THE BREAKING WAVE.
As the day lightened, the wind fell, and by sunrise, it was nearly calm
in the small bay, although we could see the breeze roughening the blue
waters out at sea.
Presently, Mr ***'s negroes came on board; but before determining what
to do, or proceeding with our repairs, we endeavoured to get out of
them some more information regarding the privateers, to give them no
worse a name, and their crews; apparently, however, they knew nothing
beyond what we were already acquainted with.
"Nice peoples dem--Captain Wallace! Oh, quite one gentleman--plenty
money--plenty grog--Ah, wery nice peoples," was all that Quashie knew
or seemed to care about--at least all that he would say.
While we were yet irresolute as to the prudence of stripping the mast,
with such gentry almost within earshot, a small dory, or light canoe,
shoved her black snout round the headland on which the cocoa-nuts grew,
paddled by a solitary figure in the stern, with an animal of some kind
or another stuck up, monkey-fashion, in the bow, which, as it came
nearer, I perceived to be a most noble Spanish bloodhound. I looked
earnestly at the stranger through the glass, and concluded at once that
he could be no other than our friend of the preceding evening.
"I say, Lennox"--he had been standing at my elbow the minute
before--"that's _my_ man--there"--pointing with the telescope.
"Mr Lennox is below, sir," said Tooraloo, "but you are right; it is
_him_, sure enough."
The man paddled briskly alongside, when the bloodhound caught a rope in
his teeth, that was hanging over, and, setting his feet against the
bowpost, held on until his master jumped on board, which he did with
the most perfect _sang-froid_.
"Now for it," thought I; "he is come to tell us _civilly_ that we are
to have our throats cut for shooting one of his beauties last night."
Having deliberately secured his dory, by making fast the painter round
one of the stancheons of the awning, he called to his
dog--"Matamoro--here, boy, here," and saw him safe on board before he
had the civility to make his bow. At length he turned to me, and I had
_now_ no difficulty whatever in making out my _amigo_ Mr Wilson, in the
identical Buenos Ayrean captain, although he had altered his appearance
very materially from the time I had seen him in Jamaica. Awkward as
our position appeared to be fast getting, I could scarcely keep my eyes
off the beautiful animal that accompanied him; first, because I admired
him exceedingly; and secondly, because he seemed deucedly inclined to
bite me. He was as tall as a stag-hound, whose symmetry of head and
figure he conjoined with the strength of the English bull-dog. His
colour was a pale fawn, gradually darkening down the legs and along the
neck, until the feet and muzzle were coal black. He gamboled about his
master like a puppy; but the moment any of us spoke to him, he raised
his back into an angry curve, with the black streak that ran down it
bristling up like a wild-boar's, and set his long tail straight, as if
it had been a crow-bar, or the Northumbrian lion's; and then his
teeth--my wig! the laughing hyæna was a joke to him. But I must return
from the dog to the man. He was dressed in very wide trowsers, of a
sort of broad, yellow stripped silk and cotton Indian stuff; slippers
of velvet-looking, yellowish-brown Spanish leather, and no stockings;
he wore a broad belt of the same sort of leather round his waist, over
the ample folds of an Indian shawl of a bright yellow colour, with
crimson fringes, the ends of which hung down on one side like a sash;
this was fastened by a magnificent gold buckle in front, worked into
the shape of a thistle. Through this cincture was stuck, on the left
side, a long, crooked, ivory-handled knife, in a shark-skin sheath,
richly ornamented with gold; while a beautifully worked grass purse
hung from the other, containing his cigars, flint, and steel. His
shirt was of dark ruby-coloured cotton, worked with a great quantity of
bright red embroidery at the sleeves and throat, where it was fastened
with the largest ruby stone I had ever seen; also fashioned like the
head of the aforesaid Scottish thistle, with emerald leaves, and set in
a broad old-fashioned silver brooch--the only silver ornament he
wore--such as the ladies of the Highland chieftains in days of yore
used to fasten their plaids with on the left shoulder. It was
evidently an heir-loom. Vain, apparently, of the beautiful but
Herculean mould of his neck, he wore his shirt collar folded back, cut
broad and massive, and lined with velvet of the same colour as the
shirt, and no neckcloth.
He had shaven his whiskers since I had seen him, but wore a large
jet-black mustache on his upper lip; and a twisted Panama chain round
his neck, supporting an instrument made of some bright yellow hardwood,
highly polished, resembling a boatswain's pipe in shape; the ventiges
inlaid with gold.
His cap, of the same sort of leather as his belt, was richly
embroidered with a band of golden thistles above the scoop, which was
of tortoiseshell hooped in with gold, coming very low down over his
eyes, while the top, like a hussar's, doubled over on the left side of
his head, where it ended in a massive tassel of gold bullion.
He had buff gloves stuck in his belt; and his hands, strong and
muscular, but fair as a woman's, were richly decorated with several
valuable rings.
There had been _one_ alteration in his appearance, however, that I
surmised he would have dispensed with if he could; and that was a
broad, deep, and scarcely cicatrized scar down his sun-burnt cheek.
"My Kingston friend--proof positive," thought I.
I had never seen so handsome a man before, bronzed almost black though
he was by wind and fierce suns--such perfect symmetry, conjoined with
such muscle and strength--such magnificent bodily proportions, with so
fine a face and forehead; and such pearl-white teeth--but the fiend
looked forth in the withering sparkle of his hazel eye.
"The thistle!" said I to myself, as the old Scottish brooch, and the
general predominance of the national emblem in his equipment attracted
my attention; "alas, can love of country, pervading as it is, still
linger in the bosom of a man _without_ a country; of one whose hand is
against every man, and every man's hand against him; _of the Tiger of
the sea_!" Yes, like the dying lamp in the sepulchre, flickering after
its fellows have long been for ever quenched, whose faint and uncertain
beams seem still to sanctify, if they cannot warm, the gloomy
precincts, where all beside is cold, and dark, and dead;--it was the
last ray of blessed light, gleaming through the mist of surrounding
rottenness and desolation--the last pale halo of virtuous and holy
feeling hovering to depart from off the obdurate and heaven-scathed
heart of the God-forsaken PIRATE.
