BOL’S RUSE.
“What demons!” exclaimed the lady Aurora when Friend had left the cabin.
“You do well to consent. May the Holy Virgin watch over us and deliver
us!” She cast up her eyes and crossed herself with great devotion.
When Friend was gone with my message I leaned upon the cabin table
thinking. The Spanish lady chattered. I did not heed her. I had no hope,
saw no prospect, could imagine no issue. True, much might happen; but
then, what would be good for my safety--for my own and the safety of
Madam Aurora--_might_ prove fatal to my fortune, and my dollars were
with me the first of all considerations.
I wanted my six thousand pounds: I wanted the thirty thousand pounds
which formed Greaves’ share, that I might deal with it in accordance
with his instructions. I wished to realize the happy dreams I had been
dreaming throughout the voyage. It was maddening to think of the whole
fifteen tons of silver falling into the hands of the blackguard fellows
forward; and yet the devil’s luck of the business, as it now stood, was
this, that what was bad for _them_ was bad for _me_--by which I mean
that if the brig was captured by an enemy, or boarded by an Englishman
and the money discovered; if she foundered or was stranded with the
dollars aboard, I might indeed escape with my life, I might be delivered
along with the lady Aurora from the situation I was now in--but my
dollars would be lost to me, and with them my sweet and jolly prospects.
I went into my cabin, brought out a chart, and putting it under the lamp
laid off a course for the Cape of Good Hope. I likened my feelings to
those of a man who is wakened by a jailer and told that all is ready,
that he can order what he likes for breakfast, and that the chaplain
will wait upon him presently. I struck the chart a blow with my fist,
and hissed a curse at it like any stage ruffian. We were to be bound the
other way now. We were sailing to the inhospitable ends of the earth;
the stars of the south were to arise again; the star of the pole must
remain a dream of home.
The tragic suddenness of it all, when only at dinner that day I was
rejoicing in spirit over our progress north, and telling my Spanish
companion what I meant to do with my share of the dollars!
I replaced the chart, drank a tumbler of grog, and stepping on deck,
marched to the wheel and looked at the card. Call grasped the spokes.
“Let her go off. The course is----” and I gave the fellow the course.
The swollen, dusky shapes of Bol, Galen, and others of the crew trudged
in the gangway. It was a fine, clear night. I sang out:
“Trim sail and then heap it on her. Set stun’s’ls and let her go.”
My voice was instantly echoed by Bol.
“Hurrah, my ladts! Man der braces. Clear avay der foretopmast stun’s’l.
Hurrah for beesiness! All vhas right now. Dis vhas a happy ship.”
I stood beside the wheel while the men trimmed and made sail, Bol
roaring at them, deeply thunderous, with excitement and satisfaction.
Presently the great Dutchman came up to me.
“Mr. Fielding, vhas he a disgrace to shake handts now?”
I gave him my hand, and the brute squeezed it. He then looked at the
card, observed the course, and said, “Dot vhas for der Cape!”
“Yaw.”
“He vill not bring der land aboardt? All hands would gif der Point of
Agulhas a vide berth.”
“I’ll run you as far south as you choose.”
“Vell, I dessay a hondred mile vhas sout enough.”
“Is the fresh water going to carry us to Amsterdam Island?”
“Dot vhas to findt out. If not, dere vhas plenty of rain in der sky
before dere casks gif out. But she vhas not longer to Amsterdam Island
dan to England, and dere vhas water to last to England, so dot vhas all
right, I hope. Dere is fresh water on der island.”
“And your provisions?”
“She vhas to be seen to likewise.”
“You’ll find nothing to eat at Amsterdam Island; nothing to carry you on
to Port Jackson.”
“Vhen der money vhas hid dere vhas St. Paul hard by, mit goats, und
cabbage, und fish for drying.”
I cursed him behind my teeth. The villain looked far ahead; all hands
knew what they were about, while I saw nothing, an inch beyond my nose.
