“Then rose from sea to sky, the wild farewell.”
BYRON, DON JUAN, II. 409
The evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every appearance of a gale
from the westward, and the weather had become so thick and boisterous, that
the lieutenant of the watch had ordered the look-out at the mast-head
down on deck. The man, on his way down, had gone into the maintop to bring
away some things he had placed there in going aloft, and was in the act of
leaving it, when he sung out,--“A sail on the weather-bow.”
“What does she look like?”
“Can’t rightly say, sir; she is in the middle of the thick weather to
windward.”
“Stay where you are a little.--Jenkins, jump forward, and see what you can
make of her from the foreyard.”
Whilst the topman was obeying his instructions, the look-out again hailed
“She is a ship, sir, close-hauled on the same tack----the weather clears,
and I can see her now.”
The wind, ever since noon, had been blowing in heavy squalls, with
appalling lulls between them. One of these gusts had been so violent as to
bury in the sea the lee-guns in the waist, although the brig had nothing
set but her close-reefed main-topsail, and reefed foresail. It was now
spending, its fury, and she was beginning to roll heavily, when, with a
suddenness almost incredible to one unacquainted with these latitudes, the
veil of mist that had hung to windward the whole day was rent and drawn
aside, and the red and level rays of the setting sun flashed at once,
through a long arch of glowing clouds, on the black hull and tall spars of
his Britannic Majesty’s sloop, Torch. And, true enough, we were not the
only spectators of this gloomy splendour; for, right in the wake of the
moon-like sun, now half sunk in the sea, at the distance of a mile or more,
lay a long warlike-looking craft, apparently a frigate or heavy corvette,
rolling heavily and silently in the trough of the sea, with her masts,
yards, and the scanty sail she had set, in strong relief against the
glorious horizon.
Jenkins now hailed from the foreyard--“The strange sail is bearing up, sir.”
As he spoke, a flash was seen, followed, after what seemed a long interval,
by the deadened report of the gun, as if it had been an echo, and the
sharp, half-ringing half-hissing sound of the shot. It fell short, but
close to us, and was evidently thrown from a heavy cannon, from the length
of the range.
Mr Splinter, the first lieutenant, jumped from the gun he stood on.
“Quartermaster, keep her away a bit”--and dived into the cabin to make his
report.
Captain Deadeye was a staid, stiff-rumped, wall-eyed, old first
lieutenantish-looking veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney cut,
broad skirts, long waist, and standup collar, over which dangled either a
queue, or a marlinspike with a tuft of oakum at the end of it,--it would
have puzzled Old Nick to say which. His lower spars were cased in tight
unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the
coal-skuttle tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings
from his coat-flaps in bad weather; he was, in fact, the “last of the
sea-monsters,” but, like all his tribe, as brave as steel, and, when put
to it, as alert as a cat.
He no sooner heard Splinter’s report, than he sprung up the ladder,
brushing the tumbler of swizzle he had just brewed clean out of the fiddle
into the lap of Mr Saveall, the purser, who had dined with him, and nearly
extinguishing the said purser, by his arm striking the bowl of the pipe he
was smoking, thereby forcing the shank half-way down his throat.
“My glass, Wilson,” to his steward.
“She is close to, sir; you can see her plainly without it,” said Mr
Treenail, the second lieutenant, from the weather nettings, where he was
reconnoitring.
After a long look through his starboard blinker, (this other skylight had
been shut up ever since Aboukir,) Deadeye gave orders to “clear away the
weather-bow gun;” and as it was now getting too dark for flags to be seen
distinctly, he desired that three lanterns might be got ready for hoisting
vertically in the main-rigging.
“All ready forward there?”
“All ready, sir.”
“Then hoist away the lights, and throw a shot across her forefoot I fire!”
Bang went our carronade, but our friend to windward paid no regard to the
private signal; he had shaken a reef out of his topsails, and wars coming
down fast upon us.
It war clear that old Blowhard had at first taken him for one of our own
cruisers, and meant to signalize him, “all regular and shipshape,” to use
his own expression. Most of us, however, thought it would have been wiser
to have made sail, and widened our distance, a little, in place of
bothering with old fashioned manoeuvres, which might end in our catching a
tartar; but the skipper had been all his life in line-of-battle ships, or
heavy frigates; and it was a tough job, under, any circumstances, to
persuade him of the propriety of “up-stick-and-away,” as we soon felt to
our cost.
The enemy, for such he evidently was, now all at once yawed, and indulged
us with a sight of his teeth; and there he was, fifteen ports of a side on
his maindeck, with the due quantum of carronades on his quarterdeck and
forecastle; whilst his short lower masts, white canvass, and the tremendous
hoist in his topsails, showed him to be a heavy American frigate; and it
was equally certain that he had cleverly hooked us under his lee, within
comfortable range of his long twenty-fours. To convince the most
unbelieving, three jets of flame, amidst wreaths of white smoke, now
glanced from his main-deck; but in this instance, the sound of the cannon
was followed by a sharp crackle and a shower of splinters from the
foreyard.
It was clear we had got an ugly customer--poor Jenkins now called to
Treenail, who was standing forward near the gun which had been fired “Och,
sir, and it’s badly wounded we are here.”
The officer was a Patlander, as well as the seaman. “Which of you my boy?”
the growing seriousness of the affair in no way checking his propensity to
fun,--“Which of you,--you, or the yard?”
“Both of us, your honour; but the yard badliest.”
“The devil!--Come down, then, or get into the top, and I will you looked
after presently.”
The poor fellow crawled off the yard into the foretop, as he was ordered,
where he was found after the brush, badly wounded by a splinter in the
breast.
Jonathan, no doubt “calculated,” as well he might, that this taste of his
quality would be quite sufficient for a little eighteen-gun sloop, close
under his lee; but the fight was not to be so easily taken out of Deadeye,
although even to his optic it was now high time to be off.
“All hands make sail, Mr Splinter; that chap is too heavy for us. Mr
Kelson,” to the carpenter, “jump up and see what the foreyard will carry.
Keep her away, my man,” to the seaman at the helm. “Crack on, Mr Splinter,
shake all the reefs out,----set the fore-topsail, and loose
topgallant-sails;--stand by to sheet home; and see all clear to rig the
booms out, if the breeze lulls.”
In less than a minute we were bowling along before it; but the wind was
breezing up again, and no one could say how long the wounded foreyard would
carry the weight and drag of the sails. To mend the matter, Jonathan was
coming up hand over hand with the freshening breeze, under a press of
canvass; it was clear that escape was next to impossible.
