“Ours the wild life in tumult still to range.”
Byron, The Corsair, I. 7.
Some time after this, we once more returned to Carthagena, to be at hand
should any opportunity occur for Jamaica, and we were lounging about one
forenoon on the fortifications, looking with sickening hearts out to
seaward, when a voice struck up the following negro ditty close to us:
“Fader was a Corramantee,
Moder was a Mingo,
Black picaniny buccra wantee,
So dem sell a me Peter, by jingo,
Jiggery, jiggery, jiggery.”
“Well sung, Massa Bungo,” exclaimed Mr Splinter; “where do you hail from,
my hearty?”
“Hiflo! Bungo, indeed! free and easy dat, anyhow. Who you yousef, eh?”
“Why, Peter,” continued the Lieutenant, “don’t you know me?” “Cannot say
dat I do,” rejoined the negro, very gravely, without lifting his head, as
he sat mending his jacket in one of the embrasures near the water gate of
the arsenal--“Have not de honour of your acquaintance, sir.”
He then resumed his scream, for song it could not be called:--
“Mammy Sally’s daughter,
Lose him shoe in an old canoe,
Dat lay halffull of water,
And den she knew not what to do.
Jiggery, jig”--
“Confound your jiggery, jiggery, sir! But I know you well enough, my man;
and you can scarcely have forgotten Lieutenant Splinter of the Torch, one
would think?”
However, it was clear that the poor fellow really had not known us; for
the name so startled him, that, in his hurry to unlace his legs from under
him, as he sat tailor-fashion, he fairly capsized out of his perch, and
toppled down on his nose--a feature fortunately so flattened by the hand
of nature, that I question if it could have been rendered more obtuse had
he fallen out of the maintop on a timber-head, or a marine officer’s.
“Eh!--no--yes, him sure enough; and who is de picaniny hofficer--Oh! I
see, Massa Tom Cringle? Garamighty, gentlemen, where have you drop
from?--Where is de old Torch? Many a time hab I Peter Mangrove, pilot to
Him Britanic Majesty squadron, taken de old brig in and through amongst de
keys at Port Royal!”
“Ay, and how often did you scour her copper against the coral reefs,
Peter?”
His Majesty’s pilot gave a knowing look, and laid his hand on his breast
“No more of dat if you love me, massa.”
“Well, well, it don’t signify now, my boy; she will never give you that
trouble again--foundered--all hands lost, Peter, but the two you see
before you.”
“Werry sorry, Massa Plinter, werry sorry--What! de black cooksmate and
all?--But misfortune can’t be help. Stop till I put up my needle, and I
will take a turn wid you.” Here he drew himself up with a great deal of
absurd gravity. “Proper dat British hofficer in distress should assist
one anoder--We shall consult togeder.--How can I serve you?”
“Why, Peter, if you could help us to a passage to Port Royal, it would be
serving us most essentially. When we used to be lying there, a week
seldom passed without one of the squadron arriving from this; but here
have we been for more than a month, without a single pennant belonging to
the station having looked in: our money is running short, and if we are to
hold on in Carthagena for another six weeks, we shall not have a shot
left in the locker--not a copper to tinkle on a tombstone.”
The negro looked steadfastly at us, then carefully around. There was no
one near.
“You see, Massa Plinter, I am desirable to serve you, for one little
reason of my own; but, beside dat, it is good for me at present to make
some friend wid de hofficer of de squadron, being as how dat I am absent
widout leave.”
“Oh, I perceive--a large R against your name in the master attendant’s
books, eh?”
“You have hit it, sir, werry close; besides I long mosh to return to my
poor wife, Nancy Cator, dat I leave, wagabone dat I is, just about to be
confine.”
I could not resist putting in my oar.
“I saw Nancy just before we sailed, Peter,--fine child that; not quite so
black as you, though.”
“Oh, massa,” said Snowball, grinning and showing his white teeth, “you
know I am soch a terrible black fellow--But you are a leetle out at
present, massa--I meant, about to be confine in de workhouse, for stealing
de admiral’s Muscovy ducks;” and he laughed loud and long.--“However, if
you will promise dat you will stand my friends, I will put you in de way
of getting a shove across to de east end of Jamaica; and I will go wid
you, too, for company.”
“Thank you,” rejoined Mr Splinter; “but how do you mean to manage this?
