A KNAVE OF THE CREW PLAYING WITH COGGED DICE IS KEEL-HAULED.
Four days after leaving the reefs, we saw land ahead, and presently
were running in amid the clusters of the Samballas Isles. On every
side of us, these rich islands flung, as it were, their masses of
foliage into the sea; bushes clothing the rocks where such existed,
and at other points thick mangrove woods, the stems of the trees
often covered with oysters, growing far into the water. These forests
appeared to swarm with birds and beasts. We heard the loud screams
of thousands of unknown fowls resounding from the woods; and often,
as we skirted the shore, watching places where the trees did not
grow thick, we descried troops of monkeys going chattering along, or
herds of peccary and deer, breaking through the bushes. Sea-birds
also abounded. Great clouds of plovers flew, wheeling and circling
along the shore, and the white sandy beaches and the sea were dotted
with turtles basking in the sun, or lazily sleeping on the top of
the smooth water. The Samballas Islands are thinly inhabited by
scattered tribes of Indians, who subsist by hunting and fishing,
and are very willing to aid as guides or pilots to the English and
French privateers who put in here; so that the first canoe which we
saw made directly towards us, and the two Indians who guided it came
on board very readily, and were treated with brandy and wine, much
to their satisfaction. From them we learned that several privateers
had been lately in these islands, to careen and provision; and that
the Spaniards from Porto Bello and Carthagena, had sent a fleet of
armadilloes, as they are called, being small vessels of war, which
had swept all the channels between the islands, and had captured one
privateer, a tartan of four guns, commanded by Captain Coxon, having
surprised her in a creek where she was careening. We questioned
these Indians respecting the galleon which the Spanish prisoner
at Jamaica had told us of. They know that many rich ships sailed
annually from Carthagena to Old Spain, but could tell no particulars,
conjecturing, however, that if any vessel with a freight of price
were now fitting for sea, she would sail after the return of the
armadilloes to Carthagena, judging that they would have, for the
present, cleared the coast. This information, which jumped with our
own ideas, made us very anxious to take in what provisions we stood
in want of, and be off to the westward; and the same afternoon the
friendly Indians piloted the schooner into a very snug bay, where we
lay with trees all round us, except at one point where an opening
in the woods conducted to a noble savannah, whither we often went
to hunt. While we lay here, all hands were fully occupied. Upon the
beach, near the schooner, we erected a place for preparing boucan,
which we preferred to regularly salted meat: and of which Nicky
Hamstring, who had a natural turn for cooking in all its branches,
was appointed superintendent. Then the Mosquito men went daily in
their canoe, and struck turtle and manatee. Hunting parties, whereof
I generally made one, explored the woods and brought good store of
peccary and deer down to the boucan. We shot also the tender young
monkies, who often made my heart sore by their screaming and moaning
when they felt the lead, and by the pitiful way in which, when they
came by a broken bone, they would handle the useless limb, and grin
and weep with the pain. Besides these, we made food of the guanas or
yellow lizards, who live amid the branches, and love to bask in the
sun upon the topmost boughs, and also of a species of red land-crab,
which our men call soldiers, from their colour, and which run nimbly
about, generally at the roots of trees, hiding themselves quickly
in holes, and burrowing like rabbits. The Indians who conducted our
schooner into the bay, lived with others not far off, in smoky huts,
which were surrounded by patches of cleared land, wherein they grew
good store of yams and plantains, which they sold very willingly
for hatchets, saws, and such like implements, with powder and lead.
Meantime, while a great part of the crew were thus busy on shore,
Captain Jem, with the hands who remained on board the schooner, was
occupied in changing her appearance as much as possible; for we
knew that the Spaniards have no lack of spies either in Jamaica or
the other English islands, and we misdoubted that an account of the
schooner had been sent to Cuba, and from thence to the Main. We,
therefore, repainted the ship, making a great yellow streak from
stem to stern, with false ports, and also made a shift to alter, to
the eye at least, the trim of the ship, by placing false bulwarks
towards the stern, which heightening her from the foremast all the
way aft—the painted streak being made to correspond with the new
bulwarks—caused the schooner to have a clumsy look, as though she
were down by the head, in consequence of carrying an ill-stowed
cargo. We also changed the set of the masts, by putting heavy strains
upon the rigging; and lastly, we patched the sails, although they
were new and good, with old canvas; conducting our operations with
such good effect, that the crew swore to a man, that had they been
away for a week, they would never have recognised the schooner for
the ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp.’
