0*' 
 
 >
 
 UCSB LIBRARY 
 
 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG
 
 
 , at Anchor in. ffluzf&ids BCL
 
 BY 
 
 MICHAEL SCOTT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 'THE CRUISE OF THE MIDGE' 
 
 "I am as a weed, 
 
 Flung from the rock on ocean's foam to sail, 
 Where'er the surge may sweep, the tempest's breath prevail. 
 
 CHILDE HAROLD. 
 
 A NEW EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBUKGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXI
 
 PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 THE few particulars which we know with regard to the Author 
 of Tom Cringle's Log may be compressed almost into a sentence. 
 The name of the writer of that series of papers (which first ap- 
 peared in Blackwood's Magazine) was Michael Scott. He was 
 born in Glasgow, on the 30th October 1789, and attended the 
 High School and University there. In October 1806 he sailed 
 for Jamaica, where he remained in the management of various 
 estates till 1810, when he joined a mercantile house in Kings- 
 ton, Jamaica. It was in the course of his employment in this 
 establishment, and of the numerous visits which he had occasion 
 to pay to the neighbouring islands and to the Spanish Main, 
 that he acquired that familiarity with the character of West 
 Indian society, with the wild and adventurous nature of a 
 nautical life, and with the scenes and aspects of a tropical 
 climate, which afterwards imparted so much of truth and 
 vivacity to his sketches. Arriving in this country in 1817, he 
 married in 1818 ; but again returned to Jamaica, and did not 
 finally settle in Scotland till 1822. In 1829 he addressed to 
 the late Mr Blackwood some fragments, under the pseudonym 
 of Tom Cringle, in which brief and slenderly connected as 
 they were that publisher at once discerned the traces of ori- 
 ginal talent, and of great powers of description. He urged him 
 to proceed, and to weave his materials into a connected form,
 
 VI PREFATORY NOTICE. 
 
 uniting them by some common link, -which, without subjecting 
 the writer to the strict rules of narrative composition, would 
 keep up a personal and continuous interest in the movement 
 of the story. The anticipations of Mr Blackwood as to the 
 popularity of these remarkable sketches were completely ful- 
 filled. Their truth of local painting, placing the reader at once 
 amidst the wonders and the terrors of a torrid clime their 
 strong contrasts, and ever-shifting rapidity of narration the 
 broad and often extravagant flood of humour which was shed 
 over all these particulars of the reckless life of the sea and the 
 plantations, instantly attracted public attention and favour. No 
 series of papers which has appeared in BlacltwoocCs Magazine 
 ever enjoyed more general or continued popularity : they were 
 characterised by the Quarterly Review* as the most brilliant 
 series of magazine papers of the time ; and by Coleridge, in his 
 Table Talk, as "most excellent" When reprinted in two 
 volumes, an unusually large edition was almost immediately 
 disposed of; on the Continent they have been generally read 
 and admired; and in Germany more than once translated. 
 
 During the publication of these sketches, Mr Scott preserved 
 his incognito even towards his publisher. Mr Blackwood died 
 without knowing, except by report from other sources, the real 
 name of their author. Mr Scott himself died at Glasgow, on 
 the 7th November 1835. 
 
 No. C., p. 377.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PACK 
 
 I. THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG, .... 1 
 
 II. THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH, .... 34 
 
 III. THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH, .... 70 
 
 IV. SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME, .... 93 
 V. THE PICCAROON, .... . 103 
 
 VI. THE CRUISE OF THE SPARK, . .115 
 
 VII. SCENES IN JAMAICA, ...... 124 
 
 VIII. THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER, . . . .146 
 
 IX. CUBA FISHERMEN, . . . . . .164 
 
 X. VOMITO PRIETO, .... .197 
 
 XI. MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA, . .218 
 
 XII. THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND, . . 259 
 
 xiii. THE PIRATE'S LEMAN, . . . . . .285 
 
 XIV. SCENES IN CUBA, . .... . . .316 
 
 XV. THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE THE ACTION 
 
 WITH THE SLAVER, . . ... . .346 
 
 XVI. THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE, . . .376 
 
 XVII. THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE, . . .435 
 
 XVIII. TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS, 474 
 
 XIX. THE LAST OF THE LOG ; TOM CRINGLE'S FARE- 
 WELL, 504
 
 LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 
 
 THE TORCH AT ANCHOR IN BLUEFIELDS BAY, Frontispiece. 
 
 A PULL FOR LIFE, 13 
 
 RECAPTURE OF THE WEST INDIAMAN, 45 
 
 WRECK OF THE TORCH, 91 
 
 THE MIDSHIPMAN'S FUNERAL, 122 
 
 NEGRO WAKE, . . ' 142 
 
 A FRIEND IN NEED, 174 
 
 NEGRO CARNIVAL, 241 
 
 TAILTACKLE SKYLARKING, 272 
 
 THE GUARD SURPRISED, 299 
 
 THE VOLANTE, 303 
 
 THE LEAP, .336 
 
 FISHING ON THE GREAT BAHAMA BANK, 356 
 
 SINKING OF THE SLAVER, 374 
 
 THE VISIT TO THE BARON, . . ... . . 420 
 
 " SEE HOW THE MOONLIGHT SLEEPS," . . . . .449 
 
 EFFECT OF THE ENGLISHMAN'S SMALL-BEER, .... 472 
 
 MAKING A CHOICE, , . . 483 
 
 STOPPING A RUNAWAY, 499
 
 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 THE LAUNCHING OP THE LOG. 
 
 " While rapidly the marksman's shot prevailed, 
 And aye as if for death some lonely trumpet wailed." 
 
 Gertrude of Wyoming. 
 
 DAZZLED by the glories of Trafalgar, I, Thomas Cringle, one 
 fine morning in the merry month of May, in the year one thou- 
 sand eight hundred and so and so, magnanimously determined 
 in my own mind that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and 
 Ireland should no longer languish under the want of a successor 
 to the immortal Nelson, and being then of the great perpendicu- 
 lar altitude of four feet four inches, and of the mature age of 
 thirteen years, I thereupon betook myself to the praiseworthy 
 task of tormenting, to the full extent of my small ability, every 
 man and woman who had the misfortune of being in any way 
 connected with me, until they had agreed to exert all their in- 
 terest, direct or indirect, and concentrate the same in one focus 
 upon the head and heart of Sir Barnaby Blueblazes, vice-admiral 
 of the red squadron, a Lord of the Admiralty, and one of the 
 old plain KB.'s (for he flourished before the time when a gallant 
 action or two tagged half of the letters of the alphabet to a 
 man's name, like the tail of a paper kite), in order that he might 
 be graciously pleased to have me placed on the quarterdeck of 
 one of his Majesty's ships of war without delay. 
 
 The stone I had set thus recklessly a-rolling had not been in 
 motion above a fortnight, when it fell with unanticipated violence, 
 and crushed the heart of my poor mother, while it terribly bruised 
 that of me, Thomas ; for as I sat at breakfast with the dear old 
 
 A
 
 2 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 woman one fine Sunday morning, admiring my new blue jacket 
 and snow-white trousers, and shining well-soaped face, and nicely 
 brushed hair, in the pier glass over the chimney-piece, I therein 
 saw the door behind me open, and Nicodemus, the waiting-man, 
 enter, and deliver a letter to the old lady, with a formidable- 
 looking seal 
 
 I perceived that she first ogled the superscription, and then 
 the seal, very ominously, and twice made as if she would have 
 broken the missive open, but her heart seemed as often to fail 
 her. At length she laid it down heaved a long deep sigh 
 took off her spectacles, which appeared dim, dim wiped them, 
 put them on again, and, making a sudden effort, tore open the 
 letter, read it hastily over, but not so rapidly as to prevent her 
 hot tears falling with a small tiny tap tap on the crackling paper. 
 
 Presently she pinched my arm, pushed the blistered manuscript 
 under my nose, and, utterly unable to speak to me, rose, covered 
 her face with her hands, and left the room weeping bitterly. I 
 could hear her praying in a low, solemn, yet sobbing and almost 
 inarticulate voice, as she crossed the passage to her own dressing- 
 room. " Even as thou wilt, O Lord not mine, but thy holy 
 will be done ; yet, oh ! it is a bitter bitter thing for a widowed 
 mother to part with her only boy." 
 
 Now came my turn, as I read the following epistle three times 
 over, with a most fierce countenance, before thoroughly under- 
 standing whether I was dreaming or awake in truth, poor 
 little fellow as I was, I was fairly stunned. 
 
 " ADMIRALTY, such a date. 
 
 " DEAR MADAM, It gives me very great pleasure to say that 
 your son is appointed to the Breeze frigate, now fitting at Ports- 
 mouth for foreign service. Captain Wigemwell is a most excel- 
 lent officer, and a good man, and the schoolmaster on board is 
 an exceedingly decent person, I am informed ; so I congratulate 
 you on his good fortune in beginning his career, in which I wish 
 him all success, under such favourable auspices. As the boy is, 
 I presume, all ready, you had better send him down on Thursday 
 next, at latest, as the frigate will go to sea, wind and weather 
 permitting, positively on Sunday morning. 
 
 " I remain, my dear Madam, 
 " Yours very faithfully, 
 
 " BARNABY BLTJEBLAZES, KB." 
 
 However much I had been moved by my mother's grief, my 
 false pride came to my assistance, and my first impulse was to
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 3 
 
 chant a verse of some old tune, in a most doleful manner. "All 
 right all right," I then exclaimed, as I thrust half a doubled- 
 up muffin into my gob ; but it was all chew chew, and no swal- 
 lownot a morsel could I force down my parched throat, which 
 tightened like to throttle me. 
 
 Old Nicodemus had by this time again entered the room, un- 
 seen and unheard, and startled me confoundedly, as he screwed 
 his words in his sharp cracked voice into my larboard ear. 
 " Jane tells me your mamma is in a sad taking, Master Tom. 
 You ben't going to leave us, all on a heap like, be you 1 Surely 
 you'll stay until your sister comes from your uncle Job's ? You 
 know there are only two on ye You won't leave the old lady 
 all alone, Master Thomas, will ye 1 " The worthy old fellow's 
 voice quavered here, and the tears hopped over his old cheeks 
 through the flour and tallow like peas, as he slowly drew a line 
 down the forehead of his well-powdered pate with his forefinger. 
 
 " No no why, yes," exclaimed I, fairly overcome ; " that 
 is oh Me, Nic, you old fool, I wish I could cry, man I wish 
 I could cry ! " and straightway I hied me to my chamber, and 
 wept until I thought my very heart would have burst. 
 
 In my innocence and ignorance, child as I was, I had looked 
 forward to several months' preparation; to buying and fitting 
 of uniforms, and dirks, and cocked hat, and swaggering therein, 
 to my own great glory, and the envy of all my young relations ; 
 and especially I desired to parade my fire-new honours before 
 the large dark eyes of my darling little creole cousin, Mary 
 Palma; whereas I was now to be bundled on board at a few 
 days' warning, out of a ready-made furnishing shop, with lots 
 of ill-made, glossy, hard-mangled duck trousers, the creases as 
 sharp as the backs of knives, and " Oh, it never rains but it 
 pours," exclaimed I ; "surely all this promptitude is a little de 
 plus in Sir Barnaby." 
 
 However, away I was trundled at the time appointed, with 
 an aching heart, to Portsmouth, after having endured the misery 
 of a first parting from a fond mother and a host of kind friends ; 
 but, miserable as I was, according to my preconceived determina- 
 tion, I began my journal the very day I arrived, that nothing 
 connected with so great a man should be lost, and most weighty 
 did the matters therein related appear to me at the time ; but, 
 seen through the long vista of, I won't say how many years, I 
 really must confess that the Log, for long long after I first went 
 to sea in the Breeze, and subsequently when removed to the old 
 Kraaken line-of -battle ship, both of which were constantly part
 
 4 TOM CKINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of blockading squadrons, could be compared to nothing more 
 fitly than a dish of trifle, anciently called syllabub, with a stray 
 plum here and there scattered at the bottom. But when, after 
 several weary years, I got away in the dear old Torch, on a 
 separate cruise, incidents came fast enough with a vengeance 
 stern, unyielding, iron events, as I found to my heavy cost, 
 which spoke out trumpet-tongued and fiercely for themselves, 
 and whose tremendous simplicity required no adventitious aid 
 in the narration to thrill through the hearts of others. So, to 
 avoid yarn-spinning, I shall evaporate my early Logs, and blow 
 off as much of the froth as I can, in order to present the residuum 
 free of flummery to the reader -just to give him a taste here and 
 there, as it were, of the sort of animal I was at that time. Thus : 
 
 Thomas Cringle, his Log-book. 
 
 Arrived in Portsmouth, by the Defiance, at ten A.M., on such 
 a day. Waited on the Commissioner, to whom I had letters, 
 and said I was appointed to the Breeze. Same day, went on 
 board and took up my berth ; stifling hot ; mouldy biscuit ; and 
 so on. My mother's list makes it fifteen shirts, whereas I only 
 have twelve. 
 
 Admiral made the signal to weigh, wind at S.W., fresh and 
 squally. Stockings should be one dozen worsted, three of cotton, 
 two of silk ; find only half a dozen worsted, two of cotton, and 
 one of silk. Fired a gun and weighed. 
 
 Sailed for the fleet off Vigo, deucedly sea-sick ; was told that 
 fat pork was the best specific, if bolted half raw ; did not find it 
 much of a tonic ; passed a terrible night, and for four hours of 
 it obliged to keep watch, more dead than ali ve. The very second 
 evening we were at sea, it came on to blow, and the night fell 
 very dark, with heavy rain. Towards eight bells in the middle 
 watch, I was standing on a gun, well forward on the starboard 
 side, listening to the groaning of the maintack, as the swelling 
 sail, the foot of which stretched transversely right athwart the 
 ship's deck in a black arch, struggled to tear it up, like some 
 dark impalpable spirit of the air striving to burst the chains 
 that held him and escape high up into the murky clouds, or a 
 giant labouring to uproot an oak, and wondering in my inno- 
 cence how hempen cord could brook such strain when just as 
 the long-waited-for strokes of the bell sounded gladly in mine 
 ear, and the shrill clear note of the whistle of the boatswain's 
 mate had been followed by his gruff voice, grumbling hoarsely 
 through the gale, " Larboard watch, ahoy ! " the look-out at the 
 weather gangway, who had been relieved, and beside whom I had
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 5 
 
 been standing a moment before, stepped past me, and scrambled 
 up on the booms. " Hillo, Howard, where away, my man ? " 
 said I. 
 
 " Only to fetch my " 
 
 Crack! the maintack parted, and up flew the sail with a 
 thundering flap, loud as the report of a cannon-shot, through 
 which, however, I could distinctly hear a heavy smash, as the 
 large and ponderous blocks at the clew of the sail struck the 
 doomed sailor under the ear, and whirled him off the booms into 
 the sea, where he perished, as heaving-to was impossible, and 
 useless if practicable, as his head must have been smashed to 
 atoms. 
 
 This is one of the stray plums of the trifle ; what follows is a 
 whisk of the froth, written when we looked into Corunna, about 
 a week after the embarkation of the army : 
 
 MONODY ON THE DEATH OP SIR JOHN MOORE. 
 
 FAREWELL, thou pillar of the war, 
 Warm-hearted soldier, Moore, farewell, . 
 
 In honour's firmament a star, 
 As bright as e'er in glory fell 
 
 Deceived by weak or wicked men, 
 
 How gallantly thou stoodst at bay, 
 Like lion hunted to his den, 
 
 Let France tell, on that bloody day. 
 
 No boastful splendour round thy bier, 
 
 No blazoned trophies o'er thy grave ; 
 But thou hadst more, the soldier's tear, 
 
 The heart-warm offering of the brave. 
 
 On Lusitania's rock-girt coast, 
 
 All eoffinless thy relics lie, 
 Where all but honour bright was lost, 
 
 Yet thy example shall not die. 
 
 Albeit no funeral knell was rung, 
 
 Nor o'er thy tomb in mournful wreath 
 The laurel twined with cypress hung, 
 
 Still shall it live while Britons breathe. 
 
 What though, when thou wert lowly laid, 
 
 Instead of all the pomp of woe, 
 The volley o'er thy bloody bed 
 
 Was thundered by an envious foe? 
 
 Inspired by it in after time, 
 
 A race of heroes will appear, 
 The glory of Britannia's clime, 
 
 To emulate thy bright career. 
 
 And there will be, of martial fire, 
 
 Those who all danger will endure ; 
 Their first, best aim, but to aspire 
 
 To die thy death the death of Moore. 
 
 To return. On the evening of the second day, we were off 
 Falmouth, and then got a slant of wind that enabled us to lie 
 our course.
 
 6 TOM CRINGLE S LOG. 
 
 Next morning, at daybreak, saw a frigate in the north-east 
 quarter, making signals ; soon after we bore up. Bay of Bis- 
 cay tremendous swell Cape Finisterre blockading squadron 
 off Cadiz in-shore squadron and so on, all trifle and no plums. 
 
 At length the Kraaken, in which I had now served for some 
 time, was ordered home ; and, sick of knocking about in a fleet, 
 I got appointed to a fine eighteen-gun sloop, the Torch, in which 
 we sailed, on such a day, for the North Sea wind foul weather 
 thick and squally ; but towards evening on the third day, being 
 then off Harwich, it moderated, when we made more sail, and 
 stood on, and next morning, in the cold, miserable, drenching 
 haze of an October daybreak, we passed through a fleet of fish- 
 ing-boats at anchor. "At anchor," thought I, "and in the 
 middle of the sea," but so it was all with their tiny cabooses, 
 smoking cheerily, and a solitary figure, as broad as it was long, 
 stiffly walking to and fro on the confined decks of the little ves- 
 sels. It was now that I knew the value of the saying, " A fisher- 
 man's walk, two steps and overboard." With regard to these 
 same fishermen, I cannot convey a better notion of them, than 
 by describing one of the two North Sea pilots whom we had 
 on board. This pilot was a tall, raw-boned subject, about six 
 feet or so, with a blue face I could not call it red and a hawk's- 
 bill nose of the colour of bronze. His head was defended from 
 the weather by what is technically called a south-west pro- 
 nounced sow-west cap, which is in shape like the thatch of a 
 dustman, composed of canvass, well tarred, with no snout, but 
 having a long flap hanging down the back to carry the rain over 
 the cape of the jacket. His chin was imbedded in a red com- 
 forter that rose to his ears. His trunk was first of all cased in 
 a shirt of worsted stocking-net ; over this he had a coarse linen 
 shirt, then a thick cloth waistcoat ; a shag jacket was the next 
 layer, and over that was rigged the large cumbrous pea-jacket, 
 reaching to his knees. As for his lower spars, the rig was still 
 more peculiar ; first of ah 1 , he had on a pair of most comfortable 
 woollen stockings, what we call fleecy hosiery and the beauties 
 are peculiarly nice in this respect then a pair of strong fear- 
 naught trowsers ; over these again are drawn up another pair of 
 stockings, thick, coarse, rig-and-furrow as we call them in Scot- 
 land, and above all this were drawn a pair of long, well-greased, 
 and liquored boots, reaching half-way up the thigh, and altogether 
 impervious to wet. However comfortable this costume may be 
 in bad weather w-board, it is clear enough that any culprit so 
 swathed would stand a poor chance of being saved were he to
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 7 
 
 fall overboard. The wind now veered round and round, and 
 baffled, and checked us off, so that it was the sixth night after 
 we had taken our departure from Harwich before we saw Heli- 
 goland light. We then bore away for Cuxhaven, and I now 
 knew for the first time that we had a government emissary of 
 some kind or another on board, although he had hitherto confined 
 himself strictly to the captain's cabin. 
 
 All at once it came on to blow from the north-east, and we 
 were again driven back among the English fishing-boats. The 
 weather was thick as buttermilk, so we had to keep the bell 
 constantly ringing, as we could not see the jib-boom end from 
 the forecastle. Every now and then we heard a small, hard, 
 clanking tinkle, from the fishing-boats, as if an old pot had been 
 struck instead of a bell, and a faint hollo, " Fishing-smack," as 
 we shot past them in the fog, while we could scarcely see the 
 vessels at all. The morning after this particular time to which 
 I allude, was darker than any which had gone before it ; abso- 
 lutely you could not see the breadth of the ship from you ; and 
 as we had not taken the sun for five days, we had to grope our 
 way almost entirely by the lead. I had the forenoon watch, 
 during the whole of which we were amongst a little fleet of fish- 
 ing-boats, although we could scarcely see them ; but being un- 
 willing to lose ground by lying to, we fired a gun every half hour, 
 to give the small craft notice of our vicinity, that they might 
 keep their bells agoing. Every three or four minutes the marine 
 drum-boy, or some amateur performer for most sailors would 
 give a glass of grog any day to be allowed to beat a drum for 
 five minutes on end beat a short roll, and often as we drove 
 along, under a reefed foresail, and close-reefed topsails, we could 
 hear the answering tinkle before we saw the craft from which 
 it proceeded ; and when we did perceive her as we flew across 
 her stern, we could only see it, and her mast, and one or two 
 well-swathed, hardy fishermen, the whole of the little vessel for- 
 ward being hid in a cloud. 
 
 I had been invited this day to dine with the captain, Mr 
 Splinter, the first lieutenant, being also of the party ; the cloth 
 had been withdrawn, and we had all had a glass or two of wine 
 a-piece, when the fog settled down so thickly, although it was not 
 more than five o'clock in the afternoon, that the captain desired 
 that the lamp might be lit. It was done, and I was remarking the 
 contrast between the dull, dusky, brown light, or rather the pal- 
 pable London fog, that came through the skylight, and the bright 
 yellow sparkle of the lamp, when the master came down the ladder.
 
 8 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " We have shoaled our water to five fathoms, sir shells and 
 stones. Here, Wilson, bring in the lead." 
 
 The leadsman, in his pea-jacket and shag trowsers, with the 
 rain-drop hanging to his nose, and a large knot in his cheek from 
 a junk of tobacco therein stowed, with pale, wet visage, and 
 whiskers sparkling with moisture, while his long black hair hung 
 damp and lank over his fine forehead and the stand-up cape of 
 his coat, immediately presented himself at the door, with the 
 lead in his claws, an octagonal-shaped cone, like the weight of a 
 window-sash, about eighteen inches long, and two inches diameter 
 at the bottom, tapering away nearly to a point at top, where it 
 was flattened, and a hole pierced for the line to be fastened to. 
 At the lower end the butt-end, as I would say there was a 
 hollow scooped out, and filled with grease, so that when the lead 
 was cast, the quality of the soil, sand, shells, or mud, that came 
 up adhering to this lard, indicated, along with the depth of water, 
 our situation in the North Sea ; and by this, indeed, we guided 
 our course, in the absence of all opportunity of ascertaining our 
 position by observations of the sun. 
 
 The captain consulted the chart " Sand and shells ; why, you 
 should have deeper water, master. Any of the fishing-boats 
 near you 1 " 
 
 " Not at present, sir; but we cannot be far off some of them." 
 
 " Well, let me know when you come near any of them." 
 
 A little after this, as became my situation, I rose and made my 
 bow, and went on deck. By this time the night had fallen, and 
 it was thicker than ever, so that, standing beside the man at the 
 wheel, you could not see farther forward than the booms : yet it 
 was not dark either that is, it was moonlight, so that the haze, 
 thick as it was, had that silver gauze-like appearance, as if it had 
 been luminous in itself, that cannot be described to any who has 
 not seen it. The gun had been fired just as I came on deck, but 
 no responding tinkle gave notice of any vessel being in the neigh- 
 bourhood. Ten minutes, it may have been a quarter of an hour, 
 when a short roll of the drum was beaten from the forecastle, 
 where I was standing. At the moment I thought I heard a holla, 
 but I could not be sure. Presently I saw a small light, with a 
 misty halo surrounding it, just under the bowsprit. 
 
 " Port your helm," sang out the boatswain, " hard-a-port, or 
 we shall be over a fishing-boat ! " 
 
 A cry arose from beneath a black object was for an instant 
 distinguishable and the next moment a crash was heard. The 
 spritsail-yard rattled, and broke off sharp at the point where it
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 9 
 
 crossed the bowsprit ; and a heavy smashing thump against our 
 bows told, in fearful language, that we had run her down. Three 
 of the men and a boy .hung on by the rigging of the bowsprit, 
 and were brought safely on board ; but two poor fellows per- 
 ished with their boat. It appeared that they had broken their 
 bell; and although they saw us coming, they had no better 
 means than shouting, and showing a light, to advertise us of 
 their vicinity. 
 
 Next morning the wind once more chopped round, and the 
 weather cleared, and in four -and -twenty hours thereafter we 
 were off the mouth of the Elbe, with three miles of white foam- 
 ing shoals between us and the land at Cuxhaven, roaring and 
 hissing, as if ready to swallow us up. It was low water, and, 
 as our object was to land the emissary at Cuxhaven, we had to 
 wait, having no pilot for the port, although we had the signal 
 flying for one all morning, until noon, when we ran in close to 
 the green mound which constituted the rampart of the fort at the 
 entrance. To our great surprise, when we hoisted our colours and 
 pennant, and fired a gun to leeward, there was no flag hoisted 
 in answer at the flag-staff, nor was there any indication of a 
 single living soul on shore to welcome us. Mr Splinter and the 
 captain were standing together at the gangway " Why, sir," 
 said the former, " this silence somewhat surprises me : what say 
 you, Cheragoux?" to the government emissary or messenger 
 already mentioned, who was peering through the glass close by. 
 
 " Why, mi lieutenant, I don't certain dat all ish right on sore 
 dere." 
 
 "No? " said Captain Deadeye; "why, what do you see? " 
 
 " It ish not so mosh vat I shee, as vat I no shee, sir, dat trem- 
 bles me. It cannot surely be possib dat de Prussian and Han- 
 overian troop have left de place, and dat dese dem Franceman 
 ave advance so far as de Elbe autrefois, dat ish, once more ? " 
 
 " French ! " said Deadeye : " poo, nonsense ; no French here- 
 abouts ; none nearer than those cooped up in Hamburgh with 
 Davoust, take my word for it." 
 
 " I sail take your vord for anyting else in de large vorld, mi 
 capitain ; but I see someting glance behind dat rampart, parapet 
 you call, dat look dem like de shako of de infanterie legere of dat 
 willain de Emperor Napoleon. Ah ! I see de red worsted epaulet 
 of de grenadier also; sacre! vat is dat pof of vite smoke? " 
 
 What it was we soon ascertained to our heavy cost, for the 
 shot that had been fired at us from a long 32-pound gun, took 
 effect right abaft the foremast, killing three men outright, and
 
 10 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 wounding two. Several other shots followed, but with less sure 
 aim. Returning the fire was of no use, as our carronades could 
 not have pitched their metal much more than half way ; or, even 
 if they had been long guns, they would merely have plumped 
 the balls into the turf rampart, without hurting any one. So 
 we wisely hauled off, and ran up the river with the young flood 
 for about an hour, until we anchored close to the Hanove- 
 rian bank, near a gap in the dike, where we waited till the 
 evening. 
 
 As soon as the night fell, a boat with muffled oars was manned, 
 to carry the messenger on shore. I was in it ; Mr Treenail, the 
 second lieutenant, steering. We pulled in right for a breach in 
 the dike, lately cut by the French, in order to inundate the 
 neighbourhood; and as the Elbe at high water is hereabouts 
 much higher than the surrounding country, we were soon sucked 
 into the current, and had only to keep our oars in the water, 
 pulling a stroke now and then to give the boat steerage way. 
 As we shot through the gap into the smooth water beyond, we 
 once more gave way, the boat's head being kept in the direction 
 of lights that we saw twinkling in the distance, apparently in 
 some village beyond the inner embankment, when all at once 
 we dashed in amongst thousands of wild geese, which rose with 
 a clang, and a concert of quacking, screaming, and hissing, that 
 was startling enough. We skimmed steadily on in the same 
 direction " Oars, men ! " We were by this time close to a small 
 cluster of houses, perched on the forced ground or embankment, 
 and the messenger hailed in German. 
 
 " Qui vive ? " sang out a gruff voice ; and we heard the clank 
 of a musket, as if some one had cast it from his shoulder, and 
 caught it in his hands, as he brought it down to the charge. Our 
 passenger seemed a little taken aback ; but he hailed again, still 
 in German. "Parole" replied the man. A pause. "The watch- 
 word, or I fire." We had none to give. 
 
 " Pull round, men," said the lieutenant, with great quickness ; 
 " pull the starboard oars ; we are in the wrong box ; back water 
 the larboard. That's it ! give way, men." 
 
 A flash crack went the sentry's piece, and ping sang the ball 
 over our heads. Another pause. Then a volley from a whole 
 platoon. Again all was dark and silent. Presently a field-piece 
 was fired, and several rockets were let off in our direction, by 
 whose light we could see a whole company of French soldiers 
 standing to their arms, with several cannon, but we were speed- 
 ily out of the reach of their musketry. Several round shots
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 11 
 
 were now fired, that hissed, ricochetting along the water close 
 by us. Not a word was spoken in the boat all this time ; we 
 continued to pull for the opening in the dike, although, the cur- 
 rent being strong against us, we made but little way ; while the 
 chance of being cut off by the Johnny Grapeaus getting round 
 the top of the embankment, so as to command the gap before 
 we could reach it, became every moment more alarming. 
 
 The messenger was in great tribulation, and made several 
 barefaced attempts to stow himself away under the stern sheets. 
 
 The gallant fellows who composed the crew strained at their 
 oars until everything cracked again ; but as the flood made, the 
 current against us increased, and we barely held our own. 
 " Steer her out of the current, man," said the lieutenant to the 
 coxswain ; the man put the tiller to port as he was ordered. 
 
 " Vat you do soch a ting for, Mr Capitain Lieutenant ? " said 
 the emissary. " Oh ! you not pershave you are rone in onder 
 de igh bank ! How you sail satisfy me no France infanterie legere 
 dere, too> more as in de fort, eh 1 How you sail satisfy me, 
 Mister Capitain Lieutenant, eh ? " 
 
 " Hold your blasted tongue, will you," said Treenail, " and 
 the infantry legere be damned simply. Mind your eye, my fine 
 fellow, or I shall be much inclined to see whether you will be 
 legere in the Elbe, or no. Hark ! " 
 
 We all pricked up our ears, and strained our eyes, while a 
 bright, spitting, sparkling fire of musketry opened at the gap, 
 but there was no ping pinging of the shot overhead. 
 
 " They cannot be firing at us, sir," said the coxswain ; " none 
 of them bullets are telling hereaway." 
 
 Presently a smart fire was returned in three distinct clusters 
 from the water, and whereas the firing at first had only lit up 
 the dark figures of the French soldiery, and the black outline of 
 the bank on which they were posted, the flashes that answered 
 them showed us three armed boats attempting to force the pas- 
 sage. In a minute the firing ceased ; the measured splash of 
 oars was heard, as boats approached us. 
 
 " Who goes there 1 " sung out the lieutenant. 
 
 " Torches," was the answer. 
 
 " All 's well, Torches," rejoined Mr Treenail ; and presently 
 the jolly-boat, and launch, and cutter of the Torch, with twenty 
 marines, and six-and-thirty seamen, all armed, were alongside. 
 
 " What cheer, Treenail, my boy 1 " quoth Mr Splinter. 
 
 " Why, not much ; the French, who we were told had left the 
 Elbe entirely, are still here, as well as at Cuxhaven, not in force
 
 ]2 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 certainly, but sufficiently strong to pepper us very decently in 
 the outgoing." 
 
 " What, are any of the people hurt 1 " 
 
 "No," said the garrulous emissary. "No, not hurt, but 
 some of us frightened leetle piece ah, very mosh, je vous assure" 
 
 " Speak for yourself, Master Plenippo," said Treenail. " But 
 Splinter, my man, now since the enemy have occupied the dike 
 in front, how the deuce shall we get back into the river 1 tell me 
 that." 
 
 " Why," said the senior lieutenant, " we must go as we came." 
 
 And here the groans from two poor fellows who had been hit 
 were heard from the bottom of the launch. The cutter was by 
 this time close to us, on the larboard side, commanded by Mr 
 Julius Caesar Tip, the senior- midshipman, vulgarly called in the 
 ship Bathos, from his rather unromantic name. Here also a low 
 moaning evinced the precision of the Frenchmen's fire. 
 
 " Lord, Mr Treenail, a sharp brush that was." 
 
 " Hush ! " quoth Treenail. At this moment three rockets 
 hissed up from the dark sky, and for an instant the hull and 
 rigging of the sloop of war at anchor in the river glanced in the 
 blue-white glare, and vanished again, like a spectre, leaving us 
 in more thick darkness than before. 
 
 " Gemini ! what is that, now 1 " quoth Tip again, as we dis- 
 tinctly heard the commixed rumbling and rattling sound of 
 artillery, scampering along the dike. 
 
 " The ship has sent up these rockets to warn us of our danger," 
 said Treenail " What is to be done 1 Ah, Splinter, we are in a 
 scrape there they have brought up field-pieces, don't you hear? " 
 
 Splinter had heard it as well as his junior officer. " True 
 enough, Treenail; so the sooner we make a dash through the 
 opening the better." 
 
 " Agreed." 
 
 By some impulse peculiar to British sailors, the men were just 
 about cheering, when their commanding officer's voice controlled 
 them. " Hark, my brave fellows, silence, as you value your lives." 
 
 So away we pulled, the tide being now nearly on the turn, and 
 presently we were so near the opening that we could see the sig- 
 nal-lights in the rigging of the sloop of war. All was quiet on 
 the dike. 
 
 " Thank God, they have retreated, after all," said Mr Treenail 
 
 " Whoo o, whoo o," shouted a gruff voice from the shore. 
 
 " There they are still," said Splinter. " Marines, stand by ; 
 don't throw away a shot. Men, pull like fury. So give way,
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 13 
 
 my lads ; a minute of that strain will shoot us alongside of the 
 old brig that's it hurrah ! " 
 
 " Hurrah ! " shouted the men in answer ; but his and their ex- 
 clamations were cut short by a volley of musketry. The fierce 
 mustaches, pale faces, glazed shakoes, blue uniforms, and red 
 epaulets, of the French infantry, glanced for a moment, and then 
 all was dark again. 
 
 " Fire ! " The marines in the three boats returned the salute, 
 and by the flashes we saw three pieces of field-artillery in the 
 very act of being unlimbered. We could distinctly hear the 
 clash of the mounted artillerymen's sabres against their horses' 
 flanks as they rode to the rear, their burnished accoutrements 
 glancing at every sparkle of the musketry. We pulled like fiends, 
 and, being the fastest boat, soon headed the launch and cutter, 
 who were returning the enemy's fire brilliantly, when crack a 
 six-pound shot drove our boat into staves, and all hands were the 
 next moment squattering in the water. I sank a good bit, I sup- 
 pose, for when I rose to the surface half drowned, and giddy and 
 confused, and striking out at random, the first thing I recollected 
 was a hard hand being wrung into my neckerchief, while a gruff 
 voice shouted in my ear 
 
 " Rendez vous, mon cher." 
 
 Resistance was useless. I was forcibly dragged up the bank, 
 where both musketry and cannon were still playing on the boats, 
 which had, however, by this time got a good offing. I soon knew 
 they were safe, by the Torch opening a fire of round and grape 
 on the head of the dike, a certain proof that the boats had been 
 accounted for. The French party now ceased firing, and retreated 
 by the edge of the inundation, keeping the dike between them and 
 the brig, all except the artillery, who had to scamper off, running 
 the gauntlet on the crest of the embankment, until they got beyond 
 the range of the carronades. I was conveyed between two grena- 
 diers along the water's edge so long as the ship was firing ; but 
 when that ceased, I was clapped on one of the Umbers of the field- 
 guns, and strapped down to it between two of the artillerymen. 
 
 We rattled along until we came up to the French bivouac, 
 where, round a large fire, kindled in what seemed to have been 
 a farmyard, were assembled about fifty or sixty French soldiers. 
 Their arms were piled under the low projecting roof of an out- 
 house, while the fire flickered upon their dark figures, and glanced 
 on their bright accoutrements, and lit up the wall of the house 
 that composed one side of the square. I was immediately marched 
 between a file of men into a small room, where the commanding
 
 14 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 officer of the detachment was seated at a table, a blazing wood 
 fire roaring in the chimney. He was a genteel, slender, dark man, 
 with very large black mustaches, and fine sparkling black eyes, 
 and had apparently just dismounted, for the mud was fresh on 
 his boots and trousers. The latter were blue, with a broad gold 
 lace down the seam, and fastened by a strap under his boot, from 
 which projected a long fixed spur, which to me was remarkable 
 as an unusual dress for a militaire, the British army being, at the 
 time I write of, still in the age of breeches and gaiters or tall 
 boots, long cues, and pipeclay that is, those troops which I had 
 seen at home, although I believe the great Duke had already 
 relaxed a number of these absurdities in Spain. 
 
 His single-breasted coat was buttoned up to his throat, and 
 without an inch of lace except on his crimson collar, which fitted 
 close round his neck, and was richly embroidered with gold acorns 
 and oak leaves, as were the crimson cuffs to his sleeves. He 
 wore two immense and very handsome gold epaulets. 
 
 " My good boy," said he, after the officer who had captured 
 me had told his story, " so your Government thinks the Em- 
 peror is retreating from the Elbe 1 " 
 
 I was a tolerable French scholar as times went, and answered 
 him as well as I could. 
 
 " I have said nothing about that, sir ; but from your question, 
 I presume you command the rear-guard, colonel 1 ?" 
 
 " How strong is your squadron on the river 1 ?" said he, parry- 
 ing the question. 
 
 " There is only one sloop of war, sir ;" and I spoke the truth. 
 
 He looked at me, and smiled incredulously; and then con- 
 tinued 
 
 " I don't command the rear-guard, sir. But I waste time 
 are the boats ready 1 " 
 
 He was answered in the affirmative. 
 
 " Then set fire to the houses, and let off the rockets ; they will 
 see them at Cuxhaven men, fall in march" and off we all 
 trundled towards the river again. 
 
 When we arrived there we found ten Blankenese boats, two 
 of them very large, and fitted with sliding platforms. The four 
 field-pieces were run on board, two into each ; one hundred and 
 fifty men embarked in them and the other craft, which I found 
 partly loaded with sacks of corn. I was in one of the smallest 
 boats with the colonel. When we were all ready to shove off, 
 " Lafont," said he, "are the men ready with their couteaux?" 
 
 " They are, sir," replied the sergeant.
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 15 
 
 " Then cut the horses' throats but no firing." A few bub- 
 bling groans, and some heavy falls, and a struggling splash or two 
 in the water, showed that the poor artillery horses had been 
 destroyed. 
 
 The wind was fair up the river, and away we bowled before 
 it. It was clear to me that the colonel commanding the post 
 had overrated our strength, and, under the belief that we had cut 
 him off from Cuxhaven, he had determined on falling back on 
 Hamburgh. 
 
 When the morning broke we were close to the beautiful bank 
 below Altona. The trees were beginning to assume the russet hue 
 of autumn, and the sun shone gaily on the pretty villas and bloom- 
 in Gartens on the hill-side, while here and there a Chinese pagoda, 
 or other fanciful pleasure-house, with its gilded trellised works, 
 and little bells depending from the eaves of its many roofs, 
 glancing like small golden balls, rose from out the fast thinning 
 recesses of the woods. But there was no life in the scene 
 'twas " Greece, but living Greece no more " not a fishing-boat 
 was near, scarcely a solitary figure crawled along the beach. 
 
 " What is that 1 " after we had passed Blankenese, said the 
 colonel, quickly. " Who are those?" as a group of three or four 
 men presented themselves at a sharp turning of the road, that 
 wound along the foot of the hill close to the shore. 
 
 " The uniform of the Prussians," said one. 
 
 " Of the Russians," said another. 
 
 " Poo," said a third, " it is a picket of the prince's ; " and so 
 it was, but the very fact of his having advanced his outposts so 
 far, showed how he trembled for his position. After answering 
 their hail, we pushed on, and as the clocks were striking twelve 
 we were abreast of the strong beams that were clamped together 
 with iron, and constituted the boom or chief water defence of 
 Hamburgh. We passed through, and found an entire regiment 
 under arms close by the Custom-house. Somehow or other I had 
 drunk deep of that John Bull prejudice which delights to dis- 
 parage the physical conformation of our Gallic neighbours, and 
 hugs itself with the absurd notion " that on one pair of English 
 legs doth march three Frenchmen." But when I saw the weather- 
 beaten soldier-like veterans who formed this compact battalion, 
 part of the elite of the first corps, more commanding in its aspect 
 from severe service having worn all the gilding and lace away 
 " there was not a piece of feather in the host " I felt the reality 
 before me fast overcoming my preconceived opinion. I had 
 seldom or ever seen so fine a body of men tall, square, and mus-
 
 16 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 cular, the spread of their shoulders set off by their large red 
 worsted epaulets, and the solidity of the mass increased by their 
 wide trousers, which in my mind contrasted advantageously with 
 the long gaiters and tight integuments of our own brave fellows. 
 
 We approached a group of three mounted officers, and in a few 
 words the officer whose prisoner I was explained the affair to the 
 chef de bataillon, whereupon I was immediately placed under 
 the care of a sergeant and six rank and file, and marched along 
 the chief canal for a mile, where I could not help remarking the 
 numberless large rafts you could not call them boats of un- 
 painted pine timber, which had arrived from the upper Elbe, 
 loaded with grain ; with gardens, absolute gardens, and cowhouses, 
 and piggeries on board ; while their crews of Fierlanders, men, 
 women, and children, cut a most extraordinary appearance, the 
 men in their jackets, with buttons like pot-lids, and trousers fit 
 to carry a month's provender and a couple of children in ; and 
 the women with bearings about the quarters as if they had cut 
 holes in large cheeses, three feet in diameter at least, and stuck 
 themselves through them such sterns and as to their costumes, 
 all very fine in a Flemish painting, but the devils appeared to be 
 awfully nasty in real life. 
 
 We carried on until we came to a large open space fronting a 
 beautiful piece of water, which I was told was the Alster. As I 
 walked through the narrow streets, I was struck with the pecu- 
 liarity of the gables of the tall houses being all turned towards 
 the thoroughfare, and with the stupendous size of the churches. 
 We halted for a moment in the porch of one of the latter, and 
 my notions of decency were not a little outraged, by seeing it 
 filled with a squadron of dragoons, the men being in the very 
 act of cleaning their horses. At length we came to the open 
 space on the Alster, a large parade, faced by a street of splendid 
 houses on the left hand, with a row of trees between them, and 
 the water on the right. There were two regiments of foot 
 bivouacking here, with their arms piled under the trees, while the 
 men were variously employed, some on duty before the houses, 
 others cleaning their accoutrements, and others again playing at 
 all kinds of games. Presently we came to a crowd of soldiers 
 clustered round a particular spot, some laughing, others cracking 
 coarse jests, but none at all in the least serious. We could not 
 get near enough to see distinctly what was going on ; but we 
 afterwards saw, when the crowd had dispersed, three men in the 
 dress of respectable burghers, hanging from a low gibbet, so 
 low in fact, that although their heads were not six inches from
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 17 
 
 the beam, their feet were scarcely three from the ground. I was 
 here placed in a guard-house, and kept there until the evening, 
 when I was again marched off under my former escort, and we 
 soon arrived at the door of a large mansion, fronting this parade, 
 where two sentries were walking backwards and forwards before 
 the door, while five dragoon horses, linked together, stood in the 
 middle of the street, with one soldier attending them, but there 
 was no other particular bustle to mark the headquarters of the 
 general commanding. We advanced to the entrance the sentries 
 carrying arms and were immediately ushered into a large saloon, 
 the massive stair winding up along the walls, with the usual 
 heavy wooden balustrade. We .ascended to the first floor, where 
 we were encountered by three aides-de-camp, in full dress, lean- 
 ing with their backs against the hardwood railing, laughing and 
 joking with each other, while two wall-lamps right opposite cast a 
 bright flashing light on their splendid uniforms. They were all 
 decore with one order or another. We approached. 
 
 " Whence, and whom have we here 1 " said one of them, a hand- 
 some young man, apparently not above twenty-two, as I judged, 
 with small tiny black, jet-black, mustaches, and a noble coun- 
 tenance ; fine dark eyes, and curls dark and clustering. 
 
 The officer of my escort answered, " A young Englishman 
 emeigne de vaisseau" 
 
 I was no such thing, as a poor middy has no commission, but 
 only his rating, which even his captain, without a court-martial, 
 can take away at any time, and turn him before the mast. 
 
 At this moment I heard the clang of a sabre and the jingle 
 of spurs on the stairs, and the group was joined by my captor, 
 Colonel * * * 
 
 " Ah, colonel ! " exclaimed the aides in a volley, " where the 
 devil have you come from ? We thought you were in Bruxelles 
 at the nearest." 
 
 The colonel put his hand on his lips and smiled, and then 
 slapped the young officer who spoke first with his glove. "Never 
 mind, boys, I have come to help you here you will need help 
 before long ; but how is ! " Here he made a comical con- 
 tortion of his face, and drew his ungloved hand across his throat. 
 The young officers laughed, and pointed to the door. He moved 
 towards it, preceded by the youngest of them, who led the way 
 into a very lofty and handsome room, elegantly furnished, with 
 some fine pictures on the walls, a handsome sideboard of plate, 
 a rich Turkey carpet an unusual thing in Germany on the 
 floor, and a richly gilt pillar at the end of the room farthest 
 
 B
 
 18 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 from us, the base of which contained a stove, which, through 
 the joints of the door of it, appeared to be burning cheerily. 
 
 There were some very handsome sofas and ottomans scattered 
 through the room, and a grand piano in one corner, the furniture 
 being covered with yellow or amber-coloured velvet, with broad 
 heavy draperies of gold fringe, like the bullion of an epaulet. 
 There was a small round table near the stove, on which stood a 
 silver candlestick, with four branches filled with wax tapers; 
 and bottles of wine, and glasses. At this table sat an officer, 
 apparently about forty -five years of age. There was nothing 
 very peculiar in his appearance ; he was a middle-sized man, 
 well made apparently. He sat on one chair, with his legs sup- 
 ported on another. 
 
 His white-topped boots had been taken off, and replaced by a 
 pair of slipshod slippers ; his splashed white kerseymere panta- 
 loons, seamed with gold, resting on the unf rayed velvet cushion ; 
 his blue coat, covered with rich embroidery at the bosom and 
 collar, was open, and the lappels thrown back, displaying a crim- 
 son velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an embroidered 
 scarlet waistcoat ; a large solitary star glittered on his breast, and 
 the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his button- 
 hole ; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked 
 hat lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly 
 ornamented with ostrich down ; his head was covered with a red 
 velvet cap, with a thick gold cord twisted two or three turns 
 round it, and ending in two large tassels of heavy bullion ; he 
 wore very large epaulets ; and his sword had been inadvertently, 
 as I conjectured, placed on the table, so that the steel hilt rested 
 on the ornamental part of the metal stove. 
 
 His face was good, his hair dark, forehead without a wrinkle, 
 high and massive, eyes bright and sparkling, nose neither fine 
 nor dumpy a fair enough proboscis as noses go. There was an 
 expression, however, about the upper lip and mouth that I did 
 not like a constant nervous sort of lifting of the lip, as it were ; 
 and as the mustache appeared to have been recently shaven off, 
 there was a white blueness on the upper lip, that contrasted un- 
 pleasantly with the dark tinge which he had gallantly wrought 
 for on the glowing sands of Egypt, and the bronzing of his gene- 
 ral features from fierce suns and parching winds. His bare neck 
 and hands were delicately fair, the former firm and muscular, the 
 latter slender and tapering, like a woman's. He was reading a 
 gazette, or some printed paper, when we entered ; and although 
 there was a tolerable clatter of muskets, sabres, and spurs, he
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 19 
 
 never once lifted his eye in the direction where we stood. Op- 
 posite this personage, on a low chair, with his legs crossed, and 
 eyes fixed on the ashes that were dropping from the stove, with 
 his brown cloak hanging from his shoulders, sat a short stout per- 
 sonage, a man about thirty years of age, with fair flaxen hair, a 
 florid complexion, a very fair skin, and massive German features. 
 The expression of his face, so far as such a countenance could be 
 said to have any characteristic expression, was that of fixed sor- 
 row. But before I could make any other observation, the aide- 
 de-camp approached with a good spice of fear and trembling, as 
 I could see. 
 
 " Colonel * * * to wait on your highness." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the officer to whom he spoke, " ah, colonel, what 
 do you here ? Has the emperor advanced again 1 " 
 
 " No," said the officer, " he has not advanced ; but the rear- 
 guard were cut off by the Prussians, and the light, with the 
 
 grenadiers, are now in Cuxhaven." 
 
 " Well," replied the general, " but how come you here 1 " 
 
 " Why, marshal, we were detached to seize a depot of pro- 
 visions in a neighbouring village, and had made preparations to 
 carry them off, when we were attacked through a gap in the dike 
 by some armed boats from an English squadron, and hearing a 
 distant firing at the very moment, which I concluded to be the 
 Prussian advance, I conceived all chance of rejoining the main 
 army at an end, and therefore I shoved off in the grain-boats, 
 and here I am." 
 
 " Glad to see you, however," said the general, " but sorry for 
 the cause why you have returned. Whom have we got here 
 what boy is that 1 " 
 
 " Why," responded the colonel, "that lad is one of the British 
 officers of the force that attacked us." 
 
 " Ha," said the general again " how did you capture him ? " 
 
 " The boat (one of four) in which he was, was blown to pieces 
 by a six-pound shot. He was the only one of the enemy who 
 swam ashore. The rest, I am inclined to think, were picked up 
 by the other boats." 
 
 " So," grumbled the general, " British ships in the Elbe ! " 
 
 The colonel continued. " I hope, marshal, you will allow him 
 his parole ? he is, as you see, quite a child." 
 
 " Parole ! " replied the marshal, " parole ! such a mere lad 
 cannot know the value of his promise." 
 
 A sudden fit of rashness came over me. 
 
 " He is a mere boy," reiterated the marshal. " No, no send
 
 20 TOM CRINGLE'S LOO. 
 
 him to prison;" and he resumed the study of the printed paper 
 he had been reading. 
 
 I struck in, impelled by despair, for, young as I was, I knew 
 the character of the man before whom I stood, and I remem- 
 bered that even a tiger might be checked by a bold front " I 
 am an Englishman, sir, and incapable of breaking my plighted 
 word." 
 
 He laid down the paper he was reading, and slowly lifted Ms 
 eyes, and fastened them on me, " Ha," said he, " ha so young 
 so reckless ! " 
 
 " Never mind him, marshal," said the coloneL " If you will 
 grant him his parole, I 
 
 " Take it, colonel take it take his parole, not to go beyond 
 the ditch." ' 
 
 " But I decline to give any such promise," said I, with a 
 hardihood which at the time surprised me, and has always 
 done so. 
 
 " Why, my good youth," said the marshal in great surprise, 
 " why will you not take advantage of the offer a kinder one, 
 let me tell you, than I am in the habit of making to an enemy 1 ? " 
 
 " Simply, sir, because I will endeavour to escape on the very 
 first opportunity." 
 
 " Ha ! " said the marshal once more, " this to my face 1 La- 
 fontaine," to the aide-de-camp, "a file of soldiers." The 
 handsome young officer hesitated hung in the wind, as we say, 
 for a moment moved, as I imagined, by my extreme youth. 
 This irritated the marshal he rose, and stamped on the floor. 
 The colonel essayed to interfere. " Sentry sentry a file of 
 
 grenadiers take him forth, and " here he energetically 
 
 clutched the steel hilt of his sword, and instantly dashed it from 
 him " Sacre ! the devil what is that 1 " and straightway he 
 began to pirouette on one leg round the room, shaking his right 
 hand and blowing his fingers. 
 
 The officers in waiting could not stand it any longer, and burst 
 into a fit of laughter, in which their commanding officer, after 
 an unavailing attempt to look serious I should rather write 
 fierce -joined ; and there he was, the bloody Davoust Duke of 
 Auerstad Prince of Eckmuhl the Hamburgh Robespierre 
 the terrible Davoust dancing all around the room, in a regular 
 guffaw, like to split his sides. The heated stove had made his 
 sword, which rested on it, nearly red-hot. 
 
 All this while the quiet, plain-looking little man sat still He 
 now rose ; but I noticed that he had been fixing his eyes intently
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 21 
 
 on me. I thought I could perceive a tear glistening in them as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Marshal, will you intrust that boy to me ? " 
 
 " Poo," said the prince, still laughing, " take him do what 
 you will with him ; " then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, 
 " But, Mr * * *, you must be answerable for him he must be 
 at hand if I want him." 
 
 The gentleman who had so unexpectedly patronised me rose 
 and said, " Marshal, I promise." 
 
 " Very well," said Davoust. " Lafontaine, desire supper to be 
 sent up." 
 
 It was brought in, and my new ally and I were shown out 
 
 As we went down stairs, we looked into a room on the ground 
 floor, at the door of which were four soldiers with fixed bayonets. 
 We there saw, for it was well lit up, about twenty or five-and- 
 twenty respectable-looking men, very English in appearance, all 
 to their long cloaks, an unusual sort of garment to my eye at 
 that time. The night was very wet, and the aforesaid garments 
 were hung on pegs in the wall all around the room, which being 
 strongly heated by a stove, the moisture rose up in a thick mist, 
 and made the faces of the burghers indistinct. 
 
 They were busily engaged talking to each other, some to his 
 neighbour, the others across the table, but all with an expression 
 of the most intense anxiety. 
 
 " Who are these 1 " said I to my guide. 
 
 " Ask no questions here," said he, and we passed on. 
 
 I afterwards learned that they were the hostages seized on for 
 the contribution of fifty millions of francs, which had been im- 
 posed on the doomed city, and that this very night they had 
 been torn from their families, and cooped up in the way I had 
 seen, where, they were advertised, they must remain until the 
 money should be forthcoming. 
 
 As we walked along the streets, and crossed the numerous 
 bridges over the canals and branches of the river, we found all 
 the houses lit up, by order, as I learned, of the French marshal. 
 The rain descended in torrents, sparkling past the lights, while 
 the city was a desert, with one dreadful exception ; for we were 
 waylaid at almost every turn by groups of starving lunatics, their 
 half -naked figures and pale visages glimmering in the glancing 
 lights, under the dripping rain ; and, had it not been for the 
 numerous sentries scattered along the thoroughfares, I believe 
 we should have been torn to pieces by bands of moping idiots, 
 now rendered ferocious from their sufferings, in consequence of
 
 22 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 the madhouses having been cleared of their miserable, helpless 
 inmates, in order to be converted into barracks for the troops. 
 At all of these bridges sentries were posted, past which my con- 
 ductor and myself were franked by the sergeant who accompanied 
 us giving the countersign. At length, civilly touching his cap, 
 although he did not refuse the piece of money tendered by my 
 friend, he left us, wishing us good-night, and saying the coast 
 was clear. 
 
 We proceeded, without further challenge, until we came to a 
 very magnificent house, with some fine trees before it. We ap- 
 proached the door, and rang the door-belL It was immediately 
 opened, and we entered a large desolate-looking vestibule, about 
 thirty feet square, filled in the centre with a number of bales of 
 goods and a variety of merchandise, while a heavy wooden stair, 
 with clumsy oak balustrades, wound round the sides of it. We 
 ascended, and, turning to the right, entered a large well-furnished 
 room, with a table laid out for supper, with lights, and a comfort- 
 able stove at one end. Three young officers of cuirassiers, in their 
 superb uniforms, whose breast and back pieces were glittering on 
 a neighbouring sofa, and a colonel of artillery, were standing round 
 the stove. The colonel, the moment we entered, addressed my 
 conductor : 
 
 " Ah, * * *, we are devilish hungry Ich bin dem Verhungern 
 nahe and were just on the point of ordering in the provender, 
 had you not appeared." 
 
 "A little more than that," thought I ; for the food was already 
 smoking on the table. 
 
 Mine host acknowledged the speech with a slight smile. 
 
 " But whom have we here ? " said one of the young dragoons. 
 He waited a moment " Etes vous Frangais?" I gave him no 
 answer. He then addressed me in German "Sprechen sie 
 gelaiifig Deutsch?" 
 
 "Why," chimed in my conductor, "he does speak a little French 
 indifferently enough; but still " 
 
 Here I was introduced to the young officers, and we all sat 
 down at table ; the colonel, civility itself, pressing my host to 
 drink his own wine, and eat his cncn food, and even rating the 
 servants for not being sufficiently alert in their attendance on 
 their men master. 
 
 " Well, my dear * f *, how have you sped with the prince?" 
 
 "Why, colonel," said my protector, in his cool, calm way, "as 
 well as I expected. I was of some service to him when he was 
 here before, at the time he was taken so very ill, and he has not
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 23 
 
 forgotten it ; so I am not included amongst the unfortunate de- 
 tenus for the payment of the fine. But that is not all ; for I am 
 allowed to go to-morrow to my father's, and here is my passport." 
 
 " Wonders will never cease," said the colonel; "but who is 
 that boy?" 
 
 " He is one of the crew of the English boats which tried to 
 cut off Colonel * * the other evening, near Cuxhaven. His life 
 was saved by a very laughable circumstance certainly ; merely by 
 the marshal's sword, from resting on the stove, having become 
 almost red-hot." And here he detailed the whole transaction as 
 it took place, which set the party a-laughing most heartily. 
 
 I will always bear witness to the extreme amenity with which 
 I was now treated by the French officers. The evening passed 
 over quickly. About eleven we retired to rest, my friend furnish- 
 ing me with clothes, and warning me that next morning he would 
 call me at daylight, to proceed to his father's country-seat, where 
 he intimated that I must remain in the mean time. 
 
 Next morning I was roused accordingly, and a long, low, open 
 carriage rattled up to the door, just before day-dawn. Presently 
 the reveille was beaten, and answered by the different posts in the 
 city and on the ramparts. 
 
 We drove on, merely showing our passport to the sentries at 
 the different bridges, until we reached the gate, where we had 
 to pull up until the officer on duty appeared, and had scrupulously 
 compared our personal appearance with the written description. 
 All was found correct, and we drove on. 
 
 It surprised me very much, after having repeatedly heard of 
 the great strength of Hamburgh, to look out on the large mound 
 of green turf that constituted its chief defence. It is all true 
 that there was a deep ditch and glacis beyond ; but there was no 
 covered way, and both the scarp and counterscarp were simple 
 earthen embankments ; so that, had the ditch been filled with 
 fascines, there was no wall to face the attacking force after cross- 
 ing it, nothing but a green mound, precipitous enough, cer- 
 tainly, and crowned with a low parapet of masonry, and brist- 
 ling with batteries about half-way down, so that the muzzles of 
 the guns were flush with the neighbouring country beyond the 
 ditch. Still there was wanting, to my imagination, the strength 
 of the high perpendicular wall, with its gaping embrasures and 
 frowning cannon. All this time it never occurred to me that 
 to breach such a defence as that we looked upon was impossible. 
 You might have plumped your shot into it until you had con- 
 verted it into an iron mine, but no chasm could have been forced
 
 24 . TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 in it by all the artillery in Europe ; so that battering in breach 
 was entirely out of the question ; and this, in truth, constituted 
 the great strength of the place. 
 
 We arrived, after an hour's drive, at the villa belonging to 
 my protector's family, and walked into a large room, with a 
 comfortable stove, and extensive preparations made for a com- 
 fortable breakfast. 
 
 Presently three young ladies appeared. They were his sisters ; 
 blue-eyed, fair-haired, white-skinned, round-sterned, plump little 
 partridges. 
 
 " Haben sie gefruhstiicht ? " said the eldest. 
 
 " Pas encore" said he in French, with a smile. " But, sisters, 
 I have brought a stranger here, a young English officer, who 
 was recently captured in the river." 
 
 " An English officer ! " exclaimed the three ladies, looking 
 at me, a poor, little, dirty midshipman, in my soiled linen, un- 
 brushed shoes, dirty trousers and jacket, with my little square 
 of white cloth on the collar ; and I began to find the eloquent 
 blood mantling in my cheeks and tingling in my ears ; but 
 their kindly feelings got the better of a gentle propensity to 
 laugh, and the youngest said 
 
 " Sie sind gerade zu rechter zeit gekommen :" when, finding 
 that her German was Hebrew to me, she tried the other tack 
 " Vous arrivez a propos, le dejeune est pret." 
 
 However, I soon found that the moment they were assured 
 that I was in reality an Englishman, they all spoke English, and 
 exceedingly well too. Our meal was finished, and I was stand- 
 ing at the window looking out on a small lawn, where evergreens 
 of the most beautiful kinds were checkered with little round 
 clumps of most luxuriant hollyhocks, and the fruit-trees in the 
 neighbourhood were absolutely bending to the earth under their 
 loads of apples and pears. Presently my friend came up to me ; 
 my curiosity could no longer be restrained. 
 
 " Pray, my good sir, what peculiar cause, may I ask, have you 
 for showing me, an entire stranger to you, all this unexpected 
 kindness ? I am fully aware that I have no claim on you." 
 
 " My good boy, you say true ; but I have spent the greatest 
 part of my life in London, although a Hamburgher born, and I 
 consider you, therefore, in the light of a countryman. Besides, 
 I will not conceal that your gallant bearing before Davoust 
 riveted my attention, and engaged my good wishes." 
 
 "But how come you to have so much influence with the mon 
 general, I mean 1 "
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 25 
 
 " For several reasons," he replied. " For those, amongst 
 others, you heard the colonel who has taken the small liberty 
 of turning me out of my own house in Hamburgh mention 
 last night at supper. But a man like Davoust cannot be judged 
 of by common rules. He has, in short, taken a fancy to me, for 
 which you may thank your stars although your life has been 
 actually saved by the prince having burned his fingers. But here 
 comes my father." 
 
 A venerable old man entered the room, leaning on his stick. 
 I was introduced in due form. 
 
 *'" He had breakfasted in his own room," he said, " having 
 been ailing ; but he could not rest quietly, after he had heard 
 there was an Englishman in the house, until he had himself 
 welcomed him." 
 
 I shall never forget the kindness I experienced from these 
 worthy people. For three days I was fed and clothed by them 
 as if I had been a member of the family. 
 
 Like a boy as I was, I had risen on the fourth morning at 
 grey dawn, to be aiding in dragging the fish-pond, so that it 
 might be cleaned out. This was an annual amusement, in which 
 the young men and women in the family, under happier circum- 
 stances, had been in the invariable custom of joining ; and, 
 changed as these were, they still preserved the fashion. The 
 seine was cast in at one end, loaded at the bottom with heavy 
 sinks, and buoyant at the top with cork floats. We hauled it 
 along the whole length of the pond, thereby driving the fish into 
 an enclosure, about twenty feet square, with a sluice towards the 
 pond, and another fronting the dull ditch that flowed past beyond 
 it. Whenever we had hunted the whole of the finny tribes 
 (barring those slippery youths the eels, who, with all their clever- 
 ness, were left to dry in the mud) into the toils, we filled all 
 the tubs, and pots, and pans, and vessels of all kinds and de- 
 scriptions, with the fat, honest-looking Dutchmen, the carp and 
 tench, who really submitted to their captivity with all the resig- 
 nation of most ancient and quiet fish, scarcely indicating any 
 sense of its irksomeness, except by a lumbering sluggish flap of 
 their broad heavy tails. 
 
 A transaction of this kind could not take place amongst a 
 group of young folk without shouts of laughter, and it was not 
 until we had caught the whole of the fish in the pond, and placed 
 them in safety, that I had leisure to look about me. The city 
 lay nearly four miles distant from us. The whole country round 
 Hamburgh is level, except the right bank below it of the noble
 
 26 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 river on which it stands, the Elbe. The house where I was 
 domiciled stood on nearly the highest point of this bank, which 
 gradually sloped down into a swampy hollow, nearly level with 
 the river. It then rose again gently until the swell was crowned 
 with the beautiful town of Altona, and immediately beyond 
 appeared the ramparts and tall spires of the noble city itself. 
 
 The morning had been thick and foggy, but as the sun rose, 
 the white mist that had floated over the whole country gradually 
 concentrated and settled down into the hollow between us and 
 Hamburgh, covering it with an impervious veil, which even ex- 
 tended into the city itself, filling the lower part of it with a dense 
 white bank of fog, which rose so high that the spires alone, with 
 one or two of the most lofty buildings, appeared above the roll- 
 ing sea of white fleece-like vapour, as if it had been a model of 
 the stronghold, in place of the reality, packed in white wool, so 
 distinct did it appear, diminished as it was in the distance. On 
 the tallest spire of the place, which was now sparkling in the 
 early sunbeams, the French flag, the pestilent tricolor, that upas- 
 tree, waved sluggishly in the faint morning breeze. 
 
 It attracted my attention, and I pointed it out to my patron. 
 Presently it was hauled down, and a series of signals was made 
 at the yard-arm of a spar that had been slung across it. Who 
 can they be telegraphing to ? thought I, while I could notice my 
 host assume a most anxious and startled look, while he peered 
 down into the hollow ; but he could see nothing, as the fog bank 
 still filled the whole of the space between the city and the ac- 
 clivity where we stood. 
 
 " What is that ? " said I ; for I heard, or thought I heard, a 
 low, rumbling, rushing noise in the ravine. Mr * * * heard it as 
 well as I, apparently, for he put his finger to his lips as much as 
 to say, " Hold your tongue, my good boy nous verrons" 
 
 It increased the clattering of horses' hoofs, and the clang of 
 scabbards were heard, and, in a twinkling, the hussar caps of a 
 squadron of light dragoons emerged from out the fog bank, as, 
 charging up the road, they passed the small gate of green basket- 
 work at a hand-gallop. I ought to have mentioned before, that 
 my friend's house was situated about half-way up the ascent, so 
 that the rising ground behind it in the opposite direction from 
 the city shut out all view towards the country. After the dra- 
 goons passed, there was an interval of two minutes, when a troop 
 of flying artillery, with three six-pound field-pieces, rattled after 
 the leading squadron, the horses all in a lather, at full speed, with 
 the guns bounding and jumping behind them as if they had been
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 27 
 
 playthings, followed by their caissons. Presently we could see 
 the leading squadron file to the right clear the low hedge and 
 then disappear over the crest of the hill. Twenty or thirty pio- 
 neers, who had been carried forward behind as many of the 
 cavalry, were now seen busily employed in filling up the ditch, 
 and cutting down the short scrubby hedge ; and presently, the 
 artillery coming up also, filed off sharply to the right, and formed 
 on the very summit of the hill, distinctly visible between us and 
 the grey cold streaks of morning. By the time we had noticed 
 this, the clatter in our immediate neighbourhood was renewed, 
 and a group of mounted officers dashed past us, up the path, like 
 a whirlwind, followed, at a distance of twenty yards, by a single 
 cavalier, apparently a general officer. These did not stop, as they 
 rode at speed past the spot where the artillery were in position, 
 but, dipping over the summit, disappeared down the road, from 
 which they did not appear to diverge, until they were lost to 
 our view beyond the crest of the hill. The hum and buzz, and, 
 anon, the " measured tread of marching men," in the valley be- 
 tween us and Hamburgh, still continued. The leading files of 
 a light infantry regiment now appeared, swinging along at a 
 round trot, with their muskets poised in their right hands no 
 knapsacks on their backs. They appeared to follow the route of 
 the group of mounted officers, until we could see a puff of white 
 smoke, then another and a third from the field-pieces, followed by 
 thudding reports, there being no high ground nor precipitous 
 bank nor water in the neighbourhood to reflect the sound, and 
 make it emulate Jove's thunder. At this they struck across the 
 fields, and, forming behind the guns, lay down flat on their faces, 
 where they were soon hid from our view by the wreaths of 
 white smoke, as the sluggish morning breeze rolled it down the 
 hill-side toward us. 
 
 " What the deuce can all this mean is it a review ? " said I, 
 in my innocence. 
 
 " A reconnaissance in force," groaned my friend. " The Allied 
 troops must be at hand now, God help us ! " 
 
 The women, like frightened hares, paused to look up in their 
 brother's face, as he kept his eye steadily turned towards the 
 ridge of the hill, and, when he involuntarily wrung his hands, 
 they gave a loud scream, and ran off into the house. 
 
 The breeze at this moment " aside the shroud of battle cast," 
 and we heard a faint bugle-call, like an echo, wail in the dis- 
 tance, from beyond the hill It was instantly answered by the 
 loud, startling blare of a dozen of the light infantry bugles above
 
 28 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 us on the hill-side, and we could see them suddenly start from 
 their lair, and form ; while between us and the clearing morning 
 sky, the cavalry, magnified into giants in the strong relief on 
 the outline of the hill, were driven in straggling patrols, like 
 chaff, over the summit their sabres sparkling in the level sun- 
 beams, and the reports of the red flashes of their pistols crack- 
 ling down upon us. 
 
 " They are driven in on the infantry," said Mr * * *. He 
 was right but the light battalion immediately charged over the 
 hill, with a loud hurrah, after admitting the beaten horse through 
 their intervals, who, however, to give the devils their due, formed 
 again in an instant, under the shelter of the high ground. The 
 artillery again opened their fire the cavalry once more advanced, 
 and presently we could see nothing but the field-pieces, with 
 their three separate groups of soldiers standing quietly by them 
 a sure proof that the enemy's pickets were now out of cannon- 
 shot, and had been driven back on the main body, and that the 
 reconnaissance was still advancing. 
 
 What will not a habitual exposure to danger do, even with 
 tender women ? 
 
 " The French have advanced, so let us have our breakfast, 
 Julia, my dear," said Mr * ' *, as we entered the house. " The 
 Allied forces would have been welcome, however ; and surely, if 
 they do come, they will respect our sufferings and helplessness." 
 
 The eldest sister, to whom he spake, shook her head mourn- 
 fully; but, nevertheless, betook herself to her task of making 
 coffee. 
 
 "What rumbling and rattling is that? " said * * * to an old 
 servant who had just entered the room. 
 
 " Two waggons with wounded men, sir, have passed onwards 
 towards the town." 
 
 " Ah ! " said mine host, in great bitterness of spirit 
 
 But allons, we proceeded to make the best use of our time 
 ham, good fish, excellent eggs, fresh coffee, superb when 
 we again heard the field-pieces above us open their fire, and in 
 the intervals we could distinguish the distant rattle of musketry. 
 Presently this rolling fire slackened, and, after a few scattering 
 shots here and there, ceased altogether ; but the cannon on the 
 hill still continued to play. We were by this time all standing 
 in a cluster in the porch of the villa, before which stood the 
 tubs with the finny spoil of the fish-pond, on a small paddock 
 of velvet grass, about forty yards square, separated from the 
 high-road by a low ornamental fence of green basket-work, as
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 29 
 
 already mentioned. The firing from the great guns increased, 
 and every now and then I thought I heard a distant sound, as 
 if the reports of the guns above us had been reflected from some 
 precipitous bank. 
 
 "I did not know that there was any echo here," said the 
 youngest girl. 
 
 " Alas, Janette ! " said her brother, " I fear that is no echo ; " 
 and he put up his hand to his ear, and listened in breathless 
 suspense. The sound was repeated. 
 
 " The Russian cannon replying to those on the hill ! " said Mr 
 * * *, with startling energy. " God help us ! it can no longer be 
 an affair of posts ; the heads of the Allied columns must be in 
 sight, for the French skirmishers are unquestionably driven in." 
 
 A French officer at this moment rattled past us down the 
 road at speed, and vanished in the hollow, taking the direction 
 of the town. His hat fell off, as his horse swerved a little at 
 the open gate as he passed. He never stopped to pick it up. 
 Presently a round shot, with a loud ringing and hissing sound, 
 pitched over the hill, and knocked one of the fish-tubs close to 
 us to pieces, scattering the poor fish all about the lawn. With 
 the recklessness of a mere boy I dashed out, and was busy pick- 
 ing them up, when Mr * * * called to me to come back. . 
 
 " Let us go in and await what may befall ; I dread what the 
 ty " here he prudently checked himself, remembering, no 
 doubt, "that a bird of the air might carry the matter," "I 
 dread what he may do, if they are really investing the place. At 
 any rate, here, in the very arena where the struggle will doubt- 
 less be fiercest, we cannot abide. So go, my dearest sisters, and 
 pack, up whatever you may have most valuable or most necessary. 
 Nay, no tears ; and I will attend to our poor old father, and get 
 the carriage ready, if, God help me, I dare use it." 
 
 " But where, in the name of all that is fearful, shall we go? " 
 said his second sister. " Not back to Hamburgh not to endure 
 another season of such deep degradation not to be exposed to 
 the . O brother, you saw we all submitted to our fate with- 
 out a murmur, and laboured cheerfully on the fortifications, 
 when compelled to do so by that inhuman monster Davoust, 
 amidst the ribaldry of a licentious soldiery, merely because poor 
 Janette had helped to embroider a standard for the brave Han- 
 seatic Legion you know how we bore this " here the sweet 
 girl held out her delicate hands, galled by actual and unwonted 
 labour "and many other indignities, until that awful night, 
 when No, brother, we shall await the arrival of the Russians,
 
 30 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 even should we see our once happy home converted into a field 
 of battle ; but into the city ice shall not go." 
 
 " Be it so then, my dearest sister. Wilhelm, put up the stuld 
 wagen." 
 
 He had scarcely returned into the breakfast-room, when the 
 door opened, and the very handsome young officer, the aide-de- 
 camp of the prince, whom I had seen the night I was carried 
 before Davoust, entered, splashed up to the eyes, and much heat- 
 ed and excited. I noticed blood on the hilt of his sword. His 
 orderly sat on his foaming steed, right opposite where I stood, 
 wiping his bloody sabre on his horse's mane. The women grew 
 pale ; but still they had presence of mind enough to do the 
 honours with self-possession. The stranger wished us a good- 
 morning ; and on being asked to sit down to breakfast, he un- 
 buckled his sword, threw it from him with a clash on the floor, 
 and then, with all the grace in the world, addressed himself to 
 discuss the comestibles. He tried a slight approach to jesting now 
 and then ; but seeing the heaviness of heart which prevailed 
 amongst the women, he, with the good-breeding of a man of the 
 world, forbore to press his attentions. 
 
 Breakfast being finished, and the ladies having retired, he 
 rose, buckled on his sword again, drew on his gloves, and taking 
 his hat in his hand, he advanced to the window, and desired his 
 men to " fall in." 
 
 " Men ! what men 1 " said poor Mr * * * 
 
 " Why, the marshal has had a company of sapeurs for these 
 three days back in the adjoining village they are now here." 
 
 " Here ! " exclaimed * * * ; " what do the sappers here ? " 
 Two of the soldiers carried slow matches in their hands, while 
 their muskets were slung at their backs. " There is no mine to 
 be sprung here ? " 
 
 The young officer heard him with great politeness, but de- 
 clined giving any answer. The next moment he turned towards 
 the ladies, and was making himself as agreeable as time and 
 circumstances would admit, when a shot came crashing through 
 the roof, broke down the ceiling, and, knocking the flue of the 
 stove to pieces, rebounded from the wall, and rolled harmlessly 
 beneath the table. He was the only person who did not start, 
 or evince any dread. He kicked the bullet out of the way, and 
 merely cast his eyes upward and smiled. He then turned to 
 poor * ' *, who stood quite collected, but very pale, near where 
 the stove had stood, and held out his hand to him. 
 
 " On my honour," said the young soldier, " it grieves me to
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 31 
 
 the very heart ; but I must obey my orders. It is no longer an 
 affair of posts ; the enemy is pressing on us in force. The 
 Allied columns are in sight ; their cannon-shot have but now 
 penetrated your roof ; we have but driven in their pickets ; very 
 soon they will be here ; and in the event of their advance, 
 my orders are to burn down this house and the neighbouring 
 village." 
 
 A sudden flush rushed into Mr * * * 's face. " Indeed ! does 
 the prince really 
 
 The young officer bowed, and with something more of stern- 
 ness in his manner than he had yet used, he said, " Mr * * *, I 
 duly appreciate your situation, and respect your feelings ; but 
 the Prince of Eckmuhl is my superior officer ; and under other 
 circumstances " Here he slightly touched the hilt of Ms sword. 
 
 " For myself I don't care," said * * *, " but what is to become 
 of my sisters ? " 
 
 " They must proceed to Hamburgh." 
 
 " Very well let me order the stuhl wagen, and give us, at all 
 events, half an hour to move our valuables." 
 
 Here Mr * * * exchanged looks with his sisters. 
 
 " Certainly," said the young officer ; " and I will myself see 
 you safe into the city." 
 
 Who says that eels cannot be made used to skinning 1 The 
 poor girls continued their little preparations with an alacrity and 
 presence of mind that truly surprised me. There was neither 
 screaming nor fainting, and by the time the carriage was at the 
 door, they, with two female domestics, were ready to mount. I 
 cannot better describe their vehicle, than by comparing it to a 
 canoe mounted on four wheels, connected by a long perch with 
 a coach-box at the bow, and three gig bodies hung athwart 
 ships, or slung inside of the canoe, by leather thongs. At the 
 moment we were starting, Mr * * * came close to me and whis- 
 pered, " Do you think your, ship will still be in the river ] " 
 
 I answered that I made no doubt she was. 
 
 " But even if she be not," said he, " the Holstein bank is open 
 to us. Anywhere but Hamburgh noto." And the scalding tears 
 ran down his cheeks. 
 
 At this moment there was a bustle on the hill top, and pre- 
 sently the artillery began once more to play, while the musketry 
 breezed up again in the distance. A mounted bugler rode half- 
 way down the hill, and sounded the recall. The young officer 
 hesitated. The man waved his hand, and blew the advance. 
 
 " It must be for us answer it." His bugle did so. " Bring
 
 32 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 the pitch, men the flax so now break the windows, and let 
 the air in set the house on fire ; and, Sergeant Guido, remain 
 to prevent it being extinguished I shall fire the village as we 
 pass through." 
 
 He gave the word to face about; and, desiring the men to 
 follow at the same swinging run with which the whole of the 
 infantry had originally advanced, he spurred his horse against 
 the hill, and soon disappeared. 
 
 My host's resolution seemed now taken. Turning to the ser- 
 geant " My good fellow, the reconnaissance will soon be return- 
 ing; I shall precede it into the town." 
 
 The man, a fine vieiix moustache, hesitated. 
 
 My friend saw it, and hit him in a Frenchman's most assailable 
 quarter. 
 
 " The ladies, my good man the ladies ! You would not have 
 them drive in pell-mell with the troops, exposed most likely to 
 the fire of the Prussian advanced-guard, would you 1 ?" 
 
 The man grounded his musket, and touched his cap " Pass 
 on." 
 
 Away we trundled, until, coming to a cross-road, we turned 
 down towards the river ; and at the angle we could see thick 
 wreaths of smoke curling up into the air, showing that the bar- 
 barous order had been but too effectually fulfilled. 
 
 " What is that?" said * * 
 
 A horse, with his rider entangled and dragged by the stirrup, 
 passed us at full speed, leaving a long track of blood on the 
 road. 
 
 "Who is that?" 
 
 The coachman drove on, and gave no answer; until, at a 
 sharp turn, we came upon the bruised and now breathless body 
 of the young officer, who had so recently obeyed the savage be- 
 hests of his brutal commander. There was a musket-shot right 
 in the middle of his fine forehead, like a small blue point, with 
 one or two heavy black drops of blood oozing from it. His pale 
 features wore a mild and placid expression, evincing that the 
 numberless lacerations and bruises, which were evident through 
 his torn uniform, had been inflicted on a breathless corpse. 
 
 The stuhl wagen had carried on for a mile farther or so, but the 
 firing seemed to approximate, whereupon our host sang out, 
 " Fahrt zu, Schwager Wir kommen nicht wetter." 
 
 The driver of the stuhl wagen sculled along until we arrived at 
 the beautiful, at a mile off, but the beastly, when close to, village 
 of Blankenese.
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG. 33 
 
 When the voiture stopped in the village, there seemed to be a 
 nonplusation, to coin a word for the nonce, between my friend 
 and his sisters. They said something very sharply, and with a 
 degree of determination that startled me. He gave no answer. 
 Presently the Amazonian attack was renewed. 
 " We shall go on board," said they. 
 
 " Very well," said he; " but have patience, have patience !" 
 " No, no. Wann wird man sich einschiffen miissen ?" 
 By this time we were in the heart of the village, and sur- 
 rounded with a whole lot, forty at the least, of Blankenese boat- 
 men. We were not long in selecting one of the fleetest-looking 
 of those very fleet boats, when we all trundled on board ; and I 
 now witnessed what struck me as being an awful sign of the 
 times. The very coachman of the stulil wagen, after conversing a 
 moment with his master, returned to his team, tied the legs of 
 the poor creatures as they stood, and then with a sharp knife cut 
 their jugular veins through and through on the right side, hav- 
 ing previously reined them up sharp to the left, so that, before 
 starting, we could see three of the team, which consisted of four 
 superb bays, level with the soil, and dead ; the near wheeler 
 only holding out on his fore-legs. 
 
 We shoved off at eleven o'clock in the forenoon ; and after 
 having twice been driven into creeks on the Holstein shore by 
 bad weather, we arrived about two next morning safely on 
 board the Torch, which immediately got under weigh for Eng- 
 land. After my story had been told to the captain, I left my 
 preserver, his father,' and his sisters in his hands, and I need 
 scarcely say that they had as hearty a welcome as the worthy old 
 soul could give them, and dived into the midshipmen's berth for 
 a morsel of comfort, where, in a twinkling, I was far into the 
 secrets of a pork-pie.
 
 34 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 CHAPTEE II 
 
 THE CEUISE OF THE TOECH. 
 
 " Sleep, gentle sleep 
 Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast, 
 Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains 
 In cradle of the rude imperious surge ; 
 And in the visitation of the winds, 
 Who take the ruffian billows by the top, 
 Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them 
 With deaf ning clamours in the slippery clouds, 
 That, with the hurly, death itself awakes. 
 Canst thou, O partial sleep ! give thy repose 
 To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude ?" 
 
 King Henry IV., Part II. 
 
 HELIGOLAND light north and by west so many leagues 
 wind baffling weather hazy Lady Passengers on deck for the 
 first time. 
 
 Arrived in the Downs ordered by signal from the guardship 
 to proceed to Portsmouth. Arrived at Spithead ordered to fit 
 to receive a general officer, and six pieces of field artillery, and 
 
 a Spanish Ecclesiastic, the Canon of . Plenty of great 
 
 guns, at any rate a regular park of artillery. 
 
 Received General * * * * and his wife, and aide-de-camp, and 
 two poodle-dogs, one white man-servant, one black ditto, and 
 
 the Canon of , and the six nine-pound field-pieces, and 
 
 sailed for the Cove of Cork 
 
 It was blowing hard as we stood in for the Old Head of Kin- 
 sale pilot boat breasting, the foaming surge like a sea gull 
 "Carrol Cove" in her tiny mainsail pilot jumped into the 
 main channel bottle of rum swung by the lead line into the 
 boat all very clever. 
 
