HOW THE DEADLY FEVER OF THE COAST FASTENS ON ME.
Such was the history of the treacherous Spanish attack which
destroyed the settlement of the Marmousette. Our first care was
to learn how the party we had met in with were armed, and great
was our delight to find that the Indians carried two guns apiece,
nearly all the muskets in the village having been brought into the
woods. Besides there was abundance of ammunition. After a short
consultation, it was determined to take the canoe, and although our
number would somewhat overload her, to cross to the other side of
the bay, where we had more security against being molested. Having
therefore carefully looked to our pieces, we clambered down the
bank, and standing by the canoe, unanimously invested Stout Jem with
the command of the expedition. As the Indians used the paddles most
dexterously, they were set to work to propel us, and with Stout
Jem for steersman, we set out. On our way I began to experience a
drowsiness, which I had before felt, but immediately checked. Now,
however, the sensation, amounting indeed to one of impending stupor,
began again to overpower me. My chin fell upon my chest, and I had
little snatches of disturbed sleep, in which curious confused ideas,
and odd combinations of words and things, seemed to float into my
brain, and which, when I started up again, which I would do every
minute, fled away like phantoms, so that I could not for my life
remember what I had been dreaming of the moment before. All this
time I was inwardly urged to speak, I seemed to have nothing to say,
but still something forced my tongue and lips to move, and all at
once I called out—
‘Is that a black corby on the thorn-bush near the boat’s grapnel?’
At this extraordinary speech, the Englishmen in the canoe turned
sharp round to me, and Stout Jem asked what I meant. At his voice all
the dreamy sensations left me, and I felt myself blushing up to the
roots of my hair, and wondering what I had said, for I remembered not
a word.
‘Here,’ said Stout Jem, kindly, ‘swallow this, my good boy;’ and he
held me a great flask of spirits. ‘You have been breathing over-much
marsh fog on an empty stomach, but you’ll live to pay off Jack
Spaniard yet.’
I took the flask and held it to my head, when suddenly the greasy
leathern bottle appeared to swell and lengthen, until it seemed a
puncheon which I held. A curious nervous feeling came crawling over
my limbs, and my breath grew thick, and my eyes dim. The first taste
of the brandy banished these sensations, and the cordial marvellously
restored me.
‘You must eat somewhat when we go ashore,’ said Nicky. ‘I am
ravenous; and then we will consult on what we can do to take our
revenge.’
‘No, no; no eat,’ said Blue Peter, the Mosquito Indian; ‘sleep mosh,
sleep good, smoke pipe, and sleep cool and long.’
But I felt so much better that I fully intended to make a good
dinner. We landed in one of the bushy coves which abound in the frith
of the Marmousette, and which could not be seen by the Spaniards
on the other bank. Stout Jem then despatched the Indians to hunt,
and ordered the rest of the party to aid in building a hut. Nicky
and myself, however, were so weak from want of food, that we were
excused; and the Dutchman having some biscuits and smoked beef in his
pocket, generously gave us enough to make a good meal. Meantime,
Stout Jem, Black Diamond, and Meinheer, were actively at work. They
had two hatchets, and their long knives, and with these they felled
and prepared sufficient wood for their purpose, driving stakes
into the earth, and interweaving leafy branches, with the skill of
experienced foresters. Nicky and I were then set to work to pull
a quantity of coarse long grass, which grew upon the beach, for
beds; and one of the Mosquito men returning, he kindled a fire, and
began to cook the hind quarter of a fine boar which he had shot in
the wood. Meantime, I was plucking the grass, sometimes sitting by
the seaside, for I felt weak and ill. The food I had eaten was no
refreshment. My temples throbbed strangely and my skin was fevered
and dry. Then these horrible wandering thoughts began to come again,
and I squeezed my head with my hands, as though I could thus drive
them out. Sometimes I thought I felt again the hot marsh vapour
sickening the air; then the sea-breeze fanning me, I would tear the
clothes from my chest, and put back my long dank hair to let the
blessed cool wind play freely on me, and cool my seething blood.