Unjust--unjust. There _was another_--a kindlier, a warmer, a steadier
flame, that still burnt sun-bright in that polluted tabernacle--all
worthy of a purer shrine--nor left it until, abreast of the spark of
life itself, it was shattered from his riven heart by the dart of the
Destroyer; and the dark and felon spirit, whirled to its tremendous
account on the shriek of unutterable despair, crushed from him in his
mortal agony, as the dancing waves closed, howling and hissing like
water-fiends, over the murderer's grave. But let me not anticipate.
From his manner I could not say whether he knew me or not.
"So you have put in here in distress," said he to the master of the
Moonbeam, glancing his eyes upwards, where the people were at work at
the head of the mainmast.
"Yes, sir," said Tooraloo, but before he could get in another word, our
_friend_ was in the main-rigging himself, and near the masthead.
"Eigh, eigh," sung out Palmneedle and Chip, who were helping the
carpenters and riggers aloft, "_what_ dis--_who_ dis?" for the dog was
following his master like a monkey, _yaffing_ and barking, and
sprawling with his feet through the ratlines--so each of the negroes,
seizing a rope, slid down on deck, and with such vehemence, that they
capsized on their backs, cocking up their black trotters in the air,
after a most ludicrous fashion.
"Oh, I see--I see," said Wallace or Wilson, descending, and swinging
himself in on deck with the grace of an Apollo; "masthead badly
sprung--and your chaps seem to be going clumsily enough about their
work too"--(a truth undoubtedly)--"I will send you my carpenter's crew
to lend a hand in securing it."
"Thank you, sir," said Toby, with much the sort of expression and tone
of a contrite culprit thanking the hangman for adjusting the rope.
I was myself cruelly taken aback by such unlooked-for civility, I will
confess.
"But won't you step down and see my owner, sir? he is in the cabin,"
quoth Tooraloo, in doubt what to _say_ or _do--metre again_.
"Oh, certainly--no objections--but won't you go first, sir?" said he,
with one hand on the companion, and politely indicating the ladder with
the other; cloaking thereby his real object, which was clearly that he
might not be taken at advantage.
Tooraloo and I went below on this, as one needs must go when the devil
drives, and were immediately followed by the stranger.
Lennox was busy with some papers, and stooping down over his open desk,
with his pen crossed in his mouth, when we entered--
"The captain of the Buenos Ayrean privateer, sir," said Tooraloo,
stopping at the door and ushering him in past him--jamming himself as
flat as a flounder against the door-post, as if to prevent even a fibre
of his clothing from touching the other.
Lennox looked up--his eyebrows instantly contracted, his colour faded,
and he became as pale as death. The pen dropped unheeded from his
lips, while the large law paper that he held in his left hand, in which
he had apparently been writing, trembled like an aspen leaf.--At length
he ground out between his teeth--
"Hast thou found me--O mine enemy?"
"_Found you_," said the other, who had started, or rather staggered
back, equally overcome with extreme surprise apparently, and nearly
capsizing Tooraloo, whose breath he fairly knocked out of his body
against the door-post with a grunt--"_Found you_, Saunders? why if I
have, it has not been in consequence of _looking_ for you, let me tell
you _that_; for of all the unexpected meetings that ever befell me, so
help me God--this is"--
"Blaspheme not, William Adderfang--take not _His_ name into _your_
mouth--you _have_ found me, let that suffice--and am _I_ wrong in
calling _you_ my _enemy--me_!--
"Yes, Saunders--you _are_ wrong--for with little of your _profession_,
and none of your _romance_ and _nonsense_, my boy, I will prove you are
wrong at a fitting opportunity--so there's my hand in the mean time,
man--there's my hand."--Lennox sprang back, as if it had held a
viper--"Heyday," said the other, drawing himself up fiercely--"why I
thought you might have allowed bygones to _be_ bygones at this time of
day--and surely I may cry quits now, after your having scoured your
knife against my ribs, at"----
Here he checked himself, and Lennox, making an effort to resume his
composure, shook Adderfang's hand, but very much as one would shake a
red-hot poker--and then with no very good grace asked him to sit down
to breakfast, which the other instantly did with apparent cordiality;
and a deuced good one he made too, chattering and doing the agreeable
all the while, as if he had been an old and intimate acquaintance come
on board to welcome us on our arrival. As for me Benjie--I freely
confess that I could not have told whether I was eating biscuit or
blancmange; nay, I verily believe you might have palmed castor oil on
me for coffee, and I never would have noticed it.
"Adderfang--William Adderfang--the seducer of Jessy Miller!" said I to
myself; "here's a coil--the villain who stabbed and robbed me at
Havanna! the master Wilson of Montego bay--the man with the blunderbuss
at Kingston.--Whew! This devil of a fellow to pounce upon us so
unexpectedly, in an out of the way place like San Andreas too! and with
a couple of whacking privateers, to give them still their genteel name,
with a hundred and fifty neat young gentlemen at the fewest, I make no
question, to back him. There's a climax of agreeables for you, if he
should recognise _me_ now! Come, this _does_ account with a vengeance
for the floating notions that crossed my mind at Mr Roseapple's--I was
_sure_ I had seen him before."
Still, notwithstanding these _pleasant_ dreams, I gave in to
circumstances, better than either of my two shipmates, I fancy; for
Lennox could eat but little, and was evidently ill at ease---as for the
skipper he gobbled mechanically--he could not help _that_; but I
noticed that he watched the stranger like a cat watching a terrier,
starting at his every motion; and when he dropped his knife by accident
on the floor and stooped to pick it up, he held his breath until he saw
him at work at the biscuit and cold ham again; as if he had considered
there was a tolerable chance of his giving him a progue with it _en
passant_, just for the fun of the thing as it were.
Gradually, however, I got more at ease, and was noticing the extreme
beauty of his short curling auburn hair, now that his cap was thrown
aside, with a dash of premature grey here and there, like hoarfrost in
early autumn; and the noble ivory forehead, paler by contrast with the
bronzing of his face, and smooth as monumental alabaster while his
fierce spirit was in calm, but crisping in a moment if his passions
were roused, like the ripple on the calm sea before the first of the
breeze; when he rose abruptly and led the way from the cabin.
When we came on deck--Adderfang, or Wilson, or Wallace, or whatever his
name for the moment might be--whistled "loud as the scream of the
curlew," and an armed boat immediately shoved out from under the
mangroves that grew on the small point or headland near the cocoa-nut
trees, and pulled towards us.
