AN EVIL SPIRIT.
We sailed from the bay of Matanzas at two A.M., on the 3d of April,
bound for the Cape of Good Hope, which we were fated never to reach.
The _Eugenie_ had been freighted for that colony with a rich cargo of
molasses, sugar, coffee, and tobacco; and arrangements had been made
that from Cape Town she would be chartered for London; thus I had a
fair prospect of seeing nearly a half of this terrestrial globe
before I repassed my good old father's threshold at Erlesmere.
I earnestly hoped that we might encounter no more water-spouts or
tornadoes, as they were not at all to my taste; but from other causes
than phenomena or the war of the elements, it was my fortune, or
rather misfortune, to undergo such peril and suffering as were far
beyond my conception or anticipation.
By eight o'clock on the morning of our departure, the light on
Piedras Key was bearing south by east, sinking into the waves astern,
and going out as we bade a long farewell to the lovely shores of Cuba.
Three of our men had died of yellow fever in hospital, so we sailed
from Matanzas with ten able-bodied hands, exclusive of three
ship-boys, the captain, first and second mates.
In these waters, after the rainy season, the sky is so cloudless in
the forenoon that the heat of the sun becomes almost insupportable;
thus we were soon glad to resort to the use of windsails rigged down
the open skylight to an awning over the quarter-deck for coolness,
and to skids for the prevention of blisters on the sides of the brig;
but in the starry night the land-wind which comes off these fertile
isles, laden with the rich aroma of their spice-growing savannas, is
beyond description grateful and delicious.
Without any incident worth recording we ran through the sea of the
Windward Isles, thence along the coast of South America; and when we
approached the calm latitudes, as that tract of ocean near the
Equator is named, we became sensible of the overpowering increase of
heat, while the breezes were but "fanning ones," as the sailors term
those which, under the double influence of the air and motion of the
hull, are just sufficient to make the lighter canvas collapse and
swell again.
We were soon aware of other annoyances than mere heat; for now it
seemed as if there was an evil spirit on board the _Eugenie_, and
that nothing went right within or about her.
The crew sulked and quarrelled among themselves as if the demon of
mischief lurked in the vessel, and daily something unfortunate
occurred. Halyards or braces gave way, by which the yards were
thrown aback; and in one instance the brig nearly lost her mainmast.
Standing and running rigging were found to be mysteriously fretted,
and even cut, as if by a knife; and then the crew whispered together
of Antonio el Cubano,--that horrid, dark, and mysterious fellow,
whose character none of us could fathom.
Twice our compasses went wrong, and remained so for days; and before
the cause was discovered, the _Eugenie_ had drifted far from her
course.
This varying was inexplicable, until Hislop, who set himself to
watch, and frequently saw Antonio hovering near the binnacle at
night, unshipped the compass-box, and found there were concealed near
it an iron marlinspike on one side, and a lump of tallow on the
other, either of which was sufficient to affect the magnetic needle.
After their removal the compass worked as well as before. The crew
were strictly questioned; all vowed total ignorance of the
transaction, and Antonio summoned every saint in the Spanish calendar
to attest his innocence, but none, however, appeared. The crew now
felt convinced that, inspired by some emotion of malice or mischief,
he alone was the culprit; and if not loud, their wrath was deep
against him.
These variations of our compass set the busy brain of Marc Hislop to
work; and in a day or two he declared that he had discovered a plan
for preventing the repetition of tricks so dangerous, by _insulating_
the needle, so as to protect the compass from attractions false or
dangerous.
I am uncertain whether he perfected this experiment, but Antonio soon
went to work another way; for one day, when he was supposed to be
busy in the maintop, he shouted, "Stand from under!" and ere Hislop,
who was just beneath, could give the usual response, "Let go," a
heavy marlinspike, the same which had been found in the binnacle,
slipped from the hand of Antonio, and fell through the topgrating.
The iron bar crashed into the deck at the feet of Hislop; whether
this occurred by inadvertence or design we knew not, but the Scotsman
thought the latter.
"That rascally Spanish picaroon will work us some serious mischief
before we overhaul our ground-tackle or see the Cape," said Weston,
who was enraged by this new incident, and the narrow escape of
Hislop, for whom he had a great regard.
"Aye, he has a hang-dog look about him that I never liked," replied
the latter. "He seems to be always down by the head, somehow. We
should have left him in his skiff, just as we found him, like a bear
adrift on a grating, or a pig in a washing-tub."
