"Be jabers, sor!" exclaimed the Irishman in his very broadest brogue and
with a comical grin on his face that certainly must have eclipsed that
of which he complained in the professor of his college who had caught
him and his fellow-student trespassing on his medical preserves. "To
till the truth an' shame the divvle, colonel, the poor ould crayture,
whose complaint we couldn't underconstumble at all at all, sure, was
sufferin' from a fit of apoplexy--a thing aisy enough to recognise by
any docther of experience, though, faith, it moight have been Grake to
us!"
We were all very much amused and had a good laugh at this naive
confession, even Colonel Vereker sharing in the general mirth, in spite
of his profound melancholy and the pain he felt from his wounded leg,
which made him wince every now and again, I noticed, during the
narration of the story Garry O'Neil had thus told, with the utmost good
humour, it must be confessed, at his own expense, as, indeed, he had
made us understand beforehand that it would be.
"By George!" cried the skipper, after having his laugh out, "you'll be
the death of me some day with your queer yarns, if you can't manage to
do for me with your professional skill, or by the aid of your drugs and
lotions, poisons, most of 'em, and all your murderous-looking
instruments, besides!"
"No fear of that, cap'en; you're too tough a customer," rejoined the
doctor with a knowing look in the direction of Mr Stokes, who had made
himself purple in the face and was panting and puffing on his seat,
trying to recover his breath. "Faith, though, sor, talkin' of medical
skill, the sooner I say afther that leg of our fri'nd here, the better,
I'm thinkin'."
"With the best of wills," assented the colonel, who had finished his
luncheon by this time and certainly presented a much improved appearance
to that he had worn when entering the saloon. "I am quite at your
service, doctor, and promise to be as quiet as that first patient of
yours of whom you've just told us!"
"Belay that, colonel; none o' your chaff about the ould leddy, if you
love me, sure!" growled Garry, pretending to be indignant as he knelt
down on the cabin floor and slit up the leg of the colonel's trousers so
as to inspect the wound. His nonsensical, quizzing manner changed
instantly, however, on seeing the serious state of the injured limb, and
he ejaculated in a subdued tone of voice, "Holy Moses!"
"Why, sir," said the patient quietly, "what's the matter now?"
"Ah, an' ye are axin' what's the mather?" cried Garry in a still more
astonished tone. "Faith, it's wantin' to know I am how the divvle
you've iver been able to move about at all, at all, colonel, with that
thing there. Look at it now, an' till me what ye think of it yoursilf,
me darlint. May the saints presairve us, but did any one iver say such
a leg?"
It was, in truth, a fearful-looking object, being swollen to the most
abnormal proportions from the ankle joint to the thigh, while the skin
was of a dark hue, save where some extravasated blood clustered about a
small punctured orifice just above the knee.
Colonel Vereker laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"The fortune of war," he explained. "One of those brutes shot me where
that mark is, but I think the bullet travelled all round my thigh and
lodged somewhere in the groin, I fancy, for I feel a lump there."
"Sure, I wonder you can fale anythin'!" cried Garry, who was probing for
the missile all the time. "A man that can walk about, faith, loike an
opera dancer, with a blue-mouldy leg loike that, can't have much faling
at all, at all, I'm thinkin'!"
"Ah!" groaned his patient at last, on his touching the obnoxious bullet
near the spot the colonel had indicated. "Whew! that hurts at any rate,
doctor!"
"Just be aisy a minnit, me darlint," said the other soothingly,
exchanging his probe for a pair of forceps and proceeding deftly to
extract the leaden messenger. "An' if ye can't be aisy, faith, try an'
be as aisy as ye can!"
In another second he had it out with a triumphant and gleeful shout.
"Ah!" ejaculated the colonel, the excessive pain causing him to clench
his teeth with an audible snap.
"Faith, you may say `ah' now as much as you please," said Garry, as he
held out the villainous-looking bullet gripped in his forceps. "For
there's the baste that did you all the damage, an' we'll soon pull you
up, alannah, with that ugly paice of mischief out of the way, sure!"
"Oh! dear me!" the poor colonel exclaimed as the doctor went on dressing
the wound and afterwards set-to to bandage the whole leg, swathing it
round like a mummy with lint, and then saturating it with some liniment
to allay the swelling. "Would to God all the mischief could be as
easily made good! Oh, my little Elsie, my darling little girl!"
"Cheer up, colonel, cheer up," whispered the skipper, coming in from the
state room on the starboard side of the saloon, whither he had gone to
hunt up some special cigars while Garry O'Neil was accomplishing his
surgical operation. "We're going ahead as fast as steam and a good ship
can carry us, and we'll rescue your child, I'll wager, before nightfall.
