The spring of 1780 advanced, and the dauntless garrison on the Rock saw
no prospect of relief, but every man, woman, and child of English birth
only grew the more determined not to surrender. No complaints were heard
from any of them, and those of the highest rank and most delicate
nurture were the bravest where all were brave. Especially was this true
of the women, and the spectacle of their patience and calm courage was
inspiring to the men. The Spanish bombardment was not then the terrible
thing it became afterwards, but it was sufficiently annoying, and many
officers preferred, as Captain Curtis did, the safety of camping out for
their families to the dangers of the barracks, which were often
bombarded in the night-time. The town, too, had become sickly, and the
higher and purer air of the rocks was better than the close quarters of
the narrow streets and rickety houses, half wrecked by the bombardment,
which were hot-beds of disease. Their supplies were still plentiful,
such as they were; but in those days only a few coarse sorts of
provisions could be kept for any length of time, and the besieged people
had to live on salt beef, hard biscuit, beans, and the few small and
inferior fish they could catch. The hard fare told sadly on most of
those who had to endure it, but Archy Baskerville positively throve on
it, and grew taller and broader and ruddier every day.
Some weeks passed before the return of Don Martin de Soltomayer, the
Spanish Commander-in-Chief, and before Archy could take any steps
towards passing through the Spanish lines. In that time Langton grew
much better, and was able to walk about, although still pale and weak.
Archy took the most devoted care of him, and found also plenty of time
to do many small services for Mrs. Curtis, who learned to love him; and
as for Dolly, she soon came to think him almost as agreeable a person as
Judkins, and her heart was quite won when, once she was a little ill,
Archy sneaked out at night and surreptitiously milked the one old cow
still left the garrison, and which was especially reserved for the sick.
Mrs. Curtis reproved him for it, but her reproaches sat lightly on
Archy--by which it will be seen that he was far from a perfect young
man.
He was also an expert fisherman, and spent a good deal of his time on
the sea-shore, from whence he would bring nearly every day a few
miserable fish, which were esteemed the greatest delicacy by Mrs.
Curtis, to whom Archy always gave them. Musa, the Moor, was generally
hanging about the shore, engaged in the same employment. He was silent
and uncommunicative by nature, but Archy's irrepressible cordiality and
affability were such that he would have been on good terms eventually
with an ogre, so that after a little while a sort of friendship came to
subsist between them. At long intervals Musa would disappear for several
days at a time, and Archy knew well enough that this time was spent in
expeditions to the African coast. Sometimes Musa would succeed in
getting across the Straits, and sometimes, after watching his chance for
days, he would be unable to elude the Spanish cruisers, and would return
to Gibraltar.
In the latter part of March the Spanish Commander-in-Chief came back,
and Archy, without any trouble, got permission to go with a flag of
truce to the Spanish headquarters. Langton, who was still far from well,
was extremely anxious to go with him to the Spanish camp, and, as Archy
had permission to take one companion, he yielded to Langton's
importunities and agreed to let him go.
"Although I know I shall have to lug you back up these rocks; you will
never be able to get back alone, as weak as you are," he added; at which
Judkins, who was standing by, touched his cap respectfully, and said:
"If Mr. Langton ain't able to climb up, sir, or to git down, for that
matter, there's a fine, strong wheelbarrow here, and I can trundle him
both ways quite convenient."
Langton, bursting out laughing, cried:
"That is the very thing. But we must leave the wheelbarrow at the Land
Port. The Spaniards would shoot us on sight in such a rig."
At mid-day, by tacit consent, the bombardment and the reply always
abated--and in that interval an odd procession made its way towards the
Land Port. Archy, laughing uproariously, with Captain Curtis smiling
broadly, preceded the wheelbarrow. In it sat Langton, quite composed and
dignified, and evidently enjoying his ride, while Judkins, looking as
serious as an undertaker, trundled him carefully down the steep paths.
Neither Archy's jeers, nor chaff from those of his brother officers he
met, nor the smiles of ladies and children, disturbed Langton, who
calmly descended at the Land Port, tightened his belt, straightened his
cap, and announced that he was ready to see the Spanish Commander and
his whole staff.
[Illustration: LANGTON WAS TAKEN DOWN THE HILL IN A WHEELBARROW]
A soldier, with a white handkerchief tied to a ramrod, went in advance
of them towards the isthmus. As soon as he was perceived, an officer in
the uniform of the Walloon regiment came towards them, and they met
about half-way between the Spanish and English lines. The officer, a
remarkably handsome young man, introduced himself as Lieutenant Von
Helmstadt, of the Walloon regiment, and Archy handed him a letter from
General Eliot to Don Martin, which he received with great respect,
raising his cap as he did so, and saying:
"I will conduct you, with pleasure, if you will submit to the usual
custom of being blindfolded?"
