A grand hurrah just then burst forth from the deck below us, where the
skipper and most of the men were massed, telling as plainly as
triumphant cheer could tell, that the fight was ended, and that victory
had crowned our arms with success. I rushed back to tell the colonel.
On hearing my footsteps, however, little Elsie turned round and caught
sight of me.
"Oh, my father!" said she, untwining herself from the colonel's embrace,
though she still nestled up close to him, as she stared at me shyly,
with a puzzled look on her mignonne face. "Why, who is this young sir,
my father? I seem to know him, and yet I do not remember having ever
seen him before!"
"Look at him again, darling one," said her father, petting her
caressingly, while another hearty cheer went up from the hands in the
waist. "He is Senor Dick Haldane, a gallant young gentleman whom you
must thank, my little daughter, for having saved my life."
At this the graceful young girl advanced a step or two towards me, and
catching hold of my hand, before I could prevent her, kissed it, greatly
to my confusion; as albeit it was an act expressive amongst the Spanish,
with whom she had been brought up, of deferential courtesy and
gratitude, but it made me blush up to my eyes and feel hot all over.
"A thousand thanks, sir," she began; but as she raised her eyes to my
face in thus giving utterance to her thanks for having, as the colonel
had told her, saved her father's life, a flood of recollection seemed to
come upon her, and she exclaimed:
"Ah, I remember now! My father, yes, he is like the gentleman whom I
saw on the deck of the steamer that awful night when the negroes rose up
against us--last Friday, was it not? But it seems so long ago to me!
You, you naughty papa, would not believe that your little girl had seen
anything at all, not even a ship, but that I only fancied it in my
foolishness. However, there is the same steamer that I saw (pointing
with her finger to the _Star of the North_), and here is the same, for I
am sure he is the same, the very same young officer. Am I not right?"
And looking up at her father, she exclaimed, "Your little girl told the
truth after all."
"And you, young lady," said I, smiling at her recognition of me, strange
coincidence as it was, corroborating my own experience of the same
eventful night, "yes; you are the same little girl I saw on board the
`ghost-ship,' as all the men here called your vessel, not believing,
likewise, my story that I had seen her or you either. Yes, I would have
known you anywhere. You are the girl whom I saw with the dog!"
The next moment I could have bitten my tongue out, though, for my
thoughtlessness in alluding to the poor dog; for at the bare mention of
him Elsie's face, which had a sort of absent, wandering look about it
still, at once lighted up, and she glanced round in all directions.
"Ah, I declare I had quite forgotten Ivan in the joy and happiness of
seeing you again, my father," she exclaimed excitedly. "Where is he,
the brave fellow? Ivan, Ivan, you dear old dog. Come here; come here,
sir, directly!"
She looked round again, with a half smile playing about the corners of
her pretty rosebud of a mouth and a joyous light in her eyes, expecting
her faithful friend and companion would come bounding up to her side;
but she now waited and watched and listened in vain, there being no
response to her summons either by bark or bound or wag of poor Ivan's
bushy tail.
Nor would there be any more, for his ringing bark was hushed, his body
and tail alike stiff and cold, while his noble heart which only throbbed
with affection for those whom he loved when living, had stopped beating
for aye.
"My dear child, poor Ivan is dead!" said Colonel Vereker tenderly after
a short pause, drawing the young girl up to him so that she might not
see the gruesome sight on the deck below. "The brave dog sacrificed his
life for mine, and but for his help, little one, I should not now be by
your side."
This account of the poor animal's heroic end, however, did not comfort
little Elsie, who gave a startled glance at her father's face; where,
seeing something there that made her comprehend her loss, she buried her
golden head on his breast, sobbing as though her heart would break.
