seamen, whom I had marked down for the leader of the little nautical
band; and it was not difficult to break ice with the frank tar. He was
more intelligent and polished than is usual even with the superior
class of his vocation, having seen more countries of the globe, and
their peculiarities, than would set up a dozen writers of travels.
They had all sailed together in the same vessels for several voyages:
had been last to Calcutta, Singapore, and Canton, in a large Liverpool
Indiaman, to which they were returning after a trip, during the
interval, on some affair of the boatswain's at Glasgow; and, curiously
enough, they had made a cruise up Loch Lomond, none of them having
seen a fresh-water lake of any size before. In the mean time, while
the negro passed up and down with his companions before me, I had been
remarking that his naked breast, seen through the half-open check
shirt, was tattooed over with a singular device, in conspicuous red
and blue colours: indeed, without something or other of the sort he
could scarcely have been a sailor, for the barbarians of the sea and
those of the American forest have a good deal in common. This peculiar
ornament of the sable young mariner I at length observed upon to the
boatswain. "Jack Moonlight!" said the seaman, turning round, "come
here, my son: show the gentleman your papers, will ye?" The black
grinned, looked flattered, as I thought, and, opening his shirt,
revealed to me the whole of his insignia. In the middle was what
appeared meant for a broken ring-bolt; above that a crown; below an
anchor; on one side the broad arrow of the dock-yard, and on the other
the figures of 1838. "My sartif'cates, sar, is dat!" said the negro,
showing his white teeth. "That's his figure-head, sir," said one of
the younger sailors, "but he's got a different mark abaft, ye know, Mr
Wilson!" "Never mind, Dick," said the boatswain; "the one scores out
the other, my lad." The black looked grave again, and they resumed
their walk. "What's his name, did you say?" I inquired,--"Moonlight?"
"Yes, sir; Jack Moonlight it is." _Ut lucus a non lucendo_, thought I:
rather a preternatural moonlight--a sort of _dark_-lantern! "Why, who
christened him that?" I said. "Well, sir," replied the boatswain, "the
whole ship's company, I think: the second mate threw a ship's-bucket
of gulf-stream water over his head, too, for a blessing; and the black
cook, being skilled that way, gave him the marks. Jack is his christen
name, sir--_Moonlight_ is what we call his on-christen one." "There's
a entire yarn about it, sir," remarked the other sailor. "I wish you
would tell it me!" said I to the boatswain, seating myself on the
windlass, while his two companions looked to him with an expression of
the same desire. "Why, sir," said the bluff foremast officer, hitching
up his trousers, and looking first at one boot and then at the other,
"I'm not the best hand myself at laying up the strands of a matter;
but however, as I was first whistle in the concern, why, you shall
have the rights of it. You see, sir," continued he, "we were lying at
that time inside the Havannah, opposight the Mole--the Mary Jane of
Bristol, Captain Drew, a ship o' seven hundred tons. 'Twas in the year
'38, I think, Tom?" "Ay, ay, Mr Wilson," replied the other sailor,
"'tis logged correct enough on Jack Moonlight's breast." "She was
round from Jamaica for some little matter to fill up," continued the
boatswain, "so we didn't leave the cable long betwixt wind and water;
but, two nights before the Mary Jane sailed, a large Portugee schooner
came in, and brought up within thirty fathoms of our starboard
quarter, slam on to us, so as we looked into her cabin windows, but
nothing else. She'd got the American flag flying, and a Yankee mate
that answered sometimes, 'twas said, for the skipper; but by the looks
of her, and a large barracoon being a'most right in a line with her
bowsprit, we hadn't no doubt what she was after. The first night, by
the lights and the noise, we considered they landed a pretty few score
of blacks, fresh from the Guinea coast and a stew in the middle
passage. And all the time there was the Spanish guard-boats, and the
court sitting every few days to look after such tricks, and saying
they kept a watch the devil himself couldn't shirk. There was a
British cruiser off the Floridas, too, but we reckoned she'd been
blown up the Gulf by a hurricane the morning before. Next night was
bright moonlight, so they were all quiet till two bells of the third
watch; then they began to ship off their _bales_ again, as they call
'em--the moon being on the set, and the schooner in a shadow from the
ware-houses. 'Twas all of a sort o' smothered bustle aboard of her,
for the sailmaker and I was keeping our hour of the anchor-watch. I
was only rated able seaman at that time in the Mary Jane. Well, the
shadow of the schooner came almost as far as the currents about our
rudder, and I was looking over the quarter, when I thought I saw a
trail shining in it, as if something was swimming towards us.
