ATTACK ON THE CARIBAS.
What worried me most, as I chafed under the restraint of my narrow
quarters was the silence that everywhere existed. Even aboard the
Happy Shark, where I was in prison, not a sound was to be heard that
night. And yet I knew that the old hulk teemed with human life,
and that active preparations were going on throughout the entire
community for an attack upon my steamer that meant death to her
officers and crew.
There was I, like a rat caught in a trap, unable to aid or give
warning.
As before stated, the front of my cell was upon the main deck and
faced a hatchway. Through the grated door of my prison I could see
the sky, and I was suddenly made conscious of the fact that a bright
red light had appeared to the southward.
Any man who has followed the sea for half his life, as I have, never
fails to assure himself on the points of the compass. The first fair
day in which the sun can be seen to rise and set will give him the
data from which he can take his bearings in the absence of a compass.
This strange light that I saw far away to the southward took the form
of an immense red ball, far up in the clouds. I did not know then,
though I learned afterward, that this is what is known among the
Sargassons as “The Sacred Fire.”
As may be readily understood, the keeping of fire aboard all the
vessels would be impossible. Therefore, the use of fire is confined
exclusively to one great iron hulk, from which everything inflammable
has been removed, and which is moored far apart from the rest of the
floating ships. The cooking for the entire community is done there,
and once a month a crew from each cantonment makes a journey to
procure a store of the supplies that are gathered and held in common.
No office among the Sargasson people is more highly honored than that
of the Priest of the Sacred Fire, whose duty it is to see that the
flame never dies out. There have been years, I am told, when neither
matches nor flints were procurable, and when the extinction of the
fire would have meant suffering and death to the entire population.
The Priest who is held responsible for the maintenance of this flame
gives his life as a bond.
So great is his authority that he can command the Kantoon of any ship
to furnish fuel, and, in emergency, assistance in keeping the fire
aglow.
Twenty years before my capture, a derelict had drifted into the
clutches of the Sargassons that contained a complete railroad
locomotive. The parts of its engine were transferred, after great
labor, to the iron hulk referred to. The locomotive’s headlight,
into the back of which a magnifying glass of strong intensity had
been fitted, was placed over the glowing embers of the Sacred Fire,
and threw a pillar of red light miles into the sky. On this night in
question the rays from the reflector encountered a heavy cloud bank
that hung high over the water, and combined in a red, spectral ember
in the sky.
I then remembered that sailors had often spoken of a mysterious light
that hovered over the Sargasso Sea; but if I had believed the stories
I had accounted for the balls of fire as belonging to those strange
natural phenomena described as “Will-o’-the-Wisp,” and associated
with damp meadows filled with decayed vegetable matter.
On this night, however, I fully understood the purport of the
terrifying blood-red blotch in the sky!
I knew, instinctively, that it was a signal to the Sargassons to
assemble at some point for the purpose of capturing the Caribas.
I felt the jar of footsteps on deck; but as shoes and boots were
unknown, little noise was made by the stealthy tread of the ship’s
crew. I could hear lines of men ascending and descending the ladders
not far from me, and I realized fully that the boats were being
equipped.
In order to properly describe the events that occurred within the
next twenty-four hours it will be necessary for me to rely upon
information secured afterward from various sources.
I was not permitted to witness the attack upon my own ship, and for
days all information regarding the terrible event was carefully kept
from me. This was not done to lessen my mental sufferings. I can
easily imagine that I was forgotten in the excitement, and probably
I would have starved to death had it not been for the thoughtfulness
of some one who during each night placed under my door a wicker
dish of boiled seaweed, accompanied by two or more biscuits from
the remainder of the scanty store brought by me in the launch. This
was very little food for a hearty man, but I was grateful for the
attention.
Although I had not seen any evidences of womankind about the ship,
I instinctively divined femininity in this thoughtfulness. I
detected, in the neat way the food was arranged upon the small piece
of matting, the hand of a woman. I saw in the act more than mere
perfunctory duty.
I felt that I had a friend on board the ship, all the more precious
because unknown.