“Clear away the larboard guns!” I absolutely jumped off the deck with
astonishment--who could have spoken it? It appeared such downright
madness to show fight under the very muzzles of the guns of an enemy, half
of whose broadside was sufficient to sink us. It was the captain,
however, and there was nothing for it but to obey.
In an instant, the creaking and screaming of the carronade slides, the
rattling of the carriage of the long twelve-pounder amidships, the
thumping and punching of handspikes, and the dancing and jumping of jack
himself, were heard through the whistling of the breeze, as the guns were
being shotted and run out. In a few seconds all was still again, but the
rushing sound of the vessel going through the water, and of the rising
gale amongst the rigging.
The men stood clustered at their quarters, their cutlasses buckled round
their waists, all without jackets and waistcoats, and many with nothing
but their trowsers on.
“Now, men, mind your aim; our only chance is to wing him. I will yaw the
ship, and as your guns come to bear, slap it right into his bows.
Starboard your helm, my man, and bring her to the wind.” As she came round,
blaze went our carronades and long-gun in succession, with goodwill and
good aim, and down came his foretop-sail on the cap, with all the
superincumbent spars and gear; the head of the topmast had been shot away.
The men instinctively cheered. “That will do; now knock off, my boys, and
let us run for it. Keep her away again; make all sail.”
Jonathan was for an instant paralysed by our impudence; but just as we were
getting before the wind, he yawed, and let drive his whole broadside; and
fearfully did it transmogrify us. Half an hour before we were as gay a
little sloop as ever floated, with a crew of 120 as fine fellows as ever
manned a British man-of-war. The iron-shower sped--ten of the hundred
and twenty never saw the sun rise again; seventeen more were wounded, three
mortally; we had eight shot between wind and water, our maintop-mast shot
away as clean as a carrot, and our hull and rigging otherwise regularly cut
to pieces. Another broadside succeeded; but by this time we had bore up
thanks to the loss of our after sail, we could do nothing else; and what
was better luck still, whilst the loss of our maintop-mast paid the brig
off on the one hand, the loss of head-sail in the frigate brought her as
quickly to the wind on the other; thus most of her shot fell astern of us;
and, before she could bear up again in chase, the squall struck her, and
carried her maintop-mast overboard.
This gave us a start, crippled and bedevilled though we were; and as the
night fell, we contrived to lose sight of our large friend. With
breathless anxiety did we carry on through that night, expecting every
lurch to send our remaining topmast by the board; but the weather
moderated, and next morning the sun shone on our bloodstained decks, at
anchor off the entrance to St George’s harbour.
I was the mate of the watch, and, as day dawned, I had amused myself with
other younkers over the side, examining the shot holes and other injuries
sustained from the fire of the frigate, and contrasting the clean, sharp,
well-defined apertures, made by the 24-pound shot from the long guns,
with the bruised and splintered ones from the 32-pound carronades; but the
men had begun to wash down the decks, and the first gush of clotted blood
an water from the scuppers fairly turned me sick. I turned away, when Mr
Kennedy, our gunner, a good steady old Scotchman, with whom I was a bit of
a favourite, came up to me--“Mr Cringle, the Captain has sent for you; poor
Mr Johnstone is fast going, he wants to see you.”
I knew my young messmate had been wounded, for I had seen him carried below
after the frigate’s second broadside; but the excitement of a boy, who had
seldom smelled powder fired in anger before, had kept me on deck the whole
night, and it never once occurred to me to ask for him, until the old
gunner spoke.
I hastened down to our small confined berth, where I saw a sight that
quickly brought me to myself. Poor Johnstone was indeed going; a grapeshot
had struck him, and torn his belly open. There he lay in his bloody
hammock on the deck, pale and motionless as if he had already departed,
except a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, and a convulsive
contraction and distension of his nostrils.
His brown ringlets still clustered over his marble forehead, but they were
drenched in the cold sweat of death. The surgeon could do nothing for him,
and had left him; but our old captain--bless him for it--I little expected,
from his usual crusty bearing, to find him so employed--had knelt by his
side, and, whilst he read from the Prayer-book one of those beautiful
petitions in our Church service to Almighty God, for mercy to the passing
soul of one so young, and so early cut off, the tears trickled down the old
man’s cheeks, and filled the furrows worn in them by the washing up of many
a salt spray. On the other side of his narrow bed, fomenting the rigid
muscles of his neck and chest, sate Mistress Connolly, one of three women
on board--a rough enough creature, Heaven knows! in common weather; but her
stifled sobs showed that the mournful sight had stirred up all the woman
within her. She had opened the bosom of the poor boy’s shirt, and untying
the riband that fastened a small gold crucifix round his neck, she placed
it in his cold hand. The young midshipman was of a respectable family in
Limerick, her native place, and a Catholic--another strand of the cord that
bound her to him. When the Captain finished reading, he bent over the
departing youth and kissed his cheek. “Your young messmate just now
desired to see you, Mr Cringle, but it is too late, he is insensible and
dying.” Whilst he spoke, a strong shiver passed through the boy’s frame,
his face became slightly convulsed, and all was over!
The Captain rose, and Connolly, with a delicacy of feeling which many might
not have looked for in her situation, spread one of our clean mess
tablecloths over the body. “And is it really gone you are, my poor dear
boy!” forgetting all difference of rank in the fulness of her heart. “Who
will tell this to your mother, and nobody here to wake you but ould Kate
Connolly, and no time will they be giving me, nor whisky--Ochon! ochon!”
But enough and to spare of this piping work. The boatswain’s whistle now
called me to the gangway, to superintend the handling up, from a shore boat
alongside, a supply of the grand staples of the island--ducks and onions.
The three Mudians in her were characteristic samples of the inhabitants.
Their faces and sins, where exposed, were not tanned, but absolutely burnt
into a fiery-red colour by the sun. They guessed and drawled like any
buckskin from Virginia, superadding to their accomplishments their insular
peculiarity of always shutting one eye when they spoke to you. They are
all Yankees at bottom; and if they could get their 365 Islands--so they
call the large stones on which they live--under weigh, they would not be
long in towing them into the Chesapeake.
The word had been passed to get six of the larboard-guns and all the shot
over to the other side, to give the brig a list of a streak or two
a-starboard, so that the stage on which the carpenter and his crew were
at work over the side, stopping the shot holes about the water line, might
swing clear of the wash of the sea. I had jumped from the nettings, where
I was perched, to assist in unbolting one of the carronade slides, when I
slipped and capsized against a peg sticking out of one of the scuppers. I
took it for something else, and d----d the ring-bolt incontinently. Caboose,
the cook, was passing with his mate, a Jamaica negro of the name of John
Crow, at the time. “Don’t d----n the remains of your fellow-mortals, Master
Cringle; that is my leg.” The cook of a man-of-war is no small beer; he
is his Majesty’s warrant-officer, a much bigger wig than a poor little
mid, with whom it is condescension on his part to jest.
