"Mr Newland (the first lieutenant) and I set out early in the day,
accordingly, with a couple of the _Hebe's_ midshipmen, mounted on as
many of the little island ponies, to go up inland for a cruise about the
hills. You take Side Path along the crags, with a wall betwixt the hard
track and the gulf below, till you lose sight of Jamestown like a
cluster of children's toy-houses under you, and turn up above a sloping
hollow full of green trees and tropical-like flowering shrubs, round a
pretty cottage called The Briars--where one begins to have a notion,
however, of the bare blocks, the red bluffs, and the sharp peaks
standing up higher and higher round the shell of the island. Then you
had another rise of it to climb, on which you caught sight of Jamestown
and the harbour again, even smaller than before, and saw nothing before
your beast's head but a desert of stony ground, running hither and
thither into wild staring clefts, grim ravines, and rocks of every size
tumbled over each other like figures of ogres and giants in hard fight.
After two or three miles of all this, we came in view of Longwood Hill,
lying green on a level to north and east, and clipping to windward
against the sea beyond; all round it elsewhere was the thick red crust
of the island, rising in ragged points and sharp spires--the greenish
sugar-loaf of Diana's Peak shooting in the middle over the high ridge
that hid the Plantation House side of St Helena to leeward.
"Between the spot where we were and Longwood is a huge fearful-looking
black hollow, called the Devil's Punch-bowl, as round and deep as a
pitch-pot for caulking all the ships in the world--except on a slope
into one corner of it, where you saw a couple of yellow cottages with
gardens about them; while every here and there a patch of grass began to
appear, a clump of wild weeds and flowers hanging off the fronts of the
rocks, or the head of some valley widening away out of sight, with the
glimpse of a house amongst trees, where some stream of water came
leaping down off the heights and vanished in the boggy piece of green
below. From here over the brow of the track it was all like seeing into
an immense stone basin half-hewn out, with all the lumps and wrinkles
left rising in it and twisting every way about--the black Devil's
Punch-bowl for a hole in the middle, where some infernal liquor or other
had run through; the soft bottoms of the valleys just bringing the whole
of it up distincter to the green over Longwood Hill; while the ragged
heights ran round on every side like a rim with notches in it, and
Diana's Peak for a sort of a handle that the clouds could take hold of.
All this time we had strained ourselves to get as fast up as possible,
except once near the Alarm House, where there was a telegraph
signal-post, with a little guard-hut for the soldiers; but _there_ each
turned round in his saddle, letting out a long breath the next thing to
a cry, and heaving-to directly, at sight of the prospect behind. The
Atlantic lay wide away round to the horizon from the roads, glittering
faint over the ragged edge of the crags we had mounted near at hand;
only the high back of the island shut out the other side--save here and
there through a deep-notched gully or two--and accordingly you saw the
sea blotched out in that quarter to the two sharp bright ends, clasping
the dark-coloured lump between them, like a mighty pair of arms lifting
it high to carry it off. Soon after, however, the two mids took it into
their wise heads the best thing was to go and climb Diana's Peak, where
they meant to cut their names at the very top; on which the first
lieutenant, who was a careful middle-aged man, thought needful to go
with them, lest they got into mischief; for my part, I preferred the
chance of coming across the mysterious Yankee and his comrade, as I
fancied not unlikely, or, what was less to be looked for, a sight of
Bonaparte himself.
"Accordingly, we had parted company, and I was holding single-handed
round one side of the Devil's Punch-bowl, when I heard a clatter of
horse-hoofs on the road, and saw the Admiral and Lord Frederick riding
quickly past on the opposite side, on their way to Longwood--which,
curiously enough, was half-covered with mist at the time, driving down
from the higher hills, apparently before a regular gale, or rather some
kind of a whirlwind. In fact, I learned after, that such was often the
case, the climate up there being quite different from below, where they
never feel a gale from one year's end to the other. In the next hollow I
got into, it was hot and still as it would have been in India, the
blackberry trailers and wild aloes growing quite thick, mixed with
prickly-pear bushes, willows, gumwood, and an African palm or two;
though from the look of the sea, I could notice the southeast trade had
freshened below, promising to blow a good deal stronger that night than
ordinary, and to shift a little round.