'Sailmaker,' says I, 'is that the shark, d'ye think, that they say is
fed alongside of one o' them slavers here for a sentry?' 'Where?' said
the sailmaker, and 'Look,' says I. Just that moment what did I see but
the woolly black head of a nigger come out into the stroak of white
water, 'twixt our counter and the schooner's shadow, swimming as quiet
as possible to get round into ours! 'Keep quiet, mate,' I said; 'don't
frighten the poor fellow! He's contrived to slink off, I'll bet you,
in the row!' Next we heard him scrambling up into the mizen chains,
then his head peeps over the bulwarks, but neither of us turned about,
so he crept along to the forecastle, where the scuttle was off, and
the men all fast in their hammocks. Down he dives in a moment. The
sailmaker and I slipped along to see what he'd do. Right under the
fok'sle ladder was the trap of the cook's coal-hole, with a ring-bolt
in it for lifting; and just when we looked over, there was the nigger,
as naked as ye please, a heaving of it up to stow himself away,
without asking where. As soon as he was gone, and the trap closed,
'Why,' said the sailmaker, 'he's but a boy.' 'He's a smart chap,
though, sure enough, sailmaker!' says I. 'But what pauls me, is how
quick he picked out the fittest berth in the ship. Why, old Dido won't
know but what it's his wife Nancy's son, all blacked over with the
coals!' 'Well, bo',' says the sailmaker, laughing, 'we mustn't let
the black doctor get down amongst his gear, on no account, till the
ship's clear away to sea!' _Doctor_, you know, sir--that's what we
call the cook at sea. 'Never fear, mate,' says I, 'I'll manage old
Dido myself, else he'd blow the whole concern amongst them confounded
planters in the cabin.' This Dido, you must understand, sir, was the
black cook of the Mary Jane: his name, by rights, was Di'dorus
Thomson; but he'd been cook's mate of the Dido frigate for two or
three years before, and always called himself Dido--though I've heard
'twas a woman's name instead of a man's. He was a Yankee nigger, as
black as his own coals, and had married a Bristol woman. She had one
son, but he was as white as herself; so 'twas a joke in the ship
against old Dido, how he'd contrived to wash his youngster so clean,
and take all the dirt on himself. We run the rig on him about his
horns, too, and the white skin under his paint, till the poor fellow
was afraid to look in a glass for fear of seeing the devil.
"Next morning, before we began to get up anchor, the cook turns out of
his hammock at six o'clock to light the galley fire, and down he comes
again to the forecastle to get coals out of his hold. 'Twas just
alongside of my hammock, so I looked over, and says I, 'Hullo, doctor!
hold on a minute till I give ye a bit of advice.' 'Mine yar own
bus'ness, Jack Wilson,' says the cross-grained old beggar, as he was.
'Dido,' says I, 'who d'ye think I see goin' down your trap last
night?' 'Golly!' says he, 'don't know; who was dat, Jack--eh?' and he
lets go of the trap-lid. 'Why, Dido,' I told him, ''twas the devil
himself!' 'O Lard!' says the nigger, giving a jump, 'what dat
gen'leman want dere? Steal coal for bad place! O Lard!--Hish!' says
he, whispering into my hammock, 'tell me, Jack Wilson, he black or
white--eh?' 'Oh, black!' I said; 'as black as the slaver astarn.' 'O
Lard! O Lard! black man's own dibble!' says old Dido; 'what's I to do
for cap'en's breakfast, Jack!' 'Why, see if you haven't a few chips o'
wood, doctor,' says I, 'till we get out o' this infernal port. Don't
they know how to lay the old un among your folks in the States, Dido?'