"Poor, poor, dear Ivan; he never left me once, never, my father, since
you--you went out of the cabin that last night and told him to watch
me!" she exclaimed presently, in halting accents between her convulsive
sobs, neither the colonel or myself dry-eyed as we listened to her tale,
you may be sure. "But--but all at once, after all the noise and that
dreadful firing that seems now to go through my ears, I--I heard your
voice quite distinctly on the deck; and so, too, did poor Ivan, for I
saw him instantly put up his ears, while he whined and looked
beseechingly at us."
"Well, after that, my child," said the colonel, on her stopping for the
moment, overcome with emotion, "what happened next?"
"He made a dash at the cabin table and jumped up on it, and then the
poor fellow growled savagely at some one outside. Then--then before I
could hold him back he made a most desperate spring and sprung right up
through the glass roof on the top of the sky--skylight, and he must have
cut himself very very much. Poor, poor doggie! And now you say my poor
Ivan is dead, and that I shall never see the dear good faithful creature
again. Oh, my father!"
At this point the young girl again broke down.
Nor were her tears a mere passing tribute of grief. For, though dead,
Ivan is not forgotten, like some people, the remembrance of whom is as
evanescent as the scent of the flowers that hypocritical mourners may
ostentatiously scatter upon their graves; his little mistress, little no
longer, preserving his memory yet green in her heart of hearts, close to
which she wears always a small locket containing likenesses of her
father and mother, together with a miniature of Ivan--her father's
preserver--with a tiny lock added from the brave dog's curly black coat.
Some ultra-sanctimonious persons may feel inclined to cavil with this
association on Elsie's part of "immortal beings," as they would style
her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a "dead brute,"
because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite had no soul;
but were these gentry to broach the subject before her, being a somewhat
outspoken young lady from her foreign bringing up, which puts her beyond
the pale of boarding-school punctiliousness, she would probably urge
that she estimated poor Ivan's sagacious instinct combined with his
courage and noble self-sacrifice, at a far higher level than the paltry
apology for a soul that passes current for the genuine article with
matter-of-fact religionists of the stamp of her questioner.
But Elsie was "little Elsie" still, at the time of which I am speaking,
and too young, perhaps, for such thoughts to occur to her mind, which at
the moment was too full of her loss.
The cheering that had followed the last tussle of our men with the black
mutineers had now ceased, and all these things happening, you must
understand, much more rapidly than I can talk or attempt to chronicle
them, the skipper, with Mr Fosset and Garry O'Neil, came hurriedly up
on the poop.
Both expressed their unbounded delight at seeing the child was safe and
in the care of her father.
Sure, an' what's the little colleen cryin' for? eagerly inquired Garry,
his smoke-begrimed face, which bore ample evidence of the desperate
struggle in which he had been so gallantly engaged, wearing a look of
deep commiseration as he gazed from her father to me, and then again at
her. "Faith, I hope she's not been hurt or frightened?"
"No, thank God!" replied the colonel huskily. "Grieving for her poor
dog Ivan, who--"
"Och yes, I saw the noble baste," interrupted Garry in his quick,
enthusiastic way. "Begorrah, colonel, he fought betther than any two-
legged Christian amongst us, an' I can't say more than that for him,
sure, paice to his name!"
Before he could say anything further, and you know he was a rare one to
talk when once he commenced, the skipper advanced again, holding out his
hand to the colonel exclaiming-- "Yes, thank God you are all right and
that your little child is safe, and escaped any harm from those
scoundrels, except her nerves probably being much shaken, but that she
will soon recover at her age--and I told you she should be restored to
you, you know. By George! Though, we've paid them out at last for
demon's work aboard here!"
"The devils!" ejaculated Colonel Vereker savagely, his mood changing as
he recollected all he had seen and suffered at their hands. "Have you
killed them all?"
"All but half a dozen of the rascals, whom we had a rare hunt after
through the hold and fo'c's'le before we could collar them. They are
fast bound now, though, lashed head and feet to the mainmast bitts; and
it will puzzle them to wriggle themselves loose from old Masters' double
hitches, I know. Besides which, two of our men are guarding there, with
boarding-pikes in their hands and orders to run 'em through the gizzard
if they offer to stir."