"Certainly," responded Archy, taking out his handkerchief, which was
bound tightly over his eyes by Von Helmstadt, and Langton and the
soldier were treated likewise.
Thus blindfolded, they stumbled on for a half-mile through the Spanish
lines. Presently they realized that they were entering a tent, and Von
Helmstadt removing the handkerchiefs from their eyes, they found
themselves in the tent of Don Martin. The Spanish Commander-in-Chief was
a handsome, middle-aged man, with a truly Spanish dignity and suavity.
The party was introduced by Von Helmstadt, and Archy produced General
Eliot's letter, which Don Martin read attentively, and then folded up.
"You would find it extremely difficult to get through Spain, even with
the best passports," he said, in French. "Our people do not readily
distinguish between the English and the Americans, and they are now
unreasonably exasperated against the English."
"I know it, sir," answered Archy, respectfully; "but if you will give me
the passports I will take my chances."
"It is a matter for consideration," continued Don Martin. "I could not
guarantee your safety a mile beyond my lines. I shall have to lay the
affair before my Government, and I will inform you of the result."
Archy, who was quick of wit, saw in a moment that Don Martin had no
overweening desire to pass him through, and the immediate turning of the
conversation towards an indifferent subject convinced him that he would
not soon see the outside world. After a few minutes they rose, Don
Martin saying, with great dignity:
"Present my best compliments to General Eliot, and say to him I am most
happy to hear of his continued good health, and that I will immediately
communicate with him by letter concerning this matter."
They were again blindfolded before leaving the tent, and so made their
way back to the British lines, accompanied by Von Helmstadt. The manners
of this young Walloon officer had been most courteous, and on parting he
said, good-humoredly, "I hope that none of our balls has a message for
you."
"The same to you," responded Langton.
As soon as they were out of ear-shot, Langton said, significantly, to
Archy:
"You'll not get out."
"You think so?"
"I know it. But you'll see all the fun"--this somewhat lugubriously.
Archy walked on, sad and disappointed, and did not even smile when
Langton climbed into the wheelbarrow and Judkins rushed it up the steep
roadway at a smart gait.
As might have been foreseen, Don Martin did nothing towards getting
Archy to France.
A courteous and ornate reply was received promptly to General Eliot's
letter, and after that came a long silence. Then followed a series of
letters, requesting all sorts of proof that Archy was what he
represented himself to be. These, Don Martin always politely explained,
were in the usual order, and came not from him, but from the Minister at
Madrid.
Archy was asked to show his uniform and sword. He had neither. There
were more letters, more asseverations of a desire to pass him through;
but the upshot of all the negotiations was that Archy never found he had
made the slightest real progress towards getting out. He wrote many
letters to his uncle, and even to Lord Bellingham, trusting to the
chance of Musa's getting them across to the African coast; but even
while writing them he felt the uselessness of it. And, after a while,
what seemed to him a strange thing came to pass. In spite of his being a
prisoner, he began to be heart and soul with the British garrison. As he
explained it, in a burst of confidence, to Langton:
"I ought not to want you to win. I ought to wish that the Spaniards
should march in to-morrow morning; but I don't--and I can't. Don't
mistake me. I would lay down my life this moment to drive you out of
North America. That is my country, and there you are my enemies; but,
dash me, Langton, if I can spend months here, eating your bread, such as
it is, well treated by everybody, seeing what a gallant fight you are
making against the Spaniards, without feeling as one of you. I suppose
it is clean against the articles of war to feel so, but I can't help
it."
"I would feel the same way, I dare say, under the same circumstances,"
replied Langton. "You see, you are not a prisoner on American ground--or
English ground either, for that matter; that makes all the difference in
the world. And, besides, you are not treated as a prisoner. You would be
a queer fish not to feel as you do."
"At all events, I shall do my duty; and if that old hidalgo, Don Martin
de Stick-in-the-mud, thinks I mean to give up trying to get away from
here, he does not know Archibald Baskerville, Esquire--that much is
plain. I have written him letters in English, French, and Spanish--such
French and Spanish! I dare say the old fellow finds the reading of them
as hard work as I do the writing them, and I can keep it up as long as
he can."
The quiet endurance which was necessary to bear this life of tedium and
hardship patiently had been left out in Archy's make-up, and he became
restless, and yearned for an adventure of some sort. Naturally his mind
turned towards the sea, and he began to wish that he might go with Musa
on one of his expeditions across the Straits. He knew very well that if
captured he would be taken for an Englishman, and the chances were ten
to one against him then; but he had no notion of being captured. Musa,
under the circumstances, would meet with great indulgence, as the
Spaniards were extremely anxious to turn the neutrality of the Moors
into active friendship.