In my loneliness I gave myself up utterly to despair. Without hope,
without companionship, and, above all, without news regarding the
result of the expedition that had been sent against the Caribas;
weakened by poor food and driven to semi-madness by want of care, I
passed as much of my time as possible in troubled sleep, in which I
dreamed dreams and saw visions. I suffered a great deal from thirst,
also, because the water with which I was supplied was evidently the
product of the rainstorms, with an occasional ration of distilled
water, brought, as I afterward ascertained, from the ship on which
was the boiler of the old locomotive.
The water supply was the greatest of all the problems to the
Sargassons. Fortunately, rains were frequent and the seasons of
drought far apart. But there were times when the consumption of an
extra pint of the fluid aboard each ship in one day would have meant
suffering for weeks. The Kantoon of each vessel always kept the water
butt in his own cabin, and guarded it more carefully than any of his
other possessions.
On the fifth day after my capture the Kantoon of the Happy Shark
presented himself at the door of my prison, opened it with a quick
jerk, and asked me to come out. I was so weakened by my imprisonment
that I was slow to obey.
When I did face him I saw that a fillet of fresh seaweed was bound
about his temples, below one corner of which showed a ghastly wound,
still fresh and bleeding.
With a wave of his hand he motioned me to follow him to the upper
deck, where, recognizing my enfeebled condition, he directed me,
still in the curious polyglottic language of his, to seat myself,
while he, as before, climbed into his barrel of water. After a few
preliminary remarks, and, indeed, a thoughtful expression of regret
that during the period of excitement through which he had just passed
my comfort had been neglected, he told me the terrible story of the
capture of the Caribas.
In a prefatory way, I may state that the boats used by this strange
people are made of grass matting, stretched over a light framework of
wood (in shape like the birch bark canoe of the American aborigine),
covered inside and out with a gum made of fish scales and wholly
impervious to water. Each boat will carry only two people, one in the
bow and one in the stern, and is propelled with paddles shaped like
tennis bats, strung with thongs made from the intestines of fish,
interlaced so closely together as to afford resistance to the water.
These boats are so light that a man can readily carry one upon his
shoulder, and so quick are they in answering the paddle that the
little cockle shells can be turned in their own length. In these the
Sargassons surmount the heaviest waves; but in the canals of Sargasso
nothing rougher than an ocean swell ever exists. If the sea runs
“mountain high” outside, its force is broken by the great blanket of
sod that for thousands of miles rests upon its surface. So light and
buoyant are these small canoes, rarely exceeding nine feet in length,
that if one of them is swamped, the two rowers, treading water at
the bow and at the stern, lift the boat, bottom upward, above the
surface, reverse it, and while one of the crew holds an end of the
little craft, the other member climbs into his seat, and, paddle in
hand, steadies the boat until his companion resumes his place. The
Sargassons have no fear of an upset. Their paddles are lashed to the
canoe with long thongs, as are all portable articles that they carry.
Having explained the character of the boats in which the expedition
set out, I may now reproduce, in my own words, the Kantoon’s
narrative:
The flashing of the Sacred Light in the sky--the blood-red spot under
the canopy of heaven that they had been expecting since morning--told
the Sargassons the will of their Chief. They all understood that
the Congress of the Kantoons had decided that the Caribas must be
captured.
The ship was to be literally overrun with men, fully armed; and,
after its capture, the Caribas was to be added to our commune.
From the treacherous passenger, Gray, who was the cause of all my
misfortune, the exact number of officers and crew had been learned.
Mercifully did death come to those who encountered it, cutlass in
hand, upon the deck of the ship!
The Chief Kantoon reviewed the fleet of small boats, each having two
valiant men, selected from the various ships for their courage and
fearlessness. The number of vessels represented was comparatively
few, owing to the fact that two hundred men were supposed to be amply
sufficient to effect the capture of forty on a night so favorable to
the undertaking.
In a clear voice the Chief Kantoon gave directions for the attack.
He described the route so perfectly that nobody could go amiss. He
divided the flotilla into two wings, one of which was to leave the
Grand Canal through a small shoot, and approach the Caribas from one
end, while the other wing of the attacking party would proceed down
the Canal and menace the vessel from the other. The plan was to lodge
the two hundred men upon the abandoned hulk to which the Caribas was
moored, and to which access could be readily found through its open
ports. Having effected a lodgment there, the Sargassons would muster,
and at a signal would swarm over the sides of the vessel before the
crew of the Caribas had awakened to the danger of the situation.
Each man in the assaulting party was provided with deadly weapons.