Being at length in readiness for our cruise, we towed the ship out
of the little bay, and commenced beating to windward through the
islands, passing the isle called Las Sound, where the Buccaneers have
a legend, that the heart of Sir Francis Drake lies buried in four
caskets, of lead, of iron, of silver and of gold. I see no reason,
however, for believing that his heart was not in his body when
that was committed to the deep in the bay of Porto Bello, amid the
thunder of artillery, and the crash of the martial music, in which
the great admiral so much delighted. As we worked up against strong
westerly breezes, we met with several fleets of large canoes, laden
with sugar, hogs, yams, and corn, running before the trades; but as
we were now approaching Carthagena, we thought it most prudent to
let these piraguas pass by unmolested, hoisting Spanish colours, and
making as though we were a friendly trader. So in due time, we left
the westernmost of the Samballas keys to the leeward, and stood off
to the north-west, designing to make a long stretch out to sea, so as
to prevent any intelligence of our whereabouts being conveyed along
the main land to Carthagena.
Towards the afternoon of the day on which we cleared the Samballas, I
having the charge of the deck, could not help noticing the miserable
plight of one Simon Radley, a young sailor, who was a very quiet
well-behaved fellow, and a favourite on board. When we left Jamaica,
he had been very well dressed in seaman fashion; but now, he was
clothed merely in rags, without a shirt, and his shoes were only bits
of canvas swathed round his feet, and very coarsely sewn together.
Besides all this, the poor fellow looked almost broken-hearted, and
went about his work very sadly,
‘Simon Radley,’ quoth I ‘how came you in this plight? Have you
lost all your clothes? Surely if you have, your comrades will lend
you some, and you can make it up to them with the first of your
prize-money.’
Well, at first the fellow would answer never a word. At length he
muttered that he had been unlucky, very unlucky, but that it was
nobody’s fault but his own, and that he would be better off soon. I
insisted, however, on knowing what he had done with his clothes, upon
which, after a great deal of stammering and hesitation, he plucked up
his heart, and said broadly, that I had no business with his clothes,
and that, if he chose to wear a clout, or paint himself and go half
naked like the savages, it was nothing to me, or to any one else, so
long as he did his duty manfully. Just as he was speaking, up came
the boatswain, John Clink.
‘Simon Radley,’ says the old fellow, ‘you speak like a fool. It
concerns us all, to see our comrades so bestowed as that they shall
have the best chance of keeping their health, and not turning sick
upon our hands. Now, I know where your clothes are, well. I have had
my eye on you for some days past. Your clothes are in George Bell’s
chest, with a good quantity of the clothes of the other men as well.’
‘Hush, hush,’ says Radley, ‘there is honour in these things. If they
are in George Bell’s chest, it is because they belong to him.’
‘But how?’ cries I. ‘Have you sold the clothes, Simon?’
‘Sold them—no,’ says Clink. ‘He has lost them, or been cheated of
them, at dice, with that fellow Bell, who is a sneaking vagabond, and
always skulking out of the way, whenever he is wanted.’
I remembered now that I had very often seen Bell playing dice with
others of the crew, but had taken no particular notice, such games
being very common among privateersmen.
‘And so you have had bad luck, Simon?’ rejoined I.
‘Bad luck,’ interrupted Clink: ‘yes, and most of those have bad luck
who play with George Bell.’