There is no Kingston trader here at present, and you don’t mean to make a
start of it in an open boat, do you?”
“No, sir, I don’t; but in de first place--as you are a gentleman, will you
try and get me off when we get to Jamaica? Secondly, wi you promise dat
you will not seek to know more of de vessel you may go in, nor of her
crew, than dey are willing to tell you, provided you are landed safe?”
“Why, Peter, I scarcely think you would deceive us, for you know I saved
your bacon in that awkward affair, when through drunkenness you plumped
the Torch ashore, so”--
“Forget dat, sir,----forget dat!--Never shall poor black pilot forget how
you saved him from being seized upt when de gratings, boatswain’s mates,
and all, were ready at de gangway@never shall poor black rascal forget
dat.”
“Indeed I do not think you would wittingly betray us into trouble, Peter;
and as I guess you mean one of the forced traders, we will venture in her,
rather than kick about here any longer, and pay a moderate sum for our
passage.”
“Den wait here five minute,”--and so saying he slipt down through the
embrasure into a canoe that lay beneath, and in a trice we saw him jump on
board of a long low nondescript kind of craft, that lay moored within
pistol-shot of the walls.
She was a large shallow vessel, coppered to the bends, of great breadth of
beam, with bright sides, like an American, so painted as to give her a
clumsy mercantile sheer externally, but there were many things that belied
this to a nautical eye: her copper, for instance, was bright as burnished
gold on her very sharp bows and beautiful run; and we could see from the
bastion where we stood, that her decks were flush and level. She had no
cannon mounted that were visible, but we distinguished grooves on her
well-scrubbed decks, as from the recent traversing of carronade slides,
while the bolts and rings in her high and solid bulwarks shone clear and
bright in the ardent noontide. There was a tarpawling stretched over a
quantity of rubbish, old sails, old junk, and hencoops rather
ostentatiously piled up forward, which we conjectured might conceal a
long gun.
She was a very taught-rigged hermaphrodite, or brig forward and schooner
aft. Her foremast and bowsprit were immensely strong and heavy, and her
mainmast was so long and tapering, that the wonder was, how the few
shrouds and stays about it could support it: it was the handsomest stick
we had ever seen. Her upper spars were on the same scale, tapering away
through topmast, topgallant-mast, royal and skysail-masts, until they
fined away into slender wands. The sails, that were loose to dry, were
old, and patched, And evidently displayed to cloak the character of the
vessel, by an ostentatious show of their unserviceable condition, but her
rigging was beautifully fitted, every rope lying in the chafe of another
being carefully served with hide. There were several large
bushy-whiskered fellows lounging about the deck, with their hair
gathered into dirty net bags, like the fishermen of Barcelona; many had
red silk sashes round their waists, through which were stuck their long
knives, in shark-skin sheaths. Their numbers were not so great as to
excite suspicion; but a certain daring reckless manner, would at once
have distinguished them, independently of any thing else, from the quiet,
hard-worked, redshirted merchant seaman.
“That chap is not much to be trusted,” said the Lieutenant; “his bunting
would make a few jackets for Joseph, I take it.” But we had little time to
be critical before our friend Peter came paddling back with another
blackamoor in the stem, of as ungainly an exterior as could well be,
imagined. He was a very large man, whose weight every now and then, as
they breasted the short sea, cocked up the snout of the canoe with Peter
Mangrove in it, as if he had been a cork, leaving him to flourish his
paddle in the air, like the weatherwheel of a steam-boat in a sea-way.
The new-comer was strong and broad-shouldered, with long muscular arms,
and a chest like Hercules; but his legs and thighs were, for his bulk,
remarkably puny and misshapen. A thick fell of black wool, in close
tufts, as if his face had been stuck full of cloves, covered his chin and
upper lip; and his hair, if hair it could be called, was twisted into a
hundred short plaits, that bristled out, and gave his head, when he took
his hat off, the appearance of a porcupine. There was a large sabre-cut
across his nose, and down his cheek, and he wore two immense gold earings.
His dress consisted of short cotton drawers, that did not reach within two
inches of his knee, leaving his thin cucumber shanks (on which the small
bullet-like calf appeared to have been stuck before, through mistake, in
place of abaft) naked to the shoe; a check shirt, and an enormously large
Panama hat, made of a sort of cane, split small, and worn shovel-fashion.
