VOYAGE TO MALTA--THE REPENTANT PIRATE--THE PLAGUE--A SQUALL--BOBBY
SMUDGE PROVES USEFUL--ATTEMPT TO CAPTURE THE SCHOONER--TRIAL OF THE
PRISONERS--THEIR EXECUTION--THE YOUNG PIRATE'S DYING COUNSEL.
We had been five days at sea, and a fair breeze, though somewhat light
at times, had sent us tolerably well on our course. A strict watch had
been kept on the prisoners. All seemed very unconcerned as to the
almost certain fate which awaited them. They ate and drank, and laughed
and conversed among themselves, as if they were to be released at the
end of the voyage. One of their number, however, who had received a
severe hurt in the scuffle when they were captured, was in a very
different temper. He kept as far apart from them as he could, and
joined neither in their jokes nor conversation. He was far younger than
the rest; and as I watched him I observed an expression in his
countenance which would not have been there had he been a hardened
villain. He seemed grateful to me also for noticing him, and I
consequently frequently took an opportunity of saying a word to him
appropriate to his situation.
"I should like to read, sir, if I had a book," he said to me one day.
"I once was used to reading, and it would be a great comfort."
I promised to try and get him a book. When I told Mr Vernon of the
man's request, he advised me to lend him my Bible. "He may not care for
it at first," he observed; "but as he wishes to read, he may draw
instruction and comfort from it; and it may, by God's grace, enable him
to perceive the evil of his career."
I accordingly took the pirate my Bible--it had been my sainted mother's.
The unhappy man's eye brightened as he saw it.
"Well, sir, I was ashamed to ask for it, and I knew not if one might be
on board; but that is the book I wanted."
I left it with him, and he was constantly reading it attentively and
earnestly; nor did he allow the sneers and jeers of his companions to
interrupt him. I had perceived a considerable change in him since he
was brought on board; and he every day seemed to grow thinner and
weaker. I thought that he was dying; and I believe that he was of the
same opinion.
Some bulkheads had been run up in the after-part of the hold to form a
cabin for Delano--not for his own comfort and convenience, because he
was the greatest villain of the gang; but in order not to allow him an
opportunity of communicating with his companions. He lay there on a
mattress, with his heavy handcuffs, and his legs chained to staples in
the deck, like a fierce hyaena, glaring on all who looked at him. I
should not, however, picture him properly if I described him as a
wild-looking savage. On the contrary, there was nothing particularly
objectionable in his face and figure. His face was thin and sallow,
without much whisker; his features were regular, and could assume a very
bland expression; his figure, too, was slight and active, and his
address not ungentlemanly: but it was his eye, when either sullen or
excited, which was perfectly terrible. Conscience he seemed to have
none: it was completely dead, as were all the better feelings of which
our nature is capable: they were destroyed, too, by his own acts--his
long unchecked career of wickedness. Once he had been gay, happy, and
innocent; but no good principles had ever taken root in his heart. Very
early, those a mother's care had endeavoured to instil into him had been
eradicated; and step by step--slow at first, perhaps--he had advanced
from bad to worse, till he became the consummate villain he now was.
But I am forestalling the account I afterwards got of him.
