WILLIS FALLS IN WITH THE SLOOP ON TERRA FIRMA, INSTEAD OF AT THE
BOTTOM OF THE SEA, AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED--ADMIRAL CICERO--THE
DEFUNCT NOT YET DEAD.
The corvette, notwithstanding the multitude of British cruisers
scattered about the ocean, and the other dangers that beset her, held
on the even tenor of her way. A gale sprung up now and then, but they
only tended to give a filip to the common-place incidents recorded in
the log. This quietude was not, however, enjoyed by all the persons on
board. Willis was a prey to violent emotions; and so it often happens,
in the midst of the profoundest calm, storms often rage in the heart
of man.
Whether in reality or in a dream, Willis declared that Captain
Littlestone paid him a visit every night, and invariably asked him
precisely the same questions. On these occasions, Willis asserted that
he distinctly heard the door open and shut whilst a shadow glided
through. That he might once, or even twice, have been the dupe of his
own imagination, is probable enough; but a healthy mind does not
permit a delusion to be indefinitely prolonged--it struggles with the
hallucination, and eventually shakes it off; providing always the mind
has a shadow, and not a reality, to deal with, and that the patient is
not a monomaniac. The dilemma was consequently reduced to this
position--either Willis was mad, or Captain Littlestone was on board
the _Boudeuse_.
In all other respects, Willis was perfectly sane. He himself searched
every corner of the ship, but without other result than a confirmation
of his own impression that there were no officers on board other than
those of the corvette; and yet, notwithstanding his own conviction in
daylight, he still continued to assert the reality of his interviews
with Captain Littlestone during the night. The Italians say, _La
speranza è il sogno d'an uomo svegliato_. Was Willis also dreaming
with his eyes open? Might not the wish be father to the thought, and
the thought produce the fancy? There is only one other supposition to
be hazarded--could it be possible, in spite of all his researches,
that Willis did see what he maintained with so much pertinacity he had
seen?
These questions are too astute to admit of answers without due
consideration and reflection; therefore, with the reader's permission,
we shall leave the replies over for the present.
On the 12th June a voice from the mast-head called "Land ahoy!" much
to the delight of the voyagers. The land in question was the island of
St. Helena. This sea-girt rock had not at that time become classic
ground. It had not yet become the prison and mausoleum of Napoleon the
Great. The petulant squabbles between Sir Hudson Lowe and his
illustrious prisoner had not been heard of. Little wotted then the
proud ruler of France the fate that awaited him, for, when the
_Boudeuse_ touched at the island, all Europe, with the single
exception of England, was kneeling at his feet.
On the 30th the Island of Ascension was reached. Here, in accordance
with a usage peculiar to French sailors, a bottle, containing a short
abstract of the ship's log, was committed to the deep. Willis thought
this ceremony, under existing circumstances, would have been better
observed in the breach than the observance, for, said he, if a British
cruiser picked up that bottle within twenty-four hours, she stood a
chance of picking up the _Boudeuse_ as well.
On the 15th July the peak of Teneriffe hove in sight This remarkable
basaltic rock rises to the extraordinary height of three thousand
eight hundred yards above the level of the sea; it is consequently
seen at a considerable distance, and constitutes a valuable landmark
for navigators in these seas. Six weeks later the _Boudeuse_ dropped
anchor in the Havre roads.
Here the three adventurers had to encounter by far the greatest
misfortune that had as yet befallen them. The continental system of
Napoleon was then in force. The importation of everything English or
Indian was strictly prohibited. The cargo the young men had brought
with them from New Switzerland, which already had escaped so many
perils, was, therefore, declared contraband, and seized by the French
_fisc_--an institution that rarely permitted such a prize to quit its
rapacious grasp.
Behold now our poor friends, Fritz and Jack, in a strange land,
deprived at once of their fortune and their chance of returning
home--the two beacons that had cheered them on their way! All their
bright hopes of the future were thus annihilated at one fell swoop.
Their fortitude almost gave way under the severity of this blow; the
excess of their distress alone saved them. Grief requires leisure to
give itself free vent; but when we are compelled, by absolute
necessity, to earn our daily bread, we cannot find time for tears; and
such was the case with Willis and his two friends; they were here
without a friend and without resources of any kind whatever.