 Ean in, and anchored under Spike Island. A line-of-battle 
 ship, three frigates, and a number of merchantmen at anchor 
 men-of-war lovely craft bands playing a good deal of the 
 pomp and circumstance of war. Next forenoon, Mr Treenail, 
 the second lieutenant, sent for me. 
 
 " Mr Cringle," said he, " you have an uncle in Cork, I be- 
 lieve?" 
 
 I said I had. 
 
 " I am going there on duty to-night ; I daresay, if you asked 
 the captain to let you accompany me, he would do so." This 
 was too good an offer not to be taken advantage of. I plucked
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 35 
 
 up courage, made my bow, asked leave, and got it ; and the 
 evening found my friend the lieutenant, and myself, after a ride 
 of three hours, during which I, for one, had my bottom sheath- 
 ing grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing 
 the Ferry at Passage, safe in our inn at Cork I soon found out 
 that the object of my superior officer was to gain information 
 amongst the crimp shops, where ten men who had run from one 
 of the West Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy, were stowed 
 away, but I was not let farther into the secret ; so I set out to 
 pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my 
 friends, Mr and Mrs Job Cringle, the lieutenant dropped in 
 upon us about nine o'clock. He was heartily welcomed ; and 
 under the plea of our being obliged to return to the ship early 
 next morning, we soon took leave, and returned to the inn. As 
 I was turning into the public room, the door was open, and I 
 could see it full of blowsy-faced monsters, glimmering and jab- 
 bering, through the mist of hot brandy grog and gin twist ; with 
 poodle Benjamins, and greatcoats, and cloaks of all sorts and 
 sizes, steaming on their pegs, with Barcelonas and comforters, 
 and damp travelling caps of seal-skin, and blue cloth, and tartan, 
 arranged above the same. Nevertheless, such a society in my 
 juvenile estimation, during my short escapade from the middy's 
 berth, had its charms, and I was rolling in with a tolerable 
 swagger, when Mr Treenail pinched my arm. 
 
 " Mr Cringle, come here into my room." 
 
 From the way in which he spoke, I imagined, in my innocence, 
 that his room was at my elbow ; but no such thing we had to 
 ascend a long, and not over-clean staircase, to the fourth floor, 
 before we were shown into a miserable little double-bedded 
 room. So soon as we had entered, the lieutenant shut the 
 door. 
 
 " Tom," said he, " I have taken a fancy to you, and therefore 
 I applied for leave to bring you with me ; but I must expose 
 you to some danger, and, I will allow, not altogether in a very 
 creditable way either. You must enact the spy for a short 
 space." 
 
 I did not like the notion, certainly, but I had little time for 
 consideration. 
 
 " Here," he continued "here is a bundle." He threw it on 
 the floor. " You must rig in the clothes it contains, and make 
 your way into the celebrated crimp-shop in the neighbourhood, 
 and pick up all the information you can regarding the haunts of 
 the pressable men at Cove, especially with regard to the ten sea-
 
 36 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 men who have run from the West Indiaman we left below. You 
 know the Admiral has forbidden pressing at Cork, so you must 
 contrive to frighten the blue jackets down to Cove, by represent- 
 ing yourself as an apprentice of one of the merchant vessels, who 
 had run from his indentures, and that you had narrowly escaped 
 from a press-gang this very night here." 
 
 I made no scruples, but forthwith arrayed myself in the slops 
 contained in the bundle ; in a pair of shag trousers, red flannel 
 shirt, coarse blue cloth jacket, and no waistcoat. 
 
 " Now," said Mr Treenail, " stick a quid of tobacco in your 
 cheek, and take the cockade out of your hat ; or stop, leave it, 
 and ship this striped woollen night-cap so and come along 
 with me." 
 
 We left the house, and walked half a mile down the Quay. 
 
 Presently we arrived before a kind of low grog-shop a bright 
 lamp was flaring in the breeze at the door, one of the panes of 
 the glass of it being broken. 
 
 " Before I entered, Mr Treenail took me to one side " Tom, 
 Tom Cringle, you must go into this crimp-shop ; pass yourself 
 off for an apprentice of the Guava, bound for Trinidad, the ship 
 that arrived just as we started, and pick up all the knowledge 
 you can regarding the whereabouts of the men, for we are, as 
 you know, cruelly ill manned, and must replenish as we best 
 may." I entered the house, after having agreed to rejoin my 
 superior officer so soon as I considered I had obtained my object. 
 I rapped at the inner door, in which there was a small unglazed 
 aperture cut, about four inches square ; and I now, for the first 
 time, perceived that a strong glare of light was cast into the 
 lobby, where I stood, by a large argand with a brilliant reflector, 
 that, like a magazine lantern, had been mortised into the bulk- 
 head, at a height of about two feet above the door in which the 
 spy-hole was cut. My first signal was not attended to ; I rapped 
 again, and, looking round, I noticed Mr Treenail flitting back- 
 wards and forwards across the doorway, in the rain, his pale 
 face and his sharp nose, with the sparkling drop at the end on't, 
 glancing in the light of the lamp. I heard a step within, and 
 a very pretty face now appeared at the wicket. 
 
 " Who are you saking here, an' please ye 1 " 
 
 " No one in particular, my dear ; but if you don't let me in, 
 I shall be lodged in jail before five minutes be over." 
 
 " I can't help that, young man," said she ; " but where are ye 
 from, darling ] " 
 
 " Hush -I am run from the Guava, now lying at the Cove."
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 37 
 
 " Oh," said my beauty, " come in ;" and she opened the door, 
 but still kept it on the chain in such a way, that although, by 
 bobbing, I creeped and slid in beneath it, yet a common-sized 
 man could not possibly have squeezed himself through. The 
 instant I entered, the door was once more banged to, and the 
 next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about 
 fourteen feet square, with a well-sanded floor, a huge dresser on 
 one side, and over against it a respectable show of pewter dishes 
 in racks against the wall. There was a long stripe of a deal 
 table in the middle of the room but no tablecloth at the 
 bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather whisky 
 faced savage, dressed in a shabby greatcoat of the hodden grey 
 worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swandown vest, and greasy 
 corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and well-patched shoes ; 
 he was smoking a long pipe. Around the table sat about a 
 dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets and trousers the heat of 
 the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent up a smoky 
 steam that cast a halo round a lamp which depended from the 
 roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking 
 abominably of coarse whale oil. They were, generally speaking, 
 hardy, weatherbeaten men, and the greater proportion half, or 
 more than half, drunk. When I entered, I walked up to the 
 landlord. 
 
 " Yo ho, my young un ! whence and whither bound, my 
 hearty? " 
 
 " The first don't signify much to you," said I, " seeing I have 
 wherewithal in my locker to pay my shot ; and as to the second, 
 of that hereafter ; so, old boy, let's have some grog, and then 
 say if you can ship me with one of them colliers that are lying 
 alongside the quay 1 " 
 
 " My eye, what a lot of brass that small chap has ! " grumbled 
 mine host. " Why, my lad, we shall see to-morrow morning ; 
 but you gammons so about the rhino, that we must prove you 
 a bit ; so, Kate, my dear," to the pretty girl who had let me 
 in "score a pint of rum against Why, what is your name ] " 
 
 " What's that to you ? " rejoined I, " let's have the drink, and 
 don't doubt but the shiners shall be forthcoming." 
 
 " Hurrah!" shouted the party, most of them now very tipsy. 
 So the rum was produced forthwith, and as I lighted a pipe and 
 filled a glass of swizzle, I struck in, " Messmates, I hope you have 
 all shipped 1 " 
 
 " No, we han't," said some of them. 
 
 " Nor shall we be in any hurry, boy," said others.
 
 38 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 "Do as you please, but I shall, as soon as I can, I know; and 
 I recommend all of you making yourselves scarce to-night, and 
 keeping a bright look-out." 
 
 " Why, boy, why 1 " 
 
 " Simply because I have just escaped a press-gang, by bracing 
 sharp up at the corner of the street, and shoving into this dark 
 alley here." 
 
 This called forth another volley of oaths and unsavoury ex- 
 clamations, and all was bustle and confusion, and packing up of 
 bundles, and settling of reckonings. 
 
 " Where," said one of the seamen, " where do you go to, my 
 lad ? " 
 
 " Why, if I can't get shipped to-night, I shall trundle down 
 to Cove immediately, so as to cross at Passage before daylight, 
 and take my chance of shipping with some of the outward-bound 
 that are to sail, if the wind holds, the day after to-morrow. There 
 is to be no pressing when the blue Peter flies at the fore and 
 that was hoisted this afternoon, I know, and the foretopsail will 
 be loose to-morrow. 
 
 " D n my wig, but the small chap is right," roared one. 
 
 " I've a bloody great mind to go down with him," stuttered 
 another, after several unavailing attempts to weigh from the 
 bench, where he had brought himself to anchor. 
 
 " Hurrah ! " yelled a third, as he hugged me, and nearly suffo- 
 cated me with his maudlin caresses, " I trundles wid you too, 
 my darling, by the piper ! " 
 
 " Have with you, boy have with you," shouted half-a-dozen 
 other voices, while each stuck his oaken twig through the hand- 
 kerchief that held his bundle, and shouldered it, clapping his 
 straw or tarpaulin hat, with a slap on the crown, on one side of 
 his head, and staggering and swaying about under the influence 
 of the poteen, and slapping his thigh, as he bent double, laughing 
 like to split himself, till the water ran over his cheeks from his 
 drunken half-shut eyes, while jets of tobacco-juice were squirt- 
 ing in all directions. 
 
 I paid the reckoning, urging the party to proceed all the while, 
 and indicating Pat Doolan's at the Cove as a good rendezvous ; 
 and, promising to overtake them before they reached Passage, I 
 parted company at the corner of the street, and rejoined the 
 lieutenant. 
 
 Next morning we spent in looking about the town Cork is 
 a fine town contains seventy thousand inhabitants more or less 
 safe in that and three hundred thousand pigs, driven by
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 39 
 
 herdsmen, with coarse grey greatcoats. The pigs are not so 
 handsome as those in England, where the legs are short, and 
 tails curly ; here the legs are long, the flanks sharp and thin, 
 and tails long and straight. 
 
 All classes speak with a deuced brogue, and worship graven 
 images ; arrived at Cove to a late dinner and here follows a 
 great deal of nonsense of the same kind. 
 
 By the time it was half-past ten o'clock, I was preparing to 
 turn in, when the master at arms called down to me, 
 
 " Mr Cringle, you are wanted in the gunroom." 
 
 I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, 
 and on my way I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the 
 starboard gangway, dressed in pea-jackets, under which, by the 
 light of a lantern, carried by one of them, I could see they were 
 all armed with pistol and cutlass. They appeared in great glee, 
 and as they made way for me, I could hear one fellow whisper, 
 " There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom, 
 the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and 
 enjoying themselves over a glass of cold grog the gunner tak- 
 ing the watch on deck the doctor was piping anything but 
 mellifluously on the double flageolet, while the Spanish priest, 
 and aide-de-camp to the general, were playing at chess, and 
 wrangling in bad French. I could hear Mr Treenail rumbling 
 and stumbling in his stateroom, as he accoutred himself in a 
 jacket similar to those of the armed boat's crew whom I had 
 passed, and presently he stepped into the gunroom, armed also 
 with cutlass and pistol 
 
 " Mr Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring 
 your arms with you." 
 
 I now knew whereabouts I was, and that my Cork friends 
 were the quarry at which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, 
 and we immediately pulled on shore, where, leaving two strong 
 fellows in charge of the boat, with instructions to fire their pistols 
 and shove off a couple of boat-lengths should any suspicious 
 circumstance indicating an attack take place, we separated, like 
 a pulk of Cossacks coming to the charge, but without the 
 hourdh, with orders to meet before Pat Doolan's door, as speedily 
 as our legs could carry us. We had landed about a cable's length, 
 to the right of the high precipitous bank up which we stole in. 
 straggling parties on which that abominable congregation of 
 the most filthy huts ever pig grunted in is situated, called the 
 Holy Ground. Pat Doolan's domicile was in a little dirty lane, 
 abcut the middle of the village. Presently ten strapping fellows.
 
 40 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 including the lieutenant, were before the door, each man with 
 his stretcher in his hand. It was a very tempestuous, although 
 moonlight, night, occasionally clear, with the moonbeams at one 
 moment sparkling brightly in the small ripples on the filthy 
 puddles before the door, and on the gem-like water-drops that 
 hung from the eaves of the thatched roof, and lighting up the 
 dark statue-like figures of the men, and casting their long shadows 
 strongly against the mud wall of the house ; at another, a black 
 cloud, as it flew across her disk, cast everything into deep shade ; 
 while the only noise we heard was the hoarse dashing of the dis- 
 tant surf, rising and f ailing on the fitful gusts of the breeze. We 
 tried the door. It was fast. 
 
 " Surround the house, men," said the lieutenant in a whisper. 
 He rapped loudly. " Pat Doolan, my man, open the door, will 
 ye 1 " No answer. " If you don't, we shall make free to break 
 it open, Patrick, dear." 
 
 All this while the light of a fire, or of candles, streamed through 
 the joints of the door. The threat at length appeared to have 
 the desired effect. A poor decrepit old man undid the bolt and 
 let us in. Olion a ree ! Olion a ree ! What make you all this 
 boder for come you to help us to wake poor ould Kate there, 
 and bring you the whisky wid you 1 " 
 
 " Old man, where is Pat Doolan 1 " said the lieutenant. 
 
 "Gone to borrow whisky, to wake ould Kate, there; the 
 howling will begin whenever Mother Don cannon and Misthress 
 Conolly come over from Middleton, and I look for dem every 
 minute." 
 
 There was no vestige of any living thing in the miserable 
 hovel, except the old fellow. On two low trestles, in the middle 
 of the floor, lay a coffin with the lid on, on the top of which was 
 stretched the dead body of an old emaciated woman in her grave- 
 clothes, the quality of which was much finer than one could have 
 expected to have seen in the midst of the surrounding squalidness. 
 The face of the corpse was uncovered, the hands were crossed on 
 the breast, and there was a plate of salt on the stomach. 
 
 An iron cresset, charged with coarse rancid oil, hung from the 
 roof, the dull smoky red light flickering on the dead corpse, as 
 the breeze streamed in through the door and numberless chinks 
 in the walls, making the cold, rigid, sharp features appear to 
 move, and glimmer, and gibber as it were, from the changing 
 shades. Close to the head there was a small door opening into 
 an apartment of some kind, but the coffin was placed so near it 
 that one could not pass between the body and the door.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 41 
 
 " My good man," said Treenail to the solitary mourner, " I 
 must beg leave to remove the body a bit, and have the goodness 
 to open that door." 
 
 " Door, yere honour ! It's no door o' mine and it's not open- 
 ing that same that old Phil Carrol shall busy himself wid." 
 
 " Carline," said Mr Treenail, quick and sharp, " remove the 
 body." It was done. 
 
 " Cruel heavy the old dame is, sir, for all her wasted appear- 
 ance," said one of the men. 
 
 The lieutenant now ranged the press-gang against the wall 
 fronting the door, and, stepping into the middle of the room, drew 
 his pistol and cocked it. "Messmates," he sang out, as if 
 addressing the skulkers in the other room, " I know you are 
 here ; the house is surrounded and unless you open that door 
 now, by the powers, but I'll fire slap into you ! " There was a 
 bustle, and a rumbling tumbling noise within. " My lads, we 
 are now sure of our game," sang out Treenail, with great anima- 
 tion ; "sling that clumsy bench there." He pointed to an oaken 
 form about eight feet long and nearly three inches thick. To 
 produce a two-inch rope, and junk it Into three lengths, and rig 
 the battering-ram, was the work of an instant. " One, two, three," 
 and bang the door flew open, and there were our men stowed 
 away, each sitting on the top of his bag, as snug as could be, 
 although looking very much like condemned thieves. We bound 
 eight of them, thrusting a stretcher across their backs, under their 
 arms, and, lashing the fins to the same by good stout lanyards, 
 we were proceeding to stump our prisoners off to the boat, when, 
 with the innate devilry that I have inherited, I know not how, 
 but the original sin of which has more than once nearly cost me 
 my life, I said, without addressing my superior officer, or any one 
 else directly, " I should like now to scale my pistol through 
 that coffin. If I miss, I can't hurt the old woman ; and an eye- 
 let hole in the coffin itself will only be an act of civility to the 
 worms." 
 
 I looked towards my superior officer, who answered me with 
 a knowing shake of the head. I advanced, while all was silent 
 as death the sharp click of the pistol lock now struck acutely 
 on my own ear. I presented, when crash the lid of the coffin, 
 old woman and all, was dashed off in an instant, the corpse fly- 
 ing up in the air, and then falling heavily on the floor, rolling 
 over and over, while a tall handsome fellow, in his striped flan- 
 nel shirt and blue trousers, with the sweat pouring down over 
 his face in streams, sat up in the shell
 
 42 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " All right," said Mr Treenail ; " lielp him out of his berth." 
 
 He was pinioned like the rest, and forthwith we walked them 
 all off to the beach. By this time there was an unusual bustle 
 in the Holy Ground, and we could hear many an anathema 
 curses not loud but deep ejaculated from many a half-opened 
 door as we passed along. We reached the boat, and time it was 
 we did so, for a number of stout fellows, who had followed us 
 in a gradually increasing crowd until they amounted to forty 
 at the fewest, now nearly surrounded us, and kept closing in. 
 As the last of us jumped into the boat, they made a rush, so 
 that if we had not shoved off with the speed of light, I think it 
 very likely that we should have been overpowered. However, 
 we reached the ship in safety, and the day following we weighed, 
 and stood out to sea with our convoy. 
 
 It was a very large fleet, nearly three hundred sail of mer- 
 chant vessels and a noble sight truly. 
 
 A line-of-battle ship led, and two frigates and three sloops 
 of our class were stationed on the outskirts of the fleet, whip- 
 ping them in, as it were. We made Madeira in fourteen days, 
 looked in, but did not anchor ; superb island magnificent 
 mountains white town, and all very fine, but nothing parti- 
 cular happened for three weeks. One fine evening (we had by 
 this time progressed into the trades, and were within three hun- 
 dred miles of Barbadoes) the sun had set bright and clear, after 
 a most beautiful day, and we were bowling along right before 
 it, rolling like the very devil ; but there was no moon, and al- 
 though the stars sparkled brilliantly, yet it was dark, and as we 
 were the sternmost of the men-of-war, we had the task of whip- 
 ping in the sluggards. It was my watch on deck. A gun from 
 the commodore, who showed a number of lights. "What is 
 that, Mr Kennedy ? " said the captain to the old gunner. " The 
 commodore has made the night-signal for the sternmost ships 
 to make more sail and close, sir." We repeated the signal and 
 stood on, hailing the dullest of the merchantmen in our neigh- 
 bourhood to make more sail, and firing a musket-shot now and 
 then over the more distant of them. By-and-by we saw a large 
 West Indiaman suddenly haul her wind and stand across our 
 bows. 
 
 " Forward there ! " sung out Mr Splinter ; " stand by to fire a 
 shot at that fellow from the boat gun if he does not bear up. 
 What can he be after 1 ? Sergeant Armstrong" to a marine, 
 who was standing close by him in the waist " get a musket, 
 and fire over him."
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 43 
 
 It was done, and the ship immediately bore up on her course 
 again ; we now ranged alongside of him on his larboard quarter. 
 
 " Ho, the ship, ahoy ! " " Hillo ! " was the reply. " Make 
 more sail, sir, and run into the body of the fleet, or I shall fire 
 into you : why don't you, sir, keep in the wake of the commo- 
 dore ] " No answer. " What meant you by hauling your wind 
 just now, sir? " 
 
 " Yesh, yesh," at length responded a voice from the merchant- 
 man. 
 
 " Something wrong here," said Mr Splinter. " Back your 
 maintopsail, sir, and hoist a light at the peak ; I shall send a 
 boat on board of you. Boatswain's mate, pipe away the crew 
 of the jolly-boat." We also hove to, and were in the act of 
 lowering down the boat, when the officer rattled out " Keep 
 all fast with the boat; I can't comprehend that chap's man- 
 oeuvres for the soul of me. He has not hove to." Once more 
 we were within pistol-shot of him. " Why don't you heave to, 
 sir?" All silent 
 
 Presently we could perceive a confusion and noise of strug- 
 gling on board, and angry voices, as if people were trying to 
 force their way up the hatches from below ; and a heavy thump- 
 ing on the deck, and a creaking of the blocks, and rattling of 
 the cordage, while the mainyard was first braced one way, and 
 then another, as if two parties were striving for the mastery. 
 
 At length a voice hailed distinctly "we are captured by a ." 
 
 A sudden sharp cry, and a splash overboard, told of some fear- 
 ful deed. 
 
 " We are taken by a privateer or pirate," sung out another 
 voice. This was followed by a heavy crunching blow, as when 
 the spike of a butcher's axe is driven through a bullock's fore- 
 head deep into the brain. 
 
 By this time all hands had been called, and the word had 
 been passed to clear away two of the foremost carronades on 
 the starboard side, and to load them with grape. 
 
 " On board there get below, all you of the English crew, as 
 I shall fire with grape," sung out the captain. 
 
 The hint was now taken. The ship at length came to the 
 wind we rounded to, under her lee and an armed boat, with 
 Mr Treenail, and myself, and sixteen men, with cutlasses, were 
 sent on board. 
 
 We jumped on deck, and at the gangway Mr Treenail stum- 
 bled and fell over the dead body of a man, no doubt the one 
 who had hailed last, with his skull cloven to the eyes, and a
 
 44 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 broken cutlass-blade sticking in the gash. We were imme- 
 diately accosted by the mate, who was lashed down to a ring-bolt 
 close by the bits, with his hands tied at the wrists by sharp 
 cords, so tightly that the blood was spouting from beneath his 
 nails. 
 
 " We have been surprised by a privateer schooner, sir ; the 
 lieutenant of her, and several men, are now in the cabin." 
 
 " Where are the rest of the crew 1 " 
 
 "All secured in the forecastle, except the second-mate and 
 boatswain, the men who hailed you just now; the last was 
 knocked on the head, and the former was stabbed and thrown 
 overboard." 
 
 We immediately released the men, eighteen in number, and 
 armed them with boarding-pikes. " What vessel is that astern 
 of us 1 " said Treenail to the mate. Before he could answer, a 
 shot from the brig fired at the privateer showed she was broad 
 awake. Next moment Captain Deadeye hailed. " Have you 
 mastered the prize crew, Mr Treenail ] " " Ay, ay, sir." " Then 
 bear up on your course, and keep two lights hoisted at your 
 mizen-peak during the night, and blue Peter at the maintopsail 
 yardarm when the day breaks ; I shall haul my wind after the 
 suspicious sail in your wake." 
 
 Another shot, and another, from the brig the time between 
 each flash and the report increasing with the distance. By this 
 the lieutenant had descended to the cabin, followed by his people, 
 while the merchant crew once more took charge of the ship, 
 crowding sail into the body of the fleet. 
 
 I followed him close, pistol and cutlass in hand, and I shall 
 never forget the scene that presented itself when I entered. The 
 cabin was that of a vessel of five hundred tons, elegantly fitted 
 up ; the panels filled with crimson cloth, edged with gold mould- 
 ings, with superb damask hangings before the stern windows 
 and the side berths, and brilliantly lighted up by two large 
 swinging lamps hung from the deck above, which were reflected 
 from, and multiplied in, several plate-glass mirrors in the panels. 
 In the recess, which in cold weather had been occupied by the 
 stove, now stood a splendid grand piano, the silk in the open 
 work above the keys corresponding with the crimson cloth of 
 the panels ; it was open, a Leghorn bonnet with a green veil, a 
 parasol, and two long white gloves, as if recently pulled off, lay 
 on it, with the very mould of the hands in them. 
 
 The rudder case was particularly beautiful; it was a richly 
 carved and gilded palm-tree, the stem painted white and inter-
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 45 
 
 laced with, golden fretwork, like the lozenges of a pine-apple, 
 while the leaves spread up and abroad on the roof. 
 
 The table was laid for supper, with cold meat, and wine, and 
 a profusion of silver things, all sparkling brightly : but it was in 
 great disorder, wine spilt, and glasses broken, and dishes with 
 meat upset, and knives, and forks, and spoons, scattered all 
 about. She was evidently one of those London West Indiamen, 
 on board of which I knew there was much splendour and great 
 comfort. But, alas ! the hand of lawless violence had been there. 
 The captain lay across the table, with his head hanging over the 
 side of it next to us, and unable to help himself, with his hands 
 tied behind his back, and a gag in his mouth ; his face purple 
 from the blood running to his head, and the white of his eyes 
 turned up, while his loud stertorous breathing but too clearly 
 indicated the rupture of a vessel on the brain. 
 
 He was a stout portly man, and although we released him on 
 the instant, and had him bled, and threw water on his face, and 
 did all we could for him, he never spoke afterwards, and died in 
 half an hour. 
 
 Four gentlemanly-looking men were sitting at table, lashed to 
 their chairs, pale and trembling, while six of the most ruffian- 
 looking scoundrels I ever beheld stood on the opposite side of 
 the table in a row fronting us, with the light from the lamps 
 shining full on them. Three of them were small but very 
 square mulattoes ; one was a South American Indian, with the 
 square high-boned visage and long, lank, black glossy hair of 
 his caste. These four had no clothing besides their trousers, and 
 stood with their arms folded, in all the calmness of desperate 
 men caught in the very fact of some horrible atrocity, which 
 they knew shut out every hope of mercy. The two others were 
 white Frenchmen, tall, bushy- whiskered, sallow desperadoes, but 
 still, wonderful to relate, with, if I may so speak, the manners 
 of gentlemen. One of them squinted, and had a hare-lip, which 
 gave him a horrible expression. They were dressed in white 
 trousers and shirts, yellow silk sashes round their waists, and a 
 sort of blue uniform jackets, blue Gascon caps, with the peaks, 
 from each of which depended a large bullion tassel, hanging 
 down on one side of their heads. The whole party had appa- 
 rently made up their minds that resistance was vain, for their 
 pistols and cutlasses, some of them bloody, had all been laid on 
 the table, with the butts and handles towards us, contrasting 
 horribly with the glittering equipage of steel, and crystal, and 
 silver things, on the snow-white damask table-cloth. They were
 
 46 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 immediately seized and ironed, to which they submitted in si- 
 lence. We next released the passengers, and were overpowered 
 with thanks, one dancing, one crying, one laughing, and another 
 praying. But, merciful Heaven ! what an object met our eyes ! 
 Drawing aside the curtain that concealed a sofa fitted into a 
 recess, there lay, more dead than alive, a tall and most beautiful 
 girl, her head resting on her left arm, her clothes disordered and 
 torn, blood on her bosom, and foam on her mouth, with her long 
 dark hair loose and dishevelled, and covering the upper part of 
 her deadly pale face, through which her wild sparkling black eyes, 
 protruding from their sockets, glanced and glared with the fire 
 of a maniac's, while her blue lips kept gibbering an incoherent 
 prayer one moment, and the next imploring mercy, as if she had 
 still been in the hands of those who knew not the name ; and 
 anon, a low hysterical laugh made our very blood freeze in our 
 bosoms, which soon ended in a long dismal yell, as she rolled 
 off the couch upon the hard deck, and lay in a dead faint. 
 
 Alas the day ! a maniac she was from that hour. She was 
 the only daughter of the murdered master of the ship, and never 
 awoke, in her unclouded reason, to the fearful consciousness of 
 her own dishonour and her parent's death. 
 
 The Torch captured the schooner, and we left the privateer's 
 men at Barbadoes to meet their reward, and several of the mer- 
 chant sailors were turned over to the guardship, to prove the 
 facts in the first instance, and to serve his Majesty as impressed 
 men in the second, but scrimp measure of justice to the poor 
 ship's crew. 
 
 Anchored at Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes. Town seemed built of 
 cards black faces showy dresses of the negroes dined at Mr 
 
 C 's capital dinner little breeze-mill at the end of the 
 
 room, that pumped a solution of saltpetre and water into a trough 
 of tin, perforated with small holes, below which, and exposed to 
 the breeze, were ranged the wine and liqueurs, all in cotton 
 bags ; the water then flowed into a well, where the pump was 
 stepped, and thus was again pumped up and kept circulating. 
 
 Landed the artillery, the soldiers, officers, and the Spanish 
 Canon discharged the whole battery. 
 
 Next morning, weighed at day-dawn, with the trade for Ja- 
 maica, and soon lost sight of the bright blue waters of Carlisle 
 Bay, and the smiling fields and tall cocoa-nut trees of the beauti- 
 ful island. In a week after we arrived off the east end of Jamaica ; 
 and that same evening, in obedience to the orders of the admiral 
 on the Windward Island station, we hove to in Bull Bay, in order
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 47 
 
 to land despatches, and secure our tithe of the crews of the mer- 
 chant-vessels bound for Kingston, and the ports to leeward, as 
 they passed us. We had fallen in with a pilot canoe of Morant 
 Bay with four negroes on board, who requested us to hoist in 
 their bpat, and take them all on board, as the pilot schooner to 
 which they belonged had that morning bore up for Kingston, 
 and left instructions to them to follow her in the first vessel 
 appearing afterwards. We did so, and now, as it was getting 
 dark, the captain came up to Mr Treenail 
 
 " Why, Mr Treenail, I think we had better heave to for the 
 night, and in this case I shall want you to go in the cutter to 
 Port Royal to deliver the despatches on board the flag-ship. " 
 
 " I don't think the admiral will be at Port Royal, sir," re- 
 sponded the lieutenant ; " and, if I might suggest, those black 
 chaps have offered to take me ashore here on the Palisadoes, a 
 narrow spit of land, not above one hundred yards across, that 
 divides the harbour from the ocean, and to haul the canoe across, 
 and take me to the agent's house in Kingston, who will doubt- 
 less frank me up to the pen where the admiral resides, and I 
 shall thus deliver the letters, and be back again by day-dawn." 
 
 " Not a bad plan," said old Deadeye ; " put it in execution, 
 and I will go below and get the despatches immediately." 
 
 The canoe was once more hoisted out ; the three black fellows, 
 the pilot of the ship continuing on board, jumped into her along- 
 side. 
 
 " Had you not better take a couple of hands with you, Mr 
 Treenail 1 " said the skipper. 
 
 " Why, no, sir, I don't think I shall want them ; but if you will 
 spare me Mr Cringle I will be obliged, in case I want any help." 
 
 We shoved off, and as the glowing sun dipped under Port- 
 land Point, as the tongue of land that runs out about four miles 
 to the southward, on the western side of Port Royal harbour, 
 is called, we arrived within a hundred yards of the Palisadoes. 
 The surf, at the particular spot we steered for, did not break 
 on the shore in a rolling curling wave, as it usually does, but 
 smoothed away under the lee of a small sandy promontory that 
 ran out into the sea, about half a cable's length to windward, 
 and then slid up the smooth white sand without breaking, in a 
 deep clear green swell, for the space of twenty yards, gradually 
 shoaling, the colour becoming lighter and lighter until it frothed 
 away in a shallow white fringe, that buzzed as it receded back 
 into the deep green sea, until it was again propelled forward by 
 the succeeding billow.
 
 48 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " I say, friend Bungo, how shall we manage ? You don't 
 mean to swamp us in a shove through that surf, do you 1 " said 
 Mr Treenail 
 
 "No fear, massa, if you and toder leetle man-of-war buccra 
 only keep dem seat when we rise on de crest of de swell dere." 
 
 We sat quiet enough. Treenail was coolness itself, and I aped 
 him as well as I could. The loud murmur, increasing to a roar, 
 of the sea, was trying enough as we approached, buoyed on the 
 last long undulation. 
 
 " Now sit still, massa, bote." 
 
 We sank down into the trough, and presently were hove for- 
 wards with a smooth sliding motion up on the beach until grit, 
 grit, we stranded on the cream-coloured sand, high and dry. 
 
 " Now, jomp, massa, jomp." 
 
 We leapt with all our strength, and thereby toppled down 
 on our noses ; the sea receded, and before the next billow ap- 
 proached we had run the canoe twenty yards beyond high-water 
 mark. 
 
 It was the work of a very few minutes to haul the canoe 
 across the sand-bank, and to launch it once more in the placid 
 waters of the harbour of Kingston. We pulled across towards 
 the town, until we landed at the bottom of Hanover Street ; the 
 lights from the cabin windows of the merchantmen glimmering 
 as we passed, and the town only discernible from a solitary 
 sparkle here and there. But the contrast when we landed was 
 very striking. We had come through the darkness of the night 
 in comparative quietness ; and in two hours from the time we 
 had left the old Torch, we were transferred from her orderly 
 deck to the bustle of a crowded town. 
 
 One of our crew undertook to be the guide to the agent's 
 house. We arrived before it. It was a large mansion, and we 
 could see lights glimmering in the ground -floor; but it was 
 gaily lit up aloft. The house itself stood back about twenty 
 feet from the street, from which it was separated by an iron 
 railing. 
 
 We knocked at the outer gate, but no one answered. At 
 length our black guide found out a bell-pull, and presently the 
 clang of a bell resounded throughout the mansion. Still no one 
 answered. I pushed against the door, and found it was open, 
 and Mr Treenail and myself immediately ascended a flight of 
 six marble steps, and stood in the lower piazza, with the hall, 
 or vestibule, before us. We entered. A very well-dressed 
 brown woman, who was sitting at her work at a small table,
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 49 
 
 along with two young girls of the same complexion, instantly 
 rose to receive us. 
 
 " Beg pardon," said Mr Treenail, " pray, is this Mr 's 
 
 house?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, it is." 
 
 " Will you have the goodness to say if he be at home ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, sir, he is dere upon dinner wid company," said the 
 lady. 
 
 " Well," continued the lieutenant, "say to him, that an officer 
 of his Majesty's sloop Torch is below, with despatches for the 
 admiral." 
 
 "Surely, sir, surely," the dark lady continued; "Follow 
 me, sir; and dat small gentleman [Thomas Cringle, Esquire, 
 no less !] him will better follow me too." 
 
 We left the room, and turning to the right, landed in the 
 lower piazza of the house, fronting the north. A large clumsy 
 stair occupied the easternmost end, with a massive mahogany 
 balustrade, but the whole affair below was very ill lighted. The 
 brown lady preceded us ; and, planting herself at the bottom of 
 the staircase, began to shout to some one above 
 
 "Toby! Toby! buccra gentlemen arrive, Toby." But no 
 Toby responded to the call. 
 
 " My dear madam," said Treenail, " I have little time for 
 ceremony. Pray usher us up into Mr 's presence." 
 
 " Den follow me, gentlemen, please." 
 
 Forthwith we all ascended the dark staircase until we reached 
 the first landing-place, when we heard a noise as of two negroes 
 wrangling on the steps above us. 
 
 " You rascal ! " sang out one, " take dat ; larn you for teal my 
 wittal!" then a sharp crack, as if he had smote the culprit 
 across the pate ; whereupon, like a shot, a black fellow, in a 
 handsome livery, trundled down, pursued by another servant 
 with a large silver ladle in his hand, with which he was belabour- 
 ing the fugitive over his flint-hard skull, right against our hos- 
 tess, with the drumstick of a turkey in his hand, or rather in his 
 mouth. 
 
 " Top, you tief ! top, you tief ! for me piece dat," shouted 
 the pursuer. 
 
 "You dam rascal!" quoth the dame. But she had no time 
 to utter another word, before the fugitive pitched, with all his 
 weight, against her; and at the very moment another servant 
 came trundling down with a large tray full of all kinds of meats 
 and I especially remember that two large crystal stands of
 
 50 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 jellies composed part of his load so there we were regularly 
 capsized, and caught all of a heap in the dark landing-place, half- 
 way up the stair; and down the other flight tumbled our 
 guide, with Mr Treenail and myself, and the two blackies on the 
 top of her, rolling in our descent over, or rather into, another 
 large mahogany tray which had just been carried out, with a 
 tureen of turtle soup in it, and a dish of roast-beef, and platefuls 
 of land-crabs, and the Lord knows what all besides. 
 
 The crash reached the ear of the landlord, who was seated at 
 the head of his table in the upper piazza, a long gallery about 
 fifty feet long by fourteen wide, and he immediately rose and 
 ordered his butler to take a light. When he came down to 
 ascertain the cause of the uproar, I shall never forget the scene. 
 
 There was, first of all, mine host, a remarkably neat personage, 
 standing on the polished mahogany stair, three steps above his 
 servant, who was a very well-dressed respectable elderly negro, 
 with a candle in each hand ; and beneath him, on the landing- 
 place, lay two trays of viands, broken tureens of soup, fragments 
 of dishes, and fractured glasses, and a chaos of eatables and drink- 
 ables, and table gear scattered all about, amidst which lay 
 scrambling my lieutenant and myself, the brown housekeeper, 
 and the two negro servants, all more or less covered with gravy 
 and wine dregs. However, after a good laugh, we gathered our- 
 selves up, and at length we were ushered on the scene. Mine 
 host, after stifling his laughter the best way he could, again sat 
 down at the head of his table, sparkling with crystal and wax- 
 lights, while a superb lamp hung overhead. The company was 
 composed chiefly of naval and military men, but there was also 
 a sprinkling of civilians, or muftees, to use a West India ex- 
 pression. Most of them rose as we entered, and after they had 
 taken a glass of wine, and had their laugh at our mishap, our 
 landlord retired to one side with Mr Treenail, while I, poor little 
 middy as I was, remained standing at the end of the room, close 
 to the head of the stairs. The gentleman who sat at the foot of 
 the table had his back towards me, and was not at first aware 
 of my presence. But the guest at his right hand, a happy-look- 
 ing, red-faced, well-dressed man, soon drew his attention towards 
 me. The party to whom I was thus indebted seemed a very 
 jovial-looking personage, and appeared to be well known to all 
 hands, and indeed the life of the party, for, like Falstaff, he was 
 not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit in others. 
 
 The gentleman to whom he had pointed me out immediately 
 rose, made his bow, ordered a chair, arid made room for me
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 51 
 
 beside himself, where, the moment it was known that we were 
 direct from home, such a volley of questions was fired off at me 
 that I did not know which to answer first. At length, after 
 Treenail had taken a glass or two of wine, the agent started him 
 off to the admiral's pen in his own gig, and I was desired to stay 
 where I was until he returned. 
 
 The whole party seemed very happy, my boon ally was fun 
 itself, and I was much entertained with the mess he made when 
 any of the foreigners at table addressed him in French or 
 Spanish. I was particularly struck with a small, thin, dark 
 Spaniard, who told very feelingly how the night before, on re- 
 turning home from a party to his own lodgings, on passing 
 through the piazza, he stumbled against something heavy that 
 lay in his grass-hammock, which usually hung there. He called 
 for a light, when, to his horror, he found the body of his old and 
 faithful valet lying in it, dead and cold, with a knife sticking 
 under his fifth rib no doubt intended for his master. The 
 speaker was Bolivar. About midnight, Mr Treenail returned, 
 
 we shook hands with Mr , and once more shoved off; and, 
 
 guided by the lights shown on board the Torch we were safe 
 home again by three in the morning, when we immediately made 
 sail, and nothing particular happened until we arrived within 
 a day's sail of New Providence. It seemed that, about a week 
 before, a large American brig, bound from Havanna to Boston, 
 had been captured in this very channel by one of our men-of-war 
 schooners, and carried into Nassau ; out of which port, for their 
 own security, the authorities had fitted a small schooner, carrying 
 six guns and twenty-four men. She was commanded by a very 
 gallant fellow there is no disputing that and he must needs 
 emulate the conduct of the officer who had made the capture ; 
 for in a fine clear night, when all the officers were below rum- 
 maging in their kits for the killing things they should array 
 themselves in on the morrow, so as to smite the Fair of New Pro- 
 vidence to the heart at a blow Whiss a shot flew over our 
 mast-head. 
 
 "A small schooner lying to right ahead, sir," sang out the 
 boatswain from the forecastle. 
 
 Before we could beat to quarters, another sang between our 
 masts. We kept steadily on our course, and as we approached 
 our pigmy antagonist, he bore up. Presently we were alongside 
 of him. 
 
 " Heave to," hailed the strange sail ; "heave to, or I'll sink you." 
 
 The devil you will, you midge, thought L
 
 52 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 The captain took the trumpet "Schooner, ahoy" no an- 
 swer " D n your blood, sir, if you don't let everything go by 
 the run this instant, I'll fire a broadside. Strike, sir, to his 
 Britannic Majesty's sloop Torch." 
 
 The poor fellow commanding the schooner had by this time 
 found out his mistake, and immediately came on board, where, 
 instead of being lauded for his gallantry, I am sorry to say he 
 was roundly rated for his want of discernment in mistaking his 
 Majesty's cruiser for a Yankee merchantman. Next forenoon 
 we arrived at Nassau. 
 
 In a week after we again sailed for Bermuda, having taken on 
 board ten American skippers, and several other Yankees, as pri- 
 soners of war. 
 
 For the first three days after we cleared the Passages, we had 
 fine weather wind at east-south-east ; but after that it came on 
 to blow from the north-west, and so continued without intermis- 
 sion during the whole of the passage to Bermuda. On the fourth 
 morning after we left Nassau, we descried a sail in the south- 
 east quarter, and immediately made sail in chase. We over- 
 hauled her about noon; she hove to, after being fired at re- 
 peatedly ; and, on boarding her, we found she was a Swede from 
 Charleston, bound to Havre-de-Grace. All the letters we could 
 find on board were very unceremoniously broken open, and 
 nothing having transpired that could identify the cargo as 
 enemy's property, we were bundling over the side, when a 
 nautical-looking subject, who had attracted my attention from 
 the first, put in his oar. 
 
 " Lieutenant," said he, " will you allow me to put this barrel 
 of New York apples into the boat as a present to Captain Dead- 
 eye, from Captain * * * of the United States navy 1 " 
 
 Mr Treenail bowed, and said he would ; and we shoved off and 
 got on board again, and now there was the devil to pay, from 
 the perplexity old Deadeye was thrown into, as to whether, here 
 in the heat of the American war, he was bound to take this 
 American captain prisoner or not. I was no party to the coun- 
 cils of my superiors, of course, but the foreign ship was finally 
 allowed to continue her course. 
 
 The next day I had the forenoon watch ; the weather had 
 lulled unexpectedly, nor was there much sea, and the deck was 
 all alive, to take advantage of the fine blink, when the man at 
 the mast-head sang out " Breakers right ahead, sir." 
 
 " Breakers ! " said Mr Splinter, in great astonishment. "Break- 
 ers ! why, the man must be mad ! I say, Jenkins
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 53 
 
 " Breakers close under the bows," sang out the boatswain from 
 forward. 
 
 " The devil ! " quoth Splinter, and he ran along the gangway, 
 and ascended the forecastle, while I kept close to his heels. We 
 looked out ahead, and there we certainly did see a splashing, 
 and boiling, and white foaming of the ocean, that unquestionably 
 looked very like breakers. Gradually, this splashing and foam- 
 ing appearance took a circular whisking shape, as if the clear 
 green sea, for a space of a hundred yards in diameter, had been 
 stirred about by a gigantic invisible spurtle, until everything 
 hissed again ; and the curious part of it was, that the agitation 
 of the water seemed to keep ahead of us, as if the breeze which 
 impelled us had also floated it onwards. At length the whirling 
 circle of white foam ascended higher and higher, and then 
 gradually contracted itself into a spinning black tube, which 
 wavered about for all the world like a gigantic loch-leech held 
 by the tail between the finger and thumb, while it was poking 
 its vast snout about in the clouds in search of a spot to fasten on. 
 
 "Is the boat-gun on the forecastle loaded?" said Captain 
 Deadeye. 
 
 " It is, sir." 
 
 " Then luff a bit that will do fire." 
 
 The gun was discharged, and down rushed the black wavering 
 pillar in a watery avalanche, and in a minute after the dark 
 heaving billows rolled over the spot whereout it arose, as if no 
 such thing had ever been. 
 
 This said troubling of the waters was neither more nor less 
 than a waterspout, which again is neither more nor less than a 
 whirlwind at sea, which gradually whisks the water round and 
 round, and up and up, as you see straws so raised, until it reaches 
 a certain height, when it invariably breaks. Before this I had 
 thought that a waterspout was created by some next to super- 
 natural exertion of the power of the Deity, in order to suck up 
 water into the clouds, that they, like the wine-skins in Spain, 
 might be filled with rain. 
 
 The morning after, the weather was clear and beautiful, al- 
 though the wind blew half a gale. Nothing particular happened 
 until about seven o'clock in the evening. I had been invited to 
 dine with the gunroom officers this day, and every thing was 
 going on smooth and comfortable, when Mr Splinter spoke. 
 "I say, master, don't you smell gunpowder 1 ?" 
 
 " Yes, I do," said the little master, " or something deuced 
 like it."
 
 54 TOM CKINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 To explain the particular comfort of our position, it may be 
 right to mention that the magazine of a brig sloop is exactly 
 under the gunroom. Three of the American skippers had been 
 quartered on the gunroom mess, and they were all at table. 
 Snuff, snuff, smelled one, and another sniffled, " Gunpowder, I 
 guess, and in a state of ignition." 
 
 " Will you not send for the gunner, sir 1 " said the third. Splin- 
 ter did not like it, I saw, and this quailed me. 
 
 The captain's bell rang. " What smell of brimstone is that, 
 steward 1 " 
 
 "I really can't tell," said the man, trembling from head to 
 foot ; " Mr Splinter has sent for the gunner, sir." 
 
 " The devil ! " said Deadeye, as he hurried on deck. We all 
 followed. A search was made. 
 
 " Some matches have caught in the magazine," said one. 
 
 " We shall be up and away like sky-rockets," said another. 
 
 Several of the American masters ran out on the jib-boom, 
 coveting the temporary security of being so far removed from 
 the seat of the expected explosion, and all was alarm and con- 
 fusion, until it was ascertained that two of the boys, little sky- 
 larking vagabonds, had stolen some pistol cartridges, and had 
 been making lightning, as it is called, by holding a lighted 
 candle between the fingers, and putting some loose powder into 
 the palm of the hand, and then chucking it up into the flame. 
 They got- a sound flogging, on a very unpoetical part of their 
 corpuses, and once more the ship subsided into her usual orderly 
 discipline. The northwester still continued, with a clear blue 
 sky, without a cloud overhead by day, and a bright cold moon 
 by night. It blew so hard for the three succeeding days, that we 
 could not carry more than close-reefed topsails to it, and a reefed 
 foresail Indeed, towards six bells in the forenoon watch of the 
 third day, it came thundering down with such violence, and the 
 sea increased so much, that we had to hand the foretopsaiL 
 
 This was by no means an easy job. " Ease her a bit," said 
 the first lieutenant, " there shake the wind out of her sails 
 for a moment, until the men get the canvass in"- whirl, a 
 poor fellow pitched off the lee foreyardarm into the sea. " Up 
 with the helm heave him the bight of a rope." We kept away, 
 but all was confusion, until an American midshipman, one of the 
 prisoners on board, hove the bight of a rope at him. The man 
 got it under his arms, and after hauling him along for a hundred 
 yards at the least and one may judge of the velocity with which 
 he was dragged through the water, by the fact that it took the
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 55 
 
 united strain of ten powerful men to get him in he was brought 
 safely on board, pale and blue, when we found that the running 
 of the rope had crushed in his broad chest, below his arms, as if 
 it had been a girl's waist, indenting the very muscles of it and 
 of his back half an inch deep. He had to be bled before he 
 could breathe, and it was an hour before the circulation could 
 be restored, by the joint exertions of the surgeon and gunroom 
 steward, chafing him with spirits and camphor, after he had been 
 stripped and stowed away between the blankets in his ham- 
 mock. 
 
 The same afternoon we fell in with a small prize to the 
 squadron in the Chesapeake, a dismantled schooner, manned 
 by a prize crew of a midshipman and six men. She had a 
 signal of distress, an American ensign, with the union down, 
 hoisted on the jury-mast, across which there was rigged a solitary 
 lug-sail It was blowing so hard that we had some difficulty in 
 boarding her, when we found she was a Baltimore pilot-boat- 
 built schooner, of about 70 tons burden, laden with flour, and 
 bound for Bermuda. But three days before, in a sudden squall, 
 they had carried away both masts short by the board, and the 
 only spar which they had been able to rig, was a spare topmast 
 which they had jammed into one of the pumps fortunately she 
 was as tight as a bottle and stayed it the best way they could. 
 The captain offered to take the little fellow who had charge of 
 her, and his crew and cargo, on board, and then scuttle her; but 
 no all he wanted was a cask of water and some biscuit ; and 
 having had a glass of grog, he trundled over the side again, and 
 returned to his desolate command. However, he afterwards 
 brought his prize safe into Bermuda. 
 
 The weather still continued very rough, but we saw nothing 
 until the second evening after this. The forenoon had been 
 even more boisterous than any of the preceding, and we were all 
 fagged enough with " make sail," and " shorten sail," and " all 
 hands," the whole day through ; and as the night fell, I found 
 myself, for the fourth time, in the maintop. The men had just 
 lain in from the maintopsail yard, when we heard the watch 
 called on deck, " Starboard watch, ahoy ! " which was a cheery 
 sound to us of the larboard, who were thus released from duty 
 on deck, and allowed to go below. 
 
 The men were scrambling down the weather shrouds, and I 
 was preparing to follow them, when I jammed my left foot in 
 the grating of the top, and capsized on my nose. I had been up 
 nearly the whole of the previous night, and on deck the whole
 
 56 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of the day, and actively employed too, as during the greater part 
 of it it blew a gale. I stooped down in some pain, to see what 
 had bolted me to the grating ; but I had no sooner extricated my 
 foot, than, over- worked and over-fatigued as I was, I fell over in 
 the soundest sleep that ever I have enjoyed before or since, the 
 back of my neck resting on a coil of rope, so that my head hung 
 down within it. 
 
 The rain all this time was beating on me, and I was drenched 
 to the skin. I must have slept for four hours or so, when I was 
 awakened by a rough thump on the side from the stumbling foot 
 of the captain of the top, the word having been passed to shake 
 a reef out of the topsails, the wind having rather suddenly gone 
 down. It was done ; and now broad awake, I determined not 
 to be caught napping again, so I descended, and swung myself 
 in on deck out of the main rigging, just as Mr Treenail was 
 mustering the crew at eight bells. When I landed on the 
 quarterdeck, there he stood abaft the binnacle, with the light 
 shining on his face, his glazed hat glancing, and the rain-drop 
 sparkling at the brim of it. He had noticed me the moment I 
 descended. 
 
 " Heyday, Master Cringle, you are surely out of your watch. 
 Why, what are you doing here, eh ? " 
 
 I stepped up to him, and told him the truth, that, being over- 
 fatigued, I had fallen asleep in the top. 
 
 " Well, well, boy," said he, " never mind, go below, and turn 
 in ; if you don't take your rest, you never will be a sailor." 
 
 " But what do you see aloft 1 " glancing his eye upwards, and 
 all the crew on deck, as I passed them, looked anxiously up also 
 amongst the rigging, as if wondering what I saw there, for I had 
 been so chilled in my snoose, that my neck, from resting in the 
 cold on the coil of rope, had become stiffened and rigid to an 
 intolerable degree ; and although, when I first came on deck, I 
 had, by a strong exertion, brought my caput to its proper bear- 
 ings, yet the moment I was dismissed by my superior officer, I 
 for my own comfort was glad to conform to the contraction of 
 the muscle, whereby I once more staved along the deck, glower- 
 ing up into the heavens, as if I had seen some wonderful sight 
 there. 
 
 " What do you see aloft ? " repeated Mr Treenail, while the 
 crew, greatly puzzled, continued to follow my eyes, as they 
 thought, and to stare up into the rigging. 
 
 " Why, sir, I have thereby got a stiff neck that's all, sir." 
 
 " Go and turn in at once, my good boy make haste, now ;
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 57 
 
 tell our steward to give you a glass of hot grog, and mind your 
 hand that you don't get sick." 
 
 I did as I was desired, swallowed the grog, and turned in; 
 but I could not have been in bed above an hour, when the drum 
 beat to quarters, and I had once more to bundle out on the cold 
 wet deck, where I found all excitement. At the time I speak 
 of, we had been beaten by the Americans in several actions of 
 single ships, and our discipline improved in proportion as we 
 came to learn, by sad experience, that the enemy was not to be 
 undervalued. I found that there was a ship in sight, right 
 ahead of us apparently carrying all sail A group of officers 
 were on the forecastle with night-glasses, the whole crew being 
 stationed in dark clusters round the guns at quarters. Several of 
 the American skippers were forward amongst us, and they were 
 of opinion that the chase was a man-of-war, although our own 
 people seemed to doubt this. One of the skippers insisted that 
 she was the Hornet, from the unusual shortness of her lower 
 masts, and the immense squareness of her yards. But the puzzle 
 was, if it were the Hornet, why she did not shorten sail. Still 
 this might be accounted for, by her either wishing to make out 
 what we were before she engaged us, or she might be clearing 
 for action. At this moment a whole cloud of studdingsails were 
 blown from the yards as if the booms had been carrots ; and to 
 prove that the chase was keeping a bright look-out, she imme- 
 diately kept away, and finally bore up dead before the wind, 
 under the impression, no doubt, that she would draw ahead of 
 us, from her gear being entire, before we could rig out our light 
 sails again. 
 
 And so she did for a time, but at length we got within gun- 
 shot. The American masters were now ordered below, the 
 hatches were clapped on, and the word passed to see all clear. 
 Our shot was by this time flying over and over her, and it was 
 evident she was not a man-of-war. We peppered away she 
 could not even be a privateer ; we were close under her lee quar- 
 ter, and yet she had never fired a shot ; and her large swaggering 
 Yankee ensign was now run up to the peak, only to be hauled 
 down the next moment. Hurrah! a large cotton-ship from 
 Charlestown to Bordeaux prize to H.M.S. Torch ! 
 
 She was taken possession of, and proved to be the Natches, 
 of four hundred tons burden, fully loaded with cotton. 
 
 . By the time we got the crew on board, and the second-lieu- 
 tenant, with a prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the 
 weather began to lour again, nevertheless we took the prize in
 
 58 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 tow, and continued on our voyage for the next three days, with- 
 out anything particular happening. It was the middle watch, 
 and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent jerking 
 of my hammock, and a cry " that the brig was amongst the 
 breakers." I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, 
 and a scene of confusion such as I never had witnessed before. 
 The gale had increased, yet the prize had not been cast off, and 
 the consequence was, that by some mismanagement or careless- 
 ness, the swag of the large ship had suddenly hove the brig in 
 the wind, and taken the sails aback. We accordingly fetched 
 stern way, and ran foul of the prize, and there we were, in a 
 heavy sea, with our stern grinding against the cotton-ship's high 
 quarter. 
 
 The mainboom, by the first rasp that took place after I came 
 on deck, was broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove 
 right in over the taffrail ; the vessels then closed, and the next 
 rub ground off the ship's mizen channel as clean as if it had been 
 sawed away. Officers shouting, men swearing, rigging cracking, 
 the vessels crashing and thumping together, I thought we were 
 gone, when the first-lieutenant seized his trumpet " Silence, 
 men ; hold your tongues, you cowards, and mind the word of 
 command ! " 
 
 The effect was magical " Brace round the foreyard round 
 with it ; set the jib that's it fore-topmast staysail haul 
 never mind if the gale takes it out of the bolt-rope" a thun- 
 dering flap, and away it flew in truth down to leeward, like a 
 puff of white smoke. " Never mind, men, the jib stands. Belay 
 all that down with the helm, now don't you see she has stern 
 way yet ? Zounds ! we shall be smashed to atoms if you don't 
 mind your hands, you lubbers main-topsail sheets let fly 
 there she pays off, and has headway once more that's it : right 
 your helm, now never mind his spanker-boom, the fore-stay will 
 stand it : there up with helm, sir we have cleared him hur- 
 rah ! " And a near thing it was too, but we soon had everything 
 snug ; and although the gale continued without any intermission 
 for ten days, at length we ran in and anchored with our prize in 
 Five-Fathom Hole, off the entrance to St George's Harbour. 
 
 It was lucky for us that we got to anchor at the time we did, 
 for that same afternoon one of the most tremendous gales of 
 wind from the westward came on that I ever saw. Fortunately it 
 was steady and did not veer about, and having good ground-tackle 
 down, we rode it out well enough. The effect was very uncom- 
 mon ; the wind was howling over our mast-heads, and amongst
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 59 
 
 the cedar bushes on the cliffs above, while on deck it was nearly 
 calm, and there was very little swell, being a weather shore ; but 
 half a mile out at sea all was white foam, and the tumbling 
 waves seemed to meet from north and south, leaving a space of 
 smooth water under the lee of the island, shaped like the tail of 
 a comet, tapering away, and gradually roughening and becoming 
 more stormy, until the roaring billows once more owned allegi- 
 ance to the genius of the storm. 
 
 There we rode, with three anchors ahead, in safety through 
 the night ; and next day, availing of a temporary lull, we ran up 
 and anchored off the Tanks. Three days after this, the American 
 frigate President was brought in by the Endymion and the rest 
 of the squadron. 
 
 I went on board, in common with every officer in the fleet, and 
 certainly I never saw a more superb vessel ; her scantling was 
 that of a seventy-four, and she appeared to have been fitted with 
 great care. I got a week's leave at this time, and, as I had 
 letters to several families, I contrived to spend my time plea- 
 santly enough. 
 
 Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a cluster of islands in the 
 middle of the Atlantic. There are Lord knows how many of 
 them, but the beauty of the little straits and creeks which divide 
 them no man can describe who has not seen them. The town 
 of St George's, for instance, looks as if the houses were cut 
 out of chalk ; and one evening the family where I was on a visit 
 proceeded to the main island, Hamilton, to attend a ball there. 
 We had to cross three ferries, although the distance was not 
 above nine miles, if so far. The 'Mudian women are unquestion- 
 ably beautiful so thought Thomas Moore, a tolerable judge, 
 before me. By the by, touching this 'Mudian ball, it was a very 
 gay affair the women pleasant and beautiful ; but all the men, 
 when they speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye and spit ; a 
 lucid and succinct description of a community. 
 
 The second day of my sojourn was fine the first fine day 
 since our arrival and with several young ladies of the family, 
 I was prowling through the cedar wood above St George's, when 
 a dark good-looking man passed us ; he was dressed in tight 
 worsted net pantaloons and Hessian boots, and wore a blue frock- 
 coat and two large epaulets, with rich French bullion, and a 
 round hat. On passing, he touched his hat with much grace, 
 and in the evening I met him in society. It was Commodore 
 Decatur. He was very much a Frenchman in manner, or, I 
 should rather say, in look, for although very well bred, he, for
 
 60 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 one ingredient, by no means possessed a Frenchman's volubility ; 
 still, he was an exceedingly agreeable and very handsome man. 
 
 The following day we spent in a pleasure cruise amongst the 
 three hundred and sixty-five islands, many of them not above an 
 acre in extent fancy an island of an acre in extent ! with a 
 solitary house, a small garden, a red-skinned family, a piggery, 
 and all around clear deep pellucid water. None of the islands, 
 or islets, rise to any great height, but they all shoot precipitously 
 out of the water, as if the whole group had originally been one 
 huge platform of rock, with numberless grooves subsequently 
 chiselled out in it by art. 
 
 We had to wind our way amongst these manifold small 
 channels for two hours, before we reached the gentleman's house 
 where we had been invited to dine; at length, on turning a 
 corner, with both lateen sails drawing beautifully, we ran bump 
 on a shoal ; there was no danger, and knowing that the 'Mudians 
 
 were capital sailors, I sat still. Not so Captain K , a round 
 
 plump little homo, " Shove her off, my boys, shove her off." 
 She would not move, and thereupon he, in a fever of gallantry, 
 jumped overboard up to the waist in full fig ; and one of the men 
 following his example, we were soon afloat. The ladies ap- 
 plauded, and the captain sat in his wet breeJcs for the rest of 
 the voyage, in all the consciousness of being considered a hero. 
 Ducks and onions are the grand staple of Bermuda, but there 
 was a fearful dearth of both at the time I speak of a knot 
 of young West India merchants, who, with heavy purses and 
 large credits on England, had at this time domiciled themselves 
 in St George's, to batten on the spoils of poor Jonathan, having 
 monopolised all the good things of the place. I happened to 
 be acquainted with one of them, and thereby had less reason to 
 complain ; but many a poor fellow, sent ashore on duty, had to 
 put up with but Lenten fare at the taverns. At length, having 
 refitted, we sailed in company with the Eayo frigate, with a con- 
 voy of three transports, freighted with a regiment for New Or- 
 leans, and several merchantmen bound for the West Indies. 
 
 " The still vexed Bermoothes" I arrived at them in a gale 
 of wind, and I sailed from them in a gale of wind. What the 
 climate may be in the summer I don't know ; but during the 
 time I was there it was one storm after another. 
 
 We sailed in the evening with the moon at full, and the wind 
 at west-north-west. So soon as we got from under the lee of 
 the land the breeze struck us, and it came on to blow like thun- 
 der, so that we were all soon reduced to our storm staysails ;
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH, 61 
 
 and there we were, transports, merchantmen, and men-of-war, 
 rising on the mountainous billows one moment, and the next 
 losing sight of everything but the water and sky in the deep 
 trough of the sea, while the seething foam was blown over us 
 in showers from the curling manes of the roaring waves. But 
 overhead, all this while, it was as clear as a lovely winter moon 
 could make it, and the stars shone brightly in the deep blue 
 sky; there was not even a thin fleecy shred of cloud racking 
 across the moon's disc. Oh, the glories of a northwester ! 
 
 But the devil seize such glory ! Glory, indeed ! with a fleet 
 of transports, and a regiment of soldiers on board ! Glory ! 
 why, I daresay five hundred rank and file, at the fewest, were all 
 cascading at one and the same moment, a thousand poor fel- 
 lows turned outside in, like so many pairs of old stockings. Any 
 glory in that 1 But to proceed. 
 
 Next morning the gale still continued, and when the day broke 
 there was the frigate standing across our bows, rolling and pitch- 
 ing, as she tore her way through the boiling sea, under a close- 
 reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail, with topgallant-yards and 
 royal masts, and everything that could be struck with safety in 
 war-time, down on deck. There she lay, with her clear black 
 bends, and bright white streak, and long tier of cannon on the 
 maindeck, and the carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle 
 grinning through the ports in the black bulwarks, while the white 
 hammocks, carefully covered by the hammock-cloths, crowned the 
 defences of the gallant frigate fore and aft, as she delved through 
 the green surge one minute rolling and rising on the curling 
 white crest of a mountainous sea, amidst a hissing snow-storm of 
 spray, with her bright copper glancing from stem to stern, and 
 her scanty white canvass swelling aloft, and twenty eet of her 
 keel forward occasionally hove into the air clean out of the water, 
 as if she had been a sea-bird rushing to take wing and the 
 next, sinking entirely out of sight hull, masts, and rigging be- 
 hind an intervening sea, that rose in hoarse thunder between us, 
 threatening to overwhelm both us and her. As for the trans- 
 ports, the largest of the three had lost her fore-topmast, and had 
 bore up under her foresail ; another was also scudding under a 
 close-reefed fore-topsail ; but the third or head-quarter ship was 
 still lying-to to windward, under her storm staysails. None of 
 the merchant vessels were to be seen, having been compelled to 
 bear up in the night, and to run before it under bare poles. 
 
 At length, as the sun rose, we got before the wind, and it soon 
 moderated so far that we could carry reefed topsails and foresail ;
 
 62 TOM CRINGLE'S LOO. 
 
 and away we all bowled, with, a clear, deep, cold, blue sky, and a 
 bright sun overhead, and a stormy leaden-coloured ocean with 
 whitish green-crested billows, below. The sea continued to go 
 down, and the wind to slacken, until the afternoon, when the com- 
 modore made the signal for the Torch to send a boat's crew, the 
 instant it could be done with safety, on board the dismasted ship to 
 assist in repairing damages and in getting up a jury-foretopmast. 
 
 The damaged ship was at this time on our weather-quarter ; 
 we accordingly handed the fore-topsail, and presently she was 
 alongside. We hailed her, that we intended to send a boat on 
 board, and desired her to heave-to, as we did, and presently she 
 rounded to under our lee. One of the quarter-boats was manned, 
 with three of the carpenter's crew, and six good men over and 
 above her complement ; but it was no easy matter to get on 
 board of her, let me tell you, after she had been lowered, carefully 
 watching the rolls, with four hands in. The moment she touched 
 the water, the tackles were cleverly unhooked, and the rest of us 
 tumbled on board, shin leather growing scarce, when we shoved 
 off. With great difficulty, and not without wet jackets, we, the 
 supernumeraries, got on board, and the boat returned to the 
 Torch. The evening when we landed in the lobster-box, as Jack 
 loves to designate a transport, was too far advanced for us to do 
 anything towards refitting that night ; and the confusion and 
 uproar and numberless abominations of the crowded craft, were 
 irksome to a greater degree than I expected, after having been 
 accustomed to the strict and orderly discipline of a man-of-war. 
 The following forenoon the Torch was ordered by signal to 
 chase in the south-east quarter, and, hauling out from the fleet, 
 she was soon out of sight. 
 
 " There goes my house and home," said I, and a feeling of 
 desolateness came over me, that I would have been ashamed at 
 the time to have acknowledged. We stood on, and worked 
 hard all day in repairing the damage sustained during the gale. 
 
 At length dinner was announced, and I was invited, as the 
 officer in charge of the seamen, to go down. The party in the 
 cabin consisted of an old gizzened major, with a brown wig, and 
 a voice melodious as the sharpening of a saw I fancied some- 
 times that the vibration created by it set the very glasses in the 
 steward's pantry a-ringing three captains and six subalterns, 
 every man of whom, as the devil would have it, played on the 
 flute, and drew bad sketches, and kept journals. Most of them 
 were very white and blue in the gills when we sat down, and 
 others of a dingy sort of whitey-brown, while they ogled the viands
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TOKCH. 63 
 
 in a most suspicious manner. Evidently most of them had but 
 small confidence in their moniplies ; and one or two, as the ship 
 gave a heavier roll than usual, looked wistfully towards the 
 door, and half rose from their chairs, as if in act to bolt. How- 
 ever, hot brandy grog being the order of the day, we all, lands- 
 men and sailors, got on astonishingly, and numberless long 
 yarns were spun of what " what's-his-name of this, and so-and- 
 so of t'other, did or did not do." 
 
 About half -past five in the evening the captain of the trans- 
 port, or rather the agent, an old lieutenant in the navy, and our 
 host, rang his bell for the steward. 
 
 " Whereabouts are we in the fleet, steward ? " said the ancient. 
 
 " The sternmost ship of all, sir," said the man. 
 
 " Where is the commodore 1 " 
 
 " About three miles ahead, sir." 
 
 " And the Torch, has she rejoined us ? " 
 
 " No, sir ; she has been out of sight these two hours ; when 
 last seen she was in chase of something in the south-east quarter, 
 and carrying all the sail she could stagger under." 
 
 " Very well, very well." 
 
 A song from Master Waistbelt, one of the young officers. Be- 
 fore he had concluded the mate came down. By this time it 
 was near sundown. 
 
 " Shall we shake a reef out of the main and mizen topsails, 
 sir, and set the mainsail and spanker 1 The wind has lulled, 
 sir, and there is a strange sail in the north-west that seems to be 
 dodging us but she may be one of the merchantmen, after 
 all, sir." 
 
 " Never mind, Mr Leechline," said our gallant captain. " Mr 
 Bandalier a song if you please." 
 
 Now, the young soldiers on board happened to be men of the 
 world, and Bandalier, who did not sing, turned off the request 
 with a good-humoured laugh, alleging his inability with much 
 suavity ; but the old rough Turk of a tar-bucket chose to fire at 
 this, and sang out " Oh, if you don't choose to sing when you 
 are asked, and to sport your damned fine airs " 
 
 " Mr Crowfoot " 
 
 " Captain," said the agent, piqued at having his title by cour- 
 tesy withheld. 
 
 "By no means," said Major Sawrasp, who had spoken "I 
 believe I am speaking to Lieutenant Crowfoot, agent for trans- 
 port No. , wherein it so happens I am commanding officer 
 so "
 
 64 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Old Crowfoot saw he was in the wrong box, and therefore 
 hove about, and backed out in good time making the amende 
 as smoothly as his gruff nature admitted, and trying to look 
 pleased. 
 
 Presently the same bothersome mate came down again 
 " The strange sail is creeping up on our quarter, sir." 
 
 " Ay 1 " said Crowfoot, " how does she lay ? " 
 
 " She is hauled by the wind on the starboard tack, sir," con- 
 tinued the mate. 
 
 We now went on deck, and found that our suspicious friend 
 had shortened sail, as if he had made us out, and was afraid to 
 approach, or was lying by until nightfall 
 
 Sawrasp had before this, with the tact and ease of a soldier 
 and a gentleman, soldered his feud with Crowfoot, and, with the 
 rest of the lobsters, was full of fight. The sun at length set, and 
 the night closed in, when the old major again addressed Crowfoot. 
 
 " My dear fellow, can't you wait a bit, and let us have a rattle 
 at that chap "? " And old Crowfoot, who never bore a grudge 
 long, seemed much inclined to fall in with the soldier's views ; 
 and, in fine, although the weather was now moderate, he did 
 not make sail Presently the commodore fired a gun, and 
 showed lights. It was the signal to close. " Oh, time enough," 
 said old Crowfoot " what is the old man afraid of 1 " Another 
 gun and a fresh constellation on board the frigate. It was "an 
 enemy in the north-west quarter." 
 
 " Hah, hah," sang out the agent, " is it so 1 Major, what say 
 you to a brush let her close, eh 1 should like to pepper her 
 wouldn't you three hundred men, eh 1 " 
 
 By this time we were all on deck the schooner came bowling 
 along under a reefed mainsail and jib, now rising, and presently 
 disappearing behind the stormy heavings of the roaring sea, the 
 rising moon shining brightly on her canvass pinions, as if she 
 had been an albatross skimming along the surface of the foam- 
 ing water, while her broad white streak glanced like a silver 
 ribbon along her clear black side. She was a very large craft of 
 her class, long and low in the water, and evidently very fast ; 
 and it was now clear, from our having been unable as yet to 
 sway up our fore-topmast, that she took us for a disabled mer- 
 chantman, which might be cut off from the convoy. 
 
 As she approached we could perceive by the bright moon- 
 light that she had six guns of a side, and two long ones on 
 pivots the one forward on the forecastle, and the other choke 
 up to the mainmast.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TQRCH. 65 
 
 Her deck was crowded with dark figures, pike and cutlass in 
 hand : we were by this time so near that we could see a trumpet 
 in the hand of a man who stood in the fore rigging, with his 
 feet on the hammock netting, and his back against the shrouds. 
 We had cleared away our six eighteen-pound carronades, which 
 composed our starboard broadside, and loaded them, each with 
 a round shot and a bag of two hundred musket-balls, while 
 three hundred soldiers in their foraging jackets, and with their 
 loaded muskets in their hands, were lying on the deck, concealed 
 by the quarters, while the blue-jackets were sprawling in groups 
 round the carronades. 
 
 I was lying down beside the gallant old major, who had a 
 bugler close to him, while Crowfoot was standing on the gun 
 nearest us ; but getting tired of this recumbent position, I crept 
 aft, until I could see through a spare port. 
 
 " Why don't the rascals fire 1 " quoth Sawrasp. 
 
 "Oh, that would alarm the commodore. They intend to 
 walk quietly on board of us ; but they will find themselves mis- 
 taken a little," whispered Crowfoot. 
 
 " Mind, men, no firing till the bugle sounds," said the major. 
 
 The word was passed along. 
 
 The schooner was by this time ploughing through it within 
 half pistol-shot, with the white water dashing away from her 
 bows, and buzzing past her sides her crew as thick as peas on 
 her deck. Once or twice she hauled her wind a little, and then 
 again kept away from us, as if irresolute what to do. At length, 
 without hailing, and all silent as the grave, she put her helm 
 a-starboard, and ranged alongside. 
 
 " Now, my boys, give it him," shouted Crowfoot " Fire ! " 
 
 " Ready, men," shouted the major " Present, fire ! " 
 
 The bugles sounded, the cannon roared, the musketry rattled, 
 and the men cheered, and all was hurra, and fire, and fury. 
 The breeze was strong enough to carry the smoke forward, and 
 I saw the deck of the schooner, where the moment before all 
 was still and motionless, and filled with dark figures till there 
 scarcely appeared standing room, at once converted into a 
 shambles. The blasting fiery tempest had laid low nearly the 
 whole mass, like a maize-plat before a hurricane ; and such a 
 cry arose, as if 
 
 " Men fought on earth, 
 And fiends in upper air." 
 
 Scarcely a man was on his legs, the whole crew seemed to have 
 been levelled with the deck, many dead, no doubt, and most 
 
 E
 
 66 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 wounded, while we could see numbers endeavouring to creep 
 towards the hatches, while the black blood, in horrible streams, 
 gushed through her scuppers across the bright white streak that 
 glanced in the moonlight. 
 
 Some one on board of the privateer now hailed, " We have 
 surrendered ; cease firing, sir." But devil a bit we continued 
 blazing away a lantern was run up to his main gaff, and then 
 lowered again. 
 
 " We have struck, sir," shouted another voice ; " don't murder 
 us don't fire, sir, for Godsake." 
 
 But fire we still did ; no sailor has the least compunction at 
 even running down a privateer. Mercy to privateersmen is un- 
 known. " Give them the stem," is the word, the curs being 
 regarded by Jack at the best as highwaymen ; so when he found 
 we still peppered away, sailing two feet for our one, he hauled 
 his wind, and speedily got beyond range of our carronades, hav- 
 ing all this time never fired a shot. Shortly after this we ran 
 under the Kayo's stern she was lying to. 
 
 " Mr Crowfoot, what have you been after ] I have a great 
 mind to report you, sir." 
 
 " We could not help it, sir," sang out Crowfoot, in a most 
 dolorous tone, in answer to the captain of the frigate ; "we have 
 been nearly taken, sir, by a privateer, sir an immense vessel, 
 sir, that sails like a witch, sir." 
 
 " Keep close in my wake then, sir," rejoined the captain, in a 
 gruff tone, and immediately the Rayo bore up. 
 
 Next morning we were all carrying as much sail as we could 
 crowd. By this time we had gotten our jury-foretopmast up, 
 and the Rayo, having kept astern in the night, was now under 
 topsails and top-gallantsails, with the wet canvass at the head of 
 the sails, showing that the reefs had been freshly shaken out 
 rolling wedge-like on the swell, and rapidly shooting ahead, to 
 resume her station^ As she passed us, and let fall her foresail, 
 she made the signal to make more sail, her object being to get 
 through the Caicos Passage, into which we were now entering, 
 before nightfall. It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon. A 
 fine clear breezy day, fresh and pleasant, sometimes cloudy over- 
 head, but always breaking away again, with a bit of a sneezer 
 and a small shower. As the sun rose there were indications of 
 squalls in the north-eastern quarter, and about noon one of them 
 was whitening to windward. So "hands by the topgallant 
 clew-lines" was the word, and we were all standing by to shor- 
 ten sail when the commodore came to the wind as sharp and
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 67 
 
 suddenly as if he had anchored ; but on a second look I saw his 
 sheets were let fly, haulyards let go, and apparently all was con- 
 fusion on board of her. I ran to the side and looked over. 
 The long heaving dark-blue swell had changed into a light-green 
 hissing ripple. 
 
 " Zounds, Captain Crowfoot, shoal water why it breaks we 
 shall be ashore ! " 
 
 " Down with the helm brace round the yards," shouted 
 Crowfoot; "that's it steady luff, my man;" and the danger 
 was so imminent that even the studding-sail haulyards were not 
 let go, and the consequence was that the booms snapped off 
 like carrots as we came to the wind. 
 
 "Lord help us ! we shall never weather that foaming reef there : 
 set the spanker haul out haul down the foretopmast-stay- 
 sail so, mind your luff, my man." 
 
 The frigate now began to fire right and left, and the hissing 
 of the shot overhead was a fearful augury of what was to take 
 place ; so sudden was the accident that they had not had time 
 to draw the round shot. The other transports were equally 
 fortunate with ourselves in weathering the shoal, and presently 
 we were all close hauled to windward of the reef, until we 
 weathered the easternmost prong, when we bore up. But poor 
 Rayo ! she had struck on a coral reef, where the Admiralty 
 charts laid down fifteen fathoms water ; and although there was 
 some talk at the time of an error in judgment, in not having the 
 lead going in the chains, still do I believe there was no fault 
 lying at the door of her gallant captain. By the time we had 
 weathered the reef the frigate had swung off from the pinnacle 
 of rock on which she had been in a manner impaled, and was 
 making all the sail she could, with a fothered sail under her bows, 
 and chain-pumps clanging, and whole cataracts of water gushing 
 from them, clear white jets spouting from all the scuppers, fore 
 and aft. She made the signal to close. The next, alas ! was 
 the British ensign, seized, union down in the main rigging, the 
 sign of the uttermost distress. Still we all bowled along to- 
 gether, but her yards were not squared, nor her sails set with 
 her customary precision, and her lurches became more and more 
 sickening, until at length she rolled so heavily, that she dipped 
 both yardarms alternately in the water, and reeled to and fro 
 like a drunken man. 
 
 " What is that spksh ? " 
 
 It was the larboard-bow gun, a long eighteen-pounder, hove 
 overboard, and, watching the roll, the whole broadside, one after
 
 68 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 another, was cast into the sea. The clang of the chain-pumps 
 increased, the water rushed in at one side of the main-deck and 
 out at the other, in absolute cascades from the ports. At this 
 moment the whole fleet of boats were alongside, keeping way 
 with the ship, in the light breeze. Her main-topsail was hove 
 aback, while the captain's voice resounded through the ship. 
 
 "Now, men all hands bags and hammocks starboard 
 watch, the starboard side larboard watch, the larboard side 
 no rushing now she will swim this hour to come." 
 
 The bags, and hammocks, and officers' kits, were handed into 
 the boats ; the men were told off over the side as quietly by 
 watches as if at muster, the officers last. At length the first- 
 lieutenant came down. By this time she was settling percep- 
 tibly in the water ; but the old captain still stood on the gang- 
 way, holding by the iron stanchion, where, taking off his hat, he 
 remained uncovered for a moment, with the tears standing in 
 his eyes. He then replaced it, descended, and took his place 
 in the ship's launch the last man to leave the ship ; and there 
 was little time to spare, for we had scarcely shoved off a few 
 yards, to clear the spars of the wreck, when she sended forward, 
 heavily and sickly, on the long swell She never rose to the 
 opposite heave of the sea again, but gradually sank by the head. 
 The hull disappeared slowly and dignifiedly, the ensign fluttered 
 and vanished beneath the dark ocean I could have fancied re- 
 luctantly as if it had been drawn down through a trap-door. 
 The topsails next disappeared, the foretopsail sinking fastest ; 
 and last of all, the white pennant at the main-topgallantmast 
 head, after flickering and struggling in the wind, flew up in the 
 setting sun as if imbued with life, like a stream of white fire, or 
 as if it had been the spirit leaving the body, and was then drawn 
 down into the abyss, and the last vestige of the Rayo vanished 
 for ever. The crew, as if moved by one common impulse, gave 
 three cheers. 
 
 The captain now stood up in his boat " Men, the Rayo is no 
 more, but it is my duty to tell you, that although you are now to 
 be distributed amongst the transports, you are still amenable to 
 martial law : I am aware, men, this hint may not be necessary, 
 still it is right you should know it." 
 
 When the old hooker clipped out of sight, there was not a 
 dry eye in the whole fleet. " There she goes, the dear old beauty," 
 said one of her crew. " There goes the blessed old black b h," 
 quoth another. " Ah, many a merry night have we had in the 
 clever little craft," quoth a third ; and there was really a toler-
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH. 69 
 
 able shedding of tears and squirting of tobacco-juice. But the 
 blue ripple had scarcely blown over the glass-like surface of the 
 sea where she had sunk, when the buoyancy of young hearts, 
 with the prospect of a good furlough amongst the lobster-boxes 
 for a time, seemed to be uppermost among the men. The officers, 
 I saw and knew, felt very differently. 
 
 " My eye ! " sang out an old quartermaster in our boat, perched 
 well forward, with his back against the ring in the stem, and 
 his arms crossed, after having been busily employed rummaging 
 in his bag " my eye, what a pity oh, what a pity ! " 
 
 Come, there is some feeling, genuine, at all events, thought I. 
 
 " Why," said Bill Chestree, the captain of the foretop, " what 
 is can't be helped, old Fizgig; old Rayo has gone down, 
 and " 
 
 " Old Kayo be d d, Master Bill," said the man, " but 
 
 may I be flogged, if I han't forgotten half-a-pound of negrohead 
 baccy in Dick Catgut's bag." 
 
 "Launch ahoy!" hailed a half -drunken voice from one of the 
 boats astern of us. " Hillo," responded the coxswain. The poor 
 skipper even pricked up his ears. " Have you got Dick Cat- 
 gut's fiddle among ye ? " This said Dick Catgut was the cor- 
 poral of marines, and the prime instigator of all the fun amongst 
 the men. " No, no," said several voices, " no fiddle here." The 
 hail passed round among the other boats, " No fiddle." " I 
 would rather lose three days' grog than have his fiddle mislaid," 
 quoth the man who pulled the bow oar. 
 
 " Why don't you ask Dick himself 1 " said our coxswain. 
 
 " Ay, true enough Dick, Dick Catgut ! " but no one an- 
 swered. Alas ! poor Dick was nowhere to be found ; he had 
 been mislaid as well as his fiddle. He had broken into the 
 spirit-room, as it turned out, and, having got drunk, did not 
 come to time when the frigate sank. 
 
 Our ship, immediately after the frigate's crew had been be- 
 stowed and the boats got in, hoisted the commodore's light, 
 and the following morning we fell in with the Torch, off the 
 east end of Jamaica, which, after seeing the transports safe into 
 Kingston, and taking out me and my people, bore up through 
 the Gulf, and resumed her cruising-ground on the edge of the 
 Gulf Stream, between 25 and 30 north latitude.
 
 70 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 
 " Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell." Don Juan. 
 
 THE evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every ap- 
 pearance of a gale from the westward, and the weather had 
 become so thick and boisterous that the lieutenant of the watch 
 had ordered the look-out at the mast-head down on deck. The 
 man, on his way down, had gone into the maintop to bring away 
 some things he had placed there in going aloft, and was in the 
 act of leaving it, when he sang out "A sail on the weather 
 bow." 
 
