CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION.

We have not much more to relate.

Maurice Morganstjern quitted the Hague suddenly, and betook him on

his diplomatic mission, whatever it was, to Paris; and his compatriot

the Heer van Schrekhorn thought it conducive to his personal safety

to make himself scarce about the same time; so both were beyond the

just vengeance of Lewie Baronald.

Great was the amazement of the latter when he found his uncle, the

General, quite _en famille_ at the villa of the Countess, and learned

from Dolores something of what had transpired on the night of the

ridotto, and of her perilous adventure.

It seemed simply incredible!

'How now, uncle, about the name of Mercedes?' he asked him laughingly.

'What about it?' asked the General testily, yet reddening like a

great schoolboy.

'Is it to go down in the annals of our family?'

'I hope so.'

"And how about all the Dead Sea fruit, the blackness of Gehenna, your

firmness, and all that?'

'Silence, you young dog!'

And merrily laughed Dolores as she ran her white fingers over the

piano, and sang a verse of the song that had now become so familiar

to her:

'The love that I have chosen

Is to my heart's content;

The salt sea will be frozen,

Before that I repent.

Repent it will I never,

Until the day I dee,

Though the Lowlands o' Holland

Have parted my love and me.'

'And your home is Scotland--the home to which you may take me, is it

like this?' asked the Countess softly of the General, as they sat in

the recess of a window; and from the question it may be safely

gathered that events had progressed rapidly between them.

'Like _this_!' exclaimed the General; 'you must see it for yourself

to know the difference,' he added, as his eye swept the dull, dead

flat of the Dutch landscape--flat as the flattest part of England.

Then he laughed as he thought of Thominean overshadowed by the

majestic Ochills, the deep glens of which, with their solemn shadows

and silence, are calculated to fill the soul at times with a species

of poetic or melancholy ecstasy; the grey precipices past which the

river rushes to Loch Leven, and the old mansion on its rock--half

chateau and half fortress--of which Mercedes would some day be

chatelaine.

But soon after all this, a shock awaited the General, when an orderly

dragoon placed in his hand a large official packet addressed to

himself, and sealed with the official seal of the Dutch Republic.

It announced that which had long been expected, that their High

Mightinesses the States-General had dispensed with the services of

the Scots Brigade, and a day was named when it would embark on board

a squadron of British ships for Scotland, and be placed, as so many

of its officers now desired, at the disposal of his Britannic Majesty.

The General's heart gave a throb. He had ruthlessly been on the

point of separating his nephew from Dolores; and here, perhaps, he

might eventually be separated from the old love he had so recently

found again!

But Mercedes placed her hand in his, in token that they would never

separate in life again.

So the old Brigade, of gallant memory, was going home _en masse_ at

last--home to Scotland, with its mighty crop of laurels, gathered in

the Lowlands of Holland, France, and Spain; home after two hundred

years of foreign service, during which, as the Scottish

commander-in-chief soon after told its soldiers in Edinburgh, they

had captured in battle and siege many a standard, but _never lost

one_.

The brilliant sun of a July evening was shining on the broad blue

waters of the Maese, and the pale-green willow groves that fringe its

banks; on the tossing sails of many a windmill far afield; on the red

mansions and spires of Rotterdam, the great brick tower of St.

Laurence, and the high gables of the Hoeg Straat; on the long line of

the Boompjies with all their stately elms, when the old Scots

Brigade, with the drums of all its battalions waking Dutch echoes for

the last time to 'The Lowlands of Holland,' marched to the

landing-place for embarkation, accompanied by vast crowds of

sympathising, admiring, regretful, and kindly-hearted Dutch folk; for

a thousand old historical, warlike, and, better than all, friendly

ties and associations were, on that evening, to be severed for ever!

Before that day of embarkation came, two marriages, which created the

deepest interest in the departing Brigade (which the brides

accompanied), had been celebrated at the Schotsche Kirk of the Hague,

by its pastor, the Reverend Ichabod Crane: on which occasion there

were present the Burgomaster; Heer van Otterbeck, the Minister of

State; and two or three of their Mightinesses of the States-General.

Need we say whose marriages these were?

[Illustration: Chapter 2 headpiece]

THE STORY

OF THE

CID RODRIGO OF BIVAR.

[Illustration: Chapter 2 tailpiece]

THE STORY OF THE CID RODRIGO OF BIVAR.

It is in old Castile, and on the banks of the rapid Ebro, that our

story opens, during the wonderful era of the Cid Campeador, when in

Spain there were about twenty kings, some of whom were Christians,

but more were Mohammedans; and in the land were many independent

warlike lords, who roved about on horseback, completely armed, with

trains of knights, offering their services to princes and princesses

who were at war.

This custom, says Voltaire, had already spread over Europe, but

nowhere to such an extent as in Spain; the Christian knights were

dubbed as such, with many solemn ceremonies, 'and watched their arms

before the altar of the Virgin Mary; but the Moslem paladins were

content with simply girding on a scimitar. This was the origin of

knights-errant and of such numbers of single combats.'

What with twenty kings all warring among themselves; lawless robbers

in the Sierras to fight; Jews to capture, torture, and mulct;

knights-errant besetting the highways and bridges with shield

uplifted to meet all comers; Moors on every hand to slay without

mercy, but more particularly at Seville, Granada, and Valencia, and

the still more abhorred Morabathans, the restless spirits who wished

to be up and doing, for good or for evil, amid the din of kettledrums

and cymbals, the glitter of lances and banners and so forth, must

have had plenty of work cut out for them in the sunny Spain of those

days, long ere Cervantes had laughed her 'chivalry away.'

Near the right bank of the Ebro, about ten miles from Burgos, at the

base of the Montanos de Santander, stood the Convent of Miraflores;

and though many times repaired and renewed, it stands there still:

but it was in the zenith of its fame when one day in the June of that

year, while Sancho, the ambitious King of Castile, was preparing to

besiege Zamora, an armed knight reined up his horse on its most

sequestered side, where one solitary window overlooked the river and

all the groves of olive and myrtle that grew thereby.

Though we write of a period so remote, strange to say the window is

there still in the old wall, against which the Moors have more than

once hurled their strength in vain, and it projects like a carved

stone cage of three pointed arches, supported by the head and wings

of a time-worn and gigantic figure of grotesque design; and thereat

was a fair young face, that grew bright with joy when the young

knight drew near.

The latter was a typical Spaniard, vigorous, tall, and well developed

in figure; black haired, with eyes full of fire; dark, well-defined

eyebrows, and features sharp and grave. Save that he wore a species

of Moorish basinet, bright as silver, with a tippet of mail; he was

clothed in chain armour to the tips of his fingers and the soles of

his feet, for the land teemed with fighting and peril, and no man

ventured abroad save completely equipped. His spurs were goads

without rowels, and a cross-hilted sword hung in his glittering belt.

The girl who welcomed his approach was not a _religieuse_, for young

ladies were boarded in convents then as now; but her costume declared

her to be of rank, as it was of shiny, golden-yellow silk, trimmed

with black of the same material, tightly sleeved to the wrist; and

she wore her thick, dark hair plaited in several divisions, after the

old Gothic custom that lingered still in Spain.

Her complexion was fair and bright; her features delicate and

harmonious; she was bewitching rather than beautiful--quite enough so

to be the heroine even of a romance! and the _Madre Abadesa_ of

Miraflores, who had very special instructions given her regarding the

care of this young lady, had accorded her the secluded apartment with

the projecting window--a circumstance which led to the young knight

discovering and making her acquaintance, a fact that would have

filled the good lady with intense dismay--for by flirting their

falcons, the young pair had come to a flirtation, and rather more,

between themselves.

In those days he who bore the hawk on his left wrist in the most

graceful way, was deemed the most accomplished cavalier; and to

please ladies, it was the fashion to play flirty tricks with the

pinions of their hawks. Thus, more than once, when passing, had the

strange knight's hawk flown upward to the full length of its silken

jess to flirt with the merlin on the hand of the lady, and hence it

came to pass that the owners met as we find them. In those days

people seem to have fallen in love more suddenly and desperately than

they do in our railway times, and their love seemed always to delight

in struggling with difficulties.

There was much of the Romeo and Juliet passionate tenderness in the

suddenly-developed regard of these two, but we cannot suppose that

the lovers of those days spoke more 'on stilts' than those of the

present time. The old story that was first told in Eden will have

ever the tender trivialities and endearing epithets, so we shall

imagine all these said, and come to prose at once.

'Your name, señor mio--dear love rather--in all your visits you have

never yet told it to me?' she said softly.

'I have to win it yet,' he replied.

'Where?' she asked.

'Where does a hidalgo win his name save in battle against the Moorish

curs? When so won, you shall know it. But yours, sweet lady?'

'May not, must not, be told to one who conceals his own.'

'But I must call you something, Estrella mia,' said he tenderly.

'Then your "star" be it,' said she, laughing and kissing her hand to

him, 'and my love and my prayers go with you to battle.'

'Nay, I go not to battle just now.'

'Whither then, and armed thus?'

'To fulfil a vow of vengeance on a craven who smote my aged father on

the beard with his mailed hand.'

'Is it not better to forgive?'

'Some things, perhaps, but not a deed like that! Ay de mi, is it not

hard for you to be shut up in this solitary place, dependent on

yourself for all joy and amusement?'

'Nay, señor mio, I am content; and is not contentment joy? I shall

never be happier than I am, till I rejoin my dear old father.'

'Where?' asked the knight.

'To tell that would be to disclose myself.'

'Tie a ribbon to my lance-head, thou dear one, and I shall dip it in

the blood of him I have vowed to slay.'

She did so, saying in the spirit of the age:

'Rival, if you can, the Cid Rodrigo, who has been known to meet ten

knights in arms, and unhorse them all; who, with his sword, slew that

giant Moor, the Caliph of Cordova, and released six Christian

maidens.'

The knight laughed lightly.

'Dios guarde à ustéd, mi querida!' he exclaimed, gathering up his

reins, and spurring his horse--the Babieca of so many ballads and

romances--for sooth to say, he was the identical Cid Rodrigo of whom

she spoke; and waving a farewell to 'the sweet face at the window,'

he rode off with lance and helmet flashing in the sun, and she

watched him till he disappeared in the direction of Miranda--watched

him departing on his deadly mission with less anxiety, perhaps, than

a girl of the present day would see her lover start by express train.

The Convent of Miraflores, with its garden and vineyard, formed a

kind of oasis in the long sweeping plain at the foot of the rugged

Sierra; shy bustards stalked about there in the loneliness amid the

silent scenery, for silent it is in Spain, where there are no singing

birds. A train of mules crossing the waste, where the wild

mignonette grows still in sheets of green; a solitary horseman in

mail, with lance-head glittering in the sun, or a friar jogging along

on a mule, alone were seen from time to time from the convent windows.

Gentle and soft in disposition, the fair _pensionaria_ had a deal of

pent-up tenderness at her disposal. Hitherto it had been bestowed

upon pet birds and flowers, mingled with many prayers in chapel and

much musing and reverie at the projecting window, where she would sit

for hours in that non-literary age, when there were no books, no

Berlin wool-work, and no pianos, gazing at the sparkling stars of the

summer night or at the morning sun, as he tipped the transparent

foliage of the myrtle groves and lit up the current of the Ebro; till

a day came when she was roused and excited by finding a gallant hawk,

hooded and plumed, flirting with the merlin on her wrist, and saw its

owner, the young mailed horseman, below the window regarding her with

pleasure and admiration; and as he had some trouble in luring back

his bird, a secret acquaintance, that ripened into love, began

between these two. The girl--for she was but a girl, and very young

too--loved with all her newly-awakened woman's heart and with a wild

yearning, very different, perhaps, from that of a young woman of the

present day, for her life was one of intense seclusion, and he

rapidly became (like Romeo) 'the god of her idolatry' in the

unreasoning enthusiasm of those days of romance and chivalry.

How little could she dream that her lover was the Cid Rodrigo of

Bivar, with the fame of whose exploits all Spain resounded now!