"Suddenly the fog began to clear by degrees from over Longwood, till it
was fairly before me, nearer than I thought; and just as I rode up a
rising ground, out came the roof of a house on the slope amongst some
trees, glittering wet as if the sun laid a finger on it; with a low
bluish-coloured stretch of wood farther off, bringing out the white
tents of the soldiers' camp pitched about the edge of it. Nearly to
windward there was one sail in sight on the horizon, over an opening in
the rocks beyond Longwood House, that seemingly let down toward the
coast; however, I just glanced back to notice the telegraph on the
signal-post at work, signalling to the _Podargus_ in the offing, and
next minute Hut's Gate was right ahead of me, not a quarter of a mile
off--a long-shaped bungalow of a cottage, inside of a wall with a gate
in it, where I knew I needn't try farther, unless I wanted the sentries
to take me under arrest. Betwixt me and it, however, in the low ground,
was a party of man-o'war's-men under charge of a midshipman, carrying
some timber and house-furniture for Longwood, as I remembered, from
seeing them come ashore from the _Podargus_ that morning; so I stood
over to give my late shipmates a hail. But the moment I got up with
them, it struck me not a little, as things stood, to find three of the
four blacks we had taken aboard from that said burnt barque of the
American mate's trudging patiently enough under the heaviest loads of
the gang. Jetty-black, savage-looking fellows they were, as strong as
horses, and reminded me more of our wild friends in the Nouries River,
than of States niggers; still, what caught my notice most wasn't so much
their being there at all, as the want of the fourth one, and where _he_
might be. I don't know yet how this trifling bit of a puzzle got hold on
me, but it was the sole thing that kept me from what might have turned a
scrape to myself--namely, passing myself in as officer of the party;
which was easy enough at the time, and the tars would have entered into
the frolic as soon as I started it. On second thoughts, nevertheless, I
bade them good-day, steering my animal away round the slant of the
ground, to see after a good perch as near as possible; and I daresay I
was getting within the bounds before I knew it when another sentry sung
out to me off the heights to keep lower down, first bringing his musket
to salute for my uniform's sake, then letting it fall level with a
ringing slap of his palm, as much as to say it was all the distinction
I'd get over plain clothes.
"At this, of course, I gave it up, with a blessing to all lobster-backs,
and made sail down to leeward again as far as the next rise, from which
there was a full view of the sea, at any rate, though the face of a
rough crag over behind me shut out Longwood House altogether. Here I had
to get fairly off the saddle--rather sore, I must say, with riding up St
Helena roads after so many weeks at sea--and flung myself down on the
grass, with little enough fear of the hungry little beast getting far
adrift. This said crag, by-the-way, drew my eye to it by the queer
colours it showed, white, blue, grey, and bright red in the hot
sunlight; and being too far off to make out clearly, I slung off the
ship's glass I had across my back, just to overhaul it better. The hue
of it was to be seen running all down the deep rift between, that
seemingly wound away into some glen toward the coast; while the lot of
plants and trailers half covering the steep front of it, would no doubt,
I thought, have delighted my old friend the Yankee, if he _was_ the
botanising gentleman in question.
"By this time it was a lovely afternoon far and wide to Diana's Peak,
the sky glowing clearer deep-blue at that height than you'd have thought
sky could do, even in the tropics--the very peaks of bare red rock being
softened into a purple tint, far off round you. One saw into the rough
bottom of the huge Devil's Punch-bowl, and far through without a shadow
down the green patches in the little valleys, and over Deadwood
Camp--there was _nothing_, as it were, between the grass, the ground,
the stones, and leaves, and the empty hollow of the air; while the sea
spread far round underneath, of a softer blue than the sky over you.
You'd have thought all the world was shrunk into St Helena, with the
Atlantic lying three-quarters round it in one's sight, like the horns of
the bright new moon round the dim old one; which St Helena pretty much
resembled, if what the star-gazers say of its surface be true, all
peaks and dry hollows--if, indeed, you weren't lifting up out of the
world, so to speak, when one looked through his fingers right into the
keen blue overhead!
"If I lived a thousand years, I couldn't tell half what I felt lying
there; but, as you may imagine, it had somewhat in it of the late
European war by land and sea. Not that I could have said so at the time,
but rather a sort of half-doze, such as I've known one have when a
schoolboy, lying on the green grass the same way, with one's face turned
up into the hot summer heavens; half of it flying glimpses, as it were,
of the French Revolution, the battles we used to hear of when we were
children--then the fears about the invasion, with the Channel full of
British fleets, and Dover Cliffs--Trafalgar and Nelson's death, and the
battle of Waterloo, just after we heard _he_ had got out of Elba. In the
terrible flash of the thing altogether, one almost fancied them all gone
like smoke; and for a moment I thought I was falling away off, _down_
into the wide sky, so up I started to sit. From that, suddenly I took to
guessing and puzzling closely again how I should go to work myself, if I
were the strange Frenchman I saw in the brig at sea, and wanted to
manage Napoleon's escape out of St Helena. And first, there was how to
get into the island and put _him_ up to the scheme--why, sure enough, I
couldn't have laid it down better than they seemed to have done all
along: what could one do but just dodge about that latitude under all
sorts of false rig, then catch hold of somebody fit to cover one's
landing? No Englishman _would_ do it, and no foreigner but would set Sir
Hudson Lowe on his guard in a moment. Next we should have to get put on
the island--and really a neat enough plan it was to dog one of the very
cruisers themselves, knock up a mess of planks and spars in the
night-time, set them all ablaze with tar, and pretend we were fresh from
a craft on fire; when even Captain Wallis of the _Podargus_, as it
happened, was too much of a British seaman not to carry us straight to
St Helena! Again, I must say it was a touch beyond me; but to hit the
Governor's notions of a hobby, and go picking up plants round Longwood,
was a likely enough way to get speech of the prisoner, or at least let
him see one was there!