 " What does she look like 1 " 
 
 " Can't rightly say, sir ; she is in the middle of the thick 
 weather to windward." 
 
 " Stay where you are a little. Jenkins, jump forward, and 
 see what you can make of her from the foreyard." 
 
 Whilst the topman was obeying his instruction, the look-out 
 again hailed " She is a ship, sir, close-hauled on the same tacli 
 the weather clears, and I can see her now." 
 
 The wind, ever since noon, had been blowing in heavy squalls, 
 with appalling lulls between them. One of these gusts had 
 been so violent as to bury in the sea the lee-guns in the waist, 
 although the brig had nothing set but her close-reefed main-top- 
 sail and reefed foresail. It was now spending its fury, and she 
 was beginning to roll heavily, when, with a suddenness almost 
 incredible to one unacquainted with these latitudes, the veil of 
 mist that had hung to windward the whole day was rent and 
 drawn aside, and the red and level rays of the setting sun flashed 
 at once, through a long arch of glowing clouds, on the black 
 hull and tall spars of his Britannic Majesty's sloop Torch. And, 
 true enough, we were not the only spectators of this gloomy 
 splendour ; for, right in the wake of the moon-like sun, now half 
 sunk in the sea, at the distance of a mile or more lay a long 
 warlike-looking craft, apparently a frigate or heavy corvette, 
 rolling heavily and silently in the trough of the sea, with her
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 71 
 
 masts, yards, and the scanty sail she had set, in strong relief 
 against the glorious horizon. 
 
 Jenkins now hailed from the foreyard " The strange sail is 
 bearing up, sir." 
 
 As he spoke a flash was seen, followed, after what seemed a 
 long interval, by the deadened report of the gun, as if it had 
 been an echo, and the sharp, half -ringing half -hissing sound of 
 the shot. It fell short, but close to us, and was evidently thrown 
 from a heavy cannon, from the length of the range. 
 
 Mr Splinter, the first-lieutenant, jumped from the gun he stood 
 on " Quartermaster, keep her away a bit," and dived into the 
 cabin to make his report. 
 
 Captain Deadeye was a staid, stiff-rumped, wall-eyed, old first- 
 lieutenantish-looking veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney 
 cut, broad skirts, long waist, and stand-up collar, over which 
 dangled either a queue or a marlinspike with a tuft of oakum at 
 the end of it, it would have puzzled Old Nick to say which. 
 His lower spars were cased in tight unmentionables of what had 
 once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the coal-scuttle 
 tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings 
 from his coat-flaps in bad weather : he was, in fact, the " last 
 of the sea-monsters," but, like all his tribe, as brave as steel, 
 and, when put to it, as alert as a cat 
 
 He no sooner heard Splinter's report than he sprang up the 
 ladder, brushing the tumbler of swizzle he had just brewed clean 
 out of the fiddle into the lap of Mr Saveall, the purser, who had 
 dined with him, and nearly extinguishing the said purser by 
 his arm striking the bowl of the pipe he was smoking, thereby 
 forcing the shank half-way down his throat 
 
 " My glass, Wilson," to his steward. 
 
 " She is close to, sir ; you can see her plainly without it," 
 said Mr Treenail, the second-lieutenant, from the weather net- 
 tings, where he was reconnoitring. 
 
 After a long look through his starboard blinker (his other sky- 
 light had been shut up ever since Aboukir), Captain Deadeye 
 gave orders to "clear away the weather-bow gun;" and as it 
 was now getting too dark for flags to be seen distinctly, he 
 desired that three lanterns might be got ready for hoisting 
 vertically in the main-rigging. 
 
 " All ready forward there 1 " 
 
 " All ready, sir." 
 
 "Then hoist away the lights, and throw a shot across her 
 forefoot Fire !" Bang went our carronade, but our friend to
 
 72 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 windward paid no regard to the private signal ; he had shaken 
 a reef out of his topsails, and was coming down fast upon us. 
 
 It was clear that old Blowhard had at first taken him for one 
 of our own cruisers, and meant to signalise him, " all regular and 
 shipshape," to use his own expression. Most of us, however, 
 thought it would have been wiser to have made sail and widened 
 our distance a little, in place of bothering with old-fashioned 
 manoeuvres, which might end in our catching a tartar ; but the 
 skipper had been all his life in line-of-battle ships or heavy 
 frigates ; and it was a tough job, under any circumstances, to 
 persuade him of the propriety of " up-stick-and-away," as we 
 soon felt to our cost. 
 
 The enemy, for such he evidently was, now all at once yawed, 
 and indulged us with a sight of his teeth ; and there he was, 
 fifteen ports of a side on his maindeck, with the due quantum 
 of carronades on his quarterdeck and forecastle ; whilst his 
 short lower-masts, white canvass, and the tremendous hoist in 
 his topsails, showed him to be a heavy American frigate ; and 
 it was equally certain that he had cleverly hooked us under his 
 lee, within comfortable range of his long twenty-fours. To 
 convince the most unbelieving, three jets of flame, amidst 
 wreaths of white smoke, now glanced from his maindeck ; but 
 in this instance the sound of the cannon was followed by a 
 sharp crackle and a shower of splinters from the foreyard. 
 
 It was clear we had got an ugly customer poor Jenkins 
 now called to Treenail, who was standing forward near the gun 
 which had been fired " Och, sir, and it's badly wounded we 
 are here." 
 
 The officer was a Patlander, as well as the seaman. " Which 
 of you, my boy? " the glowing seriousness of the affair in no 
 way checking his propensity to fun, " Which of you you, or 
 the yard?" 
 
 " Both of us, your honour ; but the yard badliest." 
 
 " The devil ! Come down, then, or get into the top, and I 
 will have you looked after presently." 
 
 The poor fellow crawled off the yard into the foretop, as he 
 was ordered, where he was found after the brush, badly wounded 
 by a splinter in the breast. 
 
 Jonathan, no doubt, " calculated," as well he might, that this 
 taste of his quality would be quite sufficient for a little eighteen- 
 gun sloop close under his lee ; but the fight was not to be so 
 easily taken out of Deadeye, although even to his optic it was 
 now high time to be off.
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 73 
 
 "All hands make sail, Mr Splinter; that chap is too heavy 
 for us. Mr Kelson," to the carpenter, " jump up and see what 
 the foreyard will carry. Keep her away, my man," to the sea- 
 man at the helm. " Crack on, Mr Splinter, set the fore-topsail, 
 shake all the reefs out, and loose topgallant-sails ; stand by 
 to sheet home; and see all clear to rig the booms out, if the 
 breeze lulls." 
 
 In less than a minute we were bowling along before it ; but 
 the wind was breezing up again, and no one could say how long 
 the wounded foreyard would carry the weight and drag of the 
 sails. To mend the matter, Jonathan was coming up hand over 
 hand with the freshening breeze, under a press of canvass ; it 
 was clear that escape was next to impossible. 
 
 " Clear away the larboard guns ! " I absolutely jumped off 
 the deck with astonishment who could have spoken it 1 It 
 appeared such downright madness to show fight under the very 
 muzzles of the guns of an enemy, half of whose broadside was 
 sufficient to sink us. It was the captain, however, and there 
 was nothing for it but to obey. 
 
 In an instant the creaking and screaming of the carronade 
 slides, the rattling of the carriage of the long twelve-pounder 
 amidships, the thumping and punching of handspikes, and the 
 dancing and jumping of Jack himself, were heard through the 
 whistling of the breeze, as the guns were being shotted and run 
 out. In a few seconds all was still again, but the rushing sound 
 of the vessel going through the water, and of the rising gale 
 amongst the rigging. 
 
 The men stood clustered at their quarters, their cutlasses 
 buckled round their waists, all without jackets and waistcoats, 
 and many with nothing but their trousers on. 
 
 " Now, men, mind your aim ; our only chance is to wing him. 
 I will yaw the ship, and as your guns come to bear, slap it right 
 into his bows. Starboard your helm, my man, and bring her to 
 the wind." As she came round, blaze went our carronades and 
 long gun in succession, with good will and good aim, and down 
 came his foretop-sail on the cap, with all the superincumbent 
 spars and gear; the head of the topmast had been shot away. 
 The men instinctively cheered. " That will do ; now knock off, 
 my boys, and let us run for it. Keep her away again ; make all 
 sail." 
 
 Jonathan was for an instant paralysed by our impudence ; 
 but just as we were getting before the wind, he yawed, and let 
 drive his whole broadside ; and fearfully did it transmogrify us.
 
 74 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Half an hour before we were as gay a little sloop as ever floated, 
 with a crew of a hundred and twenty as fine fellows as ever 
 manned a British man-of-war. The iron shower sped ten of 
 the hundred and twenty never saw the sun rise again ; seven- 
 teen more were wounded, three mortally; we had eight shot 
 between wind and water, our maintop-mast shot away as clean 
 as a carrot, and our hull and rigging otherwise regularly cut to 
 pieces. Another broadside succeeded ; but by this time we had 
 bore up thanks to the loss of our after-sail, we could do nothing 
 else; and what was better luck still, whilst the loss of our 
 maintop-mast paid the brig off on the one hand, the loss of head- 
 sail in the frigate brought her as quickly to the wind on the 
 other ; thus most of her shot fell astern of us ; and before she 
 could bear up again in chase, the squall struck her, and carried 
 her maintop-mast overboard. 
 
 This gave us a start, crippled and bedevilled though we were ; 
 and as the night fell, we contrived to lose sight of our large 
 friend. With breathless anxiety did we carry on through that 
 night, expecting every lurch to send our remaining topmast by 
 the board ; but the weather moderated, and next morning the 
 sun shone on our blood-stained decks at anchor off the entrance 
 to St George's harbour. 
 
 I was the mate of the watch, and as the day dawned I had 
 amused myself with other younkers over the side, examining 
 the shot-holes and other injuries sustained from the fire of the 
 frigate, and contrasting the clean, sharp, well-defined apertures 
 made by the 24-pound shot from the long guns, with the bruised 
 and splintered ones from the 32-pound carronades ; but the men 
 had begun to wash down the decks, and the first gush of clotted 
 blood and water from the scuppers fairly turned me sick. I 
 turned away, when Mr Kennedy our gunner, a good steady old 
 Scotchman, with whom I was a bit of a favourite, came up to 
 me " Mr Cringle, the captain has sent for you ; poor Mr John- 
 stone is fast going, he wants to see you." 
 
 I knew my young messmate had been wounded, for I had seen 
 him carried below after the frigate's second broadside ; but the 
 excitement of a boy, who had seldom smelt powder fired in anger 
 before, had kept me on deck the whole night, and it never once 
 occurred to me to ask for him, until the old gunner spoke. 
 
 I hastened down to our small confined berth, where I saw a 
 sight that quickly brought me to myself. Poor Johnstone was 
 indeed going ; a grape-shot had struck him, and torn his belly 
 open. There he lay in his bloody hammock on the deck, pale
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 75 
 
 and motionless as if he had already departed, except a slight 
 twitching at the corners of his mouth, and a convulsive contrac- 
 tion and distension of his nostrils. His brown ringlets still clus- 
 tered over his marble forehead, but they were drenched in the 
 cold sweat of death. The surgeon could do nothing for him, 
 and had left him ; but our old captain bless him for it I little 
 expected from his usual crusty bearing to find him so employed 
 had knelt by his side, and, whilst he read from the Prayer- 
 book one of those beautitul petitions in our Church service to 
 Almighty God for mercy to the passing soul of one so young, 
 and so early cut off, the tears trickled down the old man's cheeks, 
 and filled the furrows worn in them by the washing up of many 
 a salt spray. On the other side of his narrow bed, fomenting 
 the rigid muscles of his neck and chest, sat Misthress Connolly, 
 one of three women on board a rough enough creature, heaven 
 knows ! in common weather ; but her stifled sobs showed that 
 the mournful sight had stirred up all the woman within her. 
 She had opened the bosom of the poor boy's shirt, and untying 
 the ribbon that fastened a small gold crucifix round his neck, 
 she placed it in his cold hand. The young midshipman was of 
 a respectable family in Limerick, her native place, and a Catho- 
 lic another strand of the cord that bound her to him. When 
 the captain finished reading, he bent over the departing youth, 
 and kissed his cheek. "Your young messmate just now de- 
 sired to see you, Mr Cringle, but it is too late ; he is insensible 
 and dying. Whilst he spoke, a strong shiver passed through 
 the boy's frame, his face became slightly convulsed, and all was 
 over ! 
 
 The captain rose, and Connolly, with a delicacy of feeling 
 which many might not have looked for in her situation, spread 
 one of our clean mess table-cloths over the body. " And is it 
 really gone you are, my poor dear boy ! " forgetting all difference 
 of rank in the fulness of her heart. " Who will tell this to your 
 mother, and nobody here to wake you but ould Kate Connolly, 
 and no time will they be giving me, nor whisky Ochon ! ochon ! " 
 
 But enough and to spare of this piping work. The boatswain's 
 whistle now called me to the gangway, to superintend the hand- 
 ing up, from a shore-boat alongside, a supply of the grand staples 
 of the island ducks and onions. The three 'Mudians in her 
 were characteristic samples of the inhabitants. Their faces and 
 skins, where exposed, were not tanned, but absolutely burnt into a 
 fiery-red colour by the sun. They guessed and drawled like any 
 buckskin from Virginia, superadding to their accomplishments
 
 76 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 their insular peculiarity of always shutting one eye when they 
 spoke to you. They are all Yankees at bottom ; and if they could 
 get their 365 islands so they call the large stones on which they 
 live under weigh, they would not be long in towing them into 
 the Chesapeake. 
 
 The word had been passed to get six of the larboard guns and 
 all the shot over to the other side, to give the brig a list of a 
 streak or two a-starboard, so that the stage on which the carpen- 
 ter and his crew were at work over the side, stopping the shot- 
 holes about the water-line, might swing clear of the wash of the 
 sea. I had jumped from the nettings, where I was perched, to 
 assist in unbolting one of the carronade slides, when I slipped 
 and capsized against a peg sticking out of one of the scuppers. 
 I took it for something else, and d d the ring-bolt inconti- 
 nently. Caboose, the cook, was passing with his mate, a Jamaica 
 negro of the name of John Crow, at the time. " Don't d n the 
 remains of your fellow-mortals, Master Cringle ; that is my leg." 
 The cook of a man-of-war is no small beer ; he is his Majesty's 
 warrant-officer, a much bigger wig than a poor little mid, with 
 whom it is condescension on his part to jest. 
 
 It seems to be a sort of rule that no old sailor who has not 
 lost a limb, or an eye at least, shall be eligible to the office ; but 
 as the kind of maiming is so far circumscribed that all cooks 
 must have two arms, a laughable proportion of them have but one 
 leg. Besides the honour, the perquisites are good ; accordingly, 
 all old quartermasters, captains of tops, &c., look forward to 
 the cookdom, as the cardinals look to the popedom ; and really 
 there is some analogy between them, for neither are preferred 
 from any especial fitness for the office. A cardinal is made pope 
 because he is old, infirm, and imbecile our friend Caboose was 
 made cook because he had been Lord Nelson's coxswain, was 
 a drunken rascal, and had a wooden leg ; for as to his gastrono- 
 mical qualifications, he knew no more of the science than just 
 sufficient to watch the copper where the salt junk and potatoes 
 were boiling. Having been a little in the wind overnight, he had 
 quartered himself, in the superabundance of his heroism, at a 
 gun where he had no business to be, and in running it out he 
 had jammed his toe in a scupper hole, so fast that there was no 
 extricating him ; and notwithstanding his piteous entreaty, " to 
 be eased out handsomely, as the leg was made out of a plank of 
 the Victory, and the ring at the end out of one of her bolts," the 
 captain of the gun, finding, after a stout pull, that the man was 
 like to come " home in his hand without the leg," was forced
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 77 
 
 " to break him short off," as he phrased it, to get him out of the 
 way, and let the carriage traverse. In the morning when he 
 sobered, he had quite forgotten where the leg was, and how he 
 broke it ; he therefore got Kelson to splice the stump with the 
 butt-end of a mop ; but in the hurry it had been left three inches 
 too long, so he had to jerk himself up to the top of his peg at 
 every step. The doctor, glad to breathe the fresh air after the 
 horrible work he had gone through, was leaning over the side 
 speaking to Kelson. When I fell, he turned round and drew 
 Cookee's fire on himself. " Doctor, you have not prescribed for 
 me yet." 
 
 " No, Caboose, I have not ; what is wrong 1 " 
 
 "Wrong, sir? why, I have lost my leg, and the captain's 
 clerk says I am not in the return ! Look here, sir, had Doctor 
 Kelson not coopered me, where should I have been? Why, 
 doctor, had I been looked after, amputation might have been 
 unnecessary ; a fah might have done, whereas I have had to be 
 spliced" 
 
 He was here cut short by the voice of his mate, who had gone 
 forward to slay a pig for the gunroom mess. " Oh, Lad, oh ! 
 Massa Caboose ! dem dam Yankee ! De Purser killed, massa ! 
 Dem shoot him troo de head ! Oh, Lad ! " 
 
 Captain Deadeye had come on deck. " You John Crow, what 
 is wrong with you 1 " 
 
 " Why, de Purser killed, captain, dat all" 
 
 " Purser killed 1 Doctor, is Saveall hurt? " 
 
 Treenail could stand it no longer. " No, sir, no ; it is one of 
 the gunroom pigs that we shipped at Halifax three cruises ago ; 
 I am sure I don't know how he survived one, but the seamen 
 took a fancy to him, and nicknamed him the Purser. You 
 know, sir, they make pets of anything and everything at a 
 pinch ! " 
 
 Here John Crow drew the carcass from the hog-pen, and 
 sure enough a shot had cut the poor Purser's head nearly off. 
 Blackee looked at him with a most whimsical expression ; they 
 say no one can fathom a negro's affection for a pig. "Poor 
 Purser! de people call him Purser, sir, because him knowing 
 chap; him cabbage all de grub, slush, and stuff in him own 
 corner, and give only de small bit, and de bad piece, to de oder 
 pig ; so, captain 
 
 Splinter saw the poor fellow was like to get into a scrape. 
 " That will do, John Crow forward with you now, and lend a 
 hand to cat the anchor. All hands up anchor ! " The boat-
 
 78 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 swain's hoarse voice repeated the command, and he in turn was 
 re-echoed by his mates ; the capstan was manned, and the crew 
 stamped round to a point of war most villanously performed by 
 a bad drummer and a worse fifer, in as high glee as if those who 
 were killed had been snug and well in their hammocks on the 
 berth deck, in place of at the bottom of the sea, with each a 
 shot at his feet. We weighed, and began to work up, tack and 
 tack, towards the island of Ireland, where the arsenal is, amongst 
 a perfect labyrinth of shoals, through which the 'Mudian pilot 
 cunned the ship with great skill, taking his stand, to our no 
 small wonderment, not at the gangway or poop, as usual, but on 
 the bowsprit end, so that he might see the rocks under foot, and 
 shun them accordingly, for they are so steep and numerous (they 
 look like large fish in the clear water), and the channel is so 
 intricate, that you have to go quite close to them. At noon we 
 arrived at the anchorage, and hauled our moorings on board. 
 
 We had refitted, and been four days at sea, on our voyage to 
 Jamaica, when the gunroom officers gave our mess a blow-out. 
 
 The increased motion and rushing of the vessel through the 
 water, the groaning of the masts, the howling of the rising gale, 
 and the frequent trampling of the watch on deck, were prophetic 
 of wet jackets to some of us ; still, midshipman-like, we were 
 as happy as a good dinner and some wine could make us, until 
 the old gunner shoved his weather-beaten phiz and bald pate in 
 at the door. " Beg pardon, Mr Splinter, but if you will spare 
 Mr Cringle on the forecastle for an hour until the moon rises." 
 
 (" Spare, quotha, is his Majesty's officer a joint stool] ") 
 
 "Why, Mr Kennedy, why 1 ? here, man, take a glass of grog." 
 
 " I thank you, sir. It is coming on a roughish night, sir ; the 
 running ships should be crossing us hereabouts; indeed more 
 than once I thought there was a strange sail close aboard of us, 
 the scud is flying so low, and in such white flakes ; and none of 
 us have an eye like Mr Cringle, unless it be John Crow, and he 
 is all but frozen." 
 
 " Well, Tom, I suppose you will go" Anglice, from a first- 
 lieutenant to a mid " Brush instanter." 
 
 Having changed my uniform for shag-trousers, pea-jacket, 
 and south-west cap, I went forward, and took my station, in no 
 pleasant humour, on the stowed foretopmast-staysail, with my 
 arm round the stay. I had been half an hour there, the weather 
 was getting worse, the rain was beating in my face, and the spray 
 from the stem was flashing over me, as it roared through the* 
 waste of sparkling and hissing waters. I turned my back to the
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 79 
 
 weather for a moment, to press my hand on my strained eyes. 
 When I opened them again, I saw the gunner's gaunt high-fea- 
 tured visage thrust anxiously forward ; his profile looked as if 
 rubbed over with phosphorus, and his whole person as if we had 
 been playing at snap-dragon. " What has come over you, Mr 
 Kennedy? who is burning the blue-light now? " 
 
 " A wiser man than I am must tell you that ; look forward, 
 Mr Cringle look there ; what do your books say to that ] " 
 
 I looked forth, and saw, at the extreme end of the jib-boom, 
 what I had read of, certainly, but never expected to see, a pale, 
 greenish, glow-worm-coloured flame, of the size and shape of the 
 frosted glass shade over the swinging lamp in the gun-room. 
 It drew out and flattened as the vessel pitched and rose again ; 
 and as she sheered about, it wavered round the point that seemed 
 to attract it, like a soap-sud bubble blown from a tobacco-pipe 
 before it is shaken into the air ; at the core it was comparatively 
 bright, but gradually faded into a halo. It shed a baleful and 
 ominous light on the surrounding objects ; the group of sailors 
 on the forecastle looked like spectres, and they shrunk together, 
 and whispered when it began to roll slowly along the spar 
 towards where the boatswain was sitting at my feet. At this 
 instant something slid down the stay, and a cold clammy hand 
 passed round my neck. I was within an ace of losing my hold, 
 and tumbling overboard. " Heaven have mercy on me, what's 
 that 1 " 
 
 " It's that skylarking son of a gun, Jem Sparkle's monkey, 
 sir. You, Jem, you'll never rest till that brute is made shark 
 bait of." 
 
 But Jackoo vanished up the stay again, chuckling and grin- 
 ning in the ghostly radiance, as if he had been the " Spirit of 
 the Lamp." The light was still there, but a cloud of mist, like 
 a burst of vapour from a steam boiler, came down upon the gale, 
 and flew past, when it disappeared. I followed the white mass 
 as it sailed down the wind ; it did not, as it appeared to me, 
 vanish in the darkness, but seemed to remain in sight to lee- 
 ward, as if checked by a sudden flaw ; yet none of our sails were 
 taken aback. A thought flashed on me. I peered still more 
 intensely into the night I was now certain. " A sail, broad 
 on the lee bow." 
 
 The ship was in a buzz in a moment. The captain answered 
 from the quarterdeck " Thank you, Mr Cringle. How shall we 
 steer? " 
 
 " Keep her away a couple of points, sir steady.''
 
 80 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Steady," sang the man at the helm ; and the slow melan- 
 choly cadence, although a familiar sound to me, now moaned 
 through the rushing of the wind, and smote upon my heart as 
 if it had been the wailing of a spirit. 
 
 I turned to the boatswain, who was standing beside' me " Is 
 that you, or Davy steering, Mr Nipper] If you had not been 
 here bodily at my elbow, I could have sworn that was your 
 voice." 
 
 When the gunner made the same remark, it startled the poor 
 fellow ; he tried to take it as a joke, but could not. " There 
 may be a laced hammock, with a shot in it, for some of us ere 
 morning." 
 
 At this moment, to my dismay, the object we were chasing 
 shortened gradually fell abeam of us, and finally disappeared. 
 " The Flying Dutchman." 
 
 " I can't see her at all now." 
 
 " She will be a fore-and-aft-rigged vessel that has tacked, sir," 
 said the gunner. And sure enough, after a few seconds, I saw 
 the white object lengthen, and draw out again abaft our beam. 
 
 "The chase has tacked, sir," I sang out ; " put the helm down, 
 or she will go to windward of us." 
 
 We tacked also, and time it was we did so, for the rising 
 moon now showed us a large schooner under a crowd of sail. 
 We edged down on her, when, finding her manoeuvre detected, 
 she brailed up her flat sails, and bore up before the wind. 
 This was our best point of sailing, and we cracked on, the 
 captain rubbing his hands " It's my turn to be the big un this 
 time." Although blowing a strong north-wester, it was now 
 clear moonlight, and we hammered away from our bow guns ; 
 but whenever a shot told amongst the rigging, the injury was 
 repaired as if by magic. It was evident we had repeatedly 
 hulled her, from the glimmering white streaks along her counter 
 and across her stern, occasioned by the splintering of the timber, 
 but it seemed to produce no effect. 
 
 At length we drew well up on her quarter. She continued 
 all black hull and white sail, not a soul to be seen on deck, ex- 
 cept a dark obj ect which we took for the man at the helm. " What 
 schooner's that 1 ?" No answer. "Heave-to, or I'll sink you." 
 Still all silent. "Sergeant Armstrong, do you think you could 
 pick off that chap at the wheel 1 ?" The marine jumped on the 
 forecastle, and levelled his piece, when a musket-shot from the 
 schooner crashed through his skull, and he fell dead. The old 
 skipper's blood was up. "Forecastle, there! Mr Nipper, clap
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 81 
 
 a canister of grape over the round shot into the boat-gun, and 
 give it to him." 
 
 "Ay, ay, sir!" gleefully rejoined the boatswain, forgetting the 
 augury and everything else in the excitement of the moment. 
 In a twinkling the square foresail, topsail, top-gallant, royal, 
 and studdingsail haulyards were let go by the run on board of 
 the schooner, as if they had been shot away, and he put his 
 helm hard a-port, as if to round to. 
 
 "Kake him, sir, or give him the stem. He has not surrendered. 
 I know their game. Give him your broadside, sir, or he is off 
 
 to windward of you like a shot. No, no ! we have him now ; 
 
 heave-to, Mr Splinter, heave-to ! " We did so, and that so sud- 
 denly, that the studdingsail booms snapped like pipe-shanks, 
 short off by the irons. Notwithstanding, we had shot two hundred 
 yards to leeward before we could lay our maintopsail to the mast. 
 I ran to windward. The schooner's yards and rigging were now 
 black with men, clustered like bees swarming, her square-sails 
 were being close furled, her fore-and-aft sails set, and away she 
 was, close-hauled and dead to windward of us. 
 
 "So much for undervaluing our American friends," grumbled 
 Mr Splinter. 
 
 We made all sail in chase, blazing away to little purpose ; we 
 had no chance on a bowline, and when our amigo had satisfied 
 himself of his superiority by one or two short tacks, he deliber- 
 ately hauled down his flying jib and gaff-topsail, took a reef in 
 his mainsail, triced up the bunt of his foresail, and fired his long 
 thirty-two at us. The shot came in at the third aftermost port 
 on the starboard side, and dismounted the carronade, smashing 
 the slide, and wounding three men. The second shot missed, 
 and as it was madness to remain to be peppered, probably winged, 
 whilst every one of ours fell short, we reluctantly kept away on 
 our course, having the gratification of hearing a clear well-blown 
 bugle on board the schooner play up " Yankee Doodle." 
 
 As the brig fell off, our long gun was run out to have a part- 
 ing crack at her, when the third and last shot from the schooner 
 struck the sill of the mid-ship port, and made the white splinters 
 fly from the solid oak like bright silver sparks in the moonlight. 
 A sharp piercing cry rose into the air my soul identified that 
 death-shriek with the voice that I had heard, and I saw the man 
 who was standing with the lanyard of the lock in his hand drop 
 heavily across the breech, and discharge the gun in his fall. 
 Thereupon a blood-red glare shot up into the cold blue sky, as 
 if a volcano had burst forth from beneath the mighty deep, fol- 
 
 F
 
 82 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 lowed by a roar, and a shattering crash, and a mingling of un- 
 earthly cries and groans, and a concussion of the air and of the 
 water, as if our whole broadside had been fired at once. Then 
 a solitary splash here, and a dip there, and short sharp yells, and 
 low choking bubbling moans, as the hissing fragments of the 
 noble vessel we had seen fell into the sea, and the last of her 
 gallant crew vanished for ever beneath that pale broad moon. 
 We were alone, and once more all was dark, and wild, and stormy. 
 Fearfully had that ball sped, fired by a dead man's hand. But 
 what is it that clings, black and doubled, across that fatal can- 
 non, dripping and heavy, and choking the scuppers with clotting 
 gore, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the vessel, like 
 a bloody fleece 1 
 
 " Who is it that was hit at the gun there ? " 
 
 " Mr Nipper, the boatswain, sir. The last shot has cut him 
 in two" 
 
 After this most melancholy incident we continued on our voy- 
 age to Jamaica, nothing particular occurring until we anchored at 
 Port Royal, where we had a regular overhaul of the old bark ; 
 and after this was completed, we were ordered down to the lee- 
 ward part of the island to afford protection to the coasting trade. 
 One fine morning, about a fortnight after we had left Port Royal, 
 the Torch was lying at anchor in Bluefields Bay. It was between 
 eight and nine ; the land-wind had died away, and the sea-breeze 
 had not set in there was not a breath stirring. The pennant 
 from the masthead fell sluggishly down, and clung amongst the 
 rigging like a dead snake, whilst the folds of the St George's 
 ensign that hung from the mizen-peak were as motionless as if 
 they had been carved in marble. 
 
 The anchorage was one unbroken mirror, except where its glass- 
 like surface was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols 
 of a skipjack, or the flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican ; and 
 the reflection of the vessel was so clear and steady, that at the 
 distance of a cable's length you could not distinguish the water- 
 line, nor tell where the substance ended and shadow began, un- 
 til the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a few moments 
 broke up the phantom ship ; but the wavering fragments soon 
 reunited, and she again floated double, like the swan of the poet. 
 The heat was so intense that the iron stanchions of the awning 
 could not be grasped with the hand, and where the decks were 
 not screened by it, the pitch boiled out from the seams. The
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 83 
 
 swell rolled in from the offing in long shining undulations, like 
 a sea of quicksilver, whilst every now and then a flying-fish 
 would spark out from the unruffled bosom of the heaving water, 
 and shoot away like a silver arrow, until it dropped with a flash 
 into the sea again. There was not a cloud in the heavens, but 
 a quivering blue haze hung over the land, through which the 
 white sugar-works and overseers' houses on the distant estates 
 appeared to twinkle like objects seen through a thin smoke, 
 whilst each of the tall stems of the cocoa-nut trees on the beach, 
 when looked at steadfastly, seemed to be turning round with a 
 small spiral motion, like so many endless screws. There was a 
 dreamy indistinctness about the outlines of the hills, even in the 
 immediate vicinity, which increased as they receded, until the 
 Blue Mountains in the horizon melted into sky. The crew were 
 listlessly spinning oakum, and mending sails, under the shade 
 of the awning ; the only exceptions to the general languor were 
 John Crow the black, and Jackoo the monkey. The former (who 
 was an improvisatore of a rough stamp) sat out on the bowsprit, 
 through choice, beyond the shade of the canvass, without hat or 
 shirt, like a bronze bust, busy with his task, whatever that might 
 be, singing at the top of his pipe, and between whiles confabu- 
 lating with his hairy ally, as if he had been a messmate. The 
 monkey was hanging by the tail from the dolphin-striker, admiring 
 what John Crow called "his own dam ogly face in the water." 
 
 "Tail like yours would be good ting for a sailor, Jackoo, it 
 would leave his two hands free aloft more use, more horna- 
 ment, too, I'm sure, den de piece of greasy junk dat hangs from 
 de captain's tafferel. Now I shall sing to you how dat Corro- 
 mantee rascal, my fader, was sell me on de Gold Coast 
 
 " Two red nightcap, one long knife, 
 
 All him get for Quackoo, 
 For gun next day him sell him wife 
 You tink dat good song, Jackoo?" 
 
 " Chockoo, chockoo," chattered the monkey, as if in answer. 
 
 " Ah, you tink so sensible honimal ! What is dat 1 shark 1 
 Jackoo, come up, sir : don't you see dat big shovel-nosed fis 
 looking at you 1 Pull your hand out of de water Gara- 
 mighty!" 
 
 The negro threw himself on the gammoning of the bowsprit 
 to take hold of the poor ape, who, mistaking his kind intention, 
 and ignorant of his danger, shrunk from him, lost his hold, and 
 fell into the sea. The shark instantly sank to have a run, then 
 dashed at his prey, raising his snout over him, and shooting his
 
 84 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 head and shoulders three or four feet out of the water, with poor 
 Jackoo shrieking in his jaws, whilst his small bones crackled 
 and crunched under the monster's triple row of teeth. 
 
 Whilst this small tragedy was acting and painful enough it 
 was to the kind-hearted negro I was looking out towards the 
 eastern horizon, watching the first dark-blue ripple of the sea- 
 breeze, when a rushing noise passed over my head. I looked up 
 and saw a gallinaso, the large carrion-crow of the tropics, sailing, 
 contrary to the habits of its kind, seaward over the brig. I fol- 
 lowed it with my eye, until it vanished in the distance, when my 
 attention was attracted by a dark speck far out in the offing, 
 with a little tiny white sail With my glass I made it out to 
 be a ship's boat, but I saw no one on board, and the sail was 
 idly flapping about the mast. 
 
 On making my report, I was desired to pull towards it in the 
 gig ; and as we approached, one of the crew said he thought he 
 saw some one peering over the bow. We drew nearer, and I 
 saw him distinctly. 
 
 " Why don't you haul the sheet aft and come down to us, 
 sir?" 
 
 He neither moved nor answered ; but as the boat rose and fell 
 on the short sea raised by the first of the breeze, the face kept 
 mopping and mowing at us over the gunwale. 
 
 " I will soon teach you manners, my fine fellow ! give way, 
 men" and I fired my musket, when the crow that I had seen 
 rose from the boat into the air, but immediately alighted again, 
 to our astonishment, vulture-like with outstretched wings, upon 
 the head. 
 
 Under the shadow of this horrible plume, the face seemed on 
 the instant to alter like the hideous changes in a dream. It 
 appeared to become of a death-like paleness, and anon streaked 
 with blood. Another stroke of the oar the chin had fallen 
 down, and the tongue was hanging out. Another pull the eyes 
 were gone, and from their sockets brains and blood were fer- 
 menting and flowing down the cheeks. It was the face of a 
 putrefying corpse. In this floating coffin we found the body of 
 another sailor, doubled across one of the thwarts, with a long 
 Spanish knife sticking between his ribs, as if he had died in 
 some mortal struggle, or, what was equally probable, had put an 
 end to himself in his frenzy; whilst along the bottom of the 
 boat, arranged with some show of care, and covered by a piece 
 of canvass stretched across an oar above it, lay the remains of a 
 beautiful boy, about fourteen years of age, apparently but a few
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 85 
 
 hours dead. Some biscuit, a roll of jerked beef, and an earthen 
 water-jar, lay beside him, showing that hunger at least could 
 have had no share in his destruction but the pipkin was dry, 
 and the small water-cask in the bow was staved and empty. 
 
 We had no sooner cast our grappling over the bow, and begun 
 to tow the boat to the ship, than the abominable bird that we 
 had scared settled down into it again, notwithstanding our prox- 
 imity, and began to peck at the face of the dead boy. At this 
 moment we heard a gibbering noise, and saw something like a 
 bundle of old rags roll out from beneath the stern-sheets, and, 
 whatever it was, apparently make a fruitless attempt to drive 
 the gallinaso from its prey. Heaven and earth, what an object 
 met our eyes ! It was a full-grown man, but so wasted that one 
 of the boys lifted him by his belt with one hand. His knees 
 were drawn up to his chin, his hands were like the talons of a 
 bird, while the falling-in of his chocolate-coloured and withered 
 features gave an unearthly relief to his forehead, over which the 
 horny and transparent skin was braced so tightly that it seemed 
 ready to crack But in the midst of this desolation his deep- 
 set coal-black eyes sparkled like two diamonds with the fever of 
 his sufferings ; there was a fearful fascination in their flashing 
 brightness, contrasted with the death-like aspect of the face and 
 rigidity of the frame. When sensible of our presence he tried 
 to speak, but could only utter a low moaning sound. At length 
 "Agua, agua" we had not a drop of water in the boat. 
 " El muchacho esta muriendo de sed Agua." 
 
 We got on board, and the surgeon gave the poor fellow some 
 weak tepid grog. It acted like magic. He gradually uncoiled 
 himself; his voice, from being weak and husky, became com- 
 paratively strong and clear. " El hijo Agua para miPedrillo 
 No le hace para mi Oh la.noche pasado, la noche pasado!" 
 He was told to compose himself, and that his boy would be taken 
 care of. "Dexa me verlo entonces, oh Dios, dexa me verlo" and 
 he crawled, grovelling on his chest, like a crushed worm, across 
 the deck, until he got his head over the port-sill, and looked 
 down into the boat. He there beheld the pale face of his dead 
 son; it was the last object he ever saw "Ay de mi!" he 
 groaned heavily, and dropped his face against the ship's side. 
 He was dead. 
 
 After spending several months in the service already alluded 
 to, we were ordered on a cruise off the coast of Terra Firma. 
 
 Morillo was at this time besieging Carthagena by land, while 
 a Spanish squadron, under Admiral Enrile, blockaded the place
 
 86 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 by sea; and it pleased the officer who commanded the inshore 
 division to conceive, while the old Torch was quietly beating up 
 along the coast, that we had an intention of forcing the blockade. 
 
 The night before had been gusty and tempestuous all hands 
 had been called three times, so that at last, thinking there was 
 no use in going below, I lay down on the stern-sheets of the 
 boat over the stern an awkward berth certainly, but a spare 
 tarpauling had that morning been stretched over the afterpart of 
 the boat to dry, and I therefore ensconced myself beneath it. 
 Just before daylight, however, the brig, by a sudden shift of 
 wind, was taken aback, and fetching stem-way, a sea struck her. 
 How I escaped I never could tell, but I was pitched right in on 
 deck over the poop, and much bruised, where I found a sad 
 scene of confusion, with the captain and several of the officers 
 in their shirts, and the men tumbling up from below as fast as 
 they could while, amongst other incidents, one of our pas- 
 sengers who occupied a small cabin under the poop, having gone 
 to sleep with the stern port open, the sea had surged in through 
 it with such violence as to wash him out on deck in his shirt, 
 where he lay sprawling among the feet of the men. However, 
 we soon got all right, and in five minutes the sloop was once 
 more tearing through it on a wind ; but the boat where I had 
 been sleeping was smashed into staves, all that remained of her 
 being the stem and stern-post dangling from the tackles at the 
 ends of the davits. 
 
 At this time it was grey dawn, and we were working up in- 
 shore, without dreaming of breaking the blockade, when it fell 
 stark calm. Presently the Spanish squadron, anchored under 
 Punto Canoa, perceived us, when a corvette, two schooners, a 
 cutter, and eight gunboats, got under weigh, the latter of which 
 soon swept close to us, ranging themselves on our bows and 
 quarters ; and although we showed our colours, and made the 
 private international signal, they continued firing at us for 
 about an hour, without however doing any damage, as they had 
 chosen a wary distance. At length some of the shot falling near 
 us, the skipper cleared for action, and with his own hand fired a 
 32-pounder at the nearest gunboat, the crew of which bobbed as 
 if they had seen the shot coming. This opened the eyes of the 
 Dons, who thereupon ceased firing ; and as a light breeze had 
 now set down, they immediately made sail in pursuit of a 
 schooner that had watched the opportunity of their being em- 
 ployed with us to run in under the walls, and was at this moment 
 chased by a ship and a gunboat, who had got within gun-shot,
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 87 
 
 and kept up a brisk fire on her. So soon as the others came 
 up, all hands opened on the gallant little hooker who was forcing 
 the blockade, and peppered away ; and there she was like a hare, 
 with a whole pack of harriers after her, sailing and sweeping in 
 under their fire towards the doomed city. As the wind was very 
 light, the blockading squadron now manned their boats, and 
 some of them were coming fast up, when a rattle of musketry 
 from the small craft sent them to the right about, and pre- 
 sently the chase was safely at anchor under the battery of Santa 
 Catalina. 
 
 But the fun was to come for by this time some of the 
 vessels that had held her in chase had got becalmed under the 
 batteries, which immediately opened on them cheerily ; and down 
 came a topgallant-mast here, and a topsail-yard there, and a 
 studdingsail t'other place and such a squealing and creaking of 
 blocks, and rattling of the gear while yards braced hither and 
 thither, and toppinglifts let go, and sheets let fly, showed that 
 the Dons were in a sad quandary ; and no wonder, for we could 
 see the shot from the long 32-pounders on the walls, falling very 
 thick all around several of them. However, at four P.M. we had 
 worked up alongside of the Commodore, when the old skipper 
 gave our friend such a rating, that I don't think he will ever 
 forget it. 
 
 On the day following our being fired at, I was sent, being a 
 good Spaniard, along with the second-lieutenant poor Treenail 
 to Morillo's headquarters. We got an order to the officer 
 commanding the nearest post on shore, to provide us with horses ; 
 but before reaching it we had to walk, under a roasting sun, 
 about two miles through miry roads, until we arrived at the 
 barrier, where we found a detachment of artillery, but the com- 
 manding officer could only give us one poor broken-winded horse, 
 and a jackass, on which we were to proceed to headquarters on 
 the morrow ; and here, under a thatched hut of the most primi- 
 tive construction, consisting simply of cross sticks and palm 
 branches, we had to spend the night, the poor fellows being as 
 kind as their own misery would let them. 
 
 Next morning we proceeded, accompanied by a hussar, through 
 dreadful roads, where the poor creatures we bestrode sank to 
 the belly at every flounder, until about four P.M., when we met 
 two negroes, and found to our great distress that the soldier who 
 was our guide and escort had led us out of our way, and that 
 we were in very truth then travelling towards the town. We 
 therefore hove about and returned to Palanquillo, a village that
 
 88 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 we had passed through that very morning, leaving the hussar 
 and his horse sticking fast in a slough. We arrived about night- 
 fall, and, as the village was almost entirely deserted, we were 
 driven to take up our quarters in an old house that seemed for- 
 merly to have been used as a distillery. Here we found a 
 Spanish lieutenant and several soldiers quartered, all of them 
 suffering more or less from dysentery ; and, after passing a very 
 comfortless night on hard benches, we rose at grey dawn with 
 our hands and faces blistered from mosquito-bites, and our hair 
 full of wood ticks or garapatos. We again started on our 
 journey to headquarters, and finally arrived at Torrecilla at two 
 o'clock in the afternoon. Both the commander-in-chief, Morillo. 
 and Admiral Enrile, had that morning proceeded to the works 
 at Boca Chica, so we only found El Senor Montalvo, the 
 captain-general of the province, a little kiln-dried diminutive 
 Spaniard. Morillo used to call him "uno moneco Creollo," 
 but withal he was a gentleman-like man in his manners. 
 
 He received us very civilly; we delivered our despatches; 
 and the same evening we made our bow, and, having obtained 
 fresh horses, set out on our return, and arrived at the village of 
 Santa Rosa at nine at night, where we slept ; and next morning 
 continuing on our journey, we got once more safely on board of 
 the old brig at twelve o'clock at noon, in a miserable plight, not 
 having had our clothes off for three days. As for me, I was used 
 to roughing it, and in my humble equipment any disarrange- 
 ment was not particularly discernible ; but in poor Treenail, one 
 of the nattiest fellows in the service, it was a very different 
 matter. He had issued forth on the enterprise cased in tight 
 blue pantaloons that fitted him like his skin, over which were 
 drawn long well-polished Hessian boots, each with a formidable 
 tassel at top, and his coat was buttoned close up to the chin, with 
 a blazing swab on the right shoulder, while a laced cocked hat 
 and dress sword completed his equipment. But alas ! when we 
 were accounted for on board of the old Torch there was a fearful 
 dilapidation of his external man. First of all, his inexpressibles 
 were absolutely torn into shreds by the briers and prickly bushes 
 through which we had been travelling, and fluttered from his 
 waistband like the stripes we see depending from an ancient 
 Roman or Grecian coat of armour; his coat had only one skirt, 
 and the bullion of the epaulet was reduced to a strand or two, 
 while the tag that held the brim or flaps of the cocked hat up 
 had given way, so that although he looked fierce enough, stem 
 on, still, when you had a stern view, the after part hung down
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 89 
 
 his back like the tail of the hat of one of Landseer's flying 
 dustmen. 
 
 After this we experienced, with little intermission, most dread- 
 ful weather for two weeks, until at length we were nearly torn 
 in pieces, and the captain was about abandoning his ground, 
 and returning to Port Eoyal, when it came on to blow with re- 
 doubled violence. We struggled against it for twelve hours, 
 but were finally obliged to heave-to, the sea all the while run- 
 ning tremendously high. 
 
 About noon on the day I speak of the weather had begun to 
 look a little better, but the sea had if anything increased. I 
 had just come on deck when Mr Splinter sang out " Look out 
 for that sea, quartermaster ! Mind your starboard helm ! Ease 
 her, man ease her ! " 
 
 On it came, rolling as high as the foreyard, and tumbled in 
 over the bows, green, clear, and unbroken. It filled the deep 
 waist of the Torch in an instant, and as I rose, half smothered 
 in the midst of a jumble of men, pigs, hencoops, and spare spars, 
 I had nearly lost an eye by a floating boarding-pike that was 
 lanced at me by the jangle of the water. As for the boats on 
 the booms, they had all gone to sea separately, and were bobbing 
 at us in a squadron to leeward, the launch acting as commodore, 
 with a crew of a dozen sheep, whose bleating as she rose on the 
 crest of a wave came back upon us, faintly blending with the 
 hoarse roaring of the storm, and seeming to cry, " No more 
 mutton for you, my boys ! " 
 
 At length the lee ports were forced out the pumps promptly 
 rigged and manned buckets slung and at work down the 
 hatchways ; and although we had narrowly escaped being 
 swamped, and it continued to blow hard, with a heavy sea, the 
 men, confident in the qualities of the ship, worked with glee, 
 shaking their feathers and quizzing each other. But anon a 
 sudden and appalling change came over the sea and the sky, 
 that made the stoutest amongst us quail and draw his breath 
 thick. The firmament darkened the horizon seemed to con- 
 tract the sea became black as ink the wind fell to a dead 
 calm the teeming clouds descended and filled the murky arch 
 of heaven with their whirling masses, until they appeared to 
 touch our mast-heads, but there was neither lightning nor rain, 
 not one glancing flash, not one refreshing drop the windows 
 of the sky had been sealed by Him who had said to the storm, 
 " Peace, be still." 
 
 During this death-like pause, infinitely more awful than the
 
 90 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 heaviest gale, every sound on board, the voices of the men, even 
 the creaking of the bulkheads, was heard with startling distinct- 
 ness ; and the water-logged brig, having no wind to steady her, 
 laboured so heavily in the trough of the sea that we expected 
 her masts to go overboard every moment. 
 
 " Do you see and hear that, sir 1 " said Lieutenant Treenail 
 to the captain. 
 
 We all looked eagerly forth in the direction indicated. There 
 was a white line, in fearful contrast with the clouds and the rest 
 of the ocean, gleaming on the extreme verge of the horizon it 
 grew broader' a low increasing growl was heard a thick blind- 
 ing mist came driving up astern of us, whose small drops pierced 
 into the skin like sharp hail 
 
 "Is it rain?" 
 
 " No, no salt, salt." 
 
 And now the fierce Spirit of the Hurricane himself, the sea 
 Azrael, in storm and in darkness, came thundering on with 
 stunning violence, tearing off the snowy scalps of the tortured 
 billows, and with tremendous and sheer force crushing down 
 beneath his chariot-wheels their mountainous and howling ridges 
 into one level plain of foaming water. Our chain-plates, strong 
 fastenings, and clenched bolts drew like pliant wires, shrouds 
 and stays were torn away like the summer gossamer, and our 
 masts and spars, crackling before his fury like dry reeds in 
 autumn, were blown clean out of the ship, over her bows, into 
 the sea. 
 
 Had we shown a shred of the strongest sail in the vessel, it 
 would have been blown out of the bolt-rope in an instant; we 
 had, therefore, to get her before the wind, by crossing a spar on 
 the stump of the foremast, with four men at the wheel, one 
 watch at the pumps, and the other clearing the wreck. But our 
 spirits were soon dashed, when the old carpenter, one of the 
 coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the forehatch, 
 pale as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming straight out in 
 the wind. He did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft 
 towards the capstan, to which the captain had lashed himself. 
 
 ** The water is rushing in forward like a mill-stream, sir ; we 
 have either started a butt, or the wreck of the foremast has gone 
 through her bows, for she is fast settling down by the head." 
 
 " Get the boatswain to father a sail then, man, and try it over 
 the leak ; but don't alarm the people, Mr Kelson." 
 
 The brig was, indeed, rapidly losing her buoyancy, and, when 
 the next heavy sea rose ahead of us, she gave a drunken sicken-
 
 WRECK OF THE TORCH. 
 
 Page 91.
 
 THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH. 91 
 
 ing lurch, and pitched right into it, groaning and trembling in 
 every plank, like a guilty and condemned thing, in the prospect 
 of impending punishment. 
 
 " Stand by, to heave the guns overboard." 
 
 Too late, too late Oh God, that cry ! I was stunned and 
 drowning, a chaos of wreck was beneath me and around me 
 and above me, and blue agonised gasping faces, and struggling 
 arms, and colourless clutching hands, and despairing yells for 
 help, where help was impossible ; when I felt a sharp bite on 
 the neck, and breathed again. My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, 
 had snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the 
 sinking vessel. 
 
 For life, for dear life, nearly suffocated amidst the hissing 
 spray, we reached the cutter, the dog and his helpless master. 
 
 For three miserable days I had been exposed, half-naked and 
 bareheaded, in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade. 
 The third fierce cloudless West Indian noon was long passed, 
 and once more the dry burning sun sank in the west, like a red- 
 hot shield of iron. In my horrible extremity, I imprecated the 
 wrath of Heaven on my defenceless head, and, shaking my 
 clenched hands against the brazen sky, I called aloud on the 
 Almighty, " Oh, let me never see him rise again ! " I glared on 
 the noble dog, as he lay dying at the bottom of the boat ; mad- 
 ness seized me, I tore his throat with my teeth, not for food, 
 but that I might drink his hot blood it flowed, and, vampire- 
 like, I would have gorged myself ; but as he turned his dull, 
 grey, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart stopped, and I 
 fell senseless. 
 
 When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh 
 plantain-leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying 
 beside me, whining and licking my hands and face. On the 
 rude joists that bound the rafters of the roof together, rested a 
 light canoe with its paddles, and over against me, on the wall, 
 hung some Indian fishing implements and a long-barrelled 
 Spanish gun. Underneath lay a corpse, wrapped in a boat-sail, 
 on which was clumsily written, with charcoal " The body of 
 John Deadeye, Esq., late Commander of his Britannic Majesty's 
 Sloop, Torch." 
 
 There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in 
 his shirt and trousers, drenched, unshorn, and death-like, was 
 roasting a joint of meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian, stark naked, 
 sat opposite to him, squatting on his hams, more like a large
 
 92 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 bullfrog than a man, and fanning the flame with a palm leaf. 
 In the dark corner of the hut half-a-dozen miserable sheep 
 shrank huddled together. Through the open door I saw the 
 stars in the deep blue heaven, and the cold beams of the newly- 
 risen moon were dancing in a long flickering wake of silver light 
 on the ever-heaving bosom of the ocean, whilst the melancholy 
 murmur of the surf breaking on the shore came booming on 
 the gentle night-wind. I was instantly persuaded that I had 
 been nourished during my delirium ; for the fierceness of my 
 sufferings was assuaged, and I was comparatively strong. I 
 anxiously inquired of the lieutenant the fate of our shipmates. 
 
 " All gone down in the old Torch ; and had it not been for 
 the launch and our four-footed friends there, I should not have 
 been here to have told it ; but raw mutton, with the wool on, is 
 not a mess to thrive on, Tom. All that the sharks have left of 
 the captain and five seamen came ashore last night. I have 
 buried the poor fellows on the beach where they lay as well as 
 I could, with an oar-blade for a shovel, and the bronze ornament 
 there," pointing to the Indian, " for an assistant." 
 
 Here he looked towards the body ; and the honest fellow's 
 voice shook as he continued. 
 
 " But seeing you were alive, I thought, if you did recover, it 
 would be gratifying to both of us, after having weathered it so 
 long with him through gale and sunshine, to lay the kind-hearted 
 old man's head on its everlasting pillow as decently as our for- 
 lorn condition permitted." 
 
 As the lieutenant spoke, Sneezer seemed to think his watch 
 was up, and drew off towards the fire. Clung and famished, the 
 poor brute could no longer resist the temptation, but, making a 
 desperate snatch at the joint, bolted through the door with it, 
 hotly pursued by the bullfrog. 
 
 "Drop the leg of mutton, Sneezer," roared the lieutenant, 
 " drop the mutton drop it, sir, drop it, drop it." And away 
 raced his Majesty's officer in pursuit of the canine pirate. 
 
 After a little, he and the Indian returned, the former with 
 the joint in his hand ; and presently the dog stole into the hut 
 after them, and patiently lay down in a corner, until the lieu- 
 tenant good-humouredly threw the bone to him after our com- 
 fortless meal had been finished. 
 
 I was so weak that my shipmate considerately refrained from 
 pressing his society on me, and we therefore all betook our- 
 selves to rest for the night
 
 SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME. 93 
 
 CHAPTEK IV. 
 
 SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME. 
 "Here lies a sheer hulk, poor Tom Bowline." 
 
 I WAS awakened by the low growling and short bark of the 
 dog. The night was far spent ; the tiny sparks of the fireflies 
 that were glancing in the doorway began to grow pale; the 
 chirping of the crickets and lizards, and the snore of the tree- 
 toad, waxed fainter, and the wild cry of the tiger-cat was no 
 longer heard. The terral, or land-wind, which is usually strong- 
 est towards morning, moaned loudly on the hillside, and came 
 rushing past with a melancholy sough through the brushwood 
 that surrounded the hut, shaking off the heavy dew from the 
 palm and cocoa-nut trees, like large drops of rain. 
 
 The hollow tap of the woodpecker ; the clear flute-note of the 
 pavo del monte; the discordant shriek of the macaw; the shrill 
 chirr of the wild guinea-fowl ; and the chattering of the paro- 
 quets, began to be heard from the wood. The ill-omened gal- 
 linaso was sailing and circling round the hut, and the tall fla- 
 mingo was stalking on the shallows of the lagoon, the haunt of 
 the disgusting alligator, that lay beneath, divided from the sea 
 by a narrow mud-bank, where a group of pelicans, perched on 
 the wreck of one of our boats, were pluming themselves before 
 taking wing. In the east, the deep blue of the firmament, from 
 which- the lesser stars were fast fading, all but the "Eye of 
 Morn," was warming into magnificent purple, and the amber 
 rays of the yet unrisen sun were shooting up, streamer-like, 
 with intervals between, through the parting clouds, as they 
 broke away with a passing shower, that fell like a veil of silver 
 gauze between us and the first primrose-coloured streaks of a 
 tropical dawn. 
 
 " That's a musket -shot," said the lieutenant. The Indian 
 crept on his belly to the door, dropped his chin on the ground, 
 and placed his open palms behind his ears. The distant wail of 
 a bugle was heard, then three or four dropping shots again, in 
 rapid succession. Mr Splinter stooped to go forth, but the
 
 94 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Indian caught him by the leg, uttering the single word " Es- 
 panoles." 
 
 On the instant, a young Indian woman, with a shrieking 
 infant in her arms, rushed to the door. There was a blue gun- 
 shot wound in her neck, from which two or three large black 
 clotting gouts of blood were trickling. Her long black hair was 
 streaming in coarse braids, and her features were pinched and 
 sharpened, as if in the agony of death. She glanced wildly be- 
 hind, and gasped out, " Escapa, Oreegue, escapa, para mi soi 
 muerto ya." Another shot, and the miserable creature con- 
 vulsively clasped her child, whose small shrill cry I often fancy 
 I hear to this hour blending with its mother's death-shriek, and, 
 falling backwards, rolled over the brow of the hill out of sight. 
 The ball had pierced the heart of the parent through the body 
 of her offspring. By this time a party of Spanish soldiers had 
 surrounded the hut, one of whom, kneeling before the low door, 
 pointed his musket into it. The Indian, who had seen his wife 
 and child thus cruelly shot down before his face, now fired his 
 rifle, and the man fell dead. " Siga mi Querida Bondia mal- 
 dito." Then springing to his feet, and stretching himself to his 
 full height, with his arms extended towards heaven, while a 
 strong shiver shook him like an ague fit, he yelled forth the last 
 words he ever uttered, " Venga la sueiie, ya soi listo" and re- 
 sumed his squatting position on the ground. 
 
 Half-a-dozen musket-balls were now fired at random through 
 the wattles of the hut, while the lieutenant, who spoke Spanish 
 well, sang out lustily that we were English officers who had been 
 shipwrecked. 
 
 " Mentira" growled the officer of the party, " Piratas son 
 ustedes." " Pirates leagued with Indian bravoes ; fire the hut, 
 soldiers, and burn the scoundrels ! " 
 
 There was no time to be lost ; Mr Splinter made a vigorous 
 attempt to get out, in which I seconded him with all the strength 
 that remained to me but they beat us back again with the butts 
 of their muskets. 
 
 " Where are your commissions, your uniforms, if you be 
 British officers ? " We had neither, and our fate appeared in- 
 evitable. 
 
 The doorway was filled with brushwood, fire was set to the 
 hut, and we heard the crackling of the palm thatch, while thick 
 stifling wreaths of white smoke burst in upon us through the 
 roof. 
 
 " Lend a hand, Tom, now or never, and kick up the dark
 
 SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME. 95 
 
 man there ;" but he sat still as a statue. We laid our shoulders 
 to the end wall, and heaved at it with all our might ; when we 
 were nearly at the last gasp it gave way, and we rushed head- 
 long into the middle of the party, followed by Sneezer with his 
 shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar, blazing like a torch. 
 He unceremoniously seized " par le queue" the soldier who 
 had throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, and blow- 
 ing up his cartouche-box. I believe, under Providence, that 
 the ludicrousness of this attack saved us from being bayoneted 
 on the spot. It gave time for Mr Splinter to recover his breath, 
 when, being a powerful man, he shook off the two soldiers who 
 had seized him, and dashed into the burning hut again. I 
 thought he was mad, especially when I saw him return with his 
 clothes and hair on fire, dragging out the body of the captain. 
 He unfolded the sail it was wrapped in, and pointing to the re- 
 mains of the naval uniform in which the mutilated and putrify- 
 ing corpse was dressed, he said sternly to the officer, fl We are 
 in your power, and you may murder us if you will ; but that 
 was my captain four days ago, and you see at least he was a 
 British officer satisfy yourself." The person he addressed, a 
 handsome young Spaniard, with a clear olive complexion, oval 
 face, small brown mustaches, and large black eyes, shuddered at 
 the horrible spectacle, but did as he was requested. 
 
 When he saw the crown and anchor, and his Majesty's cipher 
 on the appointments of the dead officer, he became convinced 
 of our quality, and changed his tone " Es verdad, son de la 
 marina Englesa. But, gentlemen, were there not three persons 
 in the hut?" 
 
 There were indeed the flames had consumed the dry roof 
 and walls with incredible rapidity, which by this time had fallen 
 in, but Oreeque was nowhere to be seen. I thought I saw 
 something move in the midst of the fire, but it might have been 
 fancy. Again the white ashes heaved, and a half -consumed hand 
 and arm were thrust through the smouldering mass, then a 
 human head, with the scalp burnt from the skull, and the flesh 
 from the scalp and cheekbones ; the trunk next appeared, the 
 bleeding ribs laid bare, and the miserable Indian, with his limbs 
 like scorched rafters, stood upright before us, like a demon in 
 the midst of the fire. He made no attempt to escape, but, reel- 
 ing to and fro like a drunken man, fell headlong, raising clouds 
 of smoke and a shower of sparks in his fall. Alas ! poor Oreeque, 
 the newly-risen sun was now shining on your ashes, and on the 
 dead bodies of the ill-starred Bondia and her child, whose bones,
 
 96 TOM CRINGLE'S LOO. 
 
 ere his setting, the birds of the air and beasts of the forest will 
 leave as white and fleshless as your own. 
 
 The officer, who belonged to the army investing Carthagena, 
 now treated us with great civility ; he heard our story, and 
 desired his men to assist us in burying the remains of our late 
 commander. 
 
 We remained all day on the same part of the coast, but to- 
 wards evening the party fell back on the outpost to which they 
 belonged. After travelling an hour or so we emerged from a 
 dry river-course, in which the night had overtaken us, and came 
 suddenly on a small plateau, where the post was established on 
 the promontory of " Punto Canoa." There may be braver 
 soldiers at a charge although that I doubt, if they be properly 
 led but none more picturesque in a bivouac than the Spanish. 
 A gigantic wild cotton-tree, to which our largest English oaks 
 would have been but as dwarfs, rose on one side, and over- 
 shadowed the whole level space. The bright beams of the full 
 moon glanced among the topmost leaves, and tipped the higher 
 branches with silver, contrasting strangely with the scene below, 
 where a large watchfire cast a strong red glare on the surround- 
 ing objects, throwing up dense volumes of smoke, which eddied 
 in dun wreaths amongst the foliage, and hung in the still night- 
 air like a canopy, about ten feet from the ground, leaving the 
 space beneath comparatively clear. 
 
 A temporary guard-house, with a rude verandah of bamboos 
 and palm-leaves, had been built between two of the immense 
 spurs of the mighty tree, that shot out many yards from the 
 parent stem like wooden buttresses, whilst overhead there was 
 a sort of stage, made of planks laid across the lower boughs, sup- 
 porting a quantity of provisions covered with tarpaulins. The 
 sentries in the background, with their glancing arms, were seen 
 pacing on their watch ; some of the guard were asleep on wooden 
 benches, and on the platform amongst the branches, where a little 
 baboon-looking old man, in the dress of a drummer, had perched 
 himself, and sat playing a Biscayan air on a sort of bagpipe; 
 others were gathered round the fire cooking their food or clean- 
 ing their arms. It shone brightly on the long line of Spanish 
 transports that were moored below, stem on to the beach, and on 
 the white sails of the armed craft that were still hovering under 
 weigh in the offing, which, as the night wore on, stole in, one 
 after another, like phantoms of the ocean, and, letting go their 
 anchors with a splash, and a hollow rattle of the cable, remained 
 still and silent like the rest. Farther off, it fell in a crimson
 
 SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME. 97 
 
 stream on the surface of the sheltered bay, struggling with the 
 light of the gentle moon, and tinging with blood the small waves 
 that twinkled in her silver wake, across which a guard boat 
 would now and then glide, like a fairy thing, the arms of the 
 men flashing back the red light. 
 
 Beyond the influence of the hot smoky glare, the glorious 
 planet reassumed her sway in the midst of her attendant stars, 
 and the relieved eye wandered forth into the lovely night, where 
 the noiseless sheet-lightning was glancing, and ever and anon 
 lighting up for an instant some fantastic shape in the fleecy 
 clouds, like prodigies forerunning the destruction of the strong- 
 hold over which they impended ; while beneath, the lofty ridge 
 of the convent-crowned Popa, the citadel of San Felip6 bristling 
 with cannon, the white batteries and many towers of the fated 
 city of Carthagena, and the Spanish blockading squadron at 
 anchor before it, slept in the moonlight. 
 
 We were civilly received by the captain, who apologised for 
 the discomfort under which we must pass the night. He gave 
 us the best he had, and that was bad enough, both of food and 
 wine, before showing us into the hut, where we found a rough 
 deal coffin lying on the very bench that was to be our bed. This 
 he ordered away with all the coolness in the world. " It was 
 only one of his people who had died that morning of vomito, or 
 yellow fever." 
 
 " Comfortable country this," quoth Splinter, " and a pleasant 
 morning we have had of it, Tom ! " 
 
 Next morning we proceeded towards the Spanish headquarters, 
 provided with horses through the kindness of the captain of the 
 outpost, and preceded by a guide on an ass. He was a moreno, 
 or man of colour, who, in place of bestriding his beast, gathered 
 his limbs under him, and sat cross-legged on it like a tailor ; so 
 that when you saw the two " end on," the effect was laughable 
 enough, the flank and tail of the ass appearing to constitute the 
 lower part of the man, as if he had been a sort of composite ani- 
 mal like the ancient satyr. The road traversed a low swampy 
 country, from which the rank moisture arose in a hot palpable 
 mist, and crossed several shallow lagoons, from two to six feet 
 deep, of tepid, muddy, brackish water, some of them half a mile 
 broad, and swarming with wild waterfowl. On these occasions, 
 our friend the Satyr was signalled to make sail ahead on his 
 donkey to pilot us ; and as the water deepened, he would be- 
 take himself to swimming in its wake, holding on by the tail and 
 shouting, " Cuidado Burrico, Cuidado que no te ahogas"
 
 98 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 While passing through the largest of these we noticed several 
 calabashes about pistol-shot on our right ; and as we fancied one 
 of them bobbed now and then, it struck me they might be In- 
 dian fishing-floats. To satisfy my curiosity I hauled my wind, 
 and, leaving the track we were on, swam my horse towards the 
 group. The two first that I lifted had nothing attached to them; 
 but proved to be mere empty gourds floating before the wind ; 
 but when I tried to seize the largest it eluded my grasp in a 
 most incomprehensible manner, and slid away astern of me with 
 a curious hollow gabbling sort of noise, whereupon my palfrey 
 snorted and reared, and nearly capsized me over his bows. 
 What a noble fish, thought I, as I tacked in chase, but my Bu- 
 cephalus refused to face it. I therefore bore up to join my com- 
 panions again ; but in requital of the disappointment, smashed 
 the gourd in passing with the stick I held in my hand, when, 
 to my unutterable surprise, and amidst shouts of laughter from 
 our moreno, the head and shoulders of an Indian, with a quan- 
 tity of sedges tied round his neck, and buoyed up by half-a- 
 dozen dead teal fastened by the legs to his girdle, started up 
 before me. " Ave Maria, purisima ! you have broken my head, 
 senor." But as the vegetable helmet had saved his skull, of it- 
 self possibly none of the softest, a small piece of money spliced 
 the feud between us; and as he fitted his pate with another 
 calabash, preparatory to resuming his cruise, he joined in our 
 merriment, although from a different cause. " Wliat can these 
 English simpletons see so very comical in a poor Indian catching 
 wild-ducks?" 
 
 Shortly after, we entered a forest of magnificent trees, whose 
 sombre shade, on first passing from the intolerable glare of the 
 sun, seemed absolute darkness, The branches were alive with 
 innumerable tropical birds and insects, and were laced together 
 by a thick tracery of withes, along which a guana would occa- 
 sionally dart, coming nearest of all the reptiles I had seen to 
 the shape of the fabled dragon. 
 
 But how different from the clean stems and beautiful green 
 sward of our English woods ! Here, you were confined to a 
 quagmire by impervious underwood of prickly pear, penguin 
 and speargrass ; and when we rode under the drooping branches 
 of the trees, that the leaves might brush away the halo of mus- 
 quitoes, flying ants, and other winged plagues that buzzed about 
 our temples, we found, to our dismay, that we had made bad 
 worse by the introduction of a whole colony of garapatos, or 
 wood-ticks, into our eyebrows and hair. At length, for the
 
 SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME. 99 
 
 second time, so far as I was concerned, we reached the head- 
 quarters at Torrecilla, and were well received by the Spanish 
 commander-in-chief, a tall, good-looking, soldierlike man, whose 
 personal qualities had an excellent foil in the captain-general of 
 the province, an old friend of mine, as already mentioned, and 
 who certainly looked full as like a dancing-master, or, at the 
 best, perruquier en general to the staff, as a viceroy. 
 
 General Morillo, however, had a great share of Sancho Panza 
 .shrewdness, and I will add kindness, about him. We were 
 drenched and miserable when we arrived, yet he might have 
 turned us over, naturally enough, to the care of his staff. No 
 such thing ; the first thing he did was to walk both of us behind 
 a canvass screen that shut off one end of the large barn-like 
 room, where a long table was laid for dinner. This was his 
 sleeping apartment; and drawing out of a leather bag two suits 
 of uniform, he rigged us almost with his own hands. Presently 
 a point of war was sounded by half-a-dozen trumpeters, and 
 Splinter and I made our appearance, each in the dress of a 
 Spanish general The party consisted of Morillo's personal 
 staff, the captain-general, the enqumdor-general, and several 
 colonels and majors of different regiments. In all, twenty 
 people sat down to dinner; among whom were several young 
 Spanish noblemen, some of whom I had met on my former visit, 
 who, having served in the Peninsular war under the great Duke, 
 made their advances with great cordiality. Strange enough 
 Splinter and I were the only parties present in uniform ; all the 
 others, priests and soldiers, were clothed in gingham coats and 
 white trousers. 
 
 The besieging force at this time was composed of about five 
 thousand Spaniards, as fine troops as I ever saw, and three thou- 
 sand Creoles, under the command of that desperate fellow 
 Morales. I was not long in recognising an old friend of mine 
 in the person of Captain Bayer, an aide-de-camp of Morillo, 
 amongst the company. He was very kind and attentive, and 
 rather startled me by speaking very tolerable English now, from 
 a kindly motive I make no question, whereas, when I had 
 known him before in Kingston, he professed to speak nothing 
 but Spanish or French. He was a German by birth, and lived 
 to rise to the rank of colonel in the Spanish army, where 
 he subsequently greatly distinguished himself, but he at length 
 fell in some obscure skirmish in New Granada ; and my old ally 
 Morillo, Count of Carthagena, is now living in penury, an exile 
 in Paris.
 
 100 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 After being, as related, furnished with food and raiment, we 
 retired to our quatres, a most primitive sort of couch, being a 
 simple wooden frame, with a piece of canvass stretched over it. 
 However, if we had no mattresses, we had none of the disagree- 
 ables often incidental to them, and fatigue proved a good opiate, 
 for we slept soundly until the drums and trumpets of the troops, 
 getting under arms, awoke us at daylight. The army was under 
 weigh to occupy Carthagena, which had fallen through famine, 
 and we had no choice but to accompany it. 
 
 I knew nothing of the misery of a siege but by description ; 
 the reality even to me, case-hardened as I was by my own recent 
 sufferings, was dreadful We entered by the gate of the raval, 
 or suburb. There was not a living thing to be seen in the street ; 
 the houses had been pulled down, that the fire of the place might 
 not be obstructed in the event of a lodgment in the outwork. 
 We passed on, the military music echoing mournfully amongst 
 the ruined walls, to the main gate, or Puerto de Tiera, which 
 was also open, and the drawbridge lowered. Under the arch- 
 way we saw a delicate female, worn to the bone, and weak as 
 an infant, gathering garbage of the most loathsome description, 
 the possession of which had been successfully disputed by a car- 
 rion crow. A little farther on, the bodies of an old man and 
 two small children were putrefying in the sun ; while beside them 
 lay a miserable, wasted, dying negro, vainly endeavouring to keep 
 at a distance with a palm branch a number of the same obscene 
 birds that were already devouring the carcass of one of the in- 
 fants ; before two hours the faithful servant and those he at- 
 tempted to defend were equally the prey of the disgusting gal- 
 linaso. The houses, as we proceeded, appeared entirely deserted, 
 except where a solitary spectre-like inhabitant appeared at a bal- 
 cony, and feebly exclaimed, "Viva los Espanoles ! Viva Fernando 
 Septimo ! " We saw no domestic animal whatsoever, not even 
 a cat or a dog ; but I will not dwell on these horrible details any 
 longer. 
 
 One morning, shortly after our arrival, as we strolled beyond 
 the land gate, we came to a place where four ban quill os (a sort 
 of short bench or stool, with an upright post at one end firmly 
 fixed into the ground) were placed opposite a dead wall. They 
 were painted black, and we were not left long in suspense as to 
 their use ; for solemn music, and the roll of muffled drums in 
 the distance, were fearful indications of what we were to witness. 
 
 First came an entire regiment of Spanish infantry, which, 
 filing off, formed three sides of a square the wall near which
 
 SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME. 101 
 
 the banquillos were placed forming the fourth ; then eight priests, 
 and as many choristers, chanting the service for the dying ; next 
 came several mounted officers of the staff, and four firing-parties 
 of twelve men each. Three Spanish- American prisoners followed, 
 dressed in white, with crucifixes in their hands, each supported, 
 more dead than alive, by two priests; but when the fourth 
 victim appeared, we could neither look at nor think of anything 
 else. 
 
 On inquiry we found he was an Englishman, of the name of 
 
 S ; English, that is, in all except the place of his birth, for 
 
 his whole education had been English, as were his parents and all 
 his family ; but it came out, accidentally I believe, on his trial, 
 that he had been born at Buenos Ayres, and having joined the 
 patriots, this brought treason home to him, which he was now 
 led forth to expiate. Whilst his fellow-sufferers appeared crushed 
 down to the very earth, under their intense agony, so that they 
 had to be supported as they tottered towards the place of exe- 
 cution, he stepped firmly and manfully out, and seemed impa- 
 tient, when at any time, from the crowding in front, the proces- 
 sion was obliged to halt. At length they reached the fatal spot, 
 and his three companions in misery being placed astride on the 
 banquillos, their arms were twisted round the upright posts, and 
 fastened to them with cords, their backs being towards the sol- 
 diers. Mr S walked firmly up to the vacant bench, knelt 
 
 down, and covering his face with his hands, rested his head on 
 the edge of it. For a brief space he seemed to be engaged in 
 prayer, during which he sobbed audibly, but soon recovering 
 himself, he rose, and folding his arms across his breast, sat down 
 slowly and deliberately on the banquillo, facing the firing-party 
 with an unshrinking eye. 
 
 He was now told that he must turn his back and submit to 
 be tied like the others. He resisted this, but on force being 
 attempted to be used, he sprung to his feet, and stretching out 
 his hand, while a dark red flush passed transiently across his 
 pale face, he exclaimed in a loud voice, " Thus, thus, and not 
 otherwise, you may butcher me, but I am an Englishman and 
 no traitor, nor will I die the death of one." Moved by his gal- 
 lantry, the soldiers withdrew, and left him standing. At this 
 time the sun was intensely hot it was high noon and the monk 
 
 who attended Mr S held an umbrella over his head ; but 
 
 the preparations being completed, he kissed him on both cheeks, 
 while the hot tears trickled down his own, and was stepping back, 
 when the unhappy man said to him, with the most perfect com-
 
 102 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 posure, " Todavia padre, toclavia, mucho me gutsta la sombra." 
 But the time liad arrived, the kind-hearted monk was obliged 
 to retire. The signal was given, the musketry rattled, and they 
 were as clods of the valley. " Truly," quoth old Splinter, " a 
 man does sometimes become a horse by being born in a stable" 
 
 Some time after this we were allowed to go to the village of 
 Turbaco, a few miles distant from the city, for change of air. 
 On the third morning after our arrival, about the dawning, I 
 was suddenly awakened by a shower of dust on my face, and a 
 violent shaking of the bed, accompanied by a low grumbling 
 unearthly noise, which seemed to pass immediately under where 
 I lay. Were I to liken it to anything I had ever experienced 
 before, it would be to the lumbering and tremor of a large wag- 
 gon in a tempestuous night, heard and felt through the thin walls 
 of a London house. Like yet how fearfully different ! 
 
 In a few seconds the motion ceased, and the noise gradually 
 died away in hollow echoes in the distance whereupon ensued 
 such a crowing of cocks, cackling of geese, barking of dogs, low- 
 ing of kine, neighing of horses, and shouting of men, women, 
 and children amongst the negro and coloured domestics, as baffles 
 all description ; whilst the various white inmates of the house 
 (the rooms, for air and coolness, being without ceiling, and simply 
 divided by partitions run up about ten feet high) were, one and 
 all, calling to their servants and each other, in accents which did 
 not by any means evince great composure. In a moment this 
 hubbub again sank into the deepest silence man, and the beasts 
 of the field and the fowls of the air, became mute with breath- 
 less awe at the impending tremendous manifestation of the 
 power of that Almighty Being in whose hands the hills are as a 
 very little thing for the appalling voice of the earthquake was 
 once more heard growling afar off, like distant thunder mingling 
 with the rushing of a mighty wind, waxing louder and louder 
 as it approached, and upheaving the sure and firm-set earth 
 into long undulations, as if its surface had been the rolling 
 swell of the fathomless ocean. The house rocked, pictures of 
 saints fell from the walls, tables and chairs werer overturned, the 
 window-frames were forced out of their embrasures and broken 
 in pieces ; beams and rafters groaned and screamed, crushing the 
 tiles of the roof into ten thousand fragments. In several places 
 the ground split open into chasms a fathom wide, with an 
 explosion like a cannon-shot ; the very foundation of the house 
 seemed to be sinking under us ; and whilst men and women 
 rushed like maniacs naked into the fields, with a yell as if the
 
 THE PICCAROON. 103 
 
 Day of Judgment had arrived, and the whole brute creation, in 
 an agony of fear, made the most desperate attempts to break 
 forth from their enclosures into the open air, the end wall of 
 my apartment was shaken down, and, falling outwards with a 
 deafening crash, disclosed, in the dull, grey, mysterious twilight 
 of morning, the huge gnarled trees that overshadowed the build- 
 ing, bending and groaning amidst clouds of dust, as if they had 
 been tormented by a tempest, although the air was calm and 
 motionless as death. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE PICCAROON. 
 
 " Ours the wild life in tumult still to range." The Corsair. 
 
 SOME time after this we once more returned to Garth agena, to 
 be at hand should any opportunity occur for Jamaica, and were 
 lounging about one forenoon on the fortifications, looking with 
 sickening hearts out to seaward, when a voice struck up the 
 following negro ditty close to us : 
 
 " Fader was a Corramantee, 
 
 Moder was a Mingo, 
 Black picaniny buccra wantee, 
 So dem sell a me, Peter, by jingo. 
 Jiggery, jiggery, jiggery." 
 
 " Well sung, Massa Bungo ! " exclaimed Mr Splinter ; " where 
 do you hail from, my hearty? " 
 
 "Hillo! Bungo, indeed! free and easy dat, anyhow. Who 
 you yousef, eh 1 ? " 
 
 " Why, Peter," continued the lieutenant, " don't you know 
 me?" 
 
 " Cannot say dat I do," rejoined the negro, very gravely, with- 
 out lifting his head, as he sat mending his jacket in one of the 
 embrasures near the water-gate of the arsenal " Have not de 
 honour of your acquaintance, sir."
 
 104 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 He then resumed his scream, for song it could not be 
 called: 
 
 " Mammy Sally's daughter 
 
 Lose him shoe in an old canoe 
 Dat lay half full of water, 
 And den she knew not what to do. 
 Jiggery, jig " 
 
 " Confound your Jiggery, Jiggery, sir ! But I know you well 
 enough, my man ; and you can scarcely have forgotten Lieuten- 
 ant Splinter of the Torch, one would think ?" 
 
 However, it was clear that the poor fellow really had not 
 known us ; for the name so startled him, that, in his hurry to 
 unlace his legs from under him, as he sat tailor-fashion, he fairly 
 capsized out of his perch, and toppled down on his nose a fea- 
 ture, fortunately, so flattened by the hand of nature, that I 
 question if it could have been rendered more obtuse had he 
 fallen out of the maintop on a timber-head, or a marine officer's. 
 
 " Eh ! no yes, him sure enough ; and who is de picaniny 
 hofficer Oh ! I see, Massa Tom Cringle ? Garamighty, gentle- 
 men, where have you drop from 1 Where is de old Torch 1 
 Many a time hab I, Peter Mangrove, pilot to Him Britannic 
 Magesty squadron, taken de old brig in and through amongst 
 de keys at Port Royal ! " 
 
 " Ay, and how often did you scour her copper against the 
 coral reefs, Peter ? " 
 
 His Majesty's pilot gave a knowing look, and laid his hand 
 on his breast " No more of dat if you love me, massa." 
 
 " Well, well, it don't signify now, my boy ; she will never 
 give you that trouble again foundered all hands lost, Peter, 
 but the two you see before you." 
 
 " Werry sorry, Massa Plinter, werry sorry What ! de black 
 cook's-mate and all 1 But misfortune can't be help. Stop till 
 I put up my needle, and I will take a turn wid you." Here he 
 drew himself up with a great deal of absurd gravity. " Proper 
 dat British hoffic'er in distress should assist one anoder we 
 shall consult togeder. How can I serve you?" 
 
 " Why, Peter, if you could help us to a passage to Port Royal, 
 it would be serving us most essentially. When we used to be 
 lying there a week seldom passed without one of the squadron 
 arriving from this ; but here have we been for more than a 
 month without a single pennant belonging to the station hav- 
 ing looked in : our money is running short, and if we are to hold 
 on in Carthagena for another six weeks, we shall not have a shot 
 left in the locker not a copper to tinkle on a tombstone."
 
 THE PICCABOON. 105 
 
 The negro looked steadfastly at us, then carefully around. 
 There was no one near. 
 
 " You see, Massa Plinter, I am desirable to serve you, for one 
 little reason of my own ; but, beside dat, it is good for me at 
 present to make some friend wid de hofficer of de squadron, 
 being as how dat I am absent widout leave." 
 
 " Oh, I perceive a large R against your name in the master- 
 attendant's books, eh ? " 
 
 " You have hit it, sir, werry close ; besides, I long mosh to 
 return to my poor wife, Nancy Cator, dat I leave, wagabone dat 
 I is, just about to be confine." 
 
 I could not resist putting in my oar. 
 
 " I saw Nancy just before we sailed, Peter fine child that ; 
 not quite so black as you, though." 
 
 " Oh, massa," said Snowball, grinning, and showing his white 
 teeth, " you know I am soch a terrible black fellow But you 
 are a leetle out at present, massa I meant, about to be confine 
 in de workhouse for stealing de admiral's Muscovy ducks ;" and 
 he laughed loud and long. " However, if you will promise dat 
 you will stand my friends, I will put you in de way of getting a 
 shove across to de east end of Jamaica ; and I will go wid you 
 too, for company." 
 