He was born at Burgos, where his father, Don Diego Lainez, was a

powerful noble, and his mother was Donna Teresa, 'daughter of the

Conde Don Nuno Alvarez,' as the inscription on her tomb bears now in

the church of San Pedro de Cordova, near Burgos.

In the year our story opens, the aged Don Diego had been grossly

insulted by the haughty and powerful Count of Gormaz, better known as

Don Lozano Gomez, who dared, with his iron gauntlet, to smite him on

the face in presence of Sancho the King and his Court. Mingled fury

and deep dejection filled the heart of the old man at this

unparalleled affront; he refused food; sleep left his eyelids, and

hourly he brooded on his dire disgrace, till his son Rodrigo vowed to

avenge him. Before the miraculous crucifix which is still in the

Cathedral of Burgos, and which tradition avers to have been fashioned

by St. Nicodemus, he had sworn to do this--and so strongly were the

minds of men constituted in those days, that even as he registered

the evil vow, his heart was filled by a glow of reverence and

adoration--and then he rode forth in search of their enemy, for these

were not times like our own, when young fellows affect to be so much

'used up' in all the joys and sorrows of the world that nothing

excites them.

Quitting the vicinity of the Convent of Miraflores, he took the way

to Miranda del Ebro, and had not ridden many miles when he saw an

armed knight approaching, attended by four esquires, or men-at-arms,

and a sense of fierce joy filled the soul of the Cid on recognising,

by the blazoning of his surcoat, the very man of whom he was in

search, Don Lozano, the Conde de Gormaz, delivered over to him, as he

believed, specially by the hand of Heaven! Goldsmith tells us that

'it is easier to conceive than describe the complicated sensations

which are felt from the pain of a recent injury and the pleasure of

approaching vengeance;' and some such mingled emotion there was in

the heart of the knight.

Reining up his horse in the centre of the narrow and dusty road,

Rodrigo cried:

'Don Lozano--craven dog, who smote my father, defend yourself!'

'Begone, rash youth, lest I have you disarmed and scourged!' replied

Lozano, lowering his lance however, as he knew that he who barred the

way would not stand on trifles. 'We are five to one.'

'Villain, come on! on my side are right and nobility--worth a hundred

comrades!' cried Rodrigo; and meeting at full speed with a dreadful

shock, the splinters of their lances flew twenty feet into the air.

Rodrigo then drew his sword, the famous Tisona, and almost ere

Lozano's blade had left its sheath, he was hewn down from his saddle

and bleeding in the dust, while his armed attendants in terror took

to flight. Rodrigo then tore the surcoat from the dying Count, as a

token of his victory--Mariana the historian, we think, adds that he

cut off his head--and then rode leisurely homeward to Burgos; for if

a little homicide by way of duello was thought little of here when

George III. was King, it was a matter of decidedly less consequence

in Spain in the days of the Cid.

At the head of three hundred mounted hidalgos, 'all wearing gold and

silken raiment, with perfumed gloves, and caps of gorgeous colours,'

Don Diego, now, as he thought, redeemed from disgrace, rode forth to

meet the King and kiss his hand, while Rodrigo repaired to the

Convent of Miraflores, with the blood-stained ribbon streaming from

his casque, but the face was not at the window now. Thrice he came

thither and watched and waited for it in vain, and believing that the

Mother Abbess had discovered his love-affair, he returned with a

heavy heart to Burgos, to take counsel of the King Sancho, though

some say it was of this latter's father, King Ferdinand.

But soon tidings came to the Court of Castile that a beautiful lady,

who had been foully wronged, was coming hither attended by a numerous

train, to seek justice at the hands of the King. All the young

knights were ready to embrace her cause, whatever it might be; but

all, including the famous Bellido Dolfos, withdrew in favour of

Rodrigo, who first demanded to make it his own; and yet he thought,

'God wot, why should I champion her, when my own and only love is the

Recluse of Miraflores?' And then the sweet face at the window came

before him in memory with all the soft brightness of an opium-eater's

dream.

Clad in black, with a gauze veil over her dark dishevelled tresses,

her eyes streaming with tears, the lady fell on her knees before the

King, exclaiming, as the Spanish ballad has it:

'Justice, King! I am for justice--

Vengeance on a traitor knight!

Grant it me! So shall thy children

Thrive and prove thy soul's delight.'

Her voice found a painful echo in the heart of Rodrigo, who was

filled with sudden horror.

'Estrella mia!' he exclaimed, as she threw up her veil; 'can such

sorrow be? Are you Ximena Gomez?'

'And _you_--you--the slayer of my hapless father! O mi padre murio!'

she cried in a piercing voice, as they both made this terrible

discovery. Filial affection had been a ruling passion in the gentle

mind of Ximena, who now experienced a dreadful shock on finding that

it was by the hand of her lover, her father had perished. And great

too was the grief and dismay of the young Cid at a catastrophe--a

revelation so unexpected. A blight fell upon the hearts of both.

Lozano had no son to avenge his death. He left only the helpless and

weeping Ximena, whom the King raised up, and who now ceased to demand

on Rodrigo the punishment she had craved before, and returned to

Miraflores, vowing that she would take the veil, while Rodrigo,

accompanied by his comrades, Bellido Dolfos, Pedro Bermudez, and

Martin Pelaez, Ordono, and others, plunged at once into a series of

warlike exploits and expeditions, seeking to appease thereby the

memory of the sorrow that had fallen upon them all. 'Of all the

knights, the Cid distinguished himself most against the Mussulmans,'

says Voltaire briefly. 'Many of them ranged themselves under his

banner, and altogether, with their squires and horsemen in armour,

composed an army covered with iron and mounted on the finest horses

in the country. The Cid conquered more than one Moorish king, and

having at last fortified himself in the city of Alcazar, formed there

a little sovereignty.'

Spanish history makes the conquered kings five in number, and states

that he caused them to pay tribute after he set them at liberty,

'wherefore they served him faithfully, and called him their Cid, or

Lord.' It also records that Ximena did not take the veil at

Miraflores, but, curiously enough, exhibited another strange sample

of the manners of the age by petitioning the King 'either to execute

Rodrigo for killing her father, or give him to her for a husband.

The King chose the latter, and Rodrigo joyfully received Ximena and

took her to his mother, who kept her as her own child, and they were

betrothed; but Rodrigo promised to gain many more battles against the

Moors before he would claim her as his wife.' And so, while the Cid

was winning five provinces, and gaining glory too, with the edge of

Tisona among the infidels--of whom he slew an incredible number, till

a saying of his is a Spanish proverb to this day, 'The more Moors the

more gain'--Ximena spent her time in fear and hope among her

favourite flowers and love-birds at the house of Donna Teresa, in

Burgos (Coronico de los Moros, etc.).

And even after their marriage it was his boast, 'God wot! oftener is

Tisona than Ximena by my side.'

After the siege of Zamora, during which King Sancho was

slain--treacherously, it is averred, by Don Bellido Dolfos--the Cid,

as the former was repairing to Burgos, gave him a special message to

Ximena:

'Tell her that I am coming; and, as an earnest thereof, give her this

ring, which I took from the hand of the Caliph of Cordova.'

Don Billido, who in his heart cherished a secret and treacherous love

for the betrothed of his friend, took the ring, and, saying

emphatically, 'Rodrigo, amigo mio, haya cuenta sobre mi' (_i.e._, 'My

friend, rely on me'), rode gaily home to Burgos.

Bellido has been described as a man with a fierce hooked nose, a

black beard, and slightly treacherous eyes, that, if such are the

true index of the soul, might have revealed his natural character.

He gave the ring to Ximena, and told her that the Cid awaited her at

Miraflores. She was surprised at this, but, never doubting the

comrade of her intended husband, attended by two ladies, she set out

for Miraflores, closely veiled. They rode white palfreys, with

velvet caparisons embroidered with gold, and having silken bridles

covered with little bells. Bellido and some ruffians, on whom he

could rely, formed their escort; but they never reached Miraflores.

In due time the Cid Rodrigo came to Burgos with his heart full of

Ximena, his old love for her mingling with gratitude that she had

forgiven him for the terrible wrong he had done her, and already he

seemed to see her winning smile and her soft and lustrous eyes, that

looked so truthfully under the long, dark lashes that fringed them.

'Madre mia, where is Ximena?' he exclaimed, as he alighted from his

horse.

'At Miraflores, whither you sent for her,' was the reply.

'I sent no such message--there is some mistake.'

'Or treachery,' said Donna Teresa; 'my mind misgives me, or I

distrust Don Bellido.'

'Can he have decoyed her away!' exclaimed the Cid, with alarm and

rage in his voice and eye.

But the old lady knew not what to think, and began to weep bitterly;

and still more did she weep when sure tidings came that in revenge

for repelling his addresses, the double traitor Bellido Dolfos had

betrayed Ximena into the hands of Hiaja, the savage Caliph of Toledo.

Rodrigo was beside himself with sorrow and dismay; but bethought him

at once of his sword, and prevailed upon his new master, Alphonso

VI., King of Old Castile, to besiege the city of Toledo, offering him

all his knights for that enterprise.

The report of this siege, and the cause thereof--a Christian lady of

rare beauty and high rank, more than all, the betrothed of the Cid,

being a captive in the hands of the odious Hiaja--brought many

knights and princes from distant lands, particularly Raymond, Count

of Toulouse, and two princes of the royal blood of France, of the

branch of Burgundy.

Their armies covered all the fertile plain amid which Toledo stands,

on a steep hill, round the base of which flows the Tagus. In some

places the spears of the infantry--whose massed columns seemed like a

sea of glittering steel--stood thick as upright corn; in others were

the squadrons of barbed horse, the knights and men-at-arms, all

clothed in chain armour, bright as winter frost or polished silver,

their many-coloured plumes, their square banners, and swallow-tailed

pennons streaming out upon the wind.

High overall, with its towers and the minarets of its mosques, rose

the then infidel city of Toledo, the upper part of which was then, as

now, girt by Roman, and the lower part by Moorish walls. History

tells us that when Alphonso VI. had been a fugitive under the

persecution of his brother and predecessor, Sancho, he had found an

asylum at the Court of the Caliph of Toledo, who treated him with

hospitality and princely distinction; and now more than one Moorish

warrior rode forth from the city to reproach Alphonso with

ingratitude to his benefactor, and many a terrible and remarkable

combat was fought under the walls of Toledo, among the defenders of

which was Don Bellido Dolfos, who had renounced his faith and adopted

the turban.

In the combats before the city, the Cid was daily occupied, and many

a Moorish warrior, horse and man, rolled in the dust beneath his

lance or battle-axe; and his followers were enriched by the spoil,

the rare weapons, the costly garments and jewels, that his hand won.

At last there came a day--the anniversary of the victory won by

Mohammed at Bedr, between Mecca and Medina--when the Moors made a

dreadful sortie from Toledo, led by the renegade, Bellido Dolfos; and

closing in on every hand, the Christians met them with equal ardour

and fury.

The hand-to-hand fighting was terrible, and the Christian knights,

led by the Cid, the Count of Toulouse, and others, dashed their

horses through and through the living tide of Moors that surged

around them. Gorgeous as a field of flowers, with their

many-coloured turbans and flowing garments, seemed the Moors as they

kept shoulder to shoulder, guarding their heads with round shields

covered with glittering bosses, their sharp scimitars flashing in the

sun, their shouts rolling like thunder between the Tagus and the

walls of Toledo, as they fought with demoniac strength and ferocity,

but fought in vain. High over all the throng towered the Cid upon

Babieca, its mailed flanks stuck full of arrows and even broken

lances.

'Santiágo y cerra España!' he shouted ever and anon--the old war-cry

of Spain--and he hewed on all sides with Tisona, till his sword-arm

grew weary, and the last who bit the dust beneath it was the traitor

Don Bellido, after whose fall the Moors were driven headlong into

Toledo.

The siege lasted a year, during which Ximena and her two attendants

occupied a noble chamber in the palace of the Caliph. Its ceiling

was adorned with arabesques and fretwork, brilliant with gold and

delicate pencilling. In its centre was an alabaster fountain of

perfumed water, and round it were cages of gold and silver wire, full

of singing birds; and there daily the three ladies offered up their

prayers on their knees for the success of the Christian arms, and for

their own release.

