IMPRESSED
It was a wearisome journey by river and forest and swamp to New Orleans
in the swelter of the July heat, but I pushed on by horse and boat to
the mosquito-and-fever-plagued city of the delta. Having long since
become hardened to the torments of the Southern insect pests and to the
dangers of ague, dengue, and yellow jack, I endured the first with
resignation and braved the last without a qualm.
The sight of the creole city, with our glorious flag afloat above the
bold little forts, St. Louis and St. Charles, filled me with joy and a
sense of accomplishment. This marked my point of departure in the
crossing of the Gulf, which alone, I hoped, now separated me from my
lady. Though, even with the influx of our native-born Americans since
the annexation, the city could claim only nine thousand inhabitants, the
amount of its trade and shipping was enormous. Among the scores and
hundreds of sea-going craft which lay moored along the wharfs and the
levees or swung at anchor in the stream, I felt certain I should find
one to bear me to Vera Cruz.
Of all the merchants of the city, I knew that few if any stood so well
with the Spanish authorities in the New World or carried on so extensive
a trade with the Spanish colonies as my acquaintance, Mr. Daniel Clark.
Accordingly I waited upon him the evening of my arrival, and stated my
keen desire to obtain passage to Vera Cruz.
He took occasion to congratulate me on my share in the expedition, a
general account of which had come to him, I suspect through secret
sources of communication with the Spaniards. He, however, shook his head
over my request for advice and assistance, until, in desperation, I
confessed that the object of my intended voyage was to meet the lady to
whom I was betrothed.
"Why did you not tell me that at the first, sir?" he snapped. "I set you
down for an agent of that double-dealing scoundrel and traitor James
Wilkinson."
"Mr. Clark," I replied, "General Wilkinson will, I presume, be subjected
to the searching cross-examination of the counsel for Colonel Burr.
Personally I have little liking for the General, and have so expressed
myself in the past. But for the present I think it only just to him, as
to Colonel Burr, to await the publication of the facts of this
deplorable scandal and the verdict of the trial."
"Ay, ay! You can take a dispassionate view, doctor. You have not shared
in all the heat and tumult of this last year. Very well. Be as
nonpartisan as you wish, just so you do not join in the hounding of
honorable men who chanced to show courtesies to that misguided dreamer,
Burr."
"Sir, I have no other thought, no other object in life that I can
consider until I have returned this to my lady," I said, showing him the
rosary.
He turned to his portfolio, and at once wrote a letter in a neat, clerky
hand. Having folded and addressed it, he handed it to me unsealed.
"Present that to Monsieur Lafitte. You will find his sloop, the _Siren_,
somewhere along the water front. Wait. Are you in funds?"
"Enough for the present, sir. But this Monsieur Lafitte--he sails for
Vera Cruz?"
"I have written him that you wish to land in that port. He bears papers
from me which will enable you to effect a landing and a stay of a few
weeks. Should you need funds to carry you through with your venture in
that city, this letter will enable you to draw upon Captain Lafitte for
a hundred doubloons."
I sought to express my gratitude, but he cut me short, and rang for his
mulatto boy to show me out. As it was by now past nine o'clock and a
dark, cloudy evening, I returned to my hotel for the night.
But sunrise found me down in the midst of the hurly-burly and confusion
of the water front. Such a scene was never known elsewhere than here in
the port of the Father of Waters. Rowdy rivermen from the Ohio and
Mississippi settlements, and no less rowdy seamen from the four quarters
of the globe, lewd women and dock workmen, black and white, swarthy
creole merchants and weather-beaten ship's officers,--all jostling and
hurrying about wharf and levee in the cool of the early morning.
Upon starting to inquire, I discovered that it was not so simple a
matter to find the sloop _Siren_ as I had imagined. The slaves and
creoles were polite in their replies, the sailors and rivermen gruff,
but all alike expressed their inability to enlighten me.
At last I accosted at a venture a splendidly built gentleman of about my
own age and breadth but a full two inches taller.