I said, for I'd seen the thing tried. 'Golly! yis!' says the nigger;
'leave some bake yam on stone, with little rum in de pumpkin--'at's
how to do!' 'Very good!' says I; 'well, whatever you've got handy,
Dido, lower it down to him, and I daresay he'll clear out by
to-morrow.' 'Why, what the dibble, Jack!' says he again, scratching
his woolly head, 'feed him in 'e ship, won't he stay--eh?' 'Oh, for
that matter, Dido,' says I, 'just you send down a sample of the ship's
biscuit, with a fid of hard junk, and d--me if he stay long!' A good
laugh I had, too, in my hammock, to see the cook follow my advice: he
daren't open his hatch more than enough to shove down a line with some
grub at the end of it, as much as would have provisioned half a dozen;
so I knew there was a stopper clapped on the spot for that day.
"When we began to get up anchor, a boat belonging to the schooner
pulled round us, and they seemed to want to look through and through
us, for them slavers has a nat'ral avarsion to an English ship. They
gave a squint or two at old black Dido, and he swore at 'em in
exchange for it like a trooper: 'tis hard to say, for a good slack
jaw, and all the dirty abuse afloat, whether a Yankee nigger, or a
Billingsgate fishwoman, or a Plymouth Point lady, is the worst to
stand. I do believe, if we'd been an hour later of sailing, they'd
have had a search-warrant aboard of us, with a couple of Spanish
guardos, and either pretended they'd lost a fair-bought slave, or got
us perhaps condemned for the very thing they were themselves. However,
off we went, and by the first dog-watch we'd dropped the land to
sou'-west, with stunsails on the larboard side, and the breeze on our
quarter.
"Next morning again the black cook gives me a shake in my hammock, and
says he, 'Mus' have some coal now, Jack; he gone now, surely--eh,
lad?' 'Go to the devil, you black fool,' says I, 'can't ye let a
fellow sleep out his watch without doing your work for you?' 'O
Golly,' says the cook in a rage, 'I sarve you out for dis, you damn
tarry black-guard! Don't b'lieb no dibble ever dere! I water you tea
dis blessed mornin' for dis!' 'Look out for squalls, then, doctor,'
says I; and he lifts the trap, and began to go down the ladder,
shaking his black fist at me. 'Good b'ye, Dido!' says I, 'make my
respects to the old un!' 'O you darty willain!' he sings out from the
hole; and then I heard him knocking about amongst his lumber, till all
of a sudden he gave a roar. Up springs the young nigger from under
hatches, up the ladder and through the trap, then up the fok'sle steps
again, and out on deck, and I heard him running aft to the
quarter-deck, where the mate was singing out to set another stunsail.
Down fell the trap-lid over the coal-hole, and old Dido was caught
like a mouse. If it hadn't been for our breakfast, I daresay we'd have
left him there for a spell; but when the doctor got out he was as
cowed as you please. 'Jack Wilson,' says he to me, 'you say quite
right--him black dibble dere sure 'naff, Jack! see him go up in flash
'o fire out of de coal, den all as dark as ---- Hullo, 'mates,' says
he, 'you laugh, eh? Bery funny though, too--ho-ho-ho!' so he turned to
grinning at it till the tears ran out of the big whites of his eyes.
'What does the parson say, doctor?' asks an old salt out of his
hammock--'stick close to the devil, and he'll flee from ye!'
'Ho-ho-ho!' roars old Dido; 'bery good--ho-ho-ho!' says he; 'old
dibble not so bery frightenful after all, now I see he right black!'