Have a smoke now, my friend; and while you're trying one of the
Havanah's, which never paid duty and are none the worse for that, you
can tell us how it all happened from the beginning to the end. I should
like to hear the account of your voyage right through, colonel, and how
those blacks came to board you."
"Certainly!" said Colonel Vereker, leaning back in his easy chair when
Garry O'Neil had made an end of bandaging his leg, and accepting one of
the choice cigars the skipper offered him. "I will tell you willingly,
captain, and you, gentlemen, turning round and bowing to us, the sad
story of our thrice ill-fated voyage."
"Thrice ill-fated?" repeated Mr Stokes inquiringly, the chief being
rather argumentative by nature and possessing what he called a strictly
logical turn of mind. "But how's that, sir?"
The colonel had his answer quite ready.
"I said `thrice ill-fated' advisedly, sir," he replied, removing his
cigar from his lips to emit a cloud of perfumed smoke, and then
restoring the fragrant roll of tobacco to the mouth again. "In the
first place, sir, from my having been unlucky enough ever to start upon
the voyage at all. Secondly, from the fact of a calm delaying us when
passing between Puerto Rico and San Domingo, thereby enabling those
treacherous negro scoundrels to see our ship in time to put out for us
from the shore; and thirdly, because Captain Alphonse would not take my
advice and use strong measures when the mutiny originally broke out,
which might have prevented the terrible events that afterwards occurred!
But, sir, if you will allow me, I shall get along better by telling you
what happened, just in my own way!"
"Certainly, sir," immediately replied Mr Stokes, profuse in his
apologies. "Pray pardon my interruption!"
The colonel bowed in token of his forgiveness and then resumed his yarn.
"Our ship, the _Saint Pierre_, of Marseilles, Jacques Alphonse master
and part owner, sailed from La Guayra on October 25, barely a fortnight
ago!" said he. "In addition to her captain, of course, she carried two
mates and a crew of twenty-five hands all told, and she was bound for
Liverpool, with a general cargo of cocoa, coffee and hides, besides a
mixed assortment of indigo, orris root, sarsaparilla and other raw drugs
for the English market."
"Were you and your little daughter the only passengers?"
"No, Senor Applegarth," replied the other. "There were also on board
Monsieur and Madame Boisson, from Caracas, returning home to Europe
after a lengthened residence in the Venezuelan capital, where they had
carried on a large millinery business, supplying the dusky _senoritas_
of the hybrid Spanish and native republic with the latest Parisian
modes; Don Miguel, the proprietor of an extensive estancia in the
interior; and little Mr Johnson, a Britisher, of not much account in
your country, I guess, not a gentleman--at all events, in my humble
opinion. He was travelling for some mercantile house in London
connected with the manufactory of chocolates or sweets, or something of
that sort. I cannot say I cared much for the lot, as they were not
people of my class, so I did not allow my Elsie, my darling, my pet, to
associate with them more than could be helped, save with Madame Boisson,
who was a kind, good-natured sort of woman, though decidedly vulgar. Oh
dear me! It was a thousand pities we ever started on that disastrous
voyage. It was unlucky from the very first!"
"Faith!" interposed Garry O'Neil. "But how was that, sor?"
"We were too late in reaching La Guayra in the first instance," replied
Colonel Vereker. "I had planned, my friend, to take the French steamer
for Brest, but on arriving at the port I found she had already left, and
while deliberating about what I should do under the circumstances--for
there would not be another mail boat for a fortnight at least--I met
Captain Alphonse. He was an old friend of mine, a friend of long
standing, so, on his telling me that his vessel was going to sail on the
following day, and would probably convey me to Brest, where he said he
would have to report himself prior to proceeding to Liverpool with his
cargo, quite as soon as I should arrive if I waited for the next
steamer, I made up my mind to accompany him."
"But, colonel," suggested Captain Applegarth, "you might have gone
direct to England by one of the West India mail steamers which touch at
La Guayra on their route homeward from Colon."
"I know that, my friend," said the other. "I could have caught one of
them the following week. This would not have suited my purpose,
however, sir. I wished to proceed direct to Brest, for I could get
easily on to Paris, where I intended placing my little Elsie at school
in the convent of L'enfant Jesu, at Neuilly, under the guardianship of
some good nuns, by whom her poor mother was educated and brought up. It
was a promise, my friend, to the dead."
"I see, colonel," rejoined the skipper apologetically, lighting his
cigar again, having allowed it to go out while listening to the other;
"I see, sir. Go on; I'm all attention."