 " Thank you," rejoined Mr Splinter ; "but how do you mean 
 to manage this 1 There is no Kingston trader here at present, 
 and you don't mean to make a start of it in an open boat, do 
 you ? " 
 
 " No, sir, I don't ; but in de first place as you are a gentle- 
 man, will you try and get me off when we get to Jamaica? 
 Secondly, will you promise dat you will not seek to know more 
 of de vessel you may go in, nor of her crew, than dey are will- 
 ing to tell you, provided you are landed safe ? " 
 
 " Why, Peter, I scarcely think you would deceive us, for you 
 know I saved your bacon in that awkward affair, when through 
 drunkenness you plumped the Torch ashore, so " 
 
 " Forget dat, sir forget dat ! Never shall poor black pilot 
 forget how you saved him from being seized up, when de grat- 
 ings, boatswain's mates, and all, were ready at de gangway never 
 shall poor black rascal forget dat." 
 
 " Indeed, I do not think you would wittingly betray us into 
 trouble, Peter : and as I guess you mean one of the forced traders, 
 we will venture in her, rather than kick about here any longer, 
 and pay a moderate sum for our passage." 
 
 " Den wait here five minute" and so saying, he slipped down
 
 106 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 through the embrasure into a canoe that lay beneath, and in a 
 trice we saw him jump on board of a long low nondescript kind 
 of craft that lay moored within pistol-shot of the walls. 
 
 She was a large shallow vessel, coppered to the bends, of great 
 breadth of beam, with bright sides, like an American, so painted 
 as to give her a clumsy mercantile sheer externally, but there 
 were many things that belied this to a nautical eye : her copper, 
 for instance, was bright as burnished gold on her very sharp 
 bows and beautiful run ; and we could see, from the bastion 
 where we stood, that her decks were flush and level She had 
 no cannon mounted that were visible; but we distinguished 
 grooves on her well-scrubbed decks, as from the recent traversing 
 of carronade slides, while the bolts and rings in her high and 
 solid bulwarks shone clear and bright in the ardent noontide. 
 There was a tarpauling stretched over a quantity of rubbish, old 
 sails, old junk, and hencoops, rather ostentatiously piled up for- 
 ward, which we conjectured might conceal a long gun. 
 
 She was a very taught-rigged hermaphrodite, or brig forward 
 and schooner aft. Her foremast and bowsprit were immensely 
 strong and heavy, and her mainmast was so long and tapering, 
 that the wonder was how the few shrouds and stays about it 
 could support it ; it was the handsomest stick we had ever seen. 
 Her upper spars were on the same scale, tapering away through 
 topmast, topgallant -mast, royal and sky sail -masts, until they 
 fined away into slender wands. The sails, that were loose to dry, 
 were old, and patched, and evidently displayed to cloak the char- 
 acter of the vessel by an ostentatious show of their unservice- 
 able condition ; but her rigging was beautifully fitted, every rope 
 lying in the chafe of another being carefully served with hide. 
 There were several large bushy- whiskered fellows lounging about 
 the deck, with their hair gathered into dirty net-bags, like the 
 fishermen of Barcelona ; many had red silk sashes round their 
 waists, through which were stuck their long knives, in shark-skin 
 sheaths. Their numbers were not so great as to excite suspicion ; 
 but a certain daring, reckless manner, would at once have dis- 
 tinguished them, independently of anything else, from the quiet, 
 hard-worked, red-shirted, merchant seaman. 
 
 " That chap is not much to be trusted," said the lieutenant ; 
 " his bunting would make a few jackets for Joseph, I take it.' : 
 But we had little time to be critical, before our friend Peter came 
 paddling back with another blackamoor in the stern, of as un- 
 gainly an exterior as could well be imagined. He was a very 
 large man, whose weight every now and then, as they breasted
 
 THE PICCAROON. 107 
 
 the short sea, cocked up the snout of the canoe with Peter Man- 
 grove in it, as if he had been a cork, leaving him to flourish his 
 paddle in the air, like the weather-wheel of a steam-boat in a 
 sea-way. The new-comer was strong and broad-shouldered, with 
 long muscular arms, and a chest like Hercules ; but his legs and 
 thighs were, for his bulk, remarkably puny and misshapen. A 
 thick fell of black wool, in close tufts, as if his face had been 
 stuck full of cloves, covered his chin and upper-lip ; and his 
 hair, if hair it could be called, was twisted into a hundred short 
 plaits, that bristled out, and gave his head, when he took his 
 hat off, the appearance of a porcupine. There was a large sabre- 
 cut across his nose and down his cheek, and he wore two im- 
 mense gold earrings. His dress consisted of short cotton 
 drawers, that did not reach within two inches of his knee, 
 leaving his thin cucumber shanks (on which the small bullet- 
 like calf appeared to have been stuck before, through mistake, 
 in place of abaft) naked to the shoe; a check shirt, and an 
 enormously large Panama hat, made of a sort of cane, split small, 
 and worn shovel-fashion. Notwithstanding, he made his bow 
 by no means ungracefully, and offered his services in choice 
 Spanish, but spoke English as soon as he heard who we were. 
 
 " Pray, sir, are you the master of that vessel ? " said the 
 lieutenant. 
 
 " No, sir, I am the mate, and I learn you are desirous of a 
 passage to Jamaica." This was spoken with a broad Scotch 
 accent. 
 
 " Yes, we are," said I, in very great astonishment, " but we 
 will not sail with the devil ; and who ever saw a negro Scotch- 
 man before, the spirit of Nicol Jarvie conjured into a blacka- 
 moor's skin ! " 
 
 The fellow laughed. " I am black, as you see ; so were my 
 father and mother before me." And he looked at me, as much 
 as to say, I have read the book you quote from. " But I was 
 born in the good town of Port-Glasgow notwithstanding, and 
 many a voyage I have made as cabin-boy and cook in the good 
 ship the Peggy Bogle, with worthy old Jock Hunter ; but that 
 matters not. I was told you wanted to go to Jamaica ; I dare- 
 say our captain will take you for a moderate passage-money. 
 But here he conies to speak for himself. Captain Vanderbosh, 
 here are two shipwrecked British officers, who wish to be put 
 on shore on the east end of Jamaica ; will you take them, and 
 what will you charge for their passage 1 ?" 
 
 The man he spoke to was nearly as tall as himself ; he was a
 
 108 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 sunburnt, angular, raw-boned, iron-visaged veteran, with a nose 
 in shape and colour like the bowl of his own pipe, but not at all, 
 according to the received idea, like a Dutchman. His dress was 
 quizzical enough white-trousers, a long -flapped embroidered 
 waistcoat that might have belonged to a Spanish grandee, with 
 an old-fashioned French -cut coat, showing the frayed marks 
 where the lace had been stripped off, voluminous in the skirts, 
 but very tight in the sleeves, which were so short as to leave his 
 large bony paws, and six inches of his arm above the wrist, exposed; 
 altogether, it fitted him like a purser's shirt on a handspike. 
 
 " Vy, for von hondred thaler I will land dem safe in Man- 
 cheoneal Bay ; but how shall ve manage, Villiamson ? De cabin 
 vas point yesterday." 
 
 The Scotch negro nodded. " Never mind ; I daresay the 
 smell of the paint won't signify to the gentlemen." 
 
 The bargain was ratified ; we agreed to pay the stipulated sum, 
 and that same evening, having dropped down with the last of 
 the sea-breeze, we set sail from Bocca Chica, and began working 
 up under the lee of the headland of Punto Canoa. When off the 
 San Domingo Gate, we burned a blue-light, which was imme- 
 diately answered by another in-shore of us. In the glare we 
 could perceive two boats, full of men. Any one who has ever 
 played at snapdragon, can imagine the unearthly appearance of 
 objects when seen by this species of firework. In the present 
 instance it was held aloft on a boat-hook, and cast a strong 
 spectral light on the band of lawless ruffians, who were so 
 crowded together that they entirely filled the boats, no part of 
 which could be seen. It seemed as if two clusters of fiends, 
 suddenly vomited forth from hell, were floating on the surface 
 of the midnight sea, in the midst of brimstone flames. In a 
 few moments our crew was strengthened by about forty as ugly 
 Christians as I ever set eyes on. They were of all ages, coun- 
 tries, complexions, and tongues, and looked as if they had been 
 kidnapped by a pressgang as they had knocked off from the 
 Tower of BabeL From the moment they came on board, Cap- 
 tain Vanderbosh was shorn of all his glory, and sank into the 
 petty officer while, to our amazement, the Scottish negro took 
 the command, evincing great coolness, energy, and skill He 
 ordered the schooner to be wore as soon as we had shipped the 
 men, and laid her head off the land, then set all hands to shift 
 the old suit of sails, and to bend new ones. 
 
 " Why did you not shift your canvass before we started 1 " said 
 I to the Dutch captain, or mate, or whatever he might be.
 
 THE PICCAROON. 109 
 
 " Vy vont you be content to take a quiet passage and hax no 
 question?" was the uncivil rejoinder, which I felt inclined tore- 
 sent, until I remembered that we were in the hands of the Phil- 
 istines, where a quarrel would have been worse than useless. I 
 was gulping down the insult as well as I could, when the black 
 captain came aft, and, with the air of an equal, invited us into 
 the cabin to take a glass of grog. We had scarcely sat down 
 before we heard a noise like the swaying up of guns, or some 
 other heavy articles, from the hold. 
 
 I caught Mr Splinter's eye he nodded, but said nothing. In 
 half an hour afterwards, when we went on deck, we saw by the 
 light of the moon twelve eighteen-pound carronades mounted, 
 six of a side, with their a'ccompaniments of rammers and sponges, 
 water-buckets, boxes of round, grape, and canister, and tubs of 
 wadding, while the coamings of the hatchways were thickly stud- 
 ded with round-shot. The tarpauling and lumber forward had 
 disappeared, and there lay long Tom, ready levelled, grinning on 
 his pivot. 
 
 The ropes were all coiled away, and laid down in regular man- 
 of-war fashion ; while an ugly gruff beast of a Spanish mulatto, 
 apparently the officer of the watch, walked the weatherside of 
 the quarterdeck in the true pendulum style. Look-outs were 
 placed aft, and at the gangways and bows, who every now and 
 then passed the word to keep a bright look-out, while the rest 
 of the watch were stretched silent, but evidently broad awake, 
 under the lee of the boat. We noticed that each man had his 
 cutlass buckled round his waist that the boarding-pikes had 
 been cut loose from the main boom, round which they had been 
 stopped, and that about thirty muskets were ranged along a fixed 
 rack that ran athwart ships near the main hatchway. 
 
 By the time we had reconnoitred thus far the night became 
 overcast, and a thick bank of clouds began to rise to windward ; 
 some heavy drops of rain fell, and the thunder grumbled at a 
 distance. The black veil crept gradually on, until it shrouded 
 the whole firmament, and left us in as dark a night as ever poor 
 devils were out in. By-and-by a narrow streak of bright moon- 
 light appeared under the lower edge of the bank, defining the 
 dark outlines of the tumbling multitudinous billows on the horizon 
 as distinctly as if they had been pasteboard waves in a theatre. 
 
 " Is that a sail to windward in the clear, think you 1 " said 
 Mr Splinter to me in a whisper. At this moment it lightened 
 vividly. " I am sure it is," continued he " I could see her 
 white canvass glance just now."
 
 110 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 I looked steadily, and at last caught the small dark speck 
 against the bright background, rising and falling on the swell of 
 the sea like a feather. 
 
 As we stood on, she was seen more distinctly, but, to all ap- 
 pearance, nobody was aware of her proximity. We were mistaken 
 in this, however, for the captain suddenly jumped on a gun, and 
 gave his orders with a fiery energy that startled us. 
 
 " Leroux ! " A small French boy was at his side in a moment. 
 " Forward, and call all hands to shorten sail ; but, doucement, 
 you land-crab ! Man the fore clew-garnets. Hands by the top- 
 gallant clew-lines -jib down-haul rise tacks and sheets peak 
 and throat haulyards let go clew up settle away the main- 
 gaff there ! " 
 
 In almost as short a space as I have taken to write it, every 
 inch of canvass was close furled every light, except the one in 
 the binnacle, and that was cautiously masked, carefully extin- 
 guished a hundred and twenty men at quarters, and the ship 
 under bare poles. The head -yards were then squared, and we 
 bore up before the wind. The stratagem proved successful ; the 
 strange sail could be seen through the night-glasses cracking on 
 close to the wind, evidently under the impression that we had 
 tacked. 
 
 " Dere she goes, chasing de Gobel," said the Dutchman. 
 
 She now burned a blue-light, by which we saw she was a heavy 
 cutter without doubt our old fellow-cruiser the Spark. The 
 Dutchman had come to the same conclusion. 
 
 " My eye, captain, no use to dodge from her ; it is only dat 
 footy little King's cutter on de Jamaica station." 
 
 " It is her, true enough," answered Williamson ; " and she is 
 from Santa Martha with a freight of specie, I know. I will try 
 a brush with her, by " 
 
 Splinter struck in before he could finish his irreverent ex- 
 clamation. " If your conjecture be true, I know the craft a 
 heavy vessel of her class, and you may depend on hard knocks, 
 and small profit if you do take her ; while if she takes you 
 
 "I'll be hanged if she does" and he grinned at the conceit 
 then setting his teeth hard, " or rather, I will blow the 
 schooner up with my own hand before I strike ; better that 
 than have one's bones bleached in chains on a key at Port Royal. 
 But you see you cannot control us, gentlemen ; so get down into 
 the cable-tier, and take Peter Mangrove with you. I would not 
 willingly see those come to harm who have trusted me." 
 
 However, there was no shot flying as yet, we therefore stayed
 
 THE PICCAROON. Ill 
 
 on deck. All sail was once more made ; the carronades were 
 cast loose on both sides, and double-shotted, the long-gun slewed 
 round, the tack of the fore-and-aft foresail hauled up, and we 
 kept by the wind, and stood after the cutter, whose white can- 
 vass we could still see through the gloom like a snow-wreath. 
 
 As soon as she saw us, she tacked and stood towards us, and 
 came bowling along gallantly, with the water roaring and flash- 
 ing at her bows. As the vessels neared each other they both 
 shortened sail, and finding that we could not weather her, we 
 steered close under her lee. 
 
 As we crossed on opposite tacks, her commander hailed, " Ho, 
 the brigantine, ahoy ! " 
 
 " Hillo ! " sung out Blackie, as he backed his maintop-sail 
 
 " What schooner is that? " 
 
 "The Spanish schooner Caridad." 
 
 " Whence, and whither bound 1 ? " 
 
 " Carthagena to Porto Rico." 
 
 " Heave-to, and send your boat on board." 
 
 " We have none that will swim, sir." 
 
 " Very well, bring-to, and I will send mine." 
 
 " Call away the boarders," said our captain, in a low stern 
 tone ; " let them crouch out of sight behind the boat." 
 
 The cutter wore, and hove-to under our lee quarter, within 
 pistol-shot ; we heard the rattle of the ropes running through 
 the davit-blocks, and the splash of the jolly-boat touching the 
 water, then the measured stroke of the oars, as they glanced like 
 silver in the sparkling sea, and a voice calling out, " Give way, 
 my lads." 
 
 The character of the vessel we were on board of was now evi- 
 dent ; and the bitter reflection that we were chained to the stake 
 on board of a pirate, on the eve of a fierce contest with one of 
 our own cruisers, was aggravated by the consideration, that the 
 cutter had fallen into a snare by which a whole boat's crew would 
 be sacrificed before a shot was fired. 
 
 I watched my opportunity as she pulled up alongside, and 
 called out, leaning well over 1 the nettings, " Get back to your 
 ship ! treachery ! get back to your ship ! " 
 
 The little French serpent was at my side with the speed of 
 thought, his long clear knife glancing in one hand, while the 
 fingers of the other were laid on his lips. He could not have 
 said more plainly, " Hold your tongue, or I'll cut your throat ; " 
 but Sneezer now startled him by rushing between us, and giving 
 a short angry growl.
 
 112 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 The officer in the boat had heard me imperfectly ; he rose up 
 " I won't go back, my good man, until I see what you are 
 made of ; " and as he spoke he sprang on board, but the instant 
 he got over the bulwarks, he was caught by two strong hands, 
 gagged, and thrown bodily down the main-hatchway. 
 
 " Heave," cried a voice, " and with a will ! " and four cold 32- 
 pound shot were hove at once into the boat alongside, which, 
 crashing through her bottom, swamped her in a moment, preci- 
 pitating the miserable crew into the boiling sea. Their shrieks 
 still ring in my ears as they clung to the oars and some loose 
 planks of the boat. 
 
 " Bring up the officer, and take out the gag," said Williamson. 
 
 Poor Walcolm, who had been an old messmate of mine, was 
 now dragged to the gangway half -naked, his face bleeding, and 
 heavily ironed, when the blackamoor, clapping a pistol to his 
 head, bid him, as he feared instant death, hail " that the boat 
 had swamped under the counter, and to send another." The 
 poor fellow, who appeared stunned and confused, did so, but 
 without seeming to know what he said. 
 
 " Good God," said Mr Splinter, " don't you mean to pick up 
 the boat's crew 1 ? " 
 
 The blood curdled to my heart, as the black savage answered 
 
 in a voice of thunder, " Let them drown and be d d ! Fill, 
 
 and stand on ! " 
 
 But the clouds by this time broke away, and the mild moon 
 shone clear and bright once more upon this scene of most atro- 
 cious villany. By her light the cutter's people could see that 
 there was no one struggling in the water now, and that the people 
 must either have been saved, or were past all earthly aid ; but 
 the infamous deception was not entirely at an end. 
 
 The captain of the cutter, seeing we were making sail, did the 
 same, and after having shot ahead of us, hailed once more. 
 
 " Mr Walcolm, why don't you run to leeward, and heave-to, 
 sir? " 
 
 " Answer him instantly, and hail again for another boat," said 
 the sable fiend, and cocked his pistol. 
 
 The click went to my heart. The young midshipman turned 
 his pale mild countenance, laced with his blood, upwards towards 
 the moon and stars, as one who had looked his last look on earth ; 
 the large tears were flowing down his cheeks, and mingling with 
 the crimson streaks, and a flood of silver light fell on the fine 
 features of the poor boy, as he said firmly, " Never." The mis- 
 creant fired, and he fell dead.
 
 THE PICCAROON. 113 
 
 " Up with the helm, and wear across her stern." The order 
 was obeyed. " Fire ! " The whole broadside was poured in, and 
 we could hear the shot rattle and tear along the cutter's deck, 
 and the shrieks and groans of the wounded, while the white 
 splinters glanced away in all directions. 
 
 We now ranged alongside, and close action commenced, and 
 never do I expect to see such an infernal scene again. Up to 
 this moment there had been neither confusion nor noise on 
 board the pirate all had been coolness and order; but when 
 the yards locked the crew broke loose from all control they 
 ceased to be men they were demons, for they threw their own 
 dead and wounded, as they were mown down like grass by the 
 cutter's grape, indiscriminately down the hatchways to get clear 
 of them. They had stripped themselves almost naked ; and al- 
 though they fought with the most desperate courage, yelling 
 and cursing, each in his own tongue, most hideously, yet their 
 very numbers, pent up in a small vessel, were against them. At 
 length, amidst the fire and smoke and hellish uproar, we could 
 see that the deck had become a very shambles ; and unless they 
 soon carried the cutter by boarding, it was clear that the cool- 
 ness and discipline of my own glorious service must prevail, even 
 against such fearful odds, the superior size of the vessel, greater 
 number of guns, and heavier metal The pirates seemed aware 
 of this themselves, for they now made a desperate attempt for- 
 ward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black 
 captain. Just at this moment the cutter's main-boom fell across 
 the schooner's deck, close to where we were sheltering ourselves 
 from the shot the best way we could ; and while the rush for- 
 ward was being made, by a sudden impulse Splinter and I, fol- 
 lowed by Peter and the dog (who with wonderful sagacity, seeing 
 the uselessness of resistance, had cowered quietly by my side 
 during the whole row), scrambled along it as the cutter's people 
 were repelling the attack on her bow, and all four of us, in our 
 haste, jumped down on the poor Irishman at the wheel. 
 
 " Murder, fire, rape, and robbery ! it is capsized, stove in, 
 sunk, burned, and destroyed I am ! Captain, captain, we are 
 carried aft here Och, hubbaboo for Patrick Donnally ! " 
 
 There was no time to be lost ; if any of the crew came aft we 
 were dead men, so we tumbled down through the cabin skylight, 
 men and beast, the hatch having been knocked off by a shot, 
 and stowed ourselves away in the side berths. The noise on 
 deck soon ceased the cannon were again plied gradually the 
 fire slackened, and we could hear that the pirate had scraped 
 
 H
 
 114 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 clear and escaped. Some time after this the lieutenant com- 
 manding the cutter came down. Poor Mr Douglas ! both Mr 
 Splinter and I knew him well. He sat down and covered his 
 face with his hands, while the blood oozed down between his 
 fingers. He had received a cutlass wound on the head in the 
 attack. His right arm was bound up with his neckcloth, and 
 he was very pale. 
 
 " Steward, bring me a light. Ask the doctor how many are 
 killed and wounded; and do you hear] tell him to come to 
 me when he is done forward, but not a moment sooner. To 
 have been so mauled and duped by a buccanneer; and my poor 
 boat's crew " 
 
 Splinter groaned. He started but at this moment the man 
 returned again. 
 
 " Thirteen killed, your honour, and fifteen wounded ; scarcely 
 one of us untouched." The poor fellow's own skull was bound 
 round with a bloody cloth. 
 
 " God help me ! God help me ! but they have died the death 
 of men. Who knows what death the poor fellows in the boat 
 have died ! " Here he was cut short by a tremendous scuffle on 
 the ladder, down which an old quartermaster was trundled neck 
 and crop into the cabin. " How now, Jones ? " 
 
 " Please your honour," said the man, as soon as he had 
 gathered himself up, and had time to turn his quid and smooth 
 down his hair ; but again the uproar was renewed, and Donnally 
 was lugged in, scrambling and struggling between two seamen 
 " this here Irish chap, your honour, has lost his wits, if so 
 be he ever had any, your honour. He has gone mad through 
 fright" 
 
 " Fright be d d ! " roared Donnally ; " no man ever fright- 
 ened me ; but as his honour was skewering them bloody thieves 
 forward, I was boarded and carried aft by the devil, your honour 
 
 pooped by Beelzebub, by ," and he rapped his fist on the 
 
 table until everything on it danced again. " There were four of 
 them, yeer honour a black one and two blue ones and a pie- 
 bald one, with four legs and a bushy tail each with two horns 
 on his head, for all the world like those on Father M'Cleary's 
 red cow no, she was humbled it is Father Clannachan's, I 
 mane no, not his neither, for his was the parish bull ; fait, I 
 don't know what I mane, except that they had all horns on their 
 heads, and vomited fire, and had each of them a tail at his stem, 
 twisting and twining like a conger eel, with a blue light at the 
 end on't."
 
 THE CKUISE OF THE SPARK. 115 
 
 "And dat's a lie, if ever dere was one," exclaimed Peter 
 Mangrove, jumping from the berth. " Look at me, you Irish 
 tief, and tell me if I have a blue light or a conger eel at my 
 stern ! " 
 
 This was too much for poor Donnally. He yelled out, " You'll 
 believe your own eyes now, yeer honour, when you see one o' 
 dem bodily before you ! Let me go let me go ! " and, rush- 
 ing up the ladder, he would, in all probability, have ended his 
 earthly career in the salt sea, had his bullet-head not encountered 
 the broadest part of the purser, who was in the act of descend- 
 ing, with such violence, that he shot him out of the companion 
 several feet above the deck, as if he had been discharged from a 
 culverin ; but the recoil sent poor Donnally, stunned and sense- 
 less, to the bottom of the ladder. There was no standing all 
 this ; we laughed outright, and made ourselves known to Mr 
 Douglas, who received us cordially, and in a week we were 
 landed at Port Royal. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE SPARK. 
 
 " Ours arc the tears, though few, sincerely shed." The Corsair. 
 
 4 
 
 THE only other midshipman on board the cutter beside young 
 Walcolm, whose miserable death we had witnessed, was a slight 
 delicate little fellow, about fourteen years old, of the name of 
 Duncan ; he was the smallest boy of his age I ever saw, and had 
 been badly hurt in repelling the attack of the pirate. His wound 
 was a lacerated puncture in the left shoulder from a boarding- 
 pike, but it appeared to be healing kindly, and for some days 
 we thought he was doing well. However, about five o'clock in 
 the afternoon on which we made Jamaica, the surgeon accosted 
 Mr Douglas as we were walking the deck together. 
 
 " I fear little Duncan is going to slip through my fingers after 
 .all, sir."
 
 116 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " No ! I thought he had been better." 
 
 " So he was till about noon, when a twitching of the muscles 
 came on, which I fear betokens lockjaw; he wavers, too, now 
 and then a bad sign of itself where there is a fretting 
 wound." 
 
 We went below, where, notwithstanding the wind-sail that 
 was let down close to where his hammock was slung, the heat 
 of the small vessel was suffocating. The large coarse tallow 
 candle in the purser's lantern, that hung beside his shoulder, 
 around which the loathsome cockroaches fluttered like moths 
 in a summer evening, filled the between-decks with a rancid oily 
 smell, and with smoke as from a torch, while it ran down and 
 melted like fat before a fire. It cast a dull sickly gleam on the 
 pale face of the brown-haired girlish-looking lad, as he lay in 
 his narrow hammock. When we entered, an old quartermaster 
 was rubbing his legs, which were jerking about like the limbs of 
 a galvanised frog, while two of the boys held his arms, also 
 violently convulsed. The poor little fellow was crying and sob- 
 bing most piteously, but made a strong effort to compose himself 
 and " be a man" when he saw us. 
 
 " This is so good of you, Mr Cringle ! you will take charge of 
 my letter to my sister, I know you will "? I say, Anson," to the 
 quartermaster, " do lift me up a little till I try and finish it. 
 It will be a sore heart to poor Sarah ; she has no mother now > 
 nor father, and aunt is not over kind ;" and again he wept 
 bitterly. " Confound this jumping hand, it won't keep steady, 
 all I can do. I say, doctor, I shan't die this time, shall I ? " 
 
 " I hope not, my fine little fellow." 
 
 " I don't think I shall ; I shall live to be a man yet, in spite 
 of that bloody buccaneer's pike I know I shall." God help me, 
 the death-rattle was already in his throat, and the flame was 
 flickering in the socket ; even as he spoke the muscles of his 
 neck stiffened to such a degree that I thought he was choked, 
 but the violence of the convulsion quickly subsided. " I am 
 done for, doctor!" he could no longer open his mouth, but 
 spoke through his clenched teeth " I feel it now ! God Al- 
 mighty receive my soul, and protect my poor sister ! " The 
 arch-enemy was indeed advancing to the final struggle, for he 
 now gave a sudden and sharp cry, and stretched out his legs 
 and arms, which instantly became as rigid as marble, and in his 
 agony he turned his face to the side I stood on, but he was no- 
 longer sensible. " Sister," he said with difficulty " don't let 
 them throw me overboard; there are sharks here."
 
 THE CKUISE OF THE SPARK. 117 
 
 *' Land on the lee-bow ! " sang out the man at the mast-head. 
 
 The common life sound would not have moved any of us in 
 the routine of duty, but, bursting in under such circumstances, 
 it made us all start as if it had been something unusual ; the 
 dying midshipman heard it, and said, calmly, " Land ! I will 
 never see it. But how blue all your lips look. It is cold, pierc- 
 ing cold, and dark, dark." Something seemed to rise in his 
 throat, his features sharpened still more, and he tried to gasp, 
 but his clenched teeth prevented him he was gone. 
 
 I went on deck with a heavy heart, and, on looking in the 
 direction indicated, I beheld the towering Blue Mountain peak 
 rising high above the horizon, even at the distance of fifty miles, 
 with its outline clear and distinct against the splendid western 
 sky, now gloriously illumined by the light of the set sun. We 
 stood on under easy sail for the night, and next morning, when 
 the day broke, we were off the east end of the magnificent island 
 of Jamaica. The stupendous peak now appeared to rise close 
 aboard of us, with a large solitary star sparkling on his fore- 
 head, and reared his forest-crowned summit high into the cold 
 blue sky, impending over us in frowning magnificence, while the 
 long dark range of the Blue Mountains, with their outlines hard 
 and clear in the grey light, sloped away on each side of him as 
 if they had been the Giant's shoulders. Great masses of white 
 mist hung on their sides about half-way down, but all the val- 
 leys and coasts as yet slept in the darkness. We could see that 
 the land-wind was blowing strong inshore, from the darker 
 colour of the water, and the speed with which the coasters, only 
 distinguishable by their white sails, slid along ; while astern of 
 us, out at sea, yet within a cable's length, for we had scarcely 
 shot beyond its influence, the prevailing trade- wind blew a smart 
 breeze, coming up strong to a defined line, beyond which and 
 between it and the influence of the land-wind, there was a belt 
 of dull lead-coloured sea, about half a mile broad, with a long 
 heavy ground-swell rolling, but smooth as glass, and without 
 even a ripple on the surface, in the midst of which we presently 
 lay dead becalmed. 
 
 The heavy dew was shaken in large drops out of the wet flap- 
 ping sails, against which the reef -points pattered like hail as the 
 vessel rolled. The decks were wet and slippery, and our jackets 
 saturated with moisture ; but we enjoyed the luxury of cold to 
 a degree that made the sea-water when dashed about the decks, 
 as they were being holystoned, appear absolutely warm. Presently 
 all nature awoke in its freshness so suddenly that it looked like
 
 118 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 a change of scene in a theatre. The sun, as yet set to us, rose 
 to the huge peak, and glanced like lightning on his summit, 
 making it gleam like a ruby ; presently the clouds on his shaggy 
 ribs rolled upwards, enveloping his head and shoulders, and were 
 replaced by the thin blue mists which ascended from the valleys, 
 forming a fleecy canopy, beneath which appeared hill and dale, 
 woods and cultivated lands, where all had been undistinguishable 
 a minute before, and gushing streams burst from the mountain 
 sides like gouts of froth, marking their course in the level grounds 
 by the vapours they sent up. Then breeze-mill towers burst 
 into light, and cattle-mills, with their cone-shaped roofs, and 
 overseers' houses, and water-mills, with the white spray falling 
 from the wheels, and sugar-works, with long pennants of white 
 smoke streaming from the boiling-house chimneys seaward in 
 the morning wind. Immediately after, gangs of negroes were 
 seen at work ; loaded waggons, with enormous teams of fourteen 
 to twenty oxen dragging them, rolled along the roads ; long 
 strings of mules, loaded with canes, were threading the fields ; 
 dragging vessels were seen to shove out from every cove ; the 
 morning song of the black fisherman was heard, while their tiny 
 canoes, like black specks, started up suddenly on all sides of us, 
 as if they had floated from the bottom of the sea ; and the smil- 
 ing scene burst at once, and as if by magic, on us, in all its cool- 
 ness and beauty, under the cheering influence of the rapidly ris- 
 ing sun. We fired a gun, and made the signal for a pilot ; upon 
 which a canoe, with three negroes in it, shoved off from a small 
 schooner lying-to about a mile to leeward. They were soon 
 alongside, when one of the three jumped on board. This was 
 the pilot, a slave, as I knew ; and I remember the time when, 
 in my innocence, I would have expected to see something very 
 squalid and miserable ; but there was nothing of the kind, for I 
 never in my life saw a more spruce salt-water dandy, in a small 
 way. He was well dressed, according to a seaman's notion 
 clean white trousers, check shirt with white lapels, neatly fast- 
 ened at the throat with a black ribbon, smart straw hat ; and 
 altogether he carried an appearance of comfort I was going 
 to write independence about him, that I was by no means 
 prepared for. He moved about with a swaggering roll, grinning 
 and laughing with the seamen. 
 
 " I say, blackie," said Mr Douglas. 
 
 " John Lodge, massa, if you please, massa ; blackie is not 
 politeful, sir ; " whereupon he showed his white teeth again. 
 
 " Well, well, John Lodge, you are running us in too close,
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE SPARK. 119 
 
 surely ;" and the remark seemed seasonable enough to a stranger, 
 for the rocks on the bold shore were now within half pistol-shot. 
 
 " Mind your eye," shouted old Anson. " You will have us 
 ashore, you black rascal ! " 
 
 " You, sir, what water have you here "? " sang out Mr Splinter. 
 
 " Salt water, massa," rapped out Lodge, fairly dumfounded 
 by such a volley of questions. " You hab six fadom good here, 
 massa ; " but suspecting he had gone too far " I take de Ton- 
 nant, big ship as him is, close to dat reef, sir, you might have 
 jump ashore, so you need not frighten for your leetle dish of a 
 hooker ; beside, massa, my character is at 'take, you know," 
 then another grin and bow. 
 
 There was no use in being angry with the poor fellow, so he 
 was allowed to have his own way until we anchored in the even- 
 ing at Port Royal 
 
 The morning after we arrived, I went ashore with a boat's 
 crew to perform the magnanimous operation of cutting brooms ; 
 we pulled for Green Bay, under the guns of the Twelve Apostles 
 a heavy battery of twelve cannon, where there is a tombstone 
 with an inscription, setting forth that the party over whom it 
 was erected had been actually swallowed up in the great earth- 
 quake that destroyed the opposite town, but subsequently dis- 
 gorged again being, perchance, an unseemly morsel. 
 
 We approached the beach " Oars " the men laid them in. 
 
 " What sort of nuts be them, Peter Coamings ? " said the cox- 
 swain to a new hand who had been lately impressed, and was 
 now standing at the bow ready to fend off. 
 
 Peter broke off one of the branches from the bush nearest him. 
 
 " Smite my timbers, do the trees here bear shell-fish ? " 
 
 The tide in the Gulf of Mexico does not ebb and flow above 
 two feet, except at the springs, and the ends of the drooping 
 branches of the mangrove-trees, that here cover the shore, are 
 clustered, within the wash of the water, with a small well- 
 flavoured oyster. The first thing the seamen did, when they got 
 ashore, was to fasten an oakum tail to the rump of one of the 
 most lubberly of the cutter's crew; they then gave him ten 
 yards' law, when they started in chase, shouting amongst the 
 bushes, and switching each other like the veriest schoolboys. I 
 had walked some distance along the beach, pelting the amphibi- 
 ous little creatures, half crab, half lobster, called soldiers, which 
 kept shouldering their large claws, and running out and in their 
 little burrows, as the small ripple twinkled on the sand in the 
 rising sun, when two men-of-war's boats, each with three officers
 
 120 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 in the stern, suddenly pulled round a little promontory that in- 
 tercepted my view ahead. Being somewhat out of the line of 
 my duty, so far from my boat, I squatted amongst the brush- 
 wood, thinking they would pass by; but, as the devil would 
 have it, they pulled directly for the place where I was ensconced, 
 beached their boats, and jumped on shore. " Here's a mess," 
 thought I. 
 
 I soon made out that one of the officers was Captain Pinkem 
 of the Flash, and that the parties saluted each other with that 
 stern courtesy which augured no good. 
 
 " So, so, my masters, not enough of fighting on the coast of 
 America, but you must have a little private defacing of God's 
 image amongst yourselves 1 ? " 
 
 Pinkem spoke first. " Mr Clinch " (I now knew he addressed 
 the first-lieutenant of the flag-ship), " Mr Clinch, it is not too 
 late to prevent unpleasant consequences ; I ask you again, at the 
 eleventh hour, will you make an apology] " 
 
 He seemed hurried and fidgety in Ms manner ; which rather 
 surprised me, as I knew he was a seasoned hand in these mat- 
 ters, and it contrasted unfavourably with the calm bearing of 
 his antagonist, who by this time had thrown his hat on the 
 ground, and stood with one foot on the handkerchief that 
 marked his position, the distance, twelve paces, having already 
 been measured. By the by, his position was deucedly near in 
 a line with the grey stone behind which I lay perdu ; neverthe- 
 less, the risk I ran did not prevent me noticing that he was very 
 pale, and had much the air of a brave man come to die in a bad 
 cause. He looked upwards for a second or two, and then an- 
 swered, slowly and distinctly, " Captain Pinkem, I now repeat 
 what I said before ; this rencontre is none of my seeking. You 
 accuse me of having spoken slightingly of you seven years ago, 
 when I was a mere boy. You have the evidence of a gallant 
 officer that I did so ; therefore I may not gainsay it ; but of ut- 
 tering the words imputed to me, I declare, upon my honour, I 
 have no recollection." He paused. 
 
 " That won't do, my fine fellow," said Pinkem. 
 
 "You are unreasonable," rejoined Clinch, in the same mea- 
 sured tone, " to expect further amende for uttering words which 
 I have no conviction of having spoken ; yet to any other officer 
 in the service I would not hesitate to make a more direct apo- 
 logy, but you know your credit as a pistol-shot renders this im- 
 possible." 
 
 " Sorry for it, Mr Clinch sorry for it."
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE SPARK. 121 
 
 Here the pistols were handed to the principals by their re- 
 spective seconds. In their attitudes, the proficient and the novice 
 were strikingly contrasted (by this time I had crept round so 
 as to have a view of both parties, or rather, if the truth must 
 be told, to be out of the line of fire). Pinkem stood with his 
 side accurately turned towards his antagonist, so as to present 
 the smallest possible surface; his head was, as it struck me, 
 painfully slewed round, with his eye looking steadily at Clinch, 
 over his right shoulder, whilst his arm was brought down close 
 to his thigh, with the cock of the pistol turned outwards, so 
 that his weapon must have covered his opponent by the simple 
 raising of his arm below the elbow. Clinch, on the other hand, 
 stood fronting him, with the whole breadth of his chest ; holding 
 his weapon awkwardly across his body, with both hands. Pinkem 
 appeared unwilling to take him at such advantage, for, although 
 violent and headstrong, and but too frequently the slave of his 
 passions, he had some noble traits in his character. 
 
 " Turn your feather-edge to me, Mr Clinch ; take a fair chance, 
 man." 
 
 The lieutenant bowed, and I thought would have spoken, but 
 he was checked by " the/e#r of being thought to fear;" how- 
 ever, he took the advice, and in an instant the word was given 
 " Are you both ready 1 " 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Then fire ! " 
 
 Clinch fired without deliberation. I saw him, for my eyes 
 were fixed on him, expecting to see him fall He stood firm, 
 however, which was more than I did, as at the instant a piece 
 of the bullion of an epaulet, at first taken for a pellet of baser 
 metal, struck me sharply on the nose, and shook my equanimity 
 confoundedly ; at length I turned to look at Pinkem, and there 
 he stood with his arm raised, and pistol levelled, but he had not 
 fired. He stood thus whilst I might have counted ten, like a 
 finger-post, then, dropping his hand, his weapon went off, but 
 without aim, the bullet striking the sand near his feet, and down 
 he came headlong to the ground. He fell with his face turned 
 towards me, and I never shall forget the horrible expression of 
 it. His healthy complexion had given place to a deadly blue, 
 the eyes were wide open and straining in their sockets, the upper 
 lip was drawn up, showing his teeth in a most frightful grin, the 
 blood gushed from his mouth as if impelled by the strokes of a 
 force-pump, while his hands griped and dug into the sand. 
 
 Before the sun set he was a dead man.
 
 122 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " A neat morning's work, gentlemen," thought I. 
 
 The two surgeons came up, opened his dress, felt his pulse, 
 and shook their heads ; the boats' crews grouped around them 
 he was lifted into his gig, the word was given to shove off, and 
 I returned to my broom-cutters. 
 
 When we got on board, the gunner, who had the watch, was 
 taking his fisherman's walk on the starboard side of the quarter- 
 deck, and kept looking steadily at the land, as if to avoid seeing 
 poor little Duncan's coffin, that lay on a grating near the gang- 
 way. The crew, assisted by thirty men from the flag-ship, were 
 employed in twenty different ways, repairing damages, and were 
 bustling about, laughing, joking, and singing, with small regard 
 to the melancholy object before their eyes, when Mr Douglas 
 put his head up the ladder " Now, Jackson, if you please." 
 
 The old fellow's countenance fell as if his heart was wrung by 
 the order he had to give. 
 
 " Aloft there ! lie out, you Perkins, and reeve a whip on the 
 
 starboard yard-arm to lower Mr " The rest stuck in his 
 
 throat, but, as if ashamed of his soft-heartedness, he threw as 
 much gruffness as he could into his voice as he sang out, " Beat 
 to quarters there ! knock off, men ! " 
 
 The roll of the drum stayed the confusion and noise of the 
 people at work in an instant, who immediately ranged them- 
 selves, in their clean frocks and trousers, on each side of the 
 quarterdeck. At a given signal, the white deal coffin, wrapped 
 in its befitting pall the meteor flag of England swung high 
 above the hammock nettings, between us and the bright blue 
 sky, to the long clear note of the boatswain's whistle, which soon 
 ending in a short cherup, told that it now rested on the thwarts 
 of the boat alongside. We pulled ashore, and it was a sight 
 perchance to move a woman, to see the poor little fellow's hat 
 and bit of a dirk lying on his coffin, whilst the body was carried 
 by four ship boys, the eldest scarcely fourteen. I noticed the 
 tears stand in Anson's eyes as the coffin was lowered into the 
 grave the boy had been wounded close to him, and when we 
 heard the hollow rattle of the earth on the coffin an unusual 
 sound to a sailor he shuddered. 
 
 "Yes, Master Cringle," he said, in a whisper, "he was as 
 kind-hearted and as brave a lad as ever trode on shoe leather. 
 None of the larkings of the men in the clear moonlight nights 
 ever reached the cabin through him ; nor was he the boy to 
 rouse the watch from under the lee of the boats in bad weather, 
 to curry with the lieutenant, while he knew the look-outs were
 
 KM1 ~,
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE SPARK. 123 
 
 as bright as beagles ; and where was the man in our watch that 
 wanted 'baccy while Mr Duncan had a shiner left ] '' The poor 
 fellow drew the back of his horny hand across his eyes, and 
 grumbled out as he turned away, " And here am I, Bill Anson r 
 such a swab as to be ashamed of being sorry for him." 
 
 We were now turned over into the receiving -ship, the old 
 Shark, and fortunately there were captains enough in port to try 
 us for the loss of the Torch, so we got over our court-martial 
 speedily, and the very day I got back my dirk the packet 
 brought me out a lieutenant's commission. Being now my own 
 master for a season, I determined to visit some relations I had 
 in the island, to whom I had never yet been introduced ; so I 
 shook hands with old Splinter, packed my kit, and went to the 
 wharf to charter a wherry to carry me up to Kingston. The 
 moment my object was perceived by the black boatmen, I was 
 surrounded by a mob of them, pulling and hauling each other, 
 and shouting forth the various qualifications of their boats, with 
 such vehemence, that I was nearly deafened. 
 
 " Massa, no see Pam be Civil, sail like a witch, tack like a 
 dolphin]" 
 
 " Don't believe him, massa ; Ballahoo is de boat dat can beat 
 him." 
 
 " Big lie dat, as I am a gentleman ! " roared a ragged black 
 vagabond. 
 
 " Come in de Monkey, massa ; no flying fis can beat she." 
 
 " Don't boder de gentleman," yelled a fourth " massa love 
 de Stamp-and-go no so, massa ?" as he saw me make a step in 
 the direction of his boat. " Oh yes, so get out of de way, you 
 black rascals " the fellow was black as a sloe himself " make 
 room for man-of-war buccra ; him leetle just now, but will be 
 admiral one day." 
 
 So saying, the fellow who had thus appropriated me, without 
 more ado, levelled his head like a battering-ram and began to 
 batter in breach all who stood in his way. He first ran a tilt 
 against Pam be Civil, and shot him like a rocket into the sea ; 
 the Monkey fared no better ; the Ballahoo had to swim for it ; 
 and having thus opened a way by main force, I at length got 
 safely moored in the stern-sheets ; but just as we were shoving 
 off, Mr Callaloo, the clergyman of Port Royal, a tall yellow per- 
 sonage, begged for a passage, and was accordingly taken on 
 board. As it was high-water, my boatman chose the five-foot 
 channel, as the boat channel near to Gallows Point is called, by 
 which a long stretch would be saved, and we were cracking on
 
 124 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 cheerily, my mind full of my recent promotion, when scur, scur, 
 scur, we stuck fast on the bank. Our black boatmen, being 
 little encumbered with clothes, jumped overboard in a covey like 
 so many wild-ducks, shouting as they dropped into the water, 
 " We must all get out we must all get out;" whereupon Mr 
 Callaloo, a sort of Dominie Sampson in his way, promptly leaped 
 overboard up to his waist in the water. The negroes were 
 thunderstruck. 
 
 " Massa Parson Callaloo, you mad surely, you mad ! " 
 
 " Children, I am not mad, but obedient ; you said we must 
 all get out " 
 
 " To be sure, massa, and you see we all did get out." 
 
 " And did you not see that / got out too ? " rejoined the 
 parson, still in the water, and somewhat nettled. 
 
 " Oh, lud, massa ! we no mean you we meant poor nigger, 
 not white man parson." 
 
 " You said all, children, and thereupon I leaped," pronoun- 
 cing the last word in two syllables " be more correct in your 
 grammar next time." 
 
 The worthy but eccentric old chap then scrambled on board 
 again, amidst the suppressed laughter of the boatmen, and kept 
 his seat, wet clothes and all, until we reached Kingston. 
 
 CHAPTEE VII. 
 
 SCENES IN. JAMAICA. 
 
 " Excellent why this is the best fooling when all is clone. " 
 
 Twelfth Night. 
 
 I CONFESS that I did not promise myself much pleasure from 
 my cruise ashore. Somehow or other I had made up my mind 
 to believe that in Jamaica, putting aside the magnificence and 
 natural beauty of the face of the country, there was little to 
 interest me. I had pictured to myself the slaves a miserable 
 squalid, half-fed, ill-clothed, over-worked race and their mas- 
 ters, and the white inhabitants generally, as an unwholesome-
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 125 
 
 looking crew of saffron-faced tyrants, who wore straw hats with 
 umbrella brims, wide trousers, and calico jackets, living on 
 pepper pot and land crabs, and drinking sangaree and smoking 
 cigars the whole day in a word, that all that Bryan Edwards 
 and others had written regarding the civilisation of the West 
 Indies was a fable. But I was agreeably undeceived ; for 
 although I did meet with some extraordinary characters, and 
 witnessed not a few rum scenes, yet, on the whole, I gratefully 
 bear witness to the great hospitality of the inhabitants, both 
 in the towns and in the country. In Kingston the society was 
 extremely good, as good, I can freely affirm, as I ever met with 
 in any provincial town anywhere ; and there prevailed a warmth 
 of heart, and a kindliness, both in the males and females of 
 those families to which I had the good fortune to be introduced, 
 that I never experienced out of Jamaica. 
 
 At the period I am describing, the island was in the hey-day 
 of its prosperity, and the harbour of Kingston was full of ship- 
 ping. I had never before seen so superb a mercantile haven ; it 
 is completely land-locked, and the whole navy of England might 
 ride in it commodiously. 
 
 On the sea-face it is almost impregnable, for it would be little 
 short of a miracle for an invading squadron to wind its way 
 through the labyrinth of shoals and reefs lying off the mouth of 
 it, amongst which the channels are so narrow and intricate that 
 at three or four points the sinking of a sand barge would .effec- 
 tually block up all ingress ; but, independently of this, the entrance 
 at Port Royal is defended by very strong works the guns rang- 
 ing the whole way across while, a little farther on, the attacking 
 ships would be exposed to a cross fire from the heavy metal of 
 the Apostles' Battery ; and, even assuming all these obstacles to 
 be overcome, and the passage into the harbour forced, before they 
 could pass the narrows, to get up to the anchorage at Kingston, 
 they would be blown out of the water by a raking fire from sixty 
 pieces of large cannon on Fort Augusta, which is so situated that 
 they would have to turn to windward for at least half-an-hour, 
 in a strait which, at the widest, would not allow them to reach 
 beyond musket-shot of the walls. Fortunately, as yet Mr Can- 
 ning had not called his New World into existence, and the whole 
 of the trade of Terra Firma, from Porto Cavello down to Chagres, 
 the greater part of the trade of the islands of Cuba and San 
 Domingo, and even that of Lima and San Bias, and the other 
 ports of the Pacific, carried on across the Isthmus of Darien, 
 centred in Kingston, the usual supplies through Cadiz being
 
 126 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 stopped by the advance of the French in the Peninsula. The 
 result of this princely traffic, more magnificent than that of Tyre, 
 was a stream of gold and silver flowing into the Bank of England, 
 to the extent of three millions of pounds sterling annually, in 
 return for British manufactures ; thus supplying the sinews of 
 war to the government at home, and, besides the advantage of 
 so large a mart, employing an immense amount of British 
 tonnage, and many thousand seamen ; and in numberless ways 
 opening up new outlets to British enterprise and capital Alas ! 
 alas ! where is all this now ] The echo of the empty stores 
 might answer " where ! " 
 
 On arriving at Kingston, my first object was to seek out Mr 
 b *, the admiral's agent, and one of the most extensive mer- 
 chants in the place, in order to deliver some letters to him, and 
 get his advice as to my future proceedings. Mr Callaloo under- 
 took to be my pilot, striding along abeam of me, and leaving in 
 his wake two serpentine dottings on the pavement from the 
 droppings of water from his voluminous coat-skirts, which had 
 been thoroughly soaked by his recent ducking. 
 
 Everything appeared to be thriving, and as we passed along, 
 the hot sandy streets were crowded with drays conveying goods 
 from the wharfs to the stores, and from the stores to the Spanish 
 Posadas. The merchants of the place, active, sharp-looking men, 
 were seen grouped under the piazzas in earnest conversation with 
 their Spanish customers, or perched on the top of the bales and 
 boxes just landed, waiting to hook the gingham-coated, Moorish - 
 looking Dons, as they came along with cigars in their mouths, 
 and a train of negro servants following them with fire-buckets 
 on their heads, filled with pesos fuertes. The appearance of the 
 town itself was novel and pleasing ; the houses, chiefly of two 
 storeys, looked as if they had been built of cards, most of them 
 being surrounded with piazzas from ten to fourteen feet wide, 
 gaily painted green and white, and formed by the roofs projecting 
 beyond the brick walls or shells of the houses. On the ground- 
 floor these piazzas are open, and in the lower part of the town, 
 where the houses are built contiguous to each other, they form 
 a covered way, affording a most grateful shelter from the sun, 
 on each side of the streets, which last are unpaved, and more 
 like dry river-courses than thoroughfares in a Christian town. 
 On the floor above, the balconies are shut in with a sort of 
 movable blinds, called "jealousies," like large-bladed Venetian 
 blinds, fixed in frames, with here and there a glazed sash to 
 admit light in bad weather when the blinds are closed. In the
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 127 
 
 upper part of the town the effect is very beautiful, every house 
 standing detached from its neighbour, in its little garden filled 
 with vines, fruit-trees, stately palms, and cocoa-nut-trees, with a 
 court of negro houses and offices behind, and a patriarchal-looking 
 draw-well in the centre, generally overshadowed by a magnificent 
 wild tamarind. When I arrived at the great merchant's place 
 of business, I was shown into a lofty cool room, with a range of 
 desks along the walls, where a dozen clerks were quill-driving. 
 In the centre sat my man, a small, sallow, yet perfectly gentle- 
 man-like personage. 
 
 " Dat is massa," quoth my black usher. 
 
 I accordingly walked up to him, and presented my letter. He 
 never lifted his head from his paper, which I had half a mind to 
 resent ; but at the moment there was a bustle in the piazza, and 
 a group of naval officers, amongst whom was the admiral, came 
 in. My silent friend was now alert enough, and profuse of his 
 bows and smiles. 
 
 "Who have we here? Who is that boy, L ?" said the 
 admiral to his secretary. 
 
 " Young Cringle, sir ; the only one except Mr Splinter saved 
 from the Torch ; he was first on the Admiralty list t' other day." 
 
 " What, the lad WiUoughby spoke so weU of? " 
 
 " The same, sir; he got his promotion by last packet." 
 
 " I know, I know. I say, Mr Cringle, you are appointed to 
 the Firebrand, do you know that?" I did not know it, and 
 began to fear my cruise on shore was all up. " But I don't look 
 for her from Havanna for a month ; so leave your address with 
 L , that you may get the order to join when she does come." 
 
 It appeared that I had seen the worst of the agent, for he 
 gave me a very kind invitation to stay some days with him, and 
 drove me home in his ketureen a sort of sedan chair, with the 
 front and sides knocked out, and mounted on a gig body. 
 
 Before dinner we were lounging about the piazza, and looking 
 down into the street, when a negro funeral came past, preceded 
 by a squad of drunken black vagabonds, singing and playing on 
 gumbies, or African drums, made out of pieces of hollow trees, 
 about six feet long, with skins braced over them, each carried 
 by one man, while another beats it with his open hands. The 
 coffin was borne along on the heads of two negroes a negro 
 carries everything on his head, from a bale of goods to a wine- 
 glass or tea-cup. It is a practice for the bearers, when they 
 come near the house of any one against whom the deceased was 
 supposed to have had a grudge, to pretend that the coffin will
 
 128 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 not pass by, and in the present case, when they came opposite 
 to where we stood, they began to wheel round and round, and 
 to stagger under their load, while the choristers shouted at the 
 top of their lungs. 
 
 " We beg you, shipmate, for come along do, broder, come 
 away ; " then another reel " What, you no wantee go in a hole, 
 eh 1 You hab grudge 'gainst somebody lif here, eh 1 ? " another 
 devil of a lurch " Massa * *'s housekeeper, eh] Ah, it must 
 be!" A tremendous stagger "Oh, Massa* h *, dollar for 
 drink ; something to hold play " negro wake, " in Spring-path,'* 
 the negro burying-ground ; " Bediacko say him won't pass 'less 
 you give it." And here they began to spin round more violently 
 than before ; but at the instant a drove of bullocks coming along, 
 they got entangled amongst them, and down went body and 
 bearers and all, the coffin bursting in the fall, and the dead 
 corpse, with its white grave-clothes and black face, rolling over 
 and over in the sand amongst the feet of the cattle. It was 
 immediately caught up, however, bundled into the coffin again, 
 and away they staggered, drumming and singing as loudly as 
 before. 
 
 The party at dinner was a large one ; everything in good style, 
 wines superb, turtle, &c., magnificent, and the company exceed- 
 ingly companionable. A Mr Francis Fyall (a great planting at- 
 torney that is, an agent for a number of proprietors of estates 
 who preferred living in England, and paying a commission to 
 him for managing in Jamaica, to facing the climate themselves), 
 to whom I had an introduction, rather posed me, by asking me 
 during dinner, if I would take anything in the long way with 
 him, which he explained by saying he would be glad to take a 
 glass of small beer with me. This, after a deluge of Madeira, 
 Champagne, and all manner of light wines, was rather trying ; 
 but I kept my countenance as well as I could. One thing, I 
 remember, struck me as remarkable ; just as we were rising to 
 go to the drawing-room a cloud of winged ants burst in 'upon 
 us through the open windows, and, had it not been for the 
 glass-shades, would have extinguished the candles; but when 
 they had once settled on the table they deliberately wriggled 
 themselves free of their wings, as one would cast off a greatcoat,, 
 and crept away in their simple and more humble capacity of 
 creeping things. 
 
 Next day I went to wait on my relation, Mrs Palma. I had 
 had a confoundedly hot walk through the burning sandy streets, 
 and was nearly blinded by the reflection from them, as I ascended
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 129 
 
 the front stairs. There are no carpets in the houses in Jamaica ; 
 but the floors, which are often of mahogany, are beautifully 
 polished, and shine like a well-kept dinner table. They are, of 
 course, very slippery, and require wary walking till one gets ac- 
 customed to them. The rooms are made exceedingly dark during 
 the heat of the day, according to the prevailing practice in all 
 ardent climates. A black footman, very handsomely dressed, all 
 to his bare legs (I thought at first he had black silk stockings 
 on), preceded me, and when he reached the drawing-room door, 
 asked my name. I told him, "Mr Cringle," whereupon he 
 sang out, to my dismay " Massa Captain Kingtail to wait pan 
 Misses." 
 
 This put me out a leetle especially as I heard some one say 
 " Captain who 1 what a very odd name ! " 
 
 But I had no time for reflection, as I had not blundered three 
 steps out of the glare of the piazza, into the palpable obscure of 
 the darkened drawing-room, black as night from the contrast, 
 when I capsized headlong over an ottoman in the middle of the 
 apartment, and floundered right into the centre of a group of 
 young ladies, and one or two lapdogs, by whom it was conjointly 
 occupied. Trying to recover myself, I slipped on the glass-like 
 floor, and came down stern foremost ; and being now regularly at 
 the slack end, for I could not well get lower, I sat still, scratching 
 my caput in the midst of a gay company of morning visitors, 
 enjoying the gratifying consciousness that I was distinctly visible 
 to them, although my dazzled optics could as yet distinguish 
 nothing. To add to my pleasurable sensations, I now perceived, 
 from the coldness of the floor, that in my downfall the catas- 
 trophe of my unmentionables had been grievously rent, but I 
 had nothing for it but sitting patiently still amidst the sup- 
 pressed laughter of the company, until I became accustomed to 
 the twilight, and they, like bright stars, began to dawn on my 
 bewildered senses in all their loveliness, and prodigiously hand- 
 some women some of them were, for the Creoles, so far as figure 
 is concerned, are generally perfect, while beautiful features are not 
 wanting, and my travel had reconciled me to the absence of the 
 rose from their cheeks. My eldest cousin Mary (where is there 
 a name like Mary?) now approached ; she and I were old friends, 
 and many a junketing we used to have in my father's house 
 during the holidays, when she was a boarding-school girl in 
 England. My hardihood and self-possession returned, under 
 the double gratification of seeing her, and the certainty that my 
 blushes (for my cheeks were glowing like hot iron) could not 
 
 I
 
 130 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 have been observed in the subdued green light that pervaded the 
 room. 
 
 " Well, Tom, since you are no longer dazzled, and see us all 
 now, you had better get up, hadn't you you see mamma is 
 waiting there to embrace you?" 
 
 " Why, I think myself I had better ; but when I broached-to 
 so suddenly, I split my lower canvass, Mary, and I cannot budge 
 until your mother lends me a petticoat." 
 
 " A what ? you are crazy, Tom 
 
 " Not a whit, not a whit, why I have split my ahem. This 
 is speaking plain, an't it ? " 
 
 Away tripped the sylph-like girl, and in a twinkling re-appear- 
 ed with the desired garment, which in a convulsion of laughter 
 she slipped over my head as I sat on the floor ; and having fas- 
 tened it properly round my waist, I rose and paid my respects 
 to my warm-hearted relations. But that petticoat it could 
 not have been the old woman's, there could have been no such 
 virtue in an old woman's petticoat ; no, no, it must either have 
 been a charmed garment, or or Mary's own ; for from that 
 hour I was a lost man, and the devoted slave of her large black 
 eyes, and high pale forehead. " Oh, murder you speak of 
 the sun dazzling; what is it to the lustre of that same eye of 
 yours, Mary!" 
 
 In the evening I escorted the ladies to a ball (by the way, a 
 West India ball-room being a perfect lantern, open to the four 
 winds of heaven, is cooler, notwithstanding the climate, than a 
 ball-room anywhere else), and a very gay affair it turned out to 
 be, although I had more trouble in getting admittance than I 
 bargained for, and was witness to as comical a row (considering 
 the very frivolous origin of it, and the quality of the parties 
 engaged in it) as ever took place even in that peppery country, 
 where, I verily believe, the temper of the people, generous 
 though it be in the main, is hotter than the climate, and that, 
 God knows ! is sudoriferous enough. I was walking through 
 the entrance saloon with my fair cousin on my arm, stepping out 
 like a hero to the opening crash of a fine military band, towards 
 the entrance of the splendid ball-room filled with elegant com- 
 pany, brilliantly lighted up and ornamented with the most rare 
 and beautiful shrubs and flowers, which no European conser- 
 vatory could have furnished forth, and arched overhead with 
 palm branches and a profusion of evergreens, while the polished 
 floor, like one vast mirror, reflected the fine forms of the pale 
 but lovely black -eyed and black -haired West Indian dames,
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 131 
 
 glancing amidst the more sombre dresses of their partners, while 
 the whole group was relieved by being here and there spangled 
 with a rich naval or military uniform. As we approached, a 
 constable put his staff across the doorway. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir, but you are not in full dress." 
 
 Now this was the first night whereon I had sported my 
 lieutenant's uniform, and with my gold swab on my shoulder, the 
 sparkling bullion glancing in the corner of my eye at the very 
 moment, my dress-sword by my side, gold buckles in my shoes, 
 and spotless white trousers, I had, in my innocence, considered 
 myself a deuced killing fellow, and felt proportionably mortified 
 at this address. 
 
 " No one can be admitted in trousers, sir," said the man. 
 
 " Shiver my timbers ! " I could not help the exclamation, the 
 transactions of the morning crowding on my recollection, " shiver 
 my timbers ! is my fate in this strange country to be for ever 
 irrevocably bound up in a pair of breeches ? " 
 
 My cousin pinched my arm. " Hush, Tom ; go home and 
 get mamma's petticoat." 
 
 The man was peremptory ; and as there was no use in getting 
 into a squabble about such a trifle, I handed my partner over to 
 the care of a gentleman of the party, who was fortunately ac- 
 coutred according to rule, and, stepping to my quarters, I equip- 
 ped myself in a pair of tight nether integuments, and returned 
 to the ball-room. By this time there was the devil to pay ; the 
 entrance saloon was crowded with military and naval men, high 
 in oath, and headed by no less a person than a general officer, 
 and a one-armed man, one of the chief civil officers in the place, 
 and who had been a sailor in his youth. I was just in time to 
 see the advance of the combined column to the door of the ball- 
 room, through which they drove the picket of constables like 
 chaff, and then halted. The one-armed functionary, a most 
 powerful and very handsome man, now detached himself from 
 the phalanx, and strode up to the advanced-guard of stewards 
 clustered in front of the ladies, who had shrunk together into a 
 corner of the room like so many frightened hares. 
 
 The place being now patent to me, I walked up to comfort 
 my party, and could see all that passed. The champion of the 
 Excluded had taken the precaution to roll up the legs of his 
 trousers, and to tie them tightly at the knee with his garters, 
 which gave him the appearance of a Dutch skipper ; and in all 
 the consciousness of being now properly arrayed, he walked up 
 to one of the men in authority a small pot-bellied gentleman,
 
 132 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 and set himself to intercede for the attacking column, the head 
 of which was still lowering at the door. But the little steward 
 speedily interrupted him. 
 
 "Why, Mr Singlefist, rules must be maintained, and let me 
 see," here he peered through his glass at the substantial sup- 
 porters of our friend, "as I live, you yourself are inadmissible." 
 
 The giant laughed. 
 
 " Damn the body, he must have been a tailor ! Charge, my 
 fine fellows, and throw the constables out of the window, and the 
 stewards after them. Every man his bird ; and here goes for 
 my Cock Robin." With that he made a grab at his Lilliputian 
 antagonist, but missed him, as he slid away amongst the women 
 like an eel, while his pursuer, brandishing his wooden arm on 
 high, to which I now perceived for the first time that there was 
 a large steel hook appended, exclaimed, in a broad Scotch accent, 
 " Ah, if I had but caught the creature, I would have clapt this 
 in his mouth, and played him like a salmon." 
 
 At this signal in poured the mass of soldiers and sailors ; the 
 constables vanished in an instant ; the stewards were driven back 
 upon the ladies ; and such fainting and screaming, and swearing 
 and threatening, and shying of cards, and fixing of time and 
 place for a cool turn in the morning, it had never been my good 
 fortune to witness before or since. " My wig ! " thought I, " a 
 precious country, where a man's lif e may be periled by the fashion 
 of the covering to his nakedness ! " 
 
 Next day Mr Fyall who, I afterwards learned, was a most 
 estimable man in substantiate, although somewhat eccentric in 
 small matters called and invited me to accompany him on a 
 cruise amongst some of the estates under his management. This 
 was the very thing I desired ; and three days afterwards I left 
 my kind friends in Kingston, and set forth on my visit to Mr 
 Fyall, who lived about seven miles from town. 
 
 The morning was fine as usual, although about noon the 
 clouds, thin and fleecy and transparent at first, but gradually 
 settling down more dense and heavy, began to congregate on the 
 summit of the Liguanea Mountains, which rise about four miles 
 distant to a height of near 5000 feet, in rear of the town. It thun- 
 dered, too, a little now and then in the same direction, but this 
 was an everyday occurrence in Jamaica at this season ; and as 
 I had only seven miles to go, off I started in a gig of mine host's, 
 with my portmanteau well secured under a tarpauling, in defiance 
 of all threatening appearances, crowding sail, and urging the 
 noble roan that had me in tow close upon thirteen knots. I had
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 133 
 
 not gone above three miles, however, when the sky in a moment 
 changed from the intense glare of a tropical noontide to the 
 deepest gloom, as if a bad angel had suddenly overshadowed us, 
 and interposed his dark wings between us and the blessed sun ; 
 indeed, so instantaneous was the effect, that it reminded me of 
 the withdrawing of the foot-lights in a theatre. The road now 
 wound round the base of a precipitous spur from the Liguanea 
 Mountains, which, instead of melting into the level country by 
 gradual decreasing undulations, shot boldly out nearly a mile 
 from the main range, and so abruptly, that it seemed mortised 
 into the plain, like a rugged promontory running into a frozen 
 lake. On looking up along the ridge of this prong, I saw the 
 lowering mass of black clouds gradually spread out, and detach 
 themselves from the summits of the loftier mountains, to which 
 they had clung the whole morning, and begin to roll slowly down 
 the hill, seeming to touch the tree tops, while along their lower 
 edges hung a fringe of dark vapour, or rather shreds of cloud in 
 rapid motion, that shifted about, and shot out and shortened 
 like streamers. 
 
 As yet there was no lightning nor rain, and in the expectation 
 of escaping the shower, as the wind was with me, I made more 
 sail, pushing the horse into a gallop, to the great discomposure 
 of the negro who sat beside me. 
 
 " Massa, you can't escape it, you are galloping into it ; don't 
 massa hear de sound of de rain coming along against de wind, 
 and smell de earthy smell of him like one new-made grave ? " 
 
 " The sound of the rain." In another clime, long, long ago, I 
 had often read at my old mother's knee, "And Elijah said unto 
 Ahab, there is a sound of abundance of rain, prepare thy chariot, 
 and get thee down, that the rain stop thee not ; and it came to 
 pass, in the meanwhile, that the heaven was dark with clouds 
 and wind, and there was a great rain." 
 
 I looked, and so it was ; for in an instant a white sheet of the 
 heaviest rain I had ever seen (if rain it might be called, for it 
 was more like a waterspout) fell from the lower edge of the 
 black cloud, with a strong rushing noise, that increased as it 
 approached to a loud roar like that of a waterfall As it came 
 along, it seemed to devour the rocks and trees, for they disap- 
 peared behind the watery screen the instant it reached them. 
 We saw it ahead of us for more than a mile coming along the 
 road, preceded by a black line from the moistening of the white 
 dust, right in the wind's eye, and with such an even front, that 
 I verily believe it was descending in bucketsful on my horse's
 
 134 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 head, while as yet not one drop had reached me. At this mo- 
 ment the adjutant-general of the forces, Colonel F , of the 
 
 Coldstream Guards, in his tandem, drawn by two sprightly blood 
 bays, with his servant, a light boy, mounted Creole fashion on 
 the leader, was coming up in my wake at a spot where the road 
 sank into a hollow, and was traversed by a watercourse already 
 running knee -deep, although dry as a bone but the minute 
 before. 
 
 I was now drenched to the skin, the water pouring out in 
 cascades from both sides of the vehicle, when, just as I reached 
 the top of the opposite bank, there was a flash of lightning so 
 vivid, accompanied by an explosion so loud and tremendous, 
 that my horse, trembling from stem to stern, stood dead still ; 
 the dusky youth by my side jumped out, and buried his snout in 
 the mud, like a porker in Spain nuzzling for acorns, and I felt 
 more queerish than I would willingly have confessed to. I 
 could have knelt and prayed. The noise of the thunder was a 
 sharp ear-piercing crash, as if the whole vault of heaven had 
 been made of glass, and had been shivered at a blow by the 
 hand of the Almighty. 
 
 It was, I am sure, twenty seconds before the usual roar and 
 rumbling reverberation of the report from the hills, and among 
 the clouds, was heard. 
 
 I drove .on, and arrived just in time to dress for dinner ; but 
 I did not learn till next day, that the flash which paralyzed me, 
 had struck dead the colonel's servant and leading horse, as he 
 ascended the bank of the ravine, by this time so much swollen, 
 that the body of the lad was washed off the road into the neigh- 
 bouring gully, where it was found, when the waters subsided, 
 entirely covered with sand. 
 
 I found the party congregated in the piazza round Mr Fyall, 
 who was passing his jokes, without much regard to the feelings 
 of his guests, and exhibiting as great a disregard of the common 
 civilities and courtesies of life as can well be imagined. One 
 of the party was a little red-faced gentleman, Peregrine Whiffle, 
 Esquire, by name, who, in Jamaica parlance, was designated an 
 extraordinary master in Chancery ; the overseer of the pen, or 
 breeding farm, in the great house, as it is called, or mansion- 
 house, in which Mr Fyall resided, and a merry, laughing, intel- 
 ligent, round, red-faced man ; he was either Fyall's head clerk, 
 or a sort of first-lieutenant ; these personages and myself com- 
 posed the party. The dinner itself was excellent, although rather 
 of the rough and round order ; the wines and food intrinsically
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 135 
 
 good ; but my appetite was not increased by the exhibition of a 
 deformed, bloated, negro child, about ten years old, which Mr 
 Fyall planted at his elbow, and, byway of practical joke, stuffed 
 to repletion with all kinds of food and strong drink, until the 
 little dingy brute was carried out drunk. 
 
 The wine circulated freely, and by-and-by Fyall indulged 
 in some remarkable stories of his youth for he was the only 
 speaker which I found some difficulty in swallowing, until at 
 length, on one thumper being tabled, involving an impossi- 
 bility, and utterly indigestible, I involuntarily exclaimed, " By 
 Jupiter!" 
 
 " You want any ting, massa ? " promptly chimed in the black 
 servant at my elbow, a diminutive, kiln-dried old negro. 
 
 " No," said I, rather caught. 
 
 " Oh, me tink you call for Jupiter." 
 
 I looked in the baboon's face " Why, if I did, what then ?" 
 
 " Only me Jupiter, at massa sarvice, dat all." 
 
 " You are ; no great shakes of a Thunderer, eh ? and who is 
 that tall square man standing behind your master's chair 1 " 
 
 " Daddy Cupid, massa." 
 
 " And the old woman who is carrying away the dishes in the 
 piazza ? " 
 
 " Mammy Weenus." 
 
 " Daddy Cupid and Mammy Weenus Shade of Homer !" 
 
 Jupiter, to my surprise, shrunk from my side, as if he had 
 received a blow, and the next moment I could hear him com- 
 muning with Venus in the piazza. 
 
 " For true, dat leetle man-of-war buccra must be Obeah man ; 
 how de debil him come to sab dat it was stable-boy Homer who 
 broke de candle shade on massa right hand, dat one wid de 
 piece broken out of de edge 1 " and here he pointed towards it 
 with his chin a negro always points with his chin. 
 
 I had never slept on shore out of Kingston before ; the night 
 season in the country in dear old England, we all know, is 
 usually one of the deepest stillness here it was anything but 
 still; as the evening closed in, there arose a loud humming 
 noise, a compound of the buzzing, and chirping, and whistling, 
 and croaking of numberless reptiles and insects, on the earth, in 
 the air, and in the water. I was awakened out of my first sleep 
 by it, not that the sound was disagreeable, but it was unusual ; 
 and every now and then a beetle, the size of your thumb, would 
 bang in through the open window, cruise round the room with 
 a noise like a humming-top, and then dance a quadrille with half-
 
 136 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 a-dozen bats ; while the fire-flies glanced like sparks, spangling 
 the folds of the muslin curtains of the bed. The croak of the tree- 
 toad, too, a genteel reptile, with all the usual lovable properties 
 of his species, about the size of the crown of your hat, sounded 
 from the neighbouring swamp like some one snoring in the 
 piazza, blending harmoniously with the nasal concert got up by 
 Jupiter, and some other heathen deities, who were sleeping there 
 almost naked, excepting the head, which every negro swathes 
 during the night with as much flannel and as many handker- 
 chiefs as he can command. By the way, they all slept on their 
 faces I wonder if this will account for their flat noses. 
 
 Next morning we started at daylight, cracking along at the 
 rate of twelve knots an hour in a sort of gig, with one horse in 
 the shafts, and another hooked on abreast of him to a sort of 
 studdingsail-boom, or outrigger, and followed by three mounted 
 servants, each with a led horse and two sumpter mules. 
 
 In the evening we arrived at an estate under Mr Fyall's 
 management, having passed a party of maroons immediately be- 
 fore. I never saw finer men tall, strapping fellows, dressed 
 exactly as they should be and the climate requires ; wide duck 
 trousers, over these a loose shirt, of duck also, gathered at the 
 waist by a broad leathern belt, through which, on one side, their 
 short cutlass is stuck, while on the other hangs a leathern pouch 
 for ball ; and a loose thong across one shoulder, supports on the 
 opposite hip a large powder-horn and haversack. This, with a 
 straw hat, and a short gun in their hand, with a sling to be used 
 on a march, completes their equipment in better keeping with 
 the climate than the padded coats, heavy caps, tight cross-belts, 
 and ponderous muskets of our regulars. As we drove up to 
 the door, the overseer began to bawl, " Boys, boys ! " and kept 
 blowing a dog-call. All servants in the country in the West 
 Indies, be they as old as Methuselah, are called boys. In the 
 present instance, half-a-dozen black fellows forthwith appeared 
 to take our luggage, and attend on "massa" in other respects. 
 The great man was as austere to the poor overseer as if he had 
 been guilty of some misdemeanour, and after a few short crabbed 
 words, desired him to get supper, " do you hear ? " 
 
 The meat consisted of plantation fare salted fish, plantains, 
 and yams, and a piece of goat mutton. Another " observe," a 
 South-Down mutton, after sojourning a year or two here, does 
 not become a goat exactly, but he changes his heavy warm fleece, 
 and wears long hair ; and his progeny after him, if bred on the 
 hot plains, never assume the wool again. Mr Fyall and I sat
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 137 
 
 down, and then in walked four mutes, stout young fellows, not 
 over well dressed, and with faces burnt to the colour of brick- 
 dust. They were the bookkeepers, so called because they never 
 see a book, their province being to attend the negroes in the field, 
 and to superintend the manufacture of sugar and rum in the 
 boiling and distilling houses. 
 
 One of them, the head bookkeeper, as he was called, appeared 
 literally roasted by the intensity of the sun's rays. 
 
 " How is Baldy Steer ? " said the overseer to this person. 
 
 " Better to-day, sir, I drenched him with train-oil and 
 sulphur." 
 
 " The devil you did," thought L " Alas ! for Baldy." 
 
 " And Mary, and Caroline, and the rest of that lot ? " 
 
 " Are sent to Perkins's Red Rover, sir ; but I believe some of 
 them are in calf already by Bullfinch and I have cut Peter for 
 the lampas." 
 
 The knife and fork dropped from my hands. " What can all 
 this mean ? is this their boasted kindness to their slaves 1 One 
 of a family drenched with train-oil and brimstone, another cut 
 for some horrible complaint never heard of before, called lampas, 
 and the females sent to the Red Rover, some being in calf 
 already ! " But I soon perceived that the baked man was the 
 cow-boy or shepherd of the estate, making his report of the 
 casualties amongst his bullocks, mules, and heifers. 
 
 " Juliet Ridge will not yield, sir," quoth another. 
 
 " Who is this, next 1 a stubborn concern she must be." 
 
 " The liquor is very poor." Here he helped himself to rum 
 and water, the rum coming up about an inch in the glass, regular 
 half-and-half, fit to float a marlinspike. 
 
 " It is more than yours is," thought I ; and I again stared in 
 wonderment, until I perceived he spoke of the juice of a cane 
 patch. 
 
 At this time a tall, lathy gentleman came in, wearing a most 
 original cut coatee. He was a most extraordinary built man ; 
 he had absolutely no body, his bottom being placed between his 
 shoulders ; but what was wanted in corpus was made up in legs ; 
 indeed he looked like a pair of compasses, buttoned together at 
 the shoulders, and supporting a yellow phiz half a yard long, 
 thatched with d fell of sandy hair, falling down lank and greasy 
 on each side of his face. Fyall called him Buckskin, which, with 
 some other circumstances, made me guess that he was neither 
 more nor less than an American smuggler. 
 
 After supper, a glass of punch was filled for each person ; the
 
 138 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 overseer gave a rap on the table with his knuckles, and off started 
 the bookkeepers like shots out of shovels, leaving the Yankee, 
 Mr Fyall, the overseer, and myself, at table. 
 
 I was very tired, and reckoned on going to bed now but no 
 such thing. Fyall ordered Jupiter to bring a case from his gig- 
 box, containing some capital brandy. A new brewage of punch 
 took place, and I found about the small hours that we were all 
 verging fast towards drunkenness, or something very like that 
 same. The Yankee was specially plied by Fyall, evidently with 
 an object, and he soon succeeded in making him helplessly drunk. 
 
 The fun now " grew fast and furious," a large wash-tub was 
 ordered in, placed under a beam at the corner of the room, and 
 filled with water ; a sack and a three-inch rope were then called 
 for, and promptly produced by the blackies, who, apparently 
 accustomed to FyalTs pranks, grinned with delight. Buckskin 
 was thrust into the sack, feet foremost ; the mouth of it was then 
 gathered round his throat with a string, and I was set to splice 
 a bight in the rope, so as to fit under his arms without running, 
 which might have choked him. All things being prepared, the 
 slack end was thrown over the beam. He was soused in the tub, 
 the word was given to hoist away, and we ran him up to the 
 roof, and then belayed the rope round the body of the overseer, 
 who was able to sit on his chair, and that was all The cold 
 bath, and the being hung up to dry, speedily sobered the 
 American, but his arms being within the sack, he could do 
 nothing for his own emancipation : he kept swearing, however, 
 and entreating, and dancing with rage, every jerk drawing the 
 cord tighter round the waist of the overseer who, unaware of his 
 situation, thought himself bewitched as he was drawn with 
 violence by starts along the floor, with the chair as it were glued 
 to him. At length the patient extricated one of his arms, and 
 laying hold of the beam above him, drew himself up, and then 
 letting go his hold suddenly, fairly lifted the drunken overseer, 
 chair and all, several feet from the ground, so as to bring them 
 on a level with himself, and then, in mid air, began to pummel 
 his counterpoise with right goodwill. At length, fearful of the 
 consequences from the fury into which the man had worked him- 
 self, Fyall and I dashed out the candles and fled to our rooms, 
 where, after barricading the doors, we shouted to the servants to 
 let the gentlemen down. 
 
 The next morning had been fixed for duck-shooting, and the 
 overseer and I were creeping along amongst the mangrove bushes 
 on the shore to get a shot at some teal, when we saw our friend,
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 139 
 
 the pair of compasses, crossing the small bay in his boat, towards 
 his little pilot-boat-built schooner, which was moored in a small 
 creek opposite, the brushwood concealing everything but her 
 masts. My companion, as wild an Irishman as I ever knew, 
 hailed him. 
 
 " Hillo, Obediah Buckskin you Yankee rascal, heave to. 
 Come ashore here come ashore." 
 
 Obed, smoking his pipe, deliberately uncoiled himself I 
 thought as he rose there was to be no end of him and stood 
 upright in the boat like an ill-rigged jurymast. 
 
 " I say, Master Tummas, you ben't no friend of mine, I guess, 
 a'ter last night's work ; you hears how I coughs ? " and he 
 began to wheezle and crow in a most remarkable fashion. 
 
 " Never mind," rejoined the overseer ; " if you go round that 
 point, and put up the ducks by the piper, but I'll fire at you ! " 
 
 Obed neighed like a horse expecting his oats, which was meant 
 as a laugh of derision. " Do you think your birding-piece can 
 touch me here away, Master Tummas 1 " and again he nickered 
 more loudly than before. 
 
 " Don't provoke me to try, you yellow snake you ! " 
 
 " Try, and be d d, and there's a mark for thee," unveiling 
 
 a certain part of his body. 
 
 The overseer, or busha, to give him his Jamaica name, looked 
 at me and smiled, then coolly lifted his long Spanish barrel and 
 tired. Down dropped the smuggler, and ashore came the boat. 
 
 " I am mortally wounded, Master Tummas," quoth Obed ; and 
 I was confoundedly frightened at first, from the unusual prox- 
 imity of the injured part to his head ; but the overseer, as soon 
 as he could get off the ground, where he had thrown himself in 
 an uncontrollable fit of laughter, had the man stripped and laid 
 across a log, where he set his servant to pick out the pellets with 
 a penknife. 
 
 Next night I was awakened out of my first sleep by a peculiar 
 sort of tap, tap, on the floor, as if a cat with walnut shells had 
 been moving about the room. The feline race, in all its varieties^ 
 is my detestation, so I slipped out of bed to expel the intruder ; 
 but the instant my toe touched the ground, it was seized as if 
 by a smith's forceps. I drew it into bed, but the annoyance 
 followed it ; and in an agony of alarm and pain I thrust my 
 hand down, when my thumb was instantly manacled to the other 
 suffering member. I now lost my wits altogether, and roared 
 murder, which brought a servant in with a light, and there I 
 was, thumb and toe, in the clinch of a land-crab.
 
 140 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 I had been exceedingly struck with the beauty of the negro 
 villages on the old-settled estates, which are usually situated in 
 the most picturesque spots, and I determined to visit the one 
 which lay on a sunny bank full in view from my window, divided 
 on two sides from the cane pieces by a precipitous ravine, and 
 on the other two by a high logwood hedge, so like hawthorn 
 that I could scarcely tell the difference, even when close to it. 
 
 At a distance it had the appearance of one entire orchard of 
 fruit-trees, where were mingled together the pyramidal orange, in 
 fruit and in flower, the former in all its stages, from green to 
 dropping ripe, the citron, lemon, and lime-trees, the stately, 
 glossy-leaved star-apple, the golden shaddock and grape-fruit, 
 with their slender branches bending under their ponderous 
 yellow fruit, the cashew, with its apple like that of the cities 
 of the plain, fair to look at, but acrid to the taste, to which the 
 far-famed nut is appended like a bud, the avocada, with its 
 Brobdignag pear, as large as a purser's lantern, the bread-fruit, 
 with a leaf, one of which would have covered Adam like a bishop's 
 apron, and a fruit, for all the world, in size and shape, like a 
 blackamoor's head ; while for underwood you had the green, 
 fresh, dew-spangled plantain, round which, in the hottest day, 
 there is always a halo of coolness, the coco root, the yam, and 
 granadillo, with their long vines twining up the neighbouring 
 trees and shrubs like hop-tendrils, and pease and beans, in all 
 their endless variety of blossom and of odour, from the Lima 
 bean, with a stalk as thick as my arm, to the mouse pea, three 
 inches high, the pine-apple, literally growing in, and constitut- 
 ing, with its prickly leaves, part of the hedgerows, the custard- 
 apple, like russet-bags of cold pudding, the cocoa and coffee 
 bushes, and the devil knows what all that is delightful in nature 
 besides ; while aloft, the tall graceful cocoa-nut, the majestic 
 palm, and the gigantic wild cotton-tree, shot up here and there 
 like minarets far above the rest, high into the blue heavens. 
 
