now, for my part," I said, "I am not so sure. Suppose--look at me
please, my friend--suppose that you and I were to go first to the
Princess together and ask her leave?"
My uncle gazed up at Marc'antonio, who had sprung to his feet; and--
after a long look at his face--from Marc'antonio to me.
"Prosper," he said quietly, "we shall sail to-night. If we sail
without you, will your father forgive us? That is all I ask."
"Dear uncle," said I, "for the life of me I cannot tell you; but that
in my place he would do the like, I am sure."