It seems to be a sort of rule, that no old sailor who has not lost a limb,
or an eye at least, shall be eligible to the office; but as the kind of
maiming is so far circumscribed that all cooks must have two arms, a
laughable proportion of them have but one leg. Besides the honour, the
perquisites are good; accordingly, all old quartermasters, captains of
tops, etc. look forward to the cookdom, as the cardinals look to the
popedom; and really there is some analogy between them, for neither are
preferred from any especial fitness for the office. A cardinal is made
pope because he is old, infirm, and imbecile,--our friend Caboose was made
cook because he had been Lord Nelson’s coxswain, was a drunken rascal, and
had a wooden leg; for, as to his gastronomical qualifications, he knew no
more of the science than just sufficient to watch the copper where the
salt junk and potatoes were boiling. Having been a little in the wind
overnight, he had quartered himself, in the superabundance of his heroism,
at a gun where he had no business to be, and in running it out, he had
jammed his toe in a scupper hole, so fast that there was no extricating
him; and notwithstanding his piteous entreaty “to be eased out handsomely,
as the leg was made out of a plank of the Victory, and the ring at the end
out of one of her bolts,” the captain of the gun finding, after a stout
pull, that the man was like to come home in his hand without the leg, was
forced “to break him short off,” as he phrased it, to get him out of the
way, and let the carriage traverse. In the morning when he sobered, he had
quite forgotten where the leg was, and how he broke it; he therefore got
Kelson to splice the stump with the but-end of a mop; but in the hurry it
had been left three inches too long, so he had to jerk himself up to the
top of his peg at every step. The Doctor, glad to breathe the fresh air
after the horrible work he had gone through, was leaning over the side
speaking to Kelson. When I fell, he turned round and drew Cookee’s fire
on himself. “Doctor, you have not prescribed for me yet.”
“No, Caboose, I have not; what is wrong?”
“Wrong, sir? why, I have lost my leg, and the Captain’s clerk says I am not
in the Return!--Look here, sir, had Doctor Kelson not coopered me, where
should I have been?--Why, Doctor, had I been looked after, amputation might
have been unnecessary; a fish might have done, whereas I have had to be
spliced.”
He was here cut short by the voice of his mate, who had gone forward to
slay a pig for the gunroom mess. “Oh, Lad, oh!--Massa Caboose!--Dem dam
Yankee!--De Purser killed, massa!--Dem shoot him troo de head!--Oh, Lad!”
Captain Deadeye had come on deck. “You John Crow, what is wrong with you?”
“Why, de Purser killed, Captain, dat all.”
“Purser killed?--Doctor, is Saveall hurt?”
Treenail could stand it no longer. “No, sir, no; it is one of the gunroom
pigs that we shipped at Halifax three cruises ago; I am sure I don’t know
how he survived one, but the seamen took a fancy to him, and nicknamed him
the Purser. You know, sir, they make pets of any thing, and every thing,
at a pinch!”
Here John Crow drew the carcass from the hog-pen, and sure enough a shot
had cut the poor Purser’s head nearly off. Blackee looked at him with a
most whimsical expression; they saynno one can fathom a negro’s affection
for a pig. “Poor Purser! de people call him Purser, sir, because him
knowing chap; him cabbage all de grub, slush, and stuff in him own corner,
and give only de small bit, and de bad piece, to de older pig; so Captain.”
Splinter saw the poor fellow was like to get into a scrape. “That will do,
John Crow--forward with you now, and lend a hand to cat the anchor.--All
hands up anchor!” The boatswain’s hoarse voice repeated the command, and he
n turn was re-echoed by his mates. The capstan was manned, and the crew
stamped, round to a point of wart most villainously performed by a bad
drummer and a worse fifer, in as high glee as if those who were killed had
been snug and well in their hammocks on the berth-deck--, in place of at
the bottom of the sea, with each a shot at his feet. We weighed, and began
to work up, tack and tack, towards the island of Ireland, where the arsenal
is, amongst a perfect labyrinth of shoals, through which the Mudian pilot
conned the ship with great skill, taking his stand, to our no small
wonderment, not at the gangway or poop, as usual, but on the bowsprit end,
so that he might see the rocks under foot, and shun them accordingly, for
they are so steep and numerous, (they look like large fish in the clear
water,) and the channel is so intricate, that you have to go quite close
to them. At noon we arrived at the anchorage, and hauled our moorings on
board.
We had refitted, and been four days at sea, on our voyage to Jamaica, when
the gunroom officers gave our mess a blow-out.
The increased motion and rushing of the vessel through the water, the
groaning of the masts, the howling of the rising gale, and the frequent
trampling of the watch on deck, were prophetic of wet jackets to some of
us; still, midshipman-like, we were as happy as a good dinner and some
wine could make us, until the old gunner shoved his weather beaten phiz
and bald pate in at the door. “Beg pardon, Mr Splinter, but if you will
spare Mr Cringle on the forecastle for an hour until the moon rises.”
(“Spare, quotha, is his Majesty’s officer a joint stool?”)
“Why, Mr Kennedy, why? here, man, take a glass of grog.”
“I thank you, sir. It is coming on a roughish night, sir; the running
ships should be crossing us hereabouts; indeed more than once I thought
there was a strange sail close aboard of us, the scud is flying so low, and
in such white flakes; and none of us have an eye like Mr Cringle, unless it
be John Crow, and he is all but frozen.”
“Well, Tom, I suppose you will go”--Angelice, from a first lieutenant to a
mid--“Brush instanter.”
Having changed my uniform, for shag-trowsers, pea-jacket, and south-west
cap, I went forward, and took my station, in no pleasant humour, on the
stowed foretopmast-staysail, with my arm round the stay. I had been half
an hour there, the weather was getting worse, the rain was beating in my
face, and the spray from the stem was flashing over me, as it roared
through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters. I turned my back to the
weather for a moment, to press my hand on my strained eyes. When I opened
them again, I saw the gunner’s gaunt high-featured visage thrust
anxiously forward; his profile looked as if rubbed over with phosphorus,
and his whole person as if we had been playing at snap-dragon. “What has
come over you, Mr Kennedy?--who is burning the bluelight now?”
“A wiser man than I am must tell you that; look forward, Mr Cringle--look
there; what do your books say to that?”