The conversation continuing, we gradually drew from Radley, that he
had played with Bell for all the ready money which he possessed on
leaving Jamaica, and lost it; that then he had played for a good
set of mathematical instruments, and lost them; that then he had
played for all his clothes, and lost them; and, although for some
time his shipmates had supplied him, that he had lost in succession
every article of clothing so given to him, in the same way; and
that, finally, he had played for and lost his chances of prize-money
during the whole cruize. All this the poor fellow told with great
reluctance, seeming to consider such disclosures as a breach of
honour; but on John Clink saying that, in his belief, Bell had been
a common sharper in London, and had bubbled poor Radley out of his
property, Simon grew very indignant, and swore that, if it were so,
he would have Bell’s blood. However, we pacified him, and made him
understand that before making any charge, we must have better proof.
George Bell at this time being below, and in his hammock, I called
up a number of the crew in succession, all of whom said that they
had played with Bell, and that they had never won anything; that if,
now and then, a cast of the dice was in their favour, yet that they
always rose the losers. Some of these men had had their suspicions
of Bell’s play, but as they had never compared notes, they were not
aware, until I questioned them, how very similar all their cases
were. They knew, indeed, that Simon Radley had been stripped, but
they were loath to accuse a shipmate of foul play.
‘Why, then,’ quoth John Clink, ‘that fellow, Bell, must own about
half the property in the ship, if your tales be all true. This must
be looked into.’
‘With whose dice do you play?’ says I: and they all answered, that
generally it was with Bell’s for that several men who had brought
dice on board had lost them, they knew not how, but Bell had several
sets. This information increased our suspicions very much, and
desiring all hands to keep the matter to themselves, and by no means
to give a hint to Bell that he was suspected, I informed Captain Jem
of the whole affair.
‘The snivelling, cur-hearted miscreant!’ quoth honest Captain Jem,
his plump red cheeks glowing with indignation. ‘I never saw anything
good in that fellow since he came on board. He is a pitiful skulk,
and never stirs out of his hammock except when he is driven. It was
he who counselled us to strike to the Spanish frigate, but if we
find him out in his roguish tricks his back shall so smart for it,
as shall cause him to think that his spine be stuffed full of pepper
instead of marrow.’
So it was determined that Bell should be closely watched, and the
dice which he was so fond of using, examined at the first convenient
opportunity. Nor had we long to wait for its occurrence. In a little
more than an hour, the suspected culprit came on deck, not thinking
any harm, and going to the cook-house returned with a portion of
boucanned pork, off which he made a very good dinner, with the help
of a clasp-knife, and then having washed down the meat with several
hearty draughts of brandy, he accosted my old friend Le Picard, and
asked him whether he would shake a wrist with him. Now Picard had
been also below and asleep, when the investigation into Mr. Bell’s
character had been going on, and the men having kept their own
counsel, Le Picard had no idea of what was in the wind. So presently,
they sat down and began to play upon the combings, or ledge of the
hatchway, Bell having produced the dice and dice-boxes. I watched the
suspected sharper very closely when the game was going on, and noted
his general sly down-cast look, and the small way which he opened
his eye-lids, always peering about him with suspicious blinking
eyes. Then, again, I observed his hand, which, although dirty and
tarry enough, was not the hand of a man who had been all his life
accustomed to handle ropes and marlin-spikes. Meanwhile, quite a
circle of spectators gathered round the players, a circumstance
not usual, as the stakes were trifling, but which Le Picard took
no notice of. Bell, on the other hand, looked often about him, and
seemed puzzled at the interest which so many of the crew took in the
matter. However, he said nothing, but played on, so far as I could
see very fairly, and the luck went from one to the other, as is usual
in the game. At last, Le Picard grew impatient.
‘Come,’ quoth he ‘_Allons, mon camerade, jouons plus fortément._ Let
us play for a better stake.’
‘I am agreeable,’ replied the other, softly.
‘_C’est bien, alors._ Let it be a double doubloon; I have not many
left.’
The Frenchman pulled out the piece of gold, and placed it on the
ledge of the hatchway. Bell, after some searching, real or pretended,
plucked another piece from his pocket, holding, as I observed, the
dice all the while in his hand.
Captain Jem, who stood by me, did not fail to observe this as well as
I, and whispered to me that the fellow by this manœuvre might well
have changed the ivory. I nodded.
‘A thunderstorm, or a single flash?’ says Bell, meaning, shall we
decide the game by one cast, or in a great many.