After a year and a day Toledo capitulated, and Ximena was restored to

the Cid, to whom all New Castile submitted, and who took possession

of it in the name of Alphonso VI.; and Madrid, then a small village,

one day to become the capital of Spain, was for the first time in the

hands of the Christians, and Hiaja was the last Caliph of Toledo.

To narrate all the heroic deeds performed by the Cid after his

marriage would require the space of a very large volume indeed. The

great dominions he acquired for his royal master the latter increased

by espousing Zaid, a daughter of the Moorish King of Andalusia, after

which Rodrigo, at the head of his knights, subdued the whole of

Valentia. No sovereign prince in Spain was more powerful than he;

but he contented himself with the title of Cid, and never assumed

that of King, though he might easily have done so. No warrior in

Spain did more evil to the Moors, yet he occasionally joined the Beni

Huds of Zaragossa against the Counts of Barcelona, whom he conquered

twice. While he never failed in his word to a Christian, he

mercilessly despoiled the Jews, from two of whom he raised money for

war, by depositing with them two chests which were alleged to be full

of plate, but which contained only stones and sand.

His two daughters became queens of Aragon and Navarre.

Five years after the conquest of Valentia, worn out by incessant

warfare, he fell ill, and was abed when tidings were brought to him

that Bucar, the Moor, whom he had expelled from that kingdom, was

advancing to regain it with a mighty army of horse and foot; but

Tisona lay idly in the scabbard now. For seven days preceding his

death, the Cid would taste nothing but a little myrrh and balsam; and

on the day he departed he took a solemn farewell of Ximena, his

kinsmen, and all his knights, whom he requested to carefully bury his

old war-horse Babieca, 'to the end that no dogs might eat the flesh

of him whose hoofs had trodden down so much dog's-flesh of the

Moors.' He bequeathed a coffer of silver to the two Jews, and

desired that his body should be borne to San Pedro de Cardena, and

laid beside that of his mother.

He died in the year 1097; but he who had been the terror of the Moors

for so many years when in life, was still fated to strike terror to

them in death, even while all the host of King Bucar were rejoicing

that he had passed away. At midnight, twelve days after that event,

the Christians prepared to abandon the city of Valentia--'Valentia of

the Cid,' as it is called to this day. His body, which had been

placed, we are told, 'in a sitting posture, and left to stiffen

between two boards,' was placed on the back of Babieca, upright in

the saddle, with the feet tied in the stirrups. To all appearance he

was completely armed; a light shield of parchment, painted with his

device, was hung on his left arm; the terrible Tisona was fixed bare

and upright in his sword-hand. Geronymo, Bishop of Valentia, led

Babieca by the rein; Pedro Bermudez, with the banner of the Cid

upraised, led the van with 400 knights; then came the Cid's body,

with Ximena and her ladies, guarded by 600 men, and when day broke,

though the Moors were terrified to find that the Cid was there in his

saddle again, a battle ensued, and King Bucar was defeated; but

Valentia was lost, and the sorrowing warriors of Rodrigo continued

their retreat to Old Castile and beyond the Ebro.

At Olmedo they were met by his daughters, with all the knights of

Aragon, clad in black cloaks, with hoods rent, and their shields

reversed at their saddle bows; and with every religious and military

solemnity incident to the time, they laid him in his grave at San

Pedro de Cardena, and two years afterwards Gil Diaz, one of his most

faithful followers, buried Babieca before the gate of the church

there. In the course of seven centuries and a half the remains of

the famous Cid Rodrigo have been removed several times, the last

occasion being by the French, in 1809, to the Espolen, or public

promenade of Burgos; but in 1826 they were restored to San Pedro,

where the tomb and effigies of himself and Ximena now remain in a

small but noble chapel. In that chapel lie the bones of Alvar Fanez

Minaya, whom he was wont to call his 'right arm;' of Pedro Bermudez,

Ordono, Martin Pelaez, the Asturian, and many more of his captains

and valiant friends.

His statue, as 'the dread and terror of the Moorish curs,' has a

prominent place in the quaint gateway of Santa Maria, erected by

Charles V. at Burgos. In the time of Cervantes the saddle of Babieca

was preserved in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, and Southey avers that

he had personally seen and handled Tisona, now an heirloom in the

family of the Marquis de Falces. On one side of the blade is graven,

'I am Tisona, made in the year 1002;' on the other is the legend,

'AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DOMINUS TUUM.'

[Illustration: Chapter 3 headpiece]

THE BOY-GENERAL.

THE STORY OF JEAN CAVALIER.

[Illustration: Chapter 3 tailpiece]

THE BOY-GENERAL.

THE STORY OF JEAN CAVALIER.

'Guillot--you here! Why have you left the mountain of St. Julian?'

'To be with you, brother Jean--to fight for the Cevennes.'

'With a beardless face and a feeble hand!'

'I have about as much beard as you, mon frère; and if my hand be

feeble, it has brought down many a wolf in Mialet and the Gevaudan,'

replied Guillot, slapping the butt of his carbine emphatically.

The speakers were young Guillot Cavalier and his elder brother Jean,

who was then, at the age of _seventeen years_, actually a general and

second in command of the Camisard army, the Insurgent Protestants of

Languedoc; who fought many a battle with Villars and De Montrevel,

the best leaders of the age; who, with Roland, led the great revolt

in 1703; and who in his twentieth year became a full colonel in the

English army!

Both were very handsome lads, and both wore the white tunic (in

Languedocian, _camisa_) to distinguish themselves from their enemies,

and hence their well-known name of Camisards. Both were well armed,

with swords, silver-mounted pistols, and short carbines; but the

elder wore over his shoulder the scarf of a French general, and in

his white velvet cap the wing of an eagle. Strong--and tender as

strong--was the bond of affection between these two lads, who had

both been born in the village of Ribaute, among the pastoral

mountains north of the Valley of Garden; and though Jean was ready to

face any peril and to 'do all that may become a man' for the cause in

which he had been so suddenly made a leader, and in which he had

already won such high distinction, his heart sank at the

contemplation of Guillot--a delicate boy, and their mother's chief

care--encountering the risks of that most savage and rancorous Civil

War which now devastated Languedoc.

Jean, as a very little boy, had been bred a shepherd, and was

afterwards apprenticed to a baker at Anduze; and it was from the

employ of the latter that, with a carbine in his hand, he went forth

to become a Camisard, 'and soon proved himself to be,' as history

tells us, 'a most able general, as well as a powerful prophet and

preacher.'

'Return, Guillot--return,' he is said to have urged again; 'our poor

mother cannot spare us both.'

'La Bonne Madelon is the mother we must serve just now, and I will

not quit your camp,' replied Guillot, whose eyes lit up, as he

referred to one of those wild, half-frenzied, and wholly enthusiastic

prophetesses, or female preachers, who thronged the camps of the

Camisards, attended their councils, and followed them into battle.

'Then be it so,' said Jean Cavalier resignedly; adding, 'I have good

news for you and all the faithful, Guillot. The Queen of Great

Britain--the good Queen Anne--is sending a fleet to our aid.'

'Of what use will it be to us among the mountains?' asked Guillot,

laughing.

'It brings us troops, Guillot--troops, who will help us to beat those

of Montrevel,' replied Jean, referring to the expedition consisting

of thirty-five British and twelve Dutch ships of the line, which was

to sail on the 1st of July, 1703, from St. Helens, to the assistance

of the Cevennois, and to the arrival of this expedition off the coast

the elder Cavalier looked confidently forward to repulsing the column

of De Montrevel, while Roland was fighting the King's troops

elsewhere. And now to explain briefly what brought all these affairs

about.

In the 'Histoire des Pasteurs du Désert,' and other annals, we are

told the terrible story of that Civil War in which 30,000 Cevennois

perished in battle or on the scaffold, between November, 1702, and

December, 1704. Well fitted for desultory warfare are the mountains

of Cevennes, with their rocky labyrinth of deep gorges and dark

defiles, which a mere handful of bold peasantry were able to hold

against the best troops of Louis XIV., and where, to this hour, the

population is almost entirely Protestant, inhabiting some six hundred

villages, which are all but inaccessible.

The white-shirted Camisards had these steep ridges to encamp on;

gorges for ambuscades; forests to rally in; paths trodden only by the

wolf or the fox to retreat by; and caverns which became their

arsenals and fortresses. Army after army came to annihilate these

peasants as heretics, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,

but only to be destroyed or hurled in ruin and defeat into the

valleys; but the miseries of the war, the slaughter of women and

children, the burning and pillaging were fearful, and spread from

thence to the ocean on the south, and the Rhone on the east, among

the hundred churches of Dauphine. With much sublime piety and heroic

valour the armed peasantry, as in the similar case of the Scottish

Covenanters, combined a great amount of psalm-singing and the

strongest religious fervour, bordering at times upon fanaticism, and

prophets and prophetesses, like La Bonne Madelon, roused a wildness

of enthusiasm never seen in France since the days of Joan of Arc.

'The spirit of resistance began to show itself, drawn forth by the

recital of their wrongs, the denunciation of their tyrants, and the

assurance of support from heaven; conventicles were held, in spite of

the terrors of prison, torture, and the soldiery, and in the open air

among the rocks and caverns.'

Roland and Cavalier levied their troops from the different parishes,

each of which furnished its quota of armed men and money, and fresh

heroes to fill up the vacancies in the ranks. Many believed

themselves to be sword or bullet proof, while 'the seizures,

tortures, executions by breaking on the wheel and burning alive (the

common modes of punishing a Camisard), led to reprisals on their

part--to the slaying of priests and the sacking and burning of

Catholic churches.' But in the spirit of outrage, the French troops

were far surpassed by the guerilla bands, called Florentins, in the

pay of the Grand Monarque.

Jean Cavalier thought of these things keenly now, as he gazed on the

soft boyish face of his brother Guillot, when posting his column of

Camisards in ambush one morning, ere dawn, to give a hot welcome to

the royal forces under the Sieur de Montrevel, an officer high in

repute for great valour, but merciless in his severity.

The sound of the drums had died away, but the sheeny bayonets

glistened in the sun, and the white Bourbon colours of the regiments,

with their golden fleur-de-lys, were waving in the wind, as the

column of royal troops began to penetrate a defile that was clothed

with the olive, the vine, and the fig-tree. The church and hamlet

there had perished by fire; the place was desolate; not a human being

was visible, and without halting, the troops pushed on, with an

advanced guard to 'feel the way,' in front, till they reached a

portion of the defile where the impending rocks were higher, the way

narrower, and the trailing vines had given place to the dense, dark,

and woody luxuriance of forest trees. The flower of the column was

composed of one of the four battalions of the ancient regiment of

Champagne, raised so far back as the reign of Henry II.

'Halt!' cried the officer of the advanced guard, whose quick eye had

detected the bright flash of steel amid the green branches. In

another moment, a combination of fearful sounds burst like a storm

upon the silent air, while the soldiers halted, panting with the

exertion of climbing the long and steep ascent. An enormous fragment

of rock, dislodged from above, crashed with the sound of thunder into

the defile below, a mass that must have annihilated the entire

advanced guard, had the officer not halted it in time. Other masses

of rock and rubbish came thundering down, barring all advance, while

more than a thousand voices made the defile re-echo with the shouts

of fierce exultation, mingled with a religious hymn.

On the fallen rock in front there was suddenly seen a female, 'the

Good Madelon,' kneeling in an attitude of frenzied supplication, her

arms thrown wildly up, her hands clasped, her black hair floating

loose, her drapery streaming on the wind, and by her side stood

Cavalier. As yet no shots had been fired.

'Voilà! 'Tis the rebel Cavalier!' cried De Montrevel, almost leaping

in his saddle with exultation; and his sharp words of command

followed fast.

A volley was poured in front and on both flanks, and from these three

points it was closely responded to; and then the soldiers, who were

in great force, began, at the bayonet's point, to push up the woody

sides of the defile, firing as they went and driving the peasantry

before them; and meanwhile the prophetess--she of the supposed

charmed life, La Bonne Madelon, remained on her knees immovable,

absorbed in prayer, half seen, half hidden, amid the eddying smoke.