"Faith," observed Garry O'Neil reflectively, "It was as purty a bit of
foighting as I ivver took a hand in, whilst it lasted!"
"But let us go and see what has become of all those chaps below--all
those you mentioned as belonging to the French crew, whom you left on
board with your daughter," went on the skipper. "We saw the flash of a
pistol, you remember, when we came up alongside, and somebody must have
prevented those villains from getting into the cabin, or else--"
He stopped here and looked meaningly at Elsie.
"Heavens!" exclaimed the colonel, attempting to rise, but falling back
on the hen-coop along the side of the bulwarks he had been using for a
temporary seat, he seemed so utterly exhausted. "Ah, those brave
fellows, I was almost forgetting them; but I can't move, Senor
Applegarth, or I should have gone down before this to see what had
become of my old comrades; but I'm helpless, as you see."
Elsie now lifted her head, looked up and turned towards the skipper.
"They are all wounded," said she, clasping her hands together and with a
look of fright on her face. "Two of the men--the French sailors, I
mean--and the English gentleman."
"That's the little Britisher I told you about, who was so plucky,"
explained the colonel--"Mr Johnson."
"Well, my father," continued the young girl, "these three rushed down
the stairs into the cabin, shortly before the steamer thumped against
the side of our ship, when I thought we were all going down to the
bottom of the sea."
"Yes, my child," said the colonel encouragingly, "go on and tell us what
happened next."
"The English gentleman spoke to me and said that the terrible negroes
had conquered them all on deck, but that he and the two Frenchmen had
escaped from them in time, and were going to barricade the doorway
leading down from above to prevent the black men from coming below and
murdering us all.
"He told me, though, did the kind English gentleman, that I must not be
frightened and all would come right in the end, for that they had seen a
very large steamer approaching, coming quite close to us, and that they
would be able, he thought, to hold out until we were all rescued. They
then piled up heaps and heaps of things against the door at the foot of
the stairs where the sailors remained; then the Englishman stood on the
table, under the skylight, to keep the negroes from getting through
there. It was the Englishman who fired at them through the glass, for
he was the only one who had a pistol, and he made a hole and then
through that we heard all the shrieks and the noise of the pistols; and
your voice, my father, Ivan heard, and then he jumped up through the
hole, making a much bigger one, and ran to your rescue, my dear, dear
father."
"But what has become of Monsieur Boisson, and Madame all this time;
where were they?" asked the colonel, on Elsie thus concluding the
account of what had occurred under her immediate notice, a little sob
escaping her involuntarily at the mention of her poor dog's name, and at
the recollection of what she had just witnessed. "Did they do anything,
my dear child to help themselves, or you?"
"No, my father," she replied, apparently surprised at the question.
"They are still in the big cabin at the end of the saloon where you left
them when you went away, and, I'm afraid they are very ill indeed, for
all the time the firing was going on overhead Madame was screeching and
screaming, and I am sure I heard Monsieur groaning a good deal. He was
doing so again just now, before I found my way upstairs to you, to find
you, and to see what had happened, everything had become so suddenly
still after all the noise, and--and--those--awful horrible yells of the
negroes--oh! I--I--can hear them still!"
She turned quite pale when uttering the last words, words spoken with
visible effort, shuddering all over and hiding her face again on her
father's shoulder.
"Faith, sor, don't ask her any more questions," cried Garry, "but we'd
betther be sayin' afther those poor fellows ourselves, an' at once,
too!"
"Do quickly, sir doctor," said the colonel, "and I only wish I could
come with you! but--"
"Now jist you shtop where ye are, me friend," rejoined Garry, putting
out his hand to prevent his stirring from his seat. "Sure the cap'en
an' me, with Dick Haldane here, will be enough to look afther 'em all."
With this he made for the companion-way and descended the "stairs," as
Elsie, ignorant of nautical nomenclature, called the ladder, the skipper
following close behind him.
