THEY got to the wounded captain and raised him: he revived a little;
and, the moment he caught sight of Mr. Sharpe, he clutched him, and
cried, “Stunsels!”
“Oh, captain,” said Sharpe, “let the ship go; it is you we are anxious
for now.”
At this Dodd lifted up his hands and beat the air impatiently, and
cried again in the thin, querulous voice of' a wounded man, but eagerly,
“STUNSELS! STUNSELS!”
On this, Sharpe gave the command.
“Make sail. All hands set stunsels 'low and aloft!”
While the unwounded hands swarmed into the rigging, the surgeon came aft
in all haste; but Dodd declined him till all his men should have been
looked to: meantime he had himself carried to the poop and laid on a
mattress, his bleeding head bound tight with a wet cambric handkerchief,
and his pale face turned towards the hostile schooner astern. She had
to hove to, and was picking up the survivors of her blotted-out consort.
The group on the _Agra's_ quarter-deck watched her to see what she would
do next; flushed with immediate success, the younger officers crowed
their fears she would not be game to attack them again. Dodd's fears ran
the other way: he said, in the weak voice to which he was now reduced,
“They are taking a wet blanket aboard; that crew of blackguards we
swamped won't want any more of us: it all depends on the pirate captain:
if he is not drowned, then blow wind, rise sea, or there's trouble ahead
for us.”
As soon as the schooner had picked up the last swimmer, she hoisted
foresail, mainsail, and jib with admirable rapidity, and bore down in
chase.
The _Agra_ had, meantime, got a start of more than a mile, and was now
running before a stiff breeze with studding sails alow and aloft.
In an hour the vessels ran nearly twelve miles, and the pirate had
gained half a mile.
At the end of the next hour they were out of sight of land, wind and sea
rising, and the pirate only a quarter of a mile astern.
The schooner was now rising and falling on the waves; the ship only
nodding, and firm as a rock.
“Blow wind, rise sea!” faltered Dodd.
Another half-hour passed without perceptibly altering the position of
the vessels. Then suddenly the wounded captain laid aside his glass,
after a long examination, and rose unaided to his feet in great
excitement, and found his manly voice for a moment: he shook his fist
at the now pitching schooner and roared, “Good-bye! ye Portuguese
lubber--outfought--outmanoeuvred--AND OUTSAILED!”
It was a burst of exultation rare for him; he paid for it by sinking
faint and helpless into his friend's arms; and the surgeon, returning
soon after, insisted on his being taken to his cabin and kept quite
quiet.
As they were carrying him below, the pirate captain made the same
discovery, that the ship was gaining on him: he hauled to the wind
directly and abandoned the chase.
When the now receding pirate was nearly hull down, the sun began to set.
Mr. Tickell looked at him and said, “Hallo! old fellow, what are _you_
about? Why, it isn't two o'clock.”
The remark was quite honest: he really feared, for a moment, that orb
was mistaken and would get himself--and others--into trouble. However,
the middy proved to be wrong, and the sun right to a minute: Time flies
fast fighting.
Mrs. Beresford came on deck with brat and poodle: Fred, a destructive
child, clapped his hands with glee at the holes in the canvas: Snap
toddled about smelling the blood of the slain, and wagging his tail by
halves, perplexed. “Well, gentlemen,” said Mrs. Beresford, “I hope you
have made noise enough over one's head: and what a time you did take to
beat that little bit of a thing. Freddy, be quiet; you worry me; where
is your bearer? Will anybody oblige me by finding Ramgolam?”
“I will,” said Mr. Tickell hastily, and ran off for the purpose; but he
returned after some time with a long face. No Ramgolam to be found.
Fullalove referred her--with humour-twinkling eye--to Vespasian. “I have
a friend here who says he can tell you something about him.”
“Can you, my good man?” inquired the lady, turning haughtily towards the
negro.
“Iss, Missy,” said Vespasian, showing his white teeth in a broad grin,
“dis child knows where to find dat ar niggar, widout him been and
absquatulated since.”
“Then go and fetch him directly.”
Vespasian went off with an obedient start.
This annoyed Fullalove; interfered with his system: “Madam,” said he
gravely, “would you oblige me by bestowing on my friend a portion
of that courtesy with which you favour me, and which becomes you so
gracefully?”