"How should I set about carrying him off to the coast, though? That was
the prime matter. Seeing that even if the schooner--which was no doubt
hovering out of sight--were to make a bold dash for the land with the
trade-wind, in a night eleven hours long--there were sentries close
round Longwood from sunset, the starlight shining mostly always in the
want of a moon; and at any rate there was rock and gully enough, betwixt
here and the coast, to try the surest foot aboard the _Hebe_, let alone
an emperor. With plenty of woods for a cover, one might steal up close
to Longwood, but the bare rocks showed you off to be made a mark of.
Whew! but why were those same blacks on the island? I thought; just
strip them stark-naked, and let them lie in the Devil's Punch-bowl, or
somewhere, beyond military hours, when I warrant me they might slip up,
gully by gully, to the very sentries' backs! Their colour wouldn't show
them, and savages as they seemed, couldn't they settle as many sentries
as they needed, creep into the very bed-chamber where Bonaparte slept,
and man-handle him bodily away down through some of the nearest hollows,
before anyone was the wiser? The point that still bothered me was, why
the fourth of the blacks was wanting at present, unless he had his part
to play elsewhere. If it was chance, then the _whole_ might be a notion
of mine, which I knew I was apt to have sometimes. If I could only make
out the fourth black, so as to tally with the scheme, on the other hand,
then I thought it was all sure; but of course this quite checked me, and
I gave it up, to work out my fancy case by providing signals betwixt us
plotters inside and the schooner out of sight from the telegraphs.
"There was no use for her to run in and take the risk, without good luck
having turned up on the island; yet any sign she could profit by must be
both sufficient to reach sixty miles or so, and hidden enough not to
alarm the telegraphs or the cruisers. Here was a worse puzzle than all,
and I only guessed at it for my own satisfaction--as a fellow can't help
doing when he hears a question he can't answer--till my eye lighted on
Diana's Peak, near three thousand feet above the sea. There it was, by
Jove! 'Twas quite clear at the time; but by nightfall there was always
more or less cloud near the top; and if you set a fire on the very peak,
'twould only be seen leagues off: a notion that brought to mind a
similar thing which I told you saved the Indiaman from a lee-shore one
night on the African coast--and again, by George! I saw _that_ must have
been meant at first by the negroes as a smoke to help the French brig
easier in! Putting that and that together, why it struck me at once what
the fourth black's errand might be--namely, to watch for the schooner,
and kindle his signal as soon as he couldn't see the island for mist, I
was sure of it; and as for a dark night coming on at sea, the freshening
of the breeze there promised nothing more likely; a bright white haze
was softening out the horizon already, and here and there the egg of a
cloud could be seen to break off the sky to windward, all of which would
be better known afloat than here.
"The truth was, I was on the point of tripping my anchor to hurry down
and get aboard again, but, on standing up, the head of a peak fell below
the sail I had noticed in the distance, and, seeing she loomed large on
the stretch of water, I pretty soon found she must be a ship of the
line. The telegraph over the Alarm House was hard at work again, so I
e'en took down my glass and cleaned it to have a better view, during
which I caught sight, for a minute, of some soldier-officer or other on
horseback, with a mounted red-coat behind him, riding hastily up the
gully a good bit from my back, till they were round the red piece of
crag, turning at times as if to watch the vessel. Though I couldn't have
a better spy at him for want of my glass, I had no doubt he was the
Governor himself, for the sentries in the distance took no note of him.
"There was nobody else visible at the time, and the said cliff stood
fair up like a look-out place, so as to shut them out as they went
higher. Once or twice after, I fancied I made out a man's head or two
lower down the gully than the cliff was, which, it occurred to me, might
possibly be the botanists, as they called themselves, busy finding out
how long St Helena had been an island; however, I soon turned the glass
before me upon the ship, by this time right opposite the ragged opening
of Prosperous Bay, and heading well up about fourteen miles or so off
the coast, as I reckoned, to make Jamestown harbour. The moment I had
the sight of the glass right for her--though you'd have thought she
stood still on the smooth soft blue water--I could see her whole beam
rise off the swells before me, from the dark side and white band,
checkered with a double row of ports, to the hamper of her lofty
spars, and the sails braced slant to the breeze, the foam gleaming
under her high bows, and her wake running aft in the heave of the
sea. She was evidently a seventy-four; I fancied I could make out
her men's faces peering over the yards toward the island, as they
thought of 'Boneypart'; a white rear-admiral's flag was at the
mizzen-royal-mast-head, leaving no doubt she was the _Conqueror_ at
last, with Admiral Plampin, and, in a day or two at farthest, the _Hebe_
would be bound for India.
