M. DE RADISSON ACTS
Quick as tongue could trip off the orders, eyes everywhere, thought and
act jumping together, Pierre Radisson had given each one his part, and
pledged our obedience, though he bade us walk the plank blindfold to
the sea. Two men were set to transferring powder and arms from the
forehold to our captain's cabin. One went hand over fist up the
mainmast and signalled the Ste. Anne to close up. Jackets were torn
from the deck-guns and the guns slued round to sweep from stem to
stern. With a jarring of cranes and shaking of timbers, the two ships
bumped together; and a more surprised looking lot of men than the crew
of the Ste. Anne you never saw. Pierre Radisson had played the rogues
their own game in the matter of signals. They had thought the St.
Pierre in league, else would they not have come into his trap so
readily. Before they had time to protest, the ships were together, the
two captains conferring face to face across the rails, and our sailors
standing at arms ready to shoot down the first rebel.
At a word, the St. Pierre's crew were scrambling to the Ste. Anne's
decks. A shout through the trumpet of the Ste. Anne's bo'swain and the
mutinous crew of the Ste. Anne were marched aboard the St. Pierre.
Then M. Radisson's plan became plain. The other ship was the better.
M. de Radisson was determined that at least one crew should reach the
bay. Besides, as he had half-laughingly insinuated, perhaps he knew
better than Chouart Groseillers of the Ste. Anne how to manage mutinous
pirates. Of the St. Pierre's crew, three only remained with Radisson:
Allemand, in the pilot-house; young Jean Groseillers, Chouart's son, on
guard aft; and myself, armed with a musket, to sweep the fo'castle.
And all the time there was such a rolling sea the two ships were like
to pound their bulwarks to kindling wood. Then the Ste. Anne eased
off, sheered away, and wore ship for open sea.
Pierre Radisson turned. There faced him that grim, mutinous crew.
No need to try orders then. 'Twas the cat those men wanted. Before
Pierre Radisson had said one word the mutineers had discovered the deck
cannon pointing amidships. A shout of baffled rage broke from the
ragged group. Quick words passed from man to man. A noisy, shuffling,
indeterminate movement! The crowd swayed forward. There was a sudden
rush from the fo'castle to the waist. They had charged to gain
possession of the powder cabin--Pierre Radisson raised his pistol. For
an instant they held back. Then a barefoot fellow struck at him with a
belaying-pin.
'Twere better for that man if he had called down the lightnings.
Quicker than I can tell it, Pierre Radisson had sprung upon him. The
Frenchman's left arm had coiled the fellow round the waist. Our
leader's pistol flashed a circle that drove the rabble back, and the
ringleader went hurling head foremost through the main hatch with force
like to flatten his skull to a gun-wad. There was a mighty scattering
back to the fo'castle then, I promise you.
Pierre Radisson uttered never a syllable. He pointed to the fore
scuttle. Then he pointed to the men. Down they went under
hatches--rats in a trap!
"Tramp--bundle--pack!" says he, as the last man bobbed below.
But with a ping that raised the hair from my head, came a pistol-shot
from the mainmasts. There, perched astride of the crosstrees, was a
rascal mutineer popping at M. Radisson bold as you please.
Our captain took off his beaver, felt the bullet-hole in the brim,
looked up coolly, and pointed his musket.
"Drop that pistol!" said he.
The fellow yelped out fear. Down clattered his weapon to the deck.
"Now sit there," ordered Radisson, replacing his beaver. "Sit there
till I give you leave to come down!"
Allemand, the pilot, had lost his head and was steering a course
crooked as a worm fence. Young Jean Groseillers went white as the
sails, and scarce had strength to slue the guns back or jacket their
muzzles. And, instead of curling forward with the crest of the roll,
the spray began to chop off backward in little short waves like a
horse's mane--a bad, bad sign, as any seaman will testify. And I, with
my musket at guard above the fo'scuttle, had a heart thumping harder
than the pounding seas.
And what do you think M. Radisson said as he wiped the sweat from his
brow?
"A pretty pickle,[1] indeed, to ground a man's plans on such dashed
impudence! Hazard o' life! As if a man would turn from his course for
them! Spiders o' hell! I'll strike my topmast to Death himself
first--so the devil go with them! The blind gods may crush--they shall
not conquer! They may kill--but I snap my fingers in their faces to
the death! A pretty pickle, indeed! Batten down the hatches, Ramsay.
Lend Jean a hand to get the guns under cover. There's a storm!"
And "a pretty pickle" it was, with the "porps" floundering bodily from
wave-crest to wave-crest, the winds shrieking through the cordage, and
the storm-fiends brewing a hurricane like to engulf master and crew!
In the forehold were rebels who would sink us all to the bottom of the
sea if they could. Aft, powder enough to blow us all to eternity! On
deck, one brave man, two chittering lads, and a gin-soaked pilot
steering a crazy course among the fanged reefs of Labrador.
The wind backed and veered and came again so that a weather-vane could
not have shown which way it blew. At one moment the ship was jumping
from wave to wave before the wind with a single tiny storms'l out. At
another I had thought we must scud under bare poles for open sea.
The coast sheered vertical like a rampart wall, and up--up--up that
dripping rock clutched the tossing billows like watery arms of sirens.