“Mr. Fielding, ve vhas all gladt dot you remain in sharge. Mitout you ve
vhas at sea indeedt. You vhas now von of us. Dere vhas no robbery. Tink
a leedle, Mr. Fielding. How vhas Tulp to know dot ve hov der dollars?
Tink a leedle, sir. Ve gifs him our vages--our verk costs her not von
stiver. Der captain vhas deadt--der money by der law of expeditions like
ash dis vhas, I mean expedition dot vhas all der same as privateering,
belongs to der surfifers. Suppose I die? Vell, my share goes by rights
to you und der oders. Dot vhas onderstood. Now, Mr. Fielding, vhat vhas
your share to be?”
On his asking me this question I walked off.
It was fine weather till past midnight; the wind then came out of the
northeast in a heavy squall of wet, and after this for several days it
blew very fresh. The rain drove in clouds over the sea; the dark sky
hung low, and our reeling trucks were swept by the shadows of the flying
scud. Yet in these heavy, boisterous days Yan Bol and two or three
others contrived to take stock of the quantity of fresh water and
provisions on board. Bol sent Jimmy to me with the particulars, and
asked leave to attend me in my cabin while I worked out the figures. I
sent word back that an Englishman might come--Teach or Friend--bidding
Jimmy add that I understood Bol’s English with difficulty. The truth was
I hated the villain; wished to have no more to do with him than the work
of the brig forced upon me. He had threatened me with an open boat, he
was at the bottom of this seizure of the brig and her cargo of silver;
the project of casting the vessel away was his I did not question. Could
I have served any purpose by taking his life I’d have shot him with less
compunction than I’d wring a fowl’s neck.
The man who arrived was Teach. He had washed his face and buttoned
himself up in a clean pilot coat to pay the cabin this visit. He was a
smart seaman: a sharp-looking rogue, with curling hair and a long, lean
nose, and little, darting eyes. He knocked on my cabin door, and I bade
him come in.
“Oh,” said I, “is it you? Sit down.”
Without further words, I took pencil and paper and fell to my
calculations. Bol’s figures lay before me. I guessed they were correct.
He’d naturally go to work anxiously, that we might not be starved or
driven by thirst from the Amsterdam Island scheme. There was so much
beef, so much pork, so much ship-bread, and such and such a quantity of
peas, sugar, flour, and the like; there was so much water. We were
fifteen souls in all, counting the girl and the two Spaniards; and my
figures worked out thus--that, at the usual allowance, we had provisions
for seven months and water for three.
I gave Teach these figures, and then put them down in black and white
for the crew, and handed him the paper.
“There’s plenty of provisions,” said he, looking at the paper upside
down, “to last all hands to Australia. Fresh water we’ll take in at
Amsterdam Island.”
“Ever at Sydney?”
“No, sir.”
“Who’s your friend?”
“A man named Max Lampton.”
“D’ye know that he’s now at Sydney?”
“He was there two years ago. If he’s dead his son’ll be living. But he
ain’t dead. Max is one who takes care of himself. No drink--no
baccy--regular as a clock--a steady man.”
“What do you expect of him?”
“He’ll show us what to do with the money; ’vart it into paper and gold
for us.”
“Fifteen tons!”
“It’ll take time. We sailors aren’t going to make a job of it without
help, anyhow.”
“Is it a clever idea to bury this silver in Amsterdam Island, first of
all?”
“Ay, blooming clever! Where’s there such another island to answer our
turn? We can’t cast the brig away with the money aboard, that’s sartin.”
“You mean to cast her away?”
“Why, what are we to do with her?” said he, talking all this while with
his little eyes rooted on my face. “Carry her to Port Jackson? What’s
the yarn we’re to spin? Where are we to ha’ come from? Where was we to
be bound to? We’ve thought it o’er. We don’t like the notion. She’s a
pretty boat, but she must go. There’s a blooming lot of us. Are we all
to be trusted? Are we all going to stick to the same yarn if it comes to
close questioning? Any durned fool can be a shipwrecked sailor. There’s
a-many durned fools piking it now as castaways on the British roads,
a-yarning spunkily, and saving money.”