 I entered one of the narrow winding footpaths, where an 
 immense variety of convolvuli crept along the penguin fences, 
 disclosing their delicate flowers in the morning freshness (all 
 that class here shut shop at noon), and passion flowers of all 
 sizes, from a soup-plate to a thumb-ring. 
 
 The huts were substantially thatched with palm -leaves, and 
 the walls woven with a basket-work of twigs, plastered over with 
 clay, and whitewashed ; the floors were of baked clay, dry and 
 comfortable. They all consisted of a hail and a sleeping-room 
 off each side of it : in many of the former I noticed mahogany
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 141 
 
 
 
 sideboards and chairs, and glass decanters, while a whole lot of 
 African drums and flutes, and sometimes a good gun, hung from 
 the rafters ; and it would have gladdened an Irishman's heart to 
 have seen the adjoining piggeries. Before one of the houses an 
 old woman was taking care of a dozen black infants, little, naked, 
 glossy, black guinea-pigs, with party-coloured beads tied round 
 their loins, each squatted like a little Indian pagod in the middle 
 of a large wooden bowl, to keep it off the damp ground. 
 
 While I was pursuing my ramble, a large conch-shell was 
 blown at the overseer's house, and the different gangs turned in 
 to dinner; they came along .dancing and shouting, and playing 
 tricks on each other in the little paths, in all the happy antici- 
 pation of a good dinner, and an hour and a-half to eat it in, the 
 men well clad in Osnaburg frocks and trousers, and the women 
 in baize petticoats and Osnaburg shifts, with a neat printed 
 calico short-gown over all. 
 
 " And these are slaves," thought I, " and this is West Indian 
 bondage! Oh that some of my well-meaning anti- slavery 
 friends were here, to judge from the evidence of their own 
 senses ! " 
 
 The following night there was to be a grand play or wake Li 
 the negro houses over the head cooper, who had died in the 
 morning, and I determined to be present at it, although the 
 overseer tried to dissuade me, saying that no white person ever 
 broke in on these orgies that the negroes were very averse to 
 their doing so ; and that neither he, nor any of the white people 
 on the estate, had ever been present on such an occasion. This 
 very interdict excited my curiosity still more ; so I rose about 
 midnight, and let myself gently down through the window, and 
 shaped my course in the direction of the negro houses, guided 
 by a loud drumming, which, as I came nearer, every now and 
 then sank into a low murmuring roll, when a strong bass voice 
 would burst forth into a wild recitative ; to which succeeded a 
 loud piercing chorus of female voices, during which the drums 
 were beaten with great vehemence ; this was succeeded by an- 
 other solo, and so on. There was no moon, and I had to thread 
 my way along one of the winding footpaths by star-light. When 
 I arrived within a stone-cast of the hut before which the play 
 was being held, I left the beaten track, and crept onwards until 
 I gained the shelter of the stem of a wild cotton-tree, behind 
 which I skulked unseen. 
 
 The scene was wild enough. Before the door a circle was 
 formed by about twenty women, all in their best clothes, sitting
 
 142 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 
 
 on the ground, and swaying their bodies to and fro, while they 
 sang in chorus the wild dirge already mentioned, the words of 
 which I could not make out ; in the centre of the circle sat four 
 men playing on yumbies, or the long drum formerly described, 
 while a fifth stood behind them with a conch-shell, which he 
 kept sounding at intervals. Other three negroes kept circling 
 round the outer verge of the circle of women, naked all to their 
 waist-cloths, spinning about and about with their hands above 
 their heads, like so many dancing dervishes. It was one of 
 these three that from time to time took up the recitative, the 
 female chorus breaking in after each line. Close to the drum- 
 mers lay the body in an open coffin, supported on two low stools 
 or trestles ; a piece of flaming resinous wood was stuck in the 
 ground at the head, and another at the feet; and a lump of 
 kneaded clay, in which another torch-like splinter was fixed, 
 rested on the breast. An old man, naked like the solo singer, 
 was digging a grave close to where the body lay. The follow- 
 ing was the chant : 
 
 " I say, broder, you can't go yet." 
 
 THEN THE CHORUS OF FEMALE VOICES. 
 
 " When de morning star rise, den we put you in a hole." 
 
 CHOKUS AGAIN. 
 
 " Den you go in a Africa, you see Fetish dere." 
 
 CHORUS. 
 " You shall nyam goat dere, wid all your family." 
 
 caoRua 
 "Bucera can't come dere; say, dam rascal, why you no work?" 
 
 CHORUS. 
 "Bucera can't catch Duppy,* no, no." 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 Three calabashes, or gourds, with pork, yams, and rum, were 
 placed on a small bench that stood close to the head of the bier, 
 and at right angles to it. 
 
 In a little while, the women, singing-men, and drummers, 
 suddenly gave a loud shout, or rather yell, clapped their hands 
 three times, and then rushed into the surrounding cottages, 
 leaving the old grave-digger alone with the body. 
 
 He had completed the grave, and had squatted himself on 
 his hams beside the coffin, swinging his body as the women had 
 done, and uttering a low moaning sound, frequently ending in a 
 loud pech, like that of a pavior when he brings down his rammer. 
 
 I noticed he kept looking towards the east, watching, as I 
 conjectured, the first appearance of the morning star, but it was 
 as yet too early. 
 
 * Duppy, Ghost.
 
 NEGRO WAKK. 
 
 Page \\2.
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 143 
 
 He lifted the gourd with the pork, and took a large mouthful. 
 
 " How is dis ! I can't put dis meat in Quacco's coffin, dere is 
 salt in de pork ; Duppy can't bear salt," another large mouthful 
 "Duppy hate salt too much," here he ate it all up, and placed 
 the empty gourd in the coffin. He then took up the one with 
 boiled yam in it, and tasted it also. 
 
 " Salt here too who de debil do such a ting ? must not let 
 Duppy taste dat." He discussed this also, placing the empty 
 vessel in the coffin, as he had done with the other. He then 
 came to the calabash with the rum. There is no salt here, 
 thought I. 
 
 " Rum ! ah, Duppy love rum if it be well strong, let me see 
 Massa Niger, who put water in dis rum, eh? Duppy will 
 never touch dat" a long pull "no, no, never touch dat." 
 Here he finished the whole, and placed the empty vessel beside 
 the others; then gradually sank back on his hams with his 
 mouth open, and his eyes starting from the sockets, as he peered 
 up into the tree, apparently at some terrible object. I looked 
 up also, and saw a large yellow snake, nearly ten feet long, let 
 itself gradually down directly over the coffin, between me and 
 the bright glare (the outline of its glossy mottled skin glancing 
 in the strong light, which gave its dark opaque body the appear- 
 ance of being edged with flame, and its glittering tongue, that 
 of a red-hot wire), with its tail round a limb of the cotton-tree, 
 until its head reached within an inch of the dead man's face, 
 which it licked with its long forked tongue, uttering a loud hiss- 
 ing noise. 
 
 I was fascinated with terror, and could not move a muscle ; 
 at length the creature slowly swung itself up again, and disap- 
 peared amongst the branches. 
 
 Quashie gained courage, as the rum began to operate, and the 
 snake to disappear. " Come to catch Quacco's Duppy, before 
 him get to Africa, sure as can be. De metody parson say de 
 debil old sarpant dat must be old sarpant, for I never see so 
 big one, so it must be de debiL" 
 
 He caught a glimpse of my face at this moment ; it seemed 
 that I had no powers of fascination like the snake, for he roared 
 out, " Murder, murder, de debil, de debil, first like a sarpant, den 
 like himself ; see him white face behind de tree ; see him white 
 face behind de tree ; " and then, in the extremity of his fear, he 
 popped, head foremost, into the grave, leaving his quivering legs 
 and feet sticking upwards, as if he had been planted by the head, 
 like a forked parsnip reversed.
 
 144 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 At this uproar, a number of negroes ran out of the nearest 
 houses, and, to my surprise, four white seamen appeared sud- 
 denly amongst them, who, the moment they got sight of my 
 uniform, as I ran away, gave chase, and having overtaken me, as 
 I stumbled in the dark path, immediately pinioned me. They 
 were all armed, and I had no doubt were part of the crew of the 
 smuggling schooner, and that they had a depot amongst the 
 negro houses. 
 
 " Yo ho, my hearty, heave-to, or here goes with a brace of 
 bullets." 
 
 I told them who I was, and that curiosity alone brought me 
 there. 
 
 " Gammon, tell that to the marines ; you're a spy, messmate, 
 and on board you go with us, so sure as I be Paul Brandywine." 
 
 Here was a change with a vengeance. An hour before I was 
 surrounded by friends, and resting comfortably in my warm bed, 
 and now I was a prisoner to a set of brigands, who were smug- 
 glers at the best, and what might they not be at the worst 1 ? I 
 had no chance of escape by any sudden effort of strength or 
 activity, for a piece of a handspike had been thrust across my 
 back, passing under both of my arms, which were tightly lashed 
 to it, as if I had been trussed for roasting, so that I could no 
 more run, with a chance of escape, than a goose without her 
 pinions. After we left the negro houses, I perceived, with some 
 surprise, that my captors kept the beaten track, leading directly 
 to, and passed the overseer's dwelling. " Come, here is a chance, 
 at all events," argued I to myself. " If I get within hail, I will 
 alarm the lieges, if a deuced good pipe don't fail me." 
 
 This determination had scarcely been formed in my mind, 
 when, as if my very thoughts had been audible, the smuggler 
 next me on the right hand drew a pistol, and held it close to my 
 starboard ear. 
 
 " Friend, if you tries to raise the house, or speaks to any Niger 
 or other person we meets, I'll walk through your skull with two 
 ounces of lead." 
 
 "You are particularly obliging," said I; "but what do you 
 promise yourselves by carrying me off] Were you to murder 
 me, you would be none the richer ; for I have no valuables about 
 me, as you may easily ascertain by searching me." 
 
 " And do you think that freeborn Americans like we have 
 kidnapped you for your dirty rings, and watch, and mayhap a 
 few dollars, which I takes you to mean by your ' waluboles,' as 
 you calls them ? "
 
 SCENES IN JAMAICA. 145 
 
 " Why, then, what in the devil's name have you kidnapped 
 me for?" And I began to feel my choler overpowering my dis- 
 cretion, when Mr Paul Brandywine, who I now suspected to be 
 the mate of the smuggler, took the small liberty of jerking the 
 landyard that had been made fast to the middle of the hand- 
 spike, so violently, that I thought both my shoulders were dis- 
 located ; for I was fairly checked down on my back, just as you 
 may have seen a pig-merchant on the Fermoy road bring an up- 
 roarious boar to his marrow-bones ; while the man who had pre- 
 viously threatened to blow my brains out, knelt beside me, and 
 civilly insinuated, that " if I was tired of my life, he calculated 
 I had better speak as loud again." 
 
 There was no jest in all this ; so I had nothing for it but to 
 walk silently along with my escort, after having gathered myself 
 up as well as I could. We crept so close under the windows of 
 the overseer's house, where we picked up a lot of empty ankers, 
 slung on a long pole, that I fancied I heard, or really did hear, 
 some one snore oh how I envied the sleeper! At length we 
 reached the beach, where we found two men lying on their oars, 
 in what, so far as I could distinguish, appeared to be a sharp 
 swift-looking whale-boat, which they kept close to, with her head 
 seaward, however, to be ready for a start, should anything sus- 
 picious appear near to them. The boat-keeper hailed promptly, 
 " Who goes there ? " as they feathered their oars. 
 
 " The tidy little Wave," was the answer. 
 
 No more words passed ; and the men, who had, in the first 
 instance, pulled a stroke or two to give the boat way, now backed 
 water, and tailed her on to the beach, when we all stepped on 
 board. 
 
 Two of my captors now took each an oar ; we shoved off, and 
 glanced away through the darkness, along the smooth surface 
 of the sparkling sea, until we reached the schooner, by this time 
 hauled out into the fairway at the mouth of the cove, where she 
 lay hove short, with her mainsail hoisted up, riding to the land- 
 wind, and apparently all ready to cant and be off the moment 
 the boat returned. 
 
 As we came alongside, the captain of her, my friend Obediah, 
 as I had no difficulty in guessing, from his very out-of-the-way 
 configuration, dark as it was, called out, " I says, Paul, who have 
 you got into the starn-sheets there 1 ?" 
 
 " A bloody spy, captain ; he who was with the overseer when 
 he peppered your sheathing t'other morning." 
 
 " Oho, bring him on board bring him on board. I knows
 
 146 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 there be a man-of-war schooner close aboard of the island some- 
 wheres hereabouts. I sees through it all, smash my eyes ! I 
 sees through it. But what kept you, Paul 1 Don't you see the 
 morning star has risen?" 
 
 By this time I stood on the deck of the little vessel, which 
 was not above two feet out of the water ; and Obediah, as he 
 spoke, pointed to the small dark pit of a companion, for there 
 was no light below, nor indeed anywhere on board, except in the 
 binnacle, and that carefully masked, indicating, by his threatening 
 manner, that I was to get below as speedily as possible. 
 
 " Don't you see the morning star, sir ^ Why, the sun will be 
 up in an hour, I calculate, and then the sea-breeze will be down 
 on us before we get anything of an offing." 
 
 The mention of the morning star recalled vividly to my 
 recollection the scene I had so recently witnessed at the negro 
 wake ; it seemed there was another person beside poor Quacco, 
 likely to be crammed into a hole before the day broke, and to be 
 carried to Africa too, for what I knew ; but one must needs go 
 when the devil drives, so I slipped down into the cabin, and the 
 schooner having weighed, made sail to the northward. 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Would I were in an alehouse in London, I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, 
 and safety." King Henry V. 
 
 THE crib in which I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, 
 as I soon found, as hot as the Black-hole in Calcutta. I don't 
 pretend to be braver than my neighbours, but I would pluck any 
 man by the beard who called me coward. In my small way I 
 had in my time faced death in various shapes ; but it had 
 always been above board, with the open heaven overhead, and 
 generally I had a goodly fellowship in danger, and the eyes of
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 147 
 
 others were upon me. No wonder, then, that the sinking of 
 the heart within me, which I now experienced for the first time, 
 was bitter exceedingly, and grievous to be borne. Cooped up in 
 a small suffocating cabin, scarcely eight feet square, and not 
 above five feet high, with the certainty of being murdered, as I 
 conceived, were I to try to force my way on deck ; and the 
 knowledge that all my earthly prospects, all my dreams of promo- 
 tion, were likely to be blasted and for ever ruined by my sudden 
 spiriting away, not to take into the heavy tale the misery which 
 my poor mother and my friends must suffer, when they came to 
 know it and " who will tell this to thee, Mary 1 " rose to my 
 throat, but could get no further for a cursed bump that was like 
 to throttle me. Why should I blush to own it when the gypsy, 
 after all, jinked an old rich goutified coffee -planter at the 
 eleventh hour, and married me, and is now the mother of half- 
 a-dozen little Cringles or so 1 However, I made a strong effort 
 to bear my misfortunes like a man, and, folding my arms, I sat 
 down on a chest to abide my fate, whatever that might be, with 
 as much composure as I could command, when half-a-dozen 
 cockroaches flew flicker flicker against my face. 
 
 For the information of those who have never seen this deli- 
 cious insect, I take leave to mention here, that, when full grown, 
 it is a large dingy brown-coloured beetle, about two inches long, 
 with six legs, and two feelers as long as its body. It has a strong 
 anti-hysterical flavour, something between rotten cheese and 
 asafcetida, and seldom stirs abroad when the sun is up, but lies 
 concealed in the most obscure and obscene crevices it can creep 
 into ; so that, when it is seen, its wings and body are thickly 
 covered with dust and dirt of various shades, which any culprit 
 who chances to fall asleep with his mouth open is sure to reap 
 the benefit of, as it has a great propensity to walk into it, partly 
 for the sake of the crumbs adhering to the masticators, and also, 
 apparently, with a scientific desire to inspect, by accurate admea- 
 surement with the aforesaid antennae, the state and condition 
 of the whole potato-trap. 
 
 At the same time I felt something gnawing the toe of my 
 boot, which I inferred to be a rat another agreeable customer 
 for which I had a special abhorrence ; but as for beetles of all 
 kinds, from my boyhood up, they had been an abomination unto 
 me, and a cockroach is the most abominable of all beetles ; so 
 between the two I was speedily roused from my state of supine, 
 or rather dogged endurance ; and, forgetting the geography of my 
 position, I sprang to my feet, whereby I nearly fractured my
 
 148 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 skull against the low deck above. I first tried the skylight it 
 was battened down ; then the companion hatch it was locked ; 
 but the ladder leading up to it being cooler than the noisome va- 
 pour bath I had left, I remained standing in it, trying to catch a 
 mouthful of fresh air through the joints of the door. All this 
 while we had been slipping along shore, with the land-wind on 
 our beam, at the rate of five or six knots, but so gently and 
 silently that I could distinctly hear the roar of the surf, as the 
 long smooth swell broke on the beach, which, from the loudness 
 of the noise, could not be above a mile to windward of us. I 
 perceived, at the same time, that the schooner, although going 
 free, did not keep away, nor take all the advantage of the land- 
 wind to make his easting, before the sea-breeze set down, that 
 he might have done, so that it was evident he did not intend to 
 beat up, so as to fetch the Crooked Island Passage, which would 
 have been his course, had he been bound for the States ; but 
 was standing over to the Cuba shore, at that time swarming 
 with pirates. 
 
 It was now good daylight, and the terral gradually died 
 away, and left us rolling gunwale under, as we rose and fell on 
 the long seas, with our sails flapping, bulkheads creaking and 
 screaming, and mainboom jig-jigging, as if it would have torn 
 everything to pieces. I could hear my friend Obed walking the 
 deck, and whistling manfully for the sea-breeze, exclaiming from 
 time to time in his barbarous lingo, " Souffle, souffle, San Anto- 
 nio." But the saint had no bowels, and there we lay roasting 
 until near ten o'clock in the forenoon. During all this period, 
 Obed, who was shortsighted, kept desiring his right arm, Paul 
 Brandywine, to keep a bright look-out for the sea-breeze to 
 windward, or rather to the eastward, for there was no wind 
 " because he knowed it oftentimes tumbled down right sudden 
 and dangerous at this season about the corner of the island 
 hereabouts ; and the pride of the morning often brought a shower 
 with it, fit to level a maize-plat smooth as his hand." 
 
 "No black clouds to windward yet, Paul] " 
 
 Paul could see nothing, and the question was repeated three 
 or four times. 
 
 " There is a small black cloud about the size of my hand to 
 windward, sir, right in the wake of the sun, just now, but it 
 won't come to anything ; I sees no signs of any wind." 
 
 " And Elijah said to his servant, Go up now, and look towards 
 the sea ; and he went up, and looked, and said, There is nothing. 
 And he said, Go again seven times ; and it came to pass the
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER'. 149 
 
 seventh time, that he said, Behold, there ariseth a little cloud 
 out of the sea, like a man's hand." ' 
 
 I knew what this foreboded, which, as I thought, was more 
 than friend Obed did ; for he shortened no sail, and kept all his 
 kites abroad, for no use as it struck me, unless he wished to 
 wear them out by flapping against the masts. He was indeed 
 a strange mixture of skill and carelessness; but, when fairly 
 stirred up, one of the most daring and expert and self-possessed 
 seamen I had ever seen, as I very soon had an ugly opportunity 
 of ascertaining. 
 
 The cloud on the horizon .continued to rise rapidly, spreading 
 over the whole eastern sky, and the morning began to lower very 
 ominously ; but there was no sudden squall, the first of the breeze 
 coming down as usual in cats' paws, and freshening gradually ; 
 nor did I expect there would be, although I was certain it would 
 soon blow a merry capful of wind, which might take in some of 
 the schooner's small sails, and pretty considerably bother us, 
 unless we could better our offing speedily, for it blew right on 
 shore, which, by the setting-in of the sea-breeze, was now close 
 under our lee. 
 
 At length the sniffler reached us, and the sharp little vessel 
 began to speak, as the rushing sound through the water is called; 
 while the wind sang like an ^Eolian harp through the taught 
 weather-rigging. Presently I heard the word given to take in 
 the two gaff-topsails and flying jib, which was scarcely done 
 when the moaning sound roughened into a roar, and the little 
 vessel began to yerk at the head seas as if she would have cut 
 through them, in place of rising to them, and to lie over as if 
 Davy Jones himself had clapperclawed the mast-heads, and was 
 in the act of using them as levers to capsize her ; while the sails 
 were tugging at her, as if they would have torn the spars out 
 of her, so that I expected every moment, either that she would 
 turn over, keel up, or that the masts would snap short off by 
 the deck. 
 
 All this, which I would without the smallest feeling of dread, 
 on the contrary with exhilaration, have faced cheerily on deck in 
 the course of duty, proved at the time, under my circumstances, 
 most alarming and painful to me ; a fair-strae death out of the 
 maintop, or off the weather yard-arm, would to my imagination 
 have been an easy exit comparatively ; but to be choked in this 
 abominable hole, and drowned darkling like a blind puppy the 
 very thought made me frantic, and I shouted and tumbled about, 
 until I missed my footing and fell backwards down the ladder,
 
 150 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 from the bottom of which I scuttled away to the lee-side of the 
 cabin, quiet, through absolute despair and exhaustion from the 
 heat and closeness. 
 
 I had remarked that from the time the breeze freshened the 
 everlasting Yankee drawling of the crew, and the endless con- 
 fabulation of the captain and his mate, had entirely ceased, and 
 nothing was now heard on deck but the angry voice of the raging 
 elements, and at intervals a shrill piercing word or two from Obed, 
 in the altered tone of which I had some difficulty in recognising 
 his pipe, which rose clear and distinct above the roar of the sea 
 and wind, and was always answered by a prompt, sharp, " Ay, 
 ay, sir," from the men. There was no circumlocution, nor cal- 
 culating, nor guessing now, but all hands seemed to be doing 
 their duty energetically and well. " Come, the vagabonds are 
 sailors after all, we shan't be swamped this turn ;" and I resumed 
 my place on the companion ladder with more ease of mind, and 
 a vast deal more composure, than when I was pitched from it 
 when the squall came on. In a moment after I could hear the 
 captain sing out, loud even above the howling of the wind and 
 rushing of the water, "There it comes at last put your helm 
 hard a-port down with it, Paul, down with it, man luff, and 
 shake the wind out of her sails, or over she goes, clean and for 
 ever." Everything was jammed, nothing could be let go, nor 
 was there an axe at hand to make short work with the sheets 
 and haulyards ; and for a second or two I thought it was all over, 
 the water rushing half-way up her decks, and bubbling into the 
 companion through the crevices ; but at length the lively little 
 craft came gaily to the wind, shaking her plumage like a wild- 
 duck ; the sails were got in, all to the foresail, which was set 
 with the bonnet off, and then she lay-to, like a sea-gull, without 
 shipping a drop of water. In the comparative stillness I could 
 now distinctly hear every word that was said on deck. 
 
 " Pretty near it ; rather close shaving that same, captain," 
 quoth Paul, with a congratulatory chuckle ; " but I say, sir, what 
 is that wreath of smoke rising from Annotta Bay over the head- 
 land ? " 
 
 " Why, how should I know, Paul 1 Negroes burning brush, 
 I guess." 
 
 "The smoke from brushwood never rose and flew over the 
 bluff with that swirl, I calculate ; it is a gun, or I mistake." 
 
 And he stepped to the companion, for the purpose, as I con- 
 ceived, of taking out the spy-glass, which usually hangs there in 
 brackets fitted to hold it : he undid the hatch and pushed it
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 151 
 
 back, when I popped my head out, to the no small dismay of 
 the mate ; but Obed was up to me, and while with one hand he 
 seized the glass, he ran the sliding top sharp up against my 
 neck, till he pinned me into a kind of pillory, to my great an- 
 noyance ; so I had to beg to be released, and once more slunk 
 back into my hole. There was a long pause ; at length Paul, 
 to whom the skipper had handed the spy-glass, spoke. 
 
 " A schooner, sir, is rounding the point ! " 
 
 As I afterwards learned, the negroes who had witnessed my 
 capture, especially the old man who had taken me for his infernal 
 majesty, had raised the alarm, so soon as they could venture 
 down to the overseer's house, which was on the smuggling boat 
 shoving off, and Mr Fyall immediately despatched an express to 
 the Lieutenant commanding the Gleam, then lying in Annotta 
 Bay, about ten miles distant, when she instantly slipped and 
 shoved out. 
 
 " Well, I can't help it if there be," rejoined the captain. 
 
 Another pause. 
 
 " Why, I don't like her, sir ; she looks like a man-of-war 
 and that must have been the smoke of the gun she fired on 
 weighing." 
 
 " Eh ? " sharply answered Obed, " if it be, it will be a hang- 
 ing matter if we are caught with this young splice on board ; 
 he may belong to her, for what I know. Look again, Paul" 
 
 A long, long look. 
 
 " A man-of-war schooner, sure enough, sir ; I can see her ensign 
 and pennant, now that she is clear of the land." 
 
 " O Lord, Lord ! " cried Obed, in great perplexity, " what 
 shall we do 1 " 
 
 " Why, pull foot, captain," promptly replied Paul ; " the breeze 
 has lulled, and in light winds she will have no chance with the 
 tidy little Wave." 
 
 I could now perceive that the smugglers made all sail, and 
 I heard the frequent swish-swish of the water, as they threw 
 bucketsful on the sails to thicken them and make them hold 
 more wind, while we edged away, keeping as close to the wind, 
 however, as we could without stopping her way. 
 
 "Starboard," quoth Obed "rap full, Jem let her walk 
 through it, my boy there, main and foresail, flat as boards ; 
 why, she will stand the main-gaff-topsail yet set it, Paul, set 
 it ; " and his heart warmed as he gained confidence in the quali- 
 fications of his vessel " Come, weather me now, see how she 
 trips it along pooh ! I was an ass to quail, wan't I, Paul ? "
 
 152 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " No chance now," thought I, as I descended once more ; " I 
 may as well go and be suffocated at once." I knocked my foot 
 against something in stepping off the ladder, which, on putting 
 down my hand, I found to be a tinder-box, with steel and flint. 
 I had formerly ascertained there was a candle in the cabin, on 
 the small table, stuck into a bottle ; so I immediately struck a 
 light, and as I knew that meekness and solicitation, having been 
 tried in vain, would not serve me, I determined to go on the 
 other tack, and to see how far an assumption of coolness and 
 self-possession, or, it might be, a dash of bravado, whether true 
 or feigned, might not at least insure me some consideration and 
 better treatment from the lawless gang into whose hands I had 
 fallen. 
 
 So I set to and ransacked the lockers, where, amongst a 
 vast variety of miscellaneous matters, I was not long in finding 
 a bottle of very tolerable rum, some salt junk, some biscuit, and 
 a goglet, or porous earthen jar, of water, with some capital cigars. 
 By this time I was like to faint with the heat and smell ; so I 
 filled a tumbler with good half-and-half, and swigged it off. The 
 effect was speedy ; I thought I could eat a bit, so I attacked the 
 salt junk and made a hearty meal, after which I replenished my 
 tumbler, lighted a cigar, pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and 
 with a sort of desperate glee struck up, at the top of my pipe, 
 " Ye Mariners of England." My jovialty was soon noticed on 
 deck. 
 
 "Eh, what be that?" quoth Obed, "that be none of our 
 ditties, I guess who is singing below there?" 
 
 " We be all on deck, sir," responded Paul 
 
 " It can't be the spy, eh 1 sure enough it must be he, and no 
 one else; the heat and choke must have made him mad." 
 
 " We shall soon see," said Paul, as he removed the skylight, 
 and looked down into the cabin. 
 
 Obed looked over his shoulder, peering at me with his little 
 short-sighted pigs' eyes, into which, in my pot valiancy, I imme- 
 diately chucked half a tumbler of very strong grog, and under 
 cover of it attempted to bolt through the skuttle, and thereby 
 gain the deck ; but Paul, with his shoulder-of -mutton fist, gave 
 me a very unceremonious rebuff, and down I dropped again. 
 
 " You makes yourself at home, I sees, and be hanged to you," 
 said Obed, laying the emphasis on the last word, pronouncing it 
 "yoo oo" in two syllables. 
 
 " I do, indeed, and be d d to yoo oo," I replied; " and 
 
 why should I not 1 the visit was not volunteered, you know ;
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 153 
 
 so come down, you long-legged Yankee smuggling scoundrel, or 
 I'll blow your bloody buccaneering craft out of the water like the 
 peel of an onion. You see I have got the magazine scuttle up, and 
 there are the barrels of powder, and here is the candle, so " 
 
 Obed laughed tike the beginning of the bray of the jackass 
 before he swings off into his " heehaw, heehaw." " Smash my 
 eyes, man, but them barrels be full of pimento, all but that one 
 with the red mark, and that be crackers fresh and sharp from 
 the Brandywine mills." 
 
 " Well, well, gunpowder or pimento, I'll set fire to it if you 
 don't be civil." 
 
 " Why, I will be civil ; you are a curious chap, a brave slip, 
 to carry it so, with no friend near; so, civil I will be." 
 
 He unlocked the companion hatch, and came down to the 
 cabin, doubting his long limbs up like foot-rules, to suit the low 
 roof. 
 
 "Free and easy, my man," continued the captain, as he 
 entered. " Well, I forgive you we are quits now and if we 
 were not beyond the island craft, I would put you ashore, but I 
 can't stand back now." 
 
 "Why, may I ask?" 
 
 " Simply, because one of your men-of-war schooners an't more 
 than hull down astarn of me at this moment ; she is working up 
 in shore, and has not chased me as yet ; indeed she may save 
 herself the trouble, for ne'er a schooner in your blasted service 
 has any chance with the tidy tittle Wave." 
 
 I was by no means sure of this. 
 
 " Well, Master Obediah, it may turn up as you say and in a 
 tight wind I know you will either sail or sweep away from any 
 one of them ; but, to be on the square with you, if it conies on 
 to blow, that same hooker, which I take to be his Britannic 
 Majesty's schooner Gleam, will, from his greater beam and su- 
 perior length, outcarry and forereach on you ay, and weather 
 on you too, hand over hand ; so this is my compact if he nails 
 you, you will require a friend at court, and I will stand that 
 friend ; if you escape and I will not interfere either by advice 
 or otherwise, either to get you taken or to get you clear will 
 you promise to put me on board of the first English merchant 
 vessel we fall in with, or, at the longest, to land me at St Jago 
 de Cuba, and I will promise you, on my honour, notwithstanding 
 all that has been said or done, that I will never hereafter inform 
 against you, or in any way get you into trouble if I can help it. 
 Is it done 1 Will you give me your hand upon it ] "
 
 154 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Obed did not hesitate a moment ; he clenched my hand, and 
 squeezed it till the blood nearly spouted from my finger-ends. 
 One might conceive of Norwegian bears greeting each other after 
 this fashion, but I trust no Christian will ever, in time coming, 
 subject my digits to a similar species of torture. 
 
 " Agreed, my boy ; I have promised, and you may depend on 
 me. Smuggler though I be, and somewhat worse on occasion 
 mayhap, I never breaks my word." 
 
 There was an earnestness about the poor fellow in which I 
 thought there could be no deception, and from that moment we 
 were on what I may call a very friendly footing for a prisoner 
 and his jailer. 
 
 " Well, now, I believe you, so let us have a glass of grog, 
 and " 
 
 Here the mate sang out, "Captain, come on deck, if you 
 please ; quickly, sir, quickly." 
 
 By this time it had begun to breeze up again, and as the wind 
 rose, I could see the spirits of the crew fell, as if conscious they 
 had no chance if it freshened. When we went on deck, Paul 
 was still peering through the telescope. 
 
 " The schooner has tacked, sir." A dead silence ; then giving 
 the glass a swing, and driving the joints into each other with 
 such vehemence as if he would have broken them in pieces, he 
 exclaimed, " She is after us, so sure as I ben't a niger." 
 
 " No ! is she though ? " eagerly inquired the captain, as he 
 at length seized the spy-glass, twisting and turning it about and 
 about, as he tried to hit his own very peculiar focus. At length 
 he took a long, breathless look, while the eyes of the whole crew, 
 some fifteen hands or so, were riveted upon him with the most 
 intense anxiety. 
 
 " What a gaff-topsail she has got my eye ! and a ringtail 
 with more cloths in it than our squaresail and the breeze comes 
 down stronger and stronger ! " 
 
 All this while I looked out equally excited, but with a very 
 different interest. " Come, this will do," thought I ; " she is 
 after us ; and if old Dick Gasket brings that fiery sea-breeze he 
 has now along with him, we shall puzzle the smuggler, for all 
 Ms long start." 
 
 " There's a gun, sir," cried Paul, trembling from head to foot. 
 
 " Sure enough," said the skipper ; " and it must be a signal. 
 And there go three flags at the fore. She must, I'll bet a hun- 
 dred dollars, have taken our tidy little Wave for the admiral's 
 tender that was lying in Morant Bay."
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 155 
 
 " Blarney," thought I ; " tidy as your little Wave is, she won't 
 deceive old Dick he is not the man to take a herring for a 
 horse ; she must be making signals to some man-of-war in 
 sight." 
 
 " A strange sail right ahead," sang out three men from for- 
 ward all at once. 
 
 " Didn't I say so ? " I had only thought so. " Come, Master 
 Obediah, it thickens now ; you're in for it," said I. 
 
 But he was not in the least shaken ; as the matter grew seri- 
 ous, he seemed to brace up to meet it. He had been flurried at 
 the first, but he was collected and cool as a cucumber now, when 
 he saw everything depending on his seamanship and judgment. 
 Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his mind that they 
 must be taken. 
 
 " Jezebel Brandywine, you are but a widowed old lady, I cal- 
 culate. I shall never see the broad, smooth Chesapeake again 
 no more peach brandy for Paul;" and, folding his arms, he set 
 himself doggedly down on the low taffrail. 
 
 Little did I think at the time how fearfully the poor fellow's 
 foreboding was so soon to be fulfilled. 
 
 " There again," said I, " a second puff to windward." This 
 was another signal-gun, I knew ; and I went forward to where 
 the captain was reconnoitring the sail ahead through the glass. 
 " Let me see," said I, " and I will be honest with you, and tell 
 you if I know her." 
 
 He handed me the glass at once, and the instant I saw the 
 top of her courses above the water, I was sure, from the red 
 cross in her foresail, that she was the Firebrand, the very cor- 
 vette to which I was appointed. She was so well to windward, 
 that I considered it next to impossible that we should weather 
 her; but Obediah seemed determined to try it. After seeing 
 his little vessel snug under mainsail, foresail, and jib, which was 
 as much as she could stagger under, and everything right and 
 tight, and all clear to make more sail should the breeze lull, he 
 ordered the men below, and took the helm himself. What queer 
 animals sailors are ! We were rising the corvette fast ; and on 
 going aft again from the bows, where I had been looking at her, 
 I cast my eye down the hatchway into the men's berth, and there 
 were the whole crew at breakfast, laughing and joking, and en- 
 joying themselves as heartily, apparently nay, I verily believe 
 in reality as if they had been in a yacht on a cruise of pleasure, 
 in place of having one enemy nearly within gunshot astern, and 
 another trying to cut them off ahead.
 
 156 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 At this moment the schooner in chase luffed up in the wind, 
 and I noticed the foot of the foresail lift. " You'll have it now, 
 friend Obed; there's at you in earnest." While I spoke, a 
 column of thick white smoke spouted over the bows of the 
 Gleam, about twenty yards dead to windward, and then blew 
 back again amongst the sails and rigging, as if a gauze veil had 
 for an instant been thrown over the little vessel, rolling off 
 down the wind in whirling eddies, growing thinner and thinner, 
 until it disappeared altogether. I heard the report this time, 
 and the shot fell close alongside of us. 
 
 " A good mark with that apple," coolly observed the captain ; 
 " the Long Tom must be a tearer, to pitch its mouthful of iron 
 this length." 
 
 Another succeeded ; and if I had been still pinned up in the 
 companion, there would have been no log now, for it went crash 
 through into the hold. 
 
 " Go it, my boys," shouted I ; " a few more as well aimed, and 
 heigh for the Firebrand's gun-room ! " 
 
 At the mention of the Firebrand I thought Obed started, but 
 he soon recovered himself, and looking at me with all the ap- 
 parent composure in the world, he smiled as he said, " Not so 
 last, lieutenant; you and I have not drank our last glass of 
 swizzle yet, I guess. If I can but weather that chap ahead, I 
 don't fear the schooner." 
 
 The corvette had by this time answered the signal from the 
 Gleam, and had hauled his wind also, so that I did not conceive 
 it possible that the Wave could scrape clear, without coming 
 under his broadside. 
 
 " You won't try it, Obed, surely? " 
 
 " Answer me this, and I'll tell you," rejoined he. " Does that 
 corvette now carry long 18's or 32-pound carronades 1 ? " 
 
 " She carries 32-pound carronades." 
 
 " Then you'll not sling your cot in her gunroom this cruise." 
 
 All this time the little Wave was carrying to it gallantly, her 
 jib-boom bending like whalebone, and her long slender topmasts 
 whipping about like a couple of fishing-rods, as she thrashed at 
 it, sending the spray flashing over her mastheads at every pitch ; 
 but notwithstanding her weatherly qualities, the heavy cross sea, 
 as she drove into it, headed her off bodily, and she could not pre- 
 vent the Gleam from creeping up on her weather-quarter, where 
 she peppered away from her long 24-pounder, throwing the shot 
 over and over us. 
 
 To tack, therefore, would have been to run into the lion's
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 15? 
 
 mouth, and to bear up was equally hopeless, as the corvette, 
 going free, would have chased her under water ; the only chance 
 remaining was to stand on, and trust to the breeze taking off, 
 and try to weather the ship, now about three miles distant on 
 our lee bow, braced sharp up on the opposite tack, and evidently 
 quite aware of our game. 
 
 As the corvette and the Wave neared each other, he threw a 
 shot at us from the boat gun on his topgallant forecastle, as if 
 to ascertain beyond all doubt the extent of our insanity, and 
 whether we were serious in our attempt to weather him and 
 escape. 
 
 Obed held right on his course, like grim Death. Another 
 bullet whistled over our mastheads, and, with the aid of the 
 glass, I could see, by the twinkling of feet, and here and there 
 a busy peering face through the ports, that the crew were at 
 quarters fore and aft, while fourteen marines or so were all 
 ready rigged on the poop, and the nettings were bristling 
 through the whole length of the ship, with fifty or sixty small- 
 arm men. 
 
 All this I took care to communicate to Obediah. " I say, my 
 good friend, I see little to laugh at in all this. If you do go to 
 windward of him at all, which I greatly doubt, you will have to 
 cross his fore-foot within pistol-shot at the farthest, and then 
 you will have to rasp along his whole broadside of great and 
 small, and they are right well prepared and ready for you, that 
 I can tell you ; the skipper of that ship has had some hedication,, 
 I guess, in the war on your coast, for he seems up to your tricks, 
 and I don't doubt but he will tip you the stem, if need be, with 
 as little compunction as I would kill a cockroach, devil confound 
 the whole breed! There I see his marines and small-arm men 
 handling their firelocks, as thick as sparrows under the lee of a 
 hedge in a snowstorm, and the people are training the bull-dogs 
 fore and aft. Why, this is downright stark staring lunacy, Obed; 
 we shall be smashed like an egg-shell, and all hands of us whipped 
 off to Davy, from your cursed foolhardiness." 
 
 I had made several pauses in my address, expecting an answer, 
 but Obed was mute as a stone. At length I took the glass from 
 my eye, and turned round to look at him, startled by his silence. 
 
 I might have heard of such things, but I had never before 
 seen the working of the spirit so forcibly and fearfully demon- 
 strated by the aspect of the outward man. With the exception 
 of myself, he was the only man on deck, as before mentioned, 
 and by this time he was squatted down on it, with his long legs
 
 158 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 and thighs thrust down into the cabin, through the open sky- 
 light. The little vessel happened to carry a weather helm, so 
 that his long sinewy arms, with their large veins and leaders 
 strained to cracking, covered but a small way below the elbow 
 by his jacket, were stretched as far as they could clutch the tiller 
 to windward, and his enormous head, supported on his very 
 short trunk, that seemed to be countersunk into the deck, gave 
 him a most extraordinary appearance. But this was not all ; his 
 <X)mplexion, usually sallow and sunburnt, was now ghastly and 
 blue, like that of the corpse of a drowned man ; the muscles of 
 the neck, and the flesh of the cheeks and chin were rigid and 
 fixed, and shrunk into one-half of their usual compass ; the lips 
 were so compressed that they had almost entirely disappeared, 
 and all that marked his mouth was a black line ; the nostrils 
 were distended, and thin and transparent, while the forehead 
 was shrivelled into the most minute and immovable wrinkles, 
 as if done with a crimping instrument ; while over his eyes, or 
 rather his eye, for he kept one closed as if it had been hermeti- 
 cally sealed, he had lashed with half-a-dozen turns of spun-yarn 
 a wooden socket, like the butt-end of an opera glass, fitted with 
 some sort of magnifier, through which he peered out ahead 
 most intensely, stooping down, and stretching his long bare 
 neck to its utmost reach, that he might see under the foot of 
 the foresail 
 
 I had scarcely time to observe all this, when a round shot came 
 through the head of the mainsail, grazing the mast, and the very 
 next instant a bushel of grape, from one of the bow guns, a 32- 
 pound carronade, was crashed in on us amidships. I flung down 
 the glass, and dived through the companion into the cabin I 
 am not ashamed to own it ; and any man who would undervalue 
 my courage in consequence, can never, taking into consideration 
 the peculiarities of my situation, have known the appalling sound, 
 or infernal effect of a discharge of grape. Eound shot in broad- 
 sides is a joke to it ; musketry is a joke to it ; but only conjure 
 up in your imagination, a shower of iron bullets, of the size of 
 well-grown plums, to the number of from sixty to one hundred 
 and twenty, taking effect within a circle, not above ten feet in 
 diameter, and that all this time there was neither honour nor 
 glory in the case, for I was a miserable captive, and I fancy I 
 may save myself the trouble of farther enlargement. 
 
 I found that the crew had by this time started and taken up 
 the planks of the cabin floor, and had stowed themselves well 
 down into the run, so as to be as much out of harm's way as
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 159 
 
 they could manage ; but there was neither fear nor flinching 
 amongst them ; and although totally devoid of all gasconade 
 on the contrary, they had taken all the precautions men could 
 do in their situation, to keep out of harm's way, or at least to 
 lessen the danger there they sat, silent, and cool, and deter- 
 mined. " I shall never undervalue an American as an enemy 
 again," thought I. I lay down on the side of the little vessel, 
 now nearly level as she lay over, alongside of Paul Brandywine, 
 in a position that commanded a view of Obed's face through the 
 small scuttle. Ten minutes might have elapsed a tearing crash 
 and a rattle on the deck overhead, as if a shower of stones 
 had been thrown from aloft on it. 
 
 " That's through the mainmast, I expect," quoth Paul 
 
 I looked from him to the captain ; a black thick stream of 
 blood was trickling down behind his ear. Paul had noticed it 
 also. 
 
 " You are hurt by one of them splinters, I see ; give me the 
 helm now, Captain ; " and, crushed down as the poor fellow ap- 
 peared to be under some fearful and mysterious consciousness of 
 impending danger, he nevertheless addressed himself to take his 
 captain's place. 
 
 " Hold your blasted tongue " was the polite rejoinder. 
 
 "I say, captain," shouted your humble servant, "you may 
 as well eat peas with a pitchfork, as try to weather him. You 
 are hooked, man, flounder as you will. Old Nick can't shake 
 you clear so I won't stand this any longer;" and, making a 
 spring, I jammed myself through the skylight, until I sat on the 
 deck, looking aft and confronting him, and there we were, stuck 
 up like the two kings of Brentford, or a couple of smiling cher- 
 ries on one stalk. I have often laughed at the figure we must 
 have cut, but at the time there was that going on that would 
 have made Comus himself look grave. I had at length fairly 
 aroused the sleeping devil within him. 
 
 " Look out, there, lieutenant look out there," and he 
 pointed with his sinister claw down to leeward. I did so 
 whew ! what a sight for poor Master Thomas Cringle ! " You 
 are booked for an outside place, Master Tommy," thought I to 
 myself for there was the corvette in very truth she had just 
 tacked, and was close aboard of us on our lee quarter, within 
 musket-shot at the farthest, bowling along upon a wind, with 
 the green, hissing, multitudinous sea surging along her sides, 
 and washing up in foam, like snow-flakes, through the midship 
 ports, far aft on the quarterdeck, to the glorification of Jack, who
 
 160 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 never minds a wet jacket so long as he witnesses the discom- 
 fiture of his ally Peter Pipeclay. The press of canvass she was 
 carrying laid her over, until her copper sheathing, clear as glass, 
 and glancing like gold, was seen high above the water through- 
 out her whole length, above which rose her glossy jet black bends, 
 surmounted by a milk-white streak, broken at regular intervals 
 into eleven goodly ports, from which the British cannon, ugly 
 customers at the best, were grinning, tompion out, open-mouthed 
 at us ; and above all, the clean, well-stowed white hammocks 
 filled the nettings, from taffrail to cat-head oh ! that I had been 
 in one of them, snug on the berth deck ! Aloft, a cloud of white 
 sail swelled to the breeze, till the cloth seemed inclined to say 
 good-by to the bolt ropes, bending the masts like willow-wands 
 (as if the devil, determined to beat Paganini himself, was pre- 
 paring fiddlesticks to play a spring with, on the cracking and 
 straining weather shrouds and backstays), and tearing her sharp 
 wedge-like bows out of the bowels of the long swell, until the 
 cutwater, and ten yards of the keel next to it, were hove clean out 
 of the sea, into which she would descend again with a roaring 
 plunge, burying everything up to the hause-holes, and driving 
 the brine into mist, over the fore-top, like vapour from a water- 
 fall, through which, as she rose again, the bright red copper on 
 her bows flashed back the sunbeams in momentary rainbows. 
 We were so near, that I could with the naked eye distinctly see 
 the faces of the men. There were at least 150 determined 
 fellows at quarters, and clustered with muskets in their hands, 
 wherever they could be posted to most advantage. 
 
 There they were in groups about the ports (I could even see 
 the captains of the guns examining the locks), in their clean 
 white frocks and trousers, the officers of the ship, and the marines, 
 clearly distinguishable by their blue or red jackets. I could dis- 
 cern the very sparkle of the epaulets. 
 
 High overhead the red cross, that for a thousand years " has 
 braved the battle and the breeze," blew out strong from the 
 peak, like a sheet of flickering white flame, or a thing instinct 
 with life, struggling to tear away the ensign haulyards, and to 
 escape high into the clouds ; while from the main-royal mast- 
 head the long white pennant streamed upwards into the azure 
 heavens, like a ray of silver light. Oh ! it was a sight " most 
 beautiful to see," as the old song hath it, but I confess I would 
 have preferred that pleasure from t'other side of the hedge. 
 
 There was no hailing nor trumpeting, although, as we crossed 
 on opposite tacks when we first weathered her, just before she
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 161 
 
 hove in stays I had heard a shrill voice sing out, " Take good 
 aim, men fire ! " But now each cannon in thunder shot forth its 
 glance of flame, without a word being uttered, as she kept away 
 to bring them to bear in succession, while the long feathery 
 cloud of whirling white smoke that shrouded her sides from 
 stem to stern, was sparkling brilliantly throughout with crack- 
 ling musketry, for all the world like fireflies in a bank of night 
 fog from the hills, until the breeze blew it back again through 
 the rigging, and once more unveiled the lovely craft in all her 
 pride and glory. 
 
 " You see all that," said Obed. 
 
 " To be sure I do, and I feel something too ;" for a sharp rasp- 
 ing jar was repeated in rapid succession three or four times, as 
 so many shot struck our hull, and made the splinters glance 
 about merrily ; and the musket-balls were mottling our top sides 
 and spars, plumping into the timber, whit, whit! as thick as 
 ever you saw schoolboys plastering a church-door with clay 
 pellets. There was a heavy groan, and a stir amongst the sea- 
 men in the run. 
 
 " And, pray, do you see and hear all that yourself, Master 
 Obed 1 The iron has clenched some of your chaps down there. 
 Stay a bit, you shall have a better dose presently, you obsti- 
 nate old ." 
 
 He waved his hand, and interrupted me with great energy 
 " I dare not give in, I cannot give in ; all I have in the world 
 swims in the little hooker, and strike I will not so long as two 
 planks stick together." 
 
 " Then," quoth I, " you are simply a damned, cold-blooded, 
 calculating scoundrel brave I will never call you." I saw he 
 was now stung to the quick. 
 
 " Lieutenant, smuggler as I am, don't goad me to what worse 
 I may have been ; there are some deeds done in my time which, 
 at a moment like this, I don't much like to think upon. I am 
 a desperate man, Master Cringle ; don't, for your own sake as 
 well as mine, try rne too far." 
 
 " Well, but " persisted I. He would hear nothing. 
 
 " Enough said, sir, enough said ; there was not an honester 
 trader, nor a happier man in all the Union, until your infernal 
 pillaging and burning squadron in the Chesapeake captured and 
 ruined me ; but I paid it off on the prize-master, although we 
 were driven on the rocks after all I paid it off, and, God help 
 me, I have never thriven since, enemy although he was. I see 
 
 the poor fellow's face yet, as I He checked himself 
 
 L
 
 162 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 suddenly, as if aware that he might say more than could be con- 
 veniently retracted. " But I dare not be taken ; let that satisfy 
 you, Master Cringle, so go below below with you, sir" I saw 
 he had succeeded in lashing himself into a fury " or, by the Al- 
 mighty God, who hears me, I shall be tempted to do another deed, 
 the remembrance of which will haunt me till my dying day ! " 
 
 All this passed in no time, as we say, much quicker than one 
 can read it; and I now saw that the corvette had braced up 
 sharp to the wind again, on the same tack that we were on ; so 
 I slipped down like an eel, and once more stretched myself be- 
 side Paul, on the lee side of the cabin. We soon found that 
 she was indeed after us in earnest, by the renewal of the cannon- 
 ade, and the breezing up of the small arms again. Two round- 
 shot now tore right through the deck, just beneath the larboard 
 coamings of the main hatchway ; the little vessel's deck, as she 
 lay over, being altogether exposed to the enemy's fire, they made 
 her whole frame tremble again, smashing everything in their 
 way to shivers, and going right out through her bottom on the 
 opposite side, within a dozen streaks of her keel, while the rat- 
 tling of the clustered grapeshot every now and then made us 
 start, the musketry all the while peppering away like a hail 
 shower. Still the skipper, who I expected every moment to see 
 puffed away from the tiller like smoke, held upon deck as if he 
 had been bullet-proof, and seemed to escape the hellish tornado 
 of missiles of all sorts and sizes by a miracle. 
 
 " He is in league with the old one, Paul," said I ; " howso- 
 ever, you must be nabbed, for you see the ship is fore-reaching 
 on you, and you can't go on t'other tack, surely, with these 
 pretty eyelet holes between wind and water on the weather side 
 there ? Your captain is mad why mil you, then, and all these 
 poor fellows, go down because he dare not surrender, for some 
 good deed of his own, eh ? " 
 
 The roar of the cannon and noise of the musketry made it 
 necessary for me to raise my voice here, which the small scuttle, 
 like Dionysius's ear, conveyed unexpectedly to my friend the 
 captain on deck. 
 
 " Hand me up my pistols, Paul." 
 
 It had struck me before, and I was now certain, that from the 
 time he had become so intensely excited as he was now, he 
 spoke with a pure English accent, without the smallest dash of 
 Yankeeism. 
 
 " So so ; I see no wonder you won't strike, you renegade," 
 cried I.
 
 THE CHASE OF THE SMUGGLER. 163 
 
 " You have tampered with, my crew, sir, and abused me," he 
 announced, in a stern, slow tone, much more alarming than his 
 former fierceness, " so take that to quiet you ; " and deuce take 
 me if he did not, the moment he received the pistols from his 
 mate, fire slap at me, the ball piercing the large muscle of my 
 neck on the right side, missing the artery by the merest ac- 
 cident. Thinking I was done for, I covered my face with my 
 hands, and commended myself to God, with all the resignation 
 that could be expected from a poor young fellow in my grievous 
 circumstances, expecting to be cut off in the prima vera of his 
 
 days, and to part for ever from . Poo ! that there line is 
 
 not my forte. However, finding the haemorrhage by no means 
 great, and that the wound was in fact slight, I took the cap- 
 tain's rather strong hint to be still, and lay quiet until a 32- 
 pound shot struck us bang on the quarter. The subdued force 
 with which it came, showed that we were widening our distance, 
 for it did not drive through and through with a crash, but lodged 
 in a timber ; nevertheless it started one of the planks across 
 which Paul and I lay, and pitched us both with extreme violence 
 bodily into the run amongst the men, three of them lying 
 amongst the ballast, which was covered with blood, two badly 
 wounded and one dead. I came off with some slight bruises, 
 however ; not so the poor mate. He had been nearest the end 
 or butt that was started, which thereby struck him so forcibly 
 that it fractured his spine, and dashed him amongst his ship- 
 mates, shrieking piercingly in his great agony, and clutching 
 whatever he could grasp with his hands, and tearing whatever 
 he could reach with his teeth, while his limbs below his waist 
 were dead and paralysed. 
 
 " Water, water ! " he cried, " water, for the love of God, 
 water ! " The crew did all they could ; but his torments in- 
 creased the blood began to flow from his mouth his hands 
 became clay-cold and pulseless his features sharp, blue, and 
 death-like his respiration difficult ; the choking death-rattle 
 succeeded, and in ten minutes he was dead. 
 
 This was the last shot that told every report became more 
 and more faint, and the musketry soon ceased altogether. 
 
 The breeze had taken off, and the Wave, resuming her supe- 
 riority in light winds, had escaped.
 
 164 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 CHAPTEK IX. 
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 
 
 "El Pescador de Puerto Escondido 
 
 Pesca mas que Pescado 
 Quando la Luna redonda 
 Reflexado en la mar profunda. 
 
 Pero cuidado, 
 
 El pobre sera el nino perdido 
 Si esta por Anglisman cojido. 
 
 Ay de mi." 
 
 IT was now five in the afternoon, and the breeze continued to 
 fall, and the sea to go down, until sunset, by which time we had 
 run the corvette hull down, and the schooner nearly out of sight. 
 Right ahead of us rose the high land of Cuba, to the westward 
 of Cape Maize, clear and well defined against the northern sky ; 
 and as we neither hauled our wind to weather the east end of 
 the island, nor edged away for St Jago, it was evident, beyond 
 all doubt, that we were running right in for some one of the 
 piratical haunts on the Cuba coast. 
 
 The crew now set to work, and removed the remains of their 
 late messmate, and the two wounded men, from where they lay 
 upon the ballast in the run, to their own berth forward in the 
 bows of the little vessel ; they then replaced the planks which 
 they had started, and arranged the dead body of the mate along 
 the cabin floor, close to where I lay, faint and bleeding, and more 
 heavily bruised than I had at first thought. 
 
 The captain was still at the helm ; he had never spoken a word 
 either to me or any of the crew since he had taken the trifling 
 liberty of shooting me through the neck, and no thanks to him 
 that the wound was not mortal ; but he now resumed his Ameri- 
 can accent, and began to drawl out the necessary orders for re- 
 pairing damages. 
 
 When I went on deck shortly afterwards, I was surprised 
 beyond measure to perceive the injury the little vessel had sus- 
 tained, and the uncommon speed, handiness, and skill with which 
 it had been repaired. However lazily the command might 
 appear to have been given, the execution of it was quick as 
 lightning. The crew, now reduced to ten working hands, had, 
 with an almost miraculous promptitude, knotted and spliced the
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 165 
 
 rigging, mended and shifted sails, fished the sprung and wounded 
 spars, and plugged and nailed lead over the shot-holes, and all 
 within half an hour. 
 
 I don't like Americans; I never did, and never shall like 
 them ; I have seldom met with an American gentleman, in the 
 large and complete sense of the term. I have no wish to eat 
 with them, drink with them, deal with, or consort with them in 
 any way; but let me tell the whole truth, nor fight with them, 
 were it not for the laurels to be acquired, by overcoming an 
 enemy so brave, determined, and alert, and every way so worthy 
 of one's steel, as they have always proved. One used to fight 
 with a Frenchman as a matter of course, and for the fun of the 
 thing as it were, never dreaming of the possibility of Johnny 
 Crapeau beating us, where there was anything approaching to 
 an equality of force ; but, say as much as we please about larger 
 ships and more men, and a variety of excuses which proud John 
 Bull, with some truth very often, I will admit, has pertinaciously 
 thrust forward to palliate his losses during the short war, a regard 
 for truth and fair dealing, which I hope are no scarce qualities 
 amongst British seamen, compels me to admit that, although 
 I would of course peril my life and credit more readily with 
 an English crew, yet I believe a feather would turn the scale 
 between the two countries, so far as courage and seamanship 
 go ; and let it not be forgotten, although we have now regained 
 our superiority in this respect, yet, in gunnery and small-arm 
 practice, we were as thoroughly weathered on by the Americans 
 during the war, as we over-topped them in the bull-dog courage 
 with which our boarders handled those genuine English weapons, 
 the cutlass and pike. 
 
 After the captain had given his orders, and seen the men 
 fairly at work, he came down to the cabin, still ghastly and pale, 
 but with none of that ferocity stamped on his grim features, 
 from the outpouring of which I had suffered so severely. He 
 never once looked my way, no more than if I had been a bundle 
 of old junk ; but, folding his hands on his knee, he sat down on 
 a small locker, against which the feet of the dead mate rested, 
 and gazed earnestly on his face, which was immediately under 
 the open skylight, through which, by this time, the clear cold 
 rays of the moon streamed full on it, the short twilight having 
 already fled, chained as it is in these climates to the chariot- 
 wheels of the burning sun. My eye naturally followed his, but 
 I speedily withdrew it. I had often bent over comrades who had 
 been killed by gunshot wounds, and always remarked, what is
 
 166 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 well known, that the features wore a benign expression, bland 
 and gentle, and contented as the face of a sleeping infant, while 
 their limbs were composed decently, often gracefully, like one 
 resting after great fatigue, as if nature, like an affectionate nurse, 
 had arranged the deathbed of her departing child with more 
 than usual care, preparatory to his last long sleep ; whereas those 
 who had died from the thrust of a pike, the blow of a cutlass, 
 or any violent fracture, however mild the living expression of 
 their countenance might have been, were always fearfully con- 
 torted both in body and face. 
 
 In the present instance, the eyes were wide open, white, pro- 
 minent, and glazed like those of a dead fish ; the hair, which 
 was remarkably fine, and had been worn in long ringlets, 
 amongst which a large gold earring glittered, the poor fellow 
 having been a nautical dandy of the first water, was drenched 
 and clotted into heavy masses with the death-sweat, and had 
 fallen back on the deck from his forehead, which was well formed, 
 high, broad, and massive. His nose was transparent, thin, and 
 sharp, the tense skin on the bridge of it glancing in the silver 
 light as if it had been glass. His mouth was puckered on one 
 side into angular wrinkles, like a curtain drawn up awry, while 
 a clotted stream of black gore crept from it sluggishly down his 
 right cheek, and coagulated- in a heap on the deck. His lower 
 jaw had fallen, and there he lay agape with his mouth full of 
 blood. 
 
 His legs indeed his whole body below his loins, where the 
 fracture of the spine had taken place rested precisely as they 
 had been arranged after he died ; but the excessive swelling and 
 puffing out of his broad chest contrasted shockingly with the 
 shrinking of the body at the pit of the stomach, by which the 
 arch of the ribs was left as well defined as if the skin had been 
 drawn over a skeleton, and the distortion of the muscles of the 
 cheeks and throat evinced the fearful strength of the convul- 
 sions which had preceded his dissolution. It was evident, in- 
 deed, that throughout his whole person above the waist, the 
 nervous system had been utterly shattered ; the arms, especially, 
 appeared to have been awfully distorted, for when crossed on his 
 breast, they had to be forcibly fastened down at the wrists by a 
 band of spun yarn to the buttons of his jacket. His right hand 
 was shut, with the exception of the fore-finger, which was ex- 
 tended, pointing upwards ; but the whole arm, from the shoulder 
 down, had the horrible appearance of struggling to get free from 
 the cord which confined it.
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 167 
 
 Obed, by the time I had noticed all this, had knelt beside the 
 shoulder of the corpse, and I could see by the moonlight that 
 flickered across his face as the vessel rolled in the declining 
 breeze, that he had pushed off his eye the uncouth spyglass which 
 he had fastened over it during the chase, so that it now stood 
 out from the middle of his forehead like a stunted horn ; but, 
 in truth, " it was not exalted," for he appeared crushed down to 
 the very earth by the sadness of the scene before him, and I 
 noticed the frequent sparkle of a heavy tear as it fell from his 
 iron visage on the face of the dead man. At length he untied 
 the string that fastened the eye-glass round his head, and taking 
 a coarse towel from a locker, he sponged poor Paul's face and 
 neck with rum, and then fastened up his lower jaw with the 
 lanyard. Having performed this melancholy office, the poor 
 fellow's feelings could no longer be restrained by my presence. 
 
 " God help me, I have not now one friend in the wide world. 
 When I had neither home, nor food, nor clothing, he sheltered 
 me, and fed me, and clothed me, when a single word would have 
 gained him five hundred dollars, and run me up to the foreyard- 
 arm in a wreath of white smoke ; but he was true as steel ; and 
 oh that he was now doing for me what I have done for him ! 
 who would have moaned over me me, who am now without 
 wife or child, and have disgraced all my kin ! alack-a-day, alack- 
 a-day ! " And he sobbed and wept aloud, as if his very heart 
 would have burst in twain. " But I will soon follow you, Paul ; 
 I have had my warning already ; I know it, and I believe it." 
 At this instant the dead hand of the mate burst the ligature 
 that kept it down across his body, and slowly rose up and re- 
 mained in a beckoning attitude. I was seized with a cold shi- 
 vering from head to foot, and would have shrieked aloud, had it 
 not been for very shame, but Obed was unmoved. " I know it, 
 Paul. I know it. I am ready, and I shall not be long behind 
 you." 
 
 He fastened the arm down once more, and having called a 
 couple of hands to assist him, they lashed up the remains of 
 their shipmate in his hammock, with a piece of iron ballast at 
 his feet, and then, without more ado, handed the body up 
 through the skylight; and I heard the heavy splash as they 
 cast it into the sea. When this was done, the captain returned 
 to the cabin, bringing a light with him, filled and drank off a 
 glass of strong grog. Yet he did not even now deign to notice 
 me, which was by no means soothing ; and I found that, since 
 lie wouldn't speak, / must, at all hazards.
 
 168 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " I say, Obed, do you ever read your Bible ? " He looked 
 steadily at me with his lacklustre eyes. " Because, if you do, 
 you may perhaps have fallen in with some such passages as the 
 following : ' Behold I am in your hand ; but know ye for cer- 
 tain, that if you put me to death, ye shall surely bring innocent 
 blood upon yourselves.' " 
 
 " It is true, Mr Cringle, I feel the truth of it here," and he 
 laid his large bony hand on his heart. " Yet I do not ask you 
 to forgive me ; I don't expect that you can or will ; but unless 
 the devil gets possession of me again which, so sure as ever 
 there was a demoniac in this world, he had this afternoon when 
 you so tempted me I hope soon to place you in safety, either 
 in a friendly port, or on board of a British vessel ; and then 
 what becomes of me is of little consequence, now since the only 
 living soul who cared a dollar for me is at rest amongst the coral 
 branches at the bottom of the deep green sea." 
 
 " Why, man," rejoined I, " leave off this stuff; something has 
 turned your brain, surely; people must die in their beds, you 
 know, if they be not shot, or put out of the way somehow or 
 other; and as for my small affair, why, I forgive you, man 
 from my heart I forgive you; were it only for the oddity of 
 your scantling, mental and corporeal, I would do so ; and you 
 see I am not much hurt so lend me a hand, like a good fellow, 
 to wash the wound with a little spirits it will stop the bleed- 
 ing, and the stiffness will soon go off so " 
 
 " Lieutenant Cringle, I need not tell what I know you have 
 found out, that I am not the vulgar Yankee smuggler, fit only 
 to be made a butt of by you and your friends, that you no 
 doubt at first took me for ; but who or what I am, or what 1 
 may have been, you shall never know but I will tell you this 
 much " 
 
 " Devil confound the fellow ! why, this is too much upon 
 the brogue, Obed. Will you help me to dress my wound, man, 
 and leave off your cursed sentimental speeches, which you must 
 have gleaned from some old novel or another ? I'll hear it all 
 by-and-by." 
 
 At this period I was a reckless young chap, with strong nerves, 
 and my own share of that animal courage which generally oozes 
 out at one's finger ends when one gets married and turned of 
 thirty ; nevertheless I did watch with some anxiety the effect 
 which my unceremonious interruption was to have upon him. 
 I was agreeably surprised to find that he took it all in good 
 part, and set himself, with great alacrity, and kindness even, to
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 169 
 
 put me to rights, and so successfully that, when I was washed 
 and cleansed, and fairly coopered up, I found myself quite able 
 to take my place at the table ; and having no fear of the College 
 of Surgeons before my eyes, I helped myself to a little of the 
 needful, and in the plenitude of my heart I asked Obed's pardon 
 for my ill-bred interruption. 
 
 " It was not quite the thing to cut you short in the middle 
 of your Newgate Calendar, Obed beg pardon, your story I 
 mean ; no offence now, none in the world eh 1 But where 
 the deuce, man, got you this fine linen of Egypt 1 " looking at 
 the sleeves of the shirt Obed had obliged me with, as I sat 
 without my coat. "I had not dreamt you had anything so 
 luxurious in your kit." 
 
 I saw his brow begin to lower again, so the devil prompted 
 me to advert, by way of changing the subject, to a file of news- 
 papers, which, as it turned out, might have proved to be by 
 far the most dangerous topic I could have hit upon. He had 
 laid them aside, having taken them out of the locker when he 
 was rummaging for the linen. " What have we here 1 King- 
 ston Chronicle, Montego Bay Gazette, Falmouth Advertiser. A 
 great newsmonger you must be. What arrivals 1 let me see ; 
 you know I am a week from headquarters. Let me see." 
 
 At first he made a motion, as if he would have snatched them 
 out of my hands, but speedily appeared to give up the idea, 
 merely murmuring, " What can it signify now ? " 
 
 I continued to read " Chanticleer from a cruise Tonnant 
 from Barbadoes Pique from Port-au-Prince. Oh, the next 
 interests me the Firebrand is daily expected from Havanna ; 
 she is to come through the Gulf, round Cape Antonio, and beat 
 up the haunts of the pirates all along the Cuba shore." I was 
 certain now that at the mention of this corvette mine host winced 
 in earnest. This made me anxious to probe him further. "Why, 
 what means this pencil mark ' Firebrand's number off the 
 Chesapeake was 1022 ] ' How the deuce, my fine fellow, do 
 you know that ] " 
 
 He shook his head, but said nothing, and I went on reading 
 the pencil memoranda " ' But this is most probably changed ; 
 she now carries a red cross in the head of her foresail, and has 
 very short lower masts, like the Hornet.'" Still he made me 
 no answer. I proceeded "Stop, let me see what merchant 
 ships are about sailing. ' Loading for Liverpool, the John Glad- 
 stone, Peter Pondeorus, master ;' " and after it again in pencil 
 "'Only sugar : goes through the Gulf.' Only sugar," said I,
 
 170 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 still fishing ; " too bulky, I suppose. ' Ariel, Jenkins, White- 
 haven;'" remark "'Sugar, coffee, and logwood.' 'Nuestra 
 Senora de los Dolores, to sail for Chagres on 7th proximo ; ' ' 
 remark " ' Rich cargo of bale goods, but no chance of over- 
 taking her.' ' El Rayo to sail for St Jago de Cuba on the 10th 
 proximo ; ' " remark " ' Sails fast ; armed with a long gun and 
 musketry ; thirty hands ; about ten Spanish passengers ; valu- 
 able cargo of dry goods ; mainmast rakes well aft ; new cloth 
 in the foresail about half-way up ; will be off the Moro about the 
 13th.' And what is this written in ink under the above? 
 ' The San Pedro from Chagres, and Marianita from Santa Martha, 
 although rich, have both got convoy.' Ah, too strong for your 
 friends, Obed I see, I see. 'Francis Baring, Loan French, 
 master' an odd name, rather, for a skipper : " remark "'Forty 
 seroons of cochineal and some specie ; is to sail from Morant 
 Bay on 5th proximo, to go through the windward passage ; may 
 be expected off Cape St Nicolas on the 12th, or thereby.' " I 
 laid down the paper and looked him full in the face. " Nicolas 
 is an ominous name. I fear the good ship Francis Baring will 
 find it so. Some of the worthy saint's clerks to be fallen in 
 with off the Mole, eh 1 Don't you think as I do, Obed ? " 
 Still silent. " Why, you seem to take great delight in noting 
 the intended departures and expected arrivals, my friend 
 merely to satisfy your curiosity, of course ; but, to come to close 
 quarters with you, captain, I now know pretty well the object 
 of your visiting Jamaica now and then ; you are indeed no 
 vulgar smuggler." 
 
 " It is well for you and good for myself, Mr Cringle, that 
 something weighs heavy at my heart at this moment, and that 
 there is that about you which, notwithstanding your ill-timed 
 jesting, commands my respect and engages my good- will had it 
 not been so, you would have been alongside of poor Paul at this 
 moment." He leant his arms upon the table, and gazed in- 
 tensely on my face, as he continued in a solemn tremulous tone 
 " Do you believe in auguries, Mr Cringle ? Do you believe 
 that 'coming events cast their shadows before?'" Oh, that 
 little Wiggy Campbell had been beside me, to have seen the 
 figure and face of the man who now quoted him ! 
 
 " Yes, I do ; it is part of the creed of every sailor to do so ; 
 I do believe that people have had forewarnings of peril to them- 
 selves or their friends." 
 
 " Then what do you think of the mate beckoning me with 
 his dead hand to follow him 1 "
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 171 
 
 " Why, you are raving, Obed ; you saw that he had been 
 much convulsed, and that the limb, from the contraction of the 
 sinews, was forcibly kept down in the position it broke loose 
 from the spunyarn gave way, and of course it started up 
 nothing wonderful in all this, although it did at the time some- 
 what startle me, I confess." 
 
 " It may be so, it may be so ; I don't know," rejoined he, 
 
 " but taken along with what I saw before " Here his voice 
 
 sank into so hollow and sepulchral a tone as to be almost unin- 
 telligible. "But there is no use in arguing on the subject. 
 Answer me this, Lieutenant Cringle, and truly, so help you God 
 at your utmost need, Did the mate leave the cabin at any mo- 
 ment after I was wounded by the splinter ? " And he seized 
 one of my hands convulsively with his iron paw, while he pointed 
 up through the open scuttle towards heaven with the other, 
 which trembled like a reed. The moon shone strong on the 
 upper part of his countenance, while the yellow smoky glare of 
 the candle over which he bent, blending harshly and unharmo- 
 niously with the pale silver light, fell full on his uncouth figure, 
 and on his long scraggy bare neck and chin and cheeks, giving 
 altogether a most unearthly expression to his savage features, 
 from the conflicting tints and changing shadows cast by the 
 flickering moonbeams streaming fitfufly through the skylight on 
 the one hand, as the vessel rolled to and fro, and by the large 
 torch-like candle on the other, as it wavered in the night wind. 
 The Prince of the Powers of the Air might have sat for his 
 picture by proxy. It was just such a face as one has dreamed of 
 after a hot supper and cold ale, when the whisky had been for- 
 gotten horrible, changing, vague, glimmering, and undefined ; 
 and as if something was still wanting to complete the utter 
 frightfulness of his aspect, the splinter wound in his head burst 
 afresh from his violent agitation, and streamed down in heavy 
 drops from his forehead, falling warm on my hand. I was much 
 shaken at being adjured in this tremendous way, with the hot 
 blood glueing our hands together, but I returned his grasp as- 
 steadily as I could, while I replied, with all the composure 
 he had left me, and that would not have quite filled a Win- 
 chester bushel 
 
 " He never left my side from the time he offered to take your 
 place after you had been wounded." 
 
 He fell back against the locker as if he had been shot through 
 the heart ; his grasp relaxed, he drew his breath very hard, and 
 I thought he had fainted.
 
 172 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Then it was not him that stood by me ; I thought it might 
 have been him, but I was a fool, it was impossible." 
 
 He made a desperate effort to recover his composure, and 
 succeeded. 
 
 " And, pray, Master Obediah," quoth I, " what did you 
 see?" 
 
 He answered me sharply " Never mind, never mind here, 
 Potomac, lend us a hand to sling a cot for this gentleman ; 
 there now, see the lanyard is sound, and the lacing all tight and 
 snug ; now, put that mattress into it, and there is linen in the 
 chest." 
 
 In a trice my couch was rigged, all comfortable, snow-white 
 linen, nice pillow, soft mattress, &c., and Obed, filling me an- 
 other tumbler, helped himself also ; he then drank to my health, 
 wished me a sound sleep, promised to call me at daylight, and, 
 as he left the cabin, he said, "Mr Cringle, had it been my object 
 to have injured you, I would not have waited until now. You 
 are quite safe, so far as depends on me, so take your rest good 
 night, once more." 
 
 I tumbled into bed, and never once opened my eyes until 
 Obed called me at daylight, that is, at five in the morning, ac- 
 cording to his promise. 
 
 By this time we were well in with the Cuba shore ; the land 
 might be two miles from us, as we could see the white surf. 
 Out at sea, although all around was clear as crystal, there was 
 nothing to be seen of the Gleam or Firebrand, but there were 
 ten or twelve fishing canoes, each manned with from four to six 
 hands, close aboard of us ; we seemed to have got becalmed in 
 the middle of a small fleet of them. The nearest to us hailed 
 in Spanish, in a very friendly way. 
 
 " Como estamos capitan, que hay de nuevo ; hay algo de 
 bueno, para los pobres Pescadores ? " and the fellow who had 
 spoken laughed loudly. 
 
 . The captain desired him to come on board, and then drew 
 him aside, conversing earnestly with him. The Spanish fisher- 
 man was a very powerful man ; he was equipped in a blue cot- 
 ton shirt, Osnaburg trousers, sandals of untanned bullock's hide, 
 a straw hat, and wore the eternal greasy red sash and long knife. 
 He was a bold, daring-looking fellow, and frequently looked 
 frowningly on me, and shook his head impatiently, while the 
 captain, as it seemed, was explaining to him who I was. Just 
 in this nick of time my friend Potomac handed up my uniform 
 coat (I had previously been performing my ablutions on deck in
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 173 
 
 my shirt and trousers), which I put on, swab and all, thinking 
 no harm. But there must have been mighty great offence, 
 nevertheless, for the fisherman, in a twinkling, casting a fierce 
 look at me, jumped overboard like a feather, clearing the rail 
 like a flying-fish, and swam to his canoe, that had shoved off a 
 few paces. 
 
 When he got on board he stood up and shook his clenched 
 fist at Obed, shouting, "Picaro, traidor, Ingleses hay abordo, 
 quieres enganarnos ! " He then held up the blade of his paddle, 
 a signal which all the canoes answered in a moment in the same 
 manner, and then pulled towards the land, from whence a felucca, 
 invisible until that moment, now swept out, as if she had floated 
 up to the surface by magic, for I could neither see creek nor 
 indentation on the shore, nor the smallest symptom of any 
 entrance to a port or cove. For a few minutes the canoes clus- 
 tered round this necromantic craft, and I could notice that two 
 or three hands from each of them jumped on board ; they then 
 paddled off in a string, and vanished one by one amongst the 
 mangrove bushes as suddenly as the felucca had appeared. All 
 this puzzled me exceedingly I looked at Obed he was evi- 
 dently sorely perplexed. 
 
 " I had thought to have put you on board a British vessel 
 before this, or, failing that, to have run down and landed you at 
 St Jago, Mr Cringle, as I promised ; but you see I am prevented 
 by these honest men there. Get below, and as you value your 
 life, and I may say mine, keep your temper, and be civiL" 
 
 I did as he suggested, but peeped out of the cabin skylight 
 to see what was going on, notwithstanding. The felucca was 
 armed with a heavy carronade on a pivot, and as full of men as 
 she could hold fierce, half-naked, savage-looking fellows ; she 
 swept rapidly up to us, and closing on our larboard quarter, 
 threw about five-and-twenty of her genteel young people on 
 board, who immediately secured the crew, and seized Obed. 
 However, they, that is the common sailors, seemed to have no 
 great stomach for the job, and had it not been for the fellow I 
 had frightened overboard, I don't think one of them would have 
 touched him. Obed bore all this with great equanimity. 
 
 " Why, Francisco," he said to this personage, in good Spanish, 
 " why, what madness is this 1 your suspicions are groundless ; it 
 is as I tell you, he is my prisoner, and whatever he may have 
 been to me, he can be no spy on you." 
 
 " Cuchillo entonces," was the savage reply. 
 
 " No, no," persisted Obediah, " get cool, man, get cool ; I am
 
 174 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 pledged that no harm shall come to him ; and further, I have 
 promised to put him ashore at St Jago, and I will be as good 
 as my word." 
 
 " You can't if you would," rejoined Francisco ; " the Snake is 
 at anchor under the Moro." 
 
 " Then he must go with us." 
 
 "We shall see as to that," said the other; then raising his 
 voice, he shouted to his ragamuffins, " Comrades, we are be- 
 trayed ; there is an English officer on board, who can be nothing 
 but a spy ; follow me ! " 
 
 And he dashed down the companion ladder, knife in hand, 
 while I sprang through the small scuttle, like a rat out of one 
 hole when a ferret is put in at the other, and crept as close to 
 Obed as I could. Francisco, when he missed me, came on deck 
 again. The captain had now seized a cutlass in one hand, and 
 held a cocked pistol in the other. It appeared he had greater 
 control, the nature of which I now began to comprehend, over 
 the felucca's people than Francisco bargained for, for at the mo- 
 ment the latter went below, they released Mm, and went forward 
 in a body. My persecutor again advanced close up to me, seized 
 me by the collar with one hand, and tried to drag me forward, 
 brandishing his naked knife aloft in the other. 
 
 Obed stuck his pistol in his belt, and promptly caught his 
 sword-arm ; " Francisco," he exclaimed, still in Spanish, " fool, 
 madman, let go your hold ! let go, or by the heaven above us, 
 and the hell we are both hastening to, I will strike you dead ! " 
 
 The man paused, and looked round to his own people, and 
 seeing one or two encouraging glances and gestures amongst 
 them, he again attempted to drag me away from my hold on 
 the taffrail. Something flashed in the sun and the man fell ! 
 His left arm, the hand of which still clutched my throat, while 
 mine grasped its wrist, had been shred from his body by Obed's 
 cutlass, like a twig ; and, O God, my blood curdles to my heart 
 even now when I think of it ! the dead fingers kept the grasp 
 sufficiently long to allow the arm to fall heavily against my 
 side, where it hung for a second, until the muscles relaxed, and 
 it dropped on the deck. The instant that Obed struck the blow, 
 he caught hold of my hand, threw away his cutlass, and advanced 
 towards the group of the felucca's men, pistol in hand. 
 
 " Am I not your captain, ye cowards have I ever deceived 
 you yet have I ever flinched from heading you where the dan- 
 ger was greatest have you not all that I am worth in your 
 hands, and will you murder me now 1 ? "
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 175 
 
 " Viva, el noble capitan, viva ! " 
 
 And the tide turned as rapidly in our favour as it had lately 
 ebbed against us. 
 
 " As for that scoundrel, he has got no more than he deserves," 
 said he, turning to where Francisco lay, bleeding like a carcass 
 in the shambles ; " but tie up his arm, some of ye, I would be 
 sorry he bled to death." 
 
 It was unavailing the large arteries had emptied his whole 
 life-blood he had already gone to his account. 
 
 This most miserable transaction, with all its concomitant 
 horrors, to my astonishment, did not seem to make much im- 
 pression on Obed, who now, turning to me, said, with perfect 
 composure 
 
 "You have there another melancholy voucher for my sin- 
 cerity," pointing to the body ; " but time presses, and you must 
 now submit to be blindfolded, and that without further explan- 
 ation at present." 
 
 I did so with the best grace I could, and was led below, where 
 two beauties, with loaded pistols and a drawn knife each, obliged 
 me with their society, one seated on each side of me on the small 
 locker, like two deputy butchers ready to operate on an unfor- 
 tunate veal. It had now fallen dead calm, and from what I 
 heard, I conjectured that the felucca was sweeping in towards 
 the land with us in tow, for the sound of the surf grew louder 
 and louder. By-and-by we seemed to slide beyond the long 
 smooth swell into broken water, for the little vessel pitched 
 sharp and suddenly, and again all was still, and we seemed to 
 have sailed into some land-locked cove. From the loud echo of 
 the voices on deck, I judged that we were in a narrow canal, the 
 banks of which were reflecting the sound ; presently this ceased, 
 and although we skimmed along as motionless as before, I no 
 longer heard the splash of the felucca's sweeps ; the roar of the 
 sea gradually died away, until it sounded like distant thunder, 
 and J[ thought we touched the ground now and then, although 
 slightly. All at once the Spanish part of the crew for we still 
 had a number of the felucca's people with us sang out " Palan- 
 ka," and we began to pole along a narrow marshy lagoon, coming 
 so near the shore occasionally, that our sides were brushed by 
 the branches of the mangrove bushes. Again the channel seemed 
 to widen, and I could hear the felucca once more ply her sweeps. 
 In about ten minutes after this the anchor was let go, and for a 
 quarter of an hour nothing was heard on deck but the bustle 
 of the people furling sails, coiling down the ropes, and getting
 
 176 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 everything in order, as is usual in coming into port. It was 
 evident that several boats had boarded us soon after we anchored, 
 as I could make out part of the greetings between the strangers 
 and Obed, in which my own name recurred more than once. In 
 a little while all was still again, and Obed called down the com- 
 panion to my guards, that I might come on deck a boon I was 
 not long in availing myself of. 
 