"Come," thought I, "he seems determined not to trust too much to our
forbearance either."--The boat approached--it was apparently a very
fast one, pulled by four splendid fellows in neat white trowsers and
blue shirts, and all with cloth caps handsomely embroidered.--They had
their cutlasses buckled round their waists by black belts, and there
were four marines in white jackets, two in the bow and two aft, sitting
with their muskets upright between their knees.--The officer commanding
the boat was a tall sallow young man, very Yankee in appearance,
dressed in a blue uniform coat, and one epaulette, with uniform buttons
of some kind or another, so that altogether I should have taken him for
an officer in the United States navy, had I accidentally met him. He
came alongside.
"Mr Kerrick"--said Adderfang, who evidently, but from what motive I
could not tell, was most desirous that we should be off from our
anchorage as fast as possible--"send Whitaker and four of his crew from
the Mosca"--this I guessed was the schooner, although I afterwards
found that she was no other than the far-famed piratical Baltimore
clipper, the Snowflake, the terror of those seas--"and see--it is to
get all put to rights aloft there--the head of the mainmast is badly
sprung, you can tell him, and he will know better than any of us what
to bring."
"Ay, ay, sir,"--said his subaltern, and without more ado the boat
shoved off again, not for the point, however, but direct for the beach
under Mr ***'s house, where the officer landed, and the crew, leaving a
boat-keeper on the beach, began to skylark about; but evidently they
had their instructions never to move so far away but that they should
be able to reach their boat again, _before we could_, if we had tried
it. From their lingo, those youths were all of them either Americans
or Englishmen, probably a mixture of both.
Presently Tooraloo, at his request or command, for although the words
were civil enough, the tone sounded deuced like the latter, put
Adderfang ashore in the Moonbeam's boat; and under the idea that if
there was any danger toward, I ran as much risk where I was as on the
land, I asked to accompany him, so that I might reconnoitre a bit by
the way. Accordingly, we were walking up to Mr ***'s house, when I
thought I would diverge a little, in order to have a parley with some
of the boat's crew, who I had noticed converged towards their own boat
whenever they saw ours put off; but before I could ask a question, the
officer before mentioned interposed, and with a great deal of mock
civility offered _his_ services, if I wanted any thing. I had no plea
to avoid him, so I followed Adderfang and Tooraloo to the house.
I now found, when I could look about me in the daylight, that it was
even a narrower tongue of land on which the house stood than what I had
imagined, and that divided the bay where we were, from the narrow
land-locked creek where the two privateers were at anchor.
Where I stood I looked right down upon them--they lay in a beautiful
little basin, with high precipitous banks on the side next me, but with
a smooth, hard, and white beach on the opposite side, at the head of
the creek. The entrance was very narrow, not pistol-shot across.
Close to the shore, and immediately below me, lay a large schooner, but
I could only see her mastheads and part of her bowsprit and
fore-rigging, as she was moored with her stern towards the high bank,
so as to present her broadside to the opening of the harbour, and her
bows to that of her consort, the little Midge, that lay further off and
close to the shore on the other side of the creek, at right angles with
the schooner, so as to rake her if she had been carried, or enfilade
any boats coming in to attack her. Both vessels had the Buenos Ayrean
flag and pennant flying; blue, white, and blue, horizontally.
There were sentries along the beach; one being advanced near to where I
stood, who, when I made demonstrations of descending, very civilly told
me to heave about, and _go back again_. I remonstrated, and said, "In
the island of a friendly power I saw no right that he, or any one else,
had to set bounds to my rambles."
He said he knew nought about _whose_ island it _was_, but he knew what
_his_ orders _were_; "so if I ventured, he had given me fair warning."
With this, he threw his musket across his body, and slapped the side of
it to see that the priming was all right.
"You are very obliging," said I; "but, pray, put yourself to no
inconvenience whatever on my account, as I shall return." And like the
thief in the hen-roost, I did go "back again."
By sunset that night our repairs were finished, and a message came from
Captain _Wallace_, that he _expected_ we would weigh and be off at
daylight in the morning--a hint that we were right willing to take, I
assure you.
The bearer further said, that he was ordered to leave a small blue and
yellow flag, that we were to hoist, if we fell in with the Waterwraith,
a schooner-tender that he had cruising about the island, which would
prevent her from molesting us.
"Murder! Are there three of them?--ho, ho, hoo,"--trundled out our
friend, Toby Tooraloo.
When we tried to get the carpenter's crew to take payment as they were
leaving us, they said they were positively forbidden to do so, and
their captain _was not a man to be trifled with_.
"Why, so it appears," thought I.
Lennox was mute and melancholy, but we could not better ourselves, so
at length we retired to rest. I could not sleep, however, so I was
soon on deck again, where I found both Lennox and Tooraloo before me.
And now it was that a most striking and inexplicable incident occurred.
The voice of the wilderness, every traveller knows, is many-toned and
various; and how often have not mysterious sounds broken on the ear of
the solitary look-out man, in the middle watch, for which he never
could account? On the midnight tossing of the melancholy main, who has
not fancied a "voice articulate" in the hoarse murmur, and often
wolf-like howl, of the approaching wave? But listen!
"Do you hear that, sir?" said Lennox to me, so soon as I came on deck.
I listened, and heard a low moaning noise that came off the land,
swelling and dying away on the fitful gusts of the _terral_, like the
deepest tones of an Eolian harp. It sank and sank, and was just
melting away, and becoming inaudible altogether, when it seemed to
blend into a ponderous and solemn sound, that floated down to us on the
fitful breeze, like the midnight tolling of a deep-toned cathedral
bell, or the gradually increasing tremulous boom of a large gong.
"I do," said I; "and hark--is that a bell?--no, it cannot be, yet the
sound is most like." Again we all listened eagerly. But the sound had
ceased, and we were about commencing our pendulum walk on the confined
deck, when once more it came off, and in the very strongest of the
swell, the same ringing sound swung three times over us distinctly on
the night air. "Who struck the bell there?" I sung out, a good deal
startled--no answer--we all then passed forward; _there was no one on
deck_--"very strange," said I--"what can it be?"
"My dregy,"[1] said poor Lennox, with a faint laugh.
[1] _Anglice_, dirge.
"Davy Jones--Davy Jones--the devil--the devil--the devil--hooro, hooro,
hooro!" quoth Tooraloo.