"I had just looked over my shoulder toward Longwood, letting the
_Conqueror_ sink back again into a thing no bigger than a model on a
mantelpiece, when, all at once, I saw someone standing near the brow of
the cliff I mentioned, apparently watching the vessel, with a long glass
at his eye, like myself. 'Twas farther than I could see to make out
anything, save so much; and, ere I had screwed the glass for such a near
sight, there were seven or eight figures more appearing half over the
slope behind; while my hand shook so much with holding the glass so
long, that at first I brought it to bear full on the cracks and blocks
in the front of the crag, with the large green leaves and trailers on it
flickering idly with the sunlight against my eyes, till I could have
seen the spiders inside, I daresay. Next I held it too high, where the
Admiral and Lord Frederick were standing by their horses, a good way
back; the Governor, as I supposed, sitting on his, and two or three
others along the rise. At length, what with kneeling down to rest it on
one knee, I had the glass steadily fixed on the brow of the rocks, where
I plainly saw a tall dark-whiskered man, in a rich French uniform,
gazing to seaward--I knew him I sought too well by pictures, however,
not to be sadly galled.
"Suddenly a figure came slowly down from before the rest, with his hands
behind his back, and his head a little drooped. The officer at once
lowered the telescope and held it to him, stepping upward, as if to
leave him alone--what dress he had on I scarce noticed; but there he was
standing, single, in the round bright field of the glass I had hold of
like a vice--his head raised, his hands hiding his face, as he kept the
telescope fixed fair in front of me--only I saw the smooth, broad round
of his chin. I knew, as if I'd seen him in the Tuileries at Paris, or
known him by sight since I was a boy--I _knew_ it was Napoleon!
"During that minute the rest of them were out of sight, so far as the
glass went--you'd have supposed there was no one there but himself, as
still as a figure in iron, watching the same thing, no doubt, as I'd
done myself five minutes before, where the noble seventy-four was
beating slowly to windward. When I _did_ glance to the knot of officers
twenty yards back, 'twas as if one saw a ring of his generals waiting
respectfully while he eyed some field of battle or other, with his army
at the back of the hill; but next moment the telescope fell in his
hands, and his face, as pale as death, with his lip firm under it,
seemed near enough for me to touch it--his eyes shot stern into me from
below his wide white forehead, and I started, dropping my glass in turn.
That instant the whole wild lump of St Helena, with its ragged brim, the
clear blue sky and the sea, swung round about the dwindled figures above
the crag, till they were nothing but so many people together against the
slope beyond.
"'Twas a strange scene to witness, let me tell you; never can I forget
the sightless, thinking sort of gaze from that head of his, after the
telescope sank from his eye, when the _Conqueror_ must have shot back
with all her stately hamper into the floor of the Atlantic again!
"Once more I brought my spy-glass to bear on the place where he had
been, and was almost on the point of calling out to warn him off the
edge of the cliff, forgetting the distance I was away. Napoleon had
stepped, with one foot before him, on the very brink, his two hands
hanging loose by his side, with the glass in one of them, till the
shadow of his small black cocked hat covered the hollows of his eyes,
and he stood, as it were, looking down past the face of the precipice.
What he thought of, no mortal tongue can say, whether he was master at
the time over a wilder battle than any he'd ever fought--but just then,
what was the surprise it gave me to see the head of a man, with a red
tasselled cap on it, raised through amongst the ivy from below, while he
seemed to have his feet on the cracks and juts of the rock, hoisting
himself by one hand round the tangled roots, till no doubt he must have
looked right aloft into the French Emperor's face; and perhaps he
whispered something--though, for my part, it was all dumb show to me,
where I knelt peering into the glass. I saw even _him_ start at the
suddenness of the thing--he raised his head upright, still glancing down
over the front of the crag, with the spread hand lifted, and the side of
his face half-turned toward the party within earshot behind, where the
Governor and the rest apparently kept together out of respect, no doubt
watching both Napoleon's back and the ship of war far beyond. The keen
sunlight on the spot brought out every motion of the two in front--the
_one_ so full in my view, that I could mark his look settle again on the
other below, his firm lips parting and his hand out before him, like a
man seeing a spirit he knew; while a bunch of leaves on the end of a
wand came stealing up from the stranger's post to Napoleon's very
fingers.