Notwithstanding, he made his bow by no means ungracefully, and offered his
services in choice Spanish, but spoke English as soon as he heard who we
were.
“Pray, sir, are you the master of that vessel?” said the lieutenant.
“No, sir, I am the mate, and I learn you are desirous of a passage to
Jamaica.” This was spoken with a broad Scotch accent.
“Yes, we are,” said I, in very great astonishment; “but we will not sail
with the devil; and who ever saw a negro Scotchman before, the spirit of
Nicol Jarvie conjured into a blackamoor’s skin!”
The fellow laughed. “I am black, as you see; so were my father and mother
before me.” And he looked at me, as much as to say, I have read the book
you quote from. “But I was born in the good town of Port--Glasgow,
notwithstanding, and many a voyage I have made as cabin-boy and cook, in
the good ship the Peggy Bogle, with worthy old jock Hunter; but that
matters not. I was told you wanted to go to Jamaica; I dare say our
captain will take you for a moderate passage-money. But here he comes to
speak for himself.--Captain Vanderbosh, here are two shipwrecked British
officers, who wish to be put on shore on the east end of Jamaica; will you
take them, and what will you charge for their passage?”
The man he spoke to was nearly as tall as himself; he was a sunburnt,
angular, raw-boned, iron-visaged veteran, with a nose in shape and
colour like the bowl of his own pipe, but not at all, according to the
received idea, like a Dutchman. His dress was quizzicaly enough, white
trowsers, a long-flapped embroidered waistcoat, that might have belonged
to a Spanish grandee, with an old-fashioned French-cut coat, showing the
frayed marks where the lace had been stripped off, voluminous in the
skirts, but very tight in the sleeves, which were so short as to leave his
large bony paws, and six inches of his arm above the wrist, exposed;
altogether, it fitted him like a purser’s shirt on a handspike.
“Vy, for von hondred thaler, I will land dem safe in Mancheoneal Bay; but
how shall ve manage, Villiamson? De cabin vas point yesterday.”
The Scotch negro nodded. “Never mind; I dare say the smell of the paint
won’t signify to the gentlemen.”
The bargain was ratified, we agreed to pay the stipulated sum, and that
same evening, having dropped down with the last of the seabreeze, we set
sail from Bocca Chica, and began working up under the lee of the headland
of Punto Canoa. When off the San Domingo Gate, we burned a blue light,
which was immediately answered by another in shore of us. In the glare,
we could perceive two boats, full of men. Any one who has ever played at
snapdragon, can imagine the unearthly appearance of objects when seen by
this species of firework. In the present instance, it was held aloft on
a boat-hook, and cast a strong spectral light on the band of lawless
ruffians, who were so crowded together, that they entirely filled the
boats, no part of which could be seen. It seemed as if two clusters of
fiends, suddenly vomited forth from hell, were floating on the surface of
the midnight sea, in the midst of brimstone flames. In a few moments, our
crew was strengthened by about forty as ugly Christians as I ever set eyes
on. They were of all ages, countries, complexions, and tongues, and looked
as if they had been kidnapped by a pressgang, as they had knocked off from
the Tower of Babel. From the moment they came on board, Captain
Vanderbosh was shorn of all his glory, and sank into the petty officer,
while, to our amazement, the Scottish negro took the command, evincing
great coolness, energy, and skill. He ordered the schooner to be wore,
as soon as we had shipped the men, and laid her head off the land, then
set all hands to shift the old suit of sails, and to bend new ones.
“Why did you not shift your canvass before we started?” said I to the
Dutch captain, or mate, or whatever he might be.
“Vy vont you be content to take a quiet passage and hax no question?” was
the uncivil rejoinder, which I felt inclined to resent, until I remembered
that we were in the hands of the Philistines, where a quarrel would have
been worse than useless. I was gulping down the insult as well as I could,
when the black captain came-aft, and, with the air of an equal, invited
us into the cabin to take a glass of grog. We had scarcely sat down
before we heard a noise like the swaying up of guns, or some other heavy
articles, from the hold.
I caught Mr Splinter’s eye--he nodded, but said nothing. In half an hour
afterwards, when we went on deck, we saw by the light of the moon, twelve
eighteen-pound carronades mounted, six of a side, with their
accompaniments of rammers and sponges, water buckets, boxes of round,
grape, and canister, and tubs of wadding, while the combings of the
hatchways were thickly studded with round shot. The tarpawling and lumber
forward had disappeared, and there lay long Tom ready levelled, grinning
on his pivot.
