"The tide by this time was quite still, and the breeze sank almost at
once, as we were shut in from the sea, when we were surprised to see the
striped Portuguese flag, rise off a tall bamboo stick, among the bushes
on the open shore, nearly abreast of us, where a low muddy-like wall was
to be made out, with something of a thatched roof or two, and a sort of
rude wooden jetty running before it into the water. Shortly after, Don
José came paddling out again, and got on board, this time with an old
cocked hat on, excusing himself for not having fired a gun--which was to
save us expense, he remarked, being particular friends--seeing that he'd
got to demand twelve dollars of harbour dues and duties, whereas, if he
saluted, he must have charged fourteen. The cool impudence of this
brought the chief officer from the capstan; but the steady face of the
fellow, and the glance he took round the deck when the cadet told him
he'd better be off at once, made me think he had something or other to
back him. Mr Finch, as usual, fumed up into a passion, and told the men
to fling him over into his canoe, which they accordingly did, without
the least nicety about it; the Portuguese next minute picking himself
up, and standing straight, with the look of a perfect devil, as he shook
his fist at the whole ship, while the canoe slid off to the shore.
"Budge even so much as a single fathom, at present, we could not; and
most of us were too much in the spirit of fun and venture to care a fig
for having made an enemy of Don José So-on, as the cadet called him;
indeed, it seemed rather to set a finer point on people's admiration of
the green jungly-looking shore next to us, with its big aloes and agaves
growing before the bush, and all sorts of cocoas, palms, monkey-bread,
and tall white-flaked cotton trees, rising in every way out from over
the rest. For my part, I thought more of the Portuguese _interest_,
after all, than his hatred--which proved correct, by his soon sending
out a sulky message by the mulatto, offering to sell us fowls and a
bullock, at no ordinary price. However, all hands from the cabin were
mad already to get ashore somewhere, and the cadets, bristling with
fowling-pieces and rifles, each singing out that he was ready to supply
the whole ship with fresh meat; so the mulatto had to sheer off, with a
boat nearly lowered over his head.
"From where we lay at the time, what with the large creek off one bow,
and the broad river ahead of us, spreading brimful along to the light,
the water had the look of a huge lake, fringed in by a confused hazy
bluish outline steeping in the heat, where the distance clipped behind
the lumps of keen verdure, showering over a dark mangrove-covered point.
Before the two large quarter-boats could be got ready for the ladies and
the rest of us, in fact, we heard the gigful of writers and cadets
beginning to pop away at everything they saw alive, out of sight of the
ship, till at last we were afloat, too, pulling slowly into the middle
of the stream, and the men eyeing us lazily as they turned-to about the
rigging, to send up new spars in place of those lost. The old Indiaman's
big bows stood looming up broad astern of us on the sluggish eddies
round her cable, with her tall, steady forespars and furled yards rising
white against the low line of marshy shore in the distance, and wavering
in her shadow below, till the thick green branches of the next point
shut her out, and the glare off the face of the creek shot level over
all of us in the two cutters, wild with every kind of feeling that India
passengers could have after two months' voyage.
"For my own part, I should have had rather a suspicion how absurd it was
to go a-pleasuring in an African river we knew nothing about, especially
when I saw that a day or two so long after the rains might suck it up,
during ebb, into a pretty narrow mid-channel; all I thought of was,
however, that I was steering the boat with Violet Hyde in it, the
kitmagar holding his gaudy punkah over her before me, while the judge,
with his gun in his hands, was looking out as eagerly, for the time, as
the four griffins were pulling furiously, in spite of the heat that made
the sweat run into their eyes.
"The other party were soon off ahead of us up the main river, under care
of the Scotch surgeon, laughing, talking, and halloing in chase of the
cadets who had first left. However, Sir Charles thought there was more
likelihood of game along the creek, and the ladies fancied it something
new, so I steered right into it; the fat midshipman, Simm, watching me
critically as I handled the yoke-lines, which he had given up to me in a
patronising way, and the sailor in the bow regarding the exertions of
the griffins with a knowingly serious expression, while he dabbled his
flipper at ease in the water.