"The head of the man on the cliff turned round seaward for one moment,
ticklish as his footing must have been; then he looked back, pointing
with his loose hand to the horizon--there was one minute between them
without a motion, seemingly--the captive Emperor's chin was sunk on his
breast, though you'd have said his eyes glanced up out of the shadow of
his forehead; and the stranger's red cap hung like a bit of the
bright-coloured cliff, under his two hands, holding amongst the leaves.
Then I saw Napoleon lift his hand calmly, he gave a sign with it--it
might have been refusing, it might have been agreeing, or it might be
farewell, I never expect to know; but he folded his arms across his
breast, with the bunch of leaves in his fingers, and stepped slowly back
from the brink towards the officers. I was watching the stranger below
it, as he swung there for a second or two, in a way like to let him go
dash to the bottom; his face sluing wildly seaward again. Short though
the glance I had of him was--his features set hard in some bitter
feeling or other, his dress different, too, besides the moustache being
off, and his complexion no doubt purposely darkened--it served to prove
what I'd suspected: he was no other than the Frenchman I had seen in the
brig, and, mad or sensible, the very look I caught was more like that he
faced the thunder squall with than aught besides. Directly after, he was
letting himself carefully down with his back to my glass; the party
above were moving off over the brow of the crags, and the Governor
riding round apparently to come once more down the hollow between us.
"In fact, the seventy-four had stood by this time so far in, that the
peaks in the distance shut her out; but I ran the glass carefully along
the whole horizon in my view, for signs of the schooner. The haze was
too bright, however, to make sure either way; though, dead to windward,
there were some streaks of cloud risen with the breeze, where I once or
twice fancied I could catch the gleam of a speck in it. The _Podargus_
was to be seen through a notch in the rocks, too, beating out in a
different direction, as if the telegraph had signalled her elsewhere;
after which you heard the dull rumble of the forts saluting the
_Conqueror_ down at Jamestown as she came in; and being late in the
afternoon, it was high time for me to crowd sail downward, to fall in
with my shipmates.
"I was just getting near the turn into Side Path, accordingly, after a
couple of mortal hours' hard riding, and once more in sight of the
harbour beneath, when the three of them overtook me, having managed to
reach the top of Diana's Peak, as they meant. The first lieutenant was
full of the grand views on the way, with the prospect of the peak, where
one saw the sea all round St Helena like a ring, and the sky over you as
blue as blue water. 'But what do you think we saw on the top, Mr
Collins?' asked one of the urchins of me--a mischievous imp he was
himself, too, pock-marked, with hair like a brush, and squinted like a
ship's two hawse-holes. 'Why, Mister Snelling,' said I, gruffly--for I
knew him pretty well already, and he was rather a favourite with me for
his sharpness, though you may suppose I was thinking of no trifles at
the moment--'why, the devil, perhaps.' 'I must say I thought at first it
was him, sir,' said the reefer, grinning; ''twas a black nigger, though,
sir, sitting right on the very truck of it, with his hands on his two
knees, and we'd got to shove him off before we could dig our knives into
it!' '_By_ the Lord Harry!' I rapped out, 'the very thing that----'
''Twas really the case, though, Mr Collins,' said the first lieutenant;
'and I thought it curious; but there are so many negroes in the island.'
'If you please, sir,' put in the least of the mids, 'perhaps they
haven't all of 'em room to meditate, sir!' 'Or sent to the mast-head,
eh, Roscoe?' said Snelling. 'Which you'll be, sirrah,' broke in the
first lieutenant, 'the moment I get aboard, if you don't keep a small
helm.' We were clattering down over Jamestown by this time, the sun
blazing red off the horizon, into it and the doors of the houses, and
the huge hull and spars of the _Conqueror_ almost blocking up the
harbour, as she lay anchored outside the Indiaman. The evening gun fired
as we pulled aboard the _Hebe_, which immediately got under weigh by
order, although Lord Frederick was not come down yet; but it fell to her
turn that night to supply a guard-boat to windward, and she stood up
under full sail round Sugarloaf Point, just as the dusk fell like a
shadow over the island.
"The _Newcastle's_ boat was on the leeward coast that night, and one of
our cutters was getting ready to lower, nearly off Prosperous Bay, to
windward, while the frigate herself would hold farther out to sea. One
of the master's mates should have taken the cutter; but after giving the
first lieutenant a few hints as far as I liked to go, I proposed to go
in charge of her that time, myself--which was laid to the score of my
freshness on the station; and the mate being happy to get rid of a
tiresome duty, I got leave at once.
