endurance was at an end. Springing up with flaming cheeks he leapt
towards the bully, and putting in practice the methods he had learnt in
many a hard-fought mill at Mr. Burslem's school, he began to punish the
offender. His muscles were in good condition; Parmiter was too much
addicted to grog to make a steady pugilist; and though he was naturally
much the stronger man, he was totally unable to cope with his agile
antagonist. A few rounds settled the matter; Parmiter had to confess
that he had had enough, and Desmond, flinging his breeches to him, sat
down tingling among his mates, who greeted the close of the fight with
spontaneous and unrestrained applause.
Next day Parmiter was in the foretop splicing the forestay. Desmond was
walking along the deck when suddenly he felt his arm clutched from
behind, and he was pulled aside so violently by Bulger's hook that he
stumbled and fell at full length. At the same moment something struck
the deck with a heavy thud.
"By thunder! 'twas a narrow shave," said Bulger. "See that, matey?"
Looking in the direction Bulger pointed, he saw that the foretopsail
sheet block had fallen on deck, within an inch of where he would have
been but for the intervention of Bulger's hook. Glancing aloft, he saw
Parmiter grinning down at him.
"Hitch that block to a halyard, youngster," said the man.
Desmond was on the point of refusing; the man, he thought, might at
least have apologised: but reflecting that a refusal would entail a
complaint to the captain, and subsequent punishment, he bit his lips,
fastened the block, and went on his way.
"'Tis my belief 'twas no accident," said Bulger afterwards. "I may be
wrong, but Parmiter bears a grudge against you. And he and that there
Mr. Diggle is too thick by half. I never could make out why Diggle
diddled you about that supercargo business; he don't mean you no
kindness, you may be sure; and when you see two villains like him and
Parmiter puttin' their heads together, look out for squalls, that's what
I say."
Desmond was inclined to laugh; the idea seemed preposterous.
"Why are you so suspicious of Mr. Diggle?" he said. "He has not kept his
promise, that's true, and I am sorry enough I ever listened to him. But
that doesn't prove him to be an out-and-out villain. I've noticed that
you keep out of his way. Do you know anything of him? Speak out
plainly, man."
"Well, I'll tell you what I knows about him." He settled himself
against the mast, gave a final polish to his hook with holy-stone, and,
using the hook every now and then to punctuate his narrative, began:
"Let me see, 'twas a matter o' three years ago. I was bosun on the
_Swallow_, a spanker she was, chartered by the Company, London to
Calcutta. There was none of the doldrums that trip, dodged 'em fair an'
square; a topsail breeze to the Cape, and then the fust of the monsoon
to the Hugli. We lay maybe a couple of months at Calcutta, when what
should I do but take aboard a full dose of the cramp, just as the
_Swallow_ was in a manner of speakin' on the wing. Not but what it
sarved me right, for what business had I at my time of life to be
wastin' shore-leave by poppin' at little dicky birds in the dirty slimy
jheels, as they call 'em, round about Calcutta! Well, I was put ashore,
as was on'y natural, and 'twas a marvel I pulled through--for it en't
many as take the cramp in Bengal and live to tell of it. The Company,
I'll say that for 'em, was very kind; I had the best o' nussin' and
vittles; but when I found my legs again there I was, as one might say,
high and dry, for there was no Company's ship ready to sail. So I got
leave to sign on a country ship, bound for Canton; and we dropped down
the Hugli with enough opium on board to buy up the lord mayor and a
baker's dozen of aldermen.
"Nearly half a mile astern was three small country ships, such as might
creep round the coast to Chittagong, dodgin' the pirates o' the
Sandarbands if they was lucky, and gettin' their weazands slit if they
wasn't. They drew less water than us, and was generally handier in the
river, which is uncommon full o' shoals and sandbanks; but for all that
I remember they was still maybe half a mile astern when we dropped
anchor--anchors I should say--for the night, some way below Diamond
Harbour. But to us white men the ways o' these Moors[#] is always a bag
o' mystery, and as seamen they en't anyhow of much account. Well, it
might be about seven bells, and my watch below, when I was woke by a
most tremenjous bangin' and hullabaloo. We tumbles up mighty sharp, and
well we did, for there was one of these country fellows board and board
with us, and another foulin' our hawser. Their grapnels came whizzin'
aboard; but the first lot couldn't take a hold nohow, and she dropped
down stream. That gave us a chance to be ready for the other. She got
a grip of us and held on like a shark what grabs you by the legs. But
pistols and pikes had been sarved out, and when they came bundlin' over
into the foc'sle, we bundled 'em back into the Hugli, and you may be
sure they wasn't exactly seaworthy when they got there. They was a
mixed lot; that we soon found out by their manner o' swearin' as they
slipped by the board, for although there was Moors among 'em most of 'em
was Frenchies or Dutchmen, and considerin' they wasn't Englishmen they
made a good fight of it. But over they went, until only a few was left;
and we was just about to finish 'em off, when another country ship
dropped alongside, and before we knew where we was a score of yellin'
ruffians was into the waist and rushin' us in the stern-sheets, as you
might say. We had to fight then, by thunder! we did.