"Monsieur," I said, noting his black hair and French features, "your
pardon, but I am in search of the schooner _Siren_, Captain Lafitte."
"Ah," he replied, eying me with a polite yet penetrating gaze. "May I
request you to name your business with Captain Lafitte?"
"Sir," I answered, bowing, "my business with Monsieur Lafitte is
private. If you cannot favor me with the location of the _Siren_--"
"If I cannot favor you with that, I can at least with the location of
Jean Lafitte," he said, bowing in turn. "Monsieur, permit me to
introduce myself as Jean Lafitte, at your service."
"Monsieur, your servant, Dr. John H. Robinson, with a letter from
Monsieur Daniel Clark," I responded.
His fine hazel eyes glowed. "A friend of Monsieur Clark!"
I handed him the letter. He bowed with the polished ease of a courtier,
and after a polite apology, opened and read the letter. At the end he
slipped the letter into his wallet, and smilingly held out to me a
shapely, bronzed hand.
"Monsieur Clark has explained your reason for sailing, doctor," he said,
with a manner that won him my regard on the spot. "I shall be more than
pleased to do all in my power to aid you. We shall first send for your
chests."
I explained my lack of wardrobe.
"_Sacre!_" he exclaimed. "But I sail at once. Come! I have it. I lost my
third mate in a brush with an English privateer last month. He was a
cleanly man of much your build. You shall ship in his berth."
I pointed to the nearest flatboat. "That is the extent of my seamanship,
Monsieur Captain."
He shrugged. "The clothes will fit, if the berth does not. You can save
your present costume for your landing."
I bowed assent, and we at once swung along side by side to a wharf where
his boat was in waiting for him. With a courtesy which I did not then
appreciate, though I noted how it impressed the half-dozen swarthy,
red-capped oarsmen, he sprang first into the stern-sheets. The moment I
stepped in after him, the men pushed off. They rowed with a skill and
regularity of stroke that speedily brought us out around the brig which
blocked our view, when we approached the most graceful sloop upon which
I had ever set eyes.
Not being a seaman, I can only say that the _Siren's_ masts and yards
seemed to me to be unusually long, and the former strongly inclined to
the stern--raked, I believe is the marine term. Her hull, which was
painted a dull gray, with a narrow stripe of red, was sharp in the bow,
broad and overhanging at the stern, and low-set in the water.
When we came aboard, I noticed that the sloop's decks were cleaner and
more orderly than those of any other merchant vessel I had seen at close
quarters, and that besides a number of carronades, she carried abaft the
mainmast a great pivot-gun that could have found few mates afloat
elsewhere than aboard a man-of-war. It was a long French
twenty-four-pounder, which is really a twenty-six-and-a-half-pounder by
English weight. As is well known, many frigates carry no heavier longs
than eighteen-pounders.
Observing my interested glance, Captain Lafitte said, with a smile: "As
you see, doctor, Monsieur Clark is disinclined to deliver his sloop and
cargo to the Spanish privateers without a protest."
"Is the _Siren_, then, his vessel?" I asked in surprise.
"For this voyage, at least," he answered; and leaving me to guess what
this might mean, he turned and called out a series of nautical orders in
a voice like a trumpet.
Instantly such a swarm of sailors poured up from the forecastle and
hatchways and rushed here and there about the decks that I wondered they
did not run one another down. Between times the Captain beckoned to a
grinning imp of a cabin-boy and told him to show me below.
It was three days before I again saw the deck. Once the sloop was under
way, Captain Lafitte came down long enough to start me overhauling the
chests of the dead third mate. This kept me occupied until the
mid-afternoon, aside from the time it took me to eat the savory meal
brought to me by the cabin-boy. Captain Lafitte remained all the time on
deck with the pilot who conned us down to the Gulf. When at last he did
come below, the sloop was pitching in a rough cross-sea and I was most
disgracefully nauseated.
The gale freshening to a downright storm, we were, as I was afterwards
told, compelled to run before it under a storm jib. At the time I knew
only that I was too seasick to care whether the ship floated or
foundered.