All at once I saw, under the shade of a genipa tree, a tall stout
man, who stood motionless, and watched me. Deeming him a Spaniard,
I would have shouted out, but my tongue refused to obey me, and
turning hot and dry, rattled as it were against my teeth, while no
sound but a low hiss could I form. Still the figure stood there;
and now I saw a glimmer as of a naked weapon which it held. The sun
being now setting, his rays came slanting down, and one of these
quivering through the trees fell full upon the face of the stranger,
and I saw that it was Walshe, with his great eyes glaring at me,
just as they glared when the shark rose in the mangrove canal, and
pulled him down beneath his crunching teeth. I stood trembling,
and trying to pray. The features were livid and blue, and the eyes
sunk and expressionless, yet horribly bright. Just at this moment
one of the last puffs of the sea-breeze shook the trees around, and
the sunlight falling in a different stream, and chequered by other
branches upon the appearance, the face gradually seemed to change.
Feature after feature melted away, until the agonized countenance of
the unfortunate seaman was gone, and, instead of it, there remained
the massive features and pensive gravity of my preserver on board the
Frenchman—Wright. Just then the weapon, which I had formerly observed
to glitter, moved, and I saw the figure heave up a great broad axe
on one hand, and point to it with the other. It was, indeed, the
regicide, with the emblem and the instrument of his deed.
Making a sudden effort, I burst the leaden bonds which seemed to
confine me, and with a strange courage rushed forward. As I did the
phantom grew dim and dimmer, and when I placed my hand upon its
breast, I felt but the gnarled bark of the genipa tree, whilst the
axe, at the same instant, seemed to become a branch with clustering
foliage dancing in the wind. I grew directly sick and faint.
‘Oh, my God!’ I murmured, ‘I am going mad! My brain is whirling,
and my eyes make me see things which are not and so I sank upon the
ground, and sobbed. Presently, I was somewhat better, and I manned
myself. ‘It is but a feverish attack,’ I thought. ‘I will return and
try to sleep.’ It was, however, with some difficulty that I arrived
at the hut. My limbs felt as if loaded with lead, and the pain of
an intense headache went like hot iron wires into my brain. When I
reached our half-finished abode, I saw everything through a sort of
haze, and the voices at my ear appeared to come from miles away. I
was soon placed, lying upon bundles of grass, in the windward side
of the hut, and after that I remember little more of what happened
during three nights and three days. Only I know that my sufferings
were very great; that my mind appeared to ramble as though it were a
disturbed spirit or ghost flitting all over the world. Now, I would
seem to be far away on the pleasant coast of Fife. The sun would
shine, and the corn rustle and the yellow broom by the burnie’s
banks smell sweet in the summer’s breath. But I could enjoy nought.
I was as it were seared, and the sources of pleasure dried up. I
saw the forms of people I loved, but I could speak to none. I saw
my mother sitting on a sandy knowe, resting her head upon her hand,
and looking over the blue sea. But when I would embrace her, there
came darkness and pain, and the vision vanished. Then, perhaps, in
my delirium, I would fancy I was at sea; sometimes it was in the old
fisher-boat, the Royal Thistle. No wind would stir, the sky would be
glowing like a heated copper globe, and the boat would lie moveless
as though nailed to the unstirring sea. Suddenly my father’s eyes
would look into mine with a long wan stare, and so would we sit
glaring at each other, like famishing and despairing beasts, while
months, and years, and ages, would appear to come and go and bring
no change. Anon, the mood would alter. Then I was on board the old
brig, Jean Livingstone, with a merry breeze and a blithesome crew.
The bonny crags of St. Andrew’s Bay would seem under our lee, with
the ruined towers of abbeys and churches rising over the green links,
and fading from our sight, as we worked gallantly seawards. But the
scene would straightway change to a furious storm in a mid-winter
night, with the foam of the sea and the snow-flakes flying together.