"As the tide steadied, this said creek proved to be a smaller river,
apparently from the hilly country I had noticed beyond the woods, by the
clearness of its current, that showed the pale yellow reflection of the
close bamboo-brake on one side, deep down into the light--the huge,
sharp, green notched aloe-leaves and fern showing here and there out of
it--the close, rank, stifling smell of rotten weeds and fungi giving
place to the strange wild scent of the flowers, trailing and twisting in
thick snaky coils up the stems on our opposite hand, and across from
branch to branch, with showers of crimson and pink blossoms and white
stars; still, eager as the ladies were to put foot on land, 'twas no use
looking as yet for a spot of room, let alone going farther in.
"The cadets were not long in being blown, either; when the midshipman,
the bowman, and I, had to relieve them. However, _then_ I could look
straight toward Violet Hyde's face, the shade of the scarlet punkah
hanging over it, and her soft little straight nose and forehead catching
a flickering burst from the leaves as we sheered at times under cover of
the bank; while her eyelids, drooping from the glare, gave her bright
eyes a half-sleepy sort of violet look, and it was only her lips that
let you see how excited she felt. The griffin who had the tiller
steering with the judgment of a tailor's 'prentice on a picnic to
Twickenham, we came two or three times crash into the twigs of some
half-sunk tree; then a blue bird like a heron would rise direct ahead of
us, with its tall wet spindle legs and spurs glistening like steel
behind it into the light, and a young snake in its sharp bill; or a grey
crane rustled out of the cane from overhead, its long wings creaking in
the air out of sight. Suddenly, you heard a long chirruping croak from a
tree-frog, and the ground ones gave full chorus from farther in, whining
and cackling and peep-peep-peeping in one complete rush that died as
suddenly away again, like thousands of young turkeys. Then out in the
midst of the quiet would come a loud clear wheetle-wheetling note from
some curious fowl in an opening, with another of the same to match,
dimmer amongst the thick of the bush. However, everything of the kind
seemed to sink down with the heat at noon, the very buzz of flies round
every dark feather of the cocoas, and the mosquito-hum along the bank,
getting fainter; till one _heard_ the heat, as it were, creeping and
thrilling down through the woods, with the green light that steeped into
both edges of the long creek; every reed, cane, leaf, and twig,
seemingly, at last giving it back again with a whispering, hushing
crackle, and the broad fans of the palms tingling in it with rays from
them, as they trembled before you in the glare, back into the high
bundles of knotted and jointed bamboo, with their spiky-tufted crowns.
"'Can you not almost _feel_ the forest grow!' exclaimed Miss Hyde; while
the boat floated quietly to one side, and her charming young face
shining out from the punkah, before Master Gopaul's deucedly ugly one,
coolly staring past his snub nose, made one think of a white English
rose and a black puff-ball growing together under a toadstool; plenty of
which, as red as soldiers' coats, and as big as targets, looked here and
there out of the bank. It put new spirit into me to see her, but still
we could do little more than shove across from one side to the
other--till something all at once roused us up in the shape of a long
scaly-like log, seemingly lying along in the sun, which tumbled off the
edge with a loud splash, and two of the young fellows let drive from
their fowling-pieces, just after the alligator had sunk to the bottom.
Rather uncomfortable it was to come sheering right over him next moment,
and catch a glimpse of his round red eyes and his yellow throat, as the
mud and weeds rose over him.
"The other ladies shrieked, but Violet Hyde only caught hold of her
father's arm and started back; though her blue eye and the clear cut of
her pretty nostril opened out, too, for the moment her lips closed. Five
minutes after, when a couple of large guinea-fowl sprang up, Sir Charles
proved himself a better shot than the cadets, by dropping one of them
over the water ahead of us, which was laid hold of by the reefer of the
Indiaman, and stowed away fluttering into the stern-locker--Simm
observing coolly that it was a scavengering carrion sort of bird, but
perhaps one of his messmates might like to take it home stuffed to his
sister. The judge merely smiled and patted the mid on the shoulder,
remarking in great good-humour that he, Simm, would make a good
attorney; and on we held, soaking to our shirts and panting, until the
bowman hooked down the stem of a young plantain, with a huge bunch of
full ripe yellow bananas under the long flapping leaves at its head,
right into the midst of us, out of a whole clump of them, where the
smooth face of the cove showed you their scarlet clusters of flowers and
green round pods hanging over it, hidden as they were from above. Every
man of us made a clutch, and the stem almost lifted Simm out of the boat
with it, as it sprang back into the brake, rousing out a shower of
gaudy-coloured butterflies, and a cloud of mosquitoes, and making the
parroquets scream inside; while the cadets' mouths were so full they
couldn't speak, the reefer making a gulp with the juice seeming to come
out at his eyes, the sailor spitting out his quid and stuffing in a
banana, and the ladies hoping they were safe to eat, as I peeled the
soft yellow rind off, and handed one to Violet Hyde, which she tasted at
once. But if ever one enters into the heart of things in the tropics,
I'd say 'tis when that same delicious taste melts through and through
and all over you, after chewing salt-junk for a space. I remember one
foremast man, who was always so drunk ashore he used to remember nothing
in India but '_scoffing_[23] one juicy benanny,' as he called it; 'but
hows'ever, Jack,' he'd say, ''twas blessed good, ye know, and I'm on the
look-out for a berth again, jist for to go and have another.' One of us
looked to the other, and Miss Hyde laughed and coloured a bit when I
offered her a second, while her father said, full five minutes after,
''Gad, Violet, it almost made me think I saw Garden Reach in the
Hooghly, and the Baboo's Ghaut!'