Whatever it was we heard neither sound again, but they had scarcely
ceased when a small glow-worm coloured spark, precisely like the
luminous appearance of a piece of decayed fish, flitted about the
foretopgallant yard and royal-masthead, now on the truck, now on either
yardarm, like a bee on the wing, during the time one might count
twenty, and then vanished.
"And there goes his worship visibly; why the air must be fearfully
surcharged with electricity to be sure," said I Benjie. We were all
astonishment--but the plot was only thickening.
"How loud and hollow the sound of the surf is, Lennox," I continued.
"And I have never seen such a strong phosphorescence of the sea as
to-night. Look there, the breakers on the reef are like a ridge of
pale fire. Why, here are a whole bushelful of portents, more numerous
than those which preceded the death of Cæsar, as I am a gentleman."
The Dominie did not relish this sort of talking, I noticed. "It may be
no laughing matter to some of us before all is done, sir."
"Poo, nonsense; but there may be _bad weather brewing_, Master Lennox."
"Yes, sir," responded the poor fellow, speaking very fast, as if
desirous of cloaking his weakness,--"yes, sir, we shall have a breeze
soon, I fear."
"No doubt--no doubt."
"There's a squall coming--there's a squall coming--ho, ho, he"--rumbled
Toby.
"Where--where?"
"There--right out there."
"Poo, poo--that's the reef--the white breakers--eh, what?--why it
moves, sure enough--it _is_ sliding across the mouth of the bay--there,
whew!"--as a blue light was burned in the offing, disclosing distinctly
enough a small schooner standing in for the land, under easy sail,
plunging heavily, and kicking up a curl of white foam on the black and
rapidly increasing swell. Presently all was dark again, and a
night-signal was made on board of her with lanterns.
"Waterwraith, as sure as can be!" said I; "but why does he bother with
blue lights and signals? would it not be easier to send in a boat at
once?"
"Too much sea on--too much sea on," quoth Tooraloo; "and no one would
venture to thread the reefs and run in in a night like this; so he has
no way of communicating but by signal."
After a little we noticed the small white wreath steal back again like
a puff of vapour, and, crossing the bay, vanish beyond the bluff
opposite the cocoanut trees.
"There--she has said her say, whatever that may have been, and has hove
about again, sure enough."
We saw no more of her that night, and with the early dawn, we were once
more under weigh, sliding gently out of the small haven.
I am sure I could not tell how the little beauty slipt along so
speedily, for the collapsed sails were hanging wet and wrinkled from
the spars, so light was the air; and as we began to draw out into the
offing, and to feel the heave of the swell, the motion of the vessel
made them _speak_ and flutter, the water dashing down in showers, at
every rumbling flap of the soaked and clouded canvass.
The night had been throughout very hot and sultry, the sky as dark as
pitch, and now the day broke very loweringly. Thick masses of heavy
clouds rolled in from the offing, whirling overhead like the smoke from
a steamer's chimney-stack. It lightened in the south east, now and
then, and as we drew out from the land, the distant grumble of the
thunder blended hoarsely with the increasing noise of the surf, as the
swell, at one time, surged howling up the cavernous indentations on the
ironbound coast, ebbing, with a loud shoaling rush, like a rapid river
over shallows; at another, pitched in sullen _thuds_ against the rocks,
and reverberated from their iron ribs with a deafening roar, that made
air and sea tremble again. As we got out of the bay, the growling of
the sea increased, and came more hollow, the noise being reflected from
the land in sounding echoes.
Close to, the waves rolled on in long sluggish undulations; in colour
and apparent consistency as if they had been molten lead; the very
divers that we disturbed on their dull grey surface, ran along, leaving
dotted trails, as if it had been semi-fluid, or as if some peculiarity
in the atmosphere had rendered them unable to raise themselves into the
murky air.
Shoals of sea-mews, and other waterfowl, were floating lightly, and
twinkling with their white wings in the cold grey dawning, as we crept
through amongst them and disturbed them, like clusters of feathers
scattered on the glass-like heaving of the dark water, afraid
apparently to leave the vicinity of the land; every now and then the
different groups would take up in succession a loud screaming, like a
running fire passing along the line, when all would be still again.
Birds that hovered between an English martin and Mother Cary's chickens
in appearance, kept dipping, and rising, and circling all round us; and
the steady flying pelican skimmed close to the tops of the swell, on
poised and motionless wing, as straight as a pointblank cannon shot;
while a shoal of porpoises were dappling the surface to windward, with
their wheel-like gambols.
"What the deuce makes the fish jump so this morning?" said I to Lennox,
as several dolphins sprang into the air ahead of the Moonbeam--"What is
that?"--a puff of white vapour, with a noise for all the world like a
blast of steam, rose close to us.
"The blowing of a whale, sir;" and immediately thereafter the back of
the monster, like a black reef, or the bottom of a capsized launch, was
hove out of the water, and then disappeared slowly with a strong eddy;
his subaqueous track being indicated on the surface by a long line of
bubbles, and _swirling_ ripples, like the wake of a ship cleaving the
water rapidly, always growing stronger and more perceptible as he
neared the surface to breathe again.
"Ah! that accounts for it; there again he rises."
"Yes," rejoined he; "but see how he shoves out into the offing,
although the shoals he is after are running in shore. As sure as a
gun, he is conscious of the danger of being embayed if the weather
becomes what I fear it will be soon."
"Lots of indications that a close-reefed topsail breeze, at all events,
is not a thousand miles off, Master Lennox," said I.
Out at sea, the swell tumbled most tumultuously; the outline of the
billows seen with startling clearness by the flashes of lightning, on
the verge of the horizon; while nearer at hand, the waves began to
break in white foam, and roll towards us with hoarse and increasing
growls; although the light air that was drifting us out came off the
land, and consequently blew in the precisely contrary direction from
whence the swell was proceeding. Threatening as the weather looked,
right off the cocoa-nut trees at the point, we perceived a boat, rising
and disappearing on the ridges, and in the hollows of the sea, like a
black buoy.
"So--an ominous looking morning, Toby. Still, our friends of the blue,
white, and blue bunting, are determined to see us fairly off it seems;
for there is their boat watching us till the last, you see."
"So I perceive, sir," said the skipper; "but if it were not for their
neighbourhood, Mr Brail, I would have recommended Mr Lennox to stay
where he was until the weather cleared; but there is no help for it
now."
The morning wore on. We were now sliding along shore about a mile from
the beach, and our view down to the westward, as we approached the
southernmost point of the island, began to open.