But on the fourth day the storm abated to a half gale, and the sloop,
being brought about and put under more sail, became so much steadier
that I made shift to eat a scant meal and crawl on deck. Such of the
weary-eyed crew as took heed of me grinned at the pale-faced landsman,
but they took on another look when at noon I helped the captain to take
his observations and work out the result. I had not spent all those
months with Pike for nothing.
Lafitte appeared highly amused at this discomfiture of his tars, and
promptly declared in their hearing that I should be rated as third
mate. The following day, when I really found my sea-legs, he proposed in
all seriousness that I should accept the berth. Having candidly declared
his bitter hatred of the British, he sought to sting me to a like hatred
by relating in full detail the account of the shameful, brutal outrage
of the _Leopard_ upon the _Chesapeake_, off Hampton Roads, hardly more
than a month past.
Despite my anger and humiliation at this unavenged insult to my flag, I
felt no longing for a seafaring life other than such as was necessary to
win me my lady. Lafitte acknowledged that, in my situation, my decision
was probably a wise one. But he went on with the statement that he, for
one, would live and die in the contest against tyranny on the high seas,
and repeated a terrible vow which he had taken against all Britons and
Spaniards. His hatred of the first I could well understand, since he was
a Frenchman. But his enmity to the latter, now the allies of his
country, I could explain only as the result of private injuries. On this
point he was as reserved as he was free in expressing his determination
to wreak vengeance upon the ships of both nations.
Not two days later we were roused at dawn by the muffled cry of "Ship,
ho!" and slipping up on deck, found the _Siren_ within a cable's-length
of a British frigate. The surprise was complete, for the British sighted
us within a few moments after they were themselves seen. Detecting
Lafitte's attempt to set more sail, they fired a solid shot across our
bows. Our captain could do no other than obey this grim signal to
heave-to, since disobedience would have meant the blowing of the sloop
to matchwood by the frigate's broadside of long eighteen-pounders.
According to a prearranged plan, the half-dozen British seamen in our
crew and a dozen of the more English-appearing Americans at once slipped
down into the hold, where they were hidden by their shipmates in a
stow-hole prepared for the purpose in the midst of the cargo. Meantime,
cursing beneath his breath, Captain Lafitte paced his little
quarterdeck, if so it may be called, and stared at the frigate's cutter,
which came racing toward us over the dancing waves in the refulgent glow
of the low, red sunrays. It was a pretty sight, but one which not a man
aboard looked upon with other than a sour face.
Very shortly the cutter came alongside, and we were boarded by a pert
young cockerel of a midshipman, with a following of six or eight
heavy-jawed British tars. Meeting Captain Lafitte's punctilious bow with
a curt nod, the young fellow demanded to see his papers, and added with
the lordliness of an admiral: "Pipe all hands on deck, and let there be
no stowaways, for I warn you I shall exercise the rights of search and
impressment."
Captain Lafitte made a formal protest against these so-called rights of
search and impressment aboard an American sloop sailing from the neutral
port of New Orleans to the unblockaded port of Vera Cruz. Without
waiting for the insolent reply which this elicited, he sent for the
ship's papers and ordered all hands on deck. While the midshipman
glanced through the papers and log, all the crew, other than those
concealed, assembled in the bows for inspection.
Unable to find a flaw in the papers, for Lafitte and the _Siren_ were
alike certified to as belonging to the port of New Orleans, our
unwelcome visitor ordered the crew to file before him. In all the lot
there was not one British subject nor one who looked like a Briton, yet
the young tyrant picked out, without hesitancy, ten of the likeliest
looking men, seven of them lean, lantern-jawed Yankees and three French
creoles. In answer to the protests of the first that they were New
Englanders, he snapped out the one word "Hull"--to the creoles,
"Guernsey."
"Good God!" I cried to Captain Lafitte, who stood by, gnawing his
mustache in silent fury. "You know these are native-born citizens of the
United States. Can you submit to such an outrage?"
