ON THE ICEBERG--THE MASSACRE AT HIERRO.
In this appalling situation we remained for ten days before any
alteration in the position either of the brig or of the two icebergs
was perceptible.
We missed our lost companions sorely, for the death of a shipmate in
his hammock, or by falling overboard, makes a great impression on the
secluded survivors at sea. His watery grave is in itself a fearful
mystery, the depth of which we cannot realize or fathom. No stone or
mound marks the place where he lies; he is hurled, as it were, soul
and body into eternity, and blotted out of existence like the bubbles
that break round the place where he sinks.
During these ten days Hartly was indefatigable in his efforts to keep
his crew employed, and their spirits from depression. Lest
provisions might become scarce, and our water fall short, he had
portions of the seals, the hideous paws especially, cleaned,
prepared, and pickled, while the snow and ice which adhered to the
rigging was boiled down, and added to our supply of fresh water. To
save our fuel, the fire for these purposes was fed with the fat of
the seals, and the blubber (so long as it lasted) of the gigantic
walrus I had slain.
The seal "flippers," hairy and bloody, like the claws of a baboon
hewn off at the wrist, made a very cannibal-like repast when
fricasseed. Remembering how I had shuddered on seeing such repulsive
carrion sold at a penny per bunch in the streets of St. John, I could
scarcely digest such a meal; though Cuffy Snowball, when he made them
into sea-pies, rolled his eyes and grinned from ear to ear while
declaring his handiwork "de berry best dish in de 'varsal creation!"
Our rigging was carefully inspected and prepared for any emergency,
as if we expected to make sail on the brig at a moment's notice; but
_how_ was she ever to reach her natural element again?
On this subject, though we were wearied of it, conjecture became
utterly _lost_!
Still, like a brave fellow, Hartly left nothing unsaid or undone to
keep up our hopes, though his own sank at times. Save the watch on
deck, he nightly assembled all hands in the cabin for companionship
and also for warmth. There he sang songs, (while Cuffy accompanied
him on the violin,) and told stories, or read aloud, and spoke again
and again to the poor crest-fallen seal-fishers (who thought only of
their wives and families) of their profits on the voyage, and the
reward they would receive from the Governor of Newfoundland for
destroying the obnoxious _Black Schooner_; and of that affair he drew
up a statement, to be attested by all on board.
His example was invaluable, for he had somehow acquired the greatest
influence over all his crew. "It is pleasing to see a family, a
farm, or establishment of any kind (says Lorimer, in his "Letters to
a Young Merchant-Mariner") when, from long servitude, the assistants
and domestics are considered as humble friends or distant relations;
and independently of the kind feelings thereby occasioned and
cherished, all seems to prosper with them. Such a state of things is
by no means unfrequent in this happy country, Britain; and I see no
good reason why the same attachment to the master and to each other,
should not be more frequent on shipboard; indeed, considering the
dangers they are continually sharing, one is almost surprised that
they can _separate_ so readily. How to obtain a kind but powerful
influence over, and a devoted attachment _from_, a crew, is a secret
worth our deep consideration;" and Robert Hartly eminently possessed
this secret, which, in the desperation of our circumstances, proved a
priceless gift to him and to us.
Every night one story or yarn produced others, and so the time passed
on, and peril was half forgotten.
Most of these narratives were gloomy enough, however. They told of
ships whose crews were all poisoned save one man, by partaking of a
mysterious fish, or whose crews turned pirates, and slaughtered all
who opposed them; or of men who were marooned on lonely isles, and
left to perish miserably.
Hans Peterkin, an Orkneyman, could tell us of queer shadowy craft,
manned by spectres, demons, and evil spirits, who displayed lights to
lure vessels ashore on Cape Wrath and the rocks of Ultima Thule, like
the wreckers of Cornwall and Brittany.
Then Paul Reeves matched them by a curious tale of an enchanted
island in the Indian Seas, on which the lights of churches and houses
could be seen at night, and where the tolling of bells and the song
of vespers could be heard, with many other sounds; but lo! as the
ship approached, the isle would seem to recede till it sank into the
sea and reappeared _astern_!
Then Tom Hammer, the carpenter, gave us a yarn of an ice-cliff in
Hudson's Bay that long overhung a whaler he was once serving in. One
day the cliff was changed in form, for a mighty piece had fallen from
it into the sea; and wonderful to relate, there was seen a man's
figure among the ice--a man imbedded up there a hundred feet above
the sea. Telescopes were at once in requisition, and they made out
that he was frozen--dead--hard and fast; but by his dress--a red
doublet, trunk-hose, and a long black beard--they supposed he was
some ancient mariner; and some there were on board who vowed he was
no other than the famous voyager Hendrick Hudson, who discovered the
bay, and was marooned by his mutinous crew in 1610.