The higher part of the land was quite clear; the outline, indeed,
dangerously distinct and _near-like_, according to my conception; but
the white clouds that floated over it when we first started, like a sea
of wool, and which usually rise and exhale under the morning sun, had
in the present case rolled off to the southward, and lay heaped up in
well-defined masses, like the smoke of an engagement floating
sluggishly in the thunder-calmed air, close to the surface of the water.
I was admiring this uncommon appearance, not without some awkward
forebodings, when a flaw of wind off the land rent the veil in the
middle, or rather opened an arch in it, at the end of whose gloomy
vista rose the island as a dark background, and suddenly disclosed a
small schooner lying to, so clear and model-like under the canopy of
vapour, that I can compare it to nothing more aptly than a sea-scene in
a theatre.
"Hillo!" said I, "what vessel is that down to leeward there? It must
be our friend of last night, I take it. Hand me up the glass, if you
please."
"Where's the small flag--where's the small flag?" sung out Toby.
"Here, sir," said Chip the negro, as he bent it on to the signal
haulyards.
"Then hoist away," rejoined Tooraloo. "That is the Waterwraith down to
leeward, sir, to a certainty."
"Sure enough," I replied; "I hope he will let us go without overhauling
us. I am not at all amorous of the society of those gentry--quite
enough of it in the bay yonder, Toby."
The moment she saw us, she made sail towards us, but hove about so soon
as she saw the signal, which she answered with a similar flag, and then
stood in for the land again.
In a minute, the mist once more boiled over her, and she disappeared.
It crept slowly on towards where we lay, for it was again nearly calm,
although the threatening appearances in the sky and on the water
continued to deepen, and was just reaching us, when we heard a
cannon-shot from the thickest of it.
"Heyday--what does that indicate, Lennox?"
"Some signal to the other villains in the cove, sir"--and then, in a
low tone as he turned away--"but to me it sounds like a knell."
Another gun--another--_and another_--"Some fun going on there at all
events," said I.
The breeze now freshened, and the fog-bank blew off and vanished; when
lo! our spectral friend the Waterwraith re-appeared, but on the other
tack this time, about two miles to the westward of us, with a large
schooner, that had hitherto been also concealed by the fog, sticking in
his skirts, and blazing away at him. In ten minutes they both tacked
again. They had now the regular sea-breeze strong from the eastward,
and were close-hauled, under all the sail they could carry, on the
starboard tack.
"Confound it," said Lennox, who was now beside me, "we seem to have
dropped into a nest of them--it will be another privateer."
"Then why is she firing at the small one?" said I.
"Oh, some make-believe manoeuvre," said he.
But I had taken a long look, and was by no means of this opinion. The
smallest vessel, the schooner we had first seen, would evidently go far
to windward of us, but the larger was right in our track; so avoiding
her, if we stood on as we were doing, was out of the question.
"However, better take our chance with this chap out here, than run back
into the lion's mouth," said I.
So we kept on our course, having now got the breeze also, and steering
large, so as to go a-head of the biggest of the two, unless he stood
away to intercept us. We were beginning to get over our fears, and to
think he was going to take no notice of us after all, and had brought
him end on, when a flash spurted from his bows, and a swirl of white
smoke rolled down to leeward.
"He has fired at us," said I, as the shot hopped along the water close
to us.
"Then hoist away our colours," said Lennox; "let us know the worst of
it at once."
The next shot pitched over the lee quarter, and knocked one of our
hencoops to pieces, unexpectedly liberating the feathered prisoners.
Toby's lingo--for he was now in an ecstasy of fear--became very
amusing. "Now, men, rouse aft the foresheet, and do some of you catch
that duck. Clap on the topsail haulyards--mind the capon--topgallant
and royal haulyards also--bless me, the turkey is overboard--why, that
royal is all aback--chickens--topgallantsail is not set at all--both
geese--now a small pull of the boom sheet. You blood of a
black--female dog"--to Chip, the negro carpenter--"peak purchase; belay
all that--murder! if both the guinea birds are not over into the sea."
"Ha!" said I, "I thought so--there goes the blue ensign and pennant.
He is a man-of-war, thank Heaven!"
"Heave to, captain," cried Lennox.
But just as we had shortened sail preparatory thereto, the schooner
ranged alongside, and, without a word spoken, fired a broadside of
round and grape slap into us, whereby Lennox himself and other two poor
devils were wounded, and our rigging considerably cut up.
"That's the Spider, for a thousand," said I; "but what the deuce can he
mean by firing at us?"
"I can't tell, but I don't think it is the Spider, sir," said Lennox;
"so haul in the sheets, and keep by the wind again, captain--quick man,
quick." And away we staggered once more, running in for San Andreas on
a bow line as fast as we could split; but the large schooner stuck
close at our heels, firing away like fury, while the little Waterwraith
promptly availed himself of this interlude, by tacking, and standing
off the land again.
"Why, Toby, you and your owner are both mad--what better of it will you
make by running back?"
Lennox had gone below to have his arm bound up by this time.
"You would not have us tack, and get another broadside, sir? Besides,
look at the weather, sir? even putting the schooner out of the
question," said Tooraloo.
"Ah, as to the weather, _there_ indeed you have some reason."
Toby saw his advantage. "Surely you would not have us keep the sea in
such a threatening morning, even without such company, sir?"
The prudence of this was becoming every moment more evident, as the
dark waves were now breaking all round us, and the water was roughening
and whitening to windward; it was clear we should have a sneezer before
long.
Thanks to our excellent sailing, we gradually dropped the schooner,
until we were out of gunshot--we were presently up with the island, and
ran in, and once more came-to in our old corner; but the man-of-war
kept in the offing, apparently to reconnoitre. We found a privateer's
boat at our old anchorage, most like the one that had seen us off in
the morning. It was coming out with Adderfang himself in it--all his
gay dress thrown aside--he had neither hat nor cap on, nor shoes, but
wore a simple blue shirt, and canvass trowsers; the former open at the
breast, disclosing his muscular and hairy chest, and with the sleeves
rolled up to his armpits. He was covered with dust and perspiration,
and had evidently been toiling fiercely at something or other with his
own hands. He was armed to the teeth, as were his boat's crew.
"What brings you back, Mr Brail?" said he, his brows knit, his eyes
flashing fire, his face pale as death, and his lips blue and trembling,
evidently in a paroxysm of the most savage fury; "what brings you back?
and what vessel is that astern of you? No concealment, sir; I am not
in a mood to trifle."