I thought to myself, “And you’d trust me, would you? You’d allow me to
be one of your shipwrecked party, eh? And if I am _not_ to be one of
your shipwrecked party--and most surely you don’t intend that I _shall_
be--what’s to happen betwixt this and New Holland? How have you hearts
of oak arranged to get rid of me?”
I looked down and sat silent in thought. He stirred, as if to leave, and
said:
“We’re too many, sir.”
“For the dollars?”
He grinned, and answered:
“No. There are dollars enough for all hands. We’re too many mouths for
the stock of provisions and water.”
“Yan Bol has threatened to send me adrift, curse him! Do you mean that I
should go first to shrink your company!”
“No, no!” he answered, in a voice heavy and almost savage with emphasis;
and he thumped his knee with his fist. “We can’t do without you--you
know that, Mr. Fielding. And that brings me to something I’ll tell you
in a minute or two. It’s them Spaniards. What’s the good of them?”
“No cruelty! So help me God! if there’s cruelty I drop my command! Mark
me, and report what I tell you.”
“There’ll be no cruelty,” said the man sullenly; “but them Johnnies’ll
have to walk.”
“And the lady?”
“Aint she in your share?” said he, and his face relaxed. He drove his
quid out of one cheek into the other, and when he had chawed a little
while, he said, “But what’s to _be_ your share?”
I crooked my eyebrows and surveyed him steadily.
“Won’t you give it a name, sir?”
“Shall I get it by naming it?”
“Mr. Fielding, we can’t trust you if you can’t trust us.”
“What share will you give?”
“A big share.”
“Bol and the rest of you know the worth of what’s below. Make me an
offer in writing. It’ll content me.”
“Give me a figure to go upon,” said he standing up. “Tell us what you
was to get if Captain Greaves had carried the brig home.”
“Six thousand pounds, and a thousand from Captain Greaves--seven
thousand pounds.”
An oath broke from him--he checked himself; struck his thigh hard,
picked up his cap, and looked at me sideways. Then, stepping to the
door, he exclaimed:
“Good pay compared to the forecastle allowance.”
I began to whistle, and drew on paper with the pencil I had calculated
with. He again eyed me sideways and went out.
I believe it was on the fifth day of the heavy weather that Teach had
paid me this visit. Next morning, while I was breakfasting with the
Spanish lady, Jimmy--the boy as I call him, though he was a great,
hulking, strong, sprawling lad as you know; half an idiot in many
directions, but quick and even intelligent in some--this lad came into
the cabin and said that Bol asked to speak to me. I would not have the
Dutchman below, neither would I leave my breakfast; so I bid the lad say
I’d be on deck by and by. Down he comes a minute later with a bit of
dirty folded paper in his hand.
“Master,” says he, “Mister Bol didn’t know you was at breakfast. Will
you read this, and tell him, when you go on deck, if it’s to your
satisfaction?”
The dirty piece of paper was like to the sheets that had been used for
the Round Robin. It was the fly-leaf of some old book, yellow with age
and pockmarked with brine. A Dutch scrawl in faint ink half covered it.
The precious document ran thus:
Meester Fielding, dis vhas a bondt. All handts agree. Suppose dere
vhas fifteen ton silver--vell, two tons vhas yours if you sail der
brick true und does her duty by oos ash we does by him. Dot being
right ve all makes our marks and sines her names ash oonder. If you
goes wrong dis bondt vhas tore-sop, und vot vhas las’ wrote stans
for noting. Dere vhas no more paper.
Then followed the crosses and names of the men, as in the Round Robin. I
burst into a laugh. Heartsick as I was, this stroke of farce, happening
in the great tragic occasion of that time, proved too much for me. I put
the paper in my pocket.
“At what do you laugh?” said the lady Aurora.
“At a piece of Dutch humor,” said I, laughing again.
She looked eagerly, and wished to know if the crew had done anything to
please me--anything to lighten my anxiety.
“They have given me two tons of silver,” said I with a sneer, pointing
down that she might understand me.