Guillot strove to lead her aside, but in vain; and when a bullet

grazed his cheek, he rushed away to join his brother, who, like him,

strongly believed in the power of immunity from death possessed by

Madelon, and was now busy in the act of concentrating and directing

the operations of his scattered followers.

It is said that when the prophetess, whose eyes had in them the gleam

of insanity, felt the bullets whiz about her, a sense of danger came

with the sound, and that she opened her eyes and glanced about her,

as if seeking to escape, but she was grasped by four soldiers of the

line; and that when the Camisards beheld her feeble hands bound with

cords, while her head sunk on her breast, and she was dragged away,

they became for a time panic-stricken, and though they hovered on the

precipice above the corpse-strewn defile, they ceased to fire, and

gazed on her conveyance to the rear in a species of stupid wonder.

'She can save herself,' Cavalier is reported to have said, so perfect

was his belief, as a credulous mountaineer, in her divine mission;

'we cannot rescue her now, but,' he added, lifting his cap and

looking upward, 'some miracle from heaven will.'

But no miracle was wrought, and with his solitary prisoner the Sieur

de Montrevel marched down, somewhat triumphantly, to the nearest

town, the white houses of which could be seen a league or two distant

from the mountains. That night Guillot, with a chosen party, stole

from them, and entered the silent street, from which all the

inhabitants had fled, hoping to find some trace of the Good Madelon,

perhaps in the public prison, from which they might see a way to free

her.

But Montrevel and his men had departed, leaving in the market-place a

fearful object, which greeted the eyes of Guillot and his followers

when daybreak came in. Suspended by the neck from a gibbet in the

centre of the place hung the body of their prophetess in its

well-known drapery, and literally full of bullets, as the departing

Florentins had made a target of it. She had been a beautiful woman,

whose husband and children had been cruelly destroyed before her, and

sorrow had doubtless turned her brain.

Accustomed though they had become to atrocities, the Camisards gazed

at each other in horror at this spectacle, and then bore away her

body for interment, sadly, slowly, and reverentially, and from the

side of her grave went up the united vow for vengeance!

The fleet of Sir Cloudesley Shovel failed to land either succour or

allies, and returning to England, says Schomberg, in his 'Naval

Chronology,' was off the Isle of Wight on the 16th of November; so

the Camisards now had no hopes but in their own hearts and hands.

Intent on avenging the barbarous death of the Good Madelon, Jean

Cavalier, with 1,500 Camisards, took post near La Tour de Bellot, a

deserted sheep-farm and watch-tower to the westward of Alais, from

whence he meant to issue and attack De Montrevel, who was, he

believed, ignorant of his vicinity, and who, keeping somewhat

careless guard, was encamped not far off among the mountains. In the

afternoon the Camisards were plentifully supplied with food by a

wealthy miller on the Garden, whom they believed to be true to their

cause. By nightfall, Cavalier had reconnoitred all the country; and

as the sun set, dark clouds gathered fast, and premature twilight

shrouded the valleys. Through them the wind howled, foreboding a

storm, and Cavalier laughed with stern joy, when telling his

followers that their attack would be veiled by the war of the

elements.

He had laid out his plans with wisdom, and alone, and a little apart

from his troops, was waiting the time to give them the signal to

move, when from all points around the Tour de Bellot burst forth a

half-random storm of musketry, and the boom of cannon announced that

the King's troops were upon him!

'We are betrayed!' cried Guillot, rushing bare-headed to his side.

'By whom?'

'The miller of the Garden!' replied Guillot, passionately.

And so it was; ere the Camisard outposts had been able to give the

alarm, they were cut to pieces, and only Cavalier and a few of his

men were able to sally from the tower before it was invested on all

sides. Guillot and others were shut up in it! Furious were the

efforts made by Cavalier--efforts urged by filial love and

despair--to drive back the soldiers and relieve those in the tower,

from the windows and every cranny of which its slender garrison

poured a deadly fire for eight hours, till their ammunition was

expended, and then the edifice was set on fire; 290 perished in it,

says history, 100 Camisards lay dead outside, and around it were

1,200 of the King's troops killed or wounded!

Compelled to retire some distance, yet fighting every inch of the

way, Cavalier beheld, with horror, the tower sheeted with fire. His

soul died within him as he thought of his brother, the boyish and

gentle Guillot, and all who were perishing there, and he strove to

fight his way back just as day was breaking, and by the light of it

he could see, apart from all the hurly-burly of the strife, a

remarkable combat proceeding, and on the very verge of a cliff close

by.

It was a boy--a boy, sword in hand--Guillot, fighting with a young

officer of the Regiment of Champagne. His cap was off--his white

camisa was stained by blood and dirt and scorched with fire. Borne

back by bayonets, Cavalier could only look on in agony, as he saw his

brother driven step by step to the very verge of the dreadful cliff

behind him, and of which he was unaware. Unyielding, though

retreating, Guillot kept parrying thrusts and warding cuts with

consummate skill, till a cry escaped him, and he vanished!

A groan from the breast of Cavalier echoed that cry; a mist came over

his sight, yet he continued to fight, like a blind man, to cover the

retreat of the wreck of his followers, by whom wild justice was soon

after done on the treacherous miller. He was seized, condemned to

death, and led out to execution in front of the insurgents, who,

according to their wont, knelt around him, while offering up prayers

for his soul. His parting embrace was refused by his two sons, who

served under Cavalier, and who looked on unmoved by the terrible

death he had to die.

That his brother Guillot might perish in battle, or by torture in the

hands of the enemy, Cavalier had always dreaded; but the catastrophe

by which he lost him was altogether unconceived: and the fortunes of

the conflict led him far from the vicinity of La Tour de Bellot, thus

he could neither search for the remains of Guillot, nor bestow

funeral rites upon them.

For months the war went on. The bright valour and cool judgment of

Cavalier, 'the Boy-General,' for such he was, exalted him still more

above all other leaders of the Camisards, and especially so when he

succeeded in utterly defeating a considerable body of the royal

troops at Martinarque, under the Sieur de Montrevel, who commanded

them.

The 6th of April, 1704, saw Cavalier again betrayed by one he

trusted. At the head of 900 foot and 300 horse, all well equipped,

he entered the Vaunage, or Valley of Noyes, so called from a little

town of that name, in the fertile district westward of Nismes,

intending to waylay the Marechal de Montrevel, who was on the way to

Montpellier, but was himself lured into a dreadful ambuscade, and

surrounded on all sides by the royal troops, including a great body

of King James's-Irish, who had recently fought at the battle of the

Boyne.

On all sides burst forth from amid the shelter of trees and hedgerows

the withering fire of musketry, the boom of the cannon, and the

hissing showers of grape.

Undismayed by the sudden scene of carnage, and by numbers six times

exceeding his own, Cavalier, perceiving a design of the enemy to

completely cut him off, 'wheeled his column rapidly round under the

hottest fire, and in the face of a charge of bayonets drew off his

men, retreating in echelon--a masterly man[oe]uvre of the baker's

boy, which drew forth the admiration of the Marechal Duc de Villars.'

Eventually, however, his retreat was cut off, the royal troops

occupied every height, every avenue and pass that remained, and

nothing was left for him now but to cut his way out at all hazards,

or die! He was not long in choosing. 'Throwing aside his

magnificent uniform and white plume, he put on a common dress,' we

are told, and ordering his comrades to close their ranks, made a

headlong dash at the enemy.

'Notre Dame de frappe morte!' was the shout of the regiments of

Champagne and Normandy, as they brought their bayonets to the charge;

but Cavalier broke through the first line. In the attack on the

second, he was singled out when discovered, and a soldier seized the

bridle of his horse, but had his hand hewn off by a young Camisard

wearing a scarlet scarf over his white camisa. He was next grasped

by a dragoon, whom he pistolled; but now, beyond appeared another

line and a whole squadron of dragoons barring his way to the Pont de

Rosni--the only issue. Panic-struck, his fugitive horsemen poured

madly down upon it sword in hand, forgetful for a time of their

leader, who was in the rear, and who would probably have been cut off

but for the young Camisard in the red scarf--his brother--his brother

Guillot (of whose escape anon), who suddenly appeared upon the

ground--'his brother, a boy _ten_ (?) years old,' says the French

account, 'who drew his horse across the bridge, and with a pistol

presented to the fugitives, summoned them to defend their chief and

not abandon him.'

Cavalier, with the remainder of his force, escaped into the forest of

Cannes. This battle extended over all the ground from the mill of

Langlode to the town of Noyes. Of one thousand dead who lay on the

field, one half were Camisards. During the whole of the conflict one

of their prophets, named Daniel Gui, stood on the summit of a rock,

amid six female enthusiasts, three of whom were afterwards shot,

invoking the God of Battles to favour their cause.

The miraculous restoration of his brother--for such it was

deemed--alone was a palliation to the heart of Cavalier for the deep

mortification of his defeat; and yet it had come about simply enough.

Recent rains had formed a deep basin of water under the cliff from

which he fell, in a place where jagged rocks alone had been visible

shortly before. Sinking, he rose to the surface, struggled to the

bank, faint and wounded, and had found shelter, till well and whole,

in a shepherd's hut, till he could join his brother in the Valley of

the Noyes, and now tender indeed was their meeting and the mutual

embrace they gave each other.

But brief time had they for mutual explanations, as ere long the

report of musketry began to wake the echoes of the forest, and Daniel

Gui came rushing in with tidings that the Sieur de Lalande was

putting to the sword the entire inhabitants of the village of Euzet.

Entering it suddenly, he had found a bullock newly-skinned, and bales

of hams, bread, and sausages made up for the men of Cavalier, whom he

at once traced and attacked with vigour, and defeated with the loss

of 170 men. Final vengeance now fell on the unhappy villagers of

Euzet, which, together with a cavern close by, was found to be full

of the wounded, ammunition, medicine, and stores of Cavalier's

forces. This sealed the fate of the former; and every human being

lying there was slaughtered, including the helpless creatures in the

cavern. Such was the awful system on which this war was carried on.

Cavalier's commissariat was supplied by requisitions upon districts,

irrespective of their faith, and when not given with goodwill, he was

compelled to write thus to the chief magistrate of the place:

'MM.,--Vous ne manquerez point de nous préparer demain le diner, son

peine d'être assiégé et mis _à feu et à sang_!--CAVALIER.'

But it was while he was still struggling manfully and bravely to

maintain a desperate cause against the whole force of the French army

that the crushing intelligence came to him of the fall of his

compatriot, Roland Laporte. This was on the 13th of August, 1704, at

Castelnau, near the Ners, a river which in winter rolls down from the

mountains in a mighty flood.

His presence there would seem to have been betrayed to the Duc de

Villars. At midnight, when he and his companions were fast asleep,

the sentinel on the tower-head suddenly heard amid the stillness of

the hour the distant noise of horses approaching at a furious gallop,

and gave the alarm just as a column of cavalry was entering the town.

Half-clad and half-armed, the Camisards rushed to the stables, and

mounting their horses bare-backed, rode off without saddles, bits, or

spurs; thus they were soon after taken in a deep hollow way, and

compelled to halt and dismount. Planting his back against an aged

olive tree, Roland made a desperate resistance, to every summons of

'Rendez vous! bas les armes coquin!' replying by a blow of his sword,

or shots from his pistols, a row of which he carried in his girdle.

He slew several dragoons, ere one by a musket-shot brought him down,

by a mortal wound, on which his comrades threw themselves above his

body, and were seized and bound.

On the 16th of August his body was dragged at the tail of a cart into

Nismes and burnt, while five of his companions were broken alive on

the wheel around his funeral pyre. Many Camisards perished thus

here, the most memorable executions being those of Catenat and

Ravenel, who were burned alive, almost within sight of the

battle-field on which they had defeated the Comte de Broglie.

Jean Cavalier found himself almost alone now, yet his spirit did not

quail.