"She is a man-of-war, captain," at this critical juncture sung out the
tall, sallow man, who had been in command of the boat on the previous
day, from the top of the cliffs, where he had perched himself like on
ugly cormorant, with a glass in his hand.
"I thought so," said the pirate with great bitterness; "I thought so.
Fool! to believe that any thing but treachery was to come from that
whelp! Walpole--here, men, lend me a hand."
And before we could interfere, he was on board, with four desperadoes
as powerful almost as himself. I had never witnessed such devilish
ferocity before in any animal, human or inhuman, except in his
worship's dog, who was jumping and foaming about the deck as if he had
been possessed by a kindred devil, or had been suffering under
hydrophobia; only waiting apparently for the holding up of his master's
little finger to lunch on Toby Tooraloo, or breakfast on me Benjie.
"Here, Matamoro, here," roared our _amigo_, indicating the companion to
this beautiful pet, who thereupon glanced down it like a ferret after a
rat; and from the noise below it was clear he had attacked Lennox.
Adderfang and two of his men instantly followed, and presently the poor
dominie, bleeding from his recent wound, and torn by the dog in the
shoulder, was dragged up the ladder, like a carcass in the shambles,
bound hand and foot, and hove bodily into the boat. I was petrified
with horror. The poor fellow, in the midst of all the misery of this
his closing scene, gave me one parting look as he passed--one last
concentrated look of the most intense wo. I never shall forget the
expression: it seemed to say, a thousand times more forcibly than
language could have expressed--"Do you believe what I told you at
Havanna to have been a dream now, Mr Brail?"
The next moment he cried aloud and imploringly to the demon in human
shape, into whose power he had indeed, against all probability, fallen,
"Where are you going to take me, Mr Adderfang?" The only answer he
gave him was a brutal kick on the mouth. "I have had no communication
with the schooner in the offing. Don't you see I am wounded by her
shot? I have had another blow. Mind what you do, or you shall repent
this," cried the poor fellow again as they dragged him along.
"Let him go," I sung out, as they were about shoving off. "Men, stand
by me. Release him, you murdering villain! Where would you take him
to, you bucaniering scoundrel?"
"To hell--and mind you don't keep him company--to meet the fate of a
spy! one that has brought an enemy on me, when I was willing to have
forgotten and forgiven. Let go the painter, sir--let go, I say."
And he made a blow with his cutlass, that missed me, but severed the
rope; and as if the action had lashed him into uncontrollable rage, he
instantly drew a pistol, and fired it at my head. The bullet flew wide
of its mark, however, but down dropped Toby Tooraloo; while Adderfang
shouted,--
"Shove off, men--give way for your lives--pull."
And in a twinkling the boat disappeared behind the small cocoa-nut tree
point.
"Good God, sir," said Toby, lying flat on his back, where I thought he
had been shot, "what is to be done? They will murder Mr Lennox."
"Very like; but I thought you were killed yourself, Toby."
"No, sir--no, sir--only knocked down by the wind of the shot, sir--wind
of the shot, sir--ho, ho, hoo!"
"Wind of a pistol bullet no bigger than a pea? For shame,
Toby!--fright, man, fright."
But we had no time for reflection; for the schooner was now right off
the mouth of the small bay, apparently clear for action. She was a
man-of-war, beyond all question; and I was still convinced she was the
Spider. Presently she hauled round the cocoa-nut-covered cape, and
took up a position, so far as I could judge, opposite the mouth of the
creek. Oh, what would I not have given to have been on board of her!
But this was impossible.
The blue and yellow private signal, that Adderfang had sent us, and
which had been kept flying until this moment, was now hauled down,
close past my nose.
"Spider!--to be sure that is the Spider; and no wonder she should have
peppered us so beautifully, Master Toby, with such a voucher for our
honesty aloft; with this same accursed signal flying, that she had seen
the Waterwraith hoist. There! the murder is out. What conclusion
could De Walden have come to, but that we were birds of a feather?"
"Ay, ay--true enough--hooro! hooro! hooro!" rumbled Tobias, sweating
like a pig with downright fear.
Tooraloo and I now hurried ashore in the boat, without well knowing
what to do, and ran to the ridge, to see, if possible, what became of
Lennox. The boat wherein he was, sheered for a moment alongside the
schooner, the Mosca, apparently giving orders, and then pulled directly
for the Midge, where the people got out, dragging poor Lennox along
with them.
"Heaven have mercy on us!" I exclaimed, shuddering. "What can they be
going to do with the poor fellow?"
I was not long in doubt; for the moment they got on the deck, the
barbarians cast him headlong down the main hatchway, which was
immediately battened down, and then hoisted in the boat.
The crew of the schooner below me, whose deck, as already described,
was hid by the high bank, were now busy, I could hear, in clearing for
action; and several of them were piling up large stones, and making
fast hawsers from her mastheads to trees at the top of the cliff near
where I stood, that, in the event of her being carried below, it should
be impossible to tow her out,--while the stones would prove formidable
missiles when launched from above. I also perceived a boat at the
foam-fringed sandy spit opposite the cocoa-nut trees, that formed one
side of the narrow entrance, whose crew were filling bags with sand,
and forming a small battery, with embrasures, for two carronades, that
had been already landed, and lay like two black seeds on the white
beach.
The Spider had by this time tacked, and stood out to sea again,
apparently astonished at the extent of the preparations to receive her.
After a brief space, she hove about, and in the very middle and
thickest of a squall, accompanied by heavy thunder and vivid lightning,
dashed gallantly into the harbour; but just as she came abreast of the
battery, she took the ground--she had tailed on the bank, and hung.
Her masts in a moment flew forward, and bent as if they would have gone
over the bows, the rigging and canvass shaking and flapping
convulsively; but the sound spars instantly recovered their upright
position, with a violent jerk that made every thing rattle again, like
the recoil of two tough yew staves when the bowstrings snap.
"Now, Master Henry, you are in for it," thought I.