 We were anchored nearly in the centre of a shallow swampy 
 lagoon, about a mile across, as near as I could judge ; two very 
 large schooners, heavily armed, were moored ahead of us one 
 on each bow and another, rather smaller, lay close under our 
 stern ; they all had sails bent, and everything apparently in 
 high order, and were full of men. The shore, to the distance 
 of t a bow-shot from the water all around us, was low, marshy, 
 and covered with an impervious jungle of thick strong reeds and 
 wild canes, with here and there a thicket of mangroves ; a little 
 farther off, the land swelled into lofty hills, covered to the very 
 summit with heavy timber, but everything had a moist, green, 
 steamy appearance, as if it had been the region of perpetual 
 rain. " Lots of yellow fever here," thought I, as the heavy rank 
 smell of decayed vegetable matter came off, on the faint sickly 
 breeze, and the sluggish fog-banks crept along the dull clay- 
 coloured motionless surface of the tepid water. The sea view 
 was quite shut out; I looked all round and could discern no 
 vestige of the entrance. Right ahead there was about a furlong 
 of land cleared at the only spot which one could call a beach, 
 that is, a hard shore of sand and pebbles. Had you tried to 
 get ashore at any other point your fate would have been that 
 of the Master of Ravenswood as fatal, that is, without the 
 gentility ; for you would have been suffocated in black mud in 
 place of clean sea-sand. There was a long shed in the centre 
 of this cleared spot, covered in with boards, and thatched with 
 palm leaves ; it was open below, a sort of capstan-house, where 
 a vast quantity of sails, anchors, cordage, and most kind^s of 
 sea-stores, were stowed, carefully covered over with tarpauling. 
 Overhead there was a flooring laid along the couples of the roof, 
 the whole length of the shed, forming a loft of nearly sixty feet 
 long, divided by bulkheads into a variety of apartments, lit by 
 small rude windows in the thatch, where the crews of the vessels, 
 I concluded, were occasionally lodged during the time they might 
 be under repair. The boat was manned, and Obed took me 
 ashore with him. 
 
 We landed near the shed I have described, beneath which we
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 177 
 
 encountered about forty of the most uncouth and ferocious- 
 looking rascals that my eyes had ever been blessed withal ; they 
 were of every shade, from the woolly negro and long-haired 
 Indian, to the sallow American and fair Biscayan ; and as they 
 intermitted their various occupations of mending sails, fitting 
 and stretching rigging, splicing ropes, making spun-yarn, cooper- 
 ing gun-carriages, grinding pikes and cutlasses, and filling cart- 
 ridges, to look at me, they grinned and nodded to each other, 
 and made sundry signs and gestures which made me regret many 
 a past peccadillo that in more prosperous times I little thought 
 on or repented of, and I internally prayed that I might be pre- 
 pared to die as became a man, for my fate appeared to be sealed. 
 The only ray of hope that shot into my mind, through all this 
 gloom, came from the respect the thieves, one and all, paid the 
 captain ; and, as I had reaped the benefit of assuming an out- 
 ward recklessness and daring, which I really did not at heart 
 possess, I screwed myself up to maintain the same port still, and 
 swaggered along, jabbering in my broken Spanish, right and 
 left, and jesting even with the most infamous-looking scoundrels 
 of the whole lot, while, God he knows, my heart was palpitating 
 like a girl's when she is asked to be married. Obed led the way 
 up a ladder into the loft, where we found several messes at 
 dinner ; and, passing through various rooms, in which a number 
 of hammocks were slung, we at length arrived at the eastern end, 
 which was boarded off into an apartment eighteen or twenty feet 
 square, lighted by a small port-hole in the end, about ten feet 
 from the ground. I could see several huts from this window, built 
 just on the edge of the high wood, where some of the country 
 people seemed to be moving about, and round which a large 
 flock of pigs and from twenty to thirty bullocks were grazing. 
 All beyond, as far as the eye could reach, was one continuous 
 forest, without any vestige of a living thing ; not even a thin 
 wreath of blue smoke evinced the presence of a fellow-creature ; 
 I seemed to be hopelessly cut off from all succour, and my heart 
 again died within me. 
 
 " I am sorry to say you must consider yourself a prisoner here 
 for a few days," said Obed. 
 
 I could only groan. 
 
 " But the moment the coast is clear, I will be as good as my 
 word, and land you at St Jago." 
 
 I groaned again. The man was moved. 
 
 " I would I could do so sooner," he continued ; " but you see 
 by how precarious a tenure I hold my control over these people ;
 
 178 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 therefore I must be cautious, for your sake as well as my own, 
 or they would make little of murdering both of us, especially as 
 the fellow who "would have cut your throat this morning has 
 many friends amongst them ; above all, I dare not leave them 
 for any purpose for some days. I must recover my seat, in 
 which, by the necessary severity you witnessed, I have been 
 somewhat shaken. So good-by; there is cold meat in that 
 locker, and some claret to wash it down with. Don't, I again 
 warn you, venture out during the afternoon or night. I will be 
 with you betimes in the morning. So good-by so long. Your 
 cot, you see, is ready slung." 
 
 He turned to depart, when, as if recollecting himself, he 
 stooped down, and taking hold of a ring, he lifted up a trap-door, 
 from which there was a ladder leading down to the capstan- 
 house. 
 
 " I had forgotten this entrance ; it will be more convenient 
 for me in my visits." 
 
 In my heart I believe he intended this as a hint that I should 
 escape through the hole at some quiet opportunity ; and he was 
 descending the ladder, when he stopped and looked round, 
 greatly mortified, as it struck me. 
 
 " I forgot to mention that a sentry has been placed, I don't 
 know by whose orders, at the foot of the ladder, to whom I 
 must give orders to fire at you, if you venture to descend. You 
 see how the land lies : I can't help it." 
 
 This was spoken in a low tone, then aloud " There are books 
 on that shelf behind the canvass screen ; if you can settle to 
 them, they may amuse you." 
 
 He left me, and I sat down disconsolate enough. I found 
 some Spanish books, and a volume of Lord Byron's poetry, con- 
 taining the first canto of Childe Harold, two numbers of Black- 
 wood, and several other English books and magazines, the names 
 of the owners on all of them being carefully erased. 
 
 But there was nothing else that indicated the marauding life 
 of friend Obediah, whose apartment I conjectured was now my 
 prison, if I except a pretty extensive assortment of arms, pistols, 
 and cutlasses, and a range of massive cases, with iron clamps, 
 which were ranged along one side of the room. I paid my re- 
 spects to the provender and claret ; the hashed chicken was par- 
 ticularly good; bones rather large or so, but flesh white and 
 delicate. Had I known that I was dining upon a guana, or 
 large wood lizard, I scarcely think I would have made so hearty 
 a meal. Long cork, No. 2, followed ditto, No. 1 ; and as the
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 179 
 
 shades of evening, as poets say, began to fall by the time I had 
 finished it, I toppled quietly into my cot, said my prayers, such 
 as they were, and fell asleep. 
 
 It must have been towards morning, from the damp freshness 
 of the air that came through the open window, when I was 
 roused by the howling of a dog, a sound which always moves 
 me. I shook myself, but before I was thoroughly awake, it 
 ceased ; it appeared to have been close under my window. 
 
 I was turning to go to sleep again, when a female, in a small 
 suppressed voice, sung the following snatch of a vulgar Port 
 Royal ditty, which I scarcely forgive myself for introducing here 
 to polite society : 
 
 " Young hofficer come home at night, 
 
 Him gave me ring and kisses ; 
 Nine months, one picaniny white, 
 
 Him white almost like missis. 
 But missis fum* my back wid switch, 
 
 Him say de shild for massa ; 
 But massa say him " 
 
 The singer broke off suddenly, as if disturbed by the approach 
 of some one. 
 
 " Hush, hush, you old foolish " said a man's voice, in the 
 
 same low whispering tone ; " you will waken de dronken sentry 
 dere, when we shall all be put in iron. Hush, he will know my 
 voice more better." 
 
 It was now clear that some one wished to attract my attention ; 
 besides, I had a dreamy recollection of having heard both the 
 male and female voices before. I listened, therefore, all alive. 
 The man began to sing in the same low tone : 
 
 " Newfoundland dog love him master de morest 
 
 Of all de dog ever I see ; 
 
 Let him starve him, and kick him, and cuff him de sorest, 
 Difference none never makee to he. " 
 
 There was a pause for a minute or two. 
 
 "It no use," the same voice continued; " him either no dere, 
 or he won't hear us." 
 
 " Stop," said the female, " stop ; woman head good for some- 
 ting. I know who he shall hear. Here, good dog, sing psalm ; 
 good dog, sing psalm," and thereupon a long loud melancholy 
 howl rose wailing through the night air. 
 
 " If that be not my dear old dog Sneezer, it is a deuced good 
 imitation of him," thought I. 
 
 The woman again spoke " Youl leetle piece more, good dog," 
 and the howl was repeated. 
 
 * Fum Flog.
 
 180 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 I was now certain. By this time I had risen and stood at 
 the open window; but it was too dark to see anything dis- 
 tinctly below. I could barely distinguish two dark figures, 
 and what I concluded was the dog sitting on end between 
 them. 
 
 " Who are you 1 what do you want with me I " 
 
 " Speak softly, massa, speak softly, or de sentry may hear us, 
 for all de rum I give him." 
 
 Here the dog recognised me, and nearly spoiled sport alto- 
 gether ; indeed it might have cost us our lives, for he began to 
 bark and frisk about, and to leap violently against the end of 
 the capstan-house, in vain endeavours to reach the window. 
 
 " Down, Sneezer, down, sir ; you used to be a dog of some 
 sense; down." 
 
 But Sneezer's joy had capsized his discretion, and the sound 
 of my voice pronouncing his name drove him mad altogether, 
 and he bounded against the end of the shed, like a battering- 
 ram. 
 
 " Stop, man, stop," and I held down the bight of my neck- 
 cloth, with an end in each hand. He retired, took a noble run, 
 and in a trice hooked his forepaws in the handkerchief, and I 
 hauled him in at the window. " Now, Sneezer, down with you, 
 sir, down with you, or your rampaging will get all our throats 
 cut." He cowered at my feet, and was still as a lamb from that 
 moment. I stepped to the window. " Now, who are you, and 
 what do you want 1 " said I. 
 
 " Ah, massa, you no know me 1 " 
 
 " How the devil should I ? Don't you see it is as dark as 
 pitch?" 
 
 " Well, massa, I will tell you ; it is me, massa." 
 
 " I make no great doubt of that ; but who may you be ? " 
 
 " Lord, you are de foolis person now; make me talk to him," 
 said the female. " Massa, never mind he, dat stupid fellow is 
 my husband, and surely massa know mef" 
 
 " Now, my very worthy friends, I think you want to make 
 yourselves known to me ; and if so, pray have the goodness to 
 tell me your names, that is, if I can in any way serve you." 
 
 " To be sure you can, massa ; for dat purpose I come here." 
 
 The woman hooked the word out of his mouth. " Yes, massa, 
 you must know me as Nancy, and dat old stupid is my husband, 
 Peter Mangrove, him who 
 
 Here Peter chimed in " Yes, massa, Peter Mangrove is de 
 person you have de honour to address, and " here he lowered
 
 CUBA FISHEEMEN. 181 
 
 his voice still more, although the whole dialogue from the com- 
 mencement had been conducted in no higher tone than a loud 
 whisper " we have secured one big large canoe, near de mout 
 of dis dam hole, which, wid your help, I tink we shall be able 
 to launch troo de surf ; and once in smoot water, den no fear 
 but we shall run down de coast safely before de wind till we 
 reach St Jago." 
 
 My heart jumped against my ribs. Here's an unexpected 
 chance, thought I. " But, Peter, how, in the name of mumbo 
 jumbo, came you here?" 
 
 ' Why, massa, you do forget a leetle, dat I am a Creole negro, 
 and not a naked tatooed African, whose exploits, dat is de won- 
 derful ting him never do in him's own country, him get em- 
 broidered and pinked in gunpowder on him breech; beside, I 
 am a Christian gentleman like youshef ; so d n mumbo jumbo, 
 Massa Cringle." 
 
 I saw where I had erred. " So say I, Peter, d n mumbo 
 jumbo particularly ; but how came you here, man 1 tell me 
 that." 
 
 " Why, massa, I was out in de pilot-boat schooner, wid my 
 wife here, and five more hands, waiting for de outward bound, 
 tinking no harm, when dem piratical rascal catch we, and carry 
 us off. Yankee privateer bad enough ; but who ever hear of 
 pilot being carry off? blasphemy dat carry off pilot ! Who 
 ever dream of such a ting 1 ? every shivilized peoples respect 
 pilot! oh Lord" and he groaned in spirit for several seconds. 
 
 " And the dog ] " inquired I. 
 
 " Oh, massa, I could not leave him at home ; and since you 
 was good enough to board him wid us, he has messed wid us, 
 ay and slept wid us ; and when we started last, although he 
 showed some dislike at going on board, I had only to say, 
 Sneezer, we go look for you massa ; and he make such a bound 
 dat he capsize my old woman dere, heel over head ; oh dear, 
 what display, Nancy, you was exhibit ! " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Peter ; you hab no decency, you old 
 willain." 
 
 " Well, but, Peter, speak out ; when are we to make the 
 attempt ] where are the rest of your crew ? " 
 
 " Oh dear ! oh dear ! dat is de worstest ; oh dear ! " and he 
 began to cry and sob like the veriest child. " Oh, massa " 
 after he had somewhat recovered himself ; " Oh, massa, dese 
 people debils. Why, de make all de oder on board walk de 
 plank, wid two ten-pound shot, one at each foot. Oh, if you
 
 182 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 had seen de clear shining blue skin, as de became leetle and 
 leetle, and more leetler, down far in de clear green sea ! Oh 
 dear ! oh dear ! Only to tink dat each wavering black spot was 
 fellow-creature like one-shef, wid de heart's blood warm in his 
 bosom at de very instant of time we lost sight of him for 
 ever ! " 
 
 " God bless me," said I ; " and how did you escape, and the 
 black dog, and the black ahem beg pardon your wife I 
 mean ; how were you spared ] " 
 
 " Ah, massa ! I can't say ; but bad as de were, de seemed to 
 have a liking for brute beasts, so dem save Sneezer, and my 
 wife, and myshef ; we were de only quadrupeds saved out of de 
 whole crew Oh dear ! oh dear ! " 
 
 " Well, well ; I know enough now. I will spare you the pain 
 of any further recital, Peter ; so tell me what I am to do." 
 
 " Stop, massa, till I see if de sentry be still sound. I know 
 de fellow, he was one on dem ; let me see" and I heard him 
 through the loose flooring boards walk to the foot of the trap 
 ladder leading up to my berth. The soliloquy that followed 
 was very curious of its kind. The negro had excited himself 
 by a recapitulation of the cruelties exercised on his unfortunate 
 shipmates, and the unwarrantable caption of himself and rib a 
 deed that in the nautical calendar would rank in atrocity with 
 the murder of a herald or the bearer of a flag of truce. He 
 kept murmuring to himself, as he groped about in the dark for 
 the sentry " Catch pilot ! who ever hear of such a ting ? I 
 suppose dem would have pull down lighthouse, if dere had been 
 any for pull Where is dis sentry rascal 1 him surely no sober 
 yet?" 
 
 The sentry had fallen asleep as he leant back on the ladder, 
 and had gradually slid down into a sitting position, with his 
 head leaning against one of the steps, as he reclined with his 
 back towards it, thus exposing his throat and neck to the grop- 
 ing paw of the black pilot. 
 
 "Ah here him is, snoring heavy as my Nancy well, dronk 
 still ; no fear of him overhearing we nice position him lie in 
 quite convenient could cut his troat now slice him like a 
 pumpkin de debil is surely busy wid me, Peter. I find de wery 
 clasp-knife in my starboard pocket beginning to open of him- 
 shef." 
 
 I tapped on the floor with my foot. 
 
 " Ah, tank you, Massa Tom -de debil nearly get we all in a 
 scrape just now. However, I see him is quite sound de sentry
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 183 
 
 dat is, for de oder never sleep, you know." He had again come 
 under the window. " Now, lieutenant, in two word, to-morrow 
 night at two bells, in de middle watch, I will be here, and we 
 shall make a start of it ; will you venture, sir 1 " 
 
 " Will 1 1 to be sure I will ; but why not now, Peter ? why 
 not now 1 " 
 
 " Ah, massa, you no smell de daylight ; near daybreak already, 
 sir. Can't make try dis night, but to-morrow night I shall be 
 here punctual." 
 
 " Very well, but the dog, man 1 If he be found in my quar- 
 ters, we shall be blown, and I scarcely think he will leave 
 me." 
 
 " Garamighty ! true enough, massa ! what is to be done ? De 
 people know de dog was catch wid me, and if he be found wid 
 you, den de will sospect we communication togidder. What is 
 to be done ? " 
 
 I was myself not a little perplexed, when Nancy whispered, 
 " De dog have more sense den many Christian person. Tell 
 him he must go wid us dis one night, no tell him dis night, else 
 him won't ; say dis one night, and dat if him don't, we shall all 
 be deaded ; try him, massa." 
 
 I had benefited by more extraordinary hints before now, 
 although, well as I knew the sagacity of the poor brute, I could 
 not venture to hope it would come up to the expectations of Mrs 
 Mangrove. But I'll try. " Here, Sneezer, here, my boy ; you 
 must go home with Peter to-night, or we shall all get into a 
 deuced mess ; so here, my boy, here is the bight of the hand- 
 kerchief again, and through the window you must go ; come, 
 Sneezer, come." 
 
 To my great joy and surprise, the poor dumb beast rose from 
 where he had coiled himself at my feet, and after having actually 
 embraced me, by putting his fore paws on my shoulders, as he 
 stood on his hind legs, and licked my face from ear to ear, utter- 
 ing a low, fondling, nuzzling sort of whine, like a nurse caress- 
 ing a child, he at once leapt on the window sill, put his fore 
 paws through the handkerchief, and was dropped to the ground 
 again. I could immediately perceive the two dark figures of the 
 pilot and his wife, followed by the dog, glide away as noiselessly 
 as if they had been spirits of the night, until they were lost 
 under the shade of the thick jungle. 
 
 I turned in, and what will not youth and fatigue do 1 I 
 fell once more fast asleep, and never opened my eyes until Obed 
 shook me in my cot about eight o'clock in the morning.
 
 184 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Good morning, lieutenant. I have sent up your breakfast, 
 but you don't seem inclined to eat it." 
 
 " Don't you believe it, my dear Obed. I have been sound 
 asleep till this moment ; only stop till I have slipped on my 
 those shoes, if you please thank you waistcoatthat will do. 
 Now coffee, fish, yams, and plantains, and biscuit, white as 
 snow, and short as and eggs and zounds ! claret to finish 
 with 1 Why, Obed, you surely don't desire that I should enjoy 
 all these delicacies in solitary blessedness 1 " 
 
 " Why, I intend to breakfast with you, if my society be not 
 disagreeable." 
 
 " Disagreeable ! Not in the least, quite the contrary. That 
 black grouper looks remarkably beautiful Another piece of 
 yam, if you please. Shall I fill you a cup of coffee, Obed ? For 
 my own part, I always stow the ground tier of my cargo dry, 
 and then take a top-dressing. Write this down as an approved 
 axiom with all thorough breakfast-eaters. Why, man, you are 
 off your feed ; what are you turning up your ear for, in that in- 
 comprehensible fashion, like a duck in thunder ? A little of the 
 claret thank you. The very best butter I have ever eaten out 
 of Ireland now, some of that avocado pear and as for biscuit, 
 Leman never came up to it. I say, man, hillo, where are you ? 
 rouse ye out of your brown study, man." 
 
 " Did you hear that, Mr Cringle ? " 
 
 " Hear what 1 I heard nothing," rejoined I ; " but hand me 
 over that land-crab. Thank you, and you may send the spawl 
 of that creeping thing along with it ; that guana. I had a dis- 
 like to eating a lizard at first, but I have got over it somehow ; 
 and a thin slice of ham, a small taste of the unclean beast, 
 Obed peach-fed, I'll warrant." 
 
 There was a pause. The report of a great gun came booming 
 along, reverberated from side to side of the lagoon, the echoes 
 growing shorter and shorter, and weaker and weaker, until 
 they growled themselves asleep in a hollow rumble like distant 
 thunder. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! Dick Gasket for a thousand ! Old Blowhard has 
 stuck in your skirts, Master Obed but, Lord help me, man ! 
 let us finish our breakfast ; he wont be here this half hour." 
 
 I expected to see mine host's forehead lowering like a thunder 
 cloud from my ill-timed funning ; but to my surprise, his coun- 
 tenance exhibited more amenity than I thought had been in the 
 nature of the beast, as he replied, 
 
 " Why, lieutenant, the felucca put to sea last night, to keep
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 185 
 
 a bright look-out at the mouth of our cove here. I suppose 
 that is him overhauling some vessel." 
 
 " It may be so ; hush ! there's another gun Two! " 
 
 Obed changed countenance at the double report. 
 
 " I say, Obed, the felucca did not carry more than one gun 
 when I saw her, and she has had no time to load and fire again." 
 
 He did not answer a word, but continued, with a piece of 
 guana on the end of his fork in one hand, and a cup of coffee 
 in the other, as if he had been touched by the wand of a magi- 
 cian. Presently we heard one or two dropping shots, quickly 
 thickening into a rattle of musketry. He threw down his food, 
 picked up his hat, and trundled down-stairs, as if the devil had 
 kicked him. " Pedro que hay ? " I could hear him say to some 
 one below, who appeared to have arrived in great haste, for he 
 gasped for breath 
 
 " Aqui viene la felucha," answered Pedro ; " perseguido por 
 dos lanchas canoneras llenas de gente." 
 
 " Abordo entonces, abordo todo el mundo : arma, anna, aqui 
 vienen los Engleses ; arma, arma ! " 
 
 And all from that instant was a regular hillabaloo. The 
 drums on board the schooners beat to quarters, a great bell, for- 
 merly the ornament of some goodly ship, no doubt, which had 
 been slung in the fork of a tree, clanged away at a furious rate, 
 the crews were hurrying to and fro, shouting to each other in 
 Creole Spanish and Yankee English, while every cannon-shot 
 from the felucca or the boat-guns came louder and louder, and the 
 small-arms peppered away sharper and sharper. The shouts of 
 the men engaged, both friends and foes, were now heard, and I 
 could hear Obed's voice on board the largest schooner, which 
 lay full in view from my window, giving orders, not only to his 
 own crew, but to those of the others. I heard him distinctly 
 sing out, after ordering them to haul upon the spring on his 
 cable, " Now, men, I need not tell you to fight bravely, for if you 
 are taken every devil of you will be hanged, so hoist away the 
 signal," and a small black ball flew up through the rigging, until 
 it reached the maintopgallant-masthead of the schooner, where 
 it hung a moment, and in the next blew out in a large black 
 swallow-tailed flag, like a commodore's broad pennant. 
 
 " Now," shrieked he, " let me see who dares give in with this 
 voucher for his honesty flying aloft ! " 
 
 I twisted and craned myself out of the window, to get a view 
 of what was going on elsewhere ; however, I could see nothing 
 but Obed's large schooner from it, all the other craft were out
 
 186 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of the range of my eye, being hid by the projecting roof of the 
 shed. The noise continued the shouting rose higher than ever 
 the other schooners opened their fire, both cannon and musketry ; 
 and from the increasing vehemence of the Spanish exclamations, 
 and the cheering on board Obed's vessels, I concluded the attack- 
 ing party were having the worst of it. My dog Sneezer now 
 came jumping and scrambling up the trap-stair, his paws slipping 
 between the bars at every step, his mouth wide open, and his 
 tongue hanging out, while he barked, and yelled, and gasped to 
 get at me, as if his life depended on it. After him I could see 
 the round woolly pate of Peter Mangrove, Esquire, as excited 
 apparently as the dog, and as anxious to get up ; but they got 
 jammed together in a small hatch, and stuck there, man and 
 beast. At length Peter spoke 
 
 " Now, sir, now ! Nancy has run on before to de beach wid 
 two paddles ; now for it, now for it." 
 
 Down trundled master and dog and pilot. By this time there 
 was no one in the lower part of the shed, which was full of 
 smoke, while the infernal tumult on the water still raged as 
 furiously as ever the shot of all sorts and sizes hissing and 
 splashing and ricochetting along the smooth surface of the 
 harbour, as if there had been a sleet of musket and cannon balls 
 and grape. Peter struck out at the top of his speed, Sneezer 
 and I followed. We soon reached the jungle, dashed through a 
 path that had been recently cleared with a cutlass or billhook, 
 for the twigs were freshly shred, and in about ten minutes 
 reached the high wood. However, no rest for the wicked, 
 although the row seemed lessening now. 
 
 " Some one has got the worst of it," said I. 
 
 " Never mind, massa," quoth Peter, " or we shan't get de 
 betterest ourshef." 
 
 And away we galloped again, until I had scarcely a rag an inch 
 square on my back, or anywhere else, and my skin was torn in 
 pieces by the prickly bushes and spear-grass. The sound of 
 firing now ceased entirely, although there was still loud shouting 
 now and then. 
 
 " Push on, massa dem will soon miss we." 
 
 " True enough, Peter but what is that 1 " as we came to a 
 bundle of clouts walloping about in the morass. 
 
 " De debil it must be, I tink," said the pilot. " No, my Nancy 
 it is, sticking in the mud up to her waist ; what shall us do 1 
 you tink, massa, we hab time for can stop to pick she out ] " 
 
 " Heaven have mercy, Peter yes, unquestionably."
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 187 
 
 " Well, massa, you know best." 
 
 So we tugged at the sable heroine, and first one leg came home 
 out of the tenacious clay, with a plop, then the other was drawn 
 out of the quagmire. We then relieved her of the paddles, and 
 each taking hold of one of the poor half-dead creature's hands, 
 we succeeded in getting down to the beach, about half a mile to 
 leeward of the entrance to the cove. We found the canoe there, 
 plumped Nancy stern foremost into the bottom of it for ballast, 
 gathered all our remaining energies for a grand shove, and ran 
 her like lightning into the surf, till the water flashed over and 
 over us, reaching to our necks. Next moment we were both 
 swimming, and the canoe, although full of water, beyond the surf, 
 rising and falling on the swell We scrambled on board, set 
 Nancy to bale with Peter's hat, seized our paddles, and sculled 
 away like fury for ten minutes right out to sea, without looking 
 once about us, until a musket-shot whistled over our heads, then 
 another, and a third ; and I had just time to hold up a white 
 handkerchief, to prevent a whole platoon being let drive at us 
 from the deck of his Britannic Majesty's schooner Gleam, lying- 
 to about a cable's length to windward of us, with the Fire- 
 brand a mile astern of her out at sea. In five minutes we got 
 on board of the former. 
 
 " Mercy on me, Tom Cringle, and is this the way we are to 
 meet again 1 " said old Dick Gasket, as he held out his large, 
 bony, sunburnt hand to me. " You have led me a nice dance, 
 in a vain attempt to redeem you from bondage, Tom ; but I am 
 delighted to see you, although I have not had the credit of being 
 your deli verer very glad to see you, Tom ; but come along, man, 
 come down with me, and let me rig you, not quite a Stultze's 
 fit, you know, but a jury rig you shall have, as good as Dick 
 Gasket's kit can furnish forth, for really you are in a miserable 
 plight, man." 
 
 " Bad enough indeed, Mr Gasket many thanks though bad 
 enough, as you say ; but I would that your boats' crew were in 
 so good a plight." 
 
 Mr Gasket looked earnestly at me " Why, I have my own 
 misgivings, Cringle ; this morning at daybreak, the Firebrand in 
 company, we fell in with an armed felucca. It was dead calm, 
 and she was out of gun-shot, close in with the land. The 
 Firebrand immediately sent the cutter on board, fully armed, 
 with instructions to me to man the launch, and arm her with 
 the boat-gun, and then to send both boats to overhaul the 
 felucca. I did so, standing in as quickly as the light air would
 
 188 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 take me, to support them, the felucca all this while sweeping 
 inshore as fast as she could pulL But the boats were too 
 nimble for her, and our launch had already saluted her twice 
 from the six-pounder in the bow, when the sea-breeze came 
 thundering down in a white squall, that reefed our gaff-topsail 
 in a trice, and blew away a whole lot of light sails, like so many 
 paper-kites. When it cleared away, the devil a felucca, boat, or 
 anything else, was to be seen. Capsized they could not have 
 been, for all three were not likely to have gone that way ; and 
 as to any creek they could have run into, why we could see none. 
 That they had pulled inshore, however, was our conclusion ; 
 but here have we been, the whole morning, firing signal-guns 
 every five minutes without success." 
 
 " Did you hear no firing after the squall 1 ?" said I. 
 
 " Why, some of my people thought they did, but it was that 
 hollow, tremulous, reverberating kind of sound, that it might 
 have been thunder; and the breeze blew too strong to have 
 allowed us to hear musketry a mile and a half to windward. I 
 did think I saw some smoke rise, and blow off now and then, 
 but " 
 
 " But me no buts r Master Eichard Gasket ; Peter Mangrove 
 here, as well as myself, saw your people pursue the felucca into 
 the lion's den, and I fear they have been crushed in his jaws." 
 I briefly related what we had seen. Gasket was in great distress. 
 
 " They must have been taken, Cringle. The fools ! to allow 
 themselves to be trepanned in this way. We must stand out and 
 speak the corvette. All hands make sail ! " 
 
 I could not help smiling at the grandeur of Dick's emphasis 
 on the all, when twenty hands, one-third of them boys and the 
 rest landsmen, scrambled up from below, and began to pull and 
 haul in no very seaman-like fashion. He noticed it. 
 
 " Ah, Tom, I know what you are grinning at, but I fear it has 
 been no laughing matter to my poor boat's crew all my best 
 hands gone, God help me !" 
 
 Presently being under the Firebrand's lee quarter, we lowered 
 down the boat and went on board, where, for the first time, the 
 extreme ludicrousness of my appearance and following flashed 
 on me. There we were, all in a bunch the dog, Mr and Mrs 
 Mangrove, and Thomas Cringle, gent. such in appearance as I 
 shall shortly describe them. 
 
 Old Richard Gasket, Esq., first clambered up the side, and 
 made his bow to the Hon. Captain Transom, who was standing 
 near the gangway, on the snow-white deck, amidst a group of
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 189 
 
 officers, where everything was in the most apple-pie order, him- 
 self, both in mind and apparel, the most polished concern in the 
 ship ; while the whole crew, with the exception of the unfortu- 
 nate absentees in the cutter, were scrambling to get a good view 
 of us. 
 
 I have already said that my uniform was torn to pieces; 
 trousers ditto ; my shoes had parted company in the quagmire ; 
 and as for hat, it was left in my cot. I had a dirty bandage 
 tied round my neck, performing the twofold office of a cravat 
 and a dressing to my wound ; while the blood from the scratches 
 had dried in black streaks adown and across my face and paws, 
 and I was altogether so begrimed with mud that my mother 
 would not have known me. Dick made his salaam, and then 
 took up a position beside the sallyport, with an important face, 
 like a showman exhibiting wild beastesses, a regular " stir-him- 
 up-with-a-long-pole " sort of look. I followed him "This is; 
 Lieutenant Cringle, Captain Transom." 
 
 " The devil it is ! " said Transom, trying in vain to keep his 
 gravity. " Why, I see it is How do you do, Mr Cringle 1 glad 
 to see you." 
 
 " This is Peter Mangrove, branch-pilot," continued Gasket, as 
 Peter, bowing, tried to slide past out of sight. 
 
 Till this instant I had not time to look at him he was even 
 a much queerer-looking figure than myself. He had been en- 
 cumbered with no garment besides his trousers when we started, 
 and these had been reduced, in the scramble through the brake, 
 to a waistband and two knee-bands, from which a few shreds 
 fluttered in the breeze the rest of his canvass having been en- 
 tirely torn out of the bolt-ropes. For an upper dress he had 
 borrowed a waistcoat without sleeves from the purser of the 
 schooner, which hung loose and unbuttoned before ; while be- 
 hind, being somewhat of the shortest, some very prominent 
 parts of his stern-frame were disclosed, as even an apology for- 
 a shirt he had none. Being a decent man, however, he had tied 
 his large straw hat round his waist, by strings fastened to the 
 broad brims, which nearly met behind, so that the crown covered 
 his loins before like a petard, while the sameness of his black 
 naked body was relieved by being laced with blood from num- 
 berless lacerations. 
 
 Next came the female "This is the pilot's wife, Captain 
 Transom," again sang out old Dick ; but decency won't let me 
 venture on a description of poor Nancy's equipment, beyond 
 mentioning that one of the Gleam's crew had given her a pair-
 
 190 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of old trousers, which, as a sailor has no bottom, and Nancy was 
 not a sailor, were most ludicrously scanty at top, and devil an- 
 other rag of any kind had the poor creature on, but a handker- 
 chief across her bosom. There was no standing all this; the 
 crew forward and in the waist were all on the broad grin, while 
 the officers, after struggling to maintain their gravity until they 
 were nearly suffocated, fairly gave in, and the whole ship echoed 
 with the most uproarious laughter ; a young villain, whether a 
 mid or no I could not tell, yelling out in the throng, " Hurra for 
 Tom Cringle's Tail ! " 
 
 I was fairly beginning to lose countenance, when up jumped 
 Sneezer to my relief out of the boat, with an old cocked-hat 
 lashed on his head, a marine's jacket buttoned round his body, 
 and his coal-black muzzle bedaubed with pipe-clay, regularly 
 monkeyfied the momentary handiwork of some wicked little 
 reefers while a small pipe sang out quietly, as if not intended 
 to reach the quarterdeck, although it did do so, "And here 
 comes the last joint of Mr Cringle's Tail" The dog began 
 floundering and jumping about, and walloping amongst the 
 people, most of whom knew him, and immediately drew their 
 attention from me and my party to himself ; for away they all 
 bundled forward, dog and men, tumbling and scrambling about 
 like so many children, leaving the coast clear to me and my at- 
 tendants. The absurdity of the whole exhibition had, for an 
 instant, even under the very nose of a proverbially taught hand, 
 led to freedoms which I believed impossible in a man-of-war. 
 However, there was too much serious matter in hand, indepen- 
 dently of any other consideration, to allow the merriment created 
 by our appearance to last long. 
 
 Captain Transom, immediately on being informed how matters 
 stood, with seaman-like promptitude, determined to lighten the 
 Gleam, and send her in with the boats, for the purpose of de- 
 stroying the haunt of the pirates, and recovering the men, if 
 they were still alive; but before anything could be done it 
 came on to blow, and for a week we had great difficulty in 
 maintaining our position off the coast against the strength of 
 the gale and lee current. 
 
 It was on the Sunday morning after I had escaped, that it 
 moderated sufficiently for our purpose, when both vessels stood 
 close in, and Peter and I were sent to reconnoitre the entrance 
 of the port in the gig. Having sounded and taken the bearings 
 of the land, we returned on board, when the Gleam's provisions 
 were taken out and her water started. The ballast was then
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 191 
 
 shifted, so as to bring her by the head, that she might thus 
 draw less water by being on an even keel, all sharp vessels of 
 her class requiring much deeper water aft than forward; the 
 corvette's launch, with a 12-pound carronade fitted, was then 
 manned and armed with thirty seamen and marines, under the 
 command of the second-lieutenant ; the jolly-boat and the two 
 quarter-boats, each with twelve men, followed in a string, under 
 the third-lieutenant, the master, and the senior midshipman ; 
 thirty picked hands were added to the schooner's crew ; and I 
 was desired to take the gig with six smart hands and Peter 
 Mangrove, and to accompany the whole as pilot, but to pull 
 out of danger so soon as the action commenced, so as to be ready 
 to help any disabled boat, or to carry orders from the com- 
 manding officer. 
 
 At nine in the morning we gave three cheers, and, leaving the 
 corvette with barely forty hands on board, the Gleam made sail 
 towards the harbour's mouth, with the boats in tow ; but when 
 we got within musket-shot of the entrance, the breeze failed us, 
 when the order of sailing was reversed, the boats now taking the 
 schooner in tow, preceded by your humble servant in the gig. 
 We dashed safely through the small canal of blue water, which 
 divided the surf at the harbour's mouth, having hit it to a 
 nicety; but when about a pistol-shot from the entrance, the 
 channel narrowed to a muddy creek, not more than twenty yards 
 wide, with high trees and thick underwood close to the water's 
 edge. All was silent ; the sun shone down upon us like the con- 
 centrated rays of a burning-glass, and there was no breeze to 
 dissipate the heavy dank mist that hovered over the surface of 
 the unwholesome canal, nor was there any appearance of a living 
 thing, save and except a few startled waterfowl, and some 
 guanas on the trees, and now and then an alligator, like a black 
 log of charred wood, would roll off a slimy bank of brown mud, 
 with a splash, into the water. 
 
 We rowed on, the schooner every now and then taking the 
 ground, but she was always quickly warped off again by a kedge ; 
 at length, after we had in all proceeded, it might be, about a mile 
 from the beach, we came to a boom of strong timber clamped 
 with iron, stretching across the creek. We were not unprepared 
 for this ; one of two old 32-pound carronades, which, in anticipa- 
 tion of some obstruction of the sort, had been got on deck from 
 amongst the Gleam's ballast, and properly slung, was now made 
 fast to the middle timber of the boom, and let go, when the 
 weight of it sank it to the bottom, and we passed on. We
 
 192 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 pulled on for about half a mile farther, when we noticed, high 
 up on a sunny cliff that shot boldly out into the clear blue 
 heavens, a small red flag suddenly run up to the top of a tall, 
 scathed, branchless palm-tree, where it flared for a moment in 
 the breeze like the flame of a torch, and then as suddenly dis- 
 appeared. " Come, they are on the look-out for us, I see." 
 
 The hills continued to close on us as we advanced, and that 
 so precipitously that we might have been crushed to pieces had 
 half-a-dozen active fellows, without any risk to themselves for 
 the trees would have screened them simply loosened some 
 of the fragments of rock that impended over us so threaten- 
 ingly ; it seemed as if a little finger could have sent them bound- 
 ing and thundering down the mountain-side; but this either 
 was not the game of the people we were in search of, or Obed's 
 spirit and energy had been crushed out of him by the heart- 
 depressing belief that his hours were numbered, for no active 
 obstruction was offered. 
 
 We now suddenly rounded an abrupt corner of the creek, and 
 there we were, full in front of the schooners, who, with the 
 felucca in advance, were lying in line of battle, with springs on 
 their cables. The horrible black pennant was, in the present 
 instance, nowhere to be seen ; indeed, why such an impolitic step 
 as ever to have shown it at all was taken in the first attack 1 
 never could understand ; for the force was too small to have 
 created any serious fear of being captured (unless indeed it had 
 been taken for an advanced-guard, supported by a stronger), 
 while it must have appeared probable to Obediah that the loss 
 of the two boats would, in all likelihood, lead to a more powerful 
 attempt, when, if it were successful, the damning fact of having 
 fought under such an infernal emblem must have insured a 
 pirate's death on the gibbet to every soul who was taken, unless 
 he had intended to have murdered all the witnesses of it. But 
 since proof in my person and the pilot's existed, now, if ever, 
 was the time for mortal resistance, and to have hoisted it, for 
 they knew that they all fought with halters about their necks. 
 They had all the Spanish flag flying except the Wave, which 
 showed American colours, and the felucca, which had a white 
 flag hoisted, from which last, whenever our gig appeared, a canoe 
 shoved off, and pulled towards us. The officer, if such he might 
 be called, also carried a white flag in his hand. He was a dar- 
 ing-looking fellow, and dashed up alongside of me. The incom- 
 prehensible folly of trying, at this time of day, to cloak the real 
 character of the vessels, puzzled me, and does so to this hour.
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 193 
 
 I have never got a clue to it, unless it was that Obed's strong 
 mind had given way before his superstitious fears, and others 
 had now assumed the right of both judging and acting for 
 him in this his closing scene. The pirate officer at once recog- 
 nised me, but seemed neither surprised nor disconcerted at the 
 strength of the force which accompanied me. He asked me, in 
 Spanish, if I commanded it. I told him I did not, that the 
 captain of the schooner was the senior officer. 
 
 " Then, will you be good enough to go on board with me, to 
 interpret for me 1 " 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 In half a minute we were both on the Gleam's deck, the 
 crews of the boats that had her in tow lying on their oars. 
 
 " You are the commander of this force ? " said the Spaniard. 
 
 "I am," said old Gasket, who had figged himself out in full 
 puff, after the manner of the ancients, as if he had been going 
 to church, instead of to fight ; " and who the hell are you ? " 
 
 " I command one of these Spanish schooners, sir, which your 
 boats so unwarrantably attacked a week ago, although you are 
 at peace with Spain. But even had they been enemies, they 
 were in a friendly port, which should have protected them." 
 
 " All very good oysters," quoth old Dick ; " and pray was it 
 an honest trick of you to cabbage my young friend, Lieutenant 
 Cringle there, as if you had been slavers kidnapping the Bungoes 
 in the Bight of Biafra, and then to fire on and murder my people 
 when sent in to claim him?" 
 
 " As to carrying off that young gentleman, it was no affair of 
 ours ; he was brought away by the master of that American 
 schooner ; but so far as regards firing on your boats, I believe 
 they fired first. But the crews are not murdered ; on the con- 
 trary, they have been well used, and are now on board that 
 felucca. I am come to surrender the whole fifteen to you." 
 
 " The whole fifteen ! and what have you made of the other 
 twelve ? " 
 
 " Gastados," said the fellow, with all the sang froid in the 
 world, " gastados [spent or expended] by their own folly." 
 
 " Oh, they are expended, are they ? then give us the fifteen" 
 
 " Certainly, but you will in this case withdraw your force, of 
 course? " 
 
 " We shall see about that go and send us the men." 
 
 He jumped down into the canoe, and shoved off. Whenever 
 he reached the felucca he struck the white flag, and hoisted the 
 Spanish in its stead, and by hauling on a spring, he brought her 
 
 N
 
 194 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 to cover the largest schooner so effectually that we could not fire 
 a shot at her without going through the felucca. We could see 
 all the men leave this latter vessel in two canoes, and go on 
 board one of the other craft. There was now no time to be 
 lost, so I dashed at the felucca in the gig, and broke open the 
 hatches, where we found the captured seamen and their gallant 
 leader, Lieutenant * * *, in a sorry plight, expecting nothing but 
 to be blown up, or instant death by shot or the knife. We re- 
 leased them, and, sending to the Gleam for ammunition and 
 small-arms, led the way in the felucca, by Mr Gasket's orders, 
 to the attack, the corvette's launch supporting us; while the 
 schooner, with the other craft, were scraping up as fast as they 
 could. We made straight for the largest schooner, which, with 
 her consorts, now opened a heavy fire of grape and musketry, 
 which we returned with interest. I can tell little of what took 
 place till I found myself on the pirate's quarterdeck after a 
 desperate tussle, and having driven the crew overboard, with 
 dead and wounded men thickly strewn about, and our fellows 
 busy firing at their surviving antagonists as they were trying 
 to gain the shore by swimming. 
 
 Although the schooner we carried was the Commodore, and 
 commanded by Obediah in person, yet the pirates that is, the 
 Spanish part of them by no means showed the fight I expected. 
 While we were approaching no fire could be hotter, and their 
 yells and cheers were tremendous ; but the instant we laid her 
 alongside with the felucca, and swept her decks with a discharge 
 of grape from the carronade, under cover of which we boarded 
 on the quarter, while the launch's people scrambled up at the 
 bows, their hearts failed, a regular panic overtook them, and 
 they jumped overboard, without waiting for a taste either of 
 cutlass or boarding-pike. The captain himself, however, with 
 about ten Americans, stood at bay round the long gun, which, 
 notwithstanding their great inferiority in point of numbers to 
 our party, they manfully fired three several times at us, after we 
 had carried her aft ; but we were so close that the grape came 
 past us like a round shot, and only killed one hand at each dis- 
 charge ; whereas, at thirty yards farther off, by having had room 
 to spread, it might have made a pretty tableau of the whole 
 party. I hailed Obed twice to surrender, while our people, 
 staggered by the extreme hardihood of the small group, hung 
 back for an instant ; but he either did not hear me, or would 
 not, for the only reply he seemed inclined to make was by slew- 
 ing round the gun so as to bring me on with it, and the next
 
 CUBA FISHERMEN. 195 
 
 moment a general rush was made, when the whole party was 
 cut down, with three exceptions, one of whom was Obed himself, 
 who, getting on the gun, made a desperate bound over the men's 
 heads, and jumped overboard. He struck out gallantly, the shot 
 pattering round him like the first of a thunder shower, but he 
 dived, apparently unhurt, and I lost sight of him. 
 
 The other vessels having also been carried, the firing was all 
 on our side by this time, and I, along with the other officers, was 
 exerting myself to stop the butchery. 
 
 " Cease firing, men ; for shame, you see they no longer resist." 
 And my voice was obeyed by all except the fifteen we had re- 
 leased, who were absolutely mad with fury perfect fiends ; 
 such uncontrollable fierceness I had never witnessed indeed, I 
 had nearly cut one of them down before I could make them 
 knock off firing. 
 
 " Don't fire, sir," cried I to one. 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir ; but that scoundrel made me wash his shirts," 
 and he let drive at a poor devil, who was squattering and swim- 
 ming away towards the shore, and shot him through the head. 
 
 " By heavens ! I will run you through if you fire at that 
 man ! " shouted I to another a marine who was taking aim at 
 no less a personage than friend Obed, who had risen to breathe, 
 and was swimming after the others, but the very last man of all. 
 
 " No, by G ! he made me wash his trousers, sir." 
 
 He fired ; the pirate stretched out his arms, turned slowly 
 on his back, with his face towards me. I thought he gave me 
 a sort of " Et tu, Brute" look, but I daresay it was fancy his 
 feet began to sink, and he gradually disappeared a few bubbles 
 of froth and blood marking the spot where he went down. He 
 had been shot dead. I will not attempt to describe my feelings 
 at this moment they burned themselves in on my heart at the 
 time, and the impression is indelible. Whether I had or had not 
 acted, in one sense, unjustly, by thrusting myself so conspicu- 
 ously forward in the attempt to capture him after what had passed 
 between us, forced itself upon my judgment I had certainly 
 promised that I would, in no way that I could help, be instru- 
 mental in his destruction or seizure, provided he landed me at 
 St Jago, or put me on board a friendly vessel He did neither, 
 so his part of the compact might be considered broken ; but 
 then it was out of his power to have fulfilled it ; besides, he not 
 only threatened my life subsequently, but actually wounded me ; 
 still, however, on great provocation. But what "is writ, is writ." 
 He has gone to his account, pirate as he was, murderer if you
 
 196 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 will yet I had, and still have, a tear for his memory, and 
 many a time have I prayed on my bare knees that his blue 
 agonised dying look might be erased from my brain but this 
 can never be. What he had been I never learned ; but it is 
 my deliberate opinion that, with a clear stage and opportunity, 
 he would have forced himself out from the surface of society for 
 good or for evil The unfortunates who survived him, but to 
 expiate their crimes on the gibbet at Port Koyal, said he had 
 joined them from a New York privateer, but they knew nothing 
 further of him beyond the fact that, by his skill and desperate 
 courage, within a month he had, by common acclaim, been 
 elected captain of the whole band. There was a story current 
 on board the corvette, of a small trading craft, with a person 
 answering his description, having been captured in the Chesa- 
 peake, by one of the squadron, and sent to Halifax for adjudica- 
 tion (the master, as in most cases of the kind, being left on 
 board), which from that hour had never been heard of, neither 
 vessel, nor prize crew, nor captain, until two Americans were 
 taken out of a slaver, off the Cape de Verds, by the Firebrand, 
 about a year afterwards, after a most brave and determined 
 attempt to escape, both of whom were, however, allowed to 
 enter, but subsequently deserted off Sandy Hook by swimming 
 ashore, in consequence of a pressed hand hinting that one of 
 them, surmised to be Obed, had been the master of the vessel 
 above mentioned. 
 
 All resistance having ceased, the few of the pirates who 
 escaped having scampered into the woods, where it would have 
 been vain to follow them, we secured our prisoners, and at the 
 close of a bloody day for fatal had it been to friend and foe the 
 prizes were got under weigh, and before nightfall we were all at 
 sea, sailing in a fleet, under convoy of the corvette and Gleam.
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 197 
 
 CHAPTEE X. 
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 
 
 "This disease is beyond my practice." The Doctor in Macbeth. 
 
 THE second and acting third lieutenants were on board the 
 prizes the purser was busy in his vocation the doctor ditto. 
 Indeed, he and his mates had more on their hands than they 
 could well manage. The first lieutenant was engaged on deck, 
 and the master was in his cot, suffering from a severe contusion ; 
 so when I got on board the corvette, and dived into the gun- 
 room in search of some crumbs of comfort, the deuce a living 
 soul was there to welcome me, except the gunroom steward, who 
 speedily produced some cold meat, and asked me if I would 
 take a glass of swizzle. 
 
 The food I had no great fancy to, although I had not tasted 
 a morsel since six o'clock in the morning, and it was now eight 
 in the evening ; but the offer of the grog sounded gratefully in 
 mine ear, and I was about tackling to a stout rummer of the 
 same, when a smart dandified shaver, with gay mother-of-pearl 
 buttons on his jacket, as thick set as peas, presented his tallow 
 chops at the door. 
 
 " Captain Transom desires me to say that he will be glad of 
 your company in the cabin, Mr Cringle." 
 
 " My compliments I will wait on him so soon as I have had 
 a snack. We have had no dinner in the gun-room to-day yet, 
 you know, Mafame." 
 
 " Why, it was in the knowledge of that the captain sent me, 
 sir. He has not had any dinner either ; but it is now on the 
 table, and he waits for you." 
 
 I was but little in spirits, and, to say sooth, was fitter for my 
 bed than society; but the captain's advances had been made 
 with so much kindliness, that I got up and made a strong en- 
 deavour to rouse myself ; and, having made my toilet as well as 
 my slender means admitted, I followed the captain's steward 
 into the cabin. 
 
 I started why, I could not well tell as the sentry at the 
 door stood to his arms when I passed in ; and, as if I had been
 
 198 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 actually possessed by some wandering spirit, who had taken the 
 small liberty of using my faculties and tongue without my con- 
 currence, I hasily asked the man if he was an American "? He 
 stared in great astonishment for a short space, turned his quid, 
 and then rapped out as angrily as respect for a commissioned 
 officer would let him " No, by , sir ! " 
 
 This startled me as much as the question I had almost un- 
 consciously and, I may say, involuntarily put to the marine 
 had surprised him, and I made a full stop, and leant back against 
 the door-post. The captain, who was walking up and down the 
 cabin, had heard me speak, but without comprehending the 
 nature of my question, and now recalled me in some measure to 
 myself by inquiring if I wanted anything. I replied, hurriedly, 
 that I did not. 
 
 " Well, Mr Cringle, dinner is ready so take that chair at the 
 foot of the table, will you ] " 
 
 I sat down, mechanically, as it appeared to me for a strange 
 swimming dizzy sort of sensation had suddenly overtaken me, 
 accompanied by a whoreson tingling, as Shakespeare hath it, in 
 my ears. I was unable to eat a morsel ; but I could have drunk 
 the ocean, had it been claret or vin-de-grave to both of which 
 I helped myself as largely as good manners would allow, or a 
 little beyond, mayhap. All this while the captain was stowing 
 his cargo with great zeal, and tifting away at the fluids as be- 
 came an honest sailor, after so long a fast, interlarding his opera- 
 tions with a civil word to me now and then, without any especial 
 regard as to the answer I made him, or, indeed, caring greatly 
 whether I answered him or not. 
 
 " Sharp work you must have had, Mr Cringle ; should have 
 liked to have been with you myself. Help yourself before pass- 
 ing that bottle zounds, man, never take a bottle by the bilge 
 grasp the neck, man, at least in this fervent climate thank 
 you. Pity you had not caught the captain, though. What you 
 told me of that man very much interested me, coupled with the 
 prevailing reports regarding him in the ship daring dog he must 
 have been can't forget how gallantly he weathered us when 
 we chased him." 
 
 I broke silence for the first time. Indeed, I could scarcely 
 have done so sooner, even had I chosen it, for the gallant officer 
 was rather continuous in his yarn-spinning. However, he had 
 nearly dined, and was leaning back, allowing the champagne to 
 trickle leisurely from a glass half a yard long, which he had 
 applied to his lips, when I said
 
 VOMITO PEIETO. 195 
 
 "Well, the imagination does sometimes play one strange 
 tricks ; I verily believe in second sight now, captain, for at this 
 very instant I am regularly the fool of my senses but, pray, 
 don't laugh at me ;" and I lay back on my chair, and pressed 
 my hands over my shut eyes and hot burning temples, which 
 were now throbbing as if the arteries would have burst. 
 
 The captain, who was evidently much surprised at my abrupt- 
 ness, said something hurriedly and rather sharply in answer, but 
 I could not for the life of me mark what it was. I opened my 
 eyes again, and looked towards the object that had before riveted 
 my attention. It was neither more nor less than the captain's 
 cloak a plain, unpretending, substantial blue garment, lined with 
 white, which, on coming below, he had cast carelessly down on 
 the locker that ran across the after -part of the cabin behind 
 him. It was about eighteen feet from me, and as there was no 
 light nearer it than the swinging lamp over the table at which 
 we were seated, the whole of the cabin thereabouts was thrown 
 considerably into shade. The cape of the cloak was turned 
 over, showing the white lining, and was rather bundled, as it 
 were, into a round heap, about the size of a man's head. When 
 first I looked at it, there was a dreamy, glimmering indistinct- 
 ness about it that I could not well understand, and I would 
 have said, had it been possible, that the wrinkles and folds in 
 it were beginning to be instinct with motion, to creep and crawl, 
 as it were ; at all events, the false impression was so strong as 
 to jar my nerves, and make me shudder with horror. I knew 
 there was no such thing, as well as Macbeth, but nevertheless it 
 was with an indescribable feeling of curiosity, dashed with awe, 
 that I stared intently at it, as if fascinated, while almost un- 
 wittingly I made the remark already mentioned. 
 
 I had expected that the unaccountable appearance which had 
 excited my attention so strongly would have vanished with the 
 closing of my eyes ; but it did not, for when I looked at it again, 
 the working and shifting of the folds of the cloth still contin- 
 ued, and even more distinctly than before. 
 
 " Very extraordinary all this," I murmured to myself. 
 
 " Pray, Mr Cringle, be sociable, man," said the captain ; 
 " what the deuce do you see, that you stare over my shoulder in 
 that way 1 Were I a woman, now, I should tremble to look be- 
 hind me, while you were glaring aft in that wild, moonstruck 
 sort of fashion." 
 
 " By all that is astonishing," I exclaimed, in great agitation, 
 " if the folds of the cape have not arranged themselves into the
 
 200 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 very likeness of his dying face ! Why it is his face, and no fan- 
 ciful grouping of my heated brain. Look there, sir look there 
 I know it can't be but there he lies the very features and 
 upper part of the body, lith and limb, as when he disappeared 
 beneath the water when he was shot dead." 
 
 I felt the boiling blood, that had been rushing through my 
 system like streams of molten lead, suddenly freeze and coagu- 
 late about my heart, impeding my respiration to such a degree 
 that I thought I should have been suffocated. I had the feeling 
 as if my soul was going to take wing. It was not fear, nor 
 could I say I was in pain, but it was so utterly unlike anything 
 I had ever experienced before, and so indescribable that I thought 
 to myself " this may be death." 
 
 " Why, what a changeable rose you are, Master Cringle," said 
 Captain Transom, good-naturedly ; " your face was like the 
 north-west moon in a fog but a minute ago, and now it is as 
 pale as a lily blue-white, I declare. Why, my man, you must 
 be ill, and seriously too." 
 
 His voice dissipated the hideous chimera the folds fell, and 
 relapsed into their own shape, and the cloak was once more a 
 cloak, and nothing more. I drew a long breath. "Ah, it is 
 gone at last, thank God ! " and then, aware of the strange 
 effect my unaccountable incoherence must have had on the skip- 
 per, I thought to brazen it out by trying the free-and-easy line, 
 which was neither more nor less than arrant impertinence in our 
 relative positions. "Why, I have been heated a little, and 
 amusing myself with sundry vain imaginings, but allow me to 
 take wine with you, captain," filling a tumbler with vin-de-grave 
 to the brim as I spoke. " Success to you, sir here's to your 
 speedy promotion may you soon get a crack frigate ; as for me, 
 I intend to be Archbishop of Canterbury, or maid of honour to 
 the Queen of Sheba, or something in the heathen mythology." 
 
 I drank off the wine, although I had the greatest difficulty in 
 steadying my trembling hand, and carrying it to my lips ; but 
 notwithstanding my increasing giddiness, and the buzzing in 
 my ears, and swimming of mine eyes, I noticed the captain's 
 face of amazement as he exclaimed 
 
 " The boy is either mad or drunk, by Jupiter ! " 
 
 I could not stand his searching and angry look, and in turning 
 my eye, it again fell on the cloak, which now seemed to be 
 stretched out at greater length, and to be altogether more vol- 
 uminous than it was before. I was forcibly struck with this, for 
 I was certain no one had touched it.
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 201 
 
 " By heavens ! it heaves," I exclaimed, much moved " how 
 is this ? I never thought to have believed such things it stirs 
 again it takes the figure of a man as if it were a pall cover- 
 ing his body. Pray, Captain Transom, what trick is this 1 Is 
 there anything below that cloak there ? " 
 
 " What cloak do you mean ? " 
 
 " Why, that blue one lying on the locker there. Is there any 
 cat or dog in the cabin 1 " and I started on my legs. " Captain 
 Transom," I continued, with great vehemence, " for the love of 
 God tell me what is there below that cloak." 
 
 He looked surprised beyond all measure. 
 
 " Why, Mr Cringle, I cannot for the soul of me comprehend 
 you ; indeed I cannot ; but, Mafame, indulge him. See if there 
 be anything below my cloak. 
 
 The servant walked to the locker, and lifted up the cape of it, 
 and was in the act of taking it from the locker, when I impetu- 
 ously desired the man to leave it alone. 
 
 " I can't look on him again," said I \ while the faintish- 
 ness increased, so that I could hardly speak. "Don't move 
 the covering from his face, for God's sake don't remove it," 
 and I lay back in my chair, screening my eyes from the lamp 
 with my hands, and shuddering with an icy chill from head 
 to foot. 
 
 The captain, who had hitherto maintained the well-bred, pa- 
 tronising, although somewhat distant, air of a superior officer to 
 an inferior who was his guest, addressed me now in an altered 
 tone, and with a brotherly kindness. 
 
 " Mr Cringle, I have some knowledge of you, and I know 
 many of your friends; so I must take the liberty of an old 
 acquaintance with you. This day's work has been a severe one, 
 and your share in it, especially after your past fatigues, has been 
 very trying, and as I will report it, I hope it may clap a good 
 spoke in your wheel ; but you are overheated, and have been 
 over-excited ; fatigue has broken you down, and I must really 
 request you will take something warm, and turn in. Here, 
 Mafame, get the carpenter's mate to secure that cleat on the 
 weather side there, and sling my spare cot for Mr Cringle. You 
 will be cooler here than in the gunroom." 
 
 I heard his words without comprehending their meaning. I 
 sat and stared at him, quite conscious, all the time, of the extreme 
 impropriety, not to say indecency, of my conduct ; but there was 
 a spell on me ; I tried to speak, but could not ; and, believing 
 that I was either possessed by some dumb devil, or struck with
 
 202 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 palsy, I rose up, bowed to Captain Transom, and straightway 
 hied me on deck. 
 
 I could hear him say to his servant, as I was going up the 
 ladder, " Look after that young gentleman, Mafame, and send 
 Isaac to the doctor, and bid him come here now;" and then, in 
 a commiserating tone " Poor young fellow, what a pity ! " 
 
 When I got on deck all was quiet. The cool fresh air had an 
 instantaneous effect on my shattered nerves, the violent throb- 
 bing in my head ceased, and I began to hug myself with the 
 notion that my distemper, whatever it might have been, had 
 beaten a retreat. 
 
 Suddenly I felt so collected and comfortable, as to be quite 
 alive to the loveliness of the scene. It was a beautiful moon- 
 light night ; such a night as is nowhere to be seen without the 
 tropics, and not often within them. There was just breeze 
 enough to set the sails to sleep, although not so strong as to pre- 
 vent their giving a low murmuring flap now and then, when the 
 corvette rolled a little heavier than usual on the long swell. 
 There was not a cloud to be seen in the sky, not even a stray 
 shred of thin fleecy gauze-like vapour, to mark the direction of 
 the upper current of the air, by its course across the moon's 
 disk, which was now at the full, and about half-way up her 
 track in the liquid heavens. 
 
 The small twinkling lights from millions of lesser stars, in that 
 part of the firmament where she hung, round as a silver pot-lid 
 shield, I mean were swamped in the flood of greenish- white 
 radiance shed by her, and it was only a few of the first magni- 
 tude, with a planet here and there, that were visible to the 
 naked eye, in the neighbourhood of her crystal bright globe ; 
 but the clear depth, and dark translucent purity of the profound, 
 when the eye tried to pierce into it at the zenith, where the stars 
 once more shone and sparkled thick and brightly, beyond the 
 merging influence of the pale cold orb, no man can describe now 
 one could, once but, rest his soul, he is dead and then to 
 look forth far into the night, across the dark ridge of many a 
 heaving swell of living water but " Thomas Cringle, ahoy 
 where the devil are you cruising to?" So, to come back to my 
 story. I went aft, and mounted the small poop, and looked 
 towards the aforesaid moon a glorious, resplendent, tropical 
 moon, and not the paper lantern affair hanging in an atmosphere 
 of fog and smoke, about which your blear-eyed poets haver so 
 much. By the by, these gentry are fond of singing of the 
 blessed sun were they sailors they would bless the moon also,
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 20S 
 
 and be to them, in place of writing much wearisome poetry 
 
 regarding her blighting propensities. But I have lost the end 
 of my yarn once more, in the strands of these parentheses. 
 Lord, what a word to pronounce in the plural ! I can no more 
 get out now than a girl's silk-worm from the innermost of a 
 nest of pill-boxes, where, to ride the simile to death at once, I 
 have warped the thread of my story so round and round me, that 
 I can't for the life of me unravel it. Very odd all this. Since 
 I have recovered of this fever, everything is slack about me ; I 
 can't set up the shrouds and backstays of my mind, not to speak 
 of bobstays, if I should die for it. The running rigging is all 
 right enough, and the canvass is there ; but I either can't set it, 
 or when I do, I find I have too little ballast, or I get involved 
 amongst shoals, and white water, and breakers, don't you hear 
 them roar? which I cannot weather, and crooked channels, 
 under some lee-shore, through which I cannot scrape clear. So 
 down must go the anchor, as at present, and there there goes 
 the chain-cable, rushing and rumbling through the hawse-hole. 
 But I suppose it will be all right by-and-by, as I get stronger. 
 
 " But rouse thee, Thomas ! Where is the end of this yarn, 
 that you are blarneying about?" 
 
 " Avast heaving, you swab you avast ; if you had as much 
 calomel in your corpus as I have at this present speaking why, 
 you would be a lad of more mettle than I take you for, that is 
 all You would have about as much quicksilver in your stomach, 
 as I have in my purse, and all my silver has been quick, ever 
 since I remember, like the jests of the gravedigger in Hamlet. 
 But, as you say, where the devil is the end of this yarn 1 ? " 
 
 Ah, here it is! so off we go again And looked forward 
 towards the rising moon, whose shining wake of glow-worm 
 coloured light, sparkling in the small waves, that danced in the 
 gentle wind on the heaving bosom of the dark-blue sea, was 
 right ahead of us, like a river of quicksilver with its course 
 diminished in the distance to a point, flowing towards us, from 
 the extreme verge of the horizon, through a rolling sea of ink, 
 with the waters of which, for a time, it disdained to blend. 
 Concentrated, and shining like polished silver afar off intense 
 and sparkling as it streamed down nearer, but becoming less 
 and less brilliant as it widened in its approach to us, until, like 
 the stream of the great estuary of the Magdalena, losing itself 
 in the salt waste of waters, it gradually melted beneath us and 
 around us into the darkness. 
 
 I looked aloft every object appeared sharply cut out against
 
 204 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 the dark firmament, and the swaying of the mastheads to and 
 fro, as the vessel rolled, was so steady and slow, that they seemed 
 stationary, while it was the moon and stars which appeared to 
 vibrate and swing from side to side, high over head, like the 
 vacillation of the clouds in a theatre, when the scene is first let 
 down. 
 
 The masts and yards, and standing and running rigging, looked 
 like black pillars, and bars, and wires of iron, reared against the 
 sky, by some mighty spirit of the night ; and the sails, as the 
 moon shone dimly through them, were as dark as if they had 
 been tarpaulings. But when I walked forward and looked aft, 
 what a beauteous change! Now each mast, with its gently 
 swelling canvass, the higher sails decreasing in size, until they 
 tapered away nearly to a point, through topsail, topgallant-sail, 
 royal and skysails, showed like towers of snow, and the cordage 
 like silver threads, while each dark spar seemed to be of ebony, 
 fished with ivory, as a flood of cold, pale, mild light streamed 
 from the beauteous planet over the whole stupendous machine, 
 lighting up the sand-white decks, on which the shadows of the 
 men, and of every object that intercepted the moonbeams, were 
 cast as strongly as if the planks had been inlaid with jet. 
 
 There was nothing moving about the decks. The look-outs 
 aft, and at the gangways, sat or stood like statues half bronze, 
 half alabaster. The old quartermaster, who was cunning the 
 ship, and had perched himself on a carronade, with his arm 
 leaning on the weather nettings, was equally motionless. The 
 watch had all disappeared forward, or were stowed out of sight 
 under the lee of the boats ; the first-lieutenant, as if captivated 
 by the serenity of the scene, was leaning with folded arms on 
 the weather -gangway, looking abroad upon the ocean, and 
 whistling now and then, either for a wind or for want of 
 thought. The only being who showed sign of life was the man 
 at the wheel, and he scarcely moved, except now and then to 
 give her a spoke or two, when the cheep of the tiller-rope, run- 
 ning through the well-greased leading-blocks, would grate on 
 the ear as a sound of some importance ; while in daylight, in the 
 ordinary bustle of the ship, no one could say he ever heard it. 
 
 Three bells ! " Keep a bright look-out there," sang out the 
 lieutenant. 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir," from the four look-out men, in a volley. 
 
 Then from the weather-gangway, " All's well," rose shrill into 
 the night air. 
 
 The watchword was echoed by the man on the forecastle, re-
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 205 
 
 echoed by the lee-gangway look-out, and ending with the re- 
 sponse of the man on the poop. My dream was dissipated 
 and so was the first-lieutenant's, who had but little poetry in 
 his composition, honest man. 
 
 "Fine night, Mr Cringle. Look aloft, how beautifully set 
 the sails are; that mizen-topsail is well cut, eh? Sits well, 
 don't it ? But Confound the lubbers ! Boatswain's mate, call 
 the watch." 
 
 Whi-whew, whi-whew, chirrup, chip, chip the deck was alive 
 in an instant, " as bees bizz out wi' angry fyke." 
 
 "Where is the captain of the mizen-top? " growled the man 
 in authority. 
 
 " Here, sir." 
 
 " Here, sir ! look at the weather-clew of the mizen-topsail, 
 sir look at that sail, sir how many turns can you count in 
 that clew, sir ? Spring it, you no-sailor you spring it, and set 
 the sail again." 
 
 How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable all this appeared to 
 me at the time, I well remember ; but the obnoxious turns were 
 shaken out, and the sail set again so as to please even the fasti- 
 dious eye of the lieutenant, who, seeing nothing more to find 
 fault with, addressed me once more. 
 
 " Have had no grub since morning, Mr Cringle ; all the 
 others are away in the prizes ; you are as good as one of us now, 
 only want the order to join, you know so, will you oblige me 
 and take charge of the deck until I go below and change my 
 clothes and gobble a bit 1 " 
 
 " Unquestionably with much pleasure." 
 
 He forthwith dived, and I walked aft a few steps towards 
 where the old quartermaster was standing on the gun. 
 
 " How is her head, quartermaster ? " 
 
 " South-east and by south, sir. If the wind holds we shall 
 weather Morant Point, I think, sir." 
 
 " Very like, very like. What is that glancing backwards and 
 forwards across the port-hole there, quartermaster 1 " 
 
 " I told you so, Mafame," said the man ; " what are you sky- 
 larking about the mizen-chains for, man 1 Come in, will you, 
 come in." 
 
 The captain's caution to his servant flashed on me. 
 
 " Come in, my man, and give my respects to the captain, and 
 tell him that I am quite well now ; the fresh air has perfectly 
 restored me." 
 
 " I will, sir," said Mafame, half ashamed at being detected in
 
 206 TOM CKINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 his office of inspector-general of my actions ; but the doctor, to 
 whom he had been sent, having now got a leisure moment from 
 his labour in the shambles, came up and made inquiries as to 
 how I felt. 
 
 " Why, doctor, I thought I was in for a fever half an hour 
 ago, but it is quite gone off, or nearly so there, feel my pulse." 
 It was regular, and there was no particular heat of skin. 
 
 " Why, I don't think there is much the matter with you. 
 Mafame, tell the captain so ; but turn in and take some rest as 
 soon as you can, and I will see you in the morning and here," 
 feeling in his waistcoat pocket, "here are a couple of capers 
 for you; take them now, will you 1 ?" (And he handed me 
 two blue pills, which I the next moment chucked overboard, to 
 cure some bilious dolphin of the liver complaint.) I promised 
 to do so whenever the lieutenant relieved the deck, which would, 
 I made no question, be within half an hour. 
 
 " Very well, that will do good night I am regularly done 
 up myself," quoth the medico, as he descended to the gunroom. 
 
 At this time of night the prizes were all in a cluster under 
 our lee quarter, like small icebergs covered with snow, and carry- 
 ing every rag they could set. The Gleam was a good way astern, 
 as if to whip them in, and to take care that no stray piccaroon 
 should make a dash at any of them. They slid noiselessly along 
 like phantoms of the deep, everything in the air and in the 
 water was so stilL I crossed to the lee side of the deck to look 
 at them. The Wave, seeing some one on the hammock-nettings, 
 sheered close to, under the Firebrand's lee quarter, and some one 
 asked, " Do you want to speak us ?" The man's voice, reflected 
 from the concave surface of the schooner's mainsail, had a 
 hollow, echoing sound, that startled me. 
 
 " I should know that voice," said I to myself, " and the figure 
 steering the schooner." The throbbing in my head and the 
 dizzy feel which had capsized my judgment in the cabin, again 
 returned with increased violence " It was no deception after 
 all," thought I, " no cheat of the senses I now believe such 
 things are." 
 
 The same voice now called out, " Come away, Tom ; come 
 away," no doubt to some other seaman on board the little vessel, 
 but my heated fancy did not so construe it. The cold breath- 
 less fit again overtook me, and I ejaculated, " God have mercy 
 upon me a sinner ! " 
 
 " Why don't you come, Tom ? " said the voice once more. 
 
 It was Obed's. At this very instant of time, the Wave forged
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 207 
 
 ahead into the Firebrand's shadow, so that her sails, but a mo- 
 ment before white as wool in the bright moonbeams, suffered a 
 sudden eclipse, and became black as ink. 
 
 " His dark spirit is there," said I audibly, " and calls me go 
 I will, whatever may befalL" 
 
 I hailed the schooner, or rather I had only to speak, and that 
 in a low tone, for she was now close under the counter " Send 
 your boat, for since you call I know I must come." 
 
 A small canoe slid off her deck ; two shipboys got into it,, and 
 pulled under the starboard mizen-chains, which entirely con- 
 cealed them, as they held on for a moment with a boat-hook in the 
 dark shadow of the ship. This was done so silently that neither 
 the look-out on the poop, who was rather on the weather side at 
 the moment, nor the man at the lee gangway, who happened to 
 be looking out forward, heard them or saw me, as I slipped 
 down unperceived. 
 
 " Pull back again, my lads ; quick now, quick." 
 
 In a moment I was alongside, the next I was on deck, and 
 in this short space a change had come- over the spirit of my 
 dream, for I now was again conscious that I was on board the 
 Wave with a prize crew. My imagination had taken another 
 direction. 
 
 " Now, Mr , I beg pardon, I forget your name," I had 
 
 never heard it " make more sail, and haul out from the fleet 
 for Mancheoneal Bay ; I have despatches for the admiral So, 
 crack on." 
 
 The midshipman who was in charge of her never for an in- 
 stant doubted but that all was right ; sail was made, and as the 
 light breeze was the very thing for the little Wave, she began 
 to snore through it like smoke. When she had shot a cable's 
 length ahead of the Firebrand, we kept away a point or two, so 
 as to stand more in for the land, and, like most maniacs, I was 
 inwardly exulting at the success of my manoeuvre, when we 
 heard the corvette's bell struck rapidly. Her main-topsail was 
 suddenly laid to the mast, whilst a loud voice echoed amongst 
 the sails " Any one see him in the waist anybody see him 
 forward there? " 
 
 " No, sir, no." 
 
 " Afterguard, fire, and let go the life-buoy lower away the 
 quarter-boats -jolly-boat also." 
 
 We saw the flash, and presently the small blue light of the 
 buoy, blazing and disappearing, as it rose and fell on the waves, 
 in the corvette's wake, sailed away astern, sparkling fitfully, like
 
 208 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 an ignis fatuus. The cordage rattled through the davit-blocks, 
 as the boats dashed into the water the splash of the oars was 
 heard, and presently the twinkle of the life-buoy was lost in the 
 lurid glare of the blue-lights, held aloft in each boat, where the 
 crews were standing up, looking like spectres by the ghastly 
 blaze, and anxiously peering about for some sign of the drown- 
 ing man. 
 
 " A man overboard," was repeated from one to another of the 
 prize crew. 
 
 " Sure enough," said I. 
 
 " Shall we stand back, sir 1 " said the midshipman. 
 
 " To what purpose ? there are enough there without us no, 
 no ; crack on ; we can do no good carry on, carry on ! " 
 
 We did so, and I now found severe shooting pains, more 
 racking than the sharpest rheumatism I had ever suffered, per- 
 vading my whole body. They increased until I suffered the 
 most excruciating agony, as if my bones had been converted into 
 red-hot tubes of iron, and the marrow in them had been dried 
 up with fervent heat, and I was obliged to beg that a hammock 
 might be spread on deck, on which I lay down, pleading great 
 fatigue and want of sleep as my excuse. 
 
 My thirst was unquenchable ; the more I drank, the hotter 
 it became. My tongue, and mouth, and throat were burning, as 
 if molten lead had been poured down into my stomach, while 
 the most violent retching came on every ten minutes. The prize 
 crew, poor fellows, did aU they could once or twice they seemed 
 about standing back to the ship, but "make sail, make sail," 
 was my only cry. They did so, and there I lay without any- 
 thing between me and the wet planks but a thin sailor's blanket 
 and the canvass of the hammock, through the livelong night, 
 and with no covering but a damp boat-cloak, raving at times 
 during the hot fits, at others having my power of utterance frozen 
 up during the cold ones. The men, once or twice, offered to 
 carry me below, but the idea was horrible to me. 
 
 " No, no not there for heaven's sake not there ! If you do 
 take me down, I am sure I shall see him, and the dead mate 
 No, no overboard rather, throw me overboard rather." 
 
 Oh, what would I not have given for the luxury of a flood of 
 tears ! But the fountains of mine eyes were dried up, and 
 seared as with red-hot iron my skin was parched, and hot, hot, 
 as if every pore had been hermetically sealed ; there was a hell 
 within me and about me, as if the deck on which I lay had been 
 steel at a white heat, and the gushing blood, as under the action
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 209 
 
 of a force-pump, throbbed through my head, like as it would 
 have burst on my brain and such a racking, splitting headache 
 no language can describe it, and yet ever and anon in the midst 
 of this raging fire, this furnace at my heart, seven times heated, 
 a sudden icy shivering chill would shake me, and pierce through 
 and through me, even when the roasting fever was at the hottest. 
 
 At length the day broke on the long, long, moist steamy night, 
 and once more the sun rose to bless everything but me. As the 
 morning wore on, my torments increased with the heat, and I 
 lay sweltering on deck, in a furious delirium, held down forci- 
 bly by two men, who were relieved by others every now and 
 then, while I raved about Obed, and Paul, and the scenes I had 
 witnessed on board during the chase and in the attack. None 
 of my rough but kind nurses expected I could have held on till 
 nightfall ; but shortly after sunset I became more collected, and, 
 as I was afterwards told, whenever any little office was performed 
 for me, whenever some drink was held to my lips, I would say 
 to the gruff, sun-burnt, black -whiskered, square-shouldered top- 
 man, who might be my Ganymede for the occasion, " Thank 
 you, Mary ; Heaven bless your pale face, Mary ; bless you, bless 
 you!" 
 
 It seemed my fancy had shaken itself clear of the fearful 
 objects that had so pertinaciously haunted me before, and, occu- 
 pying itself with pleasing recollections, had produced a corres- 
 ponding calm in the animal ; but the poor fellow to whom I had 
 expressed myself so endearingly, was, I learned, most awfully 
 put out and dismayed. He twisted and turned his iron features 
 into all manner of ludicrous combinations under the laughter of 
 
 his mates. " Now, Peter, may I be but I would rather be 
 
 shot at than hear the poor young gentleman so quiz me in his 
 madness." 
 
 Then again, as I praised his lovely taper fingers they were 
 more like bunches of frosted carrots, dipped in a tar-bucket, with 
 the tails snapt short off, where about an inch thick, only 
 
 " My taper fingers oh, Lord ! Now, Peter, I can't stomach 
 this any longer I'll give you my grog for the next two days, if 
 you will take my spell here My taper fingers murder!" 
 
 As the evening closed in we saw the high land of Jamaica, 
 but it was the following afternoon before we were off the en- 
 trance of Mancheoneal Bay. All this period, although it must 
 have been one of great physical suffering, has ever, to my ethereal 
 part, remained a dead blank. The first thing I remember after- 
 wards, was being carried ashore in the dark, in a hammock slung 
 
 o
 
 210 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 on two oars, so as to form a sort of rude palanquin, and laid down 
 at a short distance from the overseer's house, where my troubles 
 had originally commenced. I soon became perfectly sensible and 
 collected, but I was so weak I could not speak : after resting a 
 little, the men again lifted me and proceeded. The door of the 
 dining-hall, which was the back entrance into the overseer's 
 house, opened flush into the little garden through which we had 
 come in there were lights, and sounds of music, singing, and 
 joviality within. The farther end of the room, at the door of 
 which I now rested, opened into the piazza, or open verandah, 
 which crossed it at right angles, and constituted the front of the 
 house, forming, with this apartment, a figure somewhat like the 
 letter T. I stood at the foot of the letter, as it were, and as I 
 looked towards the piazza, which was gaily lit up, I could see it 
 was crowded with male and female negroes in their holiday ap- 
 parel, with their wholesome, clear, brown-black skins not bhie- 
 black, as they appear in our cold country and beautiful white 
 teeth and sparkling black eyes, amongst whom were several 
 gumbie-men and flute-players, and John Canoes, as the negro 
 Jack Pudding is called ; the latter distinguishable by wearing 
 white false-faces, and enormous shocks of horsehair, fastened on 
 to their woolly pates. Their character hovers somewhere between 
 that of a harlequin and a clown, as they dance about, and thread 
 through the negro groups, quizzing the women and slapping the 
 men ; and at Christmas time, the grand negro carnival, they 
 don't confine their practical jokes to their own colour, but take 
 all manner of comical liberties with the whites equally with their 
 fellow-bondsmen. 
 
 The blackamoor visitors had suddenly, to all appearance, 
 broken off their dancing, and were now clustered behind a rather 
 remarkable group, who were seated at supper in the dining-room, 
 near to where I stood, forming, as it were, the foreground in the 
 scene. Mr Fyall himself was there, and a rosy-gilled, happy- 
 looking man, who I thought I had seen before ; this much I 
 could discern, for the light fell strong on them, especially on the 
 face of the latter, which shone like a star of the first magnitude, 
 or a lighthouse in the red gleam. The usual family of the over- 
 seer the book-keepers that is, ani the worthy who had been the 
 proximate cause of all my sufferings, the overseer himself were 
 there too, as if they had been sitting still at table where I saw 
 them now, ever since I left them three weeks before at least 
 my fancy did me the favour to annihilate, for the nonce, all in- 
 termediate time between the point of my departure on the night
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 211 
 
 of the cooper's funeral, and the moment when I now revisited 
 them. 
 
 I was lifted out of the hammock, and supported to the door 
 between two seamen. The fresh, nice-looking man before men- 
 tioned, Aaron Bang, Esquire, by name, an incipient planting at- 
 torney in the neighbourhood, of great promise, was in the act of 
 singing a song, for it was during some holiday-time, which had 
 broken down the stiff observances of a Jamaica planter's life. 
 There he sat, lolling back on his chair, with his feet upon the 
 table, and a cigar, half -consumed, in his hand. He had twisted 
 up his mouth and mirth-provoking face, and, slewing his head 
 on one side, he was warbling, ore rotundo, some melodious ditty, 
 with infinite complacency, and, to all appearance, to the great 
 delight of his auditory, when his eyes lighted on me : he was 
 petrified in a moment I seemed to have blasted him ; his 
 warbling ceased instantaneously the colour faded from his 
 cheeks but there he sat, with open mouth, and in the same 
 attitude, as if he still sung, and I had suddenly become deaf, 
 or as if he and his immediate compotators, and the group of 
 blackies beyond, had all been on the instant turned to stone by 
 a slap from one of their own John Canoes. I must have been 
 in truth a terrible spectacle ; my skin was yellow, not as saffron, 
 but as the skin of a ripe lime ; the white of my eyes, to use an 
 Irishism, ditto ; my mouth and lips had festered and broke out, 
 as we say in Scotland ; my head was bound round with a napkin 
 none of the cleanest, you may swear ; my dress was a pair of 
 dirty duck trousers, and my shirt, with the boat-cloak that had 
 been my only counterpane on board of the little vessel, hanging 
 from my shoulders. 
 
 Lazarus himself could scarcely have been a more appalling 
 object, when the voice of Him who spoke as never man spake, 
 said, " Lazarus, come forth." 
 