On getting to the bottom we found the panels of the door smashed in,
though of hard oak, strengthened with cross battens of the same stout
wood, which showed to what fierce assault it had been subjected, the
furniture piled up against it from within having duly prevented the
negroes from finally forcing an entrance, as well, no doubt, as our
appearance on the scene.
This barricade had, however, been now partly removed, probably to allow
of little Elsie's exit, and, quickly pitching the remaining obstacles
aside, the three of us managed to squeeze ourselves inside the cabin,
which was in such a state of confusion, with the long table overturned
to serve as a breastwork for the gallant defenders and the settees and
lockers turned away from the deck, as well as the glass of the skylight
all smashed, that it looked like a veritable "Hurrah's vest" as we
sailors say.
On a pile of cushions belonging to the lounge aft--the only piece of
furniture that was left intact in the place, I believe--lay the brave
men who had stubbornly held the ship to the last against the mutineers.
All were covered with blood and blackened by powder and so utterly worn
out from fatigue in battling throughout the night and day that had
almost elapsed since the colonel had left them, besides being crippled
by the injuries they had received in the fray, that they hardly moved on
our entrance, though one--a little chap whom I judged to be the
Englishman spoken of by the colonel and Elsie--brightened up as we bent
over him, a look of satisfaction and content stealing over his drawn and
haggard face, as we cauld see from the rays of the setting sun streaming
down through the broken skylight, exposing the utter desolation around.
He was the first to speak.
"I'm afeard you've come too late for us, sirs," said he slowly, with a
deep groan of pain. "Those damned niggers have done for me, one of them
giving me a dig of his knife in the ribs--did it through the doorway
just now, when the fight were nearly over. You might do summat, though,
for my companions here, who stood up to the darkies like Britons, in
spite of them being only Frenchmen, though that ain't their fault. But
how's the little girl? I hope she's all right. Tell her father, if
he's alive--and I feel almost sure I heard his voice awhile ago up on
deck--tell him that I kept my word, sirs, and fought for her to the
last. I think I'm dying now, and--I--must--leave--off. But listen
while I've a little breath, for I want to say something. My name is
Robert Johnson, and my old mother, God bless her, lives at Camberwell,
near London. You'll find all my papers in my pocket and a letter with
the address, and if any of you chances to be going back to England as I
were, worse luck, you'd be doing a favour by seein' her and letting her
know why I didn't turn up home this Christmas as I promised her. I know
you will. I'm going now, I'm so tired. Good-night to you all--good-
night--good--"
As he said this he gradually fell back on the cushion he was resting
against, and his eyes closed.
Captain Applegarth and I both thought him dead.
Not so, however, Garry O'Neil.
"Sure, he's ounly fainted," exclaimed the Irishman; "run, Dick, me bhoy,
an' say if there's sich a thing as a stooard's pantry knockin' about
anywheres in those latituodes, wid a dhrop of water convanient. That
an' a taste of this _aqua vitae_ here, which, the saints be praised, I
took the precawshin to put in me pocket afore we shtarted on this
blissid and excoitin' skermoish, this will very soon fetch back a little
loife into the plucky little beggar ag'in!"
I had no difficulty in finding the steward's pantry and a breaker of
water, with a tin dipper attached, speedily carrying some back and, by
our joint ministrations, and with it bathing his face and hands and
pouring some between his lips, little Mr Johnson at last opened his
eyes and began to breathe.
After a time and a certain amount of patience he opened his eyes wider,
and became conscious, and later on was induced to swallow down a mixture
out of his own special bottle that Garry carried, and we were at last
delighted to see quite a broad grin spread over his round good-natured
and somewhat comical face.
"By Jingo, sir!" said he, after a pause and rather long silence, and
after he had drained off the last drop of the elixir, with a sigh of
gratitude that evidently came from his heart, "you've saved my life this
time, and no mistake. I never thought I should taste a drop of good
brandy again in this world."