But one night, when we were all nestling close together, muffled in
our pea-jackets, and smoking, to promote warmth, a narration of
Hartly's far exceeded all that preceded it in interest, being a
veritable occurrence, and by its barbarity singular.
"My grandfather," said he, "as thoroughbred an old salt as ever faced
a stiff topsail breeze, was skipper of the _Dublin_, a smart little
ship of three hundred and fifty tons, pierced for twelve
six-pounders, being a letter of marque that fought her own way when
the way upon the high seas was somewhat more perilous than it is now.
"About the autumn of the year 1784--now a long time ago, my lads--she
was chartered as an emigrant ship for Canada, and sailed from the
Mersey with one hundred and eighty poor folks, half of whom were
women and children, going to seek their bread in another laud; and a
troublesome voyage the old gentleman had with them, for foul weather
came on; many of his spars were knocked away, and then a heavy
sickness broke out among the emigrants. Their little ones died daily
and were hove overboard, till those whose children survived became
wild with fear and apprehension that theirs would follow next; and,
to make matters worse, there was no doctor on board; for this was in
1784, as I told you, and the lives of the poor were not worth much to
any one, save themselves, in those old times.
"Well, my grandfather was a soft-hearted old fellow, and his heart
bled for the poor people. His sick bay was crammed, and the
sailmaker's needle was never idle, but made one little shroud after
another till the man's heart sickened of the dreary task. So, when
foul weather mastered the _Dublin_, and blew her out of her course,
the old gentleman put his helm a-lee and bore up for the Canaries,
which were once called the Fortunate Isles, and came in sight of
Hierro, the most westerly of these islands, on the 6th December,
1784. He had his ensign flying; but knowing well what slippery
devils the Spaniards are, and that the _Dublin_ had rather a
man-o'-war cut in her spars and bends, he hoisted a _white_ flag at
his foremast head, and so came peacefully to anchor about sunrise.
"The morning was beautiful; the shore was desolate, but fertile and
green. The poor emigrants were mad with joy at the sight of land,
and in an hour or two he set them all ashore, about a hundred in
number, on the smooth sandy beach. Many of them were women with
infants in their arms or at their skirts--men supporting their young
wives or old parents; and new life and health seemed returning to
them as they rambled on the sunny shore, or drank of the pure springs
that gushed from the rocks, and as they pulled the green leaves and
aromatic flowers, or the broad plantain leaves which always flourish
best near the sea.
"Meanwhile, my grandfather had triced up his portlids, and a gang
with buckets and swabs were busy cleaning, airing, and fumigating
every place fore and aft, ere the live cargo were shipped again at
night, when an unforeseen catastrophe took place----"
"A catastrophe!" said I; "the ship was blown out to sea?"
"Not at all," said Hartly, refilling his pipe.
"What then?"
"His poor people were all dead ere nightfall."
"Murdered?"
"Aye, in cold blood, as you shall hear. They were all enjoying
themselves--the children were playing, gambolling and tumbling over
each other in heaps on the warm sands; the women were busy washing,
dressing and arranging each other's hair; the men smoking their
pipes, and talking, perhaps regretfully, of that jolly old England
they had left for ever and, it might be hopefully, of the new shores
they were bound for, when a long line of bright bayonets that
glittered ominously in the sunshine, appeared suddenly upon the steep
rocks which completely enclosed the sandy cove, and three companies
of lubberly Spanish militia commanded by Don Juan Briez de Calderon,
encircled them on all sides, save towards the sea, where the _Dublin_
lay at anchor about three-quarters of a mile off. The reason of this
military display I shall explain.
"False rumours of a plague said to be raging in Europe had reached
these isles, and filled the selfish and superstitious Spanish
colonists with such alarm, that Señor the Governor, fearing, or
pretending to fear, the strangers might bring it among them,
instantly convened la Mesa del Consejo--his council-board, as they
call it in their lingo--and quietly proposed to cut off all these
voyagers root and branch!
"Some of the councillors vigorously opposed a course so revolting,
and pled the cause of the poor Inglesos, the rights of religion and
humanity, and called upon Don Juan to remember the honour of the king
he represented, and that he was the lineal descendant of that
adventurous Don Diego de Hierro, of Old Castile, who had captured the
island in the days of Ferdinand the Catholic, King of Arragon,
bestowing in memory thereof his own illustrious name upon it, and so
forth.
"Señor Don Juan did not reply, but knit his fierce black brows,
lighted a cigar, and puffed away with true Castilian imperturbability.