[#] The natives of India were thus called by Englishmen in the 18th
century.
"The odds was against us now, and we was catchin' it from two sides.
But our blood was up, and we knew what to expect if they beat us. 'Twas
the Hugli for every man Jack of us, and no mistake. There was no
orders, every man for himself, with just enough room and no more to see
the mounseer in front of him. Some of us--I was one of 'em--fixed the
flints of the pirates for'ard, while the rest faced round and kept the
others off. Then we went at 'em, and as they couldn't all get at us at
the same time owing to the deck being narrow, the odds was not so bad
arter all. 'Twas now hand to hand, fist to fist, one for you and one
for me; you found a Frenchman and stuck to him till you finished him
off, or he finished you, as the case might be, in a manner of speakin'.
Well, I found one lanky chap--he was number four that night, and all in
ten minutes as it were; I jabbed a pike at him, and missed, for it was
hard to keep footin' on the wet deck, though the wet was not Hugli
water; thick as it is, this was thicker--and he fired a pistol at me by
way of thank you. I saw his figure-head in the flash, and I shan't
forget it either, for he left me this to remember him by, though I
didn't know it at the time."
Here Bulger held up the iron hook that did duty for his left forearm.
Then, glancing cautiously round, he added in a whisper:
"'Twas Diggle--or I'm a Dutchman. That was my fust meetin' with him.
Of course, I'm in a way helpless now, being on the ship's books, and he
in a manner of speakin' an officer; but one of these days there'll be a
reckonin', or my name en't Bulger."
The sailor brought down his fist with a resounding whack on the scuttle
butt, threatening to stave in the top of the barrel.
"And how did the fight end?" asked Desmond.
"We drove 'em back bit by bit, and fairly wore 'em down. They warn't
all sailormen, or we couldn't have done it, for they had the numbers;
but an Englishman on his own ship is worth any two furriners--aye, half
a dozen some do say, though I wouldn't go so far as that myself--and at
the last some of them turned tail an' bolted back. The ship's boy, what
was in the shrouds, saw 'em on the run and set up a screech: 'Hooray!
hooray!' That was all we wanted. We hoorayed too; and went at 'em in
such a slap-bang go-to-glory way that in a brace of shakes there warn't
a Frenchman, a Dutchman, nor a Moor on board. They cut the grapnels and
floated clear, and next mornin' we saw 'em on their beam ends on a
sandbank a mile down the river. That's how I fust come acrost Mr.
Diggle; I may be wrong, but I says it again: look out for squalls."
For some days the wind held fair, and the ship being now in the main
track of the trades, all promised well for a quick run to the Cape. But
suddenly there was a change; a squall struck the vessel from the
south-west. Captain Barker, catching sight of Desmond and a seaman near
at hand, shouted:
"Furl the top-gallant sail, you two. Now show a leg, or, by thunder,
the masts will go by the board."
Springing up the shrouds on the weather side, Desmond was quickest
aloft. He crawled out on the yard, the wind threatening every moment to
tear him from his dizzy rocking perch, and began with desperate energy
to furl the straining canvas. It was hard work, and but for the
development of his muscles during the past few months, and a naturally
cool head, the task would have been beyond his powers. But setting his
teeth and exerting his utmost strength, he accomplished his share of it
as quickly as the able seaman on the lee yard.