[23] _Anglicé_, eating.
"This whole time we couldn't have got more than three-quarters of a mile
from where the ship lay, when, all at once, the close growth on our left
hand began to break into low bush, and at length a spot offered where we
might get ashore tolerably, with two or three big red ant-hills heaped
up out of the close prickly-pear plant, and the black ants streaming
over the bank, as well as up the trunk of a large tree. The monkeys
were keeping up a chattering stir everywhere about; and two or three
bright green little lizards, changing into purple and back again, as
they lay gleaming in the sun on the sides of the ant-heaps, darted their
long tongues out like silver bodkins at the ants coming past. In we
shoved with a cheer, and had scarce moored to the tree ere the ladies
were being handed out and tripping over the ground-leaves to the ankles,
starting on again at every rustle and prick, for fear of snakes; till
the bowman in charge was left in the boat by himself, and, there being
seven of us with guns over our arms, the next notion of the griffins was
to get a sight of some 'natives.'
"In fact, there was a sort of a half-track leading off near the bank,
through among the long coarse grass and the ferny sprouts of young
cocoas, and a wide stretch of open country seen beyond it, dotted all
over with low clumps of trees and bush rounded off in the gush of light,
that gave it all a straw-coloured tint up to where a bare
reddish-looking ridge of hill looked over a long swell of wild forest,
off a hot, pale, cloudless sky. Here and there you saw the shadow of one
bluff lying purple on the side of another, and a faint blue peak
between, letting north'ard into some pass through the hills, but no
signs of life save a few dun big-headed buffaloes feeding about a swampy
spot not very far off, and rather too shaggy, by all appearance, to make
pleasant company. Accordingly, we held for a few yards under the shade,
where the fat mid, thinking to show off his knowingness by getting
cocoa-nuts for the ladies, began to shy balls of mud from the
creek-sides at the monkeys in the trees.
"However, he brought us rather more than he bargained for, till the
whole blessed jungle seemed to be gathering between us and the boat to
pelt us to death with nuts as big as eighteen-pound shot, husks and all;
so off we had to hurry into the glare again, Sir Charles half-carrying
his daughter through guinea-grass up to the waist--when somebody felt
the smell of smoke, and next minute we broke out near it, wreathing up
white from inside a high bamboo fence, propped up and tied all along
with cocoa-nut husk. 'What the devil!' shouted the foremost cadet, as
soon as he found the opening, 'they're cannibals!--roasting a black
child, by heaven!' and in he dashed, being no chicken of a fellow
_ashore_ at any rate, the others after him, while the judge, Simm, and I
kept outside with the ladies, who were all of a shudder of course, what
with the thought, and what with the queer scent of roast meat that came
to us. 'Ha, ha!' laughed the cadet next moment, 'it's only a monkey,
after all!--come in, though, Sir Charles, if you please, sir--nobody
here, ladies.'
"There, accordingly, was the little skinned object twirling slowly
between two bamboo sticks, over a fire beneath two or three immense
green leaves on a frame, with its knees up not to let its legs burn;
about a dozen half-open sheds and huts, like little corn-stacks,
thatched close with reeds, and hung with wattled mats of split bamboo,
giving the place more the look of a farmyard than a village; as there
was a big tree spreading in the middle, a few plantains, yams, and long
maize-stalks flowering out of the coarse guinea-grass which the niggers
hadn't taken the trouble to tread down all round inside of the fence.