I looked forth, and saw, at the extreme end of the jib-boom, what I had
read of, certainly, but never expected to see, a pale, greenish, glowworm
coloured flame, of the size and shape of the frosted glass shade over the
swinging lamp in the gunroom. It drew out and flattened as the vessel
pitched and rose again, and as she sheered about, it wavered round the
point that seemed to attract it, like a soapsud bubble blown from a tobacco
pipe before it is shaken into the air; at the core it was comparatively
bright, but gradually faded into a halo. It shed a baleful and ominous
light on the surrounding objects; the cup of sailors on the forecastle
looked like spectres, and they shrunk together, and whispered when it began
to roll slowly along the spar towards where the boatswain was sitting at my
feet. At this instant something slid down the stay, and a cold clammy hand
passed round my neck. I was within an ace of losing my hold, and tumbling
overboard. “Heaven have mercy on me, what’s that?”
“It’s that skylarking son of a gun, Jem Sparkle’s monkey, sir. You, Jem,
you’ll never rest till that brute is made shark bait of.”
But Jackoo vanished up the stay again, chuckling and grinning in the
ghostly radiance, as if he had been the “Spirit of the Lamp.” The light
was still there, but a cloud of mist, like a burst of vapour from a steam
boiler, came down upon the gale, and flew past, when it disappeared. I
followed the white mass as it sailed down the wind; it did not, as it
appeared to me, vanish in the darkness, but seemed to remain in sight to
leeward, as if checked by a sudden flaw; yet none of our sails were taken
aback. A thought flashed on me. I peered still more intensely into the
night. I was now certain. “A sail, broad on the lee bow.”
The ship was in a buz in a moment. The Captain answered from the
quarterdeck--“Thank you, Mr Cringle. How shall we steer?”
“Keep her away a couple of points, sir, steady.”
“Steady,” sung the man at the helm; and the slow melancholy cadence,
although a familiar sound to me, now moaned through the rushing of the
wind, and smote upon my heart as if it had been the wailing of a spirit.
I turned to the boatswain, who was now standing beside me--“Is that you or
Davy Jones steering, Mr Nipper? if you had not been here bodily at my
elbow, I could have sworn that was your voice.”
When the gunner made the same remark it startled the poor fellow he tried
to take it as a joke, but could not. “There may be a laced hammock with a
shot in it, for some of us ere morning.”
At this moment, to my dismay, the object we were chasing shortened,
gradually fell abeam of us, and finally disappeared. “The Flying
Dutchman.”
“I can’t see her at all now.”
“She will be a fore-and-aft-rigged vessel that has tacked, sir,” said
the gunner. And sure enough, after a few seconds, I saw the white object
lengthen, and draw out again abaft our beam.
“The chase has tacked sir,” I sung out; “put the helm down, or she will,
go to windward of us.”
We tacked also, and time it was we did so, for the rising moon now showed
us a large schooner under a crowd of sail. We edged down on her, when
finding her manoeuvre detected, she brailed up her flat sails, and bore up
before the wind. This was our best point of sailing, and we cracked on,
the captain rubbing his hands--“It’s my turn to be the big un this time.”
Although blowing a strong north-easter, it was now clear moonlight and we
hammered away from bow guns, but whenever a shot told amongst the rigging,
the injury was repaired as if by magic. It was evident we had repeatedly
hulled her, from the glimmering white streaks along her counter and, across
her stern, occasioned by the splintering of the timber, but it seemed to
produce no effect.
At length we drew well up on her quarter. She continued all black hull and
white sail, not a soul to be seen on deck, except a dark object, which we
took for the man at the helm. “What schooner’s that?” No answer.
“Heave-to, or I’ll sink you.” Still all silent. “Sergeant Armstrong, do
you think you could pick off that chap at the wheel?” The marine jumped on
the forecastle, and levelled his piece, when a musket-shot from the
schooner crashed through his skull, and he fell dead. The old skipper’s
blood was up. “Forecastle, there! Mr Nipper, clap a canister of grape
over the round shot into the boat-gun, and give it to him.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” gleefully rejoined the boatswain, forgetting the augury and
every thing else in the excitement of the moment. In a twinkling, the
square foresail-topsail-topgallant-royal--and studdingsail haulyards
were let go by the run on board of the schooner, as if they had been shot
away, and he put his helm hard aport as, if to round to.
“Rake him, sir, or give him the stem. He has not surrendered. I know
their game. Give him your broadside, sir, or he is off to windward of you
like a shot.--No, no! we have him now; heave to, Mr Splinter, heave-to!”
We did so, and that so suddenly, that the studdingsail booms snapped like
pipe-shanks, short off by the irons. Notwithstanding, we had shot two
hundred yards to leeward before we could lay our maintopsail to the mast. I
ran to windward. The schooner’s yards and rigging were now black with men,
clustered like bees swanning, her square-sails were being close furled,
her fore and--aft sails set, and away she was, close-hauled and dead to
windward of us.
“So much for undervaluing our American friends,” grumbled Mr Splinter.
We made all sail in chase, blazing away to little purpose; we had no chance
on a bowline, and when our amigo had satisfied himself of his superiority
by one or two short tacks, he deliberately hauled down his flying jib and
gaff-topsail, took a reef in his mainsail, triced up the bunt of his
foresail, and fired his long thirty-two at us. The shot came in at the
third aftermost port on the starboard side, and dismounted the carronade,
smashing the slide, and wounding three men. The second shot missed, and as
it was madness to remain to be peppered, probably winged, whilst every one
of ours fell short, we reluctantly kept away on our course, having the
gratification of hearing a clear well-blown bugle on board the schooner
play up “Yankee Doodle.”
As the brig fell off, our long-gun was run out to have a parting crack at
her, when the third and last shot from the schooner struck the sill of the
midship-port, and made the white splinters fly from the solid oak like
bright silver sparks in the moonlight. A sharp piercing cry rose into the
air--my soul identified that death-shriek with the voice that I had heard,
and I saw the man who was standing with the lanyard of the lock in his hand
drop heavily across the breech, and discharge the gun in his fall.
Thereupon a blood-red glare shot up into the cold blue sky, as if a
volcano had burst forth from beneath the mighty deep, followed by a roar,
and a shattering crash, and a mingling of unearthly cries and groans, and a
concussion of the air, and of the water, as if our whole broadside had been
fired at once. Then a solitary splash here, and a dip there, and short
sharp yells, and low choking bubbling moans, as the hissing fragments of
the noble vessel we had seen fell into the sea, and the last of her gallant
crew vanished for ever beneath that pale broad moon. We were alone, and
once more, all was dark, and wild, and stormy. Fearfully had that ball
sped, fired by a dead man’s hand. But what is it that clings black and
doubled across that fatal cannon, dripping and heavy, and choking the
scuppers with clotting gore, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the
vessel, like a bloody fleece?