Far better had I held my peace! Instantly the middy demanded of the
nearest of our men who I was. The fellow, a stupid mulatto, mumbled
something about my being the third mate.
"So!" snapped the Englishman. "Third mate? It is well known that all
Yankee ships are officered by British deserters. I'll take this
loud-mouthed sea-lawyer."
"Not alive!" I rejoined. "I'm a free-born citizen of the Republic. I'll
not submit, you lying young scoundrel!--Captain Lafitte!--shipmates!
Show these bullies we can die like men!"
My appeal was in vain. Lafitte still stood silent, and the men turned to
stare shamefaced at the guns of the frigate. I stepped back to catch up
a marlin-spike, but the British crimps were too well trained in their
despicable business. They sprang at and about me in a body. I struck out
right and left; then a belaying-pin crashed upon my head with stunning
force.
When I recovered consciousness, I found myself swinging in a sailor's
hammock that was suspended from the beams of a low wooden ceiling. I
felt strangely weak and faint, but made shift to turn my head enough to
see that I was in a long, wide space between decks. The rows of cannon
resting each before its open port roused in me a sort of dull, vague
wonderment. A puff of salt sea air through the nearest port tempered the
suffocating heat of the place and revived me to a clearer
self-consciousness, though all my memory seemed, as it were, wrapped in
a gray mist.
The first clear idea was that there was about my neck something precious
which must not be lost. I fumbled about with a feeble hand, and drew out
the rosary and cross from the open bosom of my shirt. I was gazing at
this, still bewildered, when there came to my side a dried-up, kindly
faced, bespectacled little gentleman who, at sight of my open eyes,
nodded and chirruped almost gayly: "Ahoy, Jack! Pleased to see your
wits out of limbo! You've had a narrow squeak of it, my man."
"Who are you? Where am I?" I murmured.
He took a pinch of snuff, sneezed with hearty enjoyment, and then
answered me with genial condescension: "In due order, Jack, I reply that
I am Dr. Cuthbert, surgeon to His Majesty's frigate _Belligerent_, of
whose crew you are a member."
I stared at him, my memory still in that gray mist. Seeing my
bewilderment, he was thoughtful enough to explain: "You were so foolish
as to resist, my man, when Midshipman Hepburn impressed you. Either the
blow which stunned you, or the close air of the forecastle, or the seeds
of disease in your system, brought on a fever and delirium in which you
have lain for the past fortnight."
"Fortnight!" I gasped. "But--I remember now--I must get to Vera
Cruz--Vera Cruz! Fortnight! What is the date?"
"August the ninth."
I groaned.
"Vera Cruz?" he cackled. "Why should you wish to go to Vera Cruz?"
I put my hand to my head, and tried to think--to penetrate that gray
mist. "I cannot remember--I cannot remember--only I know I must go--at
once--and it has to do with this cross."
"Eh! eh!" he cackled. "I thought there was something in that rosary.
Third mates of merchantmen do not usually go about with Romish
crucifixes and beads about their necks. Your name?"
I opened my lips, but not a syllable came from them. I racked my brains,
groping in that terrible mist of oblivion. It was in vain. I could not
remember my own name!
"Eh! eh!" he murmured, when I told him the dreadful truth. "You are in a
pretty pickle. I have known before of such cases, resulting from a crack
on the head. The famous John Hunter agrees with Jean Louis Petit that it
is due to a bloodclot on the brain, which, in favorable cases,
dissolves, and the patient becomes fully restored."
I stared, uncomprehending. I had forgotten Hunter and Petit; I had
forgotten all my learning--everything of my past life. I did not even
realize that I was a physician.
He went on cheerily: "So you have some little hope for a full return of
memory, Jack. In the meantime you will soon regain strength enough to
leave the sick bay. For your own good, let me advise you to obey orders
and do your duty, with no further attempts at vain and foolish
resistance to your superiors. Whether or not you are a British
subject,--which personally I strongly doubt,--you are entered in the
crew of the 'Belligerent,' and the iron rules of the Royal Navy deal
severely with the slightest infractions of discipline."