'I say, though, old boy,' puts in the foremastman again, 'I doesn't
like to hear ye laugh at the devil that way--ye don't know what may
turn up--'tis good seamanship, as I reckon, never to make an enemy of
a port on a lee-shore, cook!' 'Ay, ay, old ship,' said another; 'but
who looks for seaman's ways from a cook?--ye can't expect it!' 'I
tar'ble 'fraid of white dibble, though, lads,' said old Dido, giving
an impudent grin. 'Well, if so be,' says the old salt, 'take my word
for it, ye'd better keep a look-out for him--that's all. White or
black, all colours has their good words to keep, an' bad ones brings
their bad luck, mate!'
"Well, sir, as for the young run-away, 'twas all of a kick-up on the
quarterdeck about him; he couldn't speak a word of English, but he
hung on the mate's feet like one for bare life. Just then the captain
came on deck with two lady passengers, to take a look of the morning;
the poor fellow was spar-naked, and the ladies made a dive below
again. The captain saw the slave-brand on his shoulder, and he twigged
the whole matter at once; so he told the mate to get him a pair of
trousers, and a shirt, and put him to help the cook. Dido laughed
louder than ever when he found out the devil wasn't so black as he was
painted; and he was for indopting the youngster, by way of a sort o'
jury son. However, the whole of the fok'sle took a fancy to him,
considering him a kind of right to all hands. He was christened Jack,
as I said before, and instead of hanging on, cook's mate, he was put
up to something more seaman-like. By the time the Mary Jane got home,
black Jack could set a stunsail, or furl a royal. We got Dido to give
him a regular-built sartificate on his breast, of his being free to
blue water, footing paid, and under the British union-jack, which
'twas the same as you saw just now, sir."
"Well," said I, "but you haven't explained why he was called by such a
curious appellation as Moonlight, though?"
"Hold on a bit, sir," said the boatswain, "that's not the whole affair
from end to end, yet. The next voyage I sailed again in the Mary Jane
to Jamaica, for I always had a way of sticking to the same ship, when
I could. I remember Dido, the cook, had a quarrel with his wife,
Nancy; and one of the first nights we were at sea, he told black Jack,
before all the fok'sle, how he meant to leave him all his savings,
which everybody knew was no small thing, for Dido never spent any of
his wages, and many a good cask of slush the old nigger had pocketed
the worth of. We made a fine run of it that time down the Trades, till
we got into the latitude of the Bahamas, and there the ship stuck like
a log, with blue water round her, as hot as blazes, and as smooth as
glass, or a bowl of oil. Once or twice we had a black squall that sent
her on a bit, or another that drove her back, with a heavy swell, and
now and then a light air, which we made the most of--setting
stunsails, and hauling 'em down again in a plash of rain. But,
altogether, we thought we'd never get out of them horse latitudes at
all, having run over much to west'ard, till we saw the line of the
Gulf Stream treading away on the sea line to nor'west, as plain as on
a chart. There was a confounded devil of a shark alongside, that stuck
by us all through, one of the largest I ever clapped eyes on. Every
night we saw him cruising away astarn, as green as glass, down through
the blue water; and in the morning, there he was under the counter,
with his back fin above, and two little pilot-fish swimming off and on
round about. He wouldn't take the bait either; and every man forud
said there was some one to lose his mess before long; however, the
cook made a dead set to hook the infernal old monster, and at last he
did contrive to get him fast, with a piece of pork large enough for
supper to the larboard watch. All hands tailed on to the line, and
with much ado we got his snout over the taffrail, till one could look
down his throat, and his tail was like to smash in the starn windows;
when of a sudden, snap goes the rope where it spliced to the chain,
down went the shark into the water with a tremendous splash, and got
clear off, hook, chain, bait an' all. We saw no more of him, though;
and by sunset we had a bit of a light breeze, that began to take us
off pleasantly.