“Who is it that was hit at the gun there?”
“Mr Nipper, the boatswain, sir. The last shot has cut him in two.”
After this most melancholy incident we continued on our voyage to Jamaica,
nothing particular occurring until we anchored at Port Royal, where we had
a regular overhaul of the old Bark, and after this was completed, we were
ordered down to the leeward part of the island to afford protection to the
coasting trade. One fine morning, about a fortnight after we had left
Port Royal, the Torch was lying at anchor in Bluefields Bay. It was
between eight and nine; the land-wind had died away, and the sea-breeze
had not set in--there was not a breath stirring. The pennant from the
masthead fell sluggishly down, and clung amongst the rigging like a dead
snake, whilst the folds of the St George’s ensign that hung from the
mizzen-peak, were as motionless as if they had been carved in marble.
The anchorage was one unbroken mirror, except where its glass-like surface
was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols of a skipjack, or the
flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican; and the reflection of the vessel
was so clear and steady, that at the distance of a cable’s length you could
not distinguish the water-line, nor tell where the substance ended and
shadow began, until the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a few
moments broke up the phantom ship; but the wavering fragments soon
reunited, and she again floated double, like the swan of the poet. The
heat was so intense, that the iron stanchions of the awning could not be
grasped with the hand, and where the decks were not screened by it, the
pitch boiledout from the seams. The swell rolled in from the offing in
long shining undulations, like a sea of quicksilver, whilst every now and
then a flying fish would spark out from the unruffled bosom of the heaving
water, and shoot away like a silver arrow, until it dropped with a flash
into the sea again. There was not a cloud in the heavens, but a quivering
blue haze hung over the land, through which the white sugar-works and
overseers’ houses on the distant estates appeared to twinkle like objects
seen through a thin smoke, whilst each of the tall stems of the cocoa--nut
trees on the beach, when looked at steadfastly, seemed to be turning round
with a small spiral motion, like so many endless screws. There was a
dreamy indistinctness about the outlines of the hills, even in the
immediate vicinity, which increased as they receded, until the Blue
Mountains in the horizon melted into sky. The crew were listlessly
spinning oakum, and mending sails, under the shade of the awning; the only
exceptions to the general languor were John Crow the black, and jackoo the
monkey. The former (who was an improvisatore of a rough stamp) sat out on
the bowsprit, through choice, beyond the shade of the canvass, without hat
or shirt, like a bronze bust, busy with his task, whatever that might be,
singing at the top of his pipe, and between whiles confabulating with his
hairy ally, as if he had been a messmate. The monkey was hanging by the
tail from the dolphin-striker, admiring what John Crow called “his own dam
ogly face in the water.”
“Tail like yours would be good ting for a sailor, jackoo, it would leave
his two hands free aloft--more use, more hornament, too, I’m sure, den de
piece of greasy junk dat hangs from de Captain’s taffril.--Now I shall sing
to you, how dat Corromantee rascal, my fader, was sell me on de Gold Coast.
“Two red nightcap, one long knife,
All him get for Quackoo,
For gun next day him sell him wife,
You tink dat good song, lackoo?”
“Chocko, chocko,” chattered the monkey, as if in answer.
“Ah, you tink so--sensible honimal!--What is dat? shark?--Jackoo, come up,
sir: don’t you see dat big shovel--nosed fis looking at you? Pull your
handout of the water--Caramighty!”
The negro threw himself on the gammoning of the bowsprit to take hold of
the poor ape, who, mistaking his kind intention, and ignorant of his
danger, shrunk from him, lost his hold, and fell into the sea. The shark
instantly sank to have a run, then dashed at his prey, raising his snout
over him, and shooting his head and shoulders three or four feet out of the
water, with poor Jackoo shrieking in his jaws, whilst his small bones
crackled and crunched under the monster’s triple row of teeth.
Whilst this small tragedy was acting--and painful enough it was to the
kind-hearted negro--I was looking out towards the eastern horizon,
watching the first dark-blue ripple of the sea-breeze, when a rushing
noise passed over my head. I looked up and saw a gawnaso, the large
carrion-crow of the tropics, sailing, contrary to the habits of its kind,
seaward over the brig. I followed it with my eye, until it vanished in the
distance, when my attention was attracted by a dark speck far out in the
offing, with a little tiny white sail. With my glass I made it out to be
a ship’s boat, but I saw no one on board, and the sail was idly flapping
about the mast.
On making my report, I was desired to pull towards it in the gig; and as we
approached, one of the crew said he thought he saw some one peering over
the bow. We drew nearer, and I saw him distinctly.
“Why don’t you haul the sheet aft, and come down to us, sir?”
He neither moved nor answered, but, as the boat rose and fell on the short
sea raised by the first of the breeze, the face kept mopping and mowing at
us over the gunwale.
“I will soon teach you manners, my fine fellow! give way, men” and I fired
my musket, when the crow that I had seen, rose from the boat into the air,
but immediately alighted again, to our astonishment, vulture-like with
out-stretched wings, upon the head.
Under the shadow of this horrible plume, the face seemed on the instant to
alter like the hideous changes in a dream. It appeared to become of a
deathlike paleness, and anon streaked with blood. Another stroke of the
oar--the chin had fallen down, and the tongue was hanging out. Another
pull--the eyes were gone, and from their sockets, brains and blood were
fermenting and flowing down the cheeks. It was the face of a putrefying
corpse. In this floating coffin we found the body of another sailor,
doubled across one of the thwarts, with a long Spanish knife sticking
between his ribs, as if he had died in some mortal struggle, or, what was
equally probable, had put an end to himself in his frenzy; whilst along the
bottom of the boat, arranged with some show of care, and covered by a piece
of canvass stretched across an oar above it, lay the remains of a beautiful
boy, about fourteen years of age, apparently but a few hours dead. Some
biscuit, a roll of jerked beef, and an earthen water-jar, lay beside him,
showing that hunger at least could have had no share in his destruction but
the pipkin was dry, and the small water-cask in the bow was staved, and
empty.
We had no sooner cast our grappling over the bow, and begun to tow the boat
to the ship, than the abominable bird that we had scared settled down into
it again, notwithstanding our proximity, and began to peck at the face of
the dead boy. At this moment we heard a gibbering noise, and saw something
like a bundle of old rags roll out from beneath the stem-sheets, and
whatever it was, apparently make a fruitless attempt to drive the
gallinaso from its prey. Heaven and earth, what an object met our eyes!