"However, we weren't long of perceiving an old grey-headed black sitting
on his hams against the post of a hut, watching us all the time; and a
villainously ugly old thief he looked, with a string of Aggry beads
about his head, and a greegree charm-bag hung round his shrivelled neck,
which was stuck through a hole in some striped piece of stuff that fell
over to his knees, as he sat mumbling and croaking to himself, and
leering out of the yellows of his eyes, though too helpless to stir.
Something out of the way attracted my notice, glittering in front of the
hut over his head; but, on stepping up to it, I wasn't a little
surprised to find it the stern-board of some small vessel or other, with
the tarnished gilt ornament all round, and the name in large white
letters--'_Martha Cobb_'--the port, Boston, still to be made out,
smaller, below. This I didn't think so much of in itself, as the craft
might have been lost; till, on noticing that the old fellow's robe was
neither more nor less than a torn American ensign, in spite of his
growls and croaks I walked past him into the hut, where there was a
whole lot of marling-spikes, keys, and such like odds and ends,
carefully stored up in a bag, marked with the same name, besides a
stewpan with some ostrich feathers stuck where the handle had been, as
if this rascally black sinner wore it on his head on state occasions,
being probably the head man and a justice of the peace.
"What struck me most, though, was a pocket-book with a letter inside it,
in a woman's hand, addressed to the master of the brig _Martha Cobb_;
dated a dozen years before, yellow and fusty, and with tarry
finger-marks on it, as if the poor skipper, God knows, had read it over
and over in his cabin many a fresh breeze betwixt there and Boston. I
put it in my pocket, with a curse to the old black devil, as he croaked
out and fell on his face trying to bite me with his filed teeth when I
passed out, to follow the rest out of the bamboo-pen; wondering, of
course, where all the other negroes could be, unless they were dodging
about the river shore to watch the Indiaman--little chance as there was
of their trying the same joke with the _Seringapatam_ as with the
_Martha Cobb_.
"As for the women, however, I had scarce joined our party going out,
when we met a half-naked black hag with a bunch of cocoa-nuts and husk.
The moment she saw us she gave a squeal like an old hen, and fell flat,
while several younger ones, jogging along with their naked black
piccaninnies on their backs, turned tail and were off with a scream.
Next minute we were almost as startled as they could be when three plump
young jetty damsels dropped down right into the bushes alongside of us,
off as many tall cocoas which they'd been climbing by a band round them,
for the nuts. 'Mercy on us!' said the eldest of our lady passengers; and
it _was_ rather queer, since they had nothing earthly upon them save
very very short pet----I beg your pardon, ma'am, but I didn't know any
other word. However, off they scampered for the woods, Simm and one of
the cadets hard after them, and we turning away to smother our laughter,
especially as the griffin had forgot his mother being with us. The middy
being first started, he was a good way ahead, when all at once the
sternmost of the black girls tripped in the band she had over her
shoulder, Simm giving a cheer as he made prize of his chase; but scarce
before the whole three of the dark beauties had him smothered up amongst
them, laughing yelling, and squalling as they hauled him about; till I
saw the dirk Simm sported glitter in one of their hands, and I made
towards the spot in the notion of their finishing him in right earnest.
"The black damsels ran off together as the unlucky reefer picked himself
up, coming to us with his hair rubbed up like a brush, his cap out of
shape in his hand, and the gold band off it, his red face shining, and
all the gilt anchor-buttons off his jacket, besides being minus his
dirk. 'Simm, Simm, my fine fellow!' said his friend the cadet, like to
die with laughing, 'what--what did they do to you?--why, your head looks
like a chimney-sweep's mop!' Simm knocked his cap against a tree to set
it right, without a word, and we followed the others to the boat, where
he swore, however, that he'd kissed 'em all three, at which Mrs Atkins
fairly took him a slap on the side of the head, saying he was a nasty,
improper boy, and she was glad _his_ poor mother couldn't see him run
after creatures of that kind in African woods. 'Natives, indeed!' said
she, 'I have heard so often of native modesty, too, in books; but, after
all, there's nothing like experience, I think, Sir Charles?' 'Certainly
not, ma'am,' replied the judge, humouring her, as she hadn't often had
the chance of speaking to him before; ''tis almost as bad in India,
though, you know.' 'Oh, _there_, Sir Charles,' said the lady, 'I never
happened to go out, of course, except in the carriage!' 'Ah,' said the
judge, coolly, 'you should try an elephant, sometimes, ma'am.'