The ropes were all coiled away, and laid down in regular man-of-war
fashion; while an ugly gruff beast of a Spanish mulatto, apparently the
officer of the watch, walked the weather-side of the quarter-deck, in
the true pendulum style. Look-outs were placed aft, and at the gangways
and bows, who every now and then passed the word to keep a bright
look-out, while the rest of the watch were stretched silent, but
evidently broad awake, under the lee of the boat. We noticed that each
man had his cutlass buckled round his waist, that the boarding-pikes had
been cut loose from the main boom, round which they had been stopped, and
that about thirty muskets were ranged along a fixed-rack, that ran athwart
ships, near the main hatchway.
By the time we had reconnoitred thus far, the night became overcast, and a
thick bank of clouds began to rise to windward; some heavy drops of rain
fell, and the thunder grumbled at a distance. The black veil crept
gradually on, until it shrouded the whole firmament, and left us in as
dark a night as ever poor devils were out in. By and by, a narrow streak
of bright moonlight appeared under the lower edge of the bank, defining
the dark outlines of the tumbling multitudinous billows on the horizon, as
distinctly as if they had been pasteboard waves in a theatre.
“Is that a sail to windward, in the clear, think you?” said Mr Splinter to
me in a whisper. At this moment it lightened vividly. “I am sure it is,”
continued he--“I could see her white canvass glance just now.”
I looked steadily, and, at last, caught the small dark speck against the
bright background, rising and falling on the swell of the sea like a
feather.
As we stood on, she was seen more distinctly, but, to all appearance,
nobody was aware of her proximity. We were mistaken in this, however, for
the captain suddenly jumped on a gun, and gave his orders with a fiery
energy that startled us.
“Leroux!” A small French boy was at his side in a moment. “Forward, and
call all hands to shorten sail; but, doucement, you land crab!--Man the
fore clew-garnets.--Hands by the topgallant clewlines-peak and throat
haulyards--jib down-haul--rise tacks and sheets--let go--clew up--settle
away the main--gaff there!”
In almost as short a space as I have taken to write it, every inch of
canvass was close furled--every light, except the one in the binnacle, and
that was cautiously masked, carefully extinguished--a hundred and twenty
men at quarters, and the ship under bare poles. The head yards were then
squared, and we bore up before the wind. The stratagem proved successful;
the strange sail could be seen through the night glasses, cracking on
close to the wind, evidently under the impression that we had tacked.
“Dere she goes, chasing de Gobel,” said the Dutchman.
She now burned a blue light, by which we saw she was a heavy cutter
without doubt our old fellow-cruiser the Spark. The Dutchman had come to
the same conclusion.
“My eye, Captain, no use to dodge from her; it is only dat footy little
King’s cutter on de Jamaica station.”
“It is her, true enough,” answered Williamson; “and she is from Santa
Martha with a freight of specie, I know. I will try a brush with
her by....”
Splinter struck in before he could finish his irreverent exclamation. “If
your conjecture be true, I know the craft--a heavy vessel of her class,
and you may depend on hard knocks, and small profit if you do take her;
while, if she takes you”--
“I’ll be hanged if she does”--and he grinned at the conceit--then setting
his teeth hard, “or rather, I will blow the schooner up with my own hand
before I strike; better that than have one’s bones bleached in chains on a
key at Port Royal.--But, you see you cannot control us, gentlemen; so get
down into the cable tier and take Peter Mangrove with you. I would not
willingly see those come to harm who have trusted me.”
However, there was no shot flying as yet, we therefore staid on deck. All
sail was once more made; the carronades were cast loose on both sides, and
double-shotted; the long gun slewed round; the tack of the fore-and-aft
foresail hauled up, and we kept by the wind, and stood after the cutter,
whose white canvass we could still see through the gloom like a
snow-wreath.
As soon as she saw us she tacked and stood towards us, and came bowling
along gallantly, with the water roaring and flashing at her bows. As the
vessels neared each other, they both shortened sail, and finding that we
could not weather her, we steered close under her lee.
As we crossed on opposite tacks her commander hailed, “Ho, the brigantine,
ahoy!”