Marshal Villars had now come to the conclusion that the warfare

seemed likely to become interminable; that it was possible to harass

the hardy mountaineers of the Cevennes, but not to conquer them. So

resolute was the spirit of the Camisards, so impregnable their hilly

fortresses, that all hope of ending the war so long as one was left

alive, was relinquished by this able officer; and we are told that in

the heart of Cavalier, who beheld the sufferings of the peasantry

from incessant toil and famine, there rose a great longing for peace,

if it were possible with safety and honour; and on ascertaining that

10,000 of the Huguenots were ready to lay down their arms and submit

to the king, he consented to hold an amicable parley with any officer

the latter might send.

Cavalier's first interview was with Lalande, who was sent by Marshal

Villars. 'Lalande surveyed the worn garments and pale cheeks of the

young hero, whose deeds had reached the ears and troubled the mind of

Louis XIV., in the midst of his mighty foreign wars; he looked upon

the bodyguard of the rebel chief, and saw there, too, signs of

poverty and extreme physical suffering, and believed that he knew how

to treat with men in such a condition.'

He proffered a large sum in gold, not a coin of which Cavalier would

touch, though he allowed his followers to accept it for their

starving wives and children; and he made preliminary arrangements

with Lalande for a final interview with the Marechal Duc de Villars.

It was in the summer of 1704 that the latter, the renowned antagonist

of Marlborough, entered the garden of the Recollets, at St. Cesaire,

near Nismes, the site of which is now occupied by a theatre, to

discuss peace and war with 'the Boy-General,' Jean Cavalier, who,

resolved to produce all the effect he could, appeared on this

occasion magnificently mounted, with a richly-laced coat, and a hat

plumed with white feathers. Cavalier's young face looked sad, we are

told, and the tone of his voice was melancholy, 'and Villars looked

on him with a deep admiration and sympathy.'

On this occasion Cavalier's bodyguard was a mounted force of

Camisards in white tunics.

The result of this memorable conference was, that the insurgents laid

down their arms on the assurances of justice and tolerance in

religion to the persecuted Protestants of the Cevennes, and

flattering promises of reward and rank in the army of France to Jean

Cavalier; but neither one nor the other was destined to be kept or

fulfilled, and the Place de Boucarini, at Nismes, was soon deluged

with the blood of all who fell into the hands of the Government. The

Camisards now repudiated the treaty made by Cavalier, and, finding

himself reviled by many of these on the one hand, and neglected by

the Court on the other he became an exile, and entered the army of

Queen Anne at the head of a regiment entirely formed of Huguenots.

As a colonel, in his twentieth year, he fought in the British Army in

Spain at the Battle of Almanza, under the Earl of Peterborough, and

there, in the defeat, his battalion of Camisards was almost cut to

pieces by the victorious French, and there young Guillot, its major,

died sword in hand.

Of the after life of Cavalier we can trace little. It is only known

that by the British Government he was made Governor of the Isle of

Jersey, and died at Chelsea in the May of 1740.

It has been more than once asserted that he died _in_ the Hospital a

pensioner, which is a mistake the records there distinctly prove.

In the year before his death, on the 2nd of July, he and his

countryman, Colonel Balthazar Rivas de Foisac, were appointed

Major-Generals in the British Army.

[Illustration: Chapter 4 headpiece]

THE

BUGLE-BOY OF BADAJOZ.

[Illustration: Chapter 4 tailpiece]

THE BUGLE-BOY OF BADAJOZ.

'Mother! mother! come out of the cold ground; come to your little

José, who is so lonely now!' wailed a boy stretched on his mother's

grave, while wetting with his tears the flowers that had been laid

there, and the green turf, into which he dug his little hands in the

wildness of his great grief.

It was in the cemetery of the Penha Convent at Cintra, and when

ravaged Portugal lay wasted and bleeding under the feet of the French

army, led by Marshal Junot, the Duc d'Abrantes, to Lisbon, in 1808, a

period that seems long ago now, yet was fresh enough in the memory of

our fathers.

It was on a glorious evening in autumn, and the hill of Cintra, the

base of which is clothed with wood, but which terminates in loose

crags and splintered pinnacles, was bathed in warm light, while every

fissure was covered with amaryllis and aglow with crimson geranium,

and giant evergreen oaks and cork-trees were intertwined with vines,

all adding to the beauty of the scene.

On one hand towered up the hill with the Penha Convent, on the other

were the ruins of a Moorish castle; but the sunshine and the scenery

were lost on the orphan boy. He saw only his mother's grave, and all

the rest of the world seemed dark to him indeed.

'Look up, my boy,' said a voice, as a hand was kindly laid on his

neck, and, rising from the turf, he found himself face to face with

an officer of Cazadores, or Portuguese Light Infantry. He was a

handsome and pleasant-looking man, clad in green uniform faced with

scarlet, and wearing silver epaulettes. 'Who lies here that you weep

for?' he asked.

'My mother,' replied the boy, in a tone of infinite tenderness.

'And your father?'

'Was De Castro, the guerilla chief, whom the French shot at the gate

of the Torre Vilha. You have heard, perhaps?'

'Yes; he was taken prisoner in Lisbon; a brave fellow--I knew him

well,' replied the officer, with kindling eyes and lowering brow.

'My mother never held up her head afterwards--and--and three days ago

she left me--and--and they brought her here,' said the boy, with a

fresh fit of heavy weeping, as he pressed his knuckles into his

inflamed eyes.

In tatters, and dusky in complexion, yet rich in colour, like the

beggar-boys of Murillo's famous picture in the Dulwich Gallery, he

was a handsome little fellow, with a clear olive skin, sparkling eyes

of the deepest hazel, and thick, wavy black hair.

'Have you no brother or sister?' asked the officer, patting his

uncovered head, for poor José was without hat or cap.

'None now. I had a sister once.'

'And she?'

'Was carried off by the French voltigeurs, and was never seen again.

Poor Theresa!' said the boy, in a gasping voice.

'And have you no home, my little fellow?'

'None, but the church porch.'

'Then come with me, and I will find you another.'

'Where, senhor?'

'Under the colours of His Majesty Pedro the Third.'

The boy's face lighted up. It was too soon for him to despair yet;

he had youth and hope, 'youth, with which the linen folds seem robes

of purple, the chaplet of cowslips becomes a monarch's crown, and the

wooden bench is as an ivory throne of empire.'

So little José Francisco de Castro, for such was his name, gave his

hand in confidence to Captain Dom Pedro de Lobiera, and became a

bugle-boy in the Seventh Regiment of Cazadores, among the Portuguese

troops under the gallant Marshal Beresford, and destined to

co-operate more immediately with that division of the British army

which, led by Lieutenant-General Sir John Hope, took possession of

Lisbon in 1808.

A curious combination of wrath and exultation made José's heart beat

tumultuously on the day he first assumed his uniform, and he slung

with a green cord over his shoulder the bugle with which he was to

summon his comrades.

He had an admirable ear for music, and soon mastered all the many

bugle-calls requisite for the man[oe]uvres of light troops in the

field, and by his coolness and bravery, while yet in his teens,

became a prime favourite with his captain, with his colonel, the

Viscount de Sa (whose 'orderly bugler' he became), and with the whole

of the Seventh Cazadores he became a species of regimental pet.

When the battle of Salamanca was won by Wellington in the glorious

summer of 1812, when we attacked the Duc de Ragusa, and when Park's

Portuguese column was foiled in the first attempt to storm the

Arapiles, two steep, rugged, and solitary hills that overlook the

plain, it was José's bugle sounding the 'rally' amid the hottest of

the fire that caused the southern hill to be re-won; and when Marshal

Beresford was unhorsed and wounded in the leg, while charging at the

head of the 11th Light Dragoons, and again while leading a Portuguese

brigade, it was 'José de Castro, a bugle-boy of the Seventh

Cazadores,' that helped him to remount, as the _Portuguiz Telegrafo_

of that week records.

On the plains of Talavera de la Reyna, at the heights of Busaco, and

by the green hill of Albuera, when the Anglo-Portuguese army fought

Soult--that memorable hill, by whose slope, at the close of the

terrible day, the men of our old 'Die Hards' of the 57th were seen

lying in two distinct ranks, dead but victorious--the Seventh

Cazadores, when wavering under the dreadful fire of the French

infantry, and menaced by the heavy cavalry of Latour-Maubourg, were

rallied in square by the bugle of José de Castro.

He was 'ever foremost in the path of danger,' says the _Jornal de

Commercio_ of Lisbon; 'and the notes of his bugle were heard in many

of the desperate onsets and bayonet charges of those well-fought

fields. In all these actions he did his duty; but his name ought

ever to be remembered for a deed of valour, for which, at the time,

he gained well-merited applause, and which was long afterwards passed

from mouth to mouth whenever the terrible siege of Badajoz was

mentioned.'

It is to the third siege of the city that the paper refers.

'Give me your hand, José,' said the Viscount de Sa on one occasion.

'What a boy you are! You beat the trumpeter who blew two trumpets at

once at the siege of Argos.'

As yet he seemed to have a charmed life; no ball had ever touched

him. He was a good, devout, and very grave boy, for, as Captain de

Lobiera said, he believed 'that the spirit of his dead mother

accompanied him wherever he went.'

It was on the 6th of March, 1812, that the army of Wellington broke

up from its cantonments, and, ten days after, crossed the Guadiana,

and three divisions, under Beresford and Picton, at once invested

Badajoz, then garrisoned by five thousand men under Generals

Phillipon and Vaillant, whose tenacious resistance caused some

uneasiness to the British leader, as a defeat under its walls might

have seriously disarranged all his plans for the future.

Before the Seventh Cazadores entered the trenches they had halted a

few miles from Badajoz, after a long and harassing day's march. The

rain fell in torrents that night. Amid the misty gloom, in the

distance, the guns of the beleaguered city were seen to flash redly

out upon the night, and weird was the glare of the port fires as they

sputtered on the gusty wind.

All that comfortless night, José, like the rest of his comrades,

spent the weary hours in the open air. He placed his canteen on the

ground, put his knapsack above it, and, thus improvising a seat,

strove to sleep, with his greatcoat and blanket spread over his

shoulders for warmth. And when the chill gray dawn came, he was so

stiff that, at first, he could scarcely place the cold mouth of the

bugle to his lips.

'Now, my men--la générale!' cried the Viscount de Sa, as he leaped on

his horse, and the buglers, at the head of whom stood little José de

Castro, poured clearly and melodiously on the morning wind, 'the

générale,' that old warning for the march--a warning long since

disused in the British service, where it was well known once.

Then the Cazadores took the road for Badajoz, and that night were

there in the trenches.

It is recorded of José that before the Cazadores marched that morning

he and a comrade bugler, Diaz of Belem, gave up the little pay they

possessed to repair the loss of a poor woman whose hen-roost had been

pillaged of its inmates in the night.

The early weeks of 1812 were cold and rainy at Badajoz, and the

howling tempests of wind often concealed at night the noise of the

shovels and pickaxes, as the troops broke ground, within a hundred

and sixty yards of Fort Picurina, and pushed forward the trenches,

till they achieved an opening four thousand feet long--a work of five

days' duration, under a dreadful shower of shot and shell.

Our artillery had succeeded in making a practicable breach, by which

the columns of assault might enter whenever the order to advance was

given; but the position of the enemy was strong by nature, and made

more so by art. Enormous beams of timber, loaded shell, huge stones,

hand grenades, cold shot, all to be launched from the hand, with

relays of ready-loaded muskets, were there, for those who were to

keep the breaches; in these, too, were hundreds of live bombs and

sunken powder-barrels, ready to blow an assaulting force to pieces;

and it became evident that the chances of that force proving

successful were small, unless some of the unforeseen accidents of war

turned the tide in their favour.

This point, say the Portuguese, it was the good fortune of José de

Castro to achieve. For the actual truth of the episode which won him

the name of 'The Bugle Boy of Badajoz,' we do not vouch. There is

not a word of it in Napier, or in the despatches of the Duke of

Wellington; but yet it was universally believed in the army of

Marshal Beresford.