If they had only known Greek and Latin; if they had only been half
doctors or three-quarter barristers, or if even they had been doctors
and lawyers complete, it would have sorely puzzled their skill to have
raised a single sous in hard cash. Fortunately, however, whilst
cultivating their minds, they had acquired the art of handling a saw
and wielding a hammer. The blouse of the workman, consequently, fitted
them as well as the gown of the student, and they set themselves
manfully to earn a living by the sweat of their brow. They were
carpenters and blacksmiths by turns, regulating their occupations by
the grand doctrines of supply and demand.
Jack alone of the three was defective in steadiness; he only joined
Willis and his brother at mid-day. What he did with himself during the
forenoon was a profound mystery. He rose before daybreak, and
disappeared no one knew where, or for what purpose. His companions in
adversity endeavored in vain to discover his secret; he was determined
to conceal his movements, and succeeded in baffling their curiosity.
To judge, however, by the ardor with which he worked, he was engaged
in some one of those schemes that are termed follies before success,
but which, after success, are universally acknowledged to be brilliant
and praiseworthy instances of industrial enterprise.
If, after a hard day's work, when assembled together in the little
room that served them for parlor, kitchen, and hall, the power of
regret vanquished fatigue, and sadness drove away sleep, then Jack,
who compared himself to Peter the Great, when a voluntary exile in the
shipyards of Saardam, would endeavor to infuse a little mirth into the
lugubrious party. If all his efforts to make them merry failed, all
three would join together in a humble prayer to their Heavenly Father,
who bestowed resignation upon them instead.
If Willis and his two friends were not accumulating wealth, at all
events they were earning the bread they ate honestly and worthily.
They had all three laid their shoulders vigorously to the wheel and
kept it jogging along marvellously for a month. By that time, a
detailed report of the seizure of their property had been placed
before the director of the Domaine Extraordinaire, who was the
sovereign authority in all matters pertaining to the exchequer of the
empire. He saw at once that this capture was extremely harsh, and
probably thought that, if it became known, it would raise a storm of
indignation about the ears of his department. Here were two young
men--Moseses, as it were, saved from the bulrushes. Lost in the desert
from the period of their birth, and ignorant of the dissensions then
raging in Europe, they were unquestionably beyond the ordinary
operation of the law. This will never do, he probably said to himself;
the civilization which these two young men have come through so many
perils to seek ought not to appear to them, the moment they arrived in
Europe, in the form of spoliation and barbarism.
The name of this _extraordinary_ director of Domaine Extraordinaire
was M. de la Boullerie, and, when we fall in with the name of a really
good-hearted man, we delight to record it. He felt that the two young
men had been hardly dealt with, but he had not the power to order a
restitution of the property, now that the seizure had been made, and
sundry perquisities, of course, deducted by the excise officials.
Accordingly, he referred the matter to the Emperor, who commanded the
goods to be immediately restored intact. Napoleon, at the same time,
praised the functionary we have named for calling his attention to the
merits of the case, and thanked him for such an opportunity of
repairing an injustice.[I]
There are many such instances of generosity as the foregoing in the
career of the great Emperor--mild rays of the sun in the midst of
thunderstorms; sweet flowers blowing here and there, in the bosom of
the gigantic projects of his life--which many will esteem more highly
than his miracles of strategy and the renown of his battles. As
nothing that tends to elevate the soul is out of place in this volume,
we may be permitted to insert one or two of these anecdotes.
In 1806, Napoleon was at Potsdam. The Prussians were humbled to the
dust, and the outrage of Rossbach had been fearfully avenged. A letter
was intercepted, in which Prince Laatsfeld, civil governor of Berlin,
secretly informed the enemy of all the dispositions of the French
army. The crime was palpable, capital, and unpardonable. There was
nothing between the life and death of the prince, except the time to
load half a dozen muskets, point them to his breast, and cry--Fire.
The princess flew to the palace, threw herself at the feet of the
Emperor, beseeched, implored, and seemed almost heart-broken. "Madam,"
said Napoleon, "this letter is the only proof that exists of your
husband's guilt. Throw it into the fire." The fatal paper blazed,
crisped, passed from blue to yellow, and the treachery of Prince
Laatsfeld was reduced to ashes.
