"Dios!" exclaimed Colonel Vereker. "Are you--certain of this, sir?"
Captain Applegarth shrugged his shoulders.
"Ask Mr Stokes here and your doctor there, Mr O'Neil, whether they did
not hear Haldane's yarn about your ship five days ago, sir, before we
ever clapped eyes on you," said he in a slightly aggrieved tone, as if
he thought his word was being doubted. "Why, colonel, this poor lad was
becoming the butt for everybody's chaff on board on account of it!"
"Gracious!" cried the other. "This is indeed really wonderful!"
"Aye, colonel, and more than that! But for the lad seeing this mirage,
or whatever else it was, and telling me about it, we would not have gone
off our course in search of you to render what assistance we could--
yours being the `ship in distress' Haldane reported having sighted to
the southward. This divergence from our track, sir, took us into the
very teeth of the gale which we encountered later on, that same evening,
and conduced to our breaking down."
"Faith," put in Garry O'Neil, "that's thrue for sure, sor!"
"This breakdown of ours, colonel, led to our drifting to the southward
into the trail of the Gulf Stream," continued the skipper, following up
the strange sequence of events as they occurred, one by one. "Your
ship--the real ship, I mean--was drifting north and east meanwhile,
carried along by the same current, and then it came about that, although
apparently going in opposite directions and acted on by different
causes, our tracks _crossed each other on the chart last night_--at
least, that is my opinion."
"I see, I see," cried Colonel Vereker quickly, interrupting him, and in
a state of great excitement. "Thank God! But for that you would never
have sighted our drifting boat and picked up myself and poor Captain
Alphonse! Thank God, Senor Haldane saw us in that mysterious way. It
seems to have been an interposition of heaven to warn you of our peril
and bring you to our aid!"
"Just so, colonel; that's what I think myself now," said the skipper
impressively, taking off his cap and looking upward with a grave
reflective air. "Aye, and I thank God, too, for putting us in the way
of helping you, with all my heart, sir!"
"Ah!" observed old Mr Stokes, who had remained silent the while. "The
ways of Providence are as wonderful as they are mysterious!"
There was a pause after this in our conversation which no one seemed
anxious to break till Garry O'Neil spoke.
"Faith, sor, you haven't tould us yit how ye come by this wound in your
leg, an' about that poor chap in yander," he said to the colonel,
nodding his head in the direction of Captain Applegarth's inner state
cabin, where the French captain was lying in his cot. "Sure, we're
dyin' to hear the end of your scrimmage with those black divvles!"
Colonel Vereker heaved a sigh.
"Well, I ought not to doubt that the good God is watching over my
little, darling daughter after what I have just learnt, my friends,"
said he in a more hopeful tone than his depressed manner indicated,
looking round at us with his large, melancholy, dark eyes. "I ought not
to despair!"
"Certainly not, sir; I dare say we'll soon overhaul the ship now, for
we're more than an hour and a half in chase of her at full speed,"
remarked the skipper, recovering himself from his fit of abstraction and
looking at his watch to see the time. "Go on, colonel; go on, please,
and tell us the end of your story."
"There is little more for you to hear, sir," replied the other, settling
himself back in his seat again, after Mr O'Neil had once more dressed
the wound in his leg. "Before it was dark that terrible night I sent
Elsie below, while Captain Alphonse with myself stayed up on the poop
for the first watch, each of us with a loaded revolver, besides having a
box of cartridges handy on the skylight near by, should we want to
replenish our ammunition. But the Haytians, sir, had evidently had
enough of us for that evening, making no further attempts to attack us
as the hours wore on.
"They were as watchful as ourselves, though, for as Cato, anon, trying
to creep forwards so as to release the French sailors confined under the
main hatchway, had a narrow escape of his life, a heavy spar being
suddenly let down by the run almost on top of his head when he ventured
out on the exposed deck. This was at midnight, when the second mate,
Basseterre, and Don Miguel, with the French sailor Duval, relieved
Captain Alphonse and me, taking the middle watch.