It was a full-grown man, but so wasted, that one of the boys lifted him by
his belt with one hand. His knees were drawn up to his chin, his hands
were like the talons of a bird, while the falling in of his
chocolate-coloured and withered features gave an unearthly relief to his
forehead, over which the horny and transparent skin was braced so tightly
that it seemed ready to crack. But in the midst of this desolation, his
deep-set coal-black eyes sparkled like two diamonds with the fever of his
sufferings; there was a fearful fascination in their flashing brightness,
contrasted with the deathlike aspect of the face, and rigidity of the
frame. When sensible of our presence he tried to speak, but could only utter
a low moaning sound. At length--“Agua, agua”--we had not a drop of water
in the boat. “El muchacho esta moriendo de sed--Agua.”
We got on board, and the surgeon gave the poor fellow some weak tepid grog.
It acted like magic. He gradually uncoiled himself, his voice, from being
weak and husky, became comparative strong and clear. “El hijo--Agua para
mi Pedrillo--No le hace pari mi--oh la noche pasado, la noche pasado!” He
was told to compose himself, and that his boy would be taken care of.
“Dexa me verlo entonces, oh Dios, dexa me verlo”----and he crawled,
grovelling on his chest, like a crushed worm, across the deck, until he got
his head over the port sill, and looked down into the boat. He there
beheld the pale face of his dead son; it was the last object he ever saw,
“Ay de mi!” he groaned heavily, and dropped his face against the ship’s
side--He was dead.
After spending several months in the service already alluded to, we were
ordered on a cruise off the coast of Terra Firma.
Morillo was at this time besieging Carthagena by land, while a Spanish
squadron, under Admiral Enrile, blockaded the place by sea; and it pleased
the officer who commanded the inshore division to conceive, while the old
Torch was quietly beating up along the coast, that we had an intention of
forcing the blockade.
The night before had been gusty and tempestuous--all hands had been called
three times, so that at last, thinking there was no use in going below, I
lay down on the stern sheets of the boat over the stern--an awkward berth
certainly, but a spare tarpaulins had that morning been stretched over the
after part of the boat to dry, and I therefore ensconced myself beneath it.
just before daylight, however, the brig, by a sudden shift of wind, was
taken aback, and fetching stern-way, a sea struck her. How I escaped I
never could tell, but I was pitched right in on deck over the poop, and
much bruised, where I found a sad scene of confusion, with the captain and
several of the officers in their shirts, and the men tumbling up from below
as fast as they could--while, amongst other incidents, one of our
passengers who occupied a small cabin under the poop, having gone to sleep
with the stern port open, the sea had surged in through it with such
violence as to wash him out on deck in his shirt, where he lay sprawling
among the feet of the men. However, we soon got all right, and in five
minutes the sloop was once more tearing through it on a wind; but the boat
where I had been sleeping was smashed into staves, all that remained of her
being the stem and stern-post dangling from the tackles at the ends of
the davits.
At this time it was grey dawn, and we were working up in shore, without
dreaming of breaking the blockade, when it fell stark calm. Presently the
Spanish squadron, anchored under Punto Canoa, perceived us, when a
corvette, two schooners, a cutter, and eight gunboats, got under weigh, the
latter of which soon swept close to us, ranging themselves on our bows and
quarters; and although we showed our colours, and made the private
international signal, they continued firing at us for about an hour,
without, however, doing any damage, as they had chosen a wary distance.
At length some of the shot falling near us, the skipper cleared for action,
and with his own hand fired a 32-pounder at the nearest gun-boat, the
crew of which bobbed as if they, had seen the shot coming. This opened
the eyes of the Dons, who thereupon ceased firing; and as a light breeze
had now set down, they immediately made sail in pursuit of a schooner that
had watched the opportunity of their being employed with us to run in
under the walls, and was at this moment chased by a ship and a gun-boat,
who had got within gun-shot and kept up a brisk fire on her. So soon as
the others came up, all hands opened on the gallant little hooker who was
forcing the blockade, and peppered away; and there she was, like a hare,
with a whole pack of harriers after her, sailing and sweeping in under
their fire towards the doomed city. As the wind was very light, the
blockading squadron now manned their boats, and some of them were coming
fast, when a raffle of musketry from the small craft sent them to the
right about, and presently the chase was safely at anchor under the
battery of Santa Catalina.
But the fun was to come-for by this time some of the vessels that held
her in chase, had got becalmed under the batteries, which immediately
opened on them cheerily; and down came a topgallant-mast here, and a
topsail-yard there, and a studdingsail t’other place-and such a squealing
and creaking of blocks and rattling of the gear, while yards braced hither
and thither, and topping-lifts let go, and sheets let fly, showed that the
Dons were in a sad quandary; and no wonder, for we could see the shot from
the long 32-pounders on the walls, falling very thick all around several
of them. However, at 4 P.M. we had worked up alongside of the Commodore,
when the old skipper gave our friend such a rating, that I don’t think he
will ever forget it.
On the day following our being fired at, I was sent, being a good
Spaniard, along with the second lieutenant--poor Treenail--to Morillo’s
headquarters. We got an order to the officer commanding the nearest post
on shore, to provide us with horses; but before reaching it, we had to
walk, under a roasting sun, about two miles through miry roads, until we
arrived at the barrier, where we found a detachment of artillery, but the
commanding officer could only give us one poor broken-winded horse, and
a jackass, on which we were to proceed to headquarters on the morrow; and
here, under a thatched hut of the most primitive construction, consisting
simply of cross sticks and palm branches, we had to spend the night, the
poor fellows being as kind as their own misery would let them.
Next morning we proceeded, accompanied by a hussar, through dreadful
roads, where the poor creatures we bestrode sunk to the belly at every
flounder, until about four p.m., when we met two negroes and found, to
our great distress, that the soldier who was our guide and escort, had
led us out of our way, and that we were in very truth then travelling
towards the town. We therefore hove-about and returned to Palanquillo, a
village that we had passed through that very morning, leaving the hussar
and his horse sticking fast in a slough. We arrived about nightfall,
and as the village was almost entirely deserted, we were driven to take up
our quarters in an old house, that seemed formerly to have been used as a
distillery. Here we found a Spanish lieutenant and several soldiers
quartered, all of them suffering more or less from dysentery; and after
passing a very comfortless night on hard benches, we rose at grey dawn,
with our hands and faces blistered from musquitto bites, and our hair full
of wood ticks, or garapatos. We again started on our journey to
headquarters, and finally arrived at Torrecilla at two o’clock in the
afternoon. Both the Commander-in-Chief Morillo, and Admiral Enrile, had
that morning proceeded to the works at Boca Chica, so we only found El
Senor Montalvo, the Captain-General of the Province, a little kiln-dried
diminutive Spaniard. Morillo used to call him “uno muneco Creollo,” but
withal he was a gentlemanlike man in his manners.
