sail on her, and the boarding parties cutting down all afore ’em, a
great number jumped overboard and some ran below, whilst the killed
and wounded lay in all directions. About this time Captain Hamilton
received such a tremendous crack on the head from the butt end of a
musket, as brought a general illumination into his eyes and stretched
him senseless on the deck. A Spaniard, who had fallen near him, raised
his dagger to stab him to the heart; but the tide of existence was
ebbing like a torrent, his brain was giddy, his aim faltered, and the
point descended in the captain’s right thigh. Dragging away the blade
with the last convulsive energy of a death-struggle, he lacerated the
wound. Again the reeking steel was upheld, and the Spaniard placed his
left hand near the captain’s heart to mark his aim more sure: again
the dizziness of dissolution spread over his sight, down came the
dagger into the captain’s left thigh, and the Spaniard was a corpse.
“The upper deck was cleared, and the boarders rushed below on the
main-deck to complete their conquest. Here the slaughter was dreadful,
till the Spaniards called out for quarter and the carnage ceased;
but no sooner was the firing on board at an end, when the sodgers at
the batteries--who had been wondering at the frigate moving away as
if by magic, and had been calling a whole reg’ment of saints to help
’em,--let fly from nearly two hundred pieces of cannon, as if they
were saying their prayers and wanted the British tars to count the
beads. Howsomever the wind was very light close in-shore, and the smoke
mantled thick and heavy on the waters, so as to mask the ship from
view; but a chance twenty-four-pounder hulled her below the water-mark,
and they were obliged to rig the pumps. The main-mast, too, at one
time was in danger from the stay and spring-stay being shot away,
and the head swell tumbling in made the frigate roll heavily; but
about two in the morning they got out of gun shot, the towing boats
were called alongside, and every thing made snug. Thus in an hour and
three-quarters the frigate was boarded, carried, and clear from the
batteries; but, to be sure, considering the little wind there was, and
the head swell setting in, she did stretch her legs as if glad to be
out of bad company, and the quarantine flag;[2]--for you know, Darby,
none in our sarvice likes to be yellowed,--[Darby gave another chuckle,
and then took a good pull at his mug to drown remembrances,]--it looks
so like a land-crab.
[2] Ships and vessels coming from unclean ports, hoist a yellow flag;
and the pensioners are punished for drunkenness by being compelled to
wear a yellow coat with red sleeves.
“Well, messmates, sail was soon made on the Harmoine, the shot-hole
was plugged up, and the party mustered; when there were found to be
only twelve men wounded, amongst whom were the captain and the gunner,
Mr. Maxwell. There was not one man killed on the British side, but the
Spaniards had 119 killed and 97 wounded, most of them dangerously, and
the decks were again stained with human blood, some of which was no
doubt shed by those murderers and traitors who had mutinied.
“At day-light next morning the Spaniards were indulged with the sight
of both ships standing off shore, and the Harmoine with a British
ensign and pennant over the Spanish colours. The prisoners were put on
board of a schooner, that was captured during the day, and sent ashore;
and the Surprise, with her prize, stood for Jamaica, where she arrived
seven days afterwards, and brought up at Port Royal.
“You may be sure, messmates, Captain Hamilton was well received; the
Parliament-men at the island gave him a beautiful sword that cost
three hundred guineas; he was made a knight on, and the Harmoine was
called the Retaliation, and she was immediately put in commission as an
English frigate; though in logging her name in the navy list, the Lords
of the Admiralty changed it to the Retribution, and I had the honour to
be drafted on board her as captain of the main-top.
“Captain Hamilton was invalided home on account of his wounds; but the
packet was taken by a French privateer, and he went to see Boneypart,
who treated him like a messmate for his bravery, and allowed him to be
exchanged for six French middies; and now, my lads, I’ve told you all I
know about the recapture of the Harmoine.”
Of course, I expressed my acknowledgments for the obligations I was
under to him for his narrative, but this seemed to nettle the old
tar very much. How far his account is correct I must leave others
to determine, and only regret that I have not been able to do the
worthy soul more justice, but it would be impossible for any written
description to give an adequate idea of his mode of recital. Our
glasses were replenished, for I saw that the old _blades_, like
_cutters_ on a wind, were determined to have a taut leech to their jibs
by taking a long and strong pull at the purchase; and expecting to
gather a fund of anecdote, I e’en made the most of it, and determined
to gladden their hearts.