"The sharp midshipman, Snelling, took it into his ugly head to keep me
company, and away we pulled into hearing of the surf. The moment things
took the shape of fair work, in fact, I lost all thoughts of a late
kind. In place of seeing the ragged heights against the sky, and musing
all sorts of notions about the French Emperor, there was nothing but the
broad bulk of the island high over us, the swell below, and the sea
glimmering wide from our gunwale to the stars; so no sooner did we lose
sight of the _Hebe_ slowly melting into the gloom, than I lit a cheroot,
gave the tiller to the mid, and sat stirring to the heart at the thought
of something to come, I scarce knew what. As for Bonaparte, with all
that belonged to him, 'twas little to me in that mood, in spite of what
I'd seen during the day, compared with a snatch of old Channel times;
the truth was, next morning I'd feel for him again.
"The night for a good while was pretty tolerably starlit, and in a sort
of way you could make out a good distance. One time we pulled right
round betwixt the two points, though slowly enough; then again the men
lay on their oars, letting her float in with the long swells, till the
surf could be heard too loud for a safe berth. Farther on in the night,
however, it got to be dark--below at least--the breeze holding steady,
and bringing it thicker and thicker; at last it was so black all round
that on one side you just _knew_ the rocks over you, with the help of a
faint twinkle of stars right aloft. On the other side there was only, at
times, the two lights swinging at the mast-head of the _Podargus_ and
_Hebe_, far apart, and one farther to sea than the other; or now and
then their stern-window and a port, when the heave of the water lifted
them, or the ships yawed a little. One hour after another, it was
wearisome enough waiting for nothing at all, especially in the key one
was in at the time, and with a long tropical night before you.
"All of a sudden, fairly between the brig and the frigate, I fancied I
caught a glimpse for one moment of another twinkle; then it was out
again, and I had given it up, when I was certain I saw it plainly once
more, as well as a third time, for as short a space as before. We were
off a cove in the coast, inside Prosperous Bay, where a bight in the
rocks softened the force of the surf, not far from the steep break where
one of these same narrow gullies came out--a good deal short of the
shore, indeed; but I knew by this time it led up somewhere toward the
Longwood side. Accordingly the idea struck me of a plan to set agoing,
whether I hit upon the right place or not; if it _was_ the schooner, she
would be coming down right from windward, on the look-out for a signal,
as well as for the spot to aim at; the thing was to lure her boat ashore
there before their time, seize her crew, and take the schooner herself
by surprise, as if we were coming back all right; since signal the ships
we couldn't, and the schooner would be wary as a dolphin.
"No sooner said than done. I steered cautiously for the cove, fearfully
though the swell bore in, breaking over the rocks outside of it; and the
reefer and I had to spring one after the other for our lives, just as
the bowman prized her off into the back-wash.
"As for the cutter, it would spoil all to keep her off thereabouts; and
I knew, if a boat did come in of the kind I guessed, why she wouldn't
lay herself out for strength of crew. Snelling and I were well armed
enough to manage half-a-dozen, if they fancied us friends; so I ordered
the men to pull clear off for an hour, at least leaving fair water. In
fact there were sentries about the heights, I was aware, if they could
have heard or seen us; but the din of the surf, the dark, and the
expectation of the thing, set us both upon our mettle; while I showed
the boat's lantern every now and then, like the light I had noticed,
such as the Channel smugglers use every thick night on our own coast. I
suppose we might have waited five or ten minutes when the same twinkle
was to be caught, dipping dark down into the swell again, about opposite
the cove; next we had half-an-hour more, every now and then giving them
a flash of the lantern, when suddenly the reefer said he saw oars
glisten over a swell, which he knew weren't man-o'-war's strokes, or
else the fellows ought to have their grog stopped. I had the lantern in
my hand, slipping the shade once more, and the other to feel for my
cutlass-hilt, when the mid gave a cry behind me, and I turned just in
time to see the dark figure of a black spring off the stones at our
backs. One after another three or four more came leaping past me out of
the gloom--the Frenchman's red cap and his dark fierce face glared on me
by the light of the lantern; and next moment it was down, with him and
me in a deadly struggle over it in the thick black of the night.
Suddenly I felt myself lose hold of him in the heave of the swell,
washing away back off the rock; then something else trying to clutch me,
when down I swept with the sea bubbling into my mouth and ears.