We had three officers' watches on board the schooner. Mr Vernon kept
one, I kept another, and an old quartermaster we had with us kept the
third. Mr Vernon, in compassion to poor Bobby Smudge, had applied for
him as cook's boy, to get him out of the way of Chissel the carpenter,
his master, and in hopes of improving him by a somewhat different
treatment to what he had been accustomed. The good effect of
considerate kindness was already apparent; and the poor lad seemed most
grateful for any encouraging word spoken to him. The best of our men
had been sent on board the brig, and we remained only with eight and the
_Helen's_ crew--a very fair complement, had we not always required two
to stand sentry over the prisoners. We had another and a more insidious
enemy on board, of whom we wot not, and whom no sentry could control--
the plague--that fell scourge of Asiatic cities. How it came on board
we could not discover. It might have been in some of the pirates'
clothes, or some of our men might have caught it while they were on
shore for a short time; or it might have been concealed in the schooner
long before, and only brought forth by a congenial state of the
atmosphere. There it was, however. It made its appearance on the fifth
day, and in two days carried off three of our people and one of the
_Helen's_ crew. The pirates escaped unscathed. It seemed, indeed, in
no way to alarm them. They laughed and talked, and blasphemed more than
ever. We hailed the brig, which had hitherto kept us company, and found
that she was free from the affliction; so that, of course, except at a
distance, we could hold no communication with her. I will not attempt
to describe the appearance of that dreadful disease. It was sad to see
the poor fellows attacked, with so little prospect of their recovery;
while no one could tell who would be the next victim. As they died they
were sewn up in their hammocks, with a shot at their feet, and at once
consigned to the deep. Mr Vernon read the funeral service appointed by
the Church of England for such an occasion.
After the first man was buried--a fine, active young fellow two days
before, apparently full of life and strength--he addressed the crew:--
"Do not suppose the prayers I have read can do any good to him who has
just gone for ever from our sight. For your benefit they were offered
up. A like fate to his may be that of any one of us before another day
has passed; and I would earnestly urge you, for the short time which yet
may remain for you, to turn your hearts to God--to prepare for
eternity."
Something more he said to the same effect. It was good advice at the
proper time. I am sorry to say that it was very little heeded, or, at
all events, very quickly forgotten. Two of those who stood by and heard
it, were themselves, within two days, called to their last and dread
account. Mr Vernon took it very much to heart; anxious and agitated as
he had been of late, his nerves were much shaken, and I feared that he
would be the next victim. He bore up bravely, like a Christian, for
some time; but, as one after another of the crew was taken ill, he
succumbed, not to the malady itself, but to very weariness, and was
compelled to take to his cot. My commander's illness threw a larger
amount of responsibility on me than I had ever before enjoyed. I felt
on a sadden grown wonderfully manful, and did my best to be up to my
duty. Watson, the quartermaster, was a great aid to me. The old man
seemed never to want sleep. He was on deck at all hours, constantly on
the look-out, or seeing that the sentries were on the alert. Perhaps he
did not place full confidence in my experience. We had had light winds
or calms, with a hot burning sun, and sultry nights, for nearly a week.
When this weather commenced, the plague appeared. The barometer had
been falling for some hours; but still there was no other indication of
a change of weather. A fourth man was taken ill. I had gone below to
report the case to Mr Vernon, when I heard Watson's voice, in quick
eager tones, calling the people on deck to shorten sail. I sprang up
the companion-ladder. The sea was as smooth as glass, and the sky was
bright and clear enough in the south-east, whence a small dark cloud
came sweeping up at a rapid rate towards us. I perceived that there was
not a moment to lose. The people sprang to the halyards and brails; but
before all the sail could be taken off the vessel, the squall had struck
her. Over she went on her beam-ends. A cry of terror was heard above
the roar of the wind in the rigging, and the rattling of ropes and
blocks, and the dash of the surging waves. The water almost reached the
combings of the hatches: everybody on deck thought we were gone. Two of
the men were washed overboard. Watson, who was aft, hove one of them a
rope. He seized it with convulsive energy: his life, dear to the
meanest, depended on the firmness of his grasp. We hauled him in out of
the seething cauldron; but the other poor fellow drifted far away. To
the last he kept his straining eyes fixed on the vessel. He was a
strong swimmer, and struck out bravely--lifting himself, every now and