“Well, it’s of no manner of use to go to argufy the matter,” said the
old boatswain’s-mate, “and all I’ve got to say is this here. Bill has
spun that yarn like a patent winch, and I’m sartin, sooner or later,
murder will always meet with its punishment. Many of them mutineers
were hung, and I’m thinking that there was one or two jewel-block’d
that never set foot on the Harmoine’s deck in their born days; but
their lives were sworn away, and arter that they went aloft without
touching a rattlin. I knew one on ’em, but I’ll not rip up old
grievances like a piece of tarred parcelling. I was at Port Royal when
the ships came in, and well remember seeing ’em both. There’s one
thing however, messmate, you forgot to tell us, and in the regard of
a generous spirit, which I take to be consort with bravery, it ought
not to go untold; and that is this here, that Sir Edward divided £500
of his own prize-money amongst the bold fellows who shared the victory
with him.”
“That was nobly and generously done,” said I; “such a man deserves to
be immortalized.”
“Well, your honour, he was mortalized,” replied the old man; “for
on that station of musketoes and grog-blossoms, there warn’t a blue
jacket nor yet a jolly but would have followed him into the devil’s
kitchen at cooking time. And it’s a rum place that West Ingees, too. I
remembers being ashore at one of the resurrections among the niggers,
and the ship’s corporal stuck his spoon in the wall; because, I’m
thinking, it warn’t very likely that a fellow would ever sup burgoo
again, when his head and his body had parted company. Well, we buried
him in a wild kind of a spot, where there was a few grave-stones with
names chiselled on ’em, and some were cut with a knife, showing a foul
anchor or a rammer and sponge, and the trees grew all over the ground,
and the rank grass and weeds run up the tombs; it was a wilderness
sort of a place, and here it was that Corporal Jack was laid up in
ordinary. The party to which I belonged was commanded by Mr. Quinton, a
master’s mate, and our bounds lay within a short distance of this here
burying-ground; and so, d’ye mind, the morning after they’d lowered
the corporal down the hatchway of t’other world, I was posted at the
point next the corporal’s berth, and a shipmate was with me by way of
companion like,--not that I was afeard of any thing living or dead,
but I had always a sort of nat’ral antipathy to being left alone on
shore, particularly in the dark. There was also a nigger belonging to
the plantation, who we allowed to join us just by way of being civil
to him, as he was a kind of steward’s mate in the house, and used
to splice the main brace for us occasionally. Well, messmates, we
got knotting our yarns to keep us from getting drowsy; and to cheer
our spirits, we overhauled a goodish deal about ghosts, and atomies,
and hobblegoblins, and all such like justices of the peace, till the
nigger--they called him Hannibal, arter the line-of-battle ship, I
suppose;--I say, till the nigger declared that every hair on his head
stood as stiff as a crow-bar.”
“Avast there!” exclaimed Bill Jennings, “tell that to the marines an
you will; why the black fellow’s head was woolly and curled like a
Flemish fake, and yet you say it was as stiff as a crow-bar.”
“And so it was,--the more the wonder, and be d---- to you;” growled
the boatswain’s-mate. “Would you have his honour there think I keep
a false reckoning? Well, as I was a saying, his head looked like a
black porcupine with his quills up. All at once we heard a tremendous
rattling amongst the dry leaves of a plantain-ground; but the trees
were too thick to see what it was even if there had been light enough,
which there warn’t, as the sun hadn’t brought his hammock up, but was
only just turning out.
“‘Dere him debbil come agin,’ cried the nigger; and away he started, as
if a nor-wester had kicked him end-ways.
“‘What the black rascal arter,’ said my messmate.
“‘Nay,’ says I, ‘that’s more nor I can tell; but not being a Christian
and only a poor ignoramus of a nigger, I suppose he’s afeard that the
noise yonder is Davy Jones playing at single stick, and mayhap he may
think the ould gemman is hauling his wind upon this tack, and may take
his black muzzle for one of his imps. But that’s a pretty bobbery
they’re kicking up, at all events, and now it’s going in the direction
of the burying-ground.’
“‘I tell you what it is, Jack,’ says my messmate, who looked very
cautiously round him, as if he was rowing guard in an enemy’s port,
‘I tell you what it is; I never thinks they give the devil his due,
for between you and me I don’t know as he’s half so bad as many people
makes him out. Our parson say he’s black, but the niggers paints him
white; but for my part, I’m thinking that the colour of a ship’s paint
goes for nothing. Then as for his horns, why they’re ugly looking to be
sure;--[here the noise was right away in the burying-ground, and my
messmate laid me fairly along side,]--but though they are ugly looking,
I never heard of his doing any mischief by running stem on with them.