On another occasion he injured Will White, one of the crew, by
letting the topmaul fall from the foretop, where it usually lay, for
driving home the fid of the mast.
His dreams again became a source of annoyance to all in the
forecastle bunks; and on being closely and severely questioned by
Captain Weston and the men, as to whether he had ever killed any one,
by accident or otherwise, after being long badgered, he half drew his
ugly knife from its shark-skin sheath, and replied, sullenly,--
"Only a Chinaman or so, when in California."
"Well, I wish you would clap a stopper on your mouth when you go to
sleep, or turn in out of ear-shot in a topgallant studding sail,--as
far off as you choose, and the further off the better," said old
Roberts, sulkily, after the ravings of the Cubano had kept him awake
for several nights.
"You seem to dream a great deal, Antonio," said Weston, with a keen
glance, beneath which the Spaniard quailed.
"Si, Senor Capitano," he stammered.
"How is this?"
"I am very fond of dreams," he replied, with a bitter smile on his
lip and a scowl in his dark eye.
"Have you pleasant ones?"
"I cannot say that they are always so, but I should like to procure
them."
"Shall I tell you how to do so, shipmate?"
"If you please, Senor," growled the Spaniard.
"Go to sleep, if you can, with that which is better than the formula
of prayers, which at times you pay out like the line running off a
log-reel."
"And what is it you mean, mio Capitano?"
"_A good conscience_," replied Weston, with a peculiar emphasis.
A black scowl came over the Spaniard's swarthy visage, as he touched
the rim of his hat, darted a furious glance at his chief accuser, the
white-haired seaman Roberts, and to end the examination, walked
forward.
Soon after this, when evening came on we heard a noise in the
forecastle, and the voice of Hislop, exclaiming--
"Stand clear--sheer off, Antonio! If you come athwart me, I'll knock
you down with a handspike! What! you grip your knife, do you? Well,
just do it again, and I'll chuck you overboard like a bit of old
junk."
"What is the matter now?" said I, hastening forward.
"Oh, this rascally Spanish Creole has been swearing at the men again,
and threatening old Roberts."
"He vows, sir, he will burn the ship," said Roberts, who seemed
considerably excited.
"Burn the ship," reiterated Weston. "I have a great mind to put him
in the bilboes for the remainder of the voyage."
"'Twere best for all concerned, sir," said Tom Lambourne, touching
his forelock with his right hand, and giving the deck a scrape with
his left foot; "or set him adrift with some provisions in the
jolly-boat."
"Come, come, Antonio," said Weston, with greater severity than I had
hitherto seen expressed in his open and honest countenance, "you must
haul your wind--for some time you have been going too far. I can't
spare my jolly-boat, and, thank heaven! the days of marooning are
past among British sailors, but beware you, shipmate, or the bilboes
it shall be, and we have a pretty heavy pair below. And as for you,
Marc Hislop," he added, in a low voice, when we walked aft, "take
care of yourself, for these Spanish Creoles are as slippery and
treacherous as serpents."
"I'll keep my weather eye open," said Hislop.
"You will require to do so, I think."
"You do?" exclaimed the Scotsman, with growing anger. "If he
proceeds thus, I'll break either his heart or his neck."
Next morning, Roberts the old man-o'-war's man, who had always been
Antonio's chief accuser concerning his dreams, was nowhere to be
found on board!
All the hands were turned up; the whole brig was searched, the
forecastle berths, the cable-tier, and every place below from the
fore to the after peak, but there was no trace of Roberts, save his
old tarpaulin-hat, lying crushed and torn in the lee scuppers.
He was last seen when turned up to take the middle watch, which
extends from twelve to four o'clock A.M., and Antonio was then in his
hammock.
Roberts was entered in the log as "having fallen overboard in the
night;" but his loss cast a terrible gloom over all in the ship.
Suspicion grew apace, and seemed to become confirmed, as open war was
soon declared between the crew and Antonio.
Every man was ready to take _his_ "trick" at the wheel, rather than
trust the _Eugenie_ to his steering in the night, lest he might let
her broach to, and lose her spars, or do some other mischief; and no
man, if he could avoid it, would lay out on the yard _beyond_ him.
No man would walk on the same side of the deck with him, or exchange
a word, or a light for a pipe, or use the same cup or plate; so he
was generally to be seen, leaning moodily and alone, against the
windlass-bitts, with his black eyes fixed on the horizon, as if he
expected a sail or something else to heave in sight.
We shall soon see how all this ended.