“Hillo!” sung out Blackie, as he backed his maintopsail.
“What schooner is that?”
“The Spanish schooner Caridad.”
“Whence, and whither bound?”
“Carthagena to Porto Rico.”
“Heave-to, and send your boat on board.”
“We have none that will swim, sir.”
“Very well--bring-to, and I will send mine.”
“Call away the boarders,” said our captain, in a low stern tone; “let
them crouch out of sight behind the boat.”
The cutter wore, and hove-to under our lee quarter, within pistol shot.
We heard the rattle of the ropes running through the davit blocks, and the
splash of the jolly boat touching the water, then the measured stroke of
the oars, as they glanced like silver in the sparkling sea, and a voice
calling out, “Give way, my lads.”
The character of the vessel we were on board of was now evident; and the
bitter reflection that we were chained to the stake on board of a pirate,
on the eve of a fierce contest with one of our own cruisers, was
aggravated by the consideration that the cutter had fallen into a snare,
by which a whole boat’s crew would be sacrificed before a shot was fired.
I watched my opportunity as she pulled up alongside, and called out,
leaning well over the nettings, “Get back to your ship! treachery! get
back to your ship!”
The little French serpent was at my side with the speed of thought, his
long clear knife glancing in one hand, while the fingers of the other were
laid on his lips. He could not have said more plainly, “Hold your tongue
or I’ll cut your throat;” but Sneezer now startled him by rushing between
us, and giving a short angry growl.
The officer in the boat had heard me imperfectly; he rose up--“I won’t go
back, my good man, until I see what you are made of; and as he spoke he
sprung on board, but the instant he got over the bulwarks he was caught by
two strong hands, gagged and thrown bodily down the main hatchway.
“Heave,” cried a voice, “and with a will!” and four cold 32-pound shot
were hove at once into the boat alongside, which crashing through her
bottom, swamped her in a moment, precipitating the miserable crew into the
boiling sea. Their shrieks still ring in my ears as they clung to the
oars and some loose planks of the boat.
“Bring up the officer, and take out the gag,” said Williamson.
Poor Walcolm, who had been an old messmate of mine, was now dragged to the
gangway half-naked, his face bleeding, and heavily ironed, when the
blackamoor, clapping a pistol to his head, bid him, as he feared instant
death, hail “that the boat had swamped under the counter, and to send
another.” The poor fellow, who appeared stunned and confused, did so, but
without seeming to know what he said.
“Good God,” said Mr Splinter, “don’t you mean to pick up the boat’s crew?”
The blood curdled to my heart as the black savage answered in a voice of
thunder, “Let them drown and be d----d! fill, and stand on!”
But the clouds by this time broke away, and the mild moon shone clear and
bright once more, upon this scene of most atrocious villainy. By her
light the cutter’s people could see that there was no one struggling in
the water now, and that the people must either have been saved, or were
past all earthly aid; but the infamous deception was not entirely at an
end.
The captain of the cutter, seeing we were making sail, did the same, and
after having shot ahead of us, hailed once more.
“Mr Walcolm, why don’t you run to leeward, and heave-to, sir?”
“Answer him instantly, and hail again for another boat,” said the sable
fiend, and cocked his pistol.
The click went to my heart. The young midshipman turned his pale mild
countenance, laced with his blood, upwards towards the moon and stars, as
one who had looked his last look on earth; the large tears were flowing
down his cheeks, and mingling with the crimson streaks, and a flood of
silver light fell on the fine features of the poor boy, as he said firmly,
“Never.” The miscreant fired, and he fell dead.
“Up with the helm, and wear across her stern.” The order was obeyed.
“Fire!” The whole broadside was poured in, and we could hear the shot
rattle and tear along the cutter’s deck, and the shrieks and groans of the
wounded, while the white splinters glanced away in all directions.
We now ranged alongside, and close action commenced, and never do I expect
to see such an infernal scene again. Up to this moment there had been
neither confusion nor noise on board the pirate--all had been coolness and
order; but when the yards locked, the crew broke loose from all control
they ceased to be men they were demons, for they threw their own dead and
wounded, as they were mown down like grass by the cutter’s grape,
indiscriminately down the hatchways to get clear of them. They had stript
themselves almost naked; and although they fought with the most desperate
courage, yelling and cursing, each in his own tongue, most hideously, yet
their very numbers, pent up in a small vessel, were against them. At
length, amidst the fire, and smoke, and hellish uproar, we could see that
the deck had become a very shambles; and unless they soon carried the
cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of my
own glorious service must prevail, even against such fearful odds, the
superior size of the vessel, greater number of guns, and heavier metal.