The sail was half furled when all at once the mast swung through a huge
arc; the canvas came with tremendous force against the cross-trees; and
Desmond, flung violently outwards, found himself swinging in mid-air,
clinging desperately to the leech of the sail. With a convulsive
movement he grasped at a loose gasket above him, and catching a grip
wound it twice or thrice round his arm. The strain was intense; the
gasket was thin and cut deeply into the flesh; he knew that should it
give way nothing could save him. So he hung, the wind howling around
him, the yards rattling, the boisterous sea below heaving as if to
clutch him and drag him to destruction. A few seconds passed, every one
of which seemed an eternity. Then through the noise he heard shouts on
deck. The vessel suddenly swung over, and Desmond's body inclined
towards instead of from the mast. Shooting out his hand he caught at
the yard, seized it, and held on, though it seemed that his arm must be
wrenched from the socket. In a few moments he succeeded in clambering
on to the yard, where he clung, endeavouring to regain his breath and
his senses.
Then he completed his job, and with a sense of unutterable relief slid
down to the deck. A strange sight met his eyes. Bulger and Parmiter
were lying side by side; there was blood on the deck; and Captain Barker
stood over them with a martin spike, his eyes blazing, his face
distorted with passion. In consternation Desmond slipped out of the
way, and asked the first man he met for an explanation.
It appeared that Parmiter, who was at the wheel when the squall struck
the ship, had put her in stays before the sail was furled, with the
result that she heeled over and Desmond narrowly escaped being flung
into the sea. Seeing the boy's plight Bulger had sprung forward and,
knocking Parmiter from the wheel, had put the vessel on the other tack,
thus giving Desmond the one chance of escape which, fortunately, he had
been able to seize. The captain had been incensed to a blind fury,
first with Parmiter for acting without orders and then with Bulger for
interfering with the man at the wheel. In a paroxysm of madness he
attacked both men with a spike; the ship was left without a helmsman,
and nothing but the promptitude of the melancholy mate, who had rushed
forward and taken the abandoned wheel himself, had saved the vessel from
the imminent risk of carrying away her masts.
Later in the day, when the squall and the captain's rage had subsided,
the incident was talked over by a knot of seamen in the foc's'le.
"You may say what you like," said one, "but I hold to it that Parmiter
meant to knock young Burke into the sea. For why else did he put the
ship in stays? He en't a fool, en't Parmiter."
"Ay," said another, "and arter that there business with the block, eh?
One and one make two; that's twice the youngster has nigh gone to Davy
Jones through Parmiter, and it en't in reason that sich-like things
should allers happen to the same party."
"But what's the reason?" asked a third. "What call has Parmiter to have
such a desperate spite against Burke? He got a lickin', in course, but
what's a lickin' to a Englishman? Rot it all, the youngster en't a bad
matey. He've led a dog's life, that he have, and I've never heard a
grumble, nary one; have you?"
"True," said the first. "And I tell you what it is. I believe Bulger's
in the right of it, and 'tis all along o' that there Diggle, hang him!
He's too perlite by half, with his smile and his fine lingo and all.
And what's he keep his hand wropt up in that there velvet mitten thing
for? I'd like to know that. There's summat mortal queer about Diggle,
mark my words, and we'll find it out if we live long enough."
"Wasn't it Diggle brought Burke aboard?"
"Course it was; that's what proves it, don't you see? He stuffs him up
as he's to be supercargo; call that number one. He brings him aboard
and makes him ship's boy: that's number two. He looks us all up and
down with those rat's eyes of his, and thinks we're a pretty ugly lot,
and Parmiter the ugliest; how's that for number three? Then he makes
hisself sweet to Parmiter; I've seed him more'n once; that's number
four. Then there's that there block: five; and to-day's hanky-panky:
six; and it wants one more to make seven, and that's the perfect number,
I've heard tell, 'cos o' the Seven Champions o' Christendom."
"I guess you've reasoned that out mighty well," drawled the melancholy
voice of Mr. Toley, who had come up unseen and heard the last speech.
"Well, I'll give you number seven."
"Thunder and blazes, sir, he en't bin and gone and done it already!"
"No, he en't. Number seven is, be kind o' tender with young Burke.
Count them words. He's had enough kicks. That's all."
And the melancholy man went away as silently as he had come.
CHAPTER THE NINTH
*In which the *_*Good Intent*_* makes a running fight; and Mr. Toley
makes a suggestion.*
Making good sailing, the _Good Intent_ reached Saldanhas Bay, where she
put in for a few necessary repairs, then safely rounded the Cape, and
after a short stay at Johanna, one of the Comoro Islands, taking in
fresh provisions there, set sail for the Malabar coast. The wind blew
steadily from the south-west, and she ran merrily before it.