And arter all, shipmate,’ he continued, ‘you must own there’s a great
deal in fancy. Look at your Ingee grab-vessels, that run their noses
out to the heel of the jib-boom, and carry all their bowsprit in-board!
Now I call that sort o’rig neither ship-shape nor Bristol fashion,
for a ship’s head is a ship’s head, and a ship’s bowsprit is a ship’s
bowsprit; but if they go for to make a standing bowsprit of a ship’s
head, then, I’m thinking, they are but lubberly rigged.’
“Now, messmates, you must own that his arguments was a bit of a poser;
but I warn’t altogether satisfied with his backing and filling like a
grenadier in a squall; and so, says I, ‘But what do you think of his
tail, eh?’
“‘Why as for the matter of his tail,’ says he, ‘I’m thinking it’s a
fundamental mistake altogether. The parsons say--and mayhap they’re
right--that he cruises about privateering, because he’s got a roving
commission, and every now and then he falls in with a heavenly convoy,
and nips off with a prize, which he carries to his own dark place. Now
as some of the craft are, no doubt, dull sailers, why, I suppose, he
carries a hawser over his quarter to drag ’em out of the body of the
fleet, and I’m thinking that in some dismal hour he has been seen with
the fag-end towing astarn, and the fear of the beholder has convarted
it into a tail.’
“Well, messmates, I own I was a bit staggered at the likelihoods of the
thing, because, d’ye mind, I never could make out the use of the tail;
but the tow-rope spoke for itself, so says I, ‘I tell you what it is,
shipmate, you’ve just hove my thoughts slap aback and got my ideas in
irons--but holloa, there’s a precious row.’
“‘Precious row, indeed,’ says my companion; ‘why Jack--why I’m
blessed--look there--if that arn’t the skeleton of Corporal Jack
walking off with his own head under his arm; then I’m ----, but here
comes Mr. Quinton and the nigger.’
“I did look, messmates, towards the burying-ground, and there I saw
a sort of long-legged skeleton straddling over the graves like an
albatross topping a ground swell; and, sure enough, the corporal’s head
was under his long spider-like arms.
“‘Dere, Massa Quinckem,’ said the black fellow, ‘now he see ’em for
he-self.’
“‘By Jove, and so it is, boy,’ cried the officer.
“‘Ay, ay sir,’ says my messmate, ‘it’s the corporal--there’s no
mistaking his cutwater; but he must have fallen away mightily during
the night, to be so scantily provided with flesh this morning;
howsomever, mayhap the climate has melted him down.’
“‘He no melt ’em,’ cried the nigger, ‘he eat ’em for true.’
“‘What! eat his own head,’ says I, ‘he must be in dreadful want of a
meal. Come, come, ould chap, that’s too heavy to be hoisted in.’
“Well, all this while the skeleton was walking off with his head in
his arms, just as a nurse would carry a baby; but the officer raises
his rifle to his shoulder, and it made me laugh to think he was going
to shoot a skeleton without a head, and that was as dead as Adam’s
grandmother.
“‘For God’s sake, sir,’ says my messmate, ‘don’t go for to fire, for it
would be downright blasphemy to kill a dead body; and what makes the
fellow turn out of his hammock after being lashed up for a full due, I
can’t tell.’
“Bang went the rifle, and down dropped the corporal’s atomy; but up
it got again almost directly and made sail for the bush, leaving his
head behind to lighten ship. Off starts the black fellow after him, and
away went the officer close to his heels. ‘My eyes, shipmate,’ says I,
‘there must be some sport in chasing a skeleton; so e’en let’s keep in
their wakes and see it out.’ So off we set, and presently bang went the
rifle again, and away flew the corporal’s splinters; so the skeleton
gathers himself up, and then laid down on the ground, kicking and
sprawling like a bull-whale in his flurry. Well, we ran up and there we
found--now what do you think, messmates? Why, it was nothing more nor
less than a large land-crab, that was walking away with the corporal’s
head as easy as I’d carry a cocoa-nut.”
The old tar ceased, and I naturally expected that some part of his
story would be contradicted; but no one seemed to raise a doubt as to
the veracity of his statement, and of course politeness would not allow
me to differ from the rest.
“Them land-crabs have a power of strength,” said old Darby. “I
recollects one night being beached high and dry in the small cutter,
and I boat-keeper; so I catches one of these beasts, and claps him
under the bows of the boat, whilst I made fast the painter to his hind
leg, and then away he stretched out for the water, dragging the cutter
with him as if it had been no more than a mouldy biscuit, and if I
hadn’t cut the painter pretty smartly, he’d have towed us out to sea in
no time.”