It is related in history that when the final, and, to so many, fatal,

night of the 6th of April came--that awful night of horror and of

triumph when Badajoz was won--when more than two thousand of our

officers and men perished in the breaches alone, and when the heart

of the 'Iron Duke' gave way to a passionate burst of grief for the

slaughter of his gallant soldiers--on that night, we say, the

'unforeseen accident,' recorded by history, was a feint attack

unexpectedly becoming a real one; but the Portuguese have it that

José de Castro, being of an inquiring turn of mind, and having,

during his service, had many opportunities of hearing the French

bugle-calls, had learned them all to perfection, and now resolved to

turn his knowledge thereof to good account.

After a lighted carcase, composed of the direst combustibles, and of

giant size, had been flung blazing from the walls by the French,

compelling the assault to be anticipated by half-an-hour, when the

stormers neared the great breach, José and his comrade, Diaz of

Belem, advanced with the rest of the Cazadores.

When Diaz was in the act of taking some brandy from his canteen, a

sixteen-pound shot took off his head. Yet, bugle in hand, José kept

on, resolved to put in practice the scheme he had formed, and with

which he had acquainted his colonel, the Viscount de Sa, and his

captain, De Lobiera.

As leaves are swept before a tempest, the stormers came sweeping up

the rough _débris_ of the breach covered with dead and wounded men,

encumbered by these at every step, shells bursting, shot and grenades

falling among them. Their shouts were terrible; the yells of the

French more terrible still! Up, up they went, till they found the

perilous gap was crossed by a glittering, dreadful, and impassable

_chevaux-de-frise_, composed of sword-blades, keenly edged and

sharply pointed, fixed in ponderous beams, chained together, and

strongly wedged in the shot-riven ruins. Beyond it were masses of

the French pouring in their deadly fire, sweeping the gap with sheets

of lead as the wind sweeps a tunnel.

Under the _chevaux-de-frise_ the gallant José contrived to creep

unseen, and, getting beyond it, to conceal himself among a heap of

dead. On again crept, his dark blue uniform, splashed with blood

clay, enabling him to pass unnoticed among the French, till he

reached an angle of the ramparts.

Then he put his bugle to his lips and blew loudly and clearly, again

and again, above the awful din of the assault, the French _recall_!

On this the French gave way, fell back, and eventually fled across

the river into Fort San Christoval, where, next day, they surrendered

as prisoners of war to Lord Fitzroy Somerset, the future Lord Raglan

of Crimean fame.

The action of José de Castro, say the Portuguese, was noised about,

after the surrender of Badajoz, until it reached the ears of the

Commander-in-Chief--the great Duke--who sent for him, and presented

him with a sum equal to a hundred guineas English, which, in

consequence of his youth, Captain Pedro de Lobiera was to pay him in

small instalments. It is also said that the Duke gave the money from

his own private purse. José also received a good service medal, and

the Portuguese decoration No. 3.

He was now only eighteen, and the honours he received might have

turned an older head; but he continued to be as grave, modest, and

well-dispositioned as, when a boy, Captain de Lobiera found him

beside his mother's grave in the cemetery of the Penha Convent at

Cintra; and while many were promoted to commissions, he followed the

fortunes of the Peninsular army with his bugle slung at his back.

That bugle was heard on the plains of Vittoria, and among the passes

of the Pyrenees, where De Castro was wounded and conveyed to the town

of Elizondo. There, while stretched on a pallet of straw, in the

vestibule of a convent, which had been turned into a military

hospital, he was attended and nursed by a lay sister, who turned out

to be his sister Theresa, who had been carried off by the French, but

had achieved her escape after their defeat and total rout at Vittoria.

It would be difficult to describe the mingled joy and grief of such a

meeting; but both were of brief duration. As soon as José was

reported fit for duty, he rejoined the Seventh Cazadores, with whom

he served at Nivelle, Orthes, and Bordeaux.

His bugle was heard for the last time in battle near the hill of

Toulouse, when he sounded the charge by the order of the Viscount de

Sa. In that advance the latter fell wounded from his horse, and,

seeing that Captain de Lobiera, the next senior officer, was

defenceless, his sword-blade having been broken off near the hilt by

a ball, he gave him his own, saying:

'Lead on, De Lobiera! forward, the Cazadores! I can do no more

to-day.'

And once again the bugle of José sounded the command to charge.

When the army was disbanded at the peace, José endeavoured to support

himself by teaching music, but in a way so humble that he led a life

of privation and penury, and sought, in vain, a pension from the

Portuguese Government.

It was at the little town of Golega, on the Tagus, in Portuguese

Estramadura, that we last heard of 'the Bugler of Badajoz.' This was

more than twenty years ago, and he was earning a precarious

livelihood by teaching the cornet.

He was then an old man, bent with years and infirmity, and had for

the last time renewed his prayer for a pension to the Portuguese

Government. 'Let us charitably hope it will be granted,' said a

writer in the Lisbon _Jornal de Commercio_ of that year, 'for there

is now in the Ministry a soldier who has not forgotten the part he

bore himself in the bloody episodes of the Peninsular War, one who

has left an arm on a gory battlefield, and whose hearing has been

destroyed by the thunder of artillery--the noble and valiant Viscount

de Sa (the son of his old colonel). This gallant soldier will yet

have ears for the petition of the poor _trombadero_, and be able to

award him the meed he merits.'

[Illustration: Chapter 5 headpiece]

THE

VOYAGE OF THE 'BON ACCORD'.

[Illustration: Chapter 5 tailpiece]

THE VOYAGE OF THE 'BON ACCORD.'

My name is Bob Slingsby, and in the autumn of last year I was senior

apprentice, or midshipman (for we wore a smart uniform), on board the

good ship _Bon Accord_ of Aberdeen, freighted from London to Hong

Kong, and a few who may survive to read these lines will recall the

story I am about to tell--the plain unvarnished one of a sailor boy

(I was then only sixteen) in the Indian seas.

We had left Swatow on the 24th of September, after getting on board a

pilot, who was the cause of all the mischief that followed.

The _Bon Accord_ was a fine full-rigged clipper ship, of Aberdeen

build, 900 tons, coppered to the bends, with masts that raked well

aft; she was straight as an arrow in her planksheer, and was well

armed, for there are some ugly customers to be met with in these seas

beyond the ordinary track of our cruisers, as we found to our cost.

The ship's company consisted of Captain Archibald, a good and

resolute seaman, who hailed from the port of Leith; three mates, the

doctor, Joe Ruddersford, boatswain, two apprentices (myself and my

chum, little Charlie Newcome, for we were three short according to

our tonnage), and thirty men--thirty-eight all told, and a few

lubberly Lascars who all bolted when the first sign of danger came.

We had been well warned on nearing Hong Kong to keep a bright

look-out for Macao piratical boats, and particularly for one large

lorcha manned by only such desperadoes as are to be found about these

shores; and the captain of which, we were informed--Long Kiang by

name--was as great a ruffian as ever figured of old, when Hong Kong

was named by the Spaniards the Island of Ladrones, or thieves.

In a copy of the _China Mail_ brought on board at Aden, we read a

description of Long Kiang, which told us that he had been pierced and

scarred by many wounds; that one of his eyes had been scorched out by

gunpowder, and that his left arm, having been severely shattered by a

shot from a swivel gun, had never been properly set, the fragments

had worked themselves out, and this gave him the singular appearance

of having an arm and elbow adhering to the shoulder by the flesh and

tendons alone; yet this arm possessed double the strength of his

right, and it was his boast that he had slain more men by it than

with the other.

We made the name of Long Kiang a kind of joke--a bogie--on board

during the voyage through the bay of Bengal and into the China seas,

and had nearly forgotten all about him, when without other adventure

than a foul wind or so we reached Swatow, some fifty miles distant

from Hong Kong, and after anchoring for a little time, left it, as I

have said, on the 24th of September, with a light fair wind, and by

sunset had made an offing.

As evening deepened upon the crimson sea, the wind became lighter;

then it fell calm, and the fore and main courses were hauled up,

while the top-sails were left to flap idly against the masts; and now

it was that a native boat came alongside with a pilot, who offered to

take us to our destination for a certain sum in British money, and

his services were accepted by Captain Archibald, to whom he showed,

of course, good and well-attested certificates.

No trousers covered the long, lean, mahogany-coloured legs of this

official; an ample abba was rolled round his body, and a tattered

keffiah, of no particular hue, thrown loosely round his head, partly

muffled his face, so that we could see but little of his features.

The wind freshened after a time; we let fall the courses and

stretched them home, glad to make way on the ship; which had been

drifting with a current.

Instead of standing by the binnacle and giving instructions to a

steersman, the native pilot grasped the wheel unaided in his powerful

hands, and from time to time it seemed to me that he cast his eyes

oftener to the shore than aloft to keep the canvas full. As he stood

there between us and the moonlight, his tall and muscular form and

fantastic dress, when viewed in dark outline, had something weird and

mysterious about them, and so thought Charlie Newcome, who was

watching him narrowly, as we stood on the starboard side of the

quarter-deck.

The mate of the watch was forward, looking after the 'ground tackle'

and large anchor, and the captain was below, when suddenly Charlie,

on whom the tall, stark figure of the stranger seemed to make an

impression, twitched my sleeve and whispered:

'Look, Bob! look now! By Jove! isn't he like--like----'

'Like who?'

'Long Kiang, that we talked so much about--the fellow described in

the _China Mail_.'

'You've got Long Kiang on the brain,' said I, laughing; but the

laughter ceased when I _did_ look.

The light breeze had partly deranged the Arab-like keffiah that

enveloped his head, and by the rays of the binnacle lamp we saw that

he was minus the left eye, that the whole of that side of his face

was distorted as if scorched by powder, and for a moment or two the

strange malformation of his left arm was distinctly visible, as he

gasped one of the under-spokes of the wheel.

'It cannot be,' said I. 'How about his certificates, Charlie?'

'Another man's papers--stolen, no doubt.'

'If he should, after all, be Long Kiang,' I began, and then paused,

for as I spoke the name seemed to catch his ear, and he turned on me

his solitary eye, which in the moonlight glistened redly, like that

of a rattlesnake. A knife of portentous length was in the same

sheath with his chopsticks, a knife suggestive of cutting other

things than yams or salt junk.

'Won't you youngsters turn in?' said the mate, coming aft. 'You are

both in the middle watch.'

'Thank you, sir; not just yet,' said I, for, truth to tell, we were

disposed to be wide awake as weasels.

Long Kiang had been such a standing joke during the latter part of

our voyage--at least after leaving Aden--that neither of us, whatever

we thought, ventured to tell our fears or suspicions to the mate, or

to the men forward. While we were talking to the mate, the captain,

who had come on deck, called him to the port side of the ship, which

was going before the wind, but very slowly.

The captain was a tall, stout, and well-built man, with a florid

complexion and a mass of iron-grey hair, luxuriant as when in youth,

and likely to be so for years to come. There was an air of sturdy

Scotch power and strength of mind and body about him that showed at

once his resolute will and energetic brain.

He and the mate of the watch were in close conference at the port

quarter, and looking at some object with an interest that soon became

anxiety after they had resorted to the use of a night-glass, on

seeing which the tall pilot grinned and showed all his white teeth

like a row of dominoes.

'It is a lorcha--full of men, and evidently dodging us--a Macao

lorcha, too,' said the captain, in a low voice. 'You see that

craft?' he said suddenly to the pilot, who had evidently for some

time affected not to do so.

'Si--si--yaas--senhor,' he replied in the broken lingo peculiar to

Macao.

'And what do you think of her?'

'That piecey boat makey fightey if you meddle with her,' he replied

quietly, in what is called 'pigeon English' in these regions.

'Oh, she will, will she?' exclaimed the captain; 'bring the starboard

tacks aft. Keep the ship away a few points.'

But the breeze was so light that the lorcha was able to pass and

repass us with ease, on each tack coming nearer us, and, indeed, it

became but too evident that the steersman handled the ship in such a

way that in a short time the stranger would be quite able to overhaul

us. She was already within half-a-mile of us when Captain Archibald

roughly accused the pilot of treachery, and ordered the third mate to

take the wheel. Ere he could do so the native uttered a shout,

quitted the spokes, letting them revolve at will, throwing the ship

in the wind, and then he leaped overboard.