 I made an unavailing attempt to cross the threshold, but 
 could not. I was spellbound, or there was an invisible barrier 
 erected against me which I could not overleap. The buzzing in 
 my ears, the pain and throbbing in my head, and racking aches, 
 once more bent me to the earth ill and reduced as I was, a 
 relapse, thought I ; and I felt my judgment once more giving 
 way before the sweltering fiend, who had retreated but for a 
 moment to renew his attacks with still greater fierceness. The 
 moment he once more entered into me the instant that I was 
 possessed I cannot call it by any other name an unnatural 
 strength pervaded my shrunken muscles and emaciated frame,
 
 212 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 and I stepped boldly into the hall While I had stood at the 
 door, listless and feeble as a child, hanging on the arms of the 
 two topmen, after they had raised me from the hammock, the 
 whole party had sat silently gazing at me, with their faculties 
 paralysed with terror. But now, when I stumped into the room 
 like the marble statue in Don Juan, and glared on them, my 
 eyes sparkling with unearthly brilliancy under the fierce distem- 
 per which had anew thrust its red-hot fingers into my maw, and 
 was at the moment seething my brain in its hellish cauldron, the 
 negroes in the piazza, one and all, men, women, and children, 
 evanished into the night, and the whole party in the foreground 
 started to their legs, as if they had been suddenly galvanised ; 
 the table and chairs were overset, and whites and blacks trundled, 
 and scrambled, and bundled over and over each other, neck and 
 crop, as if the very devil had come to invite them to dinner in 
 propria persona, horns, tail, and all 
 
 " Duppy come ! Duppy come ! Massa Tom Cringle ghost stand 
 at for we door ; we all shall dead, oh we all shall go dead, oh ! " 
 bellowed the father of gods, my old ally Jupiter. 
 
 " Guid guide us, that's an awfu' sicht ! " quoth the Scotch 
 bookkeeper. 
 
 " By the hockey, speak if you be a ghost, or I'll exercise " 
 [exorcise] " ye with this butt of a musket," quoth the cowboy 
 an Irishman to be sure, whose round bullet-head was discernible 
 in the human mass by his black, twinkling, half-drunken-look- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 " Well-a-day," groaned another of them, a Welshman, I believe, 
 with a face as long as my arm, and a drawl worthy of a Methodist 
 parson ; " and what can it be flesh and blood it is not can 
 these dry bones live] " 
 
 111 as I was, however, I could perceive that all this row had 
 now more of a tipsy frolic in it whatever it might have had at 
 first than absolute fear ; for the red-faced visitor, and Mr Fyall, as 
 if half-ashamed, speedily extricated themselves from the chaos of 
 chairs and living creatures, righted the table, replaced the candles, 
 and having sat down, looking as grave as judges on the bench, 
 Aaron Bang exclaimed " I'll bet a dozen, it is the poor fellow 
 himself returned on our hands, half -dead from the rascally treat- 
 ment he has met with at the hands of these smuggling thieves ! " 
 
 "Smugglers or no,'' said Fyall, "you are right for once, my 
 peony rose, I do believe." 
 
 But Aaron was a leetle staggered, notwithstanding, when I 
 stumped towards him, as already described, and he shifted back
 
 VOMITO PBIETO. 213 
 
 and back as I advanced, with a most laughable cast of counten- 
 ance, between jest and earnest, while Fyall kept shouting to him 
 " If it be his ghost, try him in Latin, Mr Bang speak Latin 
 to him, Aaron Bang nothing for a ghost like Latin ; it is their 
 mother tongue." 
 
 Bang, who, it seemed, plumed himself on his eruditon, forth- 
 with began " Quae maribus solum tribuuntur." Aaron's con- 
 ceit of exorcising a spirit with the fag-end of an old grammar 
 rule would have tickled me under most circumstances, but I was 
 far past laughing. I had more need, God help me, to pray. I 
 made another step. He hitched his chair back. "Bam, Bo, 
 Hem ! " shouted the incipient planting attorney. Another hitch, 
 which carried him clean out of the supper-room, and across the 
 narrow piazza; but in this last movement he made a regular 
 false step, the two back-feet of his chair dropping, over the first 
 step of the front stairs, whereupon he lost his balance, and, top- 
 pling over, vanished in a twinkling, and rolled down half-a-dozen 
 steps, heels over head, until he lay sprawling on the manger or 
 mule-trough before the door, where the beastesses are fed under 
 busha's own eye on all estates for this excellent and most 
 cogent reason, that otherwise the maize or guinea-corn, belonging 
 of right to poor mulo, would generally go towards improving the 
 condition, not of the quadruped, but of the biped quashie who 
 had charge of him and there he lay in a convulsion of laughter. 
 
 The two seamen, who supported me between them, were at 
 first so completely dumf oundered by all this that they could not 
 speak. At length, however, Timothy Tailtackle lost his patience, 
 and found his tongue. 
 
 " This may be Jamaica frolic, good gentlemen, and all very 
 comical in its way ; but, d n me, if it be either gentleman-like 
 or Christian-like, to be after funning and fuddling, while a 
 fellow-creature, and his Majesty's commissioned officer to boot, 
 stands before you, all but dead of one of your blasted fevers." 
 
 The honest fellow's straightforward appeal, far from giving 
 offence to the kind-hearted people to whom it was made, was 
 not only taken in good part, but Mr Fyall himself took the lead 
 in setting the whole household immediately to work, to have me 
 properly cared for. The best room in the house was given up 
 to me. I was carefully shifted and put to bed ; but during all 
 that night and the following day I was raving in a furious 
 fever, so that I had to be forcibly held down in my bed, some- 
 times for half an hour at a time.
 
 214 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 I say, messmate, have you ever had the yellow fever, the 
 vomito prieto, black vomit, as the Spaniards call it 1 ? No? Have 
 you ever had a bad bilious fever, then 1 No bad bilious fever 
 either? Why, then, you are a most unfortunate creature; for 
 you have never known what it is to be in heaven, nor eke the 
 other place. Oh, the delight, the blessedness of the languor of 
 recovery, when one finds himself in a large airy room, with a 
 dreamy indistinct recollection of great past suffering, endured in 
 a small miserable vessel within the tropics, where you have been 
 roasted one moment by the vertical rays of the sun, and the 
 next annealed, hissing hot, by the salt sea-spray ; in a broad 
 luxurious bed, some cool sunny morning, with the fresh sea- 
 breeze whistling through the open windows that look into the 
 piazza, and rustling the folds of the clean wire-gauze musquito 
 net that serves you for bed-curtains; while beyond you look 
 forth into the sequestered courtyard, overshadowed by one vast 
 umbrageous kennip-tree, that makes everything look green and 
 cool and fresh beneath, and whose branches the rushing wind 
 is rasping cheerily on the shingles of the roof and oh, how 
 passing sweet is the lullaby from the humming of numberless 
 glancing bright-hued flies, of all sorts and sizes, sparkling among 
 the green leaves like chips of a prism, and the fitful whirring 
 of the fairy-flitting humming-bird, now here, now there, like 
 winged gems, or living " atoms of the rainbow," round which 
 their tiny wings, moving too quickly to be visible, form little 
 haloes and the palm-tree at the house-corner is shaking its long 
 hard leaves, making a sound for all the world like the pattering 
 of rain ; and the orange-tree top, with ripe fruit and green fruit 
 and white blossoms, is waving to and fro flush with the window- 
 sill, dashing the fragrant odour into your room at every whish; 
 and the double jessamine is twining up the papaw (whose fruit, 
 if rubbed on a bull's hide, immediately converts it into a tender 
 beef -steak), and absolutely stifling you with sweet perfume ; and 
 then the sangaree old madeira, two parts of water, no more, 
 and nutmeg and not a taste out of a thimble, but a rammer- 
 full of it, my boy, that would drown your first-born at his chris- 
 tening, if he slipped into it. And no stinting in the use of this 
 ocean ; on the contrary, the tidy old brown nurse, or mayhap a 
 buxom young one, at your bedside, with ever and anon a " leetle 
 more panada," (d n panada, I had forgotten that !) " and 
 den some more sangaree ; it will do massa good, trenthen him 
 tomack" and but I am out of breath, and must lie to for a 
 brief space.
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 215 
 
 I opened my eyes late in the morning of the second day after 
 landing, and saw Mr Fyall and the excellent Aaron Bang sitting 
 one on each side of my bed. Although weak as a sucking infant, 
 I had a strong persuasion on my mind that all danger was over, 
 and that I was convalescent. I had no feverish symptoms what- 
 soever, but felt cool and comfortable, with a fine balmy moisture 
 on my skin ; as yet, however, I spoke with great difficulty. 
 
 Aaron noticed this. 
 
 " Don't exert yourself too much, Tom ; take it coolly, man, 
 and thank God that you are now fairly round the corner. Is 
 your head painful 1 " 
 
 " No why should it 1 " 
 
 Mr Fyall smiled, and I put up my hand it was all I could 
 do, for my limbs appeared loaded with lead at the extremities, 
 and when I touched any part of my frame, with my hand for 
 instance, there was no concurring sensation conveyed by the 
 nerves of the two parts ; sometimes I felt as if touched by the 
 hand of another; at others, as if I had touched the person of 
 some one else. When I raised my hand to my forehead, my 
 fingers instinctively moved to take hold of my hair, for I was in 
 no small degree proud of some luxuriant brown curls, which the 
 women used to praise. Alas, and alack-a-day ! in place of ring- 
 lets, glossy with Macassar oil, I found a cool young tender plan- 
 tain-leaf bound round my temples. 
 
 " What is all this ? " said I. " A kale-blade where my hair 
 used to be ! " 
 
 " How came this kale-blade here, 
 And how came it here ? " 
 
 sang friend Bang, laughing, for he had great powers of laughter, 
 and I saw he kept his quizzical face turned towards some object 
 at the head of the bed, which I could not see. 
 
 " You may say that, Aaron where's my wig, you rogue, eh ? " 
 
 " Never mind, Tom," said Fyall, " your hair will soon grow 
 again, won't it, miss ? " 
 
 " Miss ! miss ! " and I screwed my neck round, and lo ! 
 " Ah, Mary, and are you the Delilah who have shorn my locks 
 you wicked young female lady, you ! " 
 
 She smiled and nodded to Aaron, who was a deuced favour- 
 ite with the ladies, black, brown, and white (I give the pas to 
 the staple of the country hope no offence), as well as with 
 every one else who ever knew him. 
 
 " How dare you, friend Bang, shave and blister my head, you
 
 216 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 dog ] " said I. " You cannibal Indian, you have scalped me ; 
 you are a regular Mohawk." 
 
 "Never mind, Tom never mind, my boy," said he. "Ay, 
 you may blush, Mary Palma. Cringle there will fight, but he 
 will have ' Palmam qui meruit f erat ' for his motto yet, take 
 my word for it." 
 
 The sight of my cousin's lovely face, and the heavenly music 
 of her tongue, made me so forgiving that I could be angry with 
 no one. At this moment a nice-looking elderly man slid into 
 the room as noiselessly as a cat. 
 
 " How are you, lieutenant ? Why, you are positively gay 
 this morning ! Preserve me ! why have you taken off the 
 dressing from your head ] " 
 
 " Preserve me you may say that, doctor : why, you seem to 
 have preserved me, and pickled me after a very remarkable 
 fashion, certainly ! Why, man, do you intend to make a mummy 
 of me, with all your swathings 1 Now, what is that crackling 
 on my chest ? More plantain-leaves, as I live ! " 
 
 "Only another blister, sir." 
 
 " Only another blister and my feet Zounds ! what have 
 you been doing with my feet ? The soles are as tender as if I 
 had been bastinadoed." 
 
 " Only cataplasms, sir ; mustard and bird-pepper poultices 
 nothing more." 
 
 " Mustard and bird-pepper poultices ! and pray, what is that 
 long fiddle-case, supported on two chairs in the piazza ? " 
 
 " What case ? " said the good doctor, and his eye followed 
 mine. " Oh, my gun-case. I am a great sportsman, you must 
 know but draw down that blind, Mr Bang, if you please, the 
 breeze is too strong." 
 
 " Gun-case ! I would rather have taken it for your ^awe-box, 
 doctor. However, thanks be to heaven, you have not bagged 
 me this bout." 
 
 At this moment I heard a violent scratching and jumping on 
 the roof of the house, and presently a loud croak, and a strong 
 rushing noise, as of a large bird taking flight " What is that, 
 doctor 1 " 
 
 " The devil," said he, laughing ; " at least your evil genius, 
 lieutenant ; it is the carrion crows the large John Crows, as 
 they are called flying away. They have been holding a council 
 of war upon you since early dawn, expecting (I may tell you, now 
 you are so well) that it might likely soon turn into a coroner's 
 inquest."
 
 VOMITO PRIETO. 217 
 
 " John Crow ! Coroner's inquest ! Cool shavers those West 
 India chaps, after all ! " muttered I ; and again I lay back and 
 offered up my heart- warm thanks to the Almighty for His great 
 mercy to me a sinner. 
 
 My aunt and cousin had been on a visit in the neighbourhood, 
 and over-night Mr Fyall had kindly sent for them to receive my 
 last sigh, for to all appearance I was fast going. Oh, the grati- 
 tude of my heart, the tears of joy I wept in my weak blessed- 
 ness, and the overflowing of heart that I experienced towards 
 that almighty and ever-merciful Being who had spared me, and 
 brought me out of my great sickness, to look round on dear 
 friends, and on the idol of my heart, once more, after all my 
 grievous sufferings ! I took Mary's hand I could not raise it 
 for lack of strength, or I would have kissed it ; but as she leant 
 over me, Fyall came behind her and gently pressed her sweet 
 lips to mine, while the dear girl blushed as red as Aaron Bang's 
 face. By this my aunt herself had come into the room, and 
 added her warm congratulations ; and last, although not least, 
 Timothy Tailtackle made his appearance in the piazza at the 
 window, with a clean, joyful, well-shaven countenance. He 
 grinned, turned his quid, pulled up his trousers, smoothed down 
 his hair with his hand, and gave a sort of half-tipsy shamble, 
 meant for a bow, as he entered the bedroom. 
 
 " You have forereached on Davy this time, sir. Heaven be 
 praised for it ! He was close aboard of you, howsomdever, sir, 
 once or twice." Then he bowed round the room again, with a 
 sort of swing or caper, whichever you choose to call it, as if he 
 had been the party obliged. " Kind folk these, sir," he contin- 
 ued, in what was meant for sotto voce, and for my ear alone, but 
 it was more like the growling of a mastiff puppy than anything 
 else " Kind folk, sir bad as their mountebanking looked the 
 first night, sir. Why, Lord bless your honour, may they make a 
 marine of me, if they han't set a Bungo to wait on us, Bill and 
 I, that is and we has grog more than does us good and grub, 
 my eye ! only think, sir, Bill and Timothy Tailtackle waited 
 on by a black Bungo ! " and he doubled himself up, chuckling 
 and hugging himself, with infinite glee. 
 
 ' All went now merry as a marriage-bell." I was carefully 
 conveyed to Kingston, where I rallied under my aunt's hospit- 
 able roof, as rapidly almost as I had sickened, and within a fort- 
 night, all bypast strangeness explained to my superiors, I at 
 length occupied my berth in the Firebrand's gunroom as third 
 lieutenant of the ship.
 
 218 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 
 
 "There be land-rats and water-rats water-thieves and land- 
 thieves I mean pirates." Merchant of Venice. 
 
 THE malady, from whose fangs I had just escaped, was at this 
 time making fearful ravages amongst the troops and white inha- 
 bitants of Jamaica generally ; nor was the squadron exempted from 
 the afflicting visitation, although it suffered in a smaller degree. 
 
 I had occasion at this time to visit Up-park camp, a military 
 post about a mile and a half from Kingston, where two regi- 
 ments of infantry and a detachment of artillery were stationed. 
 
 In the forenoon I walked out in company with an officer, a 
 relation of my own, whom I had gone to visit enjoying the 
 fresh sea-breeze that whistled past us in half a gale of wind, al- 
 though the sun was vertical, and shining into the bottom of a 
 pint-pot, as the sailors have it. 
 
 The barracks were built on what appeared to me a very dry 
 situation (although I have since heard it alleged that there was 
 a swamp to windward of it, over which the sea-breeze blew, but 
 this I did not see), considerably elevated above the hot sandy 
 plain on which Kingston stands, and sloping gently towards the 
 sea. They were splendid, large, airy, two-storey buildings, well 
 raised off the ground on brick pillars, so that there was a per- 
 fectly free ventilation of air between the surface of the earth 
 and the floor of the first storey, as well as through the whole of 
 the upper rooms. A large balcony, or piazza, ran along the 
 whole of the south front, both above and below, which shaded 
 the brick shell of the house from the sun, and afforded a cool 
 and convenient lounge for the men. The outhouses of all kinds 
 were well thrown back into the rear, so that in front there was 
 nothing to intercept the sea-breeze. The officers' quarters stood 
 in advance of the men's barracks, and were, as might be ex- 
 pected, still more comfortable ; and in front of all were the field- 
 officers' houses, the whole of substantial brick and mortar. This 
 superb establishment stood in an extensive lawn, not surpassed 
 in beauty by any nobleman's park that I had ever seen. It was
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 219 
 
 immediately after the rains when I visited it ; the grass was 
 luxuriant and newly cut, and the trees, which grew in detached 
 clumps, were most magnificent. We clambered up into one of 
 them, a large umbrageous wild cotton-tree, which cast a shadow 
 on the ground the sun being, as already mentioned, right over- 
 head of thirty paces in diameter ; but still it was but a dwarf- 
 ish plant of its kind, for I have measured others whose gigantic 
 shadows, at the same hour, were upwards of one hundred and 
 fifty feet in diameter, and their trunks, one in particular that 
 overhangs the Spanish Town road, twenty feet through 'of solid 
 timber ; that is, not including the enormous spars that shoot out 
 like buttresses, and end in strong twisted roots, that strike deep 
 into the earth, and form stays, as it were, to the tree in all 
 directions. 
 
 Our object, however publish it not in Askalon was not so 
 much to admire the charms of nature as to enjoy the luxury of a 
 real Havannah cigar in solitary comfort ; and a glorious perch we 
 had selected. The shade was grateful beyond measure. The fresh 
 breeze was rushing, almost roaring, through the leaves and groan- 
 ing branches, and everything around was green, and fragrant, and 
 cool, and delicious by comparison that is, for the thermometer 
 would, I daresay, have still vouched for eighty degrees. The 
 branches overhead were alive with a variety of beautiful lizards, 
 and birds of the gayest plumage ; amongst others, a score of small 
 chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and playing 
 at bopeep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild pine 
 (a sort of Brobdignag parasite, that grows, like the mistletoe, in 
 the clefts of the larger trees), to which they clung, as green and 
 shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping 
 their little heads and shoulders over to peer at us ; while the 
 red-breasted woodpecker kept drumming on every hollow part 
 of the bark, for all the world like old Kelson, the carpenter of 
 the Torch, tapping along the top-sides for the dry rot. All 
 around us the men were lounging about in the shade, and sprawl- 
 ing on the grass in their foraging-caps and light jackets, with an 
 officer here and there lying reading, or sauntering about, bearding 
 Phoebus himself, to watch for a shot at a swallow as it skimmed 
 past ; while goats and horses, sheep and cattle, were browsing 
 the fresh grass, or sheltering themselves from the heat beneath 
 the trees. All nature seemed alive and happy a little drowsy 
 from the heat or so, but that did not much signify when two 
 carts, each drawn by a mule, and driven by a negro, approached 
 the tree whereon we were perched. A solitary sergeant accom-
 
 220 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 panied them, and they appeared, when a bowshot distant, to be 
 loaded with white deal boxes. 
 
 I paid little attention to them until they drove under the tree. 
 
 " I say, Snowdrop," said the noncommissioned officer, " where 
 be them black rascals, them pioneers where is the fateague 
 party, my Lily-white, who ought to have the trench dug by this 
 time ? " 
 
 " Dere now," grumbled the negro, " dere now easy ting to 
 deal wid white gentleman, but debil cannot satisfy dem worsted 
 sash." Then aloud " Me no know, sir me can't tell ; no for 
 me business to dig hole I only carry what you fill him up 
 wid;" and the vampire, looking over his shoulder, cast his eye 
 towards his load, and grinned until his white teeth glanced 
 from ear to ear. 
 
 " Now," said the Irish sergeant, " I could brain you, but 
 it is not worth while ! " I question if he could, however, know- 
 ing, as I did, the thickness of their skulls. " Ah, here they 
 come ! " and a dozen half - drunken, more than half -naked, 
 bloated, villanous-looking blackamoors, with shovels and pick- 
 axes on their shoulders, came along the road, laughing and sing- 
 ing most lustily. They passed beneath where we sat, and, when 
 about a stone-cast beyond, they all jumped into a trench or pit, 
 which I had not noticed before, about twenty feet long by eight 
 wide. It was already nearly six feet deep, but it seemed they 
 had instructions to sink it further, for they first plied their pick- 
 axes, and then began to shovel out the earth. When they had 
 completed their labour, the sergeant, who had been superintend- 
 ing their operations, returned to where the carts were still stand- 
 ing beneath the tree. One of them had six coffins in it, with the 
 name of the tenant of each, and number of his company, marked 
 in red chalk on the smallest end ! 
 
 " I say, Snowdrop," said the sergeant, " how do you come to 
 have only five bodies, when Cucumbershin there has six ? " 
 
 " To be sure I hab no more as five, and weight enough too. 
 You no see Corporal Bumblechops dere ? You knows how big 
 he was." 
 
 " Well, but where is Sergeant Heavystern ] why did you not 
 fetch him away with the others ] " 
 
 The negro answered doggedly, " Massa Sergeant, you should 
 remember dem no die of consumption cough you call him 
 nor fever and ague, nor any ting dat waste dem ; for tree day 
 gone no more all were mount guard tout and fat so, as for 
 Sergeant Heavystern, him left in de dead-house at de hospital."
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 221. 
 
 "I guessed as much, you dingy thief," said the sergeant, "but I 
 will break your bones if you don't give me a sufficing rason why 
 you left him." And he approached Snowdrop with his cane 
 raised in act to strike. 
 
 "Top, massa," shouted the negro; "me will tell you Dr 
 Plaget desire dat Heavystern should be leave." 
 
 " Confound Dr Plaget ! " and he smote the pioneer across the 
 pate, whereby he broke his stick, although, as I anticipated, 
 without much hurting his man ; but the sergeant instantly saw 
 his error, and with the piece of the baton he gave Snowdrop a 
 tap on the shin-bone that set him pirouetting on one leg, with 
 the other in his hand, like a teetotum. 
 
 " Why, sir, did you not bring as many as Cucumbershin, sir? " 
 
 " Because," screamed Snowdrop in great wrath, now all alive 
 and kicking from the smart " Because Cucumbershin is loaded 
 wid light infantry, sir, and all of mine are grenadier, Massa 
 Sergeant dat dem good reason surely ! " 
 
 " No, it is not, sir ; go back and fetch Heavystern immedi- 
 ately, or by the powers but I will " 
 
 " Massa Sergeant, you must be mad Dr Plaget you won't 
 y eerie but him say, five grenadier especially wid Corporal 
 Bumblechop for one is good load ay, wery tif load equal to 
 seven taUion company [battalion, I presume], and more better 
 load, great deal, den six light infantry ; beside him say, Tell 
 Sergeant Pivot to send you back at five in de afternoon wid four 
 more coffin, by which time he would have anoder load, and in 
 trute de load was ready prepare in de dead-house before I come 
 away, only dem were not well cold just yet." 
 
 I was mightily shocked at all this, but my chum took it very 
 coolly. He slightly raised one side of his mouth, and, giving a 
 knowing wink with his eye, lighted a fresh cigar, and continued 
 to puff away with all the composure in the world. 
 
 At length the forenoon wore away, and the bugles sounded 
 for dinner, when we adjourned to the mess-room. It was a very 
 large and handsome saloon, standing alone in the lawn, and quite 
 detached from all the other buildings, but the curtailed dimen- 
 sions of the table in the middle of it, and the ominous crowding 
 together of the regimental plate, like a show-table in Bundle 
 and Bridge's back-shop, gave startling proofs of the ravages of 
 the " pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction 
 that wasteth at noon-day;" for although the whole regiment 
 was in barracks, there were only nine covers laid, one of which 
 was for me. The lieutenant-colonel, the major, and, I believe,
 
 222 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 fifteen other officers, had already been gathered to their fathers 
 within four months from the day on which the regiment landed 
 from the transports. Their warfare was o'er, and they slept well. 
 At the first, when the insidious disease began to creep on apace, 
 and to evince its deadly virulence, all was dismay and anxiety 
 downright, slavish, unmanly fear, even amongst case-hardened 
 veterans, who had weathered the whole Peninsular war, and 
 finished off with Waterloo. The next week passed over, the mor- 
 tality increasing, but the dismay decreasing ; and so it wore on, 
 until it reached its horrible climax, at the time I speak of, by 
 which period there was absolutely no dread at all A reckless 
 gaiety had succeeded not the screwing-up of one's courage for 
 the nonce, to mount a breach, or to lay an enemy's frigate 
 aboard, where the substratum of fear is present, although cased 
 over by an energetic exertion of the will; but an unnatural 
 light-heartedness for which account, ye philosophers, for I can- 
 not and this, too, amongst men who, although as steel in the 
 field, yet whenever a common cold overtook them in quarters, 
 or a small twinge of rheumatic pain, would, under other circum- 
 stances, have caudled and beflanneled themselves, and bored you 
 for your sympathy, at no allowance, as they say. 
 
 The major elect that is, the senior captain was in the 
 chair; as for the lieutenant-colonel's vacancy, that was too 
 high an aspiration for any man in the regiment. A stranger of 
 rank and interest and money would of course get that step, 
 for the two deaths in the regimental staff made but one captain 
 a major, as my neighbour on the left hand feelingly remarked. 
 All was fun and joviality; we had a capital dinner, and no 
 allusion whatever, direct or indirect, was made to the prevailing 
 mortal epidemic, until the surgeon came in, about eight o'clock 
 in the evening. 
 
 " Sit down, doctor," said the president " take some wine ; 
 <&n recommend the madeira claret but so-so your health." 
 
 The doctor bowed, and soon became as happy and merry as 
 the rest ; so we carried on until about ten o'clock, when the 
 lights began to waltz a little, and propagate also, and I found I 
 had got enough, or, peradventure, a little more than enough, 
 when the senior captain rose, and walked very composedly out 
 of the room but I noticed him pinch the doctor's shoulder as 
 he passed. 
 
 The medico thereupon stole quietly after him ; but we did not 
 seem to miss either a young sub had usurped the deserted 
 throne, and there we were all once more in full career, singing
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 223 
 
 and bousing, and cracking bad jokes to our heart's content 
 By-and-by in comes the doctor once more. 
 
 " Doctor," quoth young sub, " take some wine ; can't recom- 
 mend the madeira this time," mimicking his predecessor very 
 successfully ; " the claret, you know, has been condemned, but c, 
 little hot brandy-and- water, eh ? " 
 
 The doctor once more bowed his pate, made his hot stuff, and 
 volunteered a song. After he had finished, and we had all 
 hammered on the table to his honour and glory until everything 
 danced again, as if it had been a matter of very trivial concern, 
 he said, " Sorry I was away so long ; but old Spatterdash has 
 got a deuced thick skin, I can tell you could scarcely get the 
 lancet into Mm : I thought I should have had to send for a 
 spring phleme, to tip him the veterinary, you know and he 
 won't take physic ; so I fear he will have but a poor chance." 
 
 Spatterdash was no other than mine host who had just vacated. 
 
 " What ! do you really think he is in for it ?" said the second 
 oldest captain, who sat next me ; and as he spoke he drew his 
 leg from beneath the table, and, turning out his dexter heel, 
 seemed to contemplate the site of the prospective fixed spur. 
 
 " I do, indeed," quoth Dr Plaget. He died within three days I 
 
 But as I do not intend to write an essay on yellow fever, I 
 will make an end, and get on shipboard as fast as I can, after 
 stating one strong fact, authenticated to me by many unimpeach- 
 able witnesses. It is this ; that this dreadful epidemic, or con- 
 tagious .fever call it which you will has never appeared, or 
 been propagated, at or beyond an altitude of 3000 feet above the 
 level of the sea, although people seized with it on the hot sultry 
 plains, and removed thither, have unquestionably died. In a 
 country like Jamaica, with a range of lofty mountains, far ex- 
 ceeding this height, intersecting the island through nearly its 
 whole length, might not Government, after satisfying themselves 
 of the truth of the fact, improve on the hint ? Might not a 
 main-guard suffice in Kingston, for instance, while the regiments 
 were in quarters half-way up the Liguanea Mountains, within 
 twelve miles' actual distance from the town, and within view of 
 it, so that during the day, by a semaphore on the mountain, and 
 another at the barrack of the outpost, a constant and instanta- 
 neous communication could be kept up, and, if need were, by 
 lights in the night ? 
 
 The admiral, for instance, had a semaphore in the stationary 
 flag-ship at Port Royal, which communicated with another at 
 his Pen, or residence, near Kingston ; and this, again, rattled off
 
 224 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 the information to the mountain retreat, where he occasionally 
 retired to careen ; and it is fitting to state also, that in all the 
 mountain districts of Jamaica which I visited there is abundance 
 of excellent water and plenty of fuel. These matters are worth 
 consideration, one would think ; however, allons it is no busi- 
 ness of Tom Cringle's. 
 
 Speaking of telegraphing, I will relate an anecdote here, if 
 you will wait until I mend my pen. I had landed at Greenwich 
 wharf on duty this was the nearest point of communication 
 between Port Royal and the Admiral's Pen where, finding the 
 flag-lieutenant, he drove me up in his ketureen to lun.ch. While 
 we were regaling ourselves, the old signal-man came into the 
 piazza, and with several most remarkable obeisances gave us to 
 know that there were flags hoisted on the signal-mast at the 
 mountain settlement, of which he could make nothing the 
 uppermost was neither the interrogative, the affirmative, nor the 
 negative, nor, in fact, anything that with the book he could 
 make sense of. 
 
 " Odd enough," said the lieutenant ; " hand me the glass," 
 and he peered away for half a minute. " Confound me if I can 
 make heads or tails of it either ; there, Cringle, what do you 
 think 1 How do you construe it 1 " 
 
 I took the telescope. Uppermost there was hoisted on the 
 signal-mast a large table-cloth, not altogether immaculate, and 
 under it a towel, as I guessed, for it was too opaque for bunting, 
 and too white, although I could not affirm that it was fresh out 
 of the fold either. 
 
 " I am puzzled," said I, as I spied away again. Meanwhile, 
 there was no acknowledgment made at our semaphore. " There, 
 down they go," I continued " Why, it must be a mistake 
 Stop, here's a new batch going up above the green trees There 
 
 goes the tablecloth once more, and the towel, and deuce 
 
 take me, if I can compare the lowermost to anything but a dish- 
 clout why, it must be a dishclout." 
 
 The flags, or substitutes for them, streamed another minute 
 in the breeze, but as there was still no answer made from our 
 end of the string, they were once more hauled down. We waited 
 another minute "Why, here goes the same signal up again, 
 tablecloth, towel, dishclout, and all What the diable have we 
 got here ? A red ball, two pennants under What can that mean 1 
 Ball it is the bonnet-rouge, or I am a Dutchman, with two 
 short streamers " Another look " A red night-cap and a pair 
 of stockings, by all that is portentous ! " exclaimed I.
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 225 
 
 . " Ah, I see, I see ! " said the lieutenant, laughing " signal- 
 man, acknowledge it." 
 
 It was done, and down came all the flags in a trice. It ap- 
 peared, on inquiry, that the washing-cart, which ought to have 
 been sent up that morning, had been forgotten ; and the Admiral 
 and his secretary having ridden out, there was no one who could 
 make the proper signal for it. So the old housekeeper took this 
 singular method of having the cart despatched, and it was sent 
 off" accordingly. 
 
 For the first week after I entered on my new office, I was 
 busily engaged on board ; during which time my mind was quite 
 made up, that the most rising man in his Majesty's service, be- 
 yond all compare, was Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, third of the 
 Firebrand. During this eventful period I never addressed a 
 note to any friend on shore, or to a brother officer, without writ- 
 ing in the left-hand lower corner of the envelope " Lieutenant 
 Cringle," and clapping three dashing &c. &c. &c.'s below the 
 party's name for whom it was intended. 
 
 " Must let 'em know that an officer of my rank in the service 
 knows somewhat of the courtesies of life, eh? " 
 
 In about ten days, however, we had gotten the ship into high 
 order and ready for sea, and now the glory and honour of com- 
 mand, like my only epaulet, that had been soaked while on duty 
 in one or two showers, and afterwards regularly bronzed in the 
 sun, began to tarnish, and lose the new gloss, like everything 
 else in this weary world. It was about this time, while sitting 
 at breakfast in the gunroom one fine morning, with the other 
 officers of our mess, gossiping about I hardly remember what, 
 that we heard the captain's voice on deck. 
 
 " CaU the first-lieutenant." 
 
 " He is at breakfast, sir," said the man, whoever he might 
 have been, to whom the order was addressed. 
 
 " Never mind then Here, boatswain's mate Pipe away the 
 men who were captured in the boats ; tell them to clean them- 
 selves, and send Mr to me " (this was the officer who 
 
 had been taken prisoner along with them in the first attack) 
 " they are wanted in Kingston at the trial to-day Stop tell 
 Mr Cringle also to get ready to go in the gig." 
 
 The pirates, to the amount of forty-five, had been transferred 
 to Kingston jail some days previously, preparatory to their trial, 
 which, as above mentioned, was fixed for this day. 
 
 We pulled cheerily up to Kingston, and, landing at the Wherry 
 wharf, marched along the hot dusty streets, under a broiling sun,
 
 226 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Captain Transom, the other lieutenant, and myself, in full puff, 
 leading the van, followed by about fourteen seamen, in white 
 straw-hats, with broad black ribbons, and clean white frocks and 
 trousers, headed by a boatswain's mate, with his silver whistle 
 hung round his neck as respectable a tail as any Christian 
 could desire to swing behind him ; and, man for man, I would 
 willingly have perilled my promotion upon their walloping, with 
 no offensive weapons but their stretchers, the Following, clay- 
 mores and all, of any proud, disagreeable, would -be -mighty 
 mountaineer, that ever turned up his supercilious, whisky-blos- 
 somed snout at Bailie Jarvie. On they came, square-shouldered, 
 narrow-flanked, tall, strapping fellows, tumbling and rolling about 
 the piazzas in knots of three and four, until, at the corner of King 
 Street, they came bolt up upon a well-known, large, fat, brown 
 lady, famous for her manufacture of spruce beer. 
 
 " Avast, avast a bit," sang out one of the topmen ; " let the 
 nobs heave ahead, will ye, and let's have a pull" 
 
 " Here, old Mother Slush," sang out another of the cutter's 
 crew " Hand us up a dozen bottles of spruce, do you hear? " 
 
 " Dozen battle of pruce ! " groaned the old woman " who 
 sail pay me 1 " 
 
 "Why, do you think the Firebrands are thieves, you old 
 canary, you] " 
 
 " How much, eh 1 ? " said the boatswain's mata 
 
 " Twelve feepennies," quoth the matron. 
 
 "Oh, ah! " said one of the men " Twelve times five is half- 
 a-crown ; there's a dollar for you, old mother Popandchokem 
 now give me back five shillings/' 
 
 "Eigh, oh!" whined out the spruce merchant; "you dem 
 rascal, who tell you that your dollar more wort den any one 
 else money eh? How can give you back five shilling and 
 keep back twelve feepenny eh? " 
 
 The culprit, who had stood the Cocker of the company, had 
 by this time gained his end, which was to draw the fat damsel 
 a step or two from the large tub half-full of water, where the 
 bottles were packed, and to engage her attention by stirring up 
 her bile, or corruption, as they call it in Scotland, while his 
 messmates instantly seized the opportunity, and a bottle apiece 
 also ; "and, as I turned round to look for them, there they all 
 were in a circle taking the meridian altitude of the sun, or as if 
 they had been taking aim at the pigeons on the eaves of the 
 houses above them with Indian mouth-tubes. 
 
 They then replaced the bottles in the tub, paid the woman
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 227 
 
 more than she asked ; but, by way of taking out the change, 
 they chucked her stern foremost into the water amongst her 
 merchandise, and then shouldered the vessel, old woman and all, 
 and away they staggered with her, the empty bottles clattering 
 together in the water, and the old lady swearing, and bouncing, 
 and squattering amongst them, while Jack shouted to her to 
 hold her tongue, or they would let her go by the run bodily. 
 Thus they stumped in the wake of their captain, until he arrived 
 at the door of the court-house, to the great entertainment of the 
 bystanders, cutting the strings that confined the corks of the 
 stone bottles as they bowled along, popping the spruce into each 
 other's faces, and the faces of the negroes, as they ran out of 
 the stores to look at Jack in his frolic, and now and then taking 
 a shot at the old woman's cockernony itself, as she was held, 
 kicking and spurring, high above their heads. 
 
 At length the captain, who was no great way ahead, saw what 
 was going on, which was the signal for doucing the whole affair, 
 spruce- woman, tub, and bottles ; and the party, gathering them- 
 selves up, mustered close aboard of us, as grave as members of 
 the General Assembly. 
 
 The regular court-house of the city being under repair, the 
 Admiralty Sessions were held in a large room occupied tempo- 
 rarily for the purpose. At one end, raised two steps above the 
 level of the floor, was the bench, on which were seated the 
 Judge of the Admiralty Court, supported by two post-captains 
 in full uniform, who are ex-officio judges of this court in the 
 colonies, one on each side. On the right, the jury, composed of 
 merchants of the place and respectable planters of the neigh- 
 bourhood, were enclosed in a sort of box, with a common white 
 pine railing separating it from the rest of the court. There was 
 a long table in front of the bench, at which a lot of black-robed 
 devil's limbs of lawyers were ranged but both amongst them, 
 and on the bench, the want of the cauliflower wigs was sorely 
 felt by me, as well as by the seamen, who considered it little 
 less than murder, that men in crops black shock-pated fellows 
 should sit in judgment on their fellow-creatures, where life 
 and death were in the scales. 
 
 On the left hand of the bench, the motley public white, 
 black, and of every intermediate shade were grouped ; as also 
 in front of the dock, which was large. It might have been made 
 with a view to the possibility of fifteen unfortunates or so being 
 arraigned at one time ; but now there were no fewer than forty- 
 three jammed and pegged together into it, like sheep in a Smith-
 
 228 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 field pen the evening before market-day. These were the forty 
 thieves the pirates. They were all, without exception, clean, 
 well -shaven, and decently rigged in white trousers, linen or 
 check shirts, and held their broad Panama sombreros in their 
 hands. 
 
 Most of them wore the red silk sash round the waist. They 
 had generally large bushy whiskers, and not a few had ear-rings 
 of massive gold (why call wearing ear-rings puppyism ] Shake- 
 speare wore ear-rings, or the Chandos portrait lies), and chains of 
 the same metal round their necks, supporting, as I concluded, a 
 crucifix, hid in the bosom of the shirt. A Spaniard can't murder 
 a man comfortably if he has not his crucifix about him. 
 
 They were, collectively, the most daring, intrepid, Salvator- 
 Rosa-looking men I had ever seen. Most of them were above 
 the middle size, and the spread of their shoulders, the grace with 
 which their arms were hung, and finely developed muscles of 
 the chest and neck, the latter exposed completely by the folding 
 back of their shirt-collars, cut large and square, after the Spanish 
 fashion, beat the finest boat's crew we could muster all to nothing. 
 Some of them were of mixed blood, that is, the cross between 
 the European Spaniard and the aboriginal Indian of Cuba the 
 latter a race long since sacrificed on the altar of Mammon, the 
 white man's god. 
 
 Their hair, generally speaking, was long, and curled over the 
 forehead black and glossy, or hung down to their shoulders in 
 ringlets, that a dandy of the second Charles's time would have 
 given his little finger for. The forehead in most was high and 
 broad, and of a clear olive, the nose straight, springing boldly 
 from the brow, the cheeks oval, and the mouth every Spaniard 
 has a beautiful mouth, until he spoils it with the beastly cigar, 
 as far as his well-formed firm lips can be spoiled ; but his teeth 
 he generally does destroy early in life. Take the whole, however, 
 and deduct for the teeth, I had never seen so handsome a set of 
 men ; and I am sure no woman, had she been there, would have 
 gainsaid me. They stood up, and looked forth upon their 
 judges and the jury like brave men, desperadoes though they 
 were. They were, without exception, calm and collected, as if 
 aware that they had small chance of escape, but still determined 
 not to give that chance away. One young man especially at- 
 tracted my attention, from the bold, cool self-possession of his 
 bearing. He was in the very front of the dock, and dressed in 
 no way different from the rest, so far as his under garments were 
 concerned, unless it were that they were of a finer quality. He
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 229 
 
 wore a short green velvet jacket, profusely studded with knobs 
 and chains, like small chain-shot, of solid gold, similar to the 
 shifting button lately introduced by our dandies in their waist- 
 coats. It was not put on, but hung on one shoulder, being fas- 
 tened across his breast by the two empty sleeves tied together 
 in a knot. He also wore the red silk sash, through which a 
 broad gold cord ran twining like the strand of a rope. He had 
 no ear-rings, but his hair was the most beautiful I had ever seen 
 in a male long and black, jet-black and glossy. It was turned 
 up and fastened in a club on the crown of his head with a large 
 pin, I should rather say skewer, of silver; but the outlandish- 
 ness of the fashion was not offensive, when I came to take into 
 the account the beauty of the plaiting, and of the long raven 
 lovelocks that hung down behind each of his small transparent 
 ears, and the short Hyperion-like curls that clustered thick and 
 richly on his high, pale, broad forehead. His eyes were large, 
 black, and swimming, like a woman's; his nose straight and 
 thin ; and such a mouth, such an under-lip, full and melting ; 
 and teeth regular and white, and utterly free from the pollution 
 of tobacco ; and a beautifully-moulded small chin, rounding off 
 and merging in his round, massive, muscular neck. 
 
 I had never seen so fine a face, such perfection of features, 
 and such a clear, dark, smooth skin. It was a finer face than 
 Lord Byron's, whom I had seen more than once, and wanted 
 that hellish curl of the lip ; and as to figure, he could, to look 
 at him, at any time have eaten up his lordship, stoop and roop, 
 to his breakfast It was the countenance, in a word, of a most 
 beautiful youth, melancholy, indeed, and anxious evidently 
 anxious ; for the large pearls that coursed each other down his 
 forehead and cheek, and the slight quivering of the under-lip, 
 every now and then evinced the powerful struggle that was 
 going on within. His figure was, if possible, superior to his 
 face. It was not quite filled up set, as we call it but the arch 
 of his chest was magnificent, his shoulders square, arms well put 
 on ; but his neck " Have you seen the Apollo, neighbour] "- 
 "No, but the cast of it at Somerset House." "Well, that 
 will do so you know the sort of neck he had." His waist 
 was fine, hips beautifully moulded; and although his under 
 limbs were shrouded in his wide trousers, they were evidently 
 of a piece with what was seen and developed; and this was 
 vouched for by the turn of his ankle and well-shaped foot, on 
 which he wore a small Spanish grass slipper, fitted with great 
 nicety. He was at least six feet two in height; and such as
 
 230 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 I have described him, there he stood, with his hands grasping" 
 the rail before him, and looking intently at a wigless lawyer 
 who was opening the accusation, while he had one ear turned a 
 little towards the sworn interpreter of the court, whose province 
 it was, at every pause, to explain to the prisoners what the 
 learned gentleman was stating. From time to time he said a 
 word or two to a square-built, dark, ferocious-looking man 
 standing next him, apparently about forty years of age, who, as 
 well as his fellow-prisoners, appeared to pay him great respect ; 
 and I could notice the expression of their countenances change 
 as his rose or fell. 
 
 The indictment had been read before I came in, and, as 
 already mentioned, the lawyer was proceeding with his accu- 
 satory speech, and, as it appeared to me, the young Spaniard 
 had some difficulty in understanding the interpreter's explana- 
 tion. Whenever he saw me, he exclaimed, "Ah ! aqui viene, el 
 Senor Teniente ahora sabremos ahora, ahora;" and he beck- 
 oned to me to draw near. I did so. 
 
 " I beg pardon, Mr Cringle," he said in Spanish, with the ease 
 and grace of a nobleman " but I believe the interpreter to be 
 incapable, and I am certain that what I say is not fittingly ex- 
 plained to the judges ; neither do I believe he can give me a 
 sound notion of what the advocate (avocado) is alleging against 
 us. May I entreat you to solicit the bench for permission to 
 take his place? I know you will expect no apology for the 
 trouble from a man in my situation." 
 
 This unexpected address in open court took me fairly aback, 
 and I stopped short while in the act of passing the open space 
 in front of the dock, which was kept clear by six marines in 
 white jackets, whose muskets, fixed bayonets, and uniform caps, 
 seemed out of place to my mind in a criminal court. The lawyer 
 suddenly suspended his harangue, while the judges fixed their 
 eyes on me, and so did the audience, confound them ! To be 
 the focus of so many eyes was trying to my modesty; for,, 
 although I had mixed a little in the world, and was not alto- 
 gether unacquainted with bettermost society, still, below any 
 little manner that I had acquired, there was, and always will be, 
 an under-stratum of bashfulness, or sheepishness, or mauvaise 
 Itonte, call it which you will ; and the torture, the breaking on 
 the wheel, with which a man of that temperament perceives the 
 eyes of a whole court-house, for instance, attracted to him, none 
 but a bashful man can understand. At length I summoned 
 courage to speak.
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 231 
 
 " May it please your honours, this poor fellow, on his own be- 
 half, and on the part of his fellow-prisoners, complains of the 
 incapacity of the sworn interpreter, and requests that I may be 
 made the channel of communication in his stead." 
 
 This was a tremendous effort, and once more the whole blood 
 of my body rushed to my cheeks and forehead, and I " sweat 
 extremely." The judges, he of the black robe and those of the 
 epaulet, communed together. 
 
 " Have you any objection to be sworn, Mr Cringle ?" 
 
 " None in the least, provided the court considers me com- 
 petent, and the accused are willing to trust to me." 
 
 " Si, si ! " exclaimed the young Spaniard, as if comprehending 
 what was going on " Somos contentos todos, todos!" and 
 he looked round, like a prince, on his fellow-culprits. A low 
 murmuring, " Si, si contento, contento ! " passed amongst the 
 group. 
 
 " The accused, please your honours, are willing to trust to my 
 correctness." 
 
 " Pray, Mr Cringle, don't make yourself the advocate of these 
 men mind that," said the lawyer sans wig. 
 
 " I don't intend it, sir," I said, slightly stung ; " but if you 
 had suffered what I have done at their hands, peradventure such 
 a caution to you would have been unnecessary." 
 
 The sarcasm told, I was glad to see : but remembering where 
 I was, I hauled out of action with the man of words, simply 
 giving the last shot " I am sure no English gentleman would 
 willingly throw any difficulty in the way of the poor fellows 
 being made aware of what is given in evidence against them, 
 bad as they may be." 
 
 He was about rejoining, for a lawyer would as soon let you 
 have the last word as a sweep or a baker the wall, when the 
 officer of court approached and swore me in, and the trial pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 The whole party were proved by fifty witnesses to have been 
 taken in arms on board of the schooners in the cove ; and further, 
 it was proved that no commission or authority to cruise what- 
 soever was found on board any of them, a strong proof that they 
 were pirates. 
 
 " Que dice, que dice 1 " inquired the young Spaniard already 
 mentioned. 
 
 I said that the court seemed to infer, and were pressing it on 
 the jury, that the absence of any commission or letter-of -marque 
 from a superior officer, or from any of the Spanish authorities,
 
 232 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 was strong evidence that they were marauders in fact, 
 pirates. 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed ; " gracias, gracias ! " Then, with an 
 agitated hand, he drew from his bosom a parchment, folded like 
 the manifest of a merchant-ship, and at the same moment the 
 gruff fierce-looking elderly man did the same, with another 
 similar instrument from his own breast. 
 
 " Here, here are the commissions here are authorities from 
 the Captain-General of Cuba. Read them." 
 
 I looked over them ; they were regular, to all appearance ; at 
 least, as there were no autographs in court of the Spanish Viceroy, 
 or any of his officers, whose signatures, either real or forged, 
 were affixed to the instruments, with which to compare them, 
 there was a great chance, I conjectured, so far as I saw, that 
 they would be acquitted : and in this case we, his majesty's 
 officers, would have been converted into the transgressing party ; 
 for if it were established that the vessels taken were bona fide 
 guarda costas, we should be placed in an awkward predicament, 
 in having captured them by force of arms, not to take into ac- 
 count the having violated the sanctity of a friendly port. 
 
 But I could see that this unexpected production of regular 
 papers by their officers had surprised the pirates themselves as 
 much as it had done me whether it was a heinous offence of 
 mine or not to conceal this impression from the court (there is 
 some dispute about the matter to this hour between me and my 
 conscience), I cannot tell ; but I was determined to stick scrupul 
 ously to the temporary duties of my office, without stating what 
 I suspected, or even translating some sudden expressions over- 
 heard by me, that would have shaken the credibility of the 
 documents. 
 
 " Comissiones, comissiones ! " for instance, was murmured 
 by a weatherbeaten Spaniard, with a fine bald head, from which 
 two small tufts of grey hair stood out above his ears, and with 
 a superb Moorish face " Comissiones es decir patentes Si hay 
 comissiones, el Diablo mismo las ha hecho ! " 
 
 The court was apparently nonplussed not so the wigless man 
 of law. His pea-green visage assumed a more ghastly hue, and 
 the expression of his eyes became absolutely blasting. He looked 
 altogether like a cat sure of her mouse, but willing to let it play 
 in fancied joy of escaping, as he said softly to the Jew crier, who 
 was perched in a high chair above the heads of the people, like 
 an ugly cm-He in its dirty nest " Crier, call Job Rumbletithump, 
 mate of the Porpoise."
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 233 
 
 " Job Rumbletithump, come into court ! " 
 
 " Here," quoth Job, as a stout, bluff, honest-looking sailor 
 rolled into the witness-box. 
 
 " Now, clerk of the crown, please to swear in the mate of the 
 Porpoise." It was done. " Now, my man, you were taken 
 going through the Caicos Passage in the Porpoise by pirates 
 in August last were you not ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Turn your face to the jury, and speak up, sir. Do you see 
 any of the honest men who made free with you in that dock, sir ? 
 Look at them, sir." 
 
 The mate walked up to the dock, stopped, and fixed his eyes 
 intently on the young Spaniard. I stared breathlessly at him 
 also. He grows pale as death his lip quivers the large drops 
 of sweat once more burst from his brow. I grew sick, sick. 
 
 " Yes, your honour," said the mate. 
 
 " Yes ah ! " said the devil's limb, chuckling " we are get- 
 ting on the trail at last. Can you swear to more than one ? " 
 
 " Yes, your honour." 
 
 " Yes ! " again responded the sans wig. " How many 1 " 
 
 The man counted them off. " Fifteen, sir. That young fel- 
 low there is the man who cut Captain Spurtel's throat, after 
 violating his wife before his eyes." 
 
 " God forgive me, is it possible ? " gasped Thomas Cringle. 
 
 " There's a monster in human form for you, gentlemen," con- 
 tinued the devil's limb. " Go on, Mr Rumbletithump." 
 
 " That other man next him hung me up by the heels, 
 
 and seared me on the bare ." Here honest Job had 
 
 just time to divert the current of his speech into a loud 
 " whew." 
 
 "Seared you on the whew!" quoth the facetious lawyer, 
 determined to have his jest, even in the face of forty-three of 
 his fellow-creatures trembling on the brink of eternity. "Ex- 
 plain, sir ; tell the court where you were seared, and how you 
 were seared, and all about your being seared." 
 
 Job twisted and lolloped about, as if he was looking out for 
 some opening to bolt through ; but all egress was shut up. 
 
 " Why, please your honour," the eloquent blood mantling in 
 his honest sunburnt cheeks ; while from my heart I pitied the 
 poor fellow, for he was absolutely broiling in his bashfulness 
 " He seared me on on why, please your honour, he seared 
 me on with a redhot iron ! " 
 
 " Why, I guessed as much, if he seared you at all ; but where
 
 234 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 did he sear you ? Come now," coaxingly, " tell the court where 
 and how he applied the actual cautery." 
 
 Job, being thus driven to his wit's end, turned and stood at 
 bay. " Now I will tell you, your honour, if you will but sit 
 down for a moment, and answer me one question." 
 
 " To be sure, sir ; why, Job, you brighten on us. There, I 
 am down now for your question." 
 
 " Now, sir," quoth Rumbletithump, imitating his tormentor's 
 manner much more cleverly than I expected, " what part of 
 your honour's body touches your chair 1 " 
 
 " How, sir ! " said the man of words " how dare you, sir, 
 take such a liberty, sir ] " while a murmuring laugh hummed 
 through the court 
 
 "Now, sir, since you won't answer me, sir," said Job, 
 elevated by his victory, while his hoarse voice roughened 
 into a loud growl, " I will answer myself. I was seared, sir, 
 where " 
 
 " Silence ! " quoth the crier, at this instant drowning the 
 mate's voice, so that I could not catch the words he used. 
 
 " And there you have it, sir. Put me in jail, if you like, sir." 
 
 The murmur was bursting out into a guffaw, when the judge 
 interfered. But there was no longer any attempt at ill-timed 
 jesting on the part of the bar, which was but bad taste at the 
 best on so solemn an occasion. 
 
 Job continued : " I was burnt into the very muscle, until I told 
 where the gold was stowed away." 
 
 " Aha ! " screamed the lawyer, forgetting his recent discom- 
 fiture in the gladness of his success. " And all the rest were 
 abetting, eh 1 " 
 
 " The rest of the fifteen were, sir." 
 
 But the prosecutor, a glutton in his way, had thought he had 
 bagged the whole forty-three. And so he ultimately did before 
 the evening closed in, as most of the others were identified by 
 other witnesses ; and when they could not actually be sworn to, 
 the piracies were brought home to them by circumstantial evi- 
 dence ; such, for instance, as having been captured on board of 
 the craft we had taken, which again were identified as the very 
 vessels which had plundered the merchantmen and murdered 
 several of their crews, so that by six o'clock the jury had re- 
 turned a verdict of Guilty and I believe there never was a 
 juster against the whole of them. The finding, and sentence 
 of death following thereupon, seemed not to create any strong 
 effect upon the prisoners. They had all seen how the trial was
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 235 
 
 going ; and, long before this, the bitterness of death seemed to 
 be past. 
 
 I could hear one of our boat's crew, who was standing behind 
 me, say to his neighbour, " Why, Jem, surely he is in joke. 
 Why, he don't mean to condemn them to be hanged seriously, 
 without his wig, eh 1 " 
 
 Immediately after the judgment was pronounced, which, both 
 as to import, and literally, I had translated to them, Captain 
 Transom, who was sitting on the bench beside his brother officers, 
 nodded to me, "I say, Mr Cringle, tell the coxswain to call Pearl, 
 if you please." 
 
 I passed the word to one of the Firebrand's marines, who was 
 on duty, who again repeated the order to a seaman who was 
 standing at the door. 
 
 " I say, Moses, call the clergyman." 
 
 Now this Pearl was no other than the seaman who pulled the 
 stroke-oar in the gig ; a very handsome negro, and the man who 
 afterwards forked Whiffle out of the water tall, powerful, and 
 muscular, and altogether one of the best men in the ship. The 
 rest of the boat's crew, from his complexion, had fastened the 
 sobriquet of the clergyman on him. 
 
 " Call the clergyman." 
 
 The superseded interpreter, who was standing near, seeing I 
 took no notice, immediately traduced this literally to the un- 
 happy men. A murmur arose amongst them. 
 
 "Que el padre ya! Somos en Capilla entonces poco 
 tiempo, poco tiempo ! " 
 
 They had thought that, the clergyman having been sent for, 
 the sentence was immediately to be executed, but I undeceived 
 them ; and in ten minutes after they were condemned, they were 
 marched of, under a strong escort of foot, to the jail. 
 
 I must make a long story short. Two days afterwards I was 
 ordered with the launch to Kingston, early in the morning, to 
 receive twenty-five of the pirates who had been ordered for exe- 
 cution that morning at Gallows Point. It was little past four 
 in the morning when we arrived at the Wherry Wharf, where 
 they were already clustered, with their hands pinioned behind 
 their backs, silent and sad, but all of them calm, and evincing 
 no unmanly fear of death. 
 
 I don't know if other people have noticed it, but this was one 
 of several instances where I have seen foreigners Frenchmen, 
 Italians, and Spaniards, for instance meet death, inevitable 
 death, with greater firmness than British soldiers or sailors.
 
 336 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Let me explain. In the field, or grappling in mortal combat on 
 the blood-slippery quarterdeck of an enemy's vessel, a British sol- 
 dier or sailor is the bravest of the brave. No soldier or sailor of 
 any other country, saving and excepting those damned Yankees, 
 can stand against them they would be utterly overpowered 
 their hearts would fail them ; they would either be cut down, 
 thrust through, or they would turn and flee. Yet those same 
 men who have turned and fled will meet death but it must be 
 as I said, inevitable, unavoidable death not only more firmly 
 than their conquerors would do in their circumstances, but with 
 an intrepidity oh, do not call it indifference ! altogether aston- 
 ishing. Be it their religion, or their physical conformation, or 
 what it may, all I have to do with is the fact, which I record as 
 undeniable. Out of five-and-twenty individuals, in the present 
 instance, not a sigh was heard, nor a moan, nor a querulous word. 
 They stepped lightly into the boats, and seated themselves in 
 silence. When told by the seamen to make room, or to shift, so 
 as not to be in the way of the oars, they did so with alacrity, 
 and almost with an air of civility, although they knew that 
 within half an hour their earthly career must close for ever. 
 
 The young Spaniard who had stood forward so conspicuously 
 on the trial was in my boat ; in stepping in he accidentally 
 trode on my foot in passing forward ; he turned and apologised, 
 with much natural politeness " he hoped he had not hurt mel " 
 
 I answered kindly, I presume ; who could have done so 
 harshly 1 This emboldened him apparently, for he stopped, and 
 asked leave to sit by me. I consented, while an incomprehen- 
 sible feeling crept over me ; and when once I had time to re- 
 collect myself, I shrunk from him, as a blood-stained brute, with 
 whom even in his extremity it was unfitting for me to hold any 
 intercourse. When he noticed my repugnance to remain near 
 him, he addressed me hastily, as if afraid that I would destroy 
 .the opportunity he seemed to desire. 
 
 " God did not always leave me the slave of my passions," he 
 said, in a low, deep, most musical voice. " The day has been 
 when I would have shrunk as you do but time presses. Yon 
 have a mother ? " said he. I assented. " And an only sister? " As 
 it happened, he was right here too. " And and " here he hesi- 
 tated, and his voice shook and trembled with the most intense 
 .and heart-crushing emotion "y una mas cara que ambas?" 
 Mary, you can tell whether in this he did not also speak truth. 
 I acknowledged there was another being more dear to me than 
 either. " Then," said he, " take this chain from my neck, and
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 237 
 
 the crucifix, and a small miniature from my bosom ; but not yet 
 not till I leave the boat. You will find an address affixed to 
 the string of the latter. Your course of service may lead you to 
 St Jago if not, a brother officer may." His voice became in- 
 audible ; his hot scalding tears dropped fast on my hand, and 
 the ravisher, the murderer, the pirate, wept as an innocent and 
 helpless infant. " You unll deli ver it. ' Promise a dying man 
 promise a great sinner." But it was momentary he quelled 
 the passion with a fierce and savage energy, as he said sternly,. 
 "Promise! promise! " I did so, and I fulfilled it. 
 
 The day broke. I took the jewels and miniature from his 
 neck, as he led the way, with the firm step of a hero, in ascend- 
 ing the long gibbet. The halters were adjusted, when he stepped 
 towards the side I was on, as far as the rope would let him, 
 " Dexa me verla dexa me verla, una vez mas ! " I held up the 
 miniature. He looked he glared intensely at it. " Adios, 
 Maria, seas feliz mi querida feliz feliz Maria adios adios 
 Maria Mar " 
 
 The rope severed thy name from his lips, sweet girl ; but not 
 until it also severed his soul from his body, and sent him to his 
 tremendous account young in years, but old in wickedness 
 to answer at that tribunal where we must all appear, to the God 
 who made him, and whose gifts he had so fearfully abused, for 
 thy broken heart and early death, amongst the other scarlet 
 atrocities of his short but ill-spent life. 
 
 The signal had been given the lumbering flap of the long 
 drop was heard, and five-and-twenty human beings were waver- 
 ing in the sea-breeze in the agonies of death ! The other eigh- 
 teen suffered on the same spot the week following ; and for long 
 after, this fearful and bloody example struck terror into the 
 Cuba fishermen. 
 
 " Strange now, that the majority ahem of my beauties and 
 favourites through life have been called Mary. There is my 
 own Mary un pen passee, certainly but deil mean her, for 
 half-a-dozen lit " Now, Tom Cringle, don't bother with 
 
 your sentimentality, but get along do." "Well, I will get along 
 but have patience, you Hottentot Venus. So once more we 
 make sail." 
 
 Next morning, soon after gun-fire, I landed at the Wherry 
 Wharf in Port Royal. It was barely daylight, but, to my sur- 
 prise, I found my friend Peregrine Whiffle seated on a Spanish 
 chair, close to the edge of the wharf, smoking a cigar. This
 
 238 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 piece of furniture is an arm-chair, strongly framed with hard 
 wood, over which, back and bottom, a tanned hide is stretched, 
 which, in a hot climate, forms a most luxurious seat the back 
 tumbling out at an angle of 45 degrees, while the skin yields to 
 every movement, and does not harbour a nest of biting ants, or 
 a litter of scorpions, or any other of the customary occupants of 
 a cushion that has been in Jamaica for a year. 
 
 He did not know me as I passed, but his small glimmering 
 red face instantly identified the worthy little old man to me. 
 
 " Good morning, Mr Whiffle the top of the morning to you, 
 sir." 
 
 " Hillo!" responded Peregrine " Tom, is it you? how d'ye 
 do, man how d'ye do 1 " and he started to his feet, and almost 
 embraced me. 
 
 Now, I had never met the said Peregrine Whiffle but twice 
 in my life ; once at Mr Fyall's, and once during the few days I 
 remained at Kingston, before I set out on my travels ; but he 
 was a warm-hearted kindly old fellow, and, from knowing all 
 my friends there very intimately, he, as a matter of course, be- 
 came equally familiar with me. 
 
 " Why the diable came you not to see me, man 1 Have been 
 here for change of air to recruit, you know, after that demon, 
 the gout, had been so perplexing me, ever since you came to 
 anchor the Firebrand, I mean : as for you, you have been mad 
 one while, and philandering with those inconvenient white 
 ladies the other. You'll cure of that, my boy you'll come to 
 the original comforts of the country soon, no fear ! " 
 
 " Perhaps I may, perhaps not." 
 
 " Oh, your cousin Mary, I forgot fine girl, Tom may do 
 for you at home yonder" (all Creoles speak of England as home, 
 although they may never have seen it), "but she can't make 
 pepper-pot, nor give a dish of land-Crabs as land-crabs should be 
 given, nor see to the serving-up of a ringtail pigeon, nor rub a 
 beef -steak to the rotting turn with a bruised papaw, nor com- 
 pose a medicated bath, nor, nor oh confound it, Tom, she 
 
 will be, when you marry her, a cold, comfortless, motionless, 
 Creole icicle ! '' 
 
 I let him have his swing. " Never mind her, then never 
 mind her, my dear sir ; but time presses, and I must be off 
 I must indeed : so good morning ; I wish you a good morning, 
 sir." 
 
 He started to his feet and caught hold of me. " Sha'n't go, 
 Tom impossible"; come along with me to my lodgings, and
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 239 
 
 breakfast with me. Here, Pilfer, Pilfer," to his black valet, 
 " give me my stick, and massu* the chair, and run home and 
 order breakfast cold calipiver our Jamaica salmon, you know, 
 Tom tea and coffee pickled mackerel, eggs, and cold tongue 
 anything that mother Dingychops can give us ; so bolt, Pil- 
 fer, bolt !" 
 
 I told him that, before I came ashore, I had heard the gig's 
 crew piped away, and that I therefore expected, as Jonathan 
 says, that the captain would be after me immediately ; so that I 
 wished, at all events, to get away from where we were, as I had 
 no desire to be caught gossiping about when my superior might 
 be expected to pass. 
 
 " True, boy, true," as he shackled himself to me, and we 
 began to crawl along towards the wharf -gate leading into the 
 town. Captain Transom by this time had landed and came up 
 with us. 
 
 " Ah, Transom," said Whiffle, "glad to see you. I say, why 
 won't you allow Mr Cringle here to go over to Spanish Town 
 with me for a couple days, eh T' 
 
 " Why, I don't remember that Mr Cringle has ever asked 
 leave." 
 
 " Indeed, sir, I neither did ask leave, nor have I thought of 
 doing so," said I. 
 
 " But I do for you," chimed in my friend Whiffle. " Come, 
 captain, give him leave, just for two days that's a prime chap ! 
 Why, Tom, you see you have got it, so off with you and come 
 to me with your kit as soon as possible ; I will hobble on and 
 make the coffee and chocolate; and, Captain Transom, come 
 along and breakfast with me too. No refusal I require society. 
 Nearly drowned yesterday do you know that ? Off this same 
 cursed wharf too -just here. I was looking down at the small 
 fish playing about the piles, precisely in this position ; one of 
 them was as bright in the scales as a gold fish in my old 
 grandmother's glass globe, and I had to crane over the ledge 
 in this fashion," suiting the action to the word, " when away I 
 went " 
 
 And, to our unutterable surprise, splash went Peregrine 
 Whiffle, Esquire, for the second time, and there he was shouting, 
 and puffing, and splashing in the water. We were both so con- 
 vulsed with laughter that I believe he would have been drowned 
 for us ; but the boat-keeper of the gig, the strong athletic negro 
 before mentioned, promptly jumped on the wharf with his boat- 
 
 * Massu Lift.
 
 240 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 hook, and caught the dapper little old beau by the waistband 
 of his breeches, swaying him up, frightened enough, with his 
 little coat-skirts fluttering in the breeze, and no wonder, but not 
 much the worse for it all. 
 
 " Diable porte I "amour," whispered Captain Transom. 
 
 " Swallowed a Scotch pint of salt water to a certainty. Run, 
 Pilfer, bring me some brandy gout will be into my stomach, 
 sure as fate feel him now run, Pilfer, run, or gout will beat 
 you a dead heat that will be ! " And he heckled at his small 
 joke very complacently. 
 
 We had him carried by our people to his lodgings, where, 
 after shifting and brandying to some tune, he took his place 
 at the breakfast table, and did the honours with his usual 
 amenity and warmheartedness. 
 
 After breakfast, Peregrine remembered what the sly rogue 
 had never forgotten, I suspect that he was engaged to dine with 
 his friend, Mr Pepperpot Wagtail, in Kingston. 
 
 " But it don't signify ; Wagtail will be delighted to see you, 
 Tom hospitable fellow, Wagtail ; and now I recollect myself, 
 Fyall and Aaron Bang are to be there ; dang it, were it not 
 for the gout we should have a night on't ! " 
 
 After breakfast we started in a canoe for Kingston, touching 
 at the Firebrand for my kit. 
 
 Moses Yerk, the unpoetical first-lieutenant, was standing well 
 forward on the quarterdeck as I passed over the side to get into 
 the canoe, with the gunroom steward following me, carrying my 
 kit under his arm. 
 
 " I say, Tom, good for you, one lark after another." 
 
 " Don't like that fellow," quoth Whiffle ; " he is quarrel- 
 some in his drink for a thousand ; I know it by the cut of his 
 jib."' 
 
 He had better have held his tongue, honest man ; for as he 
 looked up broad in' Yerk's face, who was leaning over the ham- 
 mocks, the scupper immediately overhead through whose instru- 
 mentality I never knew was suddenly cleared, and a rush of 
 dirty water, that had been lodged there since the decks had been 
 washed down at day-dawn, splashed slapdash over his head and 
 shoulders and into his mouth, so as to set the dear little man 
 a-coughing so violently that I thought he would have been 
 throttled. Before he had recovered sufficiently to find his tongue 
 we had pulled fifty yards from the ship, and a little farther on 
 we overtook the captain, who had preceded us in the cutter, into 
 which we transhipped ourselves. But Whiffle never could ac-
 
 NEGRO CARNIVAL.
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 241 
 
 quit Yerk of having been, directly or indirectly, the cause of his 
 suffering from the impure shower. 
 
 This day was the first of the Negro Carnival, or Christmas 
 holidays, and at the distance of two miles from Kingston the 
 sound of the negro drums and horns, the barbarous music, and 
 yelling of the different African tribes, and the more mellow sing- 
 ing of the Set Girls, came off upon the breeze loud and strong. 
 
 When w^ got nearer, the. wharfs and different streets, as we 
 successively opened them, were crowded with blackamoors, men, 
 women, and children, dancing and singing and shouting, and all 
 rigged out in their best. When we landed on the agents' wharf 
 we were immediately surrounded by a group of these merry- 
 makers, which happened to be the Butchers' John Canoe party, 
 and a curious exhibition it unquestionably was. The prominent 
 character was, as usual, the John Canoe, or Jack Pudding. He 
 was a light, active, clean-made young Creole negro, without shoes 
 or stockings ; he wore a pair of light jean small-clothes, all too 
 wide, but confined at the knees, below and above, by bands of 
 red tape, after the manner that Malvolio would have called cross- 
 gartering. He wore a splendid blue velvet waistcoat, with old- 
 fashioned flaps coming down over his hips, and covered with 
 tarnished embroidery. His shirt was absent on leave, I suppose, 
 but at the wrists of his coat he had tin or white iron frills, with 
 loose pieces attached, which tinkled as he moved, and set off the 
 dingy paws that were stuck through these strange manacles, 
 like black wax tapers in silver candlesticks. His coat was an 
 old blue artillery-uniform one, with a small bell hung to the 
 extreme points of the swallow-tailed skirts, and three tarnished 
 epaulets one on each shoulder ; and, O ye immortal gods ! O 
 Mars armipotent ! the biggest of the three stuck at his rump, 
 the point cTappui for a sheep's taiL He had an enormous 
 cocked-hat on, to which was appended in front a white false-face 
 or mask, of a most methodistical expression, while, Janus-like, 
 there was another face behind, of the most quizzical description, 
 a sort of living Antithesis, both being garnished and overtopped 
 with one coarse wig, made of the hair of bullocks' tails, on 
 which the chapeau was strapped down with a broad band of 
 gold lace. 
 
 He skipped up to us with a white wand in one hand and a 
 dirty handkerchief in the other, and with sundry moppings and 
 mowings, first wiping my shoes with his mouchoir, then my face 
 (murder, what a flavour of salt fish and onions it had !), he made 
 a smart enough pirouette, and then sprang on the back of a 
 
 Q
 
 242 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 nondescript animal that now advanced, capering and jumping 
 about after the most grotesque fashion that can be imagined. 
 This was the signal for the music to begin. The performers 
 were two gigantic men, dressed in calf -skins entire, head, four 
 legs, and tail The skin of the head was made to fit like a hood, 
 the two fore-feet hung dangling down in front, one over each 
 shoulder, while the other two legs, or hind-feet, and the tail, 
 trailed behind on the ground; deuce another article -had they on 
 in the shape of clothing except a handkerchief, of some flaming 
 pattern, tied round the waist. There were also two flute-players 
 in sheep-skins, looking still more outlandish, from the horns on 
 the animals' heads being preserved ; and three stout fellows who 
 were dressed in the common white frock and trousers, who kept 
 sounding on bullocks' horns. These formed the band, as it were, 
 and might be considered John's immediate tail or following ; 
 but he was also accompanied by about fifty of the butcher negroes, 
 all neatly dressed blue jackets, white shirts, and Osnaburg 
 trousers, with their steels and knife-cases by their sides, as bright 
 as Turkish yataghans, and they all wore clean blue-and-white 
 striped aprons. I could see and tell what they Avere ; but the 
 Tiling John Canoe had perched himself upon I could make 
 nothing of. At length I began to comprehend the device. 
 
 The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician 
 the nondescript already mentioned was no less than the boat- 
 swain of the butcher gang, answering to the driver in an agri- 
 cultural one. He was clothed in an entire bullock's hide, horns, 
 tail, and the other particulars, the whole of the skull being re- 
 tained, and the effect of the voice growling through the jaws of 
 the beast was most startling. His legs were enveloped in the 
 skin of the hind-legs ; while the arms were cased in that of the 
 fore, the hands protruding a little above the hoofs ; and as he 
 walked, reared upon his hind-legs, he used (in order to support 
 the load of the John Canoe, who had perched on his shoulders 
 like a monkey on a dancing bear) a strong stick, or sprit, with a 
 crutch-top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then. 
 
 After the creature which I will call the Device for shortness 
 had capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for 
 a minute or two, it came to a standstill, and, sticking the end 
 of the sprit into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under 
 its chin, it motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon 
 handed of all things in the world a fiddle to the ox! He then 
 shook off the John Canoe, who began to caper about as before, 
 while the Device set up a deuced good pipe, and sang and
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 243 
 
 played barbarously enough, I will admit to the tune of Guinea 
 Corn, the following ditty : 
 
 " Massa Buccra lob for see 
 Bullock caper like nionkee 
 Dance, and shump, and poke him toe, 
 Like one humane person just so. " 
 
 And hereupon the tail of the beast, some fifty strong, music 
 men, John Canoe and all, began to rampauge about, as if they 
 had been possessed by a devil whose name was Legion : 
 
 " But Massa Buccra have white love, 
 Soft and silken like one dove. 
 To brown girl him barely shivel 
 To black girl oh, Lord, de Devil ! " 
 
 Then a tremendous gallopading, in the which Tailtackle was 
 nearly capsized over the wharf. He looked quietly over the 
 edge of it. 
 
 " Boat -keeper, hand me up that switch of a stretcher." 
 (Friend, if thou be'st not nautical, thou knowest what a rack- 
 pin, something of the stoutest, is.) 
 
 The boy did so, and Tailtackle, after moistening well his dex- 
 ter claw with tobacco-juice, seized the stick with his left by the 
 middle, and, balancing it for a second or two, he began to fasten 
 the end of it into his right fist, as if he had been screwing a 
 bolt into a socket. Having satisfied himself that his grip was 
 secure, he let go the hold with his left hand, and crossed his 
 arms on his breast, with the weapon projecting over his left 
 shoulder, like the drone of a bagpipe. 
 
 The Device continued his chant, giving the seaman a wide 
 berth, however : 
 
 " But when him once two tree year here, 
 Him tink white lady wery great boder ; 
 De coloured peoples, never fear, 
 Ah, him lob him de merest nor any oder." 
 
 Then another tumblification of the whole party. 
 
 " But, top one time bad fever catch him, 
 Coloured peoples kindly watch him 
 In sick-room, nurse voice like music 
 From him hand taste sweet de physic." 
 
 Another trampoline. 
 
 " So alway come in two tree year, 
 And so wid you massa never fear ; 
 Brown girl for cook for wife for nurse, 
 Buccra lady poo no wort a curse." 
 
 " Get away, you scandalous scoundrel," cried I ; " away with 
 you, sir ! "
 
 244 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Here the morrice-dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, 
 keeping him on the move, spinning round like a weathercock in 
 a whirlwind, while they shouted, " Oh, massa, one macaroni* 
 if you please." To get quit of their importunity, Captain 
 Transom gave them one. " Ah, good massa, tank you, sweet 
 massa ! " And away danced John Canoe and his tail, careering 
 up the street. 
 
 In the same way all the other crafts and trades had their 
 Gumbi-men, Horn-blowers, John Canoes, and Nondescript. The 
 Gardeners came nearest, of anything I had seen before, to the 
 Mayday boys in London ; with this advantage, that their Jack- 
 in-the-Green was incomparably more beautiful, from the superior 
 bloom of the larger flowers used in composing it. 
 
 The very workhouse people, whose province it is to guard 
 the negro culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict 
 punishment on them when required, had their John Canoe and 
 Device ; and their prime jest seemed to be, every now and then, 
 to throw the fellow down who enacted the latter at the corner of 
 a street, and to administer a sound flogging to him. The John 
 Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a law- 
 yer's cast-off gown and bands, black silk breeches, no stockings 
 nor shoes, but with sandals of bullock's hide strapped on his 
 great splay feet, a small cocked-hat on his head, to which were 
 appended a large cauliflower wig, and the usual white false-face, 
 
 bearing a very laughable resemblance to Chief -Justice S , 
 
 with whom I happened to be personally acquainted. 
 
 The whole party which accompanied these two worthies, 
 musicians and tail, were dressed out so as to give a tolerable re- 
 semblance of the Bar broke loose, and they were all pretty con- 
 siderably well drunk. As we passed along, the Device was once 
 more laid down, and we could notice a shield of tough hide 
 strapped over the fellow's stern-frame, so as to save the lashes 
 of the cat, which John Canoe was administering with all his 
 force, while the Device walloped about and yelled, as if he had 
 been receiving the punishment on his naked flesh. Presently, 
 as he had rolled over and over in the sand, bellowing to the life, 
 I noticed the leather shield slip upwards to the small of his 
 back, leaving the lower storey uncovered in reality; but the 
 driver and his tail were too drunk to observe this, and the for- 
 mer continued to lay on and laugh, while one of his people stood 
 by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a first-lieuten- 
 ant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the gangway, 
 
 * A quarter dollar.
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 245 
 
 "Twenty twenty-one twenty-two" and so on, while the 
 patient roared you, an it were anything but a nightingale. At 
 length he broke away from the men who held him, after receiv- 
 ing a most sufficient flogging, to revenge which he immediately 
 fastened on the John Canoe, wrenched his cat from him, and 
 employed it so scientifically on him and his followers, giving 
 them passing taps on the shins now and then with the handle, 
 by way of spice to the dose, that the whole crew pulled foot as 
 if Old Nick had held them in chase. 
 
 The very children, urchins of five and six years old, had their 
 Lilliputian John Canoes and Devices. But the beautiful part 
 of the exhibition was the Set Girls. They danced along the 
 streets, in bands of from fifteen to thirty. There were brown 
 sets, and black sets, and sets of all the intermediate gradations 
 of colour. Each set was dressed pin for pin alike, and earned 
 umbrellas or parasols of the same colour and size, held over their 
 nice, showy, well-put-on toques, or Madras handkerchiefs all of 
 the same pattern tied round their heads, fresh out of the fold. 
 They sang as they swam along the streets in the most luxurious 
 attitudes. I had never seen more beautiful creatures than there 
 were amongst the brown sets clear olive complexions, and fine 
 faces, elegant carriages, splendid figures full, plump, and mag- 
 nificent. 
 
 Most of the sets were as much of a size as Lord 's eigh- 
 teen daughters, sailing down Regent Street, like a charity-school 
 of a Sunday, led by a rum-looking old beadle ; others, again, 
 had large Roman matron-looking women in the leading files the 
 figurantes in their tails becoming slighter and smaller as they 
 tapered away, until they ended in leetle picaniny, no bigger as 
 my tumb, but always preserving the uniformity of dress, and 
 colour of the umbrella or parasol. Sometimes the breeze, on 
 opening a corner, would strike the sternmost of a set composed 
 in this manner of small fry, and stagger the little things, getting 
 beneath their tiny umbrellas, and fairly blowing them out of the 
 line, and ruffling their ribbons and finery, as if they had been 
 tulips bending and shaking their leaves before it. But the 
 colours were never blended in the same set ; no blackie ever in- 
 terloped with the browns, nor did the browns in any case mix 
 with the sables, always keeping in mind, black woman 
 brown lady. 
 
 But as if the whole city had been torn-fooling a loud burst 
 of military music was now heard, and the north end of the street 
 we were ascending which leads out of the Place d'Armes, or
 
 246 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 parade, that occupies the centre of the town was filled with a 
 cloud of dust that rose as high as the house-tops, through which 
 the head of a column of troops sparkled swords and bayonets 
 and gay uniforms glancing in the sun. This was the Kingston 
 regiment marching down to the court-house, in the lower part 
 of the town, to mount the Christmas guards, which is always 
 carefully attended to, in case any of the John Canoes should take 
 a small fancy to burn or pillage the town, or to rise and cut the 
 throats of their masters, or any little innocent recreation of the 
 kind, out of compliment to Dr Lushington or Messrs Macaulay 
 and Babington. 
 
 First came a tolerably good band, a little too drummy, but 
 still not amiss well dressed, only the performers, being of all 
 colours, from white down to jet-black, had a curious hodge- 
 podge or piebald appearance. Then came a dozen mounted 
 officers, at the very least colonels-in-chief, and colonels, and 
 lieutenant -colonels, and majors all very fine, and very bad 
 horsemen. Then the grenadier company, composed of white 
 clerks of the place very fine-looking young men indeed; an- 
 other white company followed, not quite so smart -looking ; 
 then came a century of the children of Israel, not over-military 
 in appearance the days of Joshua the son of Nun had passed 
 away, the glory had long departed from their house ; a phalanx 
 of light browns succeeded, then a company of dark browns, or 
 mulattoes the regular half-and-half in this, as well as in grog, 
 is the best mixture after all ; then quashie himself, or a com- 
 pany of free blacks, who, with the browns, seemed the best sol- 
 diers of the set, excepting the flank companies ; and after 
 blackie the battalion again gradually whitened away, until it 
 ended in a very fine light company of buccras, smart young 
 fellows as need be ; all the officers were white, and all the sol- 
 diers, whatever their cast or colour, free of course. Another 
 battalion succeeded, composed in the same way : and really I was 
 agreeably surprised to find the indigenous force of the colony so 
 efficient. I had never seen anything more soldier-like amongst 
 our volunteers at home. Presently a halt was called, and a 
 mounted officer, evidently desirous of showing off, galloped up 
 to where we were standing, and began to swear at the drivers 
 of a waggon, with a long team of sixteen bullocks, who had 
 placed their vehicle whether intentionally or not I could not 
 tell directly across the street, where, being met by another 
 waggon of the same kind coming through the opposite lane, a 
 regular jam had taken place, as they had contrived being redol-
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 247 
 
 ent of new rum to lock their wheels, and twist their lines of 
 bullocks together, in much-admired confusion. 
 
 " Out of the way, sir ; out of the way, you black rascals don't 
 you see the regiment coming? " 
 
 The men spanked their long whips and shouted to the steers 
 by name "Back, back Caesar Antony Crab, back, sir, 
 back ; " and they whistled loud and long, but Caesar and the 
 rest only became more and more involved. 
 
 "Order arms!" roared another officer, fairly beaten by the 
 bullocks and waggons " Stand at ease ! " 
 
 On this last signal a whole cloud of spruce-beer sellers started 
 fiercely from under the piazzas. 
 