This was the signal for the battery to open; but the grape from the
Spider soon silenced it. However, the broadside of the schooner
beneath me was raking her with terrible effect, I could see; while they
were unable to get a single gun to bear. At length, by lightening her
aft, her broadside was got round, so as to return the fire; and now the
hellish uproar began in earnest. For several minutes the smoke, that
rose boiling amongst the trees at the top of the cliff, concealed all
below. I could neither see nor hear any thing but the glancing spouts
of red flame, and thunder of the cannon; the bright sparkles and sharp
rattle of the small arms blending with the yelling and shouting of the
combatants: but the clearing away of the next squall made every thing
once more comparatively clear. The battery, I perceived, was again
manned, and galling the Spider most awfully; but just as I looked, a
boat's crew from her stormed it, driving those who manned it along the
sand-bank towards where the Midge lay; and then, having spiked the
guns, returned on board. The freshening breeze now forced the Spider
over the shoal, and she entered the creek. Giving the Midge a
broadside in passing, in the hope of disabling her, so as to leave
nothing to cope with but the Mosca; but the sting was not to be so
easily taken out of the little vixen. Presently the Spider anchored by
the stern, within pistol-shot of the schooner, right athwart his bows,
and began to blaze away again.
The cheers from her increased, and the shouts of the pirates subsided;
but the felucca, which had slipped on being fired at, and warped out
between the Spider and the mouth of the cove, now dropped anchor again,
with a spring on her cable; and from this vantage ground, began to dash
broadside after broadside of round and grape right into her
antagonist's stern, enfilading her most fearfully.
I could make nothing out of what was going on all this time on the
Spider's deck; for although I now and then caught a glimpse of it,
during the moments when the strength of the gale cleared away the
smoke, and could dimly discern the turmoil of fighting men, and the
usual confusion of a ship's deck during a hot engagement; yet the
moment my optics began to _individualize_, as Jonathan says, the next
discharge would whirl its feathery wreaths aloft, and hide every thing
again half way up the masts, that stood out like two blasted pines
piercing the mountain mists.
Hillo! my eyes deceive me, _or_ DOWN _goes the blue ensign on board of
the Spider_!!! So, fare thee well, Henry de Walden; well I wot, my
noble boy, you have not lived to see it--Strike to pirates!--No! no!
_How_ could I be such a fool? It is but the peak haulyards that are
shot away, and there goes a gallant fellow aloft to reeve or splice
them again, amidst a storm of round, and grape, and musket balls. He
cannot manage it, nor can the gaff be lowered, for something jams about
the throat haulyards, which he struggles in vain to overhaul--then let
it stick; for now he slides down the drooping spar, to knot the peak
haulyards _there_. Look how he sways about, as the gaff is violently
shaken by the flapping of the loosened sail; for both vangs and brails
are gone. Mind you are not jerked overboard, my fine fellow--murder!
he drops like lead into the pall of smoke beneath, shot dead by the
enemy's marksmen. Another tries it--better luck this time, for he
reaches the gaff-end, and there the peak rises slowly but steadily into
the air once more, the ensign flashing out of the smoke that had
concealed it, like the blue lightning from a thundercloud, and once
more streaming gallantly in the wind. Whew! the unfortunate bunting
clips into it again to leeward, vanishing like a dark-winged sea-bird
dipping into a fogbank--the ensign haulyards are shot away--worse and
more of it--down goes the maintopmast next, royal mast, pennant and
all; snapped off by a cannon-ball as clean as a fishing-rod--no fun in
all this, any how--Well done, my small man--a _wee_ middy, in the very
nick, emerges from the sulphureous cloud below, with a _red_ ensign, to
replace the blue one, fluttering and flaming around him, as if he were
on fire. He clambers up the mainrigging, and seizes the meteor
there--_seizes!_ nay, he _nails_ it to the mast. He descends again,
and disappears, leaving the flag flaring in the storm from the
masthead, as if the latter had been a blazing torch.
I began now seriously to fear that De Walden was getting too much of it
between the Midge and the schooner, when I saw fire and thick smoke
rise up near me, as if bursting from the afterpart of the latter
vessel; and, at the moment, the increasing gale broke the Spider's
spring, that a shift of wind had also compelled her to use, to keep her
in her station,--so that, from being athwart his hawse, she now swung
with her bows slantingly towards her opponent's broadside, and lay thus
for some time, again terribly galled by a heavy raking fire, until the
men in the Mosca were literally scorched from their guns by the
spreading flames.
I could now see that the pirate crew were leaving her; so I slipped
down near the edge of the cliff, to have a better view of what was
going on beneath, but keeping as much out of the line of fire as
possible.
The schooner's hull was by this time enveloped in smoke and waving red
flames, and her fire silenced; while the Spider, taking advantage of
the lull, was peppering the little Midge, who was returning the
compliment manfully; her broadside, from the parting of the warp, being
by this time opposed to hers.
The crew of the Mosca now abandoned her in two boats, one of which
succeeded in reaching the Midge; while the other made for the shore on
the opposite side of the creek.
Seeing me on the ridge, the rogues in the latter stopped, and faced
about--"Heaven and earth, what is that?" I was cast down sprawling on
my back.
"What dat is--what dat is, do massa say?" quoth honest Quacco's voice
at this juncture; "Massa no was shee one whole platoon fire at him? If
massa will keep walloping his arms about like one breezemill, and make
grimace, and twist him body dis side and dat side, like one
monkey--baboon you call--and do all sort of foolis ting for make dem
notice him, massa most not be sorprise if dey soot at him." And true
enough, in the intensity of my excitement, the strong working of my
spirit had moved my outward man as violently as that of a Johnny Raw
witnessing his first prize-fight. If my contortions were of any
kindred to those the sable Serjeant illustrated his speech by, I must
have made rather an amusing exhibition. "Look, if two of dem bullet no
tell in de tree here, just where massa was stand up, when I was take de
liberty of pull him down on him battam; beg pardon for name soch
unpoliteful place before massa."
"Thanks, trusty armourer," cried I Benjie. But the gale, that now
"aside the shroud of battle cast," blowing almost a hurricane, again
veered round a little, and the Midge was under weigh, near the mouth of
the creek, standing out to sea.
The weather was, indeed, getting rapidly worse--the screaming sea-birds
flew in, like drifts of snow; scarcely distinguishable from the driving
foamflakes. The scud came past in soaking wreaths, like flashes of
white vapour from the safety-valve of a steam boiler. Suddenly the
wind fell to a dead calm; not a breath fanned us; not a leaf stirred;
the rain-drops glittered on the pale-green velvet of the ragged, and
ever-twittering, but now motionless leaves of the plantain, like silver
globules frozen there; the reports of the guns grew sharper in the
lull, the cries shriller, and the general tumult and uproar of the
conflict swelled fearfully; while the white smoke rose up, shrouding
the vessels and entire cove from my sight.