"We had had full moon nearly the night before, and this night, I
remember, 'twas the very pearl of moonlight--the water all of a ripple
sparkling in it, almost as blue as by day; the sky full o' white
light; and the moon as large as the capstan-head, but brighter than
silver. You might ha' said you saw the very rays of it come down to
the bellies of the sails, and sticking on the same plank in the deck
for an hour at a time, as the ship surged ahead. Old Dido, the cook,
had a fashion of coming upon deck of a moonlight night, in warm
latitudes, to sleep on top o' the spars; he would lie with his black
face full under it, like a lizard basking in the sun. Many a time the
men advised him against it, at any rate to cover his face; for, if it
wouldn't spoil, they said, he might wake up blind, or with his mouth
pulled down to his shoulder, and out of his mind to boot. It wasn't
the first time neither, sir, I've known a fellow moonstruck in the
tropics, for 'tis another guess matter altogether from your hazy bit
o' white paper yonder: why, if you hang a fish in it for an hour or
two, 'twill stink like a lucifer match, and be poison to eat. Well,
sir, that night, sure enough, up comes Dido with a rug to lie upon,
and turns in upon the spars under the bulwarks, and in five minutes he
was fast asleep, snoring with his face to the moon. So the watch,
being tricky inclined ways on account of the breeze, took into their
heads to give him a fright. One got hold of a paint-pot out of the
half-deck, and lent him a wipe of white paint with the brush all over
his face; Dido only gave a grunt, and was as fast as ever. The next
thing was to grease his wool, and plaster it up in shape of a couple
o' horns. Then they drew a bucket of water, and set it on the deck
alongside, for him to see himself. When our watch came on deck, at
eight bells, the moon was as bright as ever in the west, and the cook
stretched out like Happy Tom on the spars, with his face slued round
to meet it. In a little the breeze began to fall, and the light
canvass to flap aloft, till she was all of a shiver, and the topsails
sticking in to the masts, and shaking out again, with a clap that made
the boom-irons rattle. At last she wouldn't answer her wheel, and the
mate had the courses hauled up in the trails; 'twas a dead calm once
more, and the blue water only swelled in the moonlight, like one sheet
of rear-admiral's flags a-washing in a silver steep,--that's the
likest thing I can fancy. When the ship lay still, up gets the black
doctor, half asleep, and I daresay he had been laying in a cargo of
Jamaica rum overnight: the bucket was just under his nose as he looked
down to see where he was, and the moon shining into it. I heard him
roar out, 'O de dibble!' and out he sprang to larboard, over the
bulwarks, into the water. 'Man overboard, ahoy!' I sang out, and the
whole watch came running from aft and forud to look over. 'Oh Christ!'
says one o' the men, pointing with his finger--'Look.' Dido's head
was just rising alongside; but just under the ship's counter what did
we see but the black back-fin of the shark, coming slowly round, as
them creatures do when they're not quite sure of anything that gives
'em the start. 'The shark! the shark!' said every one; 'he's gone, by
----' 'Down with the quarter-boat, men!' sings out the mate, and he
ran to one of the falls to let it go. The young nigger, Jack, was
amongst the rest of us; in a moment he off with his hat and shoes,
took the cook's big carving-knife out of the galley at his back, and
was overboard in a moment. He was the best swimmer I ever chanced to
see, and the most fearless: the moonlight showed everything as plain
as day, and he watched his time to jump right in where the shark's
back-fin could be seen coming quicker along, with a wake shining down
in the water at both fins and tail. Old Dido was striking out like a
good un, and hailing for a rope, but he knew nothing at all of the
shark. As for young Jack, he said afterwards he felt his feet come
full slap on the fish's back, and then he laid out to swim under him
and give him the length of his knife close by the jaw, when he'd turn
up to bite--for 'twas what the youngsters along the Guinea coast were
trained to do every day on the edge of the surf. However, curious
enough, there wasn't another sign of this confounded old sea-tiger
felt or seen again; no doubt he got a fright and went straight off
under the keel; at any rate the boat was alongside of the cook and
Jack next minute, and picked 'em both up safe. Jack swore he heard the
chain at the shark's snout rattle, as he was slueing round his head
within half a fathom of old Dido, and just as he pounced upon the
bloody devil's back-bone; the next moment it was clear water below his
feet, and he saw the white bells rise from a lump of green going down
under the ship's bends, as large as the gig, with its belly glancing
like silver. If so, I daresay the cook's legs would have stuck on his
own hook before they were swallowed; but, anyhow, the old nigger was
ready to believe in the devil as long as he lived. The whole matter
gave poor Dido a shake he never got the better of; at the end of the
voyage he vowed he'd live ashore the rest of his days, to be clear of
all sorts o' devilry. Whether it didn't agree with him or not, I can't
say, but he knocked off the hooks in a short time altogether, and left
young Jack the most of his arnings, on the bargain of hailing by his
name ever after. 'Twas a joke the men both in the Mary Jane and the
old Rajah got up, when the story was told, to call the cook Dido
Moonlight, because, after all, 'twas the death of him: and when Jack
shipped with the rest of us here aboard of the Rajah, having seen Dido
to the ground, why, all hands christened him over again Jack
Moonlight; though to look at him now, I daresay, sir, you wouldn't
well fancy how such things as black Jack's face and moonlight was
logged together, unless the world went by contrairies!"