It needed no seaman to prophecy the fate of a boat caught between that
rock and a nor'easter.
Then the gale would veer, and out raced a tidal billow of waters like
to take the St. Pierre broadside.
"Helm hard alee!" shouts Radisson in the teeth of the gale.
For the fraction of a second we were driving before the oncoming rush.
Then the sea rose up in a wall on our rear.
There was a shattering crash. The billows broke in sheets of whipping
spray. The decks swam with a river of waters. One gun wrenched loose,
teetered to the roll, and pitched into the seething deep. Yard-arms
came splintering to the deck. There was a roaring of waters over us,
under us, round us--then M. de Radisson, Jean, and I went slithering
forward like water-rats caught in a whirlpool. My feet struck against
windlass chains. Jean saved himself from washing overboard by
cannoning into me; but before the dripping bowsprit rose again to mount
the swell, M. de Radisson was up, shaking off spray like a water-dog
and muttering to himself: "To be snuffed out like a candle--no--no--no,
my fine fellows! Leap to meet it! Leap to meet it!"
And he was at the wheel himself.
The ship gave a long shudder, staggered back, stern foremost, to the
trough of the swell, and lay weltering cataracts from her decks.
There was a pause of sudden quiet, the quiet of forces gathering
strength for fiercer assault; and in that pause I remembered something
had flung over me in the wash of the breaking sea. I looked to the
crosstrees. The mutineer was gone.
It was the first and last time that I have ever seen a smoking sea.
The ocean boiled white. Far out in the wake of the tide that had
caught us foam smoked on the track of the ploughing waters.
Waters--did I say? You could not see waters for the spray.
Then Jean bade me look how the stays'l had been torn to flutters, and
we both set about righting decks.
For all I could see, M. Radisson was simply holding the wheel; but the
holding of a wheel in stress is mighty fine seamanship. To keep that
old gallipot from shipping seas in the tempest of billows was a more
ticklish task than rope-walking a whirlpool or sacking a city.
Presently came two sounds--a swish of seas at our stern and the booming
of surf against coast rocks. Then M. de Radisson did the maddest thing
that ever I have seen. Both sounds told of the coming tempest. The
veering wind settled to a driving nor'easter, and M. de Radisson was
steering straight as a bullet to the mark for that rock wall.
But I did not know that coast. When our ship was but three lengths
from destruction the St. Pierre answered to the helm. Her prow rounded
a sharp rock. Then the wind caught her, whirling her right about; but
in she went, stern foremost, like a fish, between the narrow walls of a
fiord to the quiet shelter of a land-locked lagoon. Pierre Radisson
had taken refuge in what the sailors call "a hole in the wall."
There we lay close reefed, both anchors out, while the hurricane held
high carnival on the outer sea.
After we had put the St. Pierre ship-shape, M. Radisson stationed Jean
and me fore and aft with muskets levelled, and bade us shoot any man
but himself who appeared above the hatch. Arming himself with his
short, curved hanger--oh, I warrant there would have been a carving
below decks had any one resisted him that day!--down he went to the
mutineers of the dim-lighted forehold.
Perhaps the storm had quelled the spirit of rebellion; but up came M.
de Radisson, followed by the entire crew--one fellow's head in white
cotton where it had struck the floor, and every man jumping keen to
answer his captain's word.
I must not forget a curious thing that happened as we lay at anchor.
The storm had scarce abated when a strange ship poked her jib-boom
across the entrance to the lagoon, followed by queer-rigged black sails.
"A pirate!" said Jean.
But Sieur de Radisson only puckered his brows, shifted position so that
the St. Pierre could give a broadside, and said nothing.
Then came the strangest part of it. Another ship poked her nose across
the other side of the entrance. This was white-rigged.
"Two ships, and they have us cooped!" exclaimed Jean.
"One sporting different sails," said M. de Radisson contemptuously.
"What do you think we should do, sir?" asked Jean.
"Think?" demanded Radisson. "I have stopped thinking! I act! My
thoughts are acts."
But all the same his thought at that moment was to let go a broadside
that sent the stranger scudding. Judging it unwise to keep a
half-mutinous crew too near pirate ships, M. Radisson ordered anchor
up. With a deck-mop fastened in defiance to our prow, the St. Pierre
slipped out of the harbour through the half-dark of those northern
summer nights, and gave the heel to any highwayman waiting to attack as
she passed.
The rest of the voyage was a ploughing through brash ice in the
straits, with an occasional disembarking at the edge of some great
ice-field; but one morning we were all awakened from the heavy sleep of
hard-worked seamen by the screaming of a multitude of birds. The air
was odorous with the crisp smell of woods. When we came on deck, 'twas
to see the St. Pierre anchored in the cove of a river that raced to
meet the bay.
The screaming gulls knew not what to make of these strange visitors;
for we were at Port Nelson--Fort Bourbon, as the French called it.
And you must not forget that we were French on _that_ trip!
[1] These expressions are M. de Radisson's and not words coined by Mr.
Stanhope, as may be seen by reference to the French explorer's account
of his own travels, written partly in English, where he repeatedly
refers to a "pretty pickle." As for the ships, they seem to have been
something between a modern whaler and old-time brigantine.--_Author_.