The clouds above us, surcharged with fire and water, formed a leaden
coloured arch over the entrance to the cove, that spanned the uproar of
dark white-crested waves, boiling and rolling in smoky wreaths, and
lancing out ragged shreds from their lower edges, that shot down and
shortened like a fringe of streamers, from which the forked lightning
_crankled_ out every now and then clear and bright.
To the right hand, directly over the cocoa-nut trees, these fibres, or
shreds of clouds, were in the most active motion, and began to twirl
and whisk round into a spinning black tube, shaped like the trunk of an
elephant; the widest end blending into the thickest of the arch above,
while the lower swayed about, with an irregular but ponderous
oscillation; lengthening and stretching towards the trees, one moment
in a dense column, as if they had _attracted_ it, and the next
contracting with the speed of light, as if it had as suddenly been
_repelled_ by them, leaving only a transparent phantom-like track of
dark shreds in the air, to show where it had shrunk from. There, it
lengthens again, as if it once more felt an affinity for the sharp
spiculæ of the leaves, that seem to erect themselves to meet it. It
almost touched them--flash--the electric fluid sparked out and _up_,
either from the cocoa-nut trees themselves, or through them as
conductors from the sandy spit on which they grew. I saw it
distinctly; but the next moment the pent gale, as if it had burst some
invisible barrier that confined it, gushed down as suddenly as it had
taken off, and stronger than before. I was blinded and almost
suffocated by the heaviest shower ever dashed by wind in the face of
mortal man--the _debris_, so to speak, of the vanished waterspout; I
can compare it to nothing but being exposed to the jet of a fire-engine.
A column of dense black smoke, thickly starred with red sparks, now
boiled up past the edge of the cliff under me--presently it became
streaked with tongues of bright hissing flame, which ran up the
rigging, diverging along every rope, as if it had been a galvanic wire,
twisting, serpent-like, round the Mosca's masts and higher spars, and
licking the wet furled sails like boa-constrictors fitting their prey
to be devoured. See how the fire insinuates itself into the dry
creases of the canvass, driving out the moisture from the massive folds
in white steam; now the sails catch in earnest--they drop in glowing
flakes of tinder from the yards--there the blue and white pennant and
ensign are scorched away, and blow off in tiny flashes; while in the
lulls of the gale we distinctly hear the roaring and crackling of the
fire, as it rages in the hull of the doomed vessel below. "I say,
Quacco, mind we don't get a hoist, my man--see we be not too
near--there, don't you hear how the guns go off as the metal gets
heated, for there is not a soul on board?"
"Oh dear! oh dear--see that poor little fellow, sir--ho! ho! ho!"
rumbled Tobias Tooraloo, who all this time was lying flat on his
stomach beside me, with his head a little raised, turtle-fashion. A
poor boy belonging to the pirate schooner had been caught and cut off
by the fire when aloft, and was now standing on the head of the
mainmast with one arm round the topmast, and waving his cap in the most
beseeching manner at us with the other hand--the rising smoke seemed to
be stifling him, at least we could not hear his cries; at length the
fire reached him, when after several abortive attempts to climb higher
up, he became confused, and slung himself by a rope to the masthead,
without seeming to know what he was about--he then gradually drooped,
and drooped, the convulsive action of his head and limbs becoming more
and more feeble; merciful Providence! the flames reach him--his hair is
on fire, and his clothes; a last, strong, and sudden struggle for an
instant, and then he hung motionless across the rope like a smirched
and half-burned fleece.
It never rains but it pours. "Hark! an earthquake!" and, as if a
volcano had burst forth beneath our feet, at this instant of time the
pirate schooner under the cliff blew up with an explosion that shook
earth, air, and water--shooting the pieces of burning wreck in every
direction, that hissed like meteors through the storm, and fell thickly
all around us.
The Midge, the Midge--she slides out of the smoke! See! she gains the
offing.
But the Avenger of Blood is behind; for the Spider had now cleared the
harbour's mouth, and was in hot pursuit. The felucca with her sails--a
whole constellation of shot-holes in them--double reefed, tearing and
plunging through it; her sharp stem flashing up the water into smoke,
in a vain attempt to weather the sandy point.--"Won't do, my boy; you
cannot, carry to it as you will, clear the land as you are standing;
you _must_ tack soon, unless you mean to _jump_ the little beauty over
it." As I spoke, she hove about and stood across the schooner,
exchanging broadsides gallantly. "Well done, little one." The Spider
tacked also, and stood after her--a gun!--another!--both replied to by
the felucca; the musketry peppering away all the while from each
vessel; the tiny white puffs instantly obliterated by the
foam-drift--and now neither fired a shot.
The gale at this moment came down in thunder; all above as black as
night, all below as white as wool. The Spider shortens sail just in
time--the Midge not a pistol-shot ahead on the weatherbow. See, the
squall strikes her--her tall lateen sail shines through the more than
twilight darkness and the driving rain and spray, like a sea-bird's
wing. Mercy! how she lies over! She sinks in the trough of the
sea!--Now she rises again, and breasts it gallantly!--There! that's
over her bodily; her sails are dark, and sea-washed three parts up.
Look! how the clear green water, as she lurches, pours out of the
afterleech of the sail like a cascade! Now! she is buried again; no!
buoyant as cork--she dances over it like a wild-duck. See! how she
tips up her round stern, and slides down the liquid hollow; once more
she catches the breeze on the opposite rise of the sea; her sails
tearing her along up the watery acclivity, as if they would drag the
spars out of her. Now she rushes on the curl of the wave, with her
bows and a third of her keel hove out into the air, as if she were
going to shoot across, like a flying fish, into the swelling bosom of
the next sea. Once more she is hove on her beam-ends, and hid by an
intervening billow--Ha!--what a blinding flash, as the blue forked
lightning glances from sky to sea, right over where I saw her
last!--hark! the splitting crash and stunning reverberations of the
shaking thunder, rolling through the empyrean loud as an archangel's
voice, until earth and air tremble again. She rights!--she
rights!--there! the narrow shred of white canvass gleams again through
the mist in the very fiercest of the squall--yes, _there!_--no!--God of
my fathers!
IT IS BUT A BREAKING WAVE!