"After this, as Sir Charles was bent on getting a shot at something
better, with a glass or two of Madeira to refresh us, we pulled farther
still up the small river, passing the mouth of a deep marshy inlet,
where I noticed a few long canoes belonging to the Congo village we had
seen; the close, heavy heat of the woods getting, if possible, worse;
and the rank green growth topping up round us as flat as before; when
the sound of a loud rush of water up-stream broke upon us through the
bush to northward, the surface rippling, and a slight cool breath
seeming to flutter across it now and then, the very noise putting fresh
soul into you. Suddenly we opened out on a broad bend, where it was hard
work to force her round, and next moment a low fall was gleaming before
us, where a hill-stream came washing and plashing over one wide rocky
step above another in the turn, then sweeping out of a deep pool to both
hands, and running away ahead, in between the spread of trees, seemingly
to a sort of a lagoon, where you saw the light in the middle glancing
bright down upon its face. A broad blue burst of air and light struck
down along the hollow the stream rushed out of, off the roots of a
regular mountain, leaning back to the sky, with its big tufted knolls
and its shady rifts thrown out blue beyond one or two thick
scaly-stemmed date-trees, waving their long, feathery, fringe-like
leaves to the least bit of a breeze, on as many rough points near at
hand; the _whole_ shape of the mountain you couldn't see for the huge
mahogany-trees, teak, and African oak, rising up over one shoulder into
a lump of green forest. In five minutes more we were through into the
lagoon, which very possibly took round into the main river again, only
the opposite end, to our surprise, was all afloat with logs of big
timber choking it up, so that there we must stick or go back upon our
wake.
"However, the lagoon itself being broad enough and round enough in all
conscience, with a deep hollow opening up out of it on the high ground,
the judge and the cadets thought a better place couldn't have been
chosen for landing after a little sport, while we left the fair ladies
to rest in the cool, and look at the lotus-lilies spread all over one
cove of it, floating white on their large leaves. The green edge of scum
ran about the black shadow on the rest of it, gathering round where a
big branch or two had fallen in, with the hot white sky looking bluer
out through the broad leaves coming together aloft, and the showers of
little sharp ones in the tamarind twigs, mangoes, ironwood, sumach, and
all sorts, while here and there a knot of crimson blossoms looked out
from under the boughs in the dark, humming with small flies. Beautiful
spot as it was every way, especially after the heat, yet I didn't much
like the idea of letting the ladies stay by themselves, except the
sailor and the kitmagar. Nothing particular had turned up to trouble us,
certainly, but I daresay 'twas because there was _one_ of them I never
looked at without her soft fairy-like air making me think of something
that might happen to her, life-like though she seemed. When I saw a big
branch over her head, I kept fancying what it would do if it fell--and
now, the thumping slabs and stones we scrambled over up into the gully
toward the mountain, seemed to have come tumbling down off it to the
very water's edge, covered with nets of thick creeping plants and trails
of flat, fingery-leaved flowers, such as you see in hot-houses at home.
A few yards higher, too, where the ground broke away into a slanting
hollow out of the bush, 'twas all trampled and crushed, half-withering
together in the heat of the sun, the young trees twisted and broken, and
two or three good-sized ones lying out from the roots, which I set to
the score of the timbers rolling down their logs, for some craft that
evidently got their cargoes hereaway.
"After all, the thought of a slap at some wild game was tempting enough,
the judge appearing to consider anyone but a sportsman nobody at all; so
up we went behind him out of the gully till we were all blowing like so
many porpoises on the head of it, Sir Charles raising his finger as we
peeped across a grassy slope right under us, where a whole drove of
small slender-legged antelopes were feeding. We had just time to rest,
getting a breath of air off the heights, when one of the foremost lifted
its head, listening the opposite way from us; next moment the entire
scatter of them came sweeping direct over to leeward in a string--we
could almost catch their bright black eyes through the grass, when the
crack of our seven barrels turned them bolt off at a corner, and they
were gone like wind on water. All of us had missed save Sir Charles
Hyde, but his rifle-bullet had sent one of the antelopes springing up in
the air ten feet or so, rolling over and over into the grass again,
where we found it lying with its tongue out, and its large eye glazing
amidst the blades and dust--a pair of huge turkey buzzards falling, as
it were, out of two specks in the sun above us, already, and rising with
an ugly flap while we got round the dead creature.