‘Oh, one flash; short and sweet!’ quoth the French man. Both of them
rattled the dice and flung them forth.
‘Trays,’ called out Le Picard.
‘Sixes,’ exclaimed Bell; ‘the money is mine,’ and he grasped the gold
greedily.
‘I will hold you doubles or quits,’ cried Le Picard, in true gambling
spirit.
‘Well, if you want your revenge, I suppose I must not say no,’
answered the other, in a quiet unobtrusive tone.
The dice were again thrown, and this time the Frenchman had quatres,
and Bell, as before, sixes. Muttering a great oath, poor Picard
fished up the stakes from the bottom of his pocket, and was handing
them to the winner, when Captain Jem cried in a loud voice, ‘Stop.’
Both players looked up in surprise.
‘Bell,’ said the captain, sternly, ‘hand me over that dice.’
‘Why, captain,’ quoth the other, in a cringing tone, getting suddenly
very pale, and looking quickly all about him; ‘why, captain, there
has been no foul play, I hope? We are gentlemen adventurers on board
this ship.’
And, with that, his hand stole slily towards his pocket, as if to
deposit there his winnings. Observing this motion, however, I grasped
his wrist and defeated his intention, the dice falling from his
fingers. At the same time, Captain Jem caught him by the collar of
his doublet, crying out—
‘Why, thou booby, thine own words condemn thee; who spoke of foul
play but yourself? I only asked you for the dice, and you straightway
think you are accused of cheating.’
At this Bell looked sheepish enough, but presently recovering
himself, began to bully and curse, swearing that he was a gentleman
and a man of honour, and requesting to know by what right his dice
had been taken from him.
‘Come here, Simon Radley,’ says Captain Jem, and Simon stood forth,
shaking his clenched fist at Bell.
‘Have you not lost every farthing you possessed, as well as your
clothes and your chances for the cruise, to this man?’ says the
boatswain.
Simon replied that it was so, and was entering into particulars, when
Bell burst out with a great affectation of scorn and indignation—
‘A pretty fellow,’ quoth he, ‘to game with a gentleman, and then,
when fortune is adverse, to go and prate of your losses, and charge
your adversary with foul play! Go to, man! had I lost, I never would
have accused you of cheating. But you throw no dice with me again.’
‘No, that you may depend upon,’ answered Radley.
‘Stay,’ cried Captain Jem, ‘we are going but rashly to work. Let all
the men here who have diced with George Bell hold up their hands.’
Thereupon, more than two-thirds of the crew made the sign.
‘Good,’ replied the captain; ‘now, let those who have lost money, or
aught else to him, hold up their hands.’
Nearly the same number of hands were immediately displayed. Bell grew
yellow in the face, and glared about him with fierce spite.
‘Good again,’ continued the captain; ‘Mr. Bell, I must congratulate
you; fortune has been very kind to you—very kind indeed. Now, let
those who have won money or aught else of George Bell, hold up their
hands.’
Two hands were raised, and their owners being interrogated, it
appeared that they had gained, one of them, not more than a couple of
groats, and the other merely a small rusty pistol, which had burst
the first and only time he had fired it, and against which he had
staked, being incited by Bell, a good perspective glass.
‘So, then, gentlemen and comrades,’ pursued Captain Jem, ‘the case
stands thus: here are a score of you have played with this man;
and, although each man of that score ought to have had as good a
chance of winning as Bell, yet the fellow has beaten you all, one
after another; and the only winnings from him have been contemptible
matters not worthy speaking of.’
The crew here uttered a loud murmur of acquiescence, and some of them
began to threaten Bell with their fists. Still he tried to put a good
face on the matter, although his tongue faltered as he spoke.
‘You are mistaken, gentlemen,’ he cried, ‘indeed you are; I will
take my Bible oath that I played fair; nay, if you do not believe
me, I am willing to give up all my winnings, and surely that ought
to satisfy everybody. But I assure you, comrades, if I were to be
hanged this minute, I would still say that you had no wrong from me.