“Certainly not,” replied Mrs. Beresford. “Mr. Fullalove, I am out of
patience with you: the idea of a sensible intelligent gentleman like you
calling that creature your friend! And you an American, where they do
nothing but whip them from morning till night. Who ever heard of
making friends with a black?--Now what is the meaning of this? I detest
practical jokes.” For the stalwart negro had returned, bringing a tall
bread-bag in his arms: he now set it up before her, remarking, “Dis yar
bag white outside, but him 'nation black inside.” To confirm his words,
he drew off the bag, and revealed Ramgolam, his black skin powdered
with meal. The good-natured negro then blew the flour off his face, and
dusted him a bit: the spectators laughed heartily, but Ramgolam never
moved a muscle: not a morsel discomposed at what would have made an
European miserably ashamed, even in a pantomime--the Caucasian darkie
retained all his dignity while the African one dusted him; but, being
dusted, he put on his obsequiousness, stepped forward, joined his palms
together to Mrs. Beresford--like medieval knights and modern children at
their devotions--and addressed her thus:--
“Daughter of light, he who basks in your beams said to himself, 'The
pirates are upon us, those children of blood, whom Sheitan their master
blast for ever! They will ravish the Queen of Sunshine and the ayahs,
and throw the sahibs and sailors into the sea; but, bread being the
staff of existence, these foxes of the water will not harm it, but keep
it for their lawless appetites; therefore Ramgolam, son of Chittroo, son
of Soonarayan, will put the finger of silence on the lip of discretion,
and be bread in the day of adversity: the sons of Sheitan will
peradventure return to dry land and close the eye of watchfulness; then
will I emerge like the sun from a cloud, and depart in peace.”
“Oh, very well,” said Mrs. Beresford; “then you are an abominable
egotist, that is all, and a coward: and thank Heaven Freddy and I were
defended by English and Americans, and--hem!--their friends, and not by
Hindoos.” She added charmingly, “This shows me my first words on coming
here ought to have been to offer my warmest thanks to the brave men who
have defended me and my child;” and swept them so queenly a curtesy,
that the men's hats and caps flew off in an instant “Mr. Black,” said
she, turning with a voice of honey to Vespasian, but aiming obliquely
at Fullalove's heart, _“would_ you oblige me by kicking that dog a
_little:_ he is always smelling what does not belong to him--why, it is
blood; oh!” and she turned pale in a moment.
Sharpe thought some excuse necessary. “You see, ma'am, we haven't had
time to clean the decks since.”
“It is the blood of men--of the poor fellows who have defended us so
nobly,” faltered the lady, trembling visibly.
“Well, ma'am,” said Sharpe, still half apologetically, “you know a ship
can't fight all day long without an accident or two.” He added, with
nautical simplicity and love of cleanliness, “However, the deck will be
cleaned and holy-stoned to-morrow, long before you turn out.”
Mrs. Beresford was too much overcome to explain how much deeper her
emotion was than a dislike to stained floors. She turned faint, and on
getting the better of that, went down to her cabin crying. Thence issued
a royal order that the wounded were to have wine and every luxury they
could fancy, without limit or stint--at her expense.
The next day a deep gloom reigned in the ship; the crew were ranged in
their Sunday clothes and bare-headed; a grating was rigged; Sharpe read
the burial service; and the dead, each man sewed up in his hammock with
a 32-lb. shot, glided off the grating into the sea with a sullen plunge;
while their shipmates cried so that the tears dripped on the deck.
With these regrets for the slain, too violent to last, was mingled a
gloomy fear that Death had a heavier blow in store. The surgeon's
report of Captain Dodd was most alarming; he had become delirious about
midnight, and so continued.
Sharpe commanded the ship; and the rough sailors stepped like cats over
that part of the deck beneath which their unconscious captain lay. If
two men met on the quarter-deck, a look of anxious, but not hopeful,
inquiry was sure to pass between them.
Among the constant inquirers was Ramgolam. The grave Hindoo often
waylaid the surgeon at the captain's door, to get the first intelligence
This marked sympathy with a hero in extremity was hardly expected from a
sage who at the first note of war's trumpet had vanished in a meal-bag.
However, it went down to his credit. One person, however, took a dark
view of this innocent circumstance But then that hostile critic was
Vespasian, a rival in matters of tint. He exploded in one of those droll
rages darkies seem liable to: “Massa cunnel,” said he, “what for dat yar
niggar always prowling about the capn's door? What for he ask so many
stupid questions? Dat ole fox arter no good: him heart so black as um
skin: dam ole niggar!”