"Well, then," continued the colonel, "these preliminaries being all
arranged, Elsie and I went aboard the _Saint Pierre_, a full-rigged
sailing ship of some eight hundred tons, the morning of the twenty-
eighth of last month; and on the evening of the same day, as I have
already told you, we made sail and quitted the anchorage where the ship
had been loading--abreast of San Miguel, a port that guards the
roadstead to the eastward, where it is open to the sea."
"Aye, I know La Guayra well, colonel," put in the skipper at this point,
showing that he was following every detail. "I was in the Royal Mail
Line when I was a nipper, before joining my present company."
"I recollect the night we sailed," resumed the other, paying no
attention to Captain Applegarth's remark, but speaking with his eyes
fixed, as if in a dream and seeing mentally before him the scenes he
described. "The moon was shining brightly when we got under way,
lighting up the Trinchera bastion and making the mountains in the
background seem higher than they were, from the deep shadows they cast
over the town lying below. This latter lay embosomed amid a mass of
tall cocoanut trees and gorgeous palms, with other tropical foliage, and
had a shining beach of white sand immediately in its front, stretching
round the curling bay, on which the surf broke in the moonlight, with a
phosphorescent glow and a hollow sound as if beating over a grave.
Heavens! It was the grave of all my dearest hopes and plans, for that,
sir, was one of the few last peaceful nights I have of late known, and
very probably ever shall know again!"
"Faith, don't say that now, sir," cried out Garry at this. "You'll have
a peaceful one to-night, sure, or I'm no prophet. Begorrah, though, I
niver was, so far as that goes!"
The skipper grinned at this sympathetic interpolation, and the colonel's
sombre face lighted up a bit as he turned his pathetic eyes on the
speaker, as if wishing to share his hopefulness.
"Ah, doctor, you do not know what grief and anguish are like!" he said
mournfully. "But to go on with my story. I may tell you that, had our
voyage progressed like our start, I should have nothing to deplore, for,
the land breeze filling our sails, we bore away buoyantly from the
Venezuelan coast, the ship shaping a course north by west towards the
Mona passage, as the channel way is called, from a rock in its centre,
lying between Hayti and Puerto Rico. This route is held to be the best,
I believe, for passing out into the open Atlantic from the labyrinthine
groups of islands and innumerable islets that gem the blue waters of the
Caribbean Sea. It is a course, too, which by its directness and the
northerly current and westerly wind there to be met, saves a lot of
useless tacking about and beating to windward, as you, no doubt,
captain, very well know."
The skipper nodded his head.
"You're quite a sailor, colonel," he said approvingly. "Where did you
manage to pick up your knowledge of navigation and sea-faring matters,
if I may ask the question, sir?"
"In the many voyages I have made during a somewhat adventurous life,"
replied the other. "I have invariably kept my ears and eyes open,
captain. There are many things thus to be learnt, I have found out from
experience, which, although seemingly unimportant in themselves,
frequently turn out afterwards to be of very great use to us, sometimes,
indeed, almost unexpectedly so!"
"Aye, aye, colonel. My opinion, sir, right down to the ground," said
the skipper, looking towards me. "Just you put that in your pipe, Dick
Haldane, and smoke it!"
"Yes, young sir," added Colonel Vereker, emphasising this piece of
advice. "That rule of life has stood me in good stead on more than one
occasion, both on land and on shipboard. Had I not learnt something of
the ways of your sailors, for instance, I might not have thought of
lashing the _Saint Pierre's_ helm amidships on the breaking out of the
mutiny, and so prevented all our going to the bottom subsequently, when
it came on to blow; for all of us were then fighting for our lives and
no one had time to attend to the ship, save in the way of letting go
what ropes were handiest."
"Aye, that may be well enough, colonel," observed the skipper in his dry
fashion. "But your argument cuts both ways. If your helm hadn't been
lashed down, remember, the ship would have been yawing about and
drifting in this direction and that, and we should probably have come
across her long ago, like that boat from which we picked you up, instead
of her bearing away right before the wind and our having to go in chase
of her, sir, as we are now doing."
"It is true! I did not think of that!" returned the colonel
impulsively, half-starting from his seat in his excitement. "We must be
near her now, captain, though, surely. We must find them, and I must
see my little girl again!"
"Kape aisy, me darlint; kape aisy," here interposed Garry O'Neil, before
Captain Applegarth could answer the question. "Sure, Mr Fosset
promised to give us the worrd whin she hove in sight, an' you're only
distarbin' yoursilf for nothing, colonel! More's the pity, too,
mabruchal, whin your leg is progressin' so illigantly an' the swillin'
goin' down as swately as possible. Now kape aisy, if only to oblige me.