The very day this scheme entered his mind he went down to the shore
early in the morning, and found Musa getting his lines ready to fish
from the rocks. They were quite alone, and Archy began, artfully:
"Do you know, Musa, I believe I should die if I were to be shut up like
this anywhere I could not see salt-water. I am a sea-officer, you know;
and in my own dear country, before I went in the navy, I lived on a
great, salt bay--like a sea, really--and I never remember the time I did
not know how to manage a boat."
Musa's reply to this was a little discouraging.
"No doubt your excellency can manage a boat. But, generally, the
officers of a big ship do not know how to manage a little boat. They
seem to think they can do as much with a small boat as with a big ship,
and they can't."
"Musa," said Archy, presently, "I have read something of the history of
the Moors in Spain. What great fellows for fighting were those Moors! I
dare say some of your ancestors were chieftains there."
"Yes," answered Musa, proudly, "and they did not yield to the
Spaniards--they died fighting. Only the women and children were left
alive."
Archy having found a subject dear to Musa's heart, lost no time in
cultivating it. When he had exhausted all he knew about the Moors in
Spain, he left Musa, and, going up into the town, begged and borrowed
the few books in the garrison that treated of the Moors in Spain, and
eagerly read them. Every time he met Musa he had a new supply of heroic
actions of the Moors to tell about. He got a volume of Shakespeare, and,
having mastered the story of Othello, told it very gravely, as an exact
and well-authenticated history of the dependence of the state of Venice
upon a Moorish commander. Musa was a man of character and abilities, but
he had a tremendous supply of racial vanity, and Archy's artful praises
of his country bore fruit immediately. Within a week Musa had agreed to
take him on a trip to Tetuan, across the Straits, which he was planning
for the first dark night. General Eliot's consent had to be gained; but
after a private interview with him Archy came forth beaming. It had been
arranged that two sets of despatches, duly authenticated and sealed,
should be prepared--but one set was bogus. If captured, Musa and Archy
were to frankly confess they were carrying despatches, and give up the
bogus ones, and offer to get more if allowed to return to Gibraltar.
This stratagem seemed so likely to succeed that both Archy and Musa were
eager to be off, and two nights afterwards a cloudy sky and a moonless
night saw them both in a small cutter belonging to the _Enterprise_,
bound for the African side.
Archy had persuaded Musa to take the English boat instead of the
unwieldy tub with a huge lateen-sail with which the Moor was familiar,
and with the one sail and the jib Archy felt capable of sailing to
America if necessary. True, the cutter was of a build and rig unusual in
the Mediterranean, and might excite suspicion on that account; but
Archy, like a true sailor, preferred to take his chances in something
that the wind could drive along than to the foreign boats, which he
regarded with unmixed contempt. Under Captain Curtis's advice he put on
the jacket and trousers of a Maltese sailor with a red fez, and about
eleven o'clock at night they set sail for the African coast.
The current which sets through the Straits was in their favor, as they
were bound for Tetuan, about forty miles in a straight line from
Gibraltar. Their great danger lay in running across the Spanish vessels,
which cruised incessantly up and down the Straits, but the blockade was
not then as strict as it afterwards became. They had a lantern with
them, but carefully refrained from showing a light.
As they sailed along under a lowering sky--rare at that season--they
frequently saw the lights of the Spanish cruisers, but they handled the
boat so skilfully that they were not once hailed, much less overhauled.
A sense of joy filled Archy's heart when he found himself again on the
sea; and seeing his perfect familiarity with the boat Musa allowed him
to manage it, only giving an occasional hint about the currents, with
which Archy was unfamiliar. The wind did not fail them during the whole
night, and next day, on a brilliant forenoon, they were off the old
walled town of Tetuan, with its flanking towers showing clear against
the glorious blue of an African sky.
They sailed into the harbor and landed on a rickety old mole, crowded
with Moors, Berbers, Arabs, and Jews. The British still maintained a
consulate there, chiefly for the chance of communicating with Gibraltar,
and, as soon as they landed, Archy went to the Consul's house. It was a
low building, with many pillars, after the Moorish fashion, and under
the quaint colonnade sat the Consul in a linen jacket and slippers,
taking his noonday coffee.
When the handsome young Maltese sailor, as Archy looked to be, with a
bag of letters over his shoulder, walked up to him in true Anglo-Saxon
fashion, and said, "Good-morning, sir," the Consul nearly fell off his
chair with surprise. But Archy soon made known who he was, and was very
warmly greeted. The Consul eagerly asked his news and despatches, and
when he found out that the Rock was well provisioned and the garrison
was more indomitable than ever, he said:
"I will call the chiefs and principal men of the town together
to-morrow, that I may tell them your story--for their respect for
England and English rights will be very much increased thereby; and,
meanwhile, you must be my guest."