She shrugged her shoulders, and asked no more questions about the crew’s
bond. I reckoned she saw in my face as much as she was interested to
hear. I observed her fine eyes fixed upon the stand of muskets and
cutlasses and watched her; not speculating on her thoughts, merely
observing her face. I beheld no marks of anxiety in her handsome
features, of such passions of uneasiness and continued distress as you
would look for in a woman situated as she was. The glass in poor
Greaves’ cabin had assured me that what had befallen us had not
sweetened or colored my own visage. I was growing long of face;
yellowing daily, and my eyes had sunk. This Spanish girl, on the other
hand, was still bright and spirited with all the health she had regained
aboard us. I watched her while she looked at the weapons; she turned her
face slowly upon mine, and our eyes met.
“Why,” she exclaimed--and now began one of those brief conversations
which I am forced to put into plain English for reasons I have given
you--“why, Señor Fielding, do not you lock away those swords and
firearms?”
“Why should I lock them away?”
“The crew may take them.”
“What then?” said I, “we should be no worse off. I am alone: forward are
ten stout, determined men; armed or unarmed, ’tis all one.”
“There are two,” said she.
“Yes, Jimmy is a strong lad, and might be useful, and I dare say he is
on our side at heart, but he is wanting,” said I, touching my head. “I
dare not trust him.”
She smiled and said, “I did not mean the youth. I am the other.”
I asked her to explain. She rose and seated herself beside me. The
skylight was partially covered with tarpaulin, and what was visible of
the glass was blank as mist with wet. The brig was full of noises. She
was rolling and pitching very heavily, and the thunder of seas bursting
back in heavy hills of foam from her weather side trembled like
discharges of cannon through the length of her. Nevertheless the
señorita came and sat by my side, and put her lips close to my ear,
though had she shrieked her ideas from the extreme end of the cabin, or
even up through the hatch, nobody on deck would have heard her.
Her manner was tragic and mysterious. It was not put on. The thoughts in
her bred the air, and she had the face and figure for a very curious
high dramatic expression of emotion of any sort.
“Why,” said she, speaking so close that I felt the heat of her face, “do
not we kill the men who are robbing you and carrying me away?”
“All of them?” said I.
“Not Jimmy, and not my two countrymen. Look! suppose I bring Antonio
here and tell him that he and Jorge are in danger of their lives, and
that they must fight with us and kill the crew. There are you, me, my
two countrymen: there is Jimmy,” she held up her fingers. “Five to ten,
and everything is ready,” said she, pointing to the muskets.
“I would not trust your two countrymen. They are cowards. I would not
risk such a business for your sake. Failure would mean my being killed:
that _must_ be; and how would the men whom _we_ did not kill deal with
you?”
“All could be killed,” said she. “I myself will kill in this cabin that
great Jean Bol, as you talk to him. I will creep behind and stab him.
Send for Galen; I will kill him too; then Teach. Three then are
_gastados!_ [expended!] For the rest----” She shrugged her shoulders and
leaned back to observe the impression produced upon me by her talk.
“Madam,” said I, looking at her eyes, which were all on fire, and her
cheeks, which were colored, hot with the devilish fancies which worked
in her, “your spirit is fine, but somewhat too deadly for one of my
cautious character.”
“I wish for release,” she cried, with a great sigh, and her eyes
suddenly clouded; “I wish for my mother and for home. I thought the
English were brave, _vaya!_ Your men will kill you if you do not kill
them. Are you afraid to kill them? Ave Maria! Good men die in thousands
every day.”
She began to tremble, and rose as if to pace the cabin; the motion of
the brig was too heavy to permit that. I took her hand to steady her--it
had turned from the heat of fever to the coldness of marble. “Just so!”
thought I; “aren’t you one of those delicate assassins who prog and
faint? Who’d stick friend Yan, then swoon, and leave me to deal with
what would follow his roars?”
“We’ll burn no powder just yet,” said I, “and we’ll keep our poniards in
our breasts. Amsterdam Island is a long way off; many things may
happen.”