Another time, a young man, named Von der Sulhn, journeyed from Dresden
to Paris; unless you are told, you could scarcely imagine for what
purpose. There are people who travel for amusement, for business, for
a change of air, or merely to be able to say they have been at such
and such a place. Some go abroad for instruction, others, perhaps,
with no other object in view than to eat frogs in Paris, bouillabaisse
at Marseilles, a polenta at Milan, macaroni at Naples, an olla podrida
in Spain, or conscoussou in Africa. Von der Sulhn travelled to
assassinate the Emperor. Like Scævola and Brutus, he, no doubt,
imagined the crime would hand down his name to posterity. In youth,
all of us have erred in judgment more or less. Sulhn thought the
Emperor ought to be slain. Unfortunately for him, the Duke of Rovigo,
the then minister of police, entertained a different opinion. He
thought, in point of fact, that the Emperor ought not to be killed:
hence it was that the young Saxon found himself in chains, and that
the Duke went to ask the Emperor what he should do with him. We ought,
however, to mention that the young man, in his character of an
enlightened German, testified his regret that he had not succeeded in
carrying out his project, and protested that, in the event of
regaining his liberty, he would renew the attempt. "Never mind," said
the Emperor to the duke, "the young man's age is his excuse. Do not
make the affair public, for, if it is bruited about, I must punish the
headstrong youth, which I have no wish to do. I should be sorry to
plunge a worthy family into grief by immolating such a scapegrace.
Send him to Vincennes, give him some books to read, and write to his
mother." In 1814, the young man obtained his liberty, his family, and
his Germany, and it is to be hoped that he afterwards became a
respectable pater-familias, a sort of Aulic councillor, and that,
during the troublesome times in the land of Sauerkraut, he was before,
and not behind, the barricades of his darling patria. If he be dead,
it is to be supposed that, instead of lying a headless trunk
ignominiously in a ditch, or in the unconsecrated cemetery of Clamort,
he is reposing entire in the paternal tomb.
On the 15th of March, 1815, the Emperor landed at Cannes--he had
returned from the island of Elba. On the beach he was joined by one
man, at Antibes by a company, at Digne by a battalion, at Gap by a
regiment (that of Labedoyer), at Grenoble by an army. The hearts of
the soldiers of France went to him like steel to the loadstone--first
a drop, and then a torrent; the Empire, like a snowball, increased as
it progressed. At Lyons, the Count of Artois, the setting sun, is
obliged to go out of one gate the moment that Napoleon, the rising
sun, comes in at another. Smiles, orations, triumphal arches, and even
the discourses that had been prepared to welcome the Bourbons, were
used to congratulate their successor on his return. Cockades and flags
were altered to suit the occasion, by inserting a stripe of red here
and another of blue there. One national guard, but only one, remained
faithful to the Bourbons; he would neither alter his cockade nor his
colors, and remained true to his patrons in the hour of disaster.
Everybody asked, what would the Emperor do with him? Would he be
imprisoned or banished? Neither; the Emperor sent him a cross of the
order of merit! It is, no doubt, grand to have overthrown the
brilliant army of Murad Bey in Egypt; to have vanquished Melas,
Wurmser, and Davidowich in Italy; Bragation, Kutusoff, and Barclay de
Tolly in Russia; Mack in Germany; and thus to have reduced the entire
continent of Europe to subjection. But it appears to us that a still
greater feat was the victory he gained over himself, when, in the
midst of the fever excited by his return, and the animosity of
parties, he gave this cross to the solitary adherent of misfortune.
Having made these slight digressions into the future, it is proper
that we should return to our story.
The mysterious roads of Providence do not always lead to the places
they seem to go; it often happens that, when we expect to be swallowed
up by the breakers that surround us, we are wafted into a harbor, and
that we encounter success where we only anticipated disappointment.
The rigorous enactments of the continental system, that the other day
had ruined the two brothers, became all at once the source of
unlooked-for wealth; for, on account of the scarcity of colonial
produce, a scarcity dating from the prohibitory laws promulgated in
1807, the merchandise of the young men had more than quadrupled in
value.
