WE FALL IN WITH THE FLEET OF CAPTAIN MORGAN. THE BUCCANEER’S HUT.
About midday the wind shifted into the north; and, continuing very
high, it blew us from our course.
And, as we designed to touch at the Isle of Porto Rico, so we could
not make it, but must go away under the great Island of Hispaniola.
Hereupon the wind chopped back again, so that we sailed along the
south side of the island. Soon after doubling the Cape of Lobos on the
south western corner of Hispaniola, we descried at sea a fleet of full
fifteen sail, that came towards us.
We misliked the appearance of them, yet held our course--albeit the
Captain caused cutlashes and pistols to be served out, and had our
ports opened and our guns run out. When we were come to about a quarter
of a mile from those ships, the biggest of them fired a gun, and made a
wiff to us to stand in the wind, or _lay to_, as mariners call it. This
was very uneasy to my brother, and now he was sorry he had not borne up
his helm and scampered away while there was yet time. Yea, it put him
in so ill a temper, that I, who stood near him on the quarter-deck,
was fain to remove to more peaceful ground. For, after he had ordered
to obey the summons, he fell to pacing quickly up and down; and, as I
stood a little in his path (or rather he pretended I did), he shoved
me roughly to one side, as well as giving me a whirret on the ear for
having, as he said, obstructed him.
The ships came a little nearer, and then brought to. Whereupon a dozen
men put themselves into a big canoe, or periagua, which was towing
astern of the Admiral, and pulled towards us. They came on but slowly,
for the sea was heavy; but at length they laid aboard of us in the
waist. They were all huge brawny seamen, sunburnt like red tiles, and
very villainous.
When they had made fast their boat, the coxswain hallooed to my
brother, and inquired of him whence we came. Being answered, “From
England,” he said he was come from Captain Morgan, who desired some
provisions of bread, pork and cheese; in recompense whereof he had sent
us some jars of excellent Peru wine.
Now, while the man spoke, I observed my brother gave a start and looked
earnestly upon him; and, after he ceased, the Captain desired he would
come aboard into the ship, but that the rest should stay in the boat.
The rest, however, began to cry out against that.
“What! you won’t treat us, Cap’n?” cries one, and “Let us see what
liquor you brought from England,” cries another, and “Why, you
skinflint shark,” quoth another, “if you drink not with us, we’ll
broach your fat hull!”
Hereupon these unruly rascals made to swarm the ship’s side, and what
the event of it had been I know not; but, on a sudden, a gun was shot
off aboard the Admiral, which put a period to their brawling. They
immediately fell quiet; and the coxswain said: “Cap’n Morgan’s in
haste, and I reckon we’d best be in haste also. Keep you still in the
boat, while I go get the victuals. You’ll not drink rumbo this bout!”
So he came up to us into the ship; and my brother took him into his
cabin, shutting the door after, so that I know not what passed between
them.
But when they came out, they talked very familiarly together; and,
passing near me, I heard my brother say:
“Is Jolly Peter still with you?” whence I apprehended my brother had
old acquaintance with these people. As to what they were, I doubted
not, and now do know, they were nothing but a swarm of pirates. On
board those fifteen vessels, indeed, was embarked the army of Captain
Henry Morgan, a name soon to become so notorious and so dreadful. They
were going to Maracaibo.
When such commodities as the pirates wanted had been laded into their
boat (the jars of wine having been taken aboard the ship in the
interim), that spokesman did very affectionately take leave of my
brother, and returned into the boat. So they cast off and pulled away,
singing a ribald song to keep the time.
After parting from the pirates, we hauled our wind and tacked in for
the western shore of Hispaniola, to re-victual the ship and fill our
water. Thereby, in the dusk of the evening, we hit a little bay, and
came to an anchor within a mile from the shore, and lay there all night.
In the morning, so soon as it was light, I got up, and went on deck to
view the landfall. Indeed, I was much inquisitive to behold this Island
of Hispaniola; for a poor crooked mutilated man that lived in the
village at home, had given me an account thereof, acquainting me with
its varied fruitfulness and spacious and beautiful prospects, and with
the curious customs of the hunters and planters there. He, when a boy,
had been kidnapped, and transported into slavery on the plantations in
the Isle of St. Christopher of the Caribbee Islands. There his master
was one Bettesa, who did even excel in cruelty among a sort of people
incredibly cruel to their slaves and servants, and used him with such
barbarity as reduced his body to that miserable plight aforesaid. But
at last, escaping from the clutches of this inhuman monster, he came to
Hispaniola; where, after many days of hiding and wandering up and down
the country, he fell in with a certain rich Spaniard, who proved his
benefactor. For this generous-spirited man not only clothed and cared
for that poor fugitive, but did also defray the charges of his passage
to England on a ship that was departing thither; and, moreover, he
gave him, in Spanish notes, a bounty sufficient to his support for the
rest of his days.