Archy was only too happy to accept, and spent the next twenty-four hours
chiefly in gobbling oranges--the first fruit he had seen for months--and
galloping up and down the environs of the town on a vicious donkey, with
which he had several disagreements, that invariably ended in the donkey
pitching him heels-over-head. But Archy did not mind a little thing like
that, and was always ready to tackle the donkey again.
Next day a great assemblage of Tetuan notabilities met at the Consul's
house, and while sitting around a tinkling fountain in the court-yard,
with coffee, sherbet, and pipes, the Consul, seated in the middle, with
Archy on one side and Musa on the other, began the story of the failure
of the Spanish, so far, to capture Gibraltar. He spoke in Italian, which
is the _lingua franca_ of that region, and frequently turned to Archy
and Musa for confirmation. Archy did not know a word of the _lingua
franca_, but he nodded his head gravely whenever the Consul turned to
him with a note of inquiry in his voice.
The chiefs and notabilities sat silent and attentive, puffing at their
pipes; and it was plain that they were deeply impressed by what they
heard. The confabulation broke up after several hours, and Archy
returned to his amusement of stuffing oranges and riding donkeys.
The Consul took a day or two to make up his despatches, and to get
together the few and scant letters and despatches that he had received
for the garrison by merchant-ships and such stray means of
communication. They were concealed in oranges, hollowed out for the
purpose, and put in a bag which was carefully stowed away in the cutter.
As fresh fruit was not only the greatest luxury but the greatest
necessity of the Gibraltar garrison, in which scurvy had appeared, the
cutter was filled with as much as she could carry without impeding her
sailing qualities--and then came the waiting for a dark night.
But the nights refused to grow dark, and, emboldened by their success in
eluding the Spanish cruisers before, both Archy and Musa, on the third
evening, determined to take the chances, and, the wind being fair, they
sailed in the afternoon for Gibraltar.
Bright as was the night, and white as was their sail, it seemed as
though they would slip through the blockading fleet as easily as they
had six nights before. They passed several Spanish cruisers, and were
hailed more than once; but their boat was so small, and holding only two
men, no further effort was made to stop them. About two o'clock in the
morning, when it really began to grow dark, and they were not more than
ten miles from Gibraltar in a straight line, they found themselves
unexpectedly close to a Spanish gun-brig. They were hailed, and, as
before, paid no attention, and continued on their tack. The brig,
however, put about and came after them, emphasizing her desire to speak
with them by firing a blank cartridge at them. It was then high time to
take some notice of it, but instead of heaving to they tacked for the
brig, and in a few minutes were alongside. The Spanish officer of the
deck, leaning over the rail, called out:
"Who are you?"
"Let me come aboard and I will tell you," replied Musa.
In another minute he was on board, leaving Archy to hold the boat.
Archy could not catch the conversation between Musa and the Spanish
lieutenant, but he saw Musa show the bogus despatches, then both went
below and remained ten minutes, evidently in the captain's cabin. They
came on deck again, and Musa had a little bag in his hand, and a
letter. He swung himself into the cutter, the lieutenant and one or two
of the watch called out "Good-bye!" and immediately they were proceeding
in opposite directions.
Musa stowed his bag away carefully, and then, in response to Archy's
eager questions, said:
"He gave me fifty doubloons for my despatches, and a letter to the
commanding officer of any Spanish vessel that may stop us, telling them
to let us pass into Gibraltar, as we have brought them valuable news and
may bring more."
"Hurrah!" cried Archy, under his breath.
But they were not stopped any more, and under cover of darkness they
again slipped into Gibraltar Bay. About a mile from the nearest point of
debarkation they were chased by a Spaniard, but a battery near by opened
fire vigorously, and under cover of the cannonade they landed. It was
then after sunrise, and the firing had roused the garrison.
As soon as they landed they went to headquarters, accompanied by a
number of officers, including Captain Curtis and Langton and a crowd of
other persons.
When they were in General Eliot's presence Musa motioned to Archy to
speak, and Archy motioned to Musa--so there was silence.
"Will you proceed, Mr. Baskerville?" asked General Eliot.
Archy, thus adjured, gave an account of the trip, and produced the
letters and despatches.
Then Musa, with great dignity, laid the little bag of doubloons down on
the table.
"Excellency, I was afraid to refuse them, but I do not consider the
money mine," he said.
"Then whose is it?" asked General Eliot.
"I, as an officer, can take none of it," replied Archy, quickly.
"Musa, it is yours," said General Eliot, "and it does not half repay
what you have done for us. As for you, Mr. Baskerville, I can only say
that now, more than ever, we regard you as a friend instead of an
enemy--a guest instead of a prisoner."