“The legs of these crabs must be very long,” said I; “are their bodies
in proportion?”
“Why no, your honour,” replied the boatswain’s-mate; “their bodies are
but small, seeing that they are all ribs and trucks; but their claws
are tremendous. What d’ye think of their reaching up to the top of a
gibbet, and having unhooked a pirate that was hung in chains, walked
off with him, hoops and all, so that he never was found again!”
“If it really happened,” I replied, “it is truly astonishing.”
“Really happened!” cried the veteran somewhat scornfully. “Ax them as
was watching down at Cabrita-point that night, and see if they won’t
swear to it.”
“Perhaps it was some of the friends of the pirate who removed the
body,” I ventured to suggest.
“Now that comes of your honour’s not knowing nothing of the country,”
he rejoined; “for, d’ye mind, all the rogue’s friends were thieves, and
if it had been any of them, they’d not only have carried off the body,
but would have stole the gibbet for fire-wood, which a land-crab has no
manner of use for.”
This certainly was unanswerable, and I forbore asking any more
questions on that subject.
“I remember, when I was a boy,” said ----, “I sailed out of Dover in a
by-boat under Captain Hammond over to Calais, and Bullun, and Ostend;
and there was an ould woman who they used to call Mother Mount, lived
at the back of the York Hotel, and she constantly placed herself on the
steps of her door observationing the people that passed up and down
the street. Captain Hammond never went past the house but he jeered
her for a witch, and every body said she was one; till one day, just
as we were going across with a good freight of passengers, the ould
Jezabel spoke some hard words to the skipper, as he was coming down
to the craft to sail out of the harbour. He made no more to do but to
spit at her. ‘The curse of the defenceless and childless widow be upon
you!’ she cried out. ‘You are bound across the channel, but there are
those will be there before you. You will think yourself secure, but
woe, and danger, and wreck, shall come at a time when you think not of
it, for my curse is upon you!’ The captain came on board in no very
gentle humour, and away we went with a flowing sheet for Calais. Our
passage was short, but we struck very heavily in crossing the bar,
though the water was as smooth as a mill-pond, and every timber in the
craft sneered again. The mate, fearing she would gripe-to and run upon
the pier-head, was going to ease the throat-halliards; but the captain
hollaed out, ‘Hold on till all’s blue; it’s only Mother Mount at her
tricks.’ Well, at last we got safe in and hauled alongside the key in
the outer-harbour, where we made fast stem and starn and cleared decks.”
“Upon my word, that’s a tough yarn,” said I; “and so you really think
it was Mother Mount that bumped you ashore in that fashion.”
“It isn’t for men without larning or edecation such as me to say their
say positively,” answered the pensioner, “but--[giving his quid a
severe turn]--if I am to speak my mind, I think it was. Well, sir, the
captain went ashore to dine with a French gentleman, and when he came
aboard again he was rather too much by the head on account of the wine
he had hoisted in, and somehow or other it had got stowed away in his
fore-peak; so he yawed about like a Dutch schuyt on the Dogger-bank,
and almost his last words at turning-in were ‘D-- Mother Mount!’ Well,
we all went to our hammocks, and the mate left word for one of the
hands to turn out and ’tend her at tide-time, as it looked breezy away
to the sou-west. The vessel floated about two o’clock in the morning,
and soon afterwards we heard the most tremendous hallo-bulloo upon
deck, and the captain swearing in a mixture of high Dutch, low Dutch,
Jarman and French, with not a small sprinkling of English dammees.
Up the ladder we ran, and there he was with a handspike in his hand
thrashing about and stamping fore-and-aft, like a wild pig in a squall.
We got him appeased at last, and then he pointed to the mooring
ropes; and, sure enough, the head-fast was cast off and partly hauled
in-board, and the starn-fast had only a single turn, just ready for
letting go when she had winded; the foresail was partly up, and the
jib hooked all ready for hauling out. We made all fast and snug again,
but the skipper kept raving till daylight in his cabin about Mother
Mount and her imps.”
“But what about the imps, my old boy,” exclaimed I; “you’ve said
nothing yet about imps. Did they have tails too?”
“Indeed and by all accounts they had, sir,” replied the old man; “for
though the skipper was a long time silent about it, yet it came out at
last, and he solemnly attested it in his last moments on his death-bed
to a clergyman. He declared that whilst he was sleeping something
struck his temples so hard that it made the vessel shake again----.”