I am incapable of cheating, gentlemen! I do not understand how to cog
dice, upon my soul; indeed, indeed I do not.’
‘That fellow’s tongue would hang him if there were but one rope in
the world,’ says the boatswain; ‘he was the first to talk of foul
play, and now he is the first to talk of cogged dice!’
‘We will soon settle that matter,’ says the captain, ‘and that by
splitting open the ivory.’
‘Oh, certainly, certainly, I agree to that,’ says Bell; ‘here are my
dice, sir,’ and he whipped out several cubes from his pocket.
‘No, no,’ interrupted I, ‘never mind these; we will try the dice with
which you won the two doubloons e’en now.’ And one of the men having
fetched a hammer, I placed the morsel of ivory upon the ledge of the
hatchway. Upon seeing this, Bell went down plump upon his knees, and
raised a dismal howl.
‘Ah, you can be penitent enough now, chicken-heart!’ says Captain
Jem; whilst I, having splintered the dice with a blow, we discovered
a small bent piece of lead, very neatly inserted in one of the
specks of the deuce side of the cube, not, however, drilled
perpendicularly into the ivory, but artificially deposited in a sort
of burrowing hole, running along just under the surface of that side
of the square. It was evident, that to prepare a dice in this fashion
required a hand very skilful and well accustomed to the work. The
men crowded round to see it, uttering furious menaces against the
convicted sharper, who never moved from his knees, but continued to
supplicate most piteously for mercy.
‘Mercy!’ exclaimed Captain Jem; ‘mercy, forsooth. Thou art one of the
first privateersmen I ever heard of cheating his comrades, and thou
shalt smart for it, or I no longer command this schooner.’
‘Do not flog me—for mercy’s sake, do not flog me!’ the fellow bawled;
‘I cannot bear flogging—it will kill me—it will be murder if you flog
me. I was flogged once, and the doctor said it all but killed me;’
and so, crying and howling, the pitiful creature cast him down upon
the deck, and bemoaned himself in the most abject misery of spirit.
‘Flogged before,’ said the boatswain. ‘Ay, I warrant thee. Aboard
what ship?’
‘Aboard no ship at all,’ roared the culprit. ‘On shore. Oh dear!—oh,
dear!’
‘On shore,’ answered the boatswain. ‘At the cart’s tail I presume?’
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Bell; ‘but I give you my word of honour, sir—my
sacred word of honour, that I was not guilty then. It was another
man.’
‘Not guilty then,’ says Nicky Hamstring. ‘No; no more than you are
now, I dare affirm.’
The miserable devil gave no answer, but made as though he would catch
the legs of the men about him, and cling to them. In all my life I
never saw such a pitiful hound.
‘Keel-haul the fellow,’ says one of the men, ‘and see whether the
brine won’t wash the roguery out of him.’ And the others joined in
the cry: ‘Yes, yes, keel-haul him.’
At this the culprit sat up upon the deck and looked earnestly in the
faces of the men through his tears. I do not think he understood what
keel-hauling meant.
‘Anything,’ says he, whining like a hungry cat; ‘anything sooner than
flogging.’
‘Very good,’ says Captain Jem. ‘Be it so. Truly, on second thoughts,
it would be degrading hemp to put it to any other use about such a
scoundrel, except hanging him.’
Meantime, half a dozen of the men, in great glee at the anticipated
ducking, went about the preparations without loss of time.
The punishment of keel-hauling, I premise, that we borrowed from the
Dutch. Its name describes its nature. The prisoner is fastened to
a rope led under the vessel’s keel, and hauled beneath her bottom,
as often as his guilt seems to require. It is evident that this is
a punishment the severity of which depends greatly upon the size of
the ship, and the frequency with which the process is repeated. To
be hauled under the keel of a great ship of war is a very different
thing from being hauled under the keel of a small sloop; but in
order to give the punishment its requisite severity on board small
craft, the culprit is often hauled all along the keel, being let
over the bows, and taken up at the stern; a process by which he is
sure to be at least half drowned and half scraped to death by the
rough barnacles and jagged shell fish which generally encase a ship’s
bottom. In the present case it was determined, however, that Bell
should undergo the easier mode of punishment, and be hauled from
bulwark to bulwark, but the dose was to be administered twice, giving
him a breathing-time between. Accordingly, by the help of a sounding
lead, first a thin line and afterwards a stout cord were conducted
under the ship’s keel, Mr. Bell watching the process with great
anxiety.