"Hallo!' said the mid suddenly, looking back over toward the hollow we'd
come out of, 'what's that?'
"From where we stood we could just see through the wild cane to the
mouth of the gully, half-a-mile down or more, leading upon the trees by
the lagoon. I thought I could hear a dull heavy sound now and then going
thump thump down the hollow and along it, the stones rumbling from one
spot to another at the root of the hill; but noticing a light smoke
rising farther into the course of the creek, with a faint echo of axes
at work somewhere in the woods below, I wasn't sorry to find the
timberers were still in the river, showing we weren't the only civilised
folks that thought it fit to visit. Perhaps it might have been a
quarter of an hour or more, however, and we were all looking out sharp
for birds of any kind to pop at, happening to turn my head, I saw the
long reeds were moving about the banks below and the trees twisting
about furiously, and no sooner had I made a few paces than good
heavens!--right in the break of the trees at the landing-place--_there_
was a huge brute of some sort coming slowly up out of the water; then
another, and another, glistening wet in the bright light as the shadow
of the branches slipped behind them. A blindness came over my eyes, and
I had scarce time to make out the big block-like heads and moving trunks
of five or six black African elephants, ere the whole case flashed upon
me, and away I dashed full-speed down the slope. The big beasts were
turning quietly off into the hollow, and two or three of their calves
trotted after them out of the bushes, munching the young cane-stalks as
they lifted their pillars of legs and their tufty little tails, when I
passed a fire of sticks blazing under a slab of rock, with the judge's
guinea-fowl plucked and roasting before it from a string, the bowman's
tarpaulin and his pipe lying near by--a sight that doubled the horror in
me, to know he had left the boat at all; and no doubt, as I thought,
taken fright and run off, man-o'war's-man though he was. I made three
springs over the stones down to the water, terrified to look in, hearing
it, as I did, splash and wash about the sides, up among the leaves of
the trees, while a couple of monstrous brutes were to be seen by the
light in the midst of it, still wallowing about, and seeming to enjoy
sending the whole pool in wide rings and waves as far as it would go,
with the noise besides; the one-half swimming and the biggest standing
aground as he poured the water out of his long trunk all over his back,
then broke off a branch and waved it to and fro like a fan round his
flapping leathery ears.
"Such a moment I hope never to know again--not the least sign of the
boat could I see in the green black blink of the place, after the glare
above, and I stood like a madman at the thought of what the herd of
monsters had _done_ when they came suddenly down upon it; then I gave a
wild cry, and levelled my ship's musket at the big elephant's head as he
brought his small cunning eye slowly to bear upon me, dropped the
branch, and began to swing his forehead, all the time looking at me,
and wading out to the shallow--by Jove! my flesh creeps at it _just
now_--though I couldn't have stirred for worlds till he was close enough
for me to fire into that devilish eye of his. 'Twas no more than the
matter of half-a-minute--till you may fancy what I felt to catch sight,
all at once, of the cutter splashing up and down in the gloom below the
branches, the ladies and the Hindoo crouching down terrified together,
except Violet Hyde, who stood straight, holding the boat firm in by a
bough, her white face fixed through the shadow, and her hair floating
out of her straw bonnet each time her head went up among the leaves,
with her glittering eyes on the two elephants.
"Suddenly some heavy black figure dropped almost right over her into the
boat, and she let go with a low cry, and sank down with her hands over
her eyes; when they went sheering out towards the creek, the foretopman
handling his boat-hook in her bow, without his tarpaulin. As for the
wild elephants, I had just time to come to myself before the foremost
had his feet on the stones below me, getting cautiously out of the pool;
these awkward antics of theirs being possibly signs of too much
satisfaction in a bathe for them to show aught like fury, if you didn't
rouse them; so I was slipping quietly round the nearest tree when I
heard the cadets halloing up the hill. The old bull elephant seemed a
dangerous customer to meet, and I was hurrying over the dead grass and
branches to give warning, just as Sir Charles Hyde could be seen coming
down before the rest, his rifle over his shoulder.