"I came up above water again by the sheer force of the swell, as it
seemed to me, plunging into the shore; with the choice, I thought, of
either being drowned in the dark, or knocked to a jelly on the rocks;
but out I struck, naturally enough, rising on the huge scud of the sea,
and trying to breast it, though I felt it sweep me backwards at every
stroke, and just saw the wide glimmer of it heave far and wide for a
moment against the gloom of the cliffs behind. All at once, in the
trough, I heard the panting of someone's breath near alongside of me,
and directly after I was caught hold of by the hair of the head,
somebody else grabbing at the same time for my shoulder. We weren't
half-a-dozen fathoms from the stranger's boat, the blacks who had fallen
foul of me swimming manfully together, and the boat lifting bow-on to
the run of the sea, as her crew looked about for us by the light of
their lantern. I had just got my senses enough about me to notice so
much, when they were hauling me aboard; all four of the negroes holding
on with one hand by the boat's gunnel, and helping their way with the
other; while the oars began to make for the light, which was still to be
caught by fits, right betwixt those of the two cruisers, as the space
widened slowly in the midst of them, standing out to sea. Scarce had I
time to feel some one beside me as wet as myself, whether the reefer or
the Frenchman I didn't know, when crash came another boat with her bows
fairly down upon our gunwale, out of the dark.
"The spray splashed up betwixt us, I saw the glitter of the oar-blades,
and heard Snelling's shrill voice singing out to 'sink the villains, my
lads--down with 'em--remember the second lieutenant!' The lantern in the
French boat flared, floating out for a single instant amongst a wreck of
staves and heads, bobbing wildly together on the side of a wave. One of
my own men from the cutter pulled me by the cuff of the neck off the
crest of it with his boat-hook, as it rose swelling away past, till I
had fast grip of her quarter; the blacks could be seen struggling in the
hollow, to keep up their master's body, with his hands spread helplessly
hither and thither above water. The poor devils' wet black faces turned
so wistfully, in their desperation, towards the cutter, that I gasped
out to save him. They kept making towards us, in fact, and the bowman
managed to hook him at last, though not a moment too soon, for the next
heave broke the unlucky wretches apart, and we lost sight of them; the
cutter hanging on her oars till they had both him and me stowed into the
stern-sheets, where the Frenchman lay seemingly dead or senseless, and I
spitting out the salt water like a cockney after a bathe.
"'Why, Mr Snelling,' said I, as soon as I came fully to myself, 'I can't
at all understand how I got into the water.' 'Nor I either, sir,' said
he; 'I'll be hanged, sir, if I didn't think it was a whirlwind of
niggers off the top of Diana's Peak, seeing I made out the very one we
found there this afternoon--the four of them took you and this other
gentleman up in their arms in a lump, as you were floundering about
together, and took to the water like so many seals, sir!' I looked down
into the Frenchman's face, where he lay stretched with his head back
and his hair dripping. 'Is he gone?' said I. 'Well, sir,' said the mid,
who had contrived to light the lantern again, 'I'm afraid he's pretty
near it. Is he a friend of yours, sir?--I thought as much, by-the-way,
you caught him the moment you clapped eyes on each other, sir.'
'Silence, sirrah!' said I. 'D'ye see anything of the light to seaward?'
"For a minute or two we peered over the swells into the dark, to catch
the twinkle of the signal again, but to no purpose; and I began to think
the bird was flown. All of a sudden, however, there it was once more,
dipping as before beyond the heave of the sea, and between the backs of
it, sliding across the open space, with the blind side to the cruisers.
'Hallo, my lads!' said I, quickly, and giving myself another shake as I
seized the tiller, 'give way seaward--stretch your backs for ten
minutes, and we have her!' We were pulling right for the spot, when the
light vanished, but a show of our lantern brought it gleaming fairly out
again, till I could even catch a glimpse by it of some craft or other's
hull, and the iron of one boom-end, rising over the swells. 'Bow-oar,
there!' whispered I. 'Stand by, my lad, and look sharp!' 'Hola!' came a
short, sharp hail over the swells, '_d'où venez-vous?_' '_Oui, oui!_' I
sang out boldly, through my hand, to cover the difference as much as
possible; then a thought occurred to me, recollecting the French
surgeon's words on board this very craft the first time we saw her--'De
la cage de l'_Aigle_,' I hailed; 'bonne fortune, mes amis!' 'C'est
possible! c'est possible, mon capitaine!' shouted several of the
schooner's crew, jumping upon her bulwarks, 'que vous apportez
_lui-même_?'
"We are pulling for her side as lubberly as possible, all the time--a
man ran up on her quarter with a coil of line ready to heave--but still
the main boom of the schooner was already jibbing, her helm up, and she
under way; they seemed half doubtful of us, and another moment might
turn the scales. 'Vite, vite!' roared I, choosing my French at hap
hazard. 'Oui, oui, jettez votre corde--venez au lof, mes amis!'--luff,
that was to say. I heard somebody aboard say it was the American--the
schooner came up in the wind, the line whizzing off her quarter into our
bows, and we came sheering down close by her lee-quarter, grinding
against her bends in the surge, twenty eager faces peering over at us in
the confusion; when I sung out hoarsely to run for brandy and hot
blankets, as he was half-drowned. 'Promptement--promptement, mes amis!'
shouted I, and as quickly there was a rush from her bulwarks to bring
what was wanted, while Snelling and I made dash up her side, followed by
the men, cutlass in hand. Three minutes of hubbub, and as many strokes
betwixt us, when we had driven the few that stood in our way pell-mell
down the nearest hatchway. The schooner was completely our own.