Having mounted the poop, I looked very eagerly towards the land.
I beheld a low woody shore, whereon at some points a sort of squat
small trees grew quite down to the sea, their branches so low as to
touch the water. Hugely contrasting with these, were palm trees, being
exceeding tall (160 feet at the least) and wholly destitute of branches
to the very tops, where grew prodigious great leaves. The trunks were
of a huge thickness and were covered with prickles.
Near the bottom of the bay a river flowed into the sea, on the marshy
banks whereof those great trees did chiefly grow. In the background the
woods grew very thick and high. I saw therein many brave cedar trees.
At the farther extremity of the bay, where the woods were much thinner,
there was a clear ground, and in the midst a wooden hut, the roof
whereof was covered with the great leaves I have told you of. A smoke
went up from a heap near the entry.
Even as I spied this hut, a man stepped forth from within, and was
followed by another. On spying the ship, they immediately turned and
hid themselves within the woods. They appeared to be white men, very
slovenly dressed. I took them for hunters. I observed by the stirring
of the undergrowth (albeit ’twas but slight) that they worked their way
in the coverts of the woods alongst the shore towards the ship. Being
come over against us, they stood concealed amongst the little thick
trees beside the sea; and there they were, when, on my brother coming
to me on the poop, I told him what I had seen.
He immediately ordered the jolly-boat to be launched and manned; and,
this done, he put himself into the boat, and so did I.
We pulled to the shore, making to a point near the place where those
two men lurked amongst the trees, and where there was ground fit to
light upon. Having jumped ashore, the Captain hallooed to these people,
telling them that he came in peace, and would by no means harm them;
only he desired some discourse with them, and to trade with them.
Hereupon one of them made answer, in very poor English, that ’twas
well; they would trade with him, and invited him to come and drink with
them in their hut. They desired, however, that he would come alone; by
reason, as they said, their little mean hut was not fit to entertain
more. He thanked them, and told them he would go with them.
Then came they out of their hiding towards us into the open. They were
a French buccaneer (or hunter of wild bulls and cows), and his slave.
They were very slovenly dressed, and beastly dirty. The buccaneer
wore a dirty linen shirt tucked into his breeches, which were dyed in
the blood of the beasts he killed. He had round his middle a sailor’s
belt; a long sheath-knife hung from the belt at the back thereof:
leggings he had of hairy boar-hide, shoes of dressed bull-hide, and
a big wide-brimmed hat upon his head. The habit of the slave was
likewise; only without belt or shoes, and on his head an old cloth
montero-cap. Their faces were anointed with hog’s grease to defend them
from the stings of insects.
My brother went with them to the hut; and I, with Surgeon Burke, into
the woods. For Burke took the opportunity of gathering divers medicinal
herbs and woods that the place afforded.
Before he left the seamen, however, he warned them that they should by
no means touch the fruit of any tree which was not pecked by birds;
for, said he, ’twas an infallible sign that they were not good,
and evinced those little squat trees that I had observed from the
ship, which had apples on them that did smell very sweet. These were
manchineel, or dwarf-apple trees, the fruit whereof no bird doth eat:
and, indeed, it is so venomous that the very crabs that eat of it are
poisonous. He that eats thereof is presently raving mad, and dead
within a little while after. Moreover, the sap of this tree doth raise
on the skin terrible red blisters, as it were scalding water.
We roved up and down in the woods, gathering Burke’s medicants; but, as
the sun climbed, we began to be tormented with those big venomous gnats
called mosquitoes, as with other flying and creeping pests also. And,
though the Surgeon seemed not much to mind them, for me the incessant
attacks and inroads of the creatures became well-nigh insupportable;
but I endured them for the sake of the novelty of the way.
Care was ever had of us, as we drew farther from the seaside, not to
lose touch of the river, though we saw little of it for the dense
undergrowth.
At length the wood became pathless, which forced us to return. A little
after, through a rift in the undergrowth towards the river, I spied a
marvellous strange thing--or so I thought it. For, as it should seem,
a great tree-log that floated in the river, did turn about and raise
itself as if it were a living creature. And a living creature it really
was, being nothing else but a prodigious great cayman, or crocodile,
that, thus in semblance of a floating log, lay lurking for its prey,
waiting until some wild boar or other came to drink thereby. This
horrible beast could have had no less than threescore foot in length,
and ten in breadth.