An exclamation burst from all, for had the breeze been fresher the

top-mast would have snapped off at the caps and left us a helpless

wreck; but the captain--quick, ready, and powerful--caught the wheel

in a moment, brought the ship again upon a wind, and without looking

whether the traitor who had left us sank or swam, ordered the ship to

be close hauled, as she was clipper-built, and to be steered 'full

and by.'

Some of the watch said the lorcha had picked up our pilot. Charlie

and I now spoke, and not a doubt remained in the minds of all that we

had been deceived by Long Kiang, who, using the papers of some man he

had robbed, and very probably destroyed, had steered the ship to a

part of the coast of Swatow, where his vessel and men had been

concealed in some bay or creek.

By nine p.m. the lorcha, which we knew must be manned by the

ferocious half-breeds who are the sons of Chinese and Tartar slaves,

with a mixture of Caffre and Portuguese, the refuse of Macao, was so

close, that in the moonlight we could see them distinctly, and

reckoned that she must have at least seventy of these on board, and

all armed to the teeth!

Charlie and I had read much about pirates and wild adventures, and

had longed to meet some; and now the time had come with a vengeance!

The Scottish firm to whom the _Bon Accord_ belonged had wisely armed

her well.

'Now, my lads,' cried Captain Archibald, as all the small arms were

brought on deck, and the crew mustered aft the mizenmast, 'obey me;

act well and steadily; have faith in yourselves, for without it no

man succeeds.'

A cheer responded, and under the care of the old boatswain, who had

sailed with Archibald for more than twenty years, the guns were cast

loose and loaded, and as some of our fellows belonged to the Royal

Naval Reserve, they were at no loss how to go to work.

In common with several others, Charlie and I had revolvers; but

somehow, as I loaded mine, my heart was beating wildly, and, like

Charlie Newcome, I thought of my mother, far away in Kent, as I had

never thought of her before!

If captured, we knew that every soul on board would perish by a

miserable death. Of a peaceful escape we had no chance, as the wind

was so light, and many a glance was cast aloft to see how the sails

drew.

The lorcha was stealing steadily after us in our wake now, for

doubtless Long Kiang had told his crew of our guns, and knew that

while she was kept astern they would be useless. Already the pirates

were so close that we could hear their voices, and see knives,

bayonets, and tulwars glittering among them, and towering amid the

throng the tall and muscular figure of the ferocious Long Kiang, so

we could have no doubt of the intentions of his followers now.

'She will soon be under our counter, sir,' said the old boatswain,

'and, as we have little or no steerage way on the ship, our

eight-pounders will soon be useless.'

'Then let fly the starboard gun, and bring her to on the wind.'

Bang went the gun, its white smoke curling over the moonlighted

water. A yell rose from the lorcha, and a red, flashing, and

spluttering fire of musketry responded. No one was hit as yet, but

white splinters were knocked off the woodwork on deck.

'Fill the yard heads! Stand off; Re-load, and then bring to again!'

This man[oe]uvre was repeated more than once.

Bang! bang! went the six-pounders from the port quarter. The yells

were redoubled, and as every man who was not at the guns was busy

with his breach-loading rifle, the work soon became hot indeed.

While lying close to the gunwale, Charlie and I fired at random with

our revolvers under the open leeboard; yet the whole situation was so

strangely sudden--so unexpected and improbable--that it seemed as if

all this peril was happening not to me--Bob Slingsby--but to someone

else.

Close by us was the captain, busy with his Winchester repeating rifle.

The yells of the infuriated pirates, maddened by the slaughter we

made among them, became every moment closer and more appalling, and

united with the sound of the firing, made such a din that we could

not hear ourselves speak.

In the foretopmast of the lorcha they were now getting their horrible

stink-balls ready, while, by the use of sweeps, they came close under

our stern, and we could see their fierce, dark visages, their glowing

eyes, and white glistening teeth. These stink-balls are an odious

composition of mealed powder, saltpetre, pitch, and sulphur, rasped

hoofs burned in the fire, assaf[oe]tida, and all manner of

foul-smelling herbs, and they threw them, smoking and flaming, on the

quarterdeck by dozens, compelling us to retire forward, if we would

escape suffocation.

Several of our men had now fallen, killed or wounded, and the crew of

the lorcha came swarming up the mizen chains, over the quarter, and

rushed on madly with swords, knives, and fixed bayonets; and then it

was the Lascars vanished by running below, or leaping overboard.

In vain our stoutest seamen strove to stem the tide by bayonet and

rifle, and the scene became to me agonising and terrific. The whole

deck became slippery with blood.

Captain Archibald, bleeding from a wound, was shot again in the

forerigging.

'Oh, my wife and bairns!' he cried, and fell dead on the deck. The

chief mate fell next: another and another fell, and I found myself

seeking shelter from the bullets near the forecastle bitts.

Who had fallen or who escaped I knew not, but the crew of the lorcha

were now in full possession of the _Bon Accord_. Two or three dark

faces appeared above the topgallant forecastle. Shots were fired at

me, and with a prayer on my lips I fell into the sea, and then

thought all was over with me. Mechanically I swam, and the

miscreants kept firing at me and some Lascars who were in the water.

An oar belonging to the lorcha was floating near me. I grasped it,

and got close to the forechains. All voices on deck, save those of

the captors, had ceased. The firing was at an end. A few dead

bodies, thrown overboard, plunged heavily into the water near me, and

raised great phosphorescent circles and bubbles of water in the

gorgeous moonlight. The breeze had freshened a little; the reef

points had ceased to patter upon the white sails which now curved

gracefully out, and as the ship began to make a little way upon the

water, I grasped the iron work under the forechains, and was carried

with her.

Suddenly a rope's-end was lowered within my reach, and I heard a

voice saying, in pigeon English:

'Comey up--me no killy you.'

I looked upward, and saw the terrible face of Long Kiang, with an

indescribable gleam in his solitary eye, as it regarded me. Aware

that it was either for life or death, and that I might as well trust

him as perish by a bullet or of drowning by exhaustion, I allowed

myself to be drawn on board, and one of the first sights I saw was

the body of poor little Charlie Newcome, lying near one of the

maindeck guns. Many dead and wounded pirates lay about.

On deck, I found myself the only living white!

Long Kiang grasped me by the arm with one hand, a long knife

glittered in the other, and in a mixture of broken Portuguese and

pigeon English, which would seem ridiculous to read, but was very

terrible for me to hear, he questioned me about the ship; where she

was from, what was her cargo, and where any money was stored.

Finding that I was unable to give any account of the latter, Long

Kiang, whose fierce eye when he was excited seemed to emit sparks as

if struck from a flint--a peculiar phenomenon--gave me a terrible

blow with the hand of his boneless arm, and, falling senseless, I

remembered no more.

Meanwhile the Macao men completely sacked the ship. Rice,

biscuit-bags, beef-barrels, the fowls in the coops, wines, spirits,

bedding, clothes, all loose ropes, and everything portable were

carried on board the lorcha, and setting fire to the cabin, intending

to destroy all trace of the ship by burning her to the water's edge,

they finally shoved off to the lorcha, and getting the spirit casks

aboard, began, like savages as they were--to make merry and have a

night of it--and a night they _had_ of it, that they little

anticipated!

About eleven p.m. I recovered, and found myself alone in the silent

ship. The lorcha lay off about a quarter of a mile distant, floating

on the calm and lonely moonlit sea, over which came the united noise

of laughter, singing, and shouts, as the orgies were continued in her

bunks below and on deck. The odour of burning wood drew me to the

cabin, which I found full of smoke; but on lifting the skylight, as

well as the wound I had received would permit me, I found where the

fire was smouldering, and after extinguishing it by a bucket or two

of water, began to look about me with a heart torn by anxiety and

apprehension. Lamps, chronometers, compasses, everything, were gone;

but had they remained, of what use would they have been to me?

On the blood-stained deck, where still some bodies, slashed and

mutilated, were lying, their pallid visages looking doubly pale under

the moon, I crawled forward, concealing myself under the bulwarks, to

avoid being seen by the occupants of the lorcha, which was floating

like a log upon the water.

In the forecastle bunks and elsewhere, to my intense joy, I found

seven of our own men, all more or less wounded, coming forth now from

their places of concealment--the old boatswain among them--but all

doubtful what to do or how to act; for the slightest sound or

movement in the ship might bring these wretches on board of her

again; so we all cowered together in the forecastle, considering the

future, and listening to the shouting and singing on board the

lorcha. These seemed to grow fainter the nearer she was drawn

towards the _Bon Accord_ by the current; and some time after midnight

they totally ceased, and the deepest silence reigned upon the sea,

for the breeze had died completely away, and we heard only the slow

flapping of the topsails, and the pattering of the reef-points above

our heads.

Old Joe Rudderford, our boatswain, who was certain, he said, 'that

every man Jack of them was drunk as a lord,' now resolved to take

measures that would rid us of them effectually ere day dawned; and,

acting under his orders, we put them in practice thus:

The port-quarter boat was softly lowered, on the side that was not

next the lorcha, and he, with two men and myself, with oars muffled,

pulled swiftly, yet noiselessly, off to her. All our revolvers were

loaded, and Joe, the boatswain, had with him the largest and sharpest

auger he could find in the carpenter's tool-chest, and a fierce,

triumphant expression shone on his grave, grim Scotch face, which had

a chin and eyebrows that expressed resolution and firmness of purpose.

Never shall I forget the keen and aching anxiety and excitement of

that time, as we crept towards the hateful lorcha, and at every

stroke of our oars, at every respiration, expected to see some of her

merciless crew start up and fire on us; but all remained still--still

as death--on board, as we got close under her starboard counter.

Our first mission was to cut away and scuttle her only boat, and

while the boatswain, with strong hands and brawny arms wrenching

round the cross-handle of the augur, bored a succession of large

round holes between wind and water--with a few _below_ the

latter--two of our men with knives cut away all the starboard shrouds

or stays; and as we left her, and pulled away to our own ship, the

sea was pouring into her, and we knew that unless the artificial

leaks were discovered and plugged she must surely go down.

'Thank heaven, the breeze is freshening!' exclaimed Joe, as we

regained our unfortunate ship, and hoisted in the quarter boat; and,

weak and faint as we all were from wounds, soon Joe himself made sail

on her. During all the hours of that eventful morning we struggled

to trim the ship, to coil up and clear away the loose ropes and

running rigging; to throw overboard the dead men of the lorcha, which

was now settling down fast by the stern in the light of the waning

moon, and every moment her bow and bowsprit seemed to tilt up higher

in the air.

At last, just as day began to break, a great commotion seemed

suddenly to take place on board. Cries and shouts floated towards us

on the freshening breeze, and we could see Macaomen, Chinamen, and

Caffres rushing wildly to and fro, looking evidently for their

vanished boat; and then their united yells rent the sky, as the

lorcha gave a great lurch to port and anon went down with every man

on board of her. Many swam about for a time, but all sank in

succession, for the land was far distant, and we were standing off

north and by east before a pleasant breeze.

Next morning we fell in with a native fishing-boat with a crew of

three men, who agreed, for the sum of five British sovereigns, to

pilot us into Hong Kong, where we duly arrived, and came safely to

anchor in the famous 'Red Harbour,' after a voyage that none of us

are likely to forget.

We had some strange adventures on the way home, and with these I

shall close my story.

Of our crew, after the encounter with Long Kiang, only seven, with

the boatswain, Joe Rudderford, and myself, remained with the ship.

We got a new captain, and made up our number again to thirty-eight

hands, all told, from the company of a bark that had been cast away

in the East Lamma Channel, and after they were shipped an interesting

event occurred.

Among them was a miserable-looking young fellow who had been wrecked

years before on the coast of China, and been kept as a kind of slave

in a village near Tonquin. Joe Rudderford, observing the assiduity

with which this young seaman--in gratitude for finding himself once

more under the Union Jack--did his work, asked him what was his

native place.

'Stonehaven,' said he; 'I am a Scotsman.'

'Stonehaven! I am from there myself. What is your name?'

'William Rudderford.'