But the most serious thing they carried, because unknown to the
assailed, was a fine, impalpable dust, carried in a fish bladder,
which was to be thrown in the faces of the crew. It is composed of
a species of red pepper, analogous to the Tabasco berry, and is
temporarily destructive to the eyesight, and especially noxious to
the nostrils and lungs. With it was blended a powerful drug, having
all the qualities of opium, extracted from a fungus, quite like
sape, found growing upon the water-soaked tree-trunks. The almost
instant effect of this drug was to produce unconsciousness. Blinded
and staggering, the victims would fall an easy prey to the attacking
party.
The Sargassons have a horror of shedding human blood. They care
nothing for death themselves, and never hesitate to inflict it upon
others. But they dislike to see blood flow, and prefer drowning to
any other form of death--a very natural preference, because their
whole existence is associated with the sea.
In addition to this terrible death-dealing powder, with which each
member of the attacking party was provided, each man carried a weapon
of iron or steel, ground to exceeding sharpness. Firearms are not in
use among the Sargassons, and the only weapon of that kind in the
attacking party was the Winchester gun I had carried, and in which
still remained about half a dozen cartridges.
After the last word had been spoken by the Chief Kantoon, and the
members of the storming party had received his injunction that no one
of them must return unless the prize was secured, the Kantoon chief
in rank took command and gave the order to proceed.
In double column, almost half a mile in length, the boats set out
upon their journey. Not a word was spoken, and so silently did the
boatmen manipulate their paddles, not even a ripple was heard above
the swash of the ocean swell. At the head of the double column, by
the side of the Kantoon in command, was Arthur Gray, who was expected
to act as guide to the party. His was the only boat that contained
three people, he being seated in the centre.
For some reason he was an object of suspicion and distrust, and the
two men in his boat had received secret instructions, on the first
evidence of treachery, to lasso him, bind him fast, capsize the boat,
and save themselves by dragging their craft apart from him, so that
he would drown.
The fifty miles were traversed in about eight hours, the speed being
intentionally slow, in order that the men should not be fatigued
prior to the moment of attack, at which time their best energies
would be required.
When the mouth of the small canal was reached, into which the right
division of the attacking party was to enter, a halt was called, and
the canoes assembled in two great parks.
A boat was sent forward to reconnoitre, and after an hour’s absence
returned to say the Caribas was still moored to the wooden hulk; that
absolute quiet reigned aboard the steamer, and that an approach could
readily be made as planned, over the deck of the derelict.
I forgot to say that attending each division were two canoes, manned
by Sargasson boys. It was their duty to gather up and look after
the boats when the attacking party precipitately left them to climb
upon the derelict. At the bow of each canoe was a long painter of
sea-grass rope, which it was expected would be made fast to some
object on the side of the ship, so as to retain the boat, but in case
the canoes became detached, it would be the task of the attending
canoe boys to chase it up and take charge of it.
In less than half an hour after the two divisions had separated
in the Grand Canal, they had reassembled to the leeward of the
great floating hulk to which the Caribas was made fast. The thick
rope fenders that had been placed between the iron ship and the
barnacle-covered hulk gave out a plaintive, wailing sound that would
have fallen upon superstitious ears with dire effect.
The presence of the attacking party had not been suspected aboard the
Caribas, for no sounds were heard except the tread of the officer on
the bridge. The fires under the boilers had evidently been banked
for almost twenty-four hours, and were very low. Scarcely any smoke
escaped from the funnels, and no steam whatever.
The great iron ship, therefore, was as helpless as a log. As before
stated, the wooden hulk of the dismasted full-rigged ship had listed
to starboard about twenty-five degrees, owing to the shifting of its
ballast. Instructions to the Sargasson assaulting party was that
each boat’s crew should in turn take its place upon the side of
the vessel, each man holding on by the barnacles, and by the seams
between the planks until the signal for the assault was given. This
was the sounding of the Caribas’ own bell, which, as every sailor
knows, occurs at each half hour.
Seven bells had sounded on board the Caribas as the boarding party
silently approached, and the officer of the watch had been heard to
call out, “All is well!”
Every member of the attacking party had effected lodgment upon the
upturned side of the great wooden hulk.
The boats had been gathered up and were in the possession of their
keepers.
Everything was ready for the signal, which was fully due and
momentarily expected.