then, high out of the water, as if that useless exertion of strength
could bring him nearer to us. Perhaps he was looking for a plank, or
something to make for, to support himself. Unhappily, none was hove to
him in time. All hands were too much occupied in the means for
preserving their own lives. Weak and ill as he was, Mr Vernon had
rushed on deck as he felt the vessel going over. He had ordered the
helm to be put up; and Watson had seized an axe, waiting his directions
to cut away the mainmast, when the throat-halyard block parted, the
peak-halyards had already been let go, and the mainsail coming in of
itself, the vessel righted in an instant; then, feeling her helm, and
the headsail being yet set, she flew off before the squall. While we
were rejoicing at our own preservation, we almost forgot our poor
shipmate. Never can I forget the cry of despair he gave as he saw us
flying from him. He knew full well that it was impossible for us to
return; not a spar or plank was near to support him, to prolong his life
even for a few short hours. The brig, also, was too far away to leeward
to render him any help; so that aid from man he had none. Lifting up
his arms, with eyeballs starting from his head, he gave one last look at
us; and then, uttering a cry of agony, sunk for ever. It had been
dreadful to see strong men struck down by the plague, and die by rapid
degrees; but I know not whether a scene like this was not still more
harrowing. In the course of an hour we had run out of the squall, and
the weather had become cool and refreshing. The squall had one very
beneficial result, for no other persons were attacked with the plague,
and the man who was suffering from it began rapidly to recover. Vernon
also sensibly felt the change in the weather, and every day I saw an
improvement; though the causes of his illness were too deeply seated to
callow the atmosphere to have much effect on him. We very soon repaired
the damages which the schooner had sustained, and by the next morning we
were all to rights. Our chief anxiety was for the brig. We had lost
sight of her in the squall, and we could not tell whether she had been
more prepared than we were to meet its fury. Even had she not suffered
from the gale, the plague might have broken out in her. Mr Vernon came
occasionally on deck, but he was compelled, from weakness, to spend the
greater part of the day in his cot, though this was very much against
his inclination. We had in vain questioned and cross-questioned our
prisoners, to discover if they knew anything of the fate of the
_Ariadne_, but not a particle of information could we obtain; and I was
myself satisfied that they really knew nothing about her. Our late
peril suggested a new cause of alarm to the mind of Mr Vernon, which
apparently had not before occurred to him; and he began to fear that the
vessel in which the Normans had sailed might have been overtaken by one
of those white squalls so common in the Mediterranean, and might have
suffered the fate we so narrowly escaped. Since the squall, our
prisoners had remained unusually quiet; though, while the plague was
aboard, they were as noisy and blasphemous in their conversation as
ever. The sick man continued in the same state as before, though he
seemed more reserved when I spoke to him than he had been at one time.
He continued reading all day, as long as there was light, and asked to
be allowed to have a candle to read at night; but this, of course, could
not be permitted. There was evidently something working in his mind,
which he would gladly be rid of, but could not. Having lost so many
hands, the duty fell, naturally, more severely on the survivors; and we
had enough to do to keep watch on deck, and a vigilant guard over our
prisoners.
One night I had charge of the deck. Besides the man at the helm there
was the look-out forward, and two hands lying down by the windlass.
There was no moon, and the sky was covered with clouds, so that it was
very dark. As I kept moving about, now looking out to windward, now
over the lee-side, and then at the binnacle, to see that the schooner
was kept on her proper course, I fancied that I saw a dark figure come
up the main-hatchway; and while I stopped at the waist, I heard a voice,
in a low whisper, say--
"Hist, sir, hist! I want to speak to you."
"Who is it?" said I, in the same low tone.
"Bobby Smudge, sir; listen: there are not many moments to lose, before
we shall all have our throats cut, if we don't take care."
This piece of intelligence put me on the _qui vive_, though, remembering
Master Smudge's pranks, I own that I did not much credit it.
"Come here," said I, rather impatiently, "and let me know all about it."
"I didn't like to be seen, sir," he replied, coming cautiously up to me,
and looking round to ascertain that no one was near. "I don't know,
sir, who's a friend and who's an enemy aboard here, just now."
"What do you mean, boy?" I asked.
"Why, just this, sir. That thundering scoundrel below there, is just
trying hard to turn all the men's heads; and if we don't look alive,
he'll do it, too."