‘What—what are you going to do with me?’ at length he cried,
beginning to comprehend the nature of his punishment. ‘You do not
mean to drag me under the ship?’
‘You have hit it my hearty,’ says the boatswain; ‘hit it to a tee.
Yes; we will give you an opportunity of inspecting the run of the
schooner, and if you fail to observe all its beauties the first time,
don’t break your heart, you will have another chance immediately
after.’
At this the cowardly animal began to howl and blubber again.
‘You will drown me, you will; it’s murder. There were sharks about
the ship all yesterday. I will never come up alive! Have mercy on me!
I have a wife and family in England. I would rather be flogged than
put overboard. I would rather be flogged, indeed I would.’
At this moment Captain Jem came up.
‘Rather be flogged, would he? A minute ago he sang another tune.
Why, you discontented thief,’ roared the captain, ‘you would not be
pleased even although we were to hang you. Come, men, bear a hand,
and have him overboard in a trice.’
Immediately, half a dozen stout fellows flung themselves upon the
miserable culprit. He roared, swore, and prayed, all in a breath,
kicked out with his legs and arms, and sought to bite and scratch
like a wild cat. But he was speedily mastered, his arms pinioned
securely, his ankles tied together, and the rope which ran under the
keel made fast under his armpits. He was then lifted and carried to
the larboard bulwarks, half a dozen men holding the end of the rope,
which passed beneath the keel and came up on the starboard side,
while two or three hands had charge of the continuation of the line,
so as to steady his descent in the first dive, and to pull him back
by in the second.
All this time the vagabond never ceased to abuse and swear at us,
seeing that cries for mercy availed not. Captain Jem gave the word—
‘Heave and pull,’ and instantly Mr. Bell went with a splash into the
sea, struggling for a moment on the surface, and then, as the men on
the starboard side hauled the rope, disappearing in the water.
‘Rattle him round,’ says the captain. ‘He must not drown for all he
is such a villain.’ The men ran across the deck with the rope; there
was a surge and a jerk, when the poor devil struck the projecting
keel, but he was instantly dragged beneath it, and the next moment
he made his appearance on the larboard side, struggling, panting and
coughing up the water, his face all blue and bleeding from having
been scraped along the bottom, and his clothes torn by the jagged
shells of the barnacles.
‘O, Lord!’ he gasped; ‘murder—it is—murder;’ and then the coughing
well-nigh choked him.
‘Down with him again,’ cried the captain. The end of the rope which
had been before used as a guy was promptly manned, and Bell again
disappeared beneath the water, was again rudely jerked against the
keel, and then hauled up the side of the ship, and cast upon deck all
bleeding and insensible, with his hands blue and cramped, and his
limbs quite limp and motionless. By Captain Jem’s direction he was
held up by the legs, when presently he vomited up a great quantity
of sea water, and then began to stir and moan, with great fits of
coughing. His hands and legs were then released, and he managed to
sit up on deck, leaning against the mast, and looking as if he had
just wakened out of a dream.
‘Let this be a warning to you, Mr. Bell,’ said the captain, ‘how
you play dice in future. I presume you will only stay in this ship
until you have a chance of going on board another. None of your own
property, however you came by it, will be taken away, but all that
you cheated your comrades of must be restored.’
Accordingly, Bell’s chests were opened, a general distribution took
place, and that evening Simon Radley appeared in his former attire.
As for the sharper himself, we afterwards learned that he had been a
well-known rogue in London, and after having been twice flogged at
the cart’s tail, had been tried for ring-dropping, and transported
to the plantations of Virginia, from which he managed to escape, and
after divers adventures in the West Indies—whereof the greater part
were more complimentary to his ingenuity than to his honesty—he had
shipped on board our schooner at Jamaica, as the reader has seen.