“_Pu! Quita, allá!_” she exclaimed, with pale lips and dull eyes, and
trembling, and then rising with a murmur of anger and a manner of
haughty contempt she went to her berth.
When she was gone there ran in my head a strange fancy of Defoe
concerning a beautiful demon lady. You may read of it in that author’s
“History of the Devil,” which is, I think, the best biography of the
landlord of the Black Divan that ever was written. I could not but
vastly admire the spirit of the woman in offering to shoot down the ten
men; but I thought there was something damnable and fiendish in her
proposing to make a shambles of the cabin by sticking Bol and the others
she had named, while I talked to them. A demon spoke through her Spanish
blood _there_! And yet her fine eyes and fine figure were in my memory
of her counsel, and found a sort of fascination for what should have
affected me as quite abominable.
I sat a bit, coldly considering her ideas. True it was that I could have
killed Bol cheerfully; but to slaughter the whole ten of them, even if
their assassination was to be contrived! Bol, to be sure, had threatened
to send me adrift: he may have meant no more than a threat; my life was
not immediately in danger; my knowledge as a navigator warranted me the
good usage of the scoundrels till the coast of New Holland arose, and
’twixt this and _that_ there lay some months: the men had dealt
respectfully with the girl--left her indeed to me, as though they
counted her a part of my share. No! I could not consent to shoot them
down; I could not consent to let her ladyship knife the ringleaders
while I conversed with them--one at a time.
I went to the stand and took out a musket to judge the quality and age
of the lot: it was a Dutch musket, long, clumsy, and murderous. I took
down a cutlass and tried the blade--all this mechanically: my mind was
rambling. I scarce knew what I was about; I bent the blade and the steel
snapped and the point of it sprang with the twang of a Jew’s harp
through the air. Some of Tulp’s purchases! thought I, then replaced the
broken half of the blade in its scabbard, and hung up the cutlass in its
place.
This trifle begot a new scorn of Tulp in me. The rogue would even cheat
himself, thought I. He would ship cannons that burst and blades that
shiver to save a guilder or two, and risk the lives of us men and his
dollars by the ton for some lean-paring of saving that would scarce put
an onion to a man’s bread and cheese. What do I care for Tulp, thought
I? What is his brig to me now that poor Greaves is gone? Had Greaves
owned relations among whom he wished his money distributed the thing
would wear a different face; but as it stands, Tulp and the brig being
nothing to me, why should I not throw in my chance with the crew, elbow
Bol out of his leadership by sheer enthusiasm, sincerity, knowledge of
the ocean roads? The fellows groped in their black ignorance after some
scheme, and brought up this muddy project of Amsterdam Island with
Sydney beyond. Could not I devise something much better than _that_ for
them, something safe and quick--compared at least with _their_
programme: something they should hearken to and eagerly adopt when they
saw me and knew me and felt me to be in earnest?
Yan Bol came up when I put my head out of the hatch.
“Vhas dot bondt all right?” he roared that his voice might carry above
the shouting in the rigging and the fierce hissing of the sea.
I nodded.
“Two ton. Only tink. Dere vhas much skylarking in two ton of silver. How
many dollars shall go to her?” said he.
“Dollars enough for me,” I shouted, and passed on to the compass and
took a look at the brig and around me. I hated the villain; I hated his
roaring voice, and his English; besides, speech soon grew difficult,
even to physical pain, on that clamorous deck.
It was not much later on, however, that the crew gave me cause to think
twice before throwing in my lot with them. By this time we had stretched
far across the Atlantic; the month of April was drawing to an end. Much
heavy weather had we encountered, but it had been of a prosperous sort,
rushing us onward with hooting rigging, and reeling bands of canvas,
with such a spin of the log-reel that many a time and oft three and
sometimes four men were required at the great scope of line to walk it
in.
On the day of the little business I am going to tell you about I went on
deck and found a very fine morning. The blue sky sank crisp with
mother-of-pearl-like cloud to the pale edge of the sea. The sun, that
was risen about half-an-hour, shone white as silver in the east, whence
blew a pleasant breeze of wind, dead on end for us, however, so that our
yards lay fore and aft and the little brig under every stitch of plain
sail looked away from her course.