He received us very civilly; we delivered our despatches; and the same
evening we made our bow, and having obtained fresh horses, set out on our
return, and arrived at the village of Santa Rosa at nine at night, where
we slept; and next morning continuing on our journey, we got once more
safely on board of the old Brig at twelve o’clock at noon, in a miserable
plight, not having had our clothes off for three days. As for me I was
used to roughing it, and in my humble equipment any disarrangement was not
particularly discernible, but in poor Treenail, one of the nattiest
fellows in the service, it was a very different matter. He had issued
forth on the enterprise, cased in tight blue pantaloons that fitted him
like his skin, over which were drawn long well-polished Hessian boots,
each with a formidable tassel at top, and his coat was buttoned close up
to the chin, with a blazing swab on the right shoulder, while a laced
cocked hat and dress sword completed his equipment. But, alas! when we
were accounted for on board of the old Torch, there was a fearful
dilapidation of his external man. First of all, his inexpressibles were
absolutely tom into shreds by the briers and prickly bushes through which
we had been travelling, and fluttered from his waistband like the stripes
we see depending from an ancient Roman or Grecian coat of armour; his coat
had only one skirt, and the bullion of the epaulet was reduced to a strand
or two, while the tag that held the brim, or flaps of the cocked hat up,
had given way, so that, although he looked fierce enough, stem on, still,
when you had a sternview, the after part hung down his back like the tail
of the hat of one of Landseer’s flying dustmen.
After this, we experienced, with little intermission, most dreadful
weather for two weeks, until at length we were nearly torn in pieces, and
the Captain was about abandoning his ground, and returning to Port Royal,
when it came on to blow with redoubled violence. We struggled against it
for twelve hours, but were finally obliged to heave-to, the sea all the
while running tremendously high.
About noon on the day I speak of, the weather had begun to look a little
better, but the sea had if any thing increased. I had just come on deck,
when Mr Splinter sung out--“Look out for that sea, quartermaster!--Mind
your starboard helm!--Ease her, man--ease her!”
On it came, rolling as high as the foreyard, and tumbled in over the
bows, green, clear, and unbroken. It filled the deep waist of the Torch
in an instant, and as I rose half smothered in the midst of a jumble of
men, pigs, hencoops, and spare spars, I had nearly lost an eye by a
floating boarding-pike that was lanced at me by the jauglet of the water.
As for the boats on the booms, they had all gone to sea separately, and
were bobbing at us in a squadron to leeward, the launch acting as
commodore, with a crew of a dozen sheep, whose bleating as she rose on the
crest of a wave came back upon us, faintly blending with the hoarse
roaring of the storm, and seeming to cry, “No more mutton for you, my
boys!”
At length the lee ports were forced out--the pumps promptly rigged and
manned--buckets slung and at work down the hatchways; and although we had
narrowly escaped being swamped, and it continued to blow hard, with a
heavy sea, the men, confident in the qualities of the ship, worked with
glee, shaking their feathers, and quizzing each other. But anon a sudden
and appalling change came over the sea and the sky, that made the stoutest
amongst us quail and draw his breath thick. The firmament darkened--the
horizon seeme to contract--the sea became black as ink--the wind fell to a
dead calm--the teeming clouds descended and filled the murky arch of
heaven with their whirling masses, until they appeared to touch our
mast-heads, but there was neither lightning nor rain, not one glancing
flash, not one refreshing drop--the windows of the sky had been sealed up
by Him who had said to the storm, “Peace, be still.”
During this deathlike pause, infinitely more awful than the heaviest gale,
every sound on board, the voices of the men, even the creaking of the
bulkheads, was heard with startling distinctness; and the water-logged
brig, having no wind to steady her, laboured so heavily in the trough of
the sea, that we expected her masts to go overboard every moment.
“Do you see and hear that, sir?” said Lieutenant Treenail to the Captain.
We all looked eagerly forth in the direction indicated. There was a white
line in fearful contrast with the clouds and the rest of the ocean,
gleaming on the extreme verge of the horizon--it grew broader--a low
increasing growl was heard--a thick blinding mist came driving up a-stern
of us, whose small drops pierced into the skin like sharp hail.
“Is it rain?”
“No, no--salt, salt.”
And now the fierce Spirit of the Hurricane himself, the sea Azrael, in
storm and in darkness, came thundering on with stunning violence, tearing
off the snowy scalps of the tortured billows, and with tremendous and
sheer force, crushing down beneath his chariot wheels their mountainous
and howling ridges into one level plain of foaming water. Our chainplates,
strong fastenings, and clenched bolts, drew like pliant wires, shrouds and
stays were torn away like the summer gossamer, and our masts and spars,
crackling before his fury like dry reeds in autumn, were blown clean out
of the ship, over her bows, into the sea.
Had we shown a shred of the strongest sail in the vessel, it would have
been blown out of the bolt-rope in an instant; we had, therefore, to get
her before the wind, by crossing a spar on the stump of the foremast, with
four men at the wheel, one watch at the pumps, and, the other clearing the
wreck. But our spirits were soon dashed, when the old carpenter, one of
the coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the forehatch, pale
as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming straight out in the wind. He
did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft, towards the capstan, to
which the Captain had lashed himself.
“The water is rushing in forward like a mill-stream, sir; we have either
started a but, or the wreck of the foremast has gone through her bows,
for she is fast settling down by the head.”
“Get the boatswain to father a sail then, man, and try it over the leak;
but don’t alarm the people, Mr Kelson.”
The brig was, indeed, rapidly losing her buoyancy, and when the next heavy
sea rose ahead of us, she gave a drunken sickening lurch, and pitched
right into it, groaning and trembling in every plank, like a guilty and
condemned thing in the prospect of impending punishment.
“Stand by, to heave the guns overboard.”
Too late, too late--Oh God, that cry!--I was stunned and drowning, a chaos
of wreck was beneath me, and around me, and above me, and blue agonized
gasping faces, and struggling arms, and colourless clutching hands, and
despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp
bite on the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had
snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the sinking vessel.
For life, for dear life, nearly suffocated amidst--the hissing spray, we
reached the cutter, the dog and his helpless master.