"Next morning, however, soon after Captain Alphonse and I, with the
little Englishman, had resumed charge of the poop and the others were
resting--alas, my friends, without my knowledge or sanction, poor Cato
made another attempt to reach the hatchway, which, unfortunately
resulted in his death!
"Hearing Ivan growl and my little daughter cry out as if something had
frightened her, I had gone down to the cabin shortly after daylight to
see what was the matter, cautioning Captain Alphonse, who hardly needed
my caution, not to leave his post for a moment, and not thinking of
Cato, who had disappeared from the top of the companion-way and had gone
below to Elsie--heard her cry, I thought, and gone to her even before
myself.
"He was not in the cabin, however; nor did I find anything much the
matter with my child, who had evidently unconsciously cried out in some
dream she had, Ivan, of course, gushing in sympathy and waking her up.
So, telling Elsie to compose herself and go off to sleep again, as
everything was going on all right and there was nothing to be alarmed
about, beyond the snoring of Monsieur and Madame Boisson at the further
end of the cabin, I, feeling greatly relieved, returned on deck.
"I looked round for Cato at once, naturally, for our forces were not so
strong that one would not be missed, especially such a one as he!
"But my faithful negro was nowhere in sight! Captain Alphonse said,
too, he had not seen him during my absence below, nor indeed, for some
time prior to my going down to the cabin.
"I then searched the wheel-house aft without discovering him.
"`Cato!' I called out, `where are you? Come here immediately!'
"My poor servant did not answer, but that black fiend, the pseudo
`marquis' advanced from the forepart of the deck, sheltering himself,
you may be sure, from my aim in the rear of the windlass bitts, which
were in a line between us.
"`You will have to call louder,' he cried with a mocking laugh like that
of a hyena, and full of devilish glee. `I assure you, much louder, my
friend, before that spy slave of yours will ever be able to answer you
again!'
"Heavens! I feared the worst then. Poor Cato! They had caught him
reconnoitring.
"`What have you done with him, you son of Satan?' I yelled out, full of
rage and anger, and with a terrible foreboding. `If you have hurt a
hair of his head I will make you pay dearly for it, I can tell you, you
fiend!'
"The malicious, murdering wretch only replied to my threat with another
mocking laugh, which his companions echoed, as if enjoying a joke, while
I noticed them dragging at a shapeless mass from the forecastle
forwards.
"`Kick the carrion aft!' I heard the inhuman brute say to his
followers. `Let the "white trash" see the dog's carcass! He will then
believe what I have said, Name of God! and know what is in store for
himself!'
"My God! Senor Applegarth and you, gentlemen, I can hardly tell you
what followed. It is all too horrible.
"The sight of what I saw will haunt me to my grave!
"For the shapeless mass I had observed slowly raised itself up from the
deck, and I saw that it was my poor Cato. The savages had hacked the
unfortunate man to pieces with their knives!
"He recognised me, poor creature, and appeared to try to speak, but only
made an inarticulate noise between a sob and a groan that rings in my
ears now, while the blood gushed from his mouth as he fell forwards,
facing me, dead, huddled up in a heap again upon the deck!
"Those devils incarnate, besides mutilating his limbs, had, would you
believe it, cut out his tongue as they had before threatened, for
warning us of their treachery!"
"God in heaven!" exclaimed Captain Applegarth, stopping in his quick
walk up and down the saloon and bringing his fist down on the table with
a bang that made the glasses in the swinging tray above jump and rattle,
two of them indeed falling over and smashing into fragments on the
floor. "The infernal demons! Can such things be? It is dreadful!"
All of us were equally horror stricken and indignant at the colonel's
terrible recital, even old Mr Stokes waking up and stretching out his
hand to the skipper, as if pledging himself to what he wished to urge
before he spoke.
"Horrible, horrible, sir!" he panted out, his anger taking away his
breath and affecting his voice. "But we'll avenge the poor fellow and
kill the rascals when we come up with them, won't we, sir? There's my
hand on it, anyway!"
I did not and could not say anything; no, I couldn't; but you can pretty
well imagine the oath I mentally registered.
Not so Garry O'Neil, though.