During this part of the voyage Desmond found his position somewhat
improved. His pluck had won the rough admiration of the men; Captain
Barker was not so constantly chevying him; and Mr. Toley showed a more
active interest in him, teaching him the use of the sextant and
quadrant, how to take the altitude of the sun, and many other matters
important in navigation.
It was the third week of April, and the monsoon having begun, Captain
Barker expected before long to sight the Indian coast. One morning,
about two bells, the look-out reported a small vessel on the larboard
bow, labouring heavily. The captain took a long look at it through his
perspective glass, anc made out that it was a two-masted grab; the
mainmast was gone.
"Odds bobs," he said to Mr. Toley, "'tis strange to meet a grab so far
out at sea. We'll run down to it."
"What is a grab?" asked Desmond of Bulger, when the news had circulated
through the ship's company.
"Why, that's a grab, sure enough. I en't a good hand at pictur'
paintin'; we're runnin' square for the critter, and then you'll see for
yourself. This I'll say, that you don't see 'em anywheres in partickler
but off the Malabar coast."
Desmond was soon able to take stock of the vessel. It was broad in
proportion to its length, narrowing from the middle to the end, and
having a projecting prow like the old-fashioned galleys of which he had
seen pictures. The prow was covered with a deck, level with the main
deck of the vessel, but with a bulkhead between this and the forecastle.
"En't she pitchin'!" remarked Bulger, standing by Desmond's side. "You
couldn't expect nothing else of a craft built that shape. Look at the
water pourin' off her; why, I may be wrong, but I'll lay my best
breeches she's a-founderin'."
As usual, Bulger was right. When the grab was overhauled, the men on
board, dark-skinned Marathas with very scanty clothing, made signs that
they were in distress.
"Throw her into the wind," shouted the captain.
Mr. Toley at the wheel put the helm down, the longboat was lowered, and
with some difficulty, owing to the heavy sea, the thirty men on the grab
were taken off. As they came aboard the _Good Intent_, Diggle, who was
leaning over the bulwarks, suddenly straightened himself, smiled, and
moved towards the taffrail. One of the newcomers, a fine muscular
fellow, seeing Diggle approaching, stood for a moment in surprise, then
salaamed. The Englishman said something in the stranger's tongue, and
grasped his hand with the familiarity of old friendship.
"You know the man, Mr. Diggle?" said the captain.
"Yes, truly. The Gentoos and I are in a sense comrades in arms. His
name is Hybati; he's a Maratha."
"What's he jabbering about?"
The man was talking rapidly and earnestly.
"He says, captain," returned Diggle with a smile, "that he hopes you
will send and fetch the crew's rice on board. They won't eat our
food--afraid of losing caste."
"I'll be hanged if I launch the long-boat again. The grab won't live
another five minutes in this sea, and I wouldn't risk two of my crew
against a hundred of these dirty Moors."
"They'll starve otherwise, captain."
"Well, let 'em starve. I won't have any nonsense aboard my ship.
Beggars mustn't be choosers, and if the heathen can't eat good honest
English vittles they don't deserve to eat at all."
Diggle smiled and explained to Hybati that his provisions must be left
to their fate. Even as he spoke a heavy sea struck the vessel athwart,
and amid cries from the Marathas she heeled over and sank.
When the strangers had dried themselves, Diggle inquired of Hybati how
he came to be in his present predicament. The Maratha explained that he
had been in command of Angria's fortress of Suvarndrug, which was so
strong that he had believed it able to withstand all attacks. But one
day a number of vessels of the East India Company's fleet had appeared
between the mainland and the island on which the fortress was situated,
and had begun a bombardment which soon reduced the parapets to ruins.
The chief damage had been done by an English ship. Hybati and his men
had made the best defence they could, but the gunners were shot down by
musket fire from the round-tops of the enemy, and when a shell set fire
to a thatched house within the fort, the garrison were too much alarmed
to attempt to extinguish the flames; the blaze spread, a powder magazine
blew up, and the inhabitants, with the greater part of the soldiers,
fled to the shore, and tried to make their escape in eight large boats.
Hybati had kept up the fight for some time longer, hoping to receive
succour; but under cover of the fire of the ships the English commodore
landed half his seamen, who rushed up to the gate, and, cutting down the
sally-port with their axes, forced their way in.
Seeing that the game was up, Hybati fled with thirty of his men, and was
lucky in pushing off in the grab unobserved by the enemy. The winds,
however, proving contrary, the vessel had been blown northward along the
coast and then driven far out to sea. With the breaking of the monsoon
a violent squall had dismasted the grab and shattered her bulkhead; she
was continually shipping water, and, as the sahib saw, was at the point
of sinking when the English ship came up.