From the grade of hard-working mechanics they were suddenly promoted
to the rank of wealthy merchants. They consequently abandoned the
laborious employments that for a month had enabled them to live, and
to keep despair and misery at bay. Willis, greatly to his
inconvenience, found himself transformed into a gentleman at large,
which caused him to make some material alterations in the manipulation
and quality of his pipes.
Fritz busied himself in collecting in, the by no means inconsiderable
sums, which their property realised. He did not value the gold for its
glitter or its sound, he valued it only as a means of enabling himself
and his brother to return promptly to their ocean home. Jack undertook
the task of finding a scalpel to save his mother--doubtless a
difficult task; for how was he to induce a surgeon of standing to
abandon his connexion, his family, and his fame, and to undertake a
perilous voyage to the antipodes, for the purpose of performing an
operation in a desert, where there were neither newspapers to proclaim
it, academicians to discuss it, nor ribbons to reward it? As for the
gentlemen of the dentist and barber school, like Drs. Sangrado and
Fontanarose of Figaro, the remedy was even worse by a great deal than
the disease. But, as we have said, Jack promised to find a surgeon,
and the research was so arduous, that he was scarcely ever seen during
the day by either Willis or his brother.
To Willis was confided the office of chartering a ship for the
homeward voyage, and there were not a few obstacles to overcome in
order to accomplish this. French ship-masters at that time engaged in
very little legitimate business; they embarked their capital in
privateering, prefering to capture the merchantmen of England to
risking their own. One morning, Willis started as usual in search of a
ship, but soon returned to the inn where they had established their
head-quarters in a state of bewilderment; he threw himself into a
chair, and, before he could utter a word, had to fill his pipe and
light it.
"Well," said he, "I am completely and totally flabbergasted."
"What about?" inquired the two brothers.
"You could not guess, for the life of you, what has happened."
"Perhaps not, Willis, and would therefore prefer you to tell us at
once what it is."
"After this," continued Willis, "no one need tell me that there are no
miracles now-a-days."
"Then you have stumbled upon a miracle, have you, Willis?"
"I should think so. That they do not happen every day, I can admit;
but I have a proof that they do come about sometimes."
"Very probably, Willis."
"It is my opinion that Providence often leads us about by the hands,
just as little children are taken to school, lest they should be
tempted to play truant by the way."
"Not unlikely, Willis; but the miracle!"
"I was going along quietly, not thinking I was being led anywhere in
particular, when, all at once, I was hove up by--If a bullet had hit
me right in the breast, I could not have been more staggered."
"Whatever hove you up then, Willis?"
"I was hove up by the sloop."
"What sloop?"
"The _Nelson_."
"Was it taking a walk, Willis?" inquired Jack.
"Have you been to sea since we saw you last?" asked Fritz.
"If I had fallen in with the craft at sea, Master Fritz, I should not
have been half so much astonished. The sea is the natural element of
ships; we do not find gudgeons in corn fields, nor shoot hares on the
ocean. But it was on land that I hailed the _Nelson_."
"Was it going round the corner of a street that you stumbled upon it,
Willis?" inquired Jack.
"Not exactly; but to make a long story short--"
"When you talk of cutting anything short, we are in for a yarn," said
Jack.
"And you are sure to interrupt him in the middle of it," said Fritz.
"Well, in two words," said Willis, knocking the ashes out of his pipe,
"I was cruising about the shipyards, looking if there was a condemned
craft likely to suit us--some of them had gun-shot wounds in their
timbers, others had been slewed up by a shoal--and, to cut the matter
short--"
"Another yarn," suggested Jack.
"I luffed up beside the hull of a cutter-looking craft that had been
completely gutted. But, changed and dilapidated as that hull is, I
recognized it at once to be that of the _Nelson_. Now do you believe
in miracles?"
"But are you sure, Willis?"
"Suppose you met Ernest or Frank in the street to-morrow, pale,
meagre, and in rags, would you recognize them?"
"Most assuredly."
"Well, by the same token, sailors can always recognize a ship they
have sailed in. They know the form of every plank and the line of
every bend. There are hundreds of marks that get spliced in the
memory, and are never forgotten. But in the present case there is no
room for any doubt, a portion of the figure head is still extant, and
the word _Nelson_ can be made out without spectacles."
"But how did it get there?"