The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate
attempt forward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black
captain. Just at this moment, the cutter’s main-boom fell across the
schooner’s deck, close to where we were sheltering ourselves from the shot
the best way we could; and while the rush forward was being made, by a
sudden impulse Splinter and I, followed by Peter and the dog, (who with
wonderful sagacity, seeing the uselessness of resistance, had cowered
quietly by my side during the whole row) scrambled along it as the
cutter’s people were repelling the attack on her bow, and all four of us
in our haste jumped down on the poor Irishman at the wheel.
“Murder, fire, rape, and robbery! it is capsized, stove in, sunk, burned,
and destroyed I am! Captain, Captain, we are carried aft here--Och,
hubbaboo for Patrick Donnally!”
There was no time to be lost; if any of the crew came aft, we were dead
men, so we tumbled down through the cabin skylight, men and beast, the
hatch having been knocked off by a shot, and stowed ourselves away in the
side berths. The noise on deck soon ceased the cannon were again plied
gradually the fire slackened, and we could hear that the pirate had
scraped clear and escaped. Some time after this, the lieutenant
commanding the cutter came down. Poor Mr Douglas! both Mr Splinter and I
knew him well. He sat down and covered his face with his hands, while the
blood oozed down between his fingers. He had received a cutlass wound on
the head in the attack. His right arm was bound up with his neckcloth,
and he was very pale.
“Steward, bring me a light.--Ask the doctor how many are killed and
wounded; and, do you hear, tell him to come to me when he is done forward,
but not a moment sooner. To have been so mauled and duped by a cursed
buccaneer; and my poor boat’s crew.”
Splinter groaned. He started--but at this moment the man returned again.
“Thirteen killed, your honour, and fifteen wounded; scarcely one of us
untouched.” The poor fellow’s own skull was bound round with a bloody
cloth.
“God help me! God help me! but they have died the death of men. Who
knows what death the poor fellows in the boat have died?” Here he was cut
short by a tremendous scuffle on the ladder, down which an old
quarter-master was trundled neck and crop into the cabin. “How now,
Jones?”
“Please your honour,” said the man, as soon as he had gathered himself up,
and had time to turn his quid, and smooth down his hair; but again the
uproar was renewed, and Donnally was lugged in, scrambling and struggling,
between two seamen--“this here Irish chap, your honour, has lost his wits,
if so be he ever had any, your honour. He has gone mad through fright.”
“Fright be d----d!” roared Donnally; “no man ever frightened me: but as his
honour was skewering them bloody thieves forward, I was boarded and
carried aft by the devil, your honour--pooped by Beelzebub, by--,” and he
rapped his fist on the table until every thing on it danced again. “There
were four of them, yeer honour--a black one and two blue ones--and a
piebald one, with four legs and a bushy tail--each with two horns on his
head, for all the world like those on Father M’Cleary’s red cow--no, she
was humbled--it is Father Clannachan’s I mane--no, not his neither, for
his was the parish bull; fait, I don’t know what I mane, except that they
had all horns on their heads, and vomited fire, and had each of them a
tail at his stem, twisting and twining like a conger eel, with a blue
light at the end on’t.”
“And dat’s a lie, if ever dere was one,” exclaimed Peter Mangrove, jumping
from the berth. “Look at me, you Irish tief, and tell me if I have a blue
light or a conger eel at my stem?”
This was too much for poor Donnally. He yelled out, “You’ll believe your
own eyes now, yeer honour, when you see one o’dem bodily before you! Let
me go--let me go” and, rushing up the ladder, he would, in all
probability, have ended his earthly career in the salt sea, had his bullet
head not encountered the broadest part of the purser, who was in the act
of descending, with such violence, that he shot him out of the companion
several feet above the deck, as if he had been discharged from a culverin;
but the recoil sent poor Donnally, stunned and senseless, to the bottom of
the ladder. There was no standing all this; we laughed outright, and made
ourselves known to Mr Douglas, who received us cordially, and in a week we
were landed at Port Royal.