For three miserable days, I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded,
in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. The third fierce
cloudless West Indian noon was long passed, and once more the dry burning
sun sank in the west, like a red-hot shield of iron. In my horrible
extremity, I imprecated the wrath of Heaven on my defenceless head, and
shaking my clenched hands against the brazen sky, I called aloud on the
Almighty, “Oh, let me never see him rise again!” I glared on the noble dog,
as he lay dying at the bottom of the boat; madness seized me, I tore his
throat with my teeth, not for food, but that I might drink his hot blood
it flowed, and vampire-like, I would have gorged myself; but as he turned
his dull, grey, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart stopped, and I
fell senseless.
When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain
leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining
and licking my hands and face. On the rude joists that bound the rafters
of the roof together, rested a light canoe with its paddles, and over
against me, on the wall, hung some Indian fishing implements, and a
long-barrelled Spanish gun. Underneath lay a corpse, wrapped in a
boat-sail, on which was clumsily written, with charcoal,--“The body of
John Deadeye, Esq. late Commander of his Britannic Majesty’s Sloop,
Torch.”
There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his shirt
and trowsers, drenched, unshorn, and deathlike, was roasting a joint of
meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian, stark naked, sat opposite to him,
squatting on his hams, more like a large bull-frog than a man, and
fanning the flame with a palm leaf. In the dark corner of the hut half a
dozen miserable sheep shrunk huddled together. Through the open door I
saw the stars in the deep blue heaven, and the cold beams of the newly
risen moon were dancing in a long flickering wake of silver light on the
ever-heaving bosom of the ocean, whilst the melancholy murmur of the surf
breaking on the shore, came booming on the gentle night-wind. I was
instantly persuaded that I had been nourished during my delirium; for the
fierceness of my sufferings was assuaged, and I was comparatively strong.
I anxiously enquired of the Lieutenant the fate of our shipmates.
“All gone down in the old Torch; and had it not been for the launch and
our four-footed friends there, I should not have been here to have told
it; but raw mutton, with the wool on, is not a mess to thrive on, Tom.
All that the sharks have left of the Captain and five sea men came ashore
last night. I have buried the poor fellows on the beach where they lay
as well as I could, with an oar-blade for a shovel, and the bronze
ornament there [pointing to the Indian] for an assistant.”
Here he looked towards the body; and the honest fellow’s voice shook as
he continued.
“But seeing you were alive, I thought if you did recover, it would be
gratifying to both of us, after having weathered it so long with him
through gale and sunshine, to lay the kind-hearted old man’s head on its
everlasting pillow as decently as our forlorn condition permitted.”
As the Lieutenant spoke, Sneezer seemed to think his watch was up, and
drew off towards the fire. Clung and famished, the poor brute could no
longer resist the temptation, but, making a desperate snatch at the joint,
bolted through the door with it, hotly pursued by the Bull-frog.
“Drop the leg of mutton, Sneezer,” roared the Lieutenant, “drop the
mutton-drop it, sir, drop it, drop it.” And away raced his Majesty’s
officer in pursuit of the canine pirate.
After a little, he and the Indian returned, the former with the joint in
his hand; and presently the dog stole into the hut after them, and
patiently lay down in a corner, until the Lieutenant good-humouredly
threw the bone to him after our comfortless meal had been finished.
I was so weak that my shipmate considerately refrained from pressing his
society on me; and we, therefore, all betook ourselves to rest for the
night.
To COMMODORE CHRISTOPHER NORTH.
DEAR OLD GENTLEMAN,
Your chief devil has got me into a terrible mess by a misprint in last
Chapter--confound my cramp fist--regarding which Old Splinter
(erst of the Torch,) has ever since quizzed me very nearly up to gunpowder
mark.
To the matter--The said imp makes me say, in page 84, standing on the
bowsprit, that “the spray from the stern was flashing over me, as it
roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters.” Now, I don’t
dispute the roaring of sterns-in season. But,--me, if you or any other
man shall make Tom Cringle’s stern roar, out of season, on compulsion. I
wrote STEM, the cutwater of the ship, the coulter as it were--the head of
her, not the tail, as the devil would have it. And again, when the
privateer hauls his wind suddenly to let the Torch shoot past him, and
thereby gain the weather-gage, when old Splinter should sing out, as it
was written--but, confound the fist once more “Give her the stem”--that
is, run her down and sink her, the stem being the strongest part, as the
stern is the weakest, he, Belzebub, judging, I presume, of the respective
strength of the two ends from his own comparative anatomy, makes him say,
“Give her the stern,” as if he were going to let drive at her with that
end. “Poo, nonsense--it don’t signify.” But it does signify, old man.
To touch you more near--you yourself have been known to get fou and
pugnacious on great occasions--the visit of royalty, for instance--it is
on record. A mountain foreigner from Rossshire engages you, for some
unknown insult, in single combat, and, leagued with John Barleycorn,
(let us imagine an impossibility,) floors you by a peg on the gnomon--the
wound is in the front--your snout is broken, but your honour is whole.
Would it be so, were the Gael to allege, that “her mainsell had coupit you
by a pig kick on her preach?” By all the gods, he of the laconic garment,
the “thousand hill man,” would have been careering on a cloud after his
“freen” Ossian, with the moon shining through him, within that very
hour.
Still I would not have bothered you; but I know his Most Gracious Majesty
King William, God bless him! (who can forget poor Burns’s “Tarry Breeks?”)
either has noticed it, or will notice it, the instant he comes to that
part of the Log. Now this, without explanation, is inconvenient, trowsers
being likely to come as high up in these days as pantaloons, and I have
some claim on him, seeing that my uncle, Job Cringle, some
five-and-forty years ago, at Jamaica, in the town of Port Royal, had his
headrails smashed, the neb of his nose (stem) bitten off by a bungo, and
the end of his spine (stern-post), that mysterious point, where man ends,
and monkey begins, grievously shaken in a spree at Kitty Finnans, in
Prince William Henry’s company.
“Poo, nonsense.” Indeed!--Why, the very devil himself, the author of the
evil, shall be convinced that there is much peril in the transposition of
ends. I will ask him--“What is a sternutation?” (words being his weapons)
“What is a sternutation?” He shall answer learnedly by the card--“A
sneeze,” the nose or stem being the organ. Then he shall ask Jem
Sparkle “What is a sternutation?”--You laugh, old gentleman; but your
devil’s “mistack” looks every inch as queer to a sailor as our topman’s
answer would sound to you.
Yours with all cordiality, notwithstanding,
“THOMAS CRINGLE.”