I saw Bol to leeward gazing at the sea off the lee bow. I never
addressed that man now unless there was something particular to say, and
after having satisfied myself with a quarter-deck stare around and
aloft, I began to walk. Bol turned his head and perceived me. He
approached, and pointing his finger at the sea on the lee bow, said:
“Do you see dot ship?”
I looked and spied a sail hidden to me until this by the brig’s canvas.
“How is she standing?”
“Our vays.”
She was about five miles distant. Bol had been using the glass. It lay
upon the skylight. I examined the sail, and found her a small topsail
schooner. With the naked eyes, by the look of her, as she floated out
there in the frosty whiteness of sunshine, I had guessed her twice as
big as we. She was coming along leisurely. The wind was off her quarter,
and a light wind for fore-and-aft canvas.
“Vhat vhas she, tink you, Mr. Fielding?”
“Don’t you know a ship by her rig?”
“I mean, vhat vhas her peesiness? Vhas she some leedle man-of-war?”
“Perhaps a trader, bound across the Atlantic.”
He went forward as far as the gangway and beckoned. Wirtz, who stood on
the forecastle, called out the name of Galen, and then walked aft to
Bol, along with Friend and Street. Galen came out of the caboose eating.
His jaws worked with some mouthful he had crammed betwixt his teeth.
There was but little discipline in all this, you will say. There was
none whatever. There had been very little discipline on board the _Black
Watch_ since illness had forced poor Greaves to give up and hand the
command over to me. Was the fault mine? The long and short of it was,
the men had never recognized me as mate in the room of Jacob Van Laar.
They had worked for the safety of the ship and because of Yan Bol. I was
an interloper. They had made me feel it, times beyond counting, in their
sailors’ way; and now, though nominally captain, I was no more nor less
than pilot, with authority only in the direction of the general safety.
All this I very much understood as I walked the deck, appearing not to
heed the group of men in the gangway, and wondering what matter they
were settling among them. Presently Bol came aft, took the telescope to
the men, and one after another of them leveled it at the little sail off
the bow. I never caught what they said, though my steps sometimes
brought me pretty close.
They turned their faces my way sometimes. Street went over to the boat
that lay stowed in the longboat amidships, looked into her, and returned
to the others. I then thought to myself, “Are they going to signal that
craft and put me aboard her?” I went into a violent passion over the
suspicion, and came to a stand at the bulwarks, nearly opposite the spot
where they were grouped, and stared, I have no doubt, with a very black
face. Indeed, my conjecture had put me into such a rage that I heeded
not, by a snap of the finger, what they might think. I tried to cool
myself by reflecting that they could not do without me; but the mere
notion that they meant to turn me out of the brig, and make off with
Madam Aurora and the fifteen tons of silver, taking their chance of what
might follow, worked like a madness in me.
They stood together, I dare say, about ten minutes talking. In this time
the sail had grown, and was visibly a topsail schooner, low in the
water, of a clean, black, slaver-like run. The sun flashed in flame from
her wet sides, and I thought at first she was firing at us. Meehan, I
think it was, sung out:
“Better see all ready, mates!” and went to the boat, he and others.
Bol alone stayed, looking at the schooner. He then came to me.
“Mr. Fielding, I shall vant to command for a leedle vhile. Me himself
vhas skipper till our peesiness vhas done.”
“What do you mean to do?” said I.
“To shtop dot leedle hooker. I shall vant to hail her. Of course, Mr.
Fielding, you vhas der captain all der same; but you hov a soft heart,
and so I vhas der skipper in dis shob.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“It vhas like opening your eyes in a minute. You vhas not to interfere,
dot vhas all.”
He went to the flag-locker, took out the English ensign, and ran it
aloft, union down, at the trysail gaff-end.
“Back der main topsail, some hands!” he bawled. All hands were on deck.