"We hoisted up the cutter, with the French captain still stretched in
the stern-sheet--hauled aft the schooner's headsheets, let her large
mainsail swing full again, and were soon standing swiftly out toward the
light at the frigate's mast-head.
"When the _Hebe_ first caught sight of us, or rather heard the sound of
the schooner's sharp bows rushing through the water, she naturally
enough didn't know what to make of us. I noticed our first luff's sudden
order to clear away the foremost weather-gun, with the rush of the men
for it; but my hail set all to rights. We hove-to off her weather
quarter, and I was directly after on board, explaining, as simply as
possible, how we had come to get a hold of a French craft thereabouts in
such a strange fashion.
"Accordingly, you may fancy the surprise at Jamestown in the morning, to
see the _Hebe_ standing in with her prize, let alone the Governor's
perfect astonishment at suspecting some scheme to carry off Napoleon,
apparently, so far brought to a head. The upshot of it was, to cut this
bit of my story short, he and the military folks would have it, at last,
that there was nothing of the kind, but only some slaver from the
African coast wanting to land a cargo, especially as there were so many
blacks aboard of her; and the Frenchman at once took the cue, the little
Monsieur of a mate swearing he had been employed by several of the
islanders some months before to bring them slaves. For my own part, all
things considered, I had nothing to say, and after some likelihood of a
shine being kicked up about it at first, the matter was hushed up.
However, the schooner was of course condemned in the meantime, as the
_Hebe's_ fair prize, till such time as the Admiralty Court at the Cape
should settle it on our outward-bound voyage.
"As the _Hebe_ was to sail at once for India, the Governor took the
opportunity to send two or three supernumeraries out in the vessel along
with us to the Cape of Good Hope, amongst whom was the Yankee botanist;
and though being in the frigate I didn't see him, I made as sure as if I
had, it was my old shipmate Daniel.
"Well, the morning came, when we weighed anchor from St James's Bay for
sea, in company with the prize. It wasn't more than ten or eleven days
since we had arrived in the _Podargus_, but I was as weary with the
sight of St Helena as if I'd lived there a year. The frigate's lovely
hull, and her taut spars, spreading the square stretch of her white
canvas sideways to the Trade, put new life into me. Slowly as we dropped
the peaks of the island on our lee-quarter, 'twas something to feel
yourself travelling the same road as the Indiaman once more, with the
odds of a mail coach, too, to a French diligence. What chance might turn
up to bring us together, I certainly didn't see; but that night, when we
and the schooner were the only things in the horizon, both fast
plunging, close-hauled, on a fresh breeze, at the distance of a mile, I
set my mind, for the first time, more at ease. 'Luck and the anchors
stowed!' thought I, 'and hang all forethoughts!' I walked the weather
quarter-deck in my watch as pleasantly as might be, with now and then a
glance forward at Snelling, as he yarned at the fife-rail beside a
groggy old mate, and at times a glimmer of the schooner's hull on our
lee-beam, rising wet out of the dusk, under charge of our third
lieutenant.
"It was about a week afterwards, and we began to have rough touches of
Cape weather, pitching away on cross seas, and handing our gallant-sails
oftener of a night, that Lord Frederick said to me one evening, before
going down to his cabin, 'Mr Collins, I really hope we shall not find
your Indiaman at Cape Town, after all!' 'Indeed, Lord Frederick!' said I
respectfully enough; but it was the very thing I hoped myself. 'Yes,
sir,' continued he; 'as I received strict injunctions by Admiral Plampin
to arrest Lieutenant Westwood if we fell in with her there, and
otherwise, to send the schooner in her track, even if it were to
Bombay.' 'The deuce!' I thought, 'are we never to be done with this
infernal affair?' ''Tis excessively disagreeable,' continued the
captain, swinging his gold eyeglass round his finger by the chain, as
was his custom when bothered, and looking with one eye all the while at
the schooner. 'A beautiful craft, by-the-way, Mr Collins,' said he,
'even within sight of the _Hebe_.' 'She is so, my lord,' said I; 'if she
had only had a sensible boatswain, even, to put the sticks aloft in
her.' 'I say, Mr Collins,' went on his lordship, musingly, 'I think I
have it, though--the way to get rid of this scrape!'
"I waited and waited, however, for Lord Frederick to mention this; and
to no purpose, apparently, as he went below without saying a word more
about it."