Faith, colonel, me profissional reputation's at shtake!"
The Irishman, all the time he was talking, was carefully attending to
the injured limb, loosening a bandage here, tightening another there,
and keeping the lint dressing moist the while with a lotion which he
applied gently to the surface by means of a sponge. So, impressed alike
by his tender solicitude thus practically shown on his behalf as much as
by his opportune admonition, the colonel was forced to remain quiet.
"I wish he'd be quick about it!" he muttered to himself. "Well, doctor,
as you will not let me move, I suppose you will let me go on with my
tale; that is, if it interests you!"
"Aye, aye; I want to hear everything," said the skipper. "And fire
away, colonel; there's plenty of time for you to reel off your yarn
before we overhaul the chase."
"All right,--then, I will proceed," replied the other. "All went well
with us on the voyage until the afternoon of the third day after sailing
from La Guayra, when, unfortunately, the weather changed and the
westerly wind, which had favoured us so far, suddenly failed us after
wafting us through the Mona Passage, and we became becalmed off Cap San
Engano, to the northward of Hayti."
"Hayti!" exclaimed old Mr Stokes, waking up from a short nap he had
been having on the sly, and pretending to be keenly alive to the
conversation. "That's the famous black republic, ain't it?"
"Famous black pandemonium, you mean!" retorted the colonel fiercely, his
eyes flashing at once with fire. "Excuse me, sir, but I have seen so
much of these negro brutes, who ape the airs of civilisation and yet
after a century of freedom are more uncivilised in their habits and mode
of life than the African slaves, their forefathers whom Toussaint-
L'Overture, as he styled himself, their leader, freed from the yoke of
their French masters a hundred years ago, that I feel the glorious name
`republic' to be dishonoured when associated with such vile wretches,
wretches a thousand times worse than the Fantees of the West Coast, from
whom they originally sprang!"
"My dear sir," said Mr Stokes, aghast at the tempest he had raised by
his innocent remark, "you surprise me!"
"Heavens! you would be surprised, sir, if you knew these Haytians as I
know them to be," continued the colonel, his indignation still
struggling for the mastery--"a race of devil worshippers and cannibals,
who confound liberty with license, and have added all the vices of
civilisation to the inherent savagery of their innate animal nature.
Ah, sir, I should like to tell you a great deal more, but have not the
time now. I am afraid I am forgetting myself. Where was I?"
"Becalmed off Cape San Engano," promptly replied the skipper, sailor
fashion--"at least, so you said, colonel; but I fancy you must have had
a little rougher weather in that latitude than you mentioned at first!"
"We had," said Colonel Vereker meaningly. "Towards nightfall we drifted
with the current more inshore, Captain Alphonse not dropping our anchor,
as we expected the land breeze would spring up at sunset. This did not
come for an hour later, however, for already darkness had begun to
surround us and we could see the fireflies illuminating the brush beyond
the beach. But this wasn't all observed, sir. Just as our sails filled
again and the ship slowly drew out into the offing, we heard the splash
of oars in the water astern. It was a boat coming after us, propelled
by a dozen oars at least, pulling as hard as those handling them knew
how, a shot or two from the shore and the sound of musket balls ripping
the water explaining, in some way, the reason for their anxiety to get
beyond the range of the firing, on which account they sought the shelter
of the _Saint Pierre_, of course--at least, so we thought!
"`Who goes there?' shouted out Captain Alphonse, who was standing alone
with me, close to the taffrail. `Poor devils! there is probably another
insurrection at Port au Prince, and President Salomon up or down again.
He is always one or the other every year or so, and these poor fellows
may be flying to save their miserable necks. Who goes there? Who goes
there?' But, whether wanting all their energy for their oars or for
some other reason known to themselves, those in the boat made no reply
to our hail, and the next moment, ere the ship gathered way sufficient
to gain on them, they were alongside, their long unwieldy craft grating
against the ship's timbers beneath her counter.
"`Look-out there, forrads!' cried Captain Alphonse, seeing the boat
making apparently for our bows, but before a hand could be raised to
prevent them, without asking permission in any way or offering the
slightest apology or excuse in advance for their conduct, a number of
negroes jumped out of her and began climbing aboard the _Saint Pierre_.
"Heavens! gentlemen, clad in little beyond Nature's own covering, as the
majority of the intruders were, and looking in the dim light as black as
the ace of spades, they seemed like so many demons, come to take
possession of our unfortunate ship--as indeed they were. Oh dear me!"