"However, he brought up the moment I sang out to stop: both the
elephants were stalking off lower down into the hollow, and I dropped
behind the slab where Tom Wilkes had been roasting his bird, when some
fool of a cadet let drive at the bull elephant from above, hitting him
fair on the front. You heard the rifle-bullet hit slap against it as if
on an anvil: the she elephant made off at a fast trot, but the big brute
himself turned round on the moment, lifting up his trunk straight aloft
with a sharp trumpeting scream through it, and looked round till his
small red eye lighted on the judge, who seemed quite out of breath from
his sport.
'The fire! that fire, for God's sake, Mr Westwood, else I am lost!'
called out Sir Charles, in a calm distinct key from where he stood with
his eye fixed on the elephant, and could see me, too--a moment or two
before the huge round-backed lump of a brute came running round into the
track, stumbling heavily up the dead branches of the fallen trees and
the dry guinea-grass, with a savage roar between his two white
tusks--and I saw what the judge meant just in time to throw over the
whole heap of flaming cocoa-tree husk among the withered grass and stuff
a few yards before the monster, as dry as tinder, while the light air
coming down the gully of the mountain, drove it spreading across his
course up through the twigs, and sweeping in one sudden gust of fire up
to the very end of his trunk. I saw it lift over the smoke like a black
serpent, then another scream from the brute, and away he was charging
into the hollow again, the flame licking up among the grass astern of
him, and darting from one bough to another towards the cane-brake below.
I had scarce drawn a long breath and remembered the devil's own thought
that had come into my head, when the judge called to me, ere he slapped
me on the shoulder.
"'You did nobly there, my dear boy,' said Sir Charles; 'managed it well!
'Gad, it was a crisis, though, Mr Westwood!' 'I'm afraid, however, sir,'
said I, eyeing the crackling bushes, smoking and whitening to a dead
smoulder in the sunlight, then flashing farther down as the hill-breeze
rustled off, 'I'm afraid we shall have the woods burning about our
ears!'
"Down we hurried accordingly, and hailed the cutter, where, scarce had
we leisure to pass a few quick words and tumble in, before I heard a
shout beyond the other turn of the creek, through the end of the lagoon;
then something like the cheep of ropes through blocks, with the bustle
of men's feet on a deck, and next minute a perfect hubbub of cries,
whether Dutch, Portuguese, English, or all together, I couldn't
say--only it wasn't likely the _last_ would kick up such a bother for
nothing. Four or five Kroomen came leaping round and along the float of
logs at the far end, their large straw hats shining in the light over
their jet faces, as they peered across into the lagoon. The minute after
they vanished we saw the white upper spars of a schooner slide above the
farthest of the wood, and her bowsprit shoved past the turn just enough
to show her sharp lead-coloured bow, with the mouth of a gun out of a
port, and a fellow blowing the red end of his match behind it. All at
once the chorus of shouts and cries ceased, and a single voice sang out
along the water, clear, stern, and startling, in bad Portuguese,
'_Queren sieté?_ who are you?' Still we gave no answer, quietly shoving
off as fast as we could, the flicker of the fire in the brake behind the
trees beginning to show itself through the black shade of the lagoon.
'_Queren sieté?_' sang out the voice, louder than before, in a
threatening way, and the logs were knocking and plashing before the
schooner as the Kroomen hauled at them to make an opening. 'Amigos!
Amigos!' hailed we in turn; 'Ingleses, gentlemen!' shouted the cadet who
knew Portuguese, calling to them not to fire, for heaven's sake, else
they would do us some harm. With this, the hubbub was worse than before;
they plainly had some design on us, from the confusion that got up; but
by that time we were pulling hard into the narrow of the river, and took
the fair current of it as soon as the boat was past the falling stream
we had seen before, till we were round into the next reach.
"In fact, the rate we all bent our backs at this time was pretty
different from coming up: the cadets seemed hardly to feel the heat,
fierce and close though it was, at thought of those that might be in our
wake, and nobody spoke a word at ease till at last, after an hour's hard
work, taking it in turns, we came full in sight of the Indiaman at her
anchor on the broad current. The ladies blessed the very ropes hanging
from her bowsprit, and we got safe aboard, where we found the two other
boats had come back long before; and every one of us turned in directly
after sundown, as tired as dogs.