The Irishman's face flamed with rage and anger. "Kill them, sor!" cried
he, springing to his feet from the chair in which he had been seated
alongside the colonel, whose injured limb he had been carefully
attending to again all the while, his reddish beard and moustache
bristling, and his steel-blue eyes flashing out veritable sparks, it
seemed of fire. "Faith, killin's too good for 'em, sure, the haythen
miscreants! I'd boil 'em alive, sor, or roast 'em in the stoke-hold,
begorrah, if I had me own way with 'em. I would, sor, so hilp me Moses,
if all the howly saints, whose names be praised, an' the blessed ould
Pope, too, prayed me to spare 'em. Och, the murtherin' bastes, the
daymans, the divvles!"
He was almost beside himself in his rage and passionate invective. So
much so, indeed, that Mr Stokes, despite his own hearty sympathy with
the like cause, looked at the infuriated Irishman in great trepidation,
for his face was flushed, and his hair seemed actually to stand on end,
while his words tumbled out of his mouth pell-mell, jostling each other
in their eagerness to find utterance.
The chief really fancied, I believe, that he had suddenly gone mad, as
he literally fumed with fury.
After a few moments, however, Garry cooled down a bit, restraining
himself by a violent effort, and he turned to his whilom patient with an
apologetic air.
"Faith, sor, I fancied I had that divvle, your fri'nd, the markiss,
sure, be the throat," said he, with a feeble attempt at a grin and
biting his lips to keep in his feelings while he dropped his arms, which
he had been whirling round his head like a maniac only just before. "By
the powers, wouldn't I throttle the baste swately, if I had hould of him
once in these two hands of mine!"
Colonel Vereker stretched out both his impulsively, and gripped those of
Garry O'Neil.
"Heavens!" he cried, with tears in his eyes. "You are a white man, sir.
I can't say more than that, and I am proud to know you!"
"Och, niver moind that, colonel," said the Irishman, putting aside the
compliment, the highest the colonel thought he could give. "Till us
what you did, sure, afther the poor maimed crayture was murthered by
that Haytian divvle. Faith, I loathe the baste. I hate him like pizen,
though I haven't sane him yit, more's the pity; but it'll be a bad job
for him when I do clap my peepers on him!"
"I could not do much," said the other, proceeding with his account of
the struggle with the mutineers on board the _Saint Pierre_, "but
Captain Alphonse and myself emptied our revolvers at the scoundrels and
floored three of them before they retreated back into the forecastle;
but the `marquis,' the greatest scoundrel of the whole lot, escaped scot
free, though I fired four shots at him point blank as he dodged behind
the mainmast and windlass bits, keeping well under cover, and mocking my
efforts to get a straight aim. The villain, I think, bears a charmed
life!"
"Niver you fear, sor," put in Garry, in answer to this remark. "His
father, ould Nick, is keepin' him for somethin' warm whin I git hould of
him. Faith, sor, you can bet your boots on that, sure!"
Colonel Vereker smiled sadly at the impulsive Irishman's remark. He
could see that he had moved every fibre of his feeling heart and warm
nature and that he was following every incident of his terrible story of
atrocities and sufferings with an all-engrossing interest.
"I rushed to the poop-ladder to make for the mocking brute, intending to
grip him by the neck, as you have suggested, sir," said he, "when, by
heavens, I would have choked the life out of his vile carcass!
"But Captain Alphonse prevented me.
"`My God! dear friend,' he cried, catching hold of me round the body in
his powerful arms, so that I could not move a step. `Remember the
little one, your little daughter, who would have no one to protect her
should these rabble kill you. Besides, my friend, the good Cato is dead
now, and the useless sacrifice of your life, of both our lives probably,
if you go forwards, and perhaps too the life of the little one, who
cannot even help herself, will never bring back the breath to the brave
lad's body! No, no, colonel, I promise you,' said he, at the same time
kissing the tips of his fingers and elevating his shoulders, in his
French fashion, `We will do something better than that. Only wait; be
patient. We will avenge him, you will see, but I pray you do nothing
rash, for the sake of the little one.'"