Another horrid creature I beheld before we returned to the sea-shore.
This was a sort of huge hairy spider, very hideous. Its body was as
big as an egg; its legs were like a crab’s; four black teeth it had,
with which it snapped at me as it ran scuttling away along a bough of
a tree. I must confess it gave me a scare, and the more so because I
thought it might be the dreadful tarantula whose bite doth make men
mad. But Burke told me it was not venomous, and, moreover, that I
needed not be afraid of being envenomed by anything in that place; for
no creature in the whole Island of Hispaniola was venomous--no, not
even snakes.
When we got to the boat, we found my brother was not yet returned,
and the seamen much out of humour for the waiting. They sat on the
shore, smoking their pipes, cursing the Captain and the mosquitoes, and
viciously casting stones at the land crabs.
“I ain’t going for to bide on this hell-shore much longer,” said one,
“Cap’n or no Cap’n! Oh, to hell with them mosquiters!”
But Burke essayed to turn their minds, and “Why, what’s amiss with
’em?” says he merrily, “They need their victuals, like the rest of us.
I’ve been feeding a score of ’em since I came ashore.”
“Well, you may say so, too!” returned the seaman. “You have enough and
to spare on your bones, old sawbones!”
Burke laughed, and slapped him on the shoulder. With such jolly talk
did he physic their minds, and had soon restored them to good health.
But, on a sudden, came a sound of another sort of jollity: drunken
shout and revelry in the buccaneer’s hut; and, as he hearkened, I saw
the merriment quite go out of Burke: while one of the seamen said
harshly:
“Hark to ’em, boys, roystering yonder! lying snug an’ easy on their
liquor, like fine gentlemen, whilst we be sweltering here!”
So the ill-temper of the seamen returned, nor was Surgeon Burke able to
mollify them.
And now the sun began to shine very hot, and the hunger and thirst
of the mosquitoes appeared even to increase. After a further spell
of waiting (the clamour in the hut continuing), those belated and
miserable seamen did conclude that they had endured enough, and would
have put themselves into the boat and launched forth for the ship.
However, Burke proffered to go to the hut and bring them word again,
and persuaded them to wait his return. So he went, and I with him.
We forced our way in haste alongst the woody shore, whilst behind
us the curses of the seamen, in front the shouts and laughter of
the revellers, sounded in our ears; whilst the sun scorched us like
a furnace, and the humming mosquitoes stung our bare faces. Many
discomforts and hardships of body I have suffered, but never a one of
them comparable to that shore-passage at Hispaniola!
At last we came to the hut, and straightway entered in. The drinkers
sat on a couple of chests and a stool, which were disposed about a
table on which were canakins and an earthen jar, or bottle.
They had their load: the buccaneer and his slave looked blankly up at
us as we entered, and the buccaneer broke off in singing a drunken
song; but my brother stirred not hand or foot. He sat fallen forward
upon the board, being completely conquered with the drink. ’Twas
veycou, as they call it, the beer of the buccaneers. (It is made from
Cassava root, from which, also, they make their meal or flour.)
Surgeon Burke worked his way round the cabin towards my brother, and,
taking him smartly by the shoulder, endeavoured to rouse him up; but he
could not.
Meanwhile the buccaneer began to be contrary and truculent, and tipsily
abused us in the French tongue. But we minded him not, so long as he
contented himself with words. When, however, he pulled out a pistol and
began to threaten us with it, Burke leant swiftly over and snatched it
from him. On that, the buccaneer rose up to have grappled with him,
but Burke poked him smartly in the wind, which doubled him up; and he
rolled over upon the floor, and lay there muttering, swearing, and
singing this catch:
Lolonois! Lolonois!
On doit suivre Lolonois!
Un si brave Capitaine!
As for the slave, he meddled not with us, but sat still, drinking down
a last panakin of the veycou; whereupon he settled also, and presently
slept.
They being all three thus disposed and settled on their lees, as the
saying is, Surgeon Burke desired me to return alone to the mariners,
and to bid them launch forth and bring the boat towards a little
landing-place which was over against the hut.
Before I went, he anointed my face and hands with hog’s grease (a
vessel whereof he found in a corner), to solace my mosquito bites,
which now began to be very grievous to me.
So I went. When I came to the seamen, I found that they had been joined
by several others, who had come ashore in the launch, or longboat,
and Thalass, the Mosquito Indian, with them. This was told me by two
of them who stood by the boats, and that the rest were gone away
straggling into the woods to shoot wild fowl, some of those who had
come in the longboat having muskets.