Hals came out of the caboose to look on or to help. Some of the men laid
the canvas on the main a-back, and others unshipped the little gangway
preparatory to launching the boat, smack-fashion, through it; and among
those who hove the little boat out of the bigger one, and ran her to the
side, were the two Spaniards. Meanwhile, the schooner had hoisted
English colors. They blew out from her main topmast head. The telescope
gave me the character of the bunting. To the naked eye it waved and
trembled like a red light against the pearly crust which covered the sky
that way.
I guessed by her showing her color that she was going to halt when she
came abreast. What did my crew mean to do? What scheme had the beggars
suddenly hit on and were going about with an unanimity that held them
all as quiet as the backed topsail aloft?
It was about now that Miss Aurora came on deck. She looked up at the
sails of the brig, at the flag flying at our trysail gaff-end, at the
approaching schooner, the open gangway, the boat lying in it, the men
hanging about the little fabric.
“Holy Mother!” cried she, and in a step or two she was at my side. “What
is it? What is wrong? What is happening?”
Bol, who stood with others near the boat, hearing her turned. The huge
man approached and was calling out before I could answer the girl.
“Mr. Fielding, der lady must go below.”
“Must!”
“Yaw, by Cott! I vhas skipper for dis leedle while. You vhas not to be
seen, marm. Dot vhas so I play no bart mit you on deck.”
He came to the companion way, and with a face full of blood and temper,
pointed down the ladder, exclaiming in his deepest thunder, “Quick, if
you please. Doan’ be afraid. It vhas all right. No von vhas hurt over
dis shob.”
“Go,” said I, “do as he bids you. See how those fellows are watching
us.”
She obeyed me with an extraordinary look; the expression of a naturally
fierce spirit contending with womanly terror; I’d think of it afterward
always as if the girl had had two souls--one of flame, a gift of
fighting blood older than the Moors perhaps; the other just a woman’s.
“My ladts,” bawled Bol to the men, “keep yourselves out of sight. Aft
some of you, und standt by to swing der topsail yard. Manage dot your
heads vhas not seen.”
Those who came aft and those who stayed forward crouched under the
bulwark: the two Spaniards hid with the others. Observing this, Bol
called to Antonio:
“Oop you stand, you and Jorge. You vhas der crew.”
They stood up, looking at the Dutchman wonderingly, with a half grin
that was pathetic. I began to smell a rat, as they say. The schooner
came sliding along, and when she was within ear-shot her topsail was
swung and she halted to leeward of us. Her crew gazed at us from their
forecastle, and three men stood on her quarter-deck. She was pierced for
a few guns, but her ports were closed, and I saw no pieces of any sort
upon her decks, though the easy, long-drawn roll of her gave us a good
sight of the white planks, with the great main hatch and a tiny smoking
caboose, and a fellow in a red shirt at the end of the long tiller. She
was a sweet little picture, a far prettier model than the brig,
handsomely gilt at the bow and quarter. “Lord!” thought I, “if I could
but make those men yonder know what sort of stuff we carried down aft
and the piratic trick those crouching scoundrels and that vast heap of
flesh called Bol are playing me!” Yet, suppose the crew should permit me
to shout out the yarn, would yonder chaps board us? We were nearly as
numerous--our livelies would be fighting for treasure dear to them as
their own ruddy drops; and look at our little grin of carronades and
those long, shining engines on the forecastle and aft!
Bol got on to a gun. One of the men on the schooner’s quarter-deck
hailed.
“Ho, der brick ahoy! Vhat sheep vhas dot?”
It was the hail of a Dutch voice! I burst into a laugh--I must have
laughed out at that Dutch hail had I been standing with a noose round my
neck under a yardarm. Yan Bol stood idly straining and gaping a moment
or two when he heard those Dutch tones. He then sent his deep voice
across the water in a roar:
“She vhas der _Black Vatch_ of London to New Holland.”
“Vat vhas wrong mit you?” shouted the Dutchman in the schooner.
“Ve vhas a seek ship und in great distress. I vill sendt a boat to you,
ash I vhas veak und cannot cry out.”