"Well, I didn't suppose I had slept an hour, dreaming terribly wild sort
of dreams about Violet Hyde and elephants, then that I'd saved her
myself, and was stooping to kiss her rosy lips, when a sudden noise on
deck startled me. I shoved myself into my clothes, and rushed on the
quarter-deck. She had gone aground at her stern in swinging in the water
the Portuguese rascal gave her, canted a little over to starboard, away
from the shore; and till morning flood nothing could be done to haul her
off. The fog was rolling down with the land-breeze, and the jabber in
the woods again thickened the confusion, when all at once a dim flash
off the shore glimmered in the white fog, and a round-shot whistled just
astern, pretty well aimed for her bilge, which would have cost us some
work if it had hit. After that, however, there was no more of it, the
fellow probably having spent either all his powder or his balls. As for
his fort, I heard the chief officer swearing he would knock it about his
ears next day--a thing that couldn't have done him much harm, certainly,
unless mud were dear.
"No sooner had the men gone below, leaving the ordinary anchor-watch,
than Mr Finch, to my great surprise, walked up to me, and gave me a
strange suspicious look, hinting that he began to have a good guess of
what I really was, but if anything new of the kind turned up, said he,
he should know better what to say to me. 'Mr Finch,' said I, starting,
'this won't do, sir--you'll either speak your mind before cabin and
cuddy, or to-morrow morning, by Jove! you'll go quietly ashore with me,
sir--as I think, now you remind me of it, we settled to do, already!'
The mate's face whitened, and he eyed me with a glare of malice, as I
turned on my heel and began to walk the quarter-deck till he went below.
"However, the thought of the thing stuck to me, and I kept walking in
the dark to get rid of it: the four or five men of the anchor-watch
shuffling lazily about, and all thick save ahead up the river, where the
land-breeze blew pretty strong, bringing now and then a faint gleam out
of the mist. I was leaning against the fore-chains, listening to the
ebb-time, and thinking, when I saw one of the men creeping in from the
bowsprit, which you just saw, where it ran up thick into the dusk, with
scarce a glimpse of the jib-boom and flying-jib-boom beyond.
"The sailor came up, touching his hat to me, and said he thought he saw
something queer off the boom-end. 'Well,' said I gruffly, 'go and tell
your mate, then.' I didn't know the fellow's voice, though it had a
particular twang in it, and he wasn't in Jacobs' watch, I knew. 'Why,
your honour,' he persisted, 'I knows pretty well what you air--asking
your pardon, sir--but I think you'd make more out of it nor any of the
mates! It's some'at rather skeary, sir,' added he. Accordingly I took
hold of the man-ropes and swung myself up the bowsprit, and had my feet
on the foot-rope below the jib-boom, when I heard his breath, following
behind me. 'Never you trouble yourself, my man,' said I; 'one at a
time!' and back he went in board again--for something curious in his way
struck me; but I wanted to see what he meant. I had just got near the
flying-jib, half-stowed in as it was on the boom, and I fancied, with a
creep of my blood in me, I made out a man's head over the sail; but next
moment a hand like a vice caught me by the throat, and some one growled
out, 'Now ye infernal man-o'-war hound, I have ye--and down you goes for
it!'
"The instant I _felt_ it, my coolness came back; as for grappling, I
couldn't, and the ebb current ran below to her bows at a rate fit to
carry one out to sea in half-an-hour. I saw the whole plot in a
twinkling, and never moved; instead of that I gave a sort of laugh, and
followed the husky twang of the other man to a tee. 'He won't come,
Harry, my lad!' said I, and my ugly friend let go before he had time to
think twice. 'He be blowed!' said Harry, scornfully; 'an' why won't he,
mate?' He had scarce the words out of his mouth, though, ere I took him
a twist that doubled him over the spar, and down he slipped, hanging by
a clutch of the sail. 'I suppose, my fine fellow,' said I, 'you forgot
Fernando Po, and those nigger adventures of yours--eh?' and I went in
without more ado.
"I hadn't been ten minutes on deck, however, when I heard both of them
swearing something or other to the first mate. A little after Finch came
forward to me, with a ship's lantern, and three or four of the men
behind. 'Mr Collins, or whatever's your name, sir,' said he aloud, 'I
believe you've been seen just now at the bowsprit-end, making signals or
something to the shore! You're in arrest at once, sir, and no more about
it!' 'What the deuce!' said I, my blood up, and pulling out a pair of
pocket-pistols I had had in the boat, 'let me see the man to----' At the
moment a blow of a handspike from near the mast laid me senseless on the
deck, and I knew nothing more.--But I see 'tis too far gone in the night
to carry out the yarn, ladies!"