'Had you ever a brother?' asked the boatswain, with sudden agitation.

'Yes,' replied the other; 'but it is many a year since he last saw

me, in our mother's cottage beside the Cowie water. Poor Joe! I

wonder if he is alive now!'

'I am Joe--your brother Joe, Willie!' exclaimed the boatswain; and

now for several minutes their feelings so overpowered them that they

could neither of them speak till relief was given by tears; and each

had to tell the other a long story, which lies apart from mine.

We left Hong Kong for New Zealand, with a mixed cargo, and dropped

down the Lamma Channel into the China Sea, and after leaving the port

for which we were destined, gladly trimmed our course for London,

thinking by this time we had seen a good deal of the world of waters;

but after leaving the harbour of Otago, and working to windward of a

headland named the Nuggets, we stood away for the Southern Pacific.

From that time the people in Dunedin, which we had left, and in

London, for which we were bound, heard of us no more.

No homeward-bound craft reported having seen or spoken with the good

ship _Bon Accord_, of Aberdeen; no message concerning her came from

the antipodes; and, to torture the minds of our friends at home, the

newspapers circulated all kinds of rumours--that bits of wreck had

been seen, that we had among our cargo thirty tons of gunpowder,

together with 'no end' of petroleum and turpentine, commodities

certainly calculated to produce the direst effects if ignited.

Month after month rolled on, and not even the most slender tidings

came of the beautiful ship, and apprehension of a terrible fate

deepened into certainty, in the loving hearts of all who had friends

on board.

Meanwhile, where were we?

In about the 50th degree of southern latitude we had for weeks

pleasant gales and prosperous weather, so that we scarcely required

to lift tack or sheet, but bore on merrily. Joe Rudderford and his

newly-recovered brother Willie were inseparable, and the memory of

little Charlie Newcome often came back to me sadly, especially in the

night-watches, which he and I had so often shared together, for the

ship and her surroundings were all the same in many respects as when

he sailed in her. But we had not been long at sea before we

discovered that our new captain was a bad seaman and a bully.

Every order was given with an oath. Myself and the other apprentices

he called 'young whelps,' and even respectable old Joe Rudderford was

often greeted with taunts which he received in silence, remembering

'the least said, the soonest mended.'

'He is a coward,' said Joe to me one day.

'What makes you think so?' I asked.

'Because he is a tyrant, and tyrants are always cowards. We'll never

have a captain again so good as brave old Archibald.'

In that latitude a curious incident occurred to us. On a fine

morning, when running on a splendid breeze, with our port tacks on

board and royals and top-gallants set, Willie Rudderford, who had the

watch, reported a sail on the weather-bow--a large ship, full-rigged,

with most of her canvas set, but all in confusion, and some of it

thrown slack. Her top-hamper suggested perfect disorder, and not a

soul was to be seen on board, or responded to our hailing, after we

edged close down to her.

We hove to, threw the mainyard in the wind, and Joe Rudderford, the

first mate, and two hands, of whom I was one, boarded her in the

dingy.

I shall never forget the nervous, anxious, exciting and yet eerie

emotions felt, as we clambered up the side of that silent ship.

She proved to be a new one of some 800 tons burden, laden with silk

and indigo, to the value of £150,000, as her papers showed, bound

from Calcutta to the Cape; but how she came to be in these southern

waters surpassed our comprehension. The oddest thing of all was that

there seemed to have been a panic on board, for the deck and cabins

were strewed with the clothes of ladies and children; jewel-cases,

jewels, and Indian shawls lay everywhere; but the chief part of the

baggage had been taken away. Still more extraordinary was it to find

that she had been scuttled in every compartment, evidently for the

purpose of sinking her. Private letters, that we had no time to

examine, lay strewed about, and cloaks and coats, bonnets and caps,

yet hung on the hooks in the cabin. But what was her story, or the

fate of those who had abandoned her, or why they had done so, we were

fated never to know; for though our captain was in the highest glee

at picking up so valuable a derelict, and proposed to put a few of

the crew on board, and sail in company, a heavy gale came on after

sunset, with thick clouds, and when day broke she was nowhere to be

seen, and must have gone down in the night.

And now I come to the mystery of our disappearance.

Our voyage had been an exceedingly prosperous one till we reached the

vicinity of the Crozet Islands, in the South Pacific.

This solitary group, 'placed far amid the melancholy main,'

comprising the Marion Rocks and the Twelve Apostles, lies midway

between Prince Edward's Island and the Island of Kerguelen, the abode

only of seals and sea swallows, and twenty-two degrees west of the

equally solitary St. Paul's, whereon H.M.S. _Megara_ was cast away.

The Crozet Islands are all of volcanic origin--wild, rugged, and

horrid in aspect, and nearly inaccessible. Their mountains rise in

conical peaks to an elevation of from four to five thousand feet, and

are covered by perpetual snow, while dense fogs frequently envelop

their bases.

Before we came to this dangerous vicinity we had encountered a gale;

but it had spent its fury, and was subsiding. The prospect, however,

of the winter evening sea (for though the month was July, it was the

season of midwinter there) was cheerless--a darkening sky, and

nothing living in view but a seabird or two, swimming and skimming

over the white tops of the grey waves.

It had become evident to all on board that the captain's work as

navigator disagreed with that of the mate and Joe Rudderford. He was

'out of his reckoning,' but was wroth with anyone who dared to hint

that he was so; and, to allay his chagrin, drank large quantities of

spirits.

With night dense fogs came down upon the sea; the captain walked the

deck excitedly, keeping a glass of spirits standing near him on the

binnacle-head. He often looked aloft, and talked to himself. At one

of these times, a little dog he had ran between his legs and nearly

capsized him. With a fierce oath he took the poor animal up by the

neck, and threw it into the sea.

On this, the sailors looked darkly in each other's faces, and felt

sure that mischief was soon to follow.

The mate and Joe Rudderford now suggested respectfully, that, as the

fog was deepening and the wind freshening, some of the canvas should

be taken off the ship; but, in a gust of fury, the captain, instead

of adopting their advice, had her trimmed before the wind, the yards

squared, and the fore and main studding-sails hoisted to port and

starboard. Willie Rudderford was at the wheel.

The seamen grew pale, and muttered under their breath as they obeyed

the rash orders, and belayed the tackle.

'What do you think of all this, Joe?' I whispered.

Joe answered only by a grunt, whatever that might mean; but on board,

it always seemed that a grunt from old Joe had more weight than a

whole speech from any other man.

'I think we should take some of the canvas off her,' said he to me,

after a pause, loud enough for the captain to hear.

On this, the skipper turned round furiously; but before he could say

anything, there went up a cry through all the ship from stem to

stern--I think I hear it still.

'May the Lord have mercy on us!' was the fervent prayer uttered by

more than one brave fellow, as death seemed suddenly inevitable, when

the ship went bump ashore with a frightful crash, and a horrible

grinding sound followed.

'All is lost! Let every man shift for himself!' cried the helpless

man who commanded us.

The three topmasts crashed off at the tops, with the fury of the

shock, and with the yards and hamper fell heavily down over the yet

inflated canvas, to port and starboard. Aloft we were a total wreck

in a moment, and already going to pieces below.

Our new captain--a very different man from the gallant Archibald, who

was killed in the fight off the coast of Swatow--was the first to

perish, overwhelmed, apparently, amid the boiling surf in the dingy,

in which he and the first mate tried to effect their escape.

Amid the gloom, I saw Joe and Willie Rudderford grasp each other's

hard hands for a moment, as their minds, like mine, were doubtless

filled with a thousand hurrying thoughts of home and distant

friends--remembering, perhaps, former happiness, and contrasting it

with the present danger and misery.

Horror had succeeded the first consternation and alarm into which the

entire crew were thrown by this sudden and unexpected catastrophe.

The afterpart of the hull was covered with water, but the bows were

jammed hard and fast upon the rocks, where the boiling sea made clean

breaches over them, washing away those who crouched there. By one of

these seas I was swept overboard, and in a few moments I rose to the

surface, feeling battered and bruised, with the salt water gurgling

in my throat and whizzing in my ears.

I was washed towards some rocks, into the seaweed of which I dug my

hands and clung to it, even with my teeth. For a moment the sea

seemed to leave me, and I felt suspended above it. Then it rose

again with tremendous force, and took me from my hold. I forgot all

about the ship, and those who were perishing there; I thought only of

myself, of self-preservation, and the dread of death. In that

supreme moment of terror and agony I seemed to live a lifetime!

Again I rose to the surface on the summit of the wave, which washed

me along the slippery face of the rocks, and ere it descended I

caught some seaweed again, above the point where I had been before,

and again the water left me, suspended in air, and gasping for life.

Sea after sea rose again, but none reached me now, and the waves only

hissed and burst against the rocks below me, as if infuriated at

having lost their prey.

Once more I began to respire more freely, and hope grew in my

heart--the hope that I might yet live.

Then the dread that I might be sucked down by some wave more powerful

than the rest caused me to make an effort, which then seemed to me

super-human, to gain a footing; and slowly and laboriously I climbed

upward to where even the highest spray fell far short of me; and in

my heart I thanked God that I was safe, though where, or on what

isle, I knew not.

In the mist and darkness I ascended some fifty feet to a species of

dry plateau ere I ventured to stop and rest, and then I heard what,

amid my own trouble and terror, had partly escaped my ear: the roar

of the breakers below, with the shrill shrieks of our perishing crew.

'For pity's sake help me, whoever you are!' cried a voice a little

below me; and, extending a hand to one of our people who had reached

a shelf of rock, I assisted him upward, and he proved to be Willie

Rudderford, sorely battered and bruised, having been dashed

repeatedly against the cliffs; and now we began to ascend higher

together.

I asked for Joe, the boatswain; but Willie only knew that they had

been torn asunder by the waves that had swept him overboard, and he

had not seen him again.

Panting and often breathless, drenched and sodden, clinging to the

rocks, we continued to ascend, so far that even the booming of the

sea began to sound faint; and then we lay down together, worn out,

yet past all thoughts of sleep, to await the coming day and whatever

might betide us.

The cold was beyond all description, and, but for the shelter an

elevation of the rocks afforded us, we must have perished, as we lay

there huddled close together for mutual warmth, while ever and anon

Willie Rudderford lamented sorrowfully the too probable loss of his

brother.

Slowly the grey dawn stole in, and the mist that enveloped the land

melted away; and, to make my story brief, we found by degrees that

seventeen of the ship's company, including Joe Rudderford and our two

selves, had survived the catastrophe, and that we were shipwrecked on

the Crozets--those horrible isles that lie in the Southern Pacific,

out of the track of all vessels!

We could scarcely congratulate ourselves upon our escape, and some

there were among us who bitterly regretted that they had not perished

with the rest.

Out of the fore-part of the wreck we contrived to get some tins of

preserved meat and a cask of gunpowder, after which she heeled over

into deep water and disappeared; and a sigh escaped my lips as we saw

the last of our floating home--the good old _Bon Accord_.

No island in the world could be more desolate than the one on which

we found ourselves. Lashed by tempests, and surrounded by an

ever-boiling sea, never visited save by some adventurous whaler, that

solitary archipelago, the Crozets, does not possess one human being!

Under Joe Rudderford, to whom we all turned now, we began the dreary

work of exploration, and found that we were on a long, gaunt, and

naked isle a few miles in extent, without trees or verdure, and

exposed to surf and the bitter blasts of the Southern Arctic winter.

Our boats had all been swamped or dashed to pieces, so that we had no

chance or means of crossing to any of the larger islands which were

visible, and on this miserable reef we must remain and exist as best

we might.

Joe discovered a spring of pure water. 'Thus,' said he, 'we are sure

of the one great necessity of life.'

Of food we had certainly one great source--the sea-birds frequenting

the spot. An incredible number of albatrosses, frigate-birds, and

gulls were resident on the isle; their eggs were found everywhere,

and they and their young, being all unused to man, became an easy

prey, as we could capture them by the hand or knock them over by a

stick.

'Thank Heaven,' said Joe, 'we have food and drink provided, and it

will go hard if our self-help and sagacity as British sailors don't

do the rest for us.'