“Why, he was dreaming to be sure,” said I, “the thump was caused by the
vessel just beginning to lift, and the swell rolling in made her strike
against the piles. Pray, had the man who was ordered to ’tend her at
tide-time got up upon the look-out when the master went on deck?”
“I carn’t say as he was, sir,” answered the veteran, “though I rather
think not.”
“Well, go on, my old friend,” requested I, “let’s get to the imps.”
“After receiving one or two heavy blows,” continued the pensioner,
“the skipper woke, and he thought he heard a shrill squeaking voice
above say, ‘Bear a hand with that foresail and jib, and haul in the
head-rope;’ and then there was a sort of a scrambling noise afore the
windlass, and another chock aft by the starn lockers. So he slips on
his pea-jacket and creeps up the companion, and there he saw five or
six monstrous rats forward; two were hoisting the foresail, two were
hooking on the jib, one was hauling in the head-rope, and another
was shoving her bows off. Abaft was a rat bigger than all the rest,
standing at the tiller and giving orders, and another had got hold of
the quarter-rope and was singling the turns. You may well guess the
ould chap was in a terrible taking at first; his teeth chattered like
the palls of a windlass when they shorten in a slack cable; his knees
knocked together----”
“Then he was knock-kneed,” said I, laughing heartily. “Really this is a
clever tale: first, the old woman makes a threat, then she plays you a
_mount-a-bank_ trick, and lastly _rat_ ifies her promise by----”
“I have not got to that yet, sir,” replied the old man, interrupting
in his turn; “but you shall hear all about it, if you will only give
me time.” He then continued, “Notwithstanding the tremblification the
skipper was in at first, he wasn’t a man as was easily to be daunted
in the long run; and seeing he was part owner of the craft as well as
master, I’m thinking he was afraid they wouldn’t carry her out safely,
and mayhap he thought they might turnout to be pi_rats_----”
“That’s half a pun, old boy,” said I; “why your _pirats_ would have
made a splendid _rat-pie_, upon short allowance.”
“By all accounts one of ’em would have been meal for half a dozen
messes,” replied the _matter-of-fact_ old man. “But as I was a saying,
sir, ould Hammond determined that at least he’d be master of his own
cutter; for in those days the by-boats had running bowsprits, though
they generally carried them over the stem to make most room; and also,
that his own crew knew her trim and could work her best, he jumps up
upon deck and catches hold of a----”
“A _rat_ tan, or a piece of _rat_ line stuff,” said I, interrupting him.
“No, sir,” answered the veteran rather testily; “he catches hold of
a handspik, and began to hammer away like a fellow beating saltpetre
bags in an Ingeeman’s hould at Diamond-harbour; and by the time we got
upon deck, there wasn’t a rat to be seen nigh hand; though I must say I
saw two or three dark objects in the distance running down towards the
pier-head, and there was some thing like a man on his hands and knees
slowly crawling after them. Howsomever, as I said before, the decks
were cleared of the warmin, and we made all fast again.”
“And did you never hear any other explanation of the affair?” inquired
I.
“Why,” replied the pensioner, “there was a report that some English and
French smugglers broke out of prison that night, and they tried to make
the skipper believe that he was deceived as to the rats; but the thing
was impossible, for how could the smuggler get through the great gates
and pass the sentries? Besides they wouldn’t have turned tail that
fashion for one ould man.”
“But the alarm, old boy,” exclaimed I; “the skipper gave an alarm, and
the _rats_ were afraid of being _trapped_ again.”
“Why, for the matter o’ that, sir,” assented the veteran, “he did kick
up a bit of a bobbery, I own; and the do-oneers came running down from
the watch-house, but nobody was taken.”
“That’s curious, too,” said I, “but had they no other means of escape?”
“Why, they did say,” replied the old tar, “that a fishing-boat was
missing from somewhere about the mouth of the harbour; but the captain
swore to the rats, and ever afterwards used to give the ould woman a
trifle of money or so, and speak kindly to her. And d’ye see, sir, I’m
thinking that Captain Hammond couldn’t be mistaken as to the rats,
because why?--a rat hasn’t a head like a Christian; and then his
tail,--no Christian has a tail like a spanker boom over his starn, and
so I’ll stick to the rats, for I verily believe they were nothing
else.”
“No doubt,” said I, addressing the boatswain’s-mate, “you have seen a
great deal of hard service. Have you been in many battles?”