Fullalove suggested slily that a person with a dark skin might have a
grateful heart: and the colonel, who dealt little in innuendo, said,
“Come, don't you be so hard on jet, you ebony!”
“Bery well, gemmen,” replied Vespasian ceremoniously, and with seeming
acquiescence. Then, with sudden ire, “Because Goramighty made you white,
you tink you bery wise without any more trouble. Dat ar niggar am an
abominable egotisk.”
“Pray what does that mean?” inquired Kenealy innocently.
“What him mean? what him mean? Yah! yah!”
“Yes. What does it mean?”
“What him mean? Yah! What didn't you hear Missy Besford miscall him an
abominable egotisk?”
“Yes,” said Fullalove, winking to Kenealy; “but we don't know what it
means. Do you, sir?”
“Iss, sar. Dat ar expression he signify a darned old cuss dat says to
dis child, 'My lord Vespasium, take benevolence on your insidious slave,
and invest me in a bread-bag,' instead of fighting for de ladies like a
freenindependum citizen. Now you two go fast asleep; dis child lie shut
one eye and open de oder bery wide open on dat ar niggar.” And with this
mysterious threat he stalked away.
His contempt for a black skin, his ebullitions of unexpected ire, his
turgid pomposity, and love of long terms, may make the reader smile; but
they could hardly amuse his friends just then; everything that touched
upon Dodd was too serious now. The surgeon sat up with him nearly all
night: in the daytime those two friends sat for hours in his cabin,
watching sadly, and silently moistening his burning brow and his parched
lips.
At length, one afternoon, there came a crisis, which took an
unfavourable turn. Then the surgeon, speaking confidentially to these
two staunch friends, inquired if they had asked themselves what should
be done with the body? “Why I ask,” said he, “is because we are in
a very hot latitude; and if you wish to convey it to Barkington, the
measures ought to be taken in time: in fact, within an hour or two after
death.”
The poor friends were shocked and sickened by this horrible piece of
foresight. But Colonel Kenealy said, with tears, in his eyes, that his
old friend should never be buried like a kitten.
“Then you had better ask Sharpe to give me an order for a barrel of
spirits,” said the surgeon.
“Yes, yes, for two if you like. Oh, don't die, Dodd, my poor old fellow.
How shall I ever face his wife--I remember her, the loveliest girl you
ever saw--with such a tale as this? She will think it a cruel thing I
should come out of it without a scratch, and a ten times better man to
be dead: and so it is; it is cruel, it is unjust, it is monstrous; him
to be lying there, and we muffs to be sitting croaking over him and
watching for his last breath like three cursed old ravens.” And the
stout colonel groaned aloud.
When the surgeon left them, they fell naturally upon another topic, the
pledge they had given Dodd about the L. 14,000. They ascertained it
was upon him, next his skin; but it seemed as unnecessary as it was
repugnant to remove it from his living person. They agreed, however,
that instantly on his decease they would take possession of it, note the
particulars, seal it up, and carry it to Mrs. Dodd, with such comfort
as they could hope to give her by relating the gallant act in which his
precious life was lost.
At 9 P.M. the surgeon took his place by Dodd's bedside; and the pair,
whom one thing after another had drawn so close together, retired to
Kenealy's cabin.
Many a merry chat they had had there, and many a gaseonade, being rival
hunters; but now they were together for physical companionship in sorrow
rather than for conversation. They smoked their cigars in moody silence,
and at midnight shook hands with a sigh and parted. That sigh meant to
say that in the morning all would be over.
They turned in; but, ere either of them was asleep, suddenly the
captain's cabin seemed to fill with roars and shrieks of wild beasts,
that made the whole ship ring in the silent night The savage cries were
answered on deck by shouts of dismay and many pattering feet making
for the companion ladder; but the nearest persons to the cabin, and the
first to reach it, were Kenealy and Fullalove, who burst in, the
former with a drawn sword, the latter with a revolver, both in their
nightgowns; and there saw a sight that took their breath away.
The surgeon was not there; and two black men, one with a knife, and one
with his bare claws, were fighting and struggling and trampling all over
the cabin at once, and the dying man sitting up in his cot, pale, and
glaring at them.