"You know, Master Fritz, it could not have told me, even if I had
taken the trouble to inquire."
"Very true, Willis."
"I was determined, however, to find it out some other way, so I
steered for a café near the harbor, where the pilots and long-shore
captains go to play at dominoes. I was in hopes of picking up some
stray waif of information, and, sooth to say, I was not altogether
disappointed."
"Another meeting, I'll be bound," said Jack.
"My falling in with the _Nelson_ astonished you, did it not?"
"Rather."
"Then I'll bet my best pipe that this one will surprise you still
more. You recollect my comrade, Bill, _alias_ Bob, of the _Hoboken_?"
"Yes, perfectly."
"Then I met him."
"What! the man who had both his legs shot off, and died in consequence
of his wounds?" inquired Jack.
"The same."
"And that was afterwards thrown overboard with a twenty-four pound
shot tied to his feet!" exclaimed Fritz.
"The same."
At this astonishing assertion the young men regarded Willis with an
air of apprehension.
"You think I am mad, no doubt, do you not?"
"Whatever can we think, Willis?"
"I admit that my statement looks very like it at first sight, but
still you are wrong, as you will see by-and-by. I could scarcely
believe my eyes when I saw him. 'Is that you, Bill Stubbs,' says I,
'at last?'
"'Lor love ye!' says he, 'is that you, Pilot?'
"He then took hold of my hand, and gave it such a shake as almost
wrenched it off.
"'Where in all the earth did you hail from?' he said. 'I thought you
were dead and gone?'
"'And I thought you were the same,' said I, 'and no mistake.'
"'Alive and hearty though, as you see, Pilot; only a little at sea
amongst the _mounseers_.'
"'But what about the _Hoboken_?' says I.
"'What _Hoboken_?' says he.
"'Were you not aboard a Yankee cruiser some months back?'
"'Never was aboard a Yankee in all my life,' says Bill.
"And no more he was, for he never left the _Nelson_ till she was high
and dry in Havre dockyard; so, the short and the long of it is, that I
must have been wrong in that instance."
"So I should think," remarked Fritz.
"Yet the resemblance was very remarkable; the only difference was a
carbuncle on the nose, which the real Bill has and the other has not,
but which I had forgotten."
"Like Cicero," remarked Jack.
"Another Admiral?" inquired Willis, drily.
"No, he was only an orator."
"Bill soon satisfied me that he was the very identical William Stubbs,
and that the other was only a very good imitation."
"He did not receive you with a punch in the ribs, at all events, like
the apocryphal Bill," remarked Jack.
"No; but what is more to the purpose, he told me that, after having
struggled with the terrible tempest off New Switzerland--which you
recollect--the _Nelson_ found herself at such a distance, that Captain
Littlestone resolved to proceed on his voyage, and to return again as
speedily as possible.
"'We arrived at the Cape all right,' added Bill, 'landed the New
Switzerland cargo, and sailed again with the Rev. Mr. Wolston on
board. A few days after leaving the Cape, we were pounced upon by a
French frigate; the _Nelson_, with its crew, was sent off as a prize
to Havre, and here I have been ever since,' said Bill, 'a prisoner at
large, allowed to pick up a living as I can amongst the shipping.'"
"And the remainder of the crew?" inquired Fritz.
"Are all here prisoners of war."
"And the Rev. Mr. Wolston and the captain?"
"Are prisoners on parole."
"Where?"
"Here."
"What! in Havre?"
"Yes, close at hand, in the Hotel d'Espagne."
"And we sitting here," cried Jack, snatching up his hat and rushing
down stairs four steps at a time.
Willis and Fritz followed as fast as they could.
When they all three reached the bottom of the stairs.
"If Captain Littlestone is here, Willis," said Jack, "he could not
have been on board the _Boudeuse_."
"That is true, Master Jack."
"In that case, Great Rono, you must have been dreaming in the
corvette as well as in the Yankee."
"No," insisted Willis, "it was no dream, I am certain of that."
"Explain the riddle, then."
"I cannot do that just at present, but it may be cleared up by-and-by,
like all the mysteries and miracles that surround us."
FOOTNOTES:
[I] This circumstance is historical, and will be found at length in
the Memoirs of Napoleon, by Amédée Goubard.