He floundered off the carronade on to the deck, and rolling over to the
gangway, called to the two Spaniards, who stood there:
“Ofer mit dis boat. Quick now, and row aboardt dot schooner, und ask him
to take you home. Der rest,” he shouted with a look fore and aft, “keeps
hid till I give der signal.”
The bustle of the burly fellow was so heavy and eager, so much of elbow,
knee, and thrust went to the launching of that boat, that the two
miserable Spaniards were swept into the job as a man is hurried along by
a crowd. They scarce knew what they were to do even while they were
doing it; and then in a minute it was done, the boat alongside, and Bol
bundling both the Spaniards into her through the open gangway.
“In you shoomps! Dot vhas der vhay! Quick! If dot schooner vhas missed
your life vhas not vorth der shirt on your pack. Oop mit dem oars,
Antonio, und shove off. Avays you goes, mit our respects und vill der
captain restore you to your friendts!”
I went to the side. On seeing me Antonio who, with an oar in his hand,
stood up in the boat looking along the line of the brig’s rail with a
wild, pale face, cried out in his incommunicable English:
“Señor Fielding, do not let Mr. Bol go away until he sees that the
schooner will receive us. We have but these oars” he cried passionately,
“no water, no provisions.”
“Pull for her--she’ll take you,” I cried.
“Roundt mit der topsail,” thundered Bol.
The seamen sprang to the braces, and in a very few moments had filled on
the brig’s canvas. The vessel sat light on the water and quickly felt
the impulse of her sails. The boat containing Antonio and Jorge slipped
astern; the two wretches were not even _then_ rowing; but the moment the
brig got way one of them--it was Jorge, I think--yelled out like a
woman; they threw their oars out and hysterically splashed the little
tub of a boat toward the schooner.
There was no sea to hurt them. The swell ran firm and wide, rippling
only to the brushing of the wind. I dreaded lest the schooner, on
beholding our sudden show of men, should suspect--what with our visible
brass pieces and the suggestive sheer of our hull--a piratic device, and
make off. If that happened the Spaniards were lost; Bol certainly would
not return to pick them up. The mere fancy of our leaving them out in
this vast sea to horribly perish worked in me like ice in the blood, and
as I watched I was all the while thinking, “What shall I do to save them
if yonder schooner fills in a fright?”
But the schooner did not fill; that her people were amazed by our
behavior I could not question, but they did not offer to run away.
Possibly they thought we were executing some maneuver, and would shift
our helm presently for the boat we had dispatched to them.
The Spaniards splashed along in their passion and fury of distress.
Their boat was already a toy; they themselves dolls. They got alongside
the schooner, and, seizing the glass, I watched them scramble over the
rail, and continued to watch. They went up to the three men on the
quarter-deck, and both fell to violently gesticulating and pointing at
us. I could no longer tell which was which; one of them shook his fist
at us, the other motioned with violent dramatic gestures toward the hold
of the schooner. I might swear he was telling the men about the dollars,
and furiously motioned that we might guess, _if_ we watched him through
the glass, what he was talking about.
Bol hauled the ensign down, and called to a man to roll it up.
“Vhas dot a neat little shob, Mr. Fielding?” said he, coming and
standing beside me.
“Would not the schooner have taken the men without all this neatness?” I
answered.
“Maybe and maybe not. Ve vhas not going to reesk it.”
“You have lost the boat. Why did you require the lady to leave the
deck?”
“She vhas soft-hearted, und dis shob vhas to be neat und quiet. Look!”
he roared suddenly; “dere swings der topsails. Down coomes der flag. Gif
me der glass, Mr. Fielding.” He put his eye to the tube, and in a moment
bawled, “Der boat drops astern; she vhas empty.”
He pitched the glass on to the skylight and uttered an extraordinary
roar of laughter.
Half an hour later the schooner was no more than a shaft of white light
down in the west, with Yan Bol singing out orders to trim the sails of
the brig and head for the boat, whose bearings had been taken, that we
might recover her.