This put me to my trumps for men to manage the boat, and I started off
to see for them. Suddenly a musket-shot rang out in the woods, and
was succeeded by a great hoarse croaking of crows, or ravens, that
rose flocking above the tree-tops in a black multitude; and then, on a
sudden, arose a great outcry of men.
I set off running that way, and soon perceived what the matter was. Two
of the seamen were locked in fierce fight. Now, this was a dreadful
thing to see; for one of the fighters was a one-armed man--I mean, his
left arm had been amputated below the elbow, and, in lieu of an arm, he
had an iron rod with a hook to it. With this hook had he grappled hold
of the other, and with his sailor’s knife he made fierce clawing cuts
at his face. The rest stood by, viewing the fight.
However, all was over in a moment, the one-armed man having murdered
the other. When I came up, he was rummaging in the pockets of the dead
man’s coat. He seemed to have a huge impatience about something he
sought after, digging amongst the cloth stuff, his face red like fire.
At last he grimped out a flask of water, which immediately he uncorked,
and drank off the contents.
The man was stark mad. Being one of those who had come ashore in
the second boat, he had neither heard the Surgeon’s warning against
eating of the fruit of the manchineel, nor knew anything at all of the
danger; and, being attracted, I suppose, by the pleasant appearance and
sweet smell of those deadly apples, he had tasted and eaten of them.
Whereupon such huge drought and uncontrollable thirst seized on the
poor maddened wretch, as inflamed him to that dreadful act of ferocity
I have told you of. Now madness seized hold on him indeed, insomuch
that he ran up and down, roaring and cutting the air and the trees with
his knife. But the boatswain, who stood by, quickly put a period to his
misery by running him through with his hanger.
After this I told the boatswain what Burke desired, and he mustered
half a dozen of that company, and brought them with me to the boats.
We put ourselves into the longboat, launched forth, and pulled towards
the farther point of the bay, where we found Burke without the hut,
stirring the heap of tobacco-leaves that was laid up before the entry
for a protection against the mosquitoes. We went ashore to him, and
with him into the hut.
The jolly company lay in the same posture, all three slumbering. Burke
bid our men to remove the Captain into the boat, and they began to
set about it. But, while this was doing, the buccaneer stirred, and
presently woke up; and, having looked stupidly round, he enquired who
we were and what we did in his habitation.
He was answered pleasantly by Burke, who said:
“Bon jour, monsieur, j’espère que vous avez bien dormi. Il faut que
nous vous quittions. Mais je suis vraiment très fâché de ne plus voir
votre beau visage!”
But this was taken very ill by the buccaneer, who started up, crying:
“Insolent! maraud d’Anglais! petit gros homme! Mort Dieu! vous me le
paierez.”
And he felt for his knife.
The Surgeon, however, had removed it whilst he slept; and, when he
understood this, he would have fallen upon Burke with his fist. But one
of the seamen who stood near, knocked him on the head with the butt of
his pistol, which felled him senseless.
Hereupon, waked by the scuffle, the slave began to cry out, and then
roared for quarter, as a seaman lifted his pistol to have served him
after the same manner as his master. But Burke made the man desist.
Burke’s care now was to get the Captain (who continued to slumber) into
the boat, and thence all back into the ship again; and this he did
effect, mainly by reason of his foresight in absconding amongst the
bushes the buccaneer’s store of veycou before our men came to the hut.
* * * * *
That night I took an opportunity of questioning Thalass about his
knowledge of the Haunted Island and acquaintance with those pirates.
But, though he answered me very frankly and told me what possibly he
could, I learnt not much; for the eyes of a poor Indian are not as an
European’s, and here were strange and unfamiliar things.
It appeared, also, that Thalass had never stayed on the island for any
considerable space of time, but used to go out on one pirate vessel or
another (for, it seems, there were two or three), and, even at such
times as he was on the island, he kept himself aloof from the rest,
living in the woods.
Thalass told, indeed, of great pieces of ordnance and fortifications;
and of that subterraneous place spoken of by the Englishman. Of the
terrible old man the Englishman had called the Doctor, he could tell me
nothing but what I knew. He had heard of the ghost, but had never seen
it.
For the rest, he had consorted with the Englishman and made great
friends with him; and at last (being taken out together on the same
ship), they had contrived to escape in the cock-boat, and (after many
days, and when such provisions as they had were long spent) had fallen
in with our ship in manner related.
I asked him how first he came to consort with those pirates; he
answered, that, being “many sleeps ago at Quibo,” there came one of
their ships, and he had gone away with them.
Next day I gave the Captain and Surgeon Burke an account of all that I
had learnt of the Haunted Island, as well from the Englishman as from
the Mosquito Indian.