"'Señor el Gobernador,' urged a venerable Spanish friar, 'these poor
people who have landed on our shores, after a long voyage apparently,
we know not from whence, have been forced hither, as our mariners
aver, by those recent storms which have swept over the Canary
Isles----'
"'What is all this to me?' growled Don Juan.
"'Simply, Señor, that it will be alike cruel and unjust to inflict
the penalty of death upon them all for this.'
"'Padre, they have transgressed the laws of Hierro,' thundered the
Governor.
"'Laws temporarily made by _yourself_--laws with which they can in no
way be acquainted. If they have sickness among them, let us send
tents and supplies; but guard the avenues to the ground we may allot
them, until they are all re-embarked with their wives and little
ones. I will myself go among them,' continued the old friar, warming
in his merciful advocacy, 'and say that you will graciously afford
them succour, until the orders of the most illustrious señor, our
Governor-General at Teneriffe, can be obtained.'
"'_Silencio!_' thundered Don Juan, and rudely threw the remains of
his cigar in the old man's face; 'order out our troops--we shall
march instantly and exterminate these dangerous vermin!'
"The drums were beat, and the militia, three hundred strong, with the
valiant Don Juan at their head, marched to where the poor visitors,
ignorant of the horrors that were impending, were still amusing
themselves upon the beach. Some were gathering the brilliant shells,
flowers, and leaves; others were filling little kegs and jars with
the pure spring water that poured over the ledges of rock. The women
were sitting in groups, with their children gambolling about them;
others were gazing sadly on the evening sea, as if calculating the
number of miles that lay between them and their old home; or the
miles they had yet to traverse ere they found a new one amid the
forests of the western world.
"To gather them all together, the villanous Briez de Calderon
procured an empty sugar puncheon, and tossed it over the summit of
the cliffs on which his men were posted. From thence, with a loud
noise, it rolled to the beach below. Curiosity made all the
loiterers rush towards it, as many of them thought it contained food,
clothes, or other necessaries for them. The men gave a hurrah, and
waved their hats in hearty English jollity to the crafty Spaniards,
and gathered with the women and children around the puncheon.
"'Fire!' cried Don Juan.
"Savage as they were, the Spaniards paused a moment; but Don Juan was
the first to fire a musket, and observing that his men were still
reluctant, he knocked one down with the butt-end, and threatened the
rest with death if they disobeyed him.
"'Fire!' he shouted again, and then on the unsuspecting crowd there
was poured the concentrated volley of these three hundred miscreants;
thus, in ten minutes the dreadful massacre was complete. On the
beach all were lying dead and drenched in blood--husband and wife,
parent and child--all save one woman, who, with her infant, concealed
herself in the rocks, and her husband, who, with a ball lodged in his
arm, sprang into the sea and endeavoured to swim to the ship.
"Failing in this, faint with loss of blood, weary and despairing, he
turned about and sought the shore, where he was hewn to pieces by
sabres as he clung to a seaweedy rock. On beholding this dreadful
sight, his poor wife, who was concealed in a cleft of the cliffs not
far off, uttered a shriek of dismay, which drew the murderers, now
flushed with blood, towards her.
"She was soon dragged out, and with his own dagger Don Juan stabbed
her to the heart, and then killed the child, which he tossed into the
sea beside its father!
"Paralysed by rage and astonishment, my grandfather and his crew saw
all this from the deck of the _Dublin_. They could see the red
musketry flashing from the rocks, filling all the little cove with
slaughtered corpses and smoke. They could hear the shrieks that were
borne over the water on the evening wind; and after a time, when all
was still, they could see the beach strewn with dead bodies, and in
possession of the Spaniards, who were stripping them, and who brought
up field-pieces to fire on the _Dublin_.
"He hoisted his anchor and bore away; but on coming abreast of the
capital with British colours flying _above_ the Spanish ensign
_reversed_, he pitched a few shot into it from his carronades, sunk
three craft at their anchors, with all their crews on board, and then
bore away for England, and there was an end of it. We were at peace
with Spain; but I never heard that satisfaction was given, or the
atrocity revenged. That is _my_ yarn, lads."*
* The papers of the time fully corroborate Hartly's story. "The news
of this barbarity," says the Annual Register for 1785, "has been
received at Teneriffe by all ranks of people with the deepest concern
and regret, and by none more than the Governor-General, who deplores
it extremely. He could not at first give credit to it; but was at
last convinced of the fatal truth, by letters from the wretch Briez
de Calderon himself. Exasperated to the highest pitch, he has given
a commission to an officer of rank to go over to Hierro to take
cognizance of this tragical affair,"--of which we hear no more.