Such was the Maratha's story, as by and by it became common property on
board the _Good Intent_. Of all the crew Desmond was perhaps the most
interested. To the others there was nothing novel in the sight of the
Indians; but to him they stood for romance, the embodiment of all the
tales he had heard and all the dreams he had dreamed of this wonderful
country in the East. He was now assured that he was actually within
reach of his desired haven; and he hoped shortly to see an end of the
disappointments and hardships, the toils and distresses, of the long
voyage.
He was eager to learn more of these Marathas, and their fortress, and
the circumstances of the recent fight. Bulger was willing to tell all
he knew; but his information was not very exact, and Desmond did not
hear the full story till long after.
The Malabar coast had long been the haunt of Maratha pirates, who
interfered greatly with the native trade between India and Arabia and
Persia. In defence of the interests of his Mohammedan subjects the
Mogul emperor at length, in the early part of the eighteenth century,
fitted out a fleet, under the command of an admiral known as the Sidi.
But there happened to be among the Marathas at that time a warrior of
great daring and resource, one Kunaji Angria. This man first defeated
the Sidi, then, in the insolence of victory, revolted against his own
sovereign, and set up as an independent ruler. By means of a
well-equipped fleet of grabs and gallivats he made himself master of
place after place along the coast, including the Maratha fortress at
Suvarndrug and the Portuguese fort of Gheria. His successors, who
adopted in turn the dynastic name of Angria, followed up Kunaji's
conquest, until by the year 1750 the ruling Angria was in possession of
a strip of territory on the mainland a hundred and eighty miles long and
about forty broad, together with many small adjacent islands.
For the defence of this little piratical state Angria's Marathas
constructed a number of forts, choosing admirable positions and
displaying no small measure of engineering skill. From these
strongholds they made depredations by sea and land, not only upon their
native neighbours, but also upon the European traders, English, Dutch,
and Portuguese; swooping down on unprotected merchant vessels and even
presuming to attack warships. Several expeditions had been directed
against them, but always in vain; and when in 1754 the chief of that
date, Tulaji Angria, known to Europeans as the Pirate, burnt two large
Dutch vessels of fifty and thirty-six guns respectively, and captured a
smaller one of eighteen guns, he boasted in his elation that he would
soon be master of the Indian seas.
But a term was about to be put to his insolence and his depredations.
On March 22, 1755, Commodore William James, commander of the East India
Company's marine force, set sail from Bombay in the _Protector_ of
forty-four guns, with the _Swallow_ of sixteen guns, and two bomb
vessels. With the assistance of a Maratha fleet he had attacked the
island fortress of Suvarndrug, and captured it, as Hybati had related.
A few days afterwards another of the Pirate's fortresses, the island of
Bancoote, six miles north of Suvarndrug, surrendered. The Maratha
rajah, Ramaji Punt, delighted with these successes against fortified
places which had for nearly fifty years been deemed impregnable, offered
the English commodore an immense sum of money to proceed against others
of Angria's forts; but the monsoon approaching, the commodore was
recalled to Bombay.
The spot at which the _Good Intent_ had fallen in with the sinking grab
was about eighty miles from the Indian coast, and Captain Barker
expected to sight land next day. No one was more delighted at the
prospect than Desmond. Leaving out of account the miseries of the long
voyage, he felt that he was now within reach of the goal of his hopes.
The future was all uncertain; he was no longer inclined to trust his
fortunes to Diggle, for though he could not believe that the man had
deliberately practised against his life, he had with good reason lost
confidence in him, and what he had learnt from Bulger threw a new light
on his past career.
One thing puzzled him. If the Pirate was such a terror to unprotected
ships, and strong enough to attack several armed vessels at once, why
was Captain Barker running into the very jaws of the enemy? In her
palmy days as an East Indiaman the _Good Intent_ had carried a dozen
nine pounders on her upper deck and six on the quarter-deck; and Bulger
had said that under a stout captain she had once beaten off near Surat
half a dozen three-masted grabs and a score of gallivats from the pirate
stronghold at Gheria. But now she had only half a dozen guns all told,
and even had she possessed the full armament there were not men enough
to work them, for her complement of forty men was only half what it had
been when she sailed under the Company's flag.
Desmond confided his puzzlement to Bulger. The seaman laughed.