MOONLIGHT MEMORIES.
BY B. SIMMONS.
I.
They say Deceit and Change divide
The empire of this world below;
That, whelm'd by Time's resistless tide,
Love's fountain ebbs, no more to flow.
Dawn-brow'd MADONNA, deem not so,
While to my truth yon Moon in heaven
I loved thee by, so long ago,
Is still a faithful "witness" given!
II.
All brightly round, that mellow Moon
Rose o'er thy bright, serene abode,
When first to win thy smiles' sweet boon
My tears of stormy passion flowed.
Where Woodburn's larches veil'd our road,
I sued thy cheek's averted grace,
And, while its lustre paled and glowed,
Drank the blest sunshine of thy face.
III.
And when the darkening Fate, that threw
Its waste of seas between us, Sweet,
With refluent wave restored me to
The soundless music of thy feet,
How wild my heart's delighted beat,
Once more beneath the mulberry bough,
To see the branching shadows fleet
Before thy bright approaching brow!
IV.
Then rose again the Moon's sweet charm,
Not in her full and orbéd glow,
But young and sparkling as thy form
That moved a sister-moon below.
The rose-breeze round thee loved to blow--
Blue Evening o'er thee bent and smiled--
Rejoicing Nature seemed to know,
And own, her wildly-gracious child.
V.
Forth came the Stars, as if to keep
Fond watch along thy sinless way;
While thy pure eyes, through Ether deep,
Sought out lone Hesper's diamond ray,
Half shy, half sad, to hear me say,
That haply, mid the tearless bliss
Of that far world we yet should stray,
When we have burst the bonds of this.
VI.
Too short and shining were those hours
I loved, enchanted, by thy side!
Hoarding the wealth of myrtle-flowers
That in thy dazzling bosom died.
Sweet Loiterer by Glenarra's tide,
Dost thou not sometimes breathe a prayer
For Him who never failed to glide
At eve to watch and worship there?
VII.
Fate's storms again have swept the scene,
And, for that fair Moon's summer gleam,
Through winter's snow clouds drifting keen
I hail at midnight now her beam.
Soft may its light this moment stream,
My folded Flower! upon thy rest,
And, melting through thy placid dream,
This heart's unshaken faith attest.
VIII.
Yes--Rainbow of my ruined youth,
Now shining o'er the wreck in vain!
Thy rosy tints of grace and truth
Life's evening clouds shall long retain.
My very doom has less of pain
To feel that, ere from Time's dark river
Thy form or soul could take one stain,
Despair between us came for ever.
IX.
And if, as sages still avow,
The rites once paid on hill and grove
To Beings beautiful as thou,
To Dian, Hebe, and to Love,
Were so imperishably wove
Of fancies lovely and elysian,
Their spirit to this hour must rove
The earth a blest abiding vision;[29]
X.