Then round the light of the binnacle there would crowd ghastly
faces, staring into mine—faces with shaggy antique beards like the
ancient sailors of Sir Patrick Spens, long, long sleeping in the wild
North Sea; and so surrounded by these fishy eyes of hapless drowned
mariners, I would feel the good brig seem to founder beneath my feet,
so that I would start struggling up from my bed of grass, crying out
that I was drowning—that the boiling waves were choking me!
This was my seasoning fever, as they called it; and, though it
did not last long—thanks to the good treatment and the medicinal
herbs of the Mosquito men—it left me passing weak and helpless. I
recovered my reason all at once, as one waking from the stupor of
deep sleep. My hair had been cut close, and my head was tied round
with freshly-plucked plantain leaves, constantly drenched with water.
I lay upon blankets, none of which we possessed when I was taken ill,
and my linen was reasonably clean and fresh. The wattled hut was
open to the breeze on every side, and as it contained but one bed
more, I guessed that it had been given up for my use and that of my
partner, Nicky, as indeed it had. Looking around, I saw several pots,
pans, baskets, and boxes scattered about, from which I concluded that
the Spaniards had departed, and that my comrades had been able to
recover some of the wreck of their property from the ruins of their
habitations. And this, indeed, I found afterwards to be the case.
I was too weak at first to call out, and so remained in silence,
enjoying a delicious languor, and cool and moist from head to
foot. The fever had thoroughly left me, and I felt thankful and
devoutly glad. Presently I distinguished the well-known smell of
the smouldering fire of the boucan floating into the hut, and soon
afterwards, Nicky, with bare arms and grimed hands, entered; his eyes
sparkled when he saw me so much recovered, and presently calling the
rest together, they all shook hands with me, and told me to be of
good cheer, for I had fore-reached on the marsh fever, and would soon
be quite hearty. And so, indeed, it was. I grew very hungry, and,
being well fed, regained my strength fast, so that, two or three days
after the fever left my blood, I was abroad sniffing the cool breezes
of the sea.
Except two men—both French—who had joined when I was ill, none of the
survivors of our original party had turned up; some of them had no
doubt been made prisoners by the Spaniards, others might have started
off along the coast to the eastward, as, indeed, many previously
intended; but we feared that upwards of one half of our comrades
were either captives, who would be forced to labour in the mines of
Cuba, or had already—and the fate of these latter was more to be
envied—died with their wounds, in front, giving battle to the Spanish
robbers.
Being little able to work for some time after my recovery, and the
rest of the party being engaged in the usual toil of hunting wild
cattle, and preserving the meat by the boucan, it was often my
habit to take the canoe and proceed in her down towards the mouth
of the bay, so as to enjoy the fresh and briny breeze which came
from the north-west across the ocean. To make these expeditions more
pleasant, I prepared a mast with a small lug sail, such as the canoe
could bear, and I could manage with ease. Almost my first trip,
when thus provided, was to the scene of the late contest. I found
nearly every trace of a settlement destroyed. The rude jetty was
all but demolished, and over the ruins of the shattered huts, great
crops of luxuriant herbage had grown, from which I often started
snakes and venomous insects, such as centipedes and scorpions, who
delighted to make their nests in the holes and crevices which they
found in abundance amidst the ruins of our huts. On a sweet spot of
green-sward, under the shadow of a great spreading tree, there were
rows of little mounds, very green. Here our poor comrades lay buried.
The Spaniards, it seems, had interred their dead, and on their
departure, which happened on the day after I was attacked with fever,
all our party had gone across the bay, and laid the dead Buccaneers
beneath the mould. Upon the bark of the great tree I was at pains to
carve a deep cross; for, though the symbol in Europe be the mark of
a corrupt and idolatrous church, still I felt that in the wilderness
it might bear a truer and a wider meaning, and point out to future
strangers that the mounds beneath the tree covered the graves of
Christian men.