 "An insurrection of the slave-population, mayhap," thought 
 I ; but their object was a very peaceable one, for presently, I 
 verily believe, every man and officer in the regiment had a tum- 
 bler of this, to me, most delicious beverage at his head; the 
 drawing of the corks was more like street-firing than anything 
 else a regular feu de joie. In the mean time a council of war 
 seemed to be holden by the mounted officers as to how the ob- 
 stacle in front was to be overcome ; but at this moment con- 
 fusion became worse confounded, by the approach of what I 
 concluded to be the white man's John Canoe party, mounted, 
 by way of pre-eminence. First came a trumpeter, John Canoe 
 with a black face, which was all in rule, as his black counter- 
 parts wore white ones ; but his Device,, a curious little old man, 
 dressed in a sort of blue uniform, and mounted on the skeleton, 
 or ghost, of a gig-horse, I could make nothing of. It carried a 
 drawn sword in its hand, with which it made various flourishes, 
 at each one of which I trembled for its Rosinante's ears. The 
 Device was followed by about fifty other odd-looking creatures, 
 all on horseback ; but they had no more seat than so many pairs 
 of tongs, which in truth they greatly resembled, and made no 
 show and less fun. So we were wishing them out of the way, 
 when some one whispered that the Kingston Light-Horse mus- 
 tered strong this morning. I found afterwards that every man 
 who kept a good horse, or could ride, invariably served in the 
 foot all free persons must join some corps or other; so that 
 the troop, as it was called, was composed exclusively of those 
 who could not ride, and who kept no saddle-horses. 
 
 The line was now formed, and after a variety of cumbrous 
 manoeuvres out of Dundas sixteen at the least the regiment 
 was countermarched, and filed along another street, where they 
 gave three cheers, in honour of their having had a drink of
 
 248 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 spruce, and of having circumvented the bullocks and waggons. 
 A little farther on we encountered four beautiful nine-pounder 
 field-pieces, each lumbering along, drawn by half-a-dozen mules, 
 and accompanied by three or four negroes, but with no escort 
 whatsoever. 
 
 " I say, Quashie, where are all the bombardiers, the artillery- 
 men ]" 
 
 " Oh, massa, dem all gone to drink pruce " 
 
 " What, more spruce ! spruce nothing but spruce ! " quoth I. 
 
 " Oh, yes, massa ; after dem drink pruce done dem all go to 
 him breakfast, massa left we for take de gun tode barrack Beg 
 onefeepenny, massa" as the price of the information, I suppose. 
 
 " Are the guns loaded 1 " said I. 
 
 " Me no sabe, massa top, I shall see." And the fellow to 
 whom I addressed myself stepped forward, and began to squint 
 into the muzzle of one of the field-pieces, slewing his head from 
 side to side, with absurd gravity, like a magpie peeping into a 
 marrow-bone. " Him most be load no daylight come troo de 
 touch-hole take care make me try him." And without more 
 ado he shook out the red embers from his pipe right on the touch- 
 hole of the gun, when the fragment of a broken tube spun up 
 in a small jet of flame, that made me start and jump back. 
 
 " How dare you, you scoundrel ! " said the captain. 
 
 " Eigh, massa, him no hax me to see if him be load so I was 
 try see. Indeed, I tink him is load after all yet." 
 
 He stepped forward, and entered his rammer into the can- 
 non, after an unavailing attempt to blow with his blubber-lips 
 through the touch-hole. 
 
 Noticing that it did not produce the ringing sound it would 
 have done in an empty gun, but went home with a soft thud, I 
 sang out, " Stand clear, sir. By Jupiter, the gun is loaded." 
 
 The negro continued to bash at it with all his might. 
 
 Meanwhile, the fellow who was driving the mules attached i;o 
 the field-piece turned his head, and saw what was going on. 
 In a trice he snatched up another rammer, and, without any 
 warning, came crack over the fellow's cranium to whom we had 
 been speaking, as hard as he could draw, making the instru- 
 ment quiver again. 
 
 " Dem you, ye, ye Jericho ! ah, so you bash my brokefast, eh ? 
 You no see me tick him into de gun before we yoke de mule, 
 dem, eh? You tief you, eh 1 !" 
 
 " No ! " roared the other " you Walkandnyam, you hab no 
 brokefast, you Hard at least I never see him."
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 249 
 
 " Big lie dat ! " replied Walkandnyam " look in de gun." 
 
 Jericho peered into it again. 
 
 " Dere, you son of a " (I shan't say what) " dere, I see 
 de red flannin wadding over de cartridge Your brokefast ! 
 you be hang ! " roared Jericho. 
 
 And he made at him as if he would have eaten him alive. 
 
 " You be hang youshef ! " shrieked Walkandnyam " and de 
 red wadding be hang ! " as he took a screw, and hooked out, not 
 a cartridge, certainly, but his own nightcap, full of yams and 
 salt-fish smashed into a paste by Jericho's rammer. 
 
 In the frenzy of his rage he dashed this into his opponent's 
 face, and they both stripped in a second. Separating several 
 yards, they levelled their heads like two telescopes on stands, 
 and ran butt at each other like ram-goats, and quite as odorifer- 
 ous, making the welkin ring again as their flint -hard skulls 
 cracked together. Finding each other invulnerable in this direc- 
 tion, they closed, and began scrambling and biting and kicking, 
 and tumbling over and over in the sand ; while the skipper and 
 I stood by cheering them on, and nearly suffocated with laugh- 
 ter. They never once struck with their closed fists, I noticed ; 
 so they were not much hurt. It was great cry and little wool ; 
 and at length they got tired, and hauled off by mutual consent, 
 finishing off as usual with an appeal to us " Beg one feepenny, 
 massa ! " 
 
 At six o'clock we drove to Mr Pepperpot Wagtail's. The 
 party was a bachelor's one, and when we walked up the front 
 steps, there was our host in person, standing to receive us at the 
 door, while on each side of him there were five or six of his 
 visitors, all sitting with their legs cocked up, their feet resting 
 on a sort of surbase, above which the jealoiisies, or movable 
 blinds of the piazza, were fixed. 
 
 I was introduced to the whole party seriatim and as each 
 of the cock-legs dropped his trams, he started up, caught hold 
 of my hand, and wrung it as if I had been his dearest and oldest 
 friend. 
 
 Were I to designate Jamaica as a community, I would call it 
 a hand-shaking people. I have often laughed heartily upon 
 seeing two cronies meeting in the streets of Kingston after a 
 temporary separation; when about pistol-shot asunder, both 
 would begin to tug and rug at the right-hand glove, but it is 
 frequently a mighty serious affair, in that hissing hot climate, 
 to get the gauntlet off; they approach, one, a smart urbane 
 little man, who would not disgrace St James's Street, being more
 
 250 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 kiln-dried and less moist in his corporeals than his country friend, 
 has contrived to extract his paw, and holds it out in act to 
 shake. 
 
 " Ah! how do you do, Ratoon?" quoth the Kingston man. 
 
 " Quite well, Shingle," rejoins the gloved, a stout, red-faced, 
 sudoriferous, yam-fed planter, dressed in blue-white jean trousers 
 and waistcoat, with long Hessian boots drawn up to his knee 
 over the former, and a span-new square-skirted blue coatee, 
 with lots of clear brass buttons; a broad -brimmed black silk 
 hat, worn white at the edge of the crown wearing a very small 
 neckcloth, above which shoots up an enormous shirt-collar, the 
 peaks of which might serve for winkers to a starting horse, and 
 carrying a large whip in his hand " Quite well, my dear fellow," 
 while he persists in dragging at it the other homo all the while 
 standing in the absurd position of a finger-post. At length, oft* 
 comes the glove piecemeal perhaps a finger first, for instance, 
 
 then a thumb ; at length they tackle to, and shake each other 
 like the very devil not a sober, pump-handle shake, but a 
 regular jiggery jiggery, as if they were trying to dislocate each 
 other's arm ; and, confound them ! even then they don't let go 
 
 they cling like sucker-fish, and talk and wallop about, and 
 throw themselves back and laugh, and then another jiggery 
 
 On herseback, this custom is conspicuously ridiculous. I 
 have nearly gone into fits at beholding two men careering along 
 the road at a hand-gallop, each on a goodish horse, with his 
 negro boy astern of him on a mule, in clean frock and trousers 
 and smart glazed hat with broad gold band, and massa's um- 
 brella in a leathern case slung across his shoulders, and his port- 
 manteau behind him on a mail pillion covered with a snow-white 
 sheep's fleece suddenly they pull up on recognising each other, 
 when, tucking their whips under their arms, or crossing them in 
 their teeth, it may be, they commence the nigging and riving 
 operation. In this case Shingle's bit of blood swerves, we 
 may assume Ratoon rides at him Shingle fairly turns tail, 
 and starts out at full speed, Ratoon thundering in his rear, with 
 outstretched arm ; and it does happen, I am assured, that the 
 hot pursuit often continues for a mile before the desired clap- 
 perclaw is obtained. But when two lusty planters meet on 
 horseback, then indeed Greek meets Greek. They begin the 
 interview by shouting to each other while fifty yards off, pulling 
 away at the gloves all the while " How are you, Canetop ? 
 glad to see you, Canetop. How do you do, / hope." " How
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 251 
 
 are you, Yamfu, my dear fellow ? " their, horses fretting and 
 jumping all the time ; and if the Jack Spaniards or gadflies be 
 rife, they have, even when denuded for the shake, to spur at 
 each other, more like a Knight Templar and a Saracen charging 
 in mortal combat than two men merely struggling to be civil ; 
 and after all they have often to get their black servants along- 
 side to hold their horses, for shake they must, were they to break 
 their necks in the attempt. Why they won't shake hands with 
 their gloves on, I am sure / can't tell It would be much cooler 
 and nicer lots of Scotchmen in the community too. 
 
 This hand-shaking, however, was followed by an invitation 
 to dinner from each individual in the company. I looked to 
 Captain Transom, as much as to say, "Can they mean us to 
 take them at their word ? " He nodded. 
 
 " We are sorry that, being under orders to go to sea on Sun- 
 day morning, neither Mr Cringle nor myself can have the pleasure 
 of accepting such kind invitations." 
 
 " Well, when you come back, you know one day you must 
 give me" 
 
 " And I won't be denied," quoth a second. 
 
 " Liberty Hall, you know, so to me you must come, no cere- 
 mony," said a third and so on. 
 
 At length, no less a man drove up to the door than Judge 
 
 . When he drew up, his servant, who was sitting behind, 
 
 on a small projection of the ke tureen, came round and took a 
 parcel out of the gig, closely wrapped in a blanket " Bring 
 that carefully in, Leonidas," said the judge, who now stumped 
 up stairs with a small saw in his hand. He received the parcel, 
 and, laying it down carefully in a corner, he placed the saw on 
 it, and then came up and shook hands with Wagtail, and made 
 his bow very gracefully. 
 
 " What ! can't you do without your ice and sour claret yet 1 ? " 
 said Wagtail. 
 
 " Never mind, never mind," said the judge, and here dinner 
 being announced, we all adjourned to the dining-room, where 
 a very splendid entertainment was set out, to which we set 
 to, and in the end, as it will appear, did the utmost justice 
 to it. 
 
 The wines were most exquisite. Madeira, for instance, never 
 can be drank in perfection anywhere out of the tropics. You 
 may have the wine as good at home, although I doubt it, but 
 then you have not the climate to drink it in. I would say the 
 same of most of the delicate French wines that is, those that
 
 252 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 will stand the voyage; burgundy of course, not included ; but 
 never mind, let us get along. 
 
 All the decanters were covered with cotton bags, kept wet 
 with saltpetre and water, so that the evaporation carried on 
 powerfully by the stream of air that flowed across the room, 
 through the open doors and windows, made the fluids quite as 
 cool as was desirable to worthies sitting luxuriating with the 
 thermometer at 80 or thereby ; yet, from the free current, I 
 was in no way made aware of this degree of heat by any oppres- 
 sive sensation ; and I found in the West Indies, as well as in 
 the East, although the wind in the latter is more dry and parch- 
 ing, that a current of heated air, if it be moderately dry, even 
 with the thermometer at 95 in the shade, is really not so ener- 
 vating or oppressive as I have found it in the stagnating atmo- 
 sphere on the sunny side of Pali-Mall, with the mercury barely 
 at 75. A cargo of ice had a little before this arrived at Kings- 
 ton, and at first all the inhabitants who could afford it iced 
 everything, wine, water, cold meats, fruits, and the Lord knows 
 what all tea, I believe, amongst other things (by the way, I 
 have tried this, and it zV a luxury of its kind) ; but the regular 
 old stagers, who knew what was what, and had a regard for 
 their interiors, soon began to eschew the ice in every way, saving 
 and excepting to cool the water they washed their thin faces and 
 hands in ; so we had no ice, nor did we miss it ; but the judge 
 had a plateful of chips on the table before him, one of which he 
 every now and then popped into his long thin bell-glass of claret, 
 diluting it, I should have thought, in rather a heathenish manner ; 
 but n'importe, he worked away, sawing off pieces now and then 
 from the large lump in the blanket (to save the tear and wear 
 attending a fracture), which was handed to him by his servant, 
 so that by eleven o'clock at night, allowing for the water, he 
 must have concealed his three bottles of pure claret, besides gar- 
 nishing with a lot of white wines. In fine, we all carried on 
 astonishingly, some good singing was given, a practical joke was 
 tried on now and then by Fyall, and we continued mighty happy. 
 As to the singing part of it, the landlord, with a bad voice and 
 worse ear, opened the rorytory by volunteering a very extra- 
 ordinary squeak ; fortunately it was not very long, but it gave 
 him a plea to screw a song out of his right-hand neighbour, who 
 in turn acquired the same right of compelling the person next 
 him to make a fool of himself ; at last it came to Transom, who, 
 by the by, sung exceedingly well, but he had got more wine than 
 usual, and essayed the coquette a bit.
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 253 
 
 " Bring the wet nightcap ! " quoth our host. 
 
 " Oh, is it that you are at 1 " said Transom, and he sang as 
 required ; but it was all pearls before swine, I fear. 
 
 At last we stuck fast at Fyall. Music ! there was not one 
 particle in his whole composition ; so the wet nightcap already- 
 impended over him, when I sang out, " Let him tell a story, Mr 
 Wagtail. Let him tell a story." 
 
 " Thank you, Tom," said Fyall ; " I owe you a good turn for 
 that, my boy." 
 
 " FyalTs story Mr Fyall's story ! " resounded on all hands. 
 Fyall, glad to escape the song and wet nightcap, instantly 
 began. 
 
 " Why, my friends, you all know Isaac Grimm, the Jew snuff- 
 merchant and cigar-maker, in Harbour Street. Well, Isaac had 
 a brother, Ezekiel by name, who carried on business at Curagoa ; 
 you may have heard of him too. Ezekiel was often down here 
 for the purpose of laying in provisions and purchasing dry goods. 
 You all know that 1 " 
 
 " Certainly ! " shouted both Captain Transom and myself in 
 a breath, although we had never heard of him before. 
 
 " Hah, I knew it ! Well then, Ezekiel was very rich ; he 
 came down in August last in the Pickle schooner, and, as bad 
 luck would have it, he fell sick of the fever. ' Isaac,' quoth 
 Ezekiel, ' I am wery sheek ; I tink I shall tie.' ' Hope note, 
 dear proder ; you hab no vife, nor shildir ; pity you should tie, 
 Ezekiel. Ave you make your vill, Ezekiel 1 ' ' Yesh ; de vill 
 is make. I leavish everyting to you, Isaac, on von condition, dat 
 you send my pody to be bury in CuraQoa. I love dat place ; 
 twenty years since I left de Minories, all dat time I cheat dere, 
 and tell lie dere, and lif dere happily. Oh, you most sent my 
 pody for its puryment to Cur^oa ! ' ' I will do dat, mine pro- 
 der.' ' Den I depart in peace, dear Isaac ; ' and the Israelite 
 was as good as his word for once. He did die. Isaac, accord- 
 ing to his promise, applied to the captains of several schooners ; 
 none of them would take the dead body. ' What shall I do ? ' 
 thought Isaac, ' de monish mosh not be loss.' So he straight- 
 way had Ezekiel (for even a Jew won't keep long in that climate) 
 cut up and packed with pickle into two barrels, marked ' Prime 
 mess pork, Leicester, M'Call, and Co., Cork.' He then shipped 
 the same in the Fan Fan, taking bills of lading in accordance 
 with the brand, deliverable to Mordecai Levi of CuraQoa, to 
 whom he sent the requisite instructions. The vessel sailed 
 off St Domingo she carried away a mast tried to fetch Cartha-
 
 254 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 gena under a jury-spar fell to leeward, and finally brought up 
 at Honduras. 
 
 "Three months after, Isaac encountered the master of the 
 schooner in the streets of Kingston. ' Ah, mine goot captain, 
 how is you ] you lookish tin, ave you been sheek ? ' ' No, 
 Moses, I am well enough, thank you ; poor a bit, but sound in 
 health, thank God. You have heard of my having carried away 
 the mainmast, and, after kicking about fifteen days on short 
 allowance, having been obliged to bear up for Honduras 1 ' ' I 
 know noting of all dat,' said Isaac ; ' sorry for it, captain very 
 sad in teed.' ' Sad ! you may say that, Moses. But I am honest 
 although poor, and here is your bill of lading for your two bar- 
 rels of provisions ; " Prime mess," it says ; Damned tough, say 
 I. Howsomdever,' pulling out his purse, ' the present value on 
 Bogle, Jopp, and Co.'s wharf is 5, 6s. 8d. the barrel ; so there 
 are two doubloons, Moses, and now discharge the account on 
 the back of the bill of lading, will you ] ' ' Vy should I take 
 payment, captain 1 if de' (pork stuck in his throat like ' amen' 
 in Macbeth's) ' if de barrel ish lost, it can't be help de act of 
 God, you know.' ' I am an honest man, Isaac,' continued the 
 captain, ' although a poor one, and I must tell the truth : we 
 carried on with our own as long as it lasted, at length we had 
 to break bulk, and your two barrels being nearest the hatch- 
 way, why we ate them first, that's all. Lord, what has come 
 over you ? ' Isaac grew pale as a corpse. ' O mine Got mine 
 poor broder, dat you ever was live, to tie in Jamaic Oh tear, 
 ohtear!" ; 
 
 " Did they eat the head and hands and " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Tom Cringle, don't interrupt me ; you 
 did not eat them ; I tell it as it was told to me. So Isaac 
 Grimm," continued Fyall, " was fairly overcome ; the kindly feel- 
 ings of his nature were at length stirred up, and as he turned 
 away, he wept blew his nose hard, like a Chaldean trumpet in 
 the new moon and while the large tears coursed each other 
 down his care-worn cheeks, he exclaimed, wringing the captain's 
 hand, in a voice tremulous and scarcely audible from extreme 
 emotion, ' Isaac Grimm, Isaac Grimm tid not your heart 
 mishgive you ven you vas commit te great plasphemy of invoish 
 Ezekiel flesh of your flesh, pone of your pone as por de 
 onclean peast, I mean. If you had put invoish him ash pecf 
 surely te earthly tabernacle of him, as always sheet in de high 
 places in te Sinacogue, would never have been allow to pass troo 
 te powels of te pershicuting Nazareen. Ah, mine goot captain,
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 255 
 
 mine very tear friend, vat vat vat av you done wid de cask, 
 captain?'" 
 
 " Oh most lame and impotent conclusion," sang out the judge, 
 who by this time had become deucedly prosy > and all hands 
 arose, as if by common consent, and agreed that we had got 
 enough. 
 
 So off we started in groups. Fyall, Captain Transom, Whiffle, 
 Aaron Bang, and myself sallied forth in a bunch, pretty well 
 inclined for a lark, you may guess. There are no lamps in the 
 streets of Kingston, and as all the decent part of the community 
 are in their cavies by half -past nine in the evening, and as it 
 was now " the witching time o' night," there was not a soul in 
 the streets that we saw, except a solitary town-guard now and 
 then lurking about some dark corner under the piazzas. These 
 same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough in the 
 daytime, had become unaccountably narrow and intricate since 
 six o'clock in the evening ; and although the object of the party 
 was to convoy Captain Transom and myself to our boat at the 
 Ordnance Wharf, it struck me that we were as frequently on a 
 totally different tack. 
 
 " I say, Cringle, my boy," stuttered out my superior, lieu- 
 tenant and captain being both drowned in and equalised by the 
 claret " why, Tom, Tom Cringle, you dog don't you hear 
 your superior officer speak, sir, eh ? " 
 
 My superior officer during this address was standing with 
 both arms round a pillar of the piazza. 
 
 " I am here, sir," said I. 
 
 " Why, I know that ; but why don't you speak when I 
 Hilloo ! where's Aaron, and Fyall, and the rest, eh ? " 
 
 They had been attracted by sounds of revelry in a splendid 
 mansion in the next street, which we could see was lit up with 
 great brilliancy, and had at this time shot about fifty yards 
 ahead of us, working to windward, tack and tack, like Commo- 
 dore Trunnion. 
 
 "Ah, I see," said Transom ; " let us heave ahead, Tom now, 
 do ye hear 1 stand you with your white trousers against the 
 next pillar." The ranges supporting the piazza were at distances 
 of about twenty feet from each other. " Ah, stand there now 
 I see it." So he weighed from the one he had tackled to, and, 
 making a staggering bolt of it, ran up to the pillar against 
 which I stood, its position being marked by my white vest- 
 ments, where he again hooked on for a second or two, until I 
 had taken up a new position.
 
 256 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " There, my boy, that's the way to lay out a warp right in 
 the wind's eye. Tom, we shall fairly beat those lubbers who 
 are tacking in the stream nothing like warping in the dead 
 water near the shore mark that down, Tom never beat in a 
 tide-way when you can warp up along shore in the dead water. 
 Confound the judge's ice" (hiccup) " he has poisoned me 
 with that piece he plopped in my last whitewash of madeira. 
 He a judge ! He may be a good crim criminal judge, but no 
 judge of wine. Why don't you laugh, Tom, eh 1 ? and then his 
 saw the rasp of a saw I hate wish it, and a whole nest more, 
 had been in his legal stomach full of old saws Shakespeare 
 he, he ! Why don't you laugh, Tom 1 Poisoned by the judge, 
 by Jupiter. Now, here we are fairly abreast of them. Hillo ! 
 Fyall, what are you after ! " 
 
 " Hush, hush," said Fyall, with drunken gravity. 
 
 "And hush, hush," said Aaron Bang. 
 
 "Come here, Tom, come here," said Whiffle, in a whisper. 
 We were now directly under the piazza of the fine house, in the 
 first floor of which some gay scene was enacting. " Here, Tom, 
 here now stand there hold by that pillar there. I say, Tran- 
 som, give me a lift." 
 
 " Can't, Whiffle, can't, for the soul of me, Peregrine, my dear 
 but I see, I see." 
 
 With that the gallant captain got down on all-fours ; Whiffle, 
 a small light man, got on his back, and, with the aid of Bang 
 and Fyall, managed to scramble up on my shoulders, where he 
 stood, holding by the window-sill above, with a foot on each 
 side of my head. His little red face was thus raised flush with 
 the window-sill, so that he could see into the dark piazza on the 
 first floor, and right through into the magnificent and sparkling 
 drawing-room beyond. 
 
 " Now tell us what's to be seen," said Aaron. 
 
 " Stop, stop," rejoined Whiffle " My eye, what a lot of splen- 
 did women no men a regular lady-party Hush ! a song." 
 A harp was struck, and a symphony of Beethoven's played with 
 great taste. A song, low and melancholy, from two females, 
 followed. 
 
 " The music of the spheres ! " quoth Whiffle. 
 
 We were rapt we had been inspired before and, drunk as 
 we were, there we sat or stood, as best suited us, exhibiting the 
 strange sight of a cluster of silent tipsy men. At length, at one 
 of the finest swells, I heard a curious gurgling sound overhead, 
 as if some one was being gagged, and I fancied Peregrine be-
 
 MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 257 
 
 came lighter on my shoulders Another fine die-away note I 
 was sure of it. 
 
 "Bang, Bang Fyall He is evaporating with delight no 
 weight at all growing more and more ethereal lighter and 
 lighter, as I am a gentleman he is off going, going, gone 
 exhaled into the blue heavens, by all that is wonderful ! " 
 
 Puzzled beyond measure, I stept hurriedly back, and capsized 
 over the captain, who was still enacting the joint-stool on all- 
 fours behind me, by which Whiffle had mounted to my cross- 
 trees, and there we rolled in the sand, master and man. 
 
 " Murdered, Tom Cringle murdered ! you have hogged me 
 like the old Ramilies broke my back, Tom spoiled my qua- 
 drilling for ever and a day : d n the judge's ice, though, and 
 the saw particularly." 
 
 " Where is he where is Whiffle ? " inquired all hands, in a 
 volley. 
 
 " The devil only knows," said I ; "he has flown up into the 
 clouds, catch him who can. He has left this earth anyhow, that 
 is clear." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " cried Fyall, in great glee, who had seen him 
 drawn into the window by several white figures, after they had 
 tied a silk handkerchief over his mouth ; " follow me, my boys ;" 
 and we all scrambled after him to the front door of the house, 
 to which we ascended by a handsome flight of marble steps ; and 
 when there, we began to thunder away for admittance. The 
 door was opened by a very respectable-looking elderly gentle- 
 man, with well-powdered hair, and attended by two men-ser- 
 vants in handsome liveries, carrying lights. His bearing and 
 gentlemanlike deportment had an immediate effect on me, and 
 I believe on the others too. He knew Fyall and Whiffle, it 
 appeared. 
 
 " Mr Fyall," he said, with much gentleness, " I know it is 
 only meant as a frolic, but really I hope you will now end it. 
 Amongst yourselves, gentlemen, this may be all very well, but 
 considering my religion, and the slights we Hebrews are so often 
 exposed to, myself and my family are more sensitive and per- 
 vious to insult than you can well understand." 
 
 " My dear fellow," quoth Fyall, " we are all very sorry : the 
 fact is, we had some bad shaddock after dinner, which has made 
 us very giddy and foolish somehow. Do you know, I could 
 almost fancy I had been drinking wine." 
 
 " Cool and deliciously impudent that same (hiccup)," quoth 
 the skipper.
 
 258 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " But hand us back little Whiffle," continued Fyall, " and we 
 shall be off." 
 
 Here Whiffle's voice was heard from the drawing-room. 
 " Here, Fyall ! Tom Cringle ! here, here, or I shall be mur- 
 dered!" 
 
 " Ah ! I see," said Mr H. ; " this way, gentlemen. Come, I 
 will deliver the culprit to you;" and we followed him into the 
 drawing-room, a most magnificent saloon, at least forty feet by 
 thirty, brilliantly lit up with crystal lamps and massive silver 
 candelabra, and filled with elegant furniture, which was reflected, 
 along with the chandeliers that hung from the centre of the 
 coach-roof, by several large mirrors, in rich frames, as well as in 
 the highly polished mahogany floor. 
 
 There, in the middle of the room, the other end of it being 
 occupied by a bevy of twelve or fifteen richly-dressed females 
 visitors, as we conjectured sat our friend Peregrine, pinioned 
 into a large easy-chair, with shawls and scarfs, amidst a sea of 
 silk cushions, by four beautiful young women, black hair and 
 eyes, clear white skins, fine figures, and little clothing. A young 
 Jewess is a beautiful animal, although, like the unclean con- 
 found the metaphor which they abhor they don't improve by 
 age. 
 
 When we entered, the blushing girls who had been beat- 
 ing Whiffle over his spindle shins with their large garden-fans, 
 dashed through a side-door, unable to contain their laughter, 
 which we heard, long after they had vanished, echoing through 
 the lofty galleries of the house. Our captive knight being re- 
 stored to us, we made our bows to the other ladies, who were 
 expiring with laughter, and took our leave, with little Whiffle on 
 our shoulders the worthy Hebrew, whom I afterwards knew 
 in London, sending his servant and gig with Captain Transom 
 and myself to the wharf. There we tumbled ourselves into the 
 boat, and got on board the Firebrand about three in the morn- 
 ing. We were by this time pretty well sobered ; at four a gun 
 was fired, the topsails were let fall and sheeted home, and top- 
 gallant sails set over them, the ship having previously been hove 
 short ; at half -past, the cable being right up and down another 
 gun the drums and fifes beat merrily spin flew the capstan, 
 tramp went the men that manned it. We were under weigh 
 Eastward, ho ! for Santiago de Cuba.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 259 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND 
 
 Showing, amongst other pleasant matters well worthy of being recorded, hoa> 
 Thomas communed with his two Consciences. 
 
 " Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried, 
 And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide, 
 The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play, 
 That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way ? " 
 
 27(6 Corsair. 
 
 WE had to beat up for three days before we could weather 
 the east end of Jamaica, and tearing work we had of it. I had 
 seen bad weather and heavy seas in several quarters of the globe 
 I had tumbled about, under a close-reefed main-topsail and 
 reefed foresail, on the long seas in the Bay of Biscay I had 
 been kicked about in a seventy-four, off the Cape of Good Hope, 
 as if she had been a cork I had been hove hither and thither, 
 by the short jumble of the North Sea, about Heligoland, and 
 the shoals lying off the mouth of the Elbe, when everything over- 
 head was black as thunder, and all beneath as white as snow 
 I had enjoyed the luxury of being torn in pieces by a north- 
 wester, which compelled us to lie-to for ten days at a stretch, 
 under storm stay-sails, off the coast of Yankeeland, with a clear, 
 deep, cold, blue sky above us, without a cloud, where the sun 
 shone brightly the whole time by day, and a glorious harvest- 
 moon by night, as if they were smiling in derision upon our 
 riven and strained ship, as she reeled to and fro like a wounded 
 Titan ; at one time buried in the trough of the sea, at another 
 cast upwards towards the heavens by the throes of the tor- 
 mented waters, from the troubled bosom of the bounding and 
 roaring ocean, amidst hundreds of miniature rainbows (ay, 
 rainbows by night as well as by day), in a hissing storm of white, 
 foaming, seething spray, torn from the curling and roaring bright 
 green crests of the mountainous billows. And I have had more 
 than one narrow squeak for it in the neighbourhood of the " still 
 vexed Bermoothes," besides various other small affairs, written 
 in this Boke ; but the devil such another tumblification had I 
 ever experienced not as to danger, for there was none except 
 to our spars and rigging, but as to discomfort as I did in that
 
 260 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 short, cross, splashing and boiling sea off Morant Point. By 
 noon, however, on the second day, having had a slant from the 
 land-wind in the night previous, we got well to windward of the 
 long sandy spit that forms the east end of the island, and were 
 in the act of getting a small pull of the weather braces before 
 edging away for St Jago, when the wind fell suddenly, and in 
 half an hour it was stark calm " una furiosa calma," as the 
 Spanish sailors quaintly enough call it. 
 
 We got rolling-tackles up, and the topgallant-masts down, and 
 studding-sails out of the tops, and lessened the lumber and 
 weight aloft in every way we could think of, but, nevertheless, 
 we continued to roll gunwale under, dipping the main-yardarm 
 into the water every now and then, and setting everything adrift 
 below and on deck that was not bolted down, or otherwise well 
 secured. 
 
 When I went down to dinner, the scene was extremely good. 
 Old Yerk, the first-lieutenant, was in the chair ; one of the boys 
 was jammed at his side, with his claws fastened round the foot 
 of the table, holding a tureen of boiling pease-soup, with lumps of 
 pork swimming in it, which the aforesaid Yerk was baling forth 
 with great assiduity to his messmates. Hydrostatics were much 
 in vogue the tendency of fluids to regain their equilibrium 
 (confound them ! they have often in the shape of claret de- 
 stroyed mine) was beautifully illustrated, as the contents of each 
 carefully balanced soup-plate kept swaying about on the princi- 
 ple of the spirit-level. The doctor was croupier, and as it was 
 a return-dinner to the captain, all hands were regularly figged 
 out, the lieutenants with their epaulets and best coats, and the 
 master, purser, and doctor, all fittingly attired. When I first 
 entered, as I made my obeisance to the captain, I thought I saw 
 an empty seat next him, but the matter of the soup was rather 
 an engrossing concern, and took up my attention, so that I paid 
 no particular regard to the circumstance ; however, when we 
 had all discussed the same, and were drinking our first glass of 
 TenerifFe, I raised my eyes to hob and nob with the master, 
 when ye gods and little fishes ! who should they light on, but 
 the merry phiz merry, alas ! no more of Aaron Bang, Esquire, 
 who, during the soup interlude, had slid into the vacant chair 
 unperceived by me. 
 
 " Why, Mr Bang, where, in the name of all that is comical, 
 where have you dropped from ] " Alas ! poor Aaron Aaron in 
 a rolling sea was of no kindred to Aaron ashore. His rosy gills 
 were no longer rosy his round plump face seemed to be
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 261 
 
 covered with parchment from an old bass-drum, cut out from the 
 centre where most bronzed by the drum-stick there was no 
 speculation in his eyes that he did glare withal and his lips, 
 which were usually firm and open, disclosing his nice teeth in 
 frequent grin, were held together, as if he had been in grievous 
 pain. At length he did venture to open them and, like the 
 ghost of Hamlet's father, " it lifted up its head and did address 
 itself to motion, as it would speak." But they began to quiver, 
 and he once more screwed them together, as if he feared the 
 very exertion of uttering a word or two might unsettle his 
 moniplies. 
 
 The master was an odd garrulous small man, who had a cer- 
 tain number of stated jokes, which, so long as they were endured, 
 he unmercifully inflicted on his messmates. I had come in for 
 my share, as a new-comer, as well as the rest ; but even with 
 me, although I had been but recently appointed, they had already 
 begun to pall, and wax wearisome ; and, blind as the beetle of a 
 body was, he could not help seeing this. So poor Bang, unable 
 to return a shot, sea-sick and crestfallen, offered a target that 
 he could not resist taking aim at. Dinner was half over, and 
 Bang had not eaten anything, when, unseasonable as the hour 
 was, the little pot-valiant master, primed with two tumblers of 
 grog, in defiance of the captain's presence, fairly fastened on him, 
 like a remora, and pinned him down with one of his long-winded 
 stories about Captain David Jones, in the Phantome, during a 
 cruise off Cape Flyaway, having run foul of a whale, and there- 
 by nearly foundered ; and that at length having got the monster 
 harpooned and speared, and the devil knows what, but it ended 
 in getting her alongside, when they scuttled the leviathan, and 
 then, wonderful to relate, they found a Greenlandman, with royal 
 yards crossed, in her maw, and the captain and mate in the 
 cabin quarrelling about the reckoning. 
 
 " What do you think of that, Mr Bang as well they might 
 be, Mr Bang as well they might be?" Bang said nothing, 
 but at the moment whether the said Aaron lent wings to the 
 bird or no, I cannot tell a goose, swimming in apple-sauce, 
 which he was, with a most stern countenance, endeavouring to 
 carve, fetched way right over the gunwale of the dish, and, 
 taking a whole boat of melted butter with it, splashed across 
 the table during a tremendous roll, that made everything creak 
 and groan again, right into the small master's lap, who was his 
 vis-a-vis. I could hear Aaron grumble out something about 
 " Strange affinity birds of a feather." But his time was up,
 
 262 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 his minutes were numbered, and like a shot he bolted from the 
 table, sculling or rather clawing away towards the door, by the 
 backs of the chairs, like a green parrot, until he reached the 
 marine at the bottom of the ladder, at the door of the captain's 
 cabin, round whose neck he immediately fetterlocked his fins. 
 
 " He had only time to exclaim to his new ally, " My dear 
 fellow, get me some brandy-and- water, for the love of mercy " 
 when he blew up, with an explosion like the bursting of a 
 steam-boiler. " Oh dear, oh dear," we could hear him murmur- 
 ing in the lulls of his agony then another loud report " there 
 goes my yesterday's supper hot grog and toasted cheese " 
 another roar, as if the spirit was leaving its earthly tabernacle 
 " dinner, claret, madeira all cruel bad in a second edition 
 cheese, teal, and ringtail pigeon black crabs calapi and turtle- 
 soup " as his fleshly indulgences of the previous day rose up 
 in judgment against him, like a man's evil deeds on his death- 
 bed. At length the various strata of his interior were entirely 
 excavated " Ah ! I have got to my breakfast to the simple 
 tea and toast at last. Brandy-and-water, my dear Transom, 
 brandy -and -water, my darling, hot, without sugar" and 
 " Brandy-and-water " died in echoes in the distance as he was 
 stowed away into his cot in the captain's cabin. It seems that 
 it had been all arranged between him and Captain Transom, 
 that he was to set off for St Thomas-in-the-East the morning 
 on which we sailed, and to get a shove out in the pilot-boat 
 schooner, from Morant Bay, to join us for the cruise ; and accord- 
 ingly he had come on board the night previous when I was 
 below, and being somewhat qualmish he had wisely kept his 
 cot ; the fun of the thing depending, as it seemed, on all hands 
 carefully keeping it from me that he was on board. 
 
 I apprehend most people indulge in the fancy that they have 
 Consciences such as they are. I myself now even I, Thomas 
 Cringle, Esquire amongst sundry vain imaginings, conceive that 
 7 have a conscience somewhat of the caoutchouc order, I will 
 confess stretching a little upon occasion, when the gale of my 
 passions blows high^nevertheless a highly respectable conscience 
 as things go a stalwart unchancy customer, who will not be 
 gainsaid or contradicted ; but he may be disobeyed, although 
 never with impunity. It is all true that a young, well-fledged 
 gentlewoman, for she is furnished with a most swift pair of 
 wings, called Prosperity, sometimes gets the better of Master 
 Conscience, and smothers the Grim Feature for a time under 
 the bed of eider-down whereon you and her ladyship are repos-
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 263 
 
 ing. But she is a sad jilt in many instances, this same Prosperity ; 
 for some fine morning, with the sun glancing in through the 
 crevices of the window-shutters, just at the nick when, after 
 turning yourself and rubbing your eyes, you courageously thrust 
 forth one leg, with a determination to don your gramashes with- 
 out more delay, " Tom," says she, " Tom Cringle, I have got 
 tired of you, Thomas ; besides, I hear iny next-door neighbour, 
 Madam Adversity, tirling at the door-pin ; so give me my down- 
 bed, Tom, and I'm off." With that she bangs open the window, 
 and, before I recover from my surprise, launches forth with a loud 
 iohir, mattress and all, leaving me, Pilgarlic, lying on the pail- 
 lasse. Well, her nest is scarcely cold, when in comes Mistress 
 Adversity, a wee, outspoken, sour, crabbit, gizzened anatomy of 
 an old woman "You ne' erdotceel, Tarn," quoth she, "is it no' 
 enough that you consort with that scarlet limmer, who has just 
 yescaped thorough the winday, but ye maun smoor my first-born, 
 puir Conscience, atween ye 1 Whare hae ye stowed him, man 
 tell me that ? " And the ancient damosel gives me a shrewd 
 clip on the skull with the poker. " That's right, mother," quoth 
 Conscience, from beneath the straw mattress, " Give it to him 
 he'll no hear me another devel, mother." And I found that 
 my own weight, deserted as I was by that ahem Prosperity, 
 was no longer sufficient to keep him down. So up he rose, with 
 a loud pech ; and while the old woman keelhauled me with a 
 poker on one side, he yerked at me on the other, until at length 
 he gave me a regular cross-buttock, and then between them they 
 diddled me outright. When I was fairly floored, " Now, my 
 man," said Adversity, " I bear no spite ; if you will but listen 
 to my boy there, we shall be good friends still. He is never 
 unreasonable. He has no objections to your consorting even 
 with Madam Prosperity in a decent way ; but he will not con- 
 sent to your letting her get the better of you, nor to your 
 doting on her, even to the giving her a share of your bed, when 
 she should never be allowed to get farther than the servants' 
 hall, for she should be kept in subjection, or she'll ruin you 
 for ever, Thomas. Conscience is a rough lad, I grant you, and 
 I am keen and snell also ; but never mind, take his advice, and 
 you'll be some credit to your freens yet, ye scoonreL" I did so, 
 and the old lady's visits became shorter and shorter, and more 
 and more distant, until at length they ceased altogether ; and 
 once more Prosperity, like a dove with its heaven-borrowed hues 
 all glowing in the morning sun, pitched one morning on my 
 window-silL It was in June. " Tom, I am come back again."
 
 264 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 I gJowered at her with all my bir. "Aiblins," said I, but I 
 could go no farther. She made a step or two towards me, and 
 the lesson of Adversity was fast evaporating into thin air, when 
 lo ! the sleeping lion himself awoke. "Thomas," said Conscience, 
 in a voice that made my flesh creep, " not into your bed, neither 
 into your bosom, Thomas. Be civil to the young woman, but 
 remember what your best friend Adversity told you, and never 
 let her be more than your handmaiden again ; free to come, 
 free to go, but never more to be your mistress." I screw myself 
 about, and twist, and turn in great perplexity Hard enough all 
 this, and I am half -inclined to try to throttle Conscience outright. 
 
 But to make a long story short I was resolute " Step into 
 the parlour, my dearest I hope we shall never part any more ; 
 but you must not get the upper hand, you know. So step into 
 the other room, and whenever I get my inexpressibles on, I will 
 come to you there." 
 
 But this Conscience about which I am now havering, seldom 
 acts the monitor in this way, unless against respectable crimes, 
 such as murder, debauching your friend's wife, or stealing. But 
 the chield I have to do with for the present, and who has led to 
 this rigmarole, is a sort of deputy Conscience, a looker-out after 
 small affairs peccadilloes. The grewsome carle, Conscience 
 Senior, you can grapple with, for he only steps forth on great 
 occasions, when he says sternly and the mischief is, that what 
 he says we know to be true says he, " Thomas Cringle" he 
 never calls me Tom, or Mister, or Lieutenant " Thomas 
 Cringle," says he, " if you do that thing you shall be damned." 
 " Lud-a-mercy," quoth I, Thomas, " I will perpend, Master 
 Conscience" and I set myself to eschew the evil deed with 
 all my might. But Conscience the Younger whom I will take 
 leave to call by Quashie's appellative hereafter, Conshy is a 
 funny little fellow, and another guess sort of a chap altogether. 
 An instance : " I say, Tom, my boy Tom Cringle why the 
 deuce now" he won't say " the Devil" for the world " why 
 the deuce, Tom, don't you confine yourself to a pint of wine 
 at dinner, eh 1 " quoth Conshy. " Why will you not give up 
 your toddy after it ? You are ruining your interior, Thomas, 
 my fine fellow the gout is on the look-out for you your legs 
 are spindling, and your paunch is increasing. Read Hamlet's 
 speech to Polonius, Tom, and if you don't find all the marks of 
 premature old age creeping on you, then am I, Conshy, a Dutch- 
 man, that's all." Now, Conshy always lectures you in the 
 watches of the night ; I generally think his advice is good at
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 265 
 
 breakfast-time, and during the forenoon, egad, I think it excel- 
 lent and most reasonable, and I determine to stick by it and 
 if Conshy and I dine alone, I do adhere to his maxims most 
 rigidly ; but if any of my old allies should topple in to dinner, 
 Conshy, who is a solitary mechanic, bolts instanter. Still I 
 remember him for a time we sit down the dinner is good. 
 " I say, Jack, a glass of wine Peter, what shall we have ? " and 
 until the pint a-piece is discussed, all is right between Conshy 
 and me. But then comes some grouse. Hook, in his double- 
 refined nonsense, palavers about the blasphemy of white wine 
 after brown game and he is not far wrong either; at least I 
 never thought he was, so long as my Hermitage lasted; but at 
 the time I speak of, it was still to the fore so the moment the 
 pint a-piece was out, " Hold hard, Tom, now," cheeps little 
 Conshy. " Why, only one glass of Hermitage, Conshy." Conshy 
 shakes his head. Cheese after the manner of the ancients 
 Hook again " Only one glass of port, Conshy." He shakes his 
 head, and at length the cloth is drawn, and a confounded old 
 steward of mine, who is now installed as butler, brings in the 
 crystal decanters, sparkling to the wax-lights poor as I am, I 
 consider mutton fats damnable and everything as it should be, 
 down to a finger-glass. " Now, Mary, where are the children ? " 
 I am resolute. " Jack, I can't drink out of sorts, my boy so 
 mind yourself, you and Peter. Now, Conshy," says I, " where 
 are you now, my boy ?" But just at this instant, Jack strikes 
 out with, "Cringle, order me a tumbler something hot I 
 don't care what it is." " Ditto," quoth Peter ; and down 
 crumbles all my fine fabric of resolutions, only to be rebuilt to- 
 morrow, before breakfast again, or at any odd moment when 
 one's flesh is somewhat fishified. Another instance : " I say, 
 Tom," says Conshy, " do give over looking at that smart girl 
 tripping it along t'other side of the street." " Presently, my 
 dear little man," says I. " Tight little woman that, Conshy ; 
 handsome bows ; good bearings forward ; tumbles home sweetly 
 about the waist, and tumbles out well above the hips ; what a 
 beautiful run ! and spars clean and tight ; back-stays well set 
 up." " Now, Tom, you vagabond, give over. Have you not a 
 wife of your own? " " To be sure I have, Conshy, my darling ; 
 but toujours per" " Have done now, you are going too far," 
 
 says Conshy. " Oh, you be " THOMAS," cries a still, 
 
 stern voice, from the very inmost recesses of my heart. Wee 
 Conshy holds up his finger, and pricks his ear. " Do you hear 
 him ? " says he. " I hear," says I, " / hear and tremble." Now,
 
 266 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 to apply. Conshy has been nudging me for this half hour to 
 hold my tongue regarding Aaron Bang's sea-sickness. " It is 
 absolutely indecent," quoth he. " Can't help it, Conshy ; no 
 more than the extra tumbler ; those who are delicate need not 
 read it ; those who are indelicate won't be the worse of it." 
 " But," persists Conshy " I have other hairs in your neck, 
 Master Tommy you are growing a bit of a buffoon on us, and 
 sorry am I to say it, sometimes not altogether, as a man with a 
 rank imagination may construe you, a very decent one. Now, 
 my good boy, I would have you to remember that what you 
 write is condemned in the pages of Old Christopher to an amber 
 immortalisation," (Ohon for the Provost !) " nay, don't perk 
 and smile, I mean no compliment, for you are but the straw in 
 the amber, Tom, and the only wonder is, how the deuce you got 
 there." 
 
 " But, my dear Conshy " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Tom let me say out my say, and finish 
 my advice and how will you answer to my father, in your old 
 age, when youth and health and wealth may have flown, if you 
 find anything in this your Log calculated to bring a blush on an 
 innocent cheek, Tom, when the time shall have for ever passed 
 away wherein you could have remedied the injury ? For Con- 
 science will speak to you then ; not as I do now, in friendly con- 
 fidence, and impelled by a sincere regard for you, you right- 
 hearted, but thoughtless, slapdash vagabond." 
 
 There must have been a great deal of absurd perplexity in my 
 visage, as I sat receiving my rebuke, for I noticed Conshy smile, 
 which gave me courage. 
 
 " I will reform, Conshy, and that immediately ; but my moral 
 is good, man." 
 
 " Well, well, Tom, I will take you at your word, so set about 
 it, set about it." 
 
 " But, Conshy a word in your starboard hig why don't you 
 go to the fountain-head why don't you try your hand in a 
 curtain lecture on Old Kit North himself the hoary sinner who 
 seduced me 1 ?" 
 
 Conshy could no longer contain himself ; the very idea of old 
 Kit having a conscience of any kind or description whatever, so 
 tickled him, that he burst into a most uproarious fit of laughter, 
 which I was in great hopes would have choked him, and thus 
 made me well quit of him for ever. For some time I listened 
 in great amazement, but there was something so infectious in 
 his fun that presently I began to laugh too, which only increased
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 26T 
 
 Iris cacliinnation ; so there were Conshy and I roaring and shout- 
 ing with the tears running down our cheeks. 
 
 " Kit, listen to me ! O Lord 
 
 " You are swearing, Conshy," said I, rubbing my hands at 
 having caught him tripping. 
 
 " And enough to make a Quaker swear," quoth he, still laugh- 
 ing. " No, no, Kit never listens to me ; why, he would never 
 listen even to my father, until the gout and the Catholic Relief 
 Bill, and, last of all, the Reform Bill, broke him down and 
 softened his heart." 
 
 So there is an allegory for you, worthy of John Bunyan. 
 
 Next morning we got the breeze again, when we bore away 
 for Santiago de Cuba, and arrived off the Moro Castle on the fifth 
 evening at sunset, after leaving Port Royal harbour. The 
 Spaniards, in their better days, were a kind of coral worms ; 
 wherever they planted their colonies, they immediately set to 
 covering themselves in with stone and mortar applying their 
 own entire energies, and the whole strength of their Indian cap- 
 tives, first to the erection of a fort; their second object (post- 
 poned to the other only through absolute necessity) being then 
 to build a temple to their God. Gradually vast fabrics appeared 
 where before there was nothing but one eternal forest or a howl- 
 ing wilderness ; and although it does come over one, when 
 looking at the splendid moles and firm-built bastions and stupen- 
 dous churches of the New World the latter surpassing, or at 
 the least equalling in magnificence and grandeur, those of Old 
 Spain herself that they are all cemented by the blood and 
 sweat of millions of gentle Indians, of whose harmless existence 
 in many quarters they remain the only monuments, still it is a 
 melancholy reflection to look back and picture to one's-self what 
 Spain was, and to compare her, in her high and palmy state, with 
 what she is now to compare her present condition even with 
 what she was, when, as a young midshipman, I first visited her 
 glorious Transatlantic colonies. 
 
 Until the Peninsula was overrun by the French, Buenos Ayres, 
 Laguayra, Porto Cavello, Maracaibo, Santa Martha, and that 
 stronghold of the West, the key of the Isthmus of Darien, Car- 
 tagena de las Indias, with Porto Bello, and Vera Cruz, on the 
 Atlantic shores of South America, were all prosperous and happy 
 " Llenas de plata ;" and on the western coast, Valparaiso, 
 Lima, Panama, and San Bias, were thriving and increasing in 
 population and wealth. England, through her colonies, was at 
 that time driving a lucrative trade with all of them ; but the
 
 268 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 demon of change was abroad, blown thither by the pestilent 
 breath of European liberalism. What a vineyard for Abbe 
 Sieyes to have laboured in ! Every Capitania would have be- 
 come a purchaser of one of his cut and dried constitutions ; in- 
 deed he could not have turned them out of hand fast enough. 
 The enlightened few, in these countries, were as a drop in the 
 bucket to the unenlightened many; and although no doubt 
 there were numbers of the former who were well-meaning men, 
 yet they were, one and all, guilty of that prime political blunder, 
 in common with our Whig friends at home, of expecting a set of 
 semi-barbarians to see the beauty of, and to conform to, their 
 newfangled codes of free institutions, for which they were as 
 ready as I am to die at this present moment. Bolivar, in his 
 early fever of patriotism, made the same mistake, although his 
 shrewd mind, in his later career, saw that a despotism, pure or 
 impure I will not qualify it was your only government for 
 the savages he had at one time dignified with the name of fel- 
 low-patriots. But he came to this wholesome conclusion too 
 late ; he tried back, it is true, but it would not do ; the fiend 
 had been unchained, and at length hunted him, broken-hearted, 
 into his grave. 
 
 But the men of mind tell us that those countries are now 
 going through the political fermentation, which by-and-by will 
 clear, when the sediment will be deposited, and the different 
 ranks will each take their acknowledged and undisputed stations 
 in society; and the United States are once and again quoted 
 against we of the adverse faction, as if there were the most re- 
 mote analogy between their population, originally composed of 
 all the cleverest scoundrels of Europe, and the barbarians of 
 Spanish America, where a few master spirits all old Spaniards 
 did indeed for a season stick fiery off from the dark mass of 
 savages amongst whom their lot was cast, like stars in a moon- 
 less night, but only to suffer a speedy eclipse from the clouds 
 and storm which they themselves had set in motion. We shall 
 see. The scum as yet is uppermost, and does not seem likely 
 to subside, but it may boil over. In Cuba, however, all was at 
 the time quiet, and still is, I believe, prosperous, and that too 
 without having come through this said blessed political fer- 
 mentation. 
 
 During the night we stood off and on, under easy sail, and 
 next morning, when the day broke, with a strong breeze and a 
 fresh shower, we were about two miles off the Moro Castle, at 
 the entrance of Santiago de Cuba.
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 269 
 
 I went aloft to look round me. The sea-breeze blew strong, 
 until it reached within half a mile of the shore, where it stopped 
 short, shooting in cat's-paws occasionally into the smooth belt 
 of water beyond, where the long unbroken swell rolled like 
 molten silver in the rising sun, without a ripple on its surface, 
 until it dashed its gigantic undulations against the face of the 
 precipitous cliffs on the shore, and flew up in smoke. The en- 
 trance to the harbour is very narrow, and looked from my perch 
 like a zigzag chasm in the rock, inlaid at the bottom with 
 polished blue steel ; so clear and calm and pellucid was the still 
 water, wherein the frowning rocks and magnificent trees on the 
 banks and the white Moro, rising with its grinning tiers of can- 
 non, battery above battery, were reflected veluti in speculum, as 
 if it had been in a mirror. 
 
 We had shortened sail, and fired a gun, and the signal for a 
 pilot was flying when the captain hailed me. " Does the sea- 
 breeze blow into the harbour yet, Mr Cringle 1 " 
 
 " Not yet, sir ; but it is creeping in fast." 
 
 " Very well Let me know when you can run in. Mr Yerk, 
 back the main-topsail, and heave the ship to." 
 
 Presently the pilot canoe, with the Spanish flag flying in the 
 stern, came alongside ; and the pilot, a tall brown man, a moreno, 
 as the Spaniards say, came on board. He wore a glazed cocked- 
 hat, rather an out-of-the-way finish to his figure, which was 
 rigged in a simple Osnaburg shirt and pair of trousers. He 
 came on the quarterdeck and made his bow to the captain with 
 all the ease in the world, wished him a good morning, and, 
 taking his place by the quartermaster at the conn, took charge 
 of the ship. " Senor," quoth he to me, " is de harbour blow up 
 yet ? I mean, you see de viento walking into him 1 de terral 
 dat is land-wind has he cease { " 
 
 "No," I answered; "the belt of smooth water is growing 
 narrower fast ; but the sea-breeze does not blow into the channel 
 yet. Now it has reached the entrance." 
 
 "Ah, den make sail, Senor Capitan ; fill de main-topsail" 
 We stood in the scene becoming more and more magnificent 
 as we approached the land. 
 
 The fresh green shores of this glorious island lay before us, 
 fringed with white surf, as the everlasting ocean in its approach 
 to it gradually changed its dark blue colour, as the water shoaled, 
 into a bright joyous green under the blazing sun, as if in sym- 
 pathy with the genius of the fair land, before it tumbled at his 
 feet its gently swelling billows, in shaking thunders on the reefs
 
 270 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 and rocky face of the coast, against which they were driven up 
 in clouds, the incense of their sacrifice. The undulating hills in 
 the vicinity were all either cleared, and covered with the green- 
 est verdure that imagination can picture, over which strayed 
 large herds of cattle, or with forests of gigantic trees, from 
 amongst which, every now and then, peeped out some palm- 
 thatched mountain settlement, with its small thread of blue 
 smoke floating up into the calm clear morning air, while the 
 blue hills in the distance rose higher and higher, and more and 
 more blue and dreamy and indistinct, until their rugged sum- 
 mits could not be distinguished from the clouds through the 
 glimmering hot haze of the tropics. 
 
 " By the mark seven," sang out the leadsman in the starboard 
 chains ; " Quarter less three," responded he in the larboard, 
 showing that the inequalities of the surface at the bottom of the 
 sea, even in the breadth of the ship, were at least as abrupt as 
 those presented above water by the sides of the natural canal 
 into which we were now running. By this time on our right 
 hand we were within pistol-shot of the Moro, where the channel 
 is not above fifty yards across ; indeed, there is a chain, made 
 fast to a rock on the opposite side, that can be hove up by a 
 capstan until it is level with the surface of the water, so as to 
 constitute an insurmountable obstacle to any attempt to force 
 an entrance in time of war. As we stood in, the golden flag of 
 Spain rose slowly on the staff at the Water Battery, and cast its 
 large sleepy folds abroad in the breeze ; but, instead of floating 
 over mail-clad men, or Spanish soldiers in warlike array, three 
 poor devils of half-naked mulattoes stuck their heads out of an 
 embrasure under its shadow. " Seiior Capitan," they shouted, 
 " una botella de Roma por el honor del paw." We were mighty 
 close upon leaving the bones of the old ship here, by the by ; 
 for at the very instant of entering the harbour's mouth the land- 
 wind checked us off, and very nearly hove us broadside on upon 
 the rocks below the castle, against which the swell was breaking 
 in thunder. 
 
 " Let go the anchor," sang out the captain. 
 
 " All gone, sir," promptly responded the boatswain from the 
 forecastle. And as he spoke we struck once, twice, and very 
 heavily the third time. But the breeze coming in strong we 
 fetched way again, and, as the cable was promptly cut, we got 
 safely off. However, on weighing the anchor afterwards, we 
 found the water had been so shoal under the bows, that the ship, 
 when she stranded, had struck it, and broken the stock short off
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 271 
 
 by the ring. The only laughable part of the story consisted in 
 the old cook an Irishman with one leg and half an eye, 
 scrambling out of the galley, nearly naked, in his trousers, shirt, 
 and greasy nightcap, and sprawling on all-fours after two tub- 
 fuls of yams, which the third thump had capsized all over the 
 decks. "Oh, you scurvy -looking tief," said he, eyeing the 
 pilot ; " if it was running us ashore you were set on, why the 
 blazes couldn't ye wait until the yams were in the copper ; bad 
 luck to ye and them all scraped too ! I do believe, if they even 
 had been taties, it would have been all the same to you." We 
 stood on, the channel narrowing still more the rocks rising to 
 a height of at least five hundred feet from the water's edge, as 
 sharply and precipitously as if they had only yesterday been 
 split asunder ; the splintered projections and pinnacles on one 
 side having each their corresponding fissures and indentations 
 on the other, as if the hand of a giant could have closed them 
 together again. 
 
 Noble trees shot out in all directions wherever they could find 
 a little earth and a crevice to hold on by, almost meeting over- 
 head in several places, and alive with all kinds of birds and 
 beasts incidental to the climate ; parrots of all sorts, great and 
 small, clomb and hung and fluttered amongst the branches ; and 
 pigeons of numberless varieties ; and the glancing woodpecker, 
 with his small hammer-like tap, tap, tap ; and the West India 
 nightingale, and humming-birds of all hues ; while cranes, black, 
 white, and grey, frightened from their fishing-stations, stalked 
 and peeped about, as awkwardly as a warrant-officer in his long- 
 skirted coat on a Sunday ; while whole flocks of ducks flew 
 across the mastheads and through the rigging ; and the dragon- 
 like guanas, and lizards of many kinds, disported themselves 
 amongst the branches, not lazily or loathsomely, as we, who 
 have only seen a lizard in our cold climate, are apt to picture., 
 but alert, and quick as lightning their colours changing with 
 the changing light or the hues of the objects to which they 
 clung becoming, literally, in one respect, portions of the land- 
 scape. 
 
 And then the dark, transparent crystal depth of the pure 
 waters under foot, reflecting all nature so steadily and distinctly, 
 that in the hollows, where the overhanging foliage of the laurel- 
 like bushes darkened the scene, you could not for your life tell 
 where the elements met, so blended were earth and sea. 
 
 " Starboard," said I. I had now come on deck. " Starboard, 
 or the main-topgallant-masthead will be foul of t/te limb of that
 
 272 TOM CKINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 tree, Foretop, there lie out on the larboard f ore-yardarm, and 
 be ready to shove her off, if she sheers too close." 
 
 " Let go the anchor," struck in the first-lieutenant. 
 
 Splash the cable rumbled through the hause-hole. 
 
 "Now, here are we brought up in paradise," quoth the 
 doctor. 
 
 " Curukity coo curukity coo," sang out a great bushy whis- 
 kered sailor from the crow's nest, who turned out to be no other 
 than our old friend Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilified by the 
 laughing scene. " Here am I, Jack, a booby amongst the sing- 
 ing-birds," crowed he to one of his messmates in the maintop, 
 as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand, and swung him- 
 self up into it. But the ship, as Old Nick would have it, at 
 the very instant dropped astern a few yards in swinging to her 
 anchor, and that so suddenly, that she left him on his perch in 
 the tree, converting his jest, poor fellow, into melancholy earnest. 
 " O Lord, sir ! " sang out Timotheus, in a great quandary. " Cap- 
 tain, do heave ahead a bit Murder ! I shall never get down 
 again ! Do, Mr Yerk, if you please, sir ! " And there he sat 
 twisting and craning himself about, and screwing his features 
 into combinations evincing the most comical perplexity. 
 
 The captain, by way of a bit of fun, pretended not to hear 
 him. 
 
 " Maintop, there," quoth he. 
 
 The midshipman in the top answered him, " Ay, ay, sir." . 
 
 " Not you, Mr Reef point ; the captain of the top I want." 
 
 " He is not in the top, sir," responded little Reefpoint, chuck- 
 ling like to choke himself. 
 
 " Where the devil is he, sir 1 " 
 
 " Here, sir," squealed Timothy, his usual gruff voice spindling 
 into a small cheep through his great perplexity. " Here, sir." 
 , " What are you doing there, sir 1 Come down this moment, 
 sir. Rig out the main-topmast-studdingsail-boom, Mr Reef- 
 point, and tell him to slew himself down by that long water- 
 withe." 
 
 To hear was to obey. Poor Timothy clambered down to the 
 fork of the tree, from which the withe depended, and imme- 
 diately began to warp himself down, until he reached within 
 three or four yards of the starboard fore-topsail-yardarm ; but 
 the corvette still dropped astern, so that, after a vain attempt 
 to hook on by his feet, he swung off into mid air, hanging by 
 his hands. 
 
 It was no longer a joke. " Here, you black fellows in the
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 273 
 
 pilot canoe," shouted the captain, as he threw them a rope him- 
 self. " Pass the end of that line round the stump yonder that 
 one below the cliff, there ; now, pull like devils pull." 
 
 They did not understand a word he said ; but, comprehending 
 his gestures, did what he wished. 
 
 " Now, haul on the line, men gently, that will do. Missed 
 it again," continued the skipper, as the poor fellow once more 
 made a fruitless attempt to swing himself on to the yard. 
 
 " Pay out the warp again," sang out Tailtackle " quick, 
 quick ! let the ship swing from under, and leave me scope to 
 dive, or I shall be obliged to let go, and be killed on the 
 deck." 
 
 " God bless me, yes," said Transom; " stick out the warp, let 
 her swing to her anchor." 
 
 In an instant all eyes were again fastened with intense 
 anxiety on the poor fellow, whose strength was fast failing, and 
 his grasp plainly relaxing. 
 
 " See all clear to pick me up, messmates." 
 
 Tailtackle slipped down to the extreme end of the black 
 withe, that looked like a scorched snake, pressed his legs close 
 together, pointing his toes downwards, and then steadying him- 
 self for a moment, with his hands right above his head, and his 
 arms at the full stretch, he dropped, struck the water fairly, 
 entering its dark blue depths without a splash, and instantly 
 disappeared, leaving a white frothy mark on the surface. 
 
 " Did you ever see anything better done ? " said Yerk. " Why, 
 he clipped into the water with the speed of light, as clean and 
 clear as if he had been a marlinspike." 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " gasped the captain ; " for if he had struck 
 the water horizontally, or fallen headlong, he would have been 
 shattered in pieces every bone would have been broken; he 
 would have been as completely smashed as if he had dropped 
 upon one of the limestone rocks on the iron-bound shore." 
 
 " Ship, ahoy ! " We were all breathlessly looking over the side 
 where he fell, expecting to see him rise again ; but the hail came 
 from the water on t'other side. " Ship, ahoy ! throw me a rope, 
 good people a rope, if you please. Do you mean to careen the 
 ship, that you have all run to the starboard side, leaving me to 
 be drowned to port here 1 " 
 
 " Ah, Tailtackle ! well done, old boy," sang out a volley of 
 voices, men and officers, rejoiced to see the honest fellow alive. 
 He clambered on board, in the bight of one of twenty ropes that 
 were hove to him.
 
 274 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 When he came on deck, the captain slily said, " I don't think 
 you'll go a-birdnesting in a huny again, Tailtackle." 
 
 Tim looked with a most quizzical expression at his captain, 
 all blue and breathless and dripping as he was ; and then, stick- 
 ing his tongue slightly in his cheek, he turned away without 
 addressing him directly, but murmuring as he went, " A glass 
 of grog now." 
 
 The captain, with whom he was a favourite, took the hint. 
 " Go below now, and turn in till eight bells, Tailtackle. Ma- 
 fame," to his steward, " send him a glass of hot brandy-grog." 
 
 "A northwester," whispered Tim aside to the functionary; 
 "half-and-half, Tallow Chops, eh!" 
 
 About an hour after this a very melancholy accident happened 
 to a poor boy on board, of about fifteen years of age, who had 
 already become a great favourite of mine from his modest, quiet 
 deportment, as well as of all the gunroom officers, although he 
 had not been above a fortnight in the ship. He had let himself 
 down over the bows by the cable to bathe. There were several 
 of his comrades standing on the forecastle looking at him, and 
 he asked one of them to go out on the spritsail-yard, and look 
 round to see if there were any sharks in the neighbourhood ; but 
 all around was deep, clear, green water. He kept hold of the 
 cable, however, and seemed determined not to put himself in 
 harm's way, until a wicked little urchin, who used to wait on 
 the warrant-officers' mess a small meddling snipe of a creature, 
 who got flogged in well-behaved weeks only once began to 
 taunt my little mild favourite. 
 
 " Why, you chicken-heart, I'll wager a thimbleful of grog, that 
 such a tailor as you are in the water can't for the life of you 
 swim out to the buoy there." 
 
 " Never you mind, Pepperbottom," said the boy, giving the 
 imp the name he had richly earned by repeated flagellations. 
 " Never you mind / am not ashamed to show my naked hide, 
 you know. But it is against orders in these seas to go overboard, 
 unless with a sail under foot ; so I shan't run the risk of being 
 tattooed by the boatswain's mate, like some one I could tell of." 
 
 " Coward," muttered the little wasp, " you are afraid, sir ; " 
 and, the other boys abetting the mischief-maker, the lad was 
 goaded to leave his hold of the cable and strike out for the buoy. 
 He Beached it, and then turned, and pulled towards the ship 
 again, when he caught my eye. 
 
 " Who is that overboard ? How dare you, sir, disobey the 
 standing order of the ship? Come in, boy; come in."
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 275 
 
 My hailing the little fellow shoved him off his balance, and 
 he lost his presence of mind for a moment or two, during which 
 he, if anything, widened his distance from the ship. 
 
 At this instant the lad on the spritsail-yard sang out quick 
 and suddenly, " A shark, a shark! " 
 
 And the monster, like a silver pillar, suddenly shot up perpen- 
 dicularly from out the dark-green depths of the sleeping pool, 
 with the waters sparkling and hissing around him, as if he had 
 been a sea-demon rushing on his prey. 
 
 " Pull for the cable, Louis," shouted fifty voices at once 
 " pull for the cable." 
 
 The boy did so we all ran forward. He reached the cable 
 grasped it with both hands, and hung on, but before he could 
 swing himself out of the water, the fierce fish had turned. His 
 whitish-green belly glanced in the sun the poor little fellow 
 gave a heart-splitting yell, which was shattered amongst the im- 
 pending rocks into piercing echoes, and these again were rever- 
 berated from cavern to cavern, until they died away amongst 
 the hollows in the distance, as if they had been the faint shrieks 
 of the damned yet he held fast for a second or two the raven- 
 ous tyrant of the sea tug, tugging at him, till the stiff, taut 
 cable shook again. At length he was torn from his hold, but 
 did not disappear ; the animal continuing on the surface crunch- 
 ing his prey with his teeth, and digging at him with his jaws, 
 as if trying to gorge a morsel too large to be swallowed, and 
 making the water flash up in foam over the boats in pursuit 
 by the powerful strokes of his tail, but without ever letting go 
 his hold. The poor lad only cried once more but such a cry 
 oh God, I never shall forget it ! and, could it be possible, in 
 his last shriek, his piercing expiring cry, his young voice seemed 
 to pronounce my name at least so I thought at the time, and 
 others thought so too. The next moment he appeared quite 
 dead. No less than three boats had been in the water alongside 
 when the accident happened, and they were all on the spot by 
 this time. And there was the bleeding and mangled boy, torn 
 along the surface of the water by the shark, with the boats in 
 pursuit, leaving a long stream of blood, mottled with white 
 specks of fat and marrow in his wake. At length the man in 
 the bow of the gig laid hold of him by the arm, another sailor 
 caught the other arm, boat-hooks and oars were dug into and 
 launched at the monster, who relinquished his prey at last, 
 stripping off the flesh, however, from the upper part of the 
 right thigh until his teeth reached the knee,, where he
 
 276 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 nipped the shank clean off, and made sail with the leg in his 
 jaws. 
 
 Poor little Louis never once moved after we took him in. I 
 thought I heard a small still stern voice thrill along my nerves, 
 as if an echo of the beating of my heart had become articulate. 
 " Thomas, a fortnight ago you impressed that poor boy who 
 was, and now is not out of a Bristol ship." Alas ! Conscience 
 spoke no more than the truth. 
 
 Our instructions were to lie at St Jago until three British 
 ships, then loading, were ready for sea, and then to convey them 
 through the Caicos, or windward passage. As our stay was, 
 therefore, likely to be ten days or a fortnight at the shortest, the 
 boats were hoisted out, and we made our little arrangements and 
 preparations for taking all the recreation in our power ; and our 
 worthy skipper, taut and stiff as he was at sea, always en- 
 couraged all kinds of fun and larking, both amongst the men 
 and the officers, on occasions like the present. Amongst his 
 other pleasant qualities he was a great boat-racer, constantly 
 building and altering gigs and pulling-boats at his own expense, 
 and matching the men against each other for small prizes. He 
 had just finished what the old carpenter considered his chef- 
 cfoeuvre, and a curious affair this same masterpiece was. In the 
 first place, it was forty-two feet long over all, and only three and 
 a-half feet beam ; the planking was not much above an eighth 
 of an inch in thickness, so that, if one of the crew had slipped 
 his foot off the stretcher, it must have gone through the bottom. 
 There was a standing order that no man was to go into it with 
 shoes on. She was to pull six oars, and her crew were the 
 captains of the tops, the primest seamen in the ship, and the 
 steersman, no less a character than the skipper himself. 
 
 Her name, for I love to be particular, was the Dragonfly ; she 
 was painted out and in of a bright red, amounting to a flame 
 colour oars red the men wearing trousers and shirts of red 
 flannel, and red net nightcaps which common uniform the 
 captain himself wore. I think I have said before that he was a 
 very handsome man, but if I have not, I say so now ; and when 
 he had taken his seat, and the gigs all fine men were seated 
 each with his oar held upright upon his knees ready to be drop- 
 ped into the water at the same instant, the craft and her crew 
 formed, to my eye, as pretty a plaything for grown children as 
 ever was seen. " Give way, men ; " the oars dipped as clean as 
 so many knives, without a sparkle, the gallant fellows stretched 
 out, and away shot the Dragonfly, like an arrow the green water
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 277 
 
 foaming into white smoke at the bows and hissing away in her 
 wake. 
 
 She disappeared in a twinkling round the reach of the canal 
 where we were anchored, and we, the officers for we must 
 needs have our boat also were making ready to be off, to have 
 a shot at some beautiful cranes, that, floating on their large 
 pinions, slowly passed us with their long legs stuck straight out 
 astern, and their longer necks gathered into their crops, when 
 we heard a loud shouting in the direction where the captain's 
 boat had vanished. Presently the Devil's Darning-Needle, as 
 the Scotch part of the crew loved to call the Dragonfly, stuck 
 her long snout round the headland, and came spinning along 
 with a Spanish canoe manned by four negroes, and steered by an 
 elderly gentleman, a sharp acute-looking little man, in a gingham 
 coat, in her wake, also pulling very fast ; however, the Don 
 seemed dead beat, and the captain was in great glee. By this 
 time both boats were alongside, and the old Spaniard, Don 
 Ricardo Campana, addressed the captain, judging that he was 
 one of the seamen. " Is the captain on board ? " said he in 
 Spanish. The captain, who understood the language, but did 
 not speak it, answered him in French, which Don Ricardo seemed 
 to speak fluently, " No, sir, the captain is not on board ; but 
 there is Mr Yerk, the first-lieutenant, at the gangway." He had 
 come for the letter-bag, he said, and if we had any newspapers, 
 and could spare them, it would be conferring a great favour on 
 him. 
 
 He got his letters and newspapers handed down, and very 
 civilly gave the captain a dollar, who touched his cap, tipped 
 the money to the men, and, winking slightly to old Yerk and 
 the rest of us, addressed himself to shove off. The old Don, 
 drawing up his eyebrows a little (I guess he rather saw who was 
 who, for all his make-believe innocence), bowed to the officers 
 at the gangway, sat down, and, desiring his people to use their 
 broad-bladed, clumsy-looking oars or paddles, began to move 
 awkwardly away. We that is, the gunroom officers, all except 
 the second-lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master now 
 got into our own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all 
 went in a covey ; the purser and doctor and three of the middies 
 forward, Thomas Cringle, gent., pulling the stroke-oar, with old 
 Moses Yerk as coxswain; and as the Dragonflies were all red, 
 so we were all sea-green boats, oars, trousers, shirts, and night- 
 caps. We soon distanced the cumbrous-looking Don, and the 
 strain was between the Devil's Darning-Needle and our boat,
 
 278 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 the Water-sprite, which was making capital play ; for although 
 we had not the bottom of the fopmen, yet we had more blood, 
 so to speak, and we had already beaten them, in their last gig, 
 all to sticks. But Dragonfly was a new boat, and now in the 
 water for the first time. 
 
 We were both of us so intent on our own match that we lost 
 sight of the Spaniard altogether, and the captain and the first- 
 lieutenant were bobbing in the stern-sheets of their respective 
 gigs like a couple of souple Tarns, as intent on the game as if 
 all our lives had depended on it, when in an instant the long 
 black dirty prow of the canoe was thrust in between us, the old 
 Don singing out, " Dexa mi lugar, paysanos dexa mi lugar, mis 
 hijos." * We kept away right and left to look at the miracle ; 
 and there lay the canoe, rumbling and splashing, with her crew 
 walloping about, and grinning and yelling like incarnate fiends, 
 and as naked as the day they were born, and the old Don him- 
 self, so staid and so sedate and drawley as he was a minute 
 before, now all alive, shouting " Tira, diablitos, tira ! " t flour- 
 ishing a small paddle, with which he steered about his head like 
 a wheel, and dancing and jumping about in his seat, as if his 
 bottom had been a haggis with quicksilver in it. 
 
 " Zounds," roared the skipper, " why, topmen why, gentle- 
 men, give way for the honour of the ship Gentlemen, stretch 
 out Men, pull like devils ; twenty pounds if you beat him." 
 
 We pulled, and they pulled, and the water roared, and the 
 men strained their muscles and sinews to cracking ; and all was 
 splash, splash, and whiz, whiz, and pech, pech, about us ; but it 
 would not do; the canoe headed us like a shot, and in passing, 
 the cool old Don again subsided into a calm as suddenly as he 
 had been roused from it, and sitting once more, stiff as a poker, 
 turned round and touched his sombrero, " I will tell that you 
 are coming, gentlemen." 
 
 It was now the evening, near nightfall, and we had been so 
 intent on beating our awkward-looking opponent, that we had 
 none of us had time to look at the splendid scene that burst 
 upon-our view, on rounding a precipitous rock, from the crevices 
 of which some magnificent trees shot up their gnarled trunks 
 and twisted branches overhanging the canal where we were 
 pulling, and anticipating the fast -falling darkness that was 
 creeping over the fair face of nature; and there we floated, in 
 the deep shadow of the cliff and trees Dragonflies and Water- 
 
 * " Leave me room, countrymen leave me room, my children." 
 t Equivalent to "Pull, you devils, pulL"
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 279 
 
 sprites, motionless and silent, the boats floating so lightly that 
 they scarcely seemed to touch the water, the men resting on 
 their oars, and all of us rapt with the magnificence of the scenery 
 around us, beneath us, and above us. 
 
 The left or western bank of the narrow entrance to the har- 
 bour, from which we were now debouching, ran out in all its 
 precipitousness and beauty (with its dark evergreen bushes over- 
 shadowing the deep blue waters, and its gigantic trees shooting 
 forth high into the glowing western sky, their topmost branches 
 gold-tipped in the flood of radiance shed by the rapidly sinking 
 sun, while all below where we lay was grey cold shade), until 
 it joined the northern shore, when it sloped away gradually to- 
 wards the east; the higher parts of the town sparkled in the 
 evening sun, on this dun ridge, like golden turrets on the back 
 of an elephant, while the houses that were in the shade covered 
 the declivity with their dark masses, until it sank down to the 
 water's edge. On the right hand the haven opened boldly out 
 into a basin about four miles broad by seven long, in which the 
 placid waters spread out beyond the shadow of the western 
 bank into one vast sheet of molten gold, with the canoe tearing 
 along the shining surface, her side glancing in the sun, and her 
 paddles flashing back his rays, and leaving a long train of living 
 fire sparkling in her wake. 
 
 It was now about six o'clock in the evening ; the sun had set 
 to us, as we pulled along under the frowning brow of the cliff, 
 where the birds were fast settling on their nightly perches with 
 small happy twitterings, and the lizards and numberless other 
 chirping things began to send forth their evening hymn to the 
 great Being who made them and us, and a solitary white-sailing 
 owl would every now and then flit spectre-like from one green 
 tuft, across the bald face of the cliff, to another, and the small 
 divers around us were breaking up the black surface of the 
 waters into little sparkling circles as they fished for their sup- 
 pers. All was becoming brown and indistinct near us ; but the 
 level beams of the setting sun still lingered with a golden radi- 
 ance upon the lovely city, and the shipping at anchor before it, 
 making their sails, where loosed to dry, glance like leaves of 
 gold, and their spars and masts and rigging like wires of gold, 
 and gilding their flags, which were waving majestically and slow 
 from the peaks in the evening breeze ; and the Moorish-looking 
 steeples of the churches were yet sparkling in the glorious blaze, 
 which was gradually deepening into gorgeous crimson, while the 
 large pillars of the cathedral, then building on the highest part
 
 280 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of the ridge, stood out like brazen monuments, softening even 
 as we looked into a Stonehenge of amethysts. One-half of 
 every object shipping, houses, trees, and hills was gloriously 
 illuminated ; but, even as we looked, the lower part of the town 
 gradually sank into darkness, and faded from our sight ; the 
 deepening gloom cast by the high bank above us, like the dark 
 shadow of a bad spirit, gradually crept on, and on, and ex- 
 tended farther and farther; the sailing water-fowl, in regular 
 lines, no longer made the water flash up like flame ; the russet 
 mantle of eve was fast extending over the entire hemisphere ; 
 the glancing minarets, and the tallest trees, and the topgallant- 
 yards and masts of the shipping, alone flashed back the dying 
 effulgence of the glorious orb, which every moment grew fainter 
 and fainter, and redder and redder, until it shaded into purple, 
 and the loud deep bell of the convent of La Merced swung over 
 the still waters, announcing the arrival of even-song and the 
 departure of day. 
 
 " Had we not better pull back to supper, sir 1 " quoth Moses 
 Yerk to the captain. We all started, the men dipped their oars, 
 our dreams were dispelled, the charm was broken ! " Confound 
 the matter-of-fact blockhead," or something very like it, grum- 
 bled the captain " but give way, men," fast followed, and we 
 returned towards the ship. We had not pulled fifty yards when 
 we heard the distant rattle of the muskets of the sentries at the 
 gangways as they discharged them at sundown, and were re- 
 marking, as we were rowing leisurely along, upon the strange 
 effects produced by the reports, as they were frittered away 
 amongst the overhanging cliffs in chattering reverberations, 
 when the captain suddenly sang out, " Oars ! " All hands lay 
 on them. " Look there," he continued " there between the 
 gigs saw you ever anything like that, gentlemen ? " We all 
 leant over ; and although the boats, from the way they had, 
 were skimming along nearer seven than five knots there lay a 
 large shark he must have been twelve feet long at the shortest 
 swimming right in the middle, and equidistant from both, 
 and keeping way with us most accurately. 
 
 He was distinctly visible, from the strong and vivid phos- 
 phorescence excited by his rapid motion through the sleeping 
 waters of the dark creek, which lit up his jaws, and head, and 
 whole body: his eyes were especially luminous, while a long 
 wake of sparkles streamed away astern of him from the lashing 
 of his tail. As the boats lost their speed, the luminousness of 
 his appearance faded gradually as he shortened sail also, until
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 281 
 
 he disappeared altogether. He was then at rest, and suspended 
 motionless in the water ; and the only thing that indicated his 
 proximity was an occasional sparkle from the motion of a fin. 
 We brought the boats nearer together, after pulling a stroke or 
 two, but he seemed to sink as we closed, until at last we could 
 merely perceive an indistinct halo far down in the clear black 
 profound. But as we separated, and resumed our original posi- 
 tion, he again rose near the surface ; and although the ripple 
 and dip of the oars rendered him invisible while we were pull- 
 ing, yet the moment we again rested on them, there was the 
 monster, like a persecuting fiend, once more right between us, 
 glaring on us, and apparently watching every motion. It was a 
 terrible spectacle, and rendered still more striking by the mel- 
 ancholy occurrence of the forenoon. 
 
 " That's the very identical, damnable baste himself, as mur- 
 thered poor little Louis this morning, yeer honour ; I knows 
 him from the torn flesh of him under his larboard blinker, sir, 
 just where Wiggens's boathook punished him," quoth the 
 Irish captain of the mLzentop. 
 
 " A water-kelpie," murmured another of the captain's gigs 
 a Scotchman. 
 
 The men were evidently alarmed. " Stretch out, men ; never 
 mind the shark he can't jump into the boat, surely," said the 
 skipper. " What the deuce are you afraid of 1 " 
 
 We arrived within pistol-shot of the ship. As we approached, 
 the sentry hailed, " Boat, ahoy ! " 
 
 " Firebrand," sang out the skipper, in reply. 
 
 " Man the side gangway lanterns there," quoth the officer 
 on duty ; and by the time we were close to there were two sides- 
 men over the side with the man ropes ready stuck out to our 
 grasp, and two boys with lanterns above them. We got on 
 deck, the officers touching their hats, and speedily the captain 
 dived down the ladder, saying, as he descended, " Mr Yerk, I 
 shall be happy to see you and your boat's crew at supper, or 
 rather to a late dinner, at eight o'clock ; but come down a 
 moment as you are. Tailtackle, bring the gigs into the cabin to 
 get a glass of grog, will you 1 ? " 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir," responded Timothy. " Down with you, you 
 flaming thieves, and see you don't snort and sniffle in your grog, 
 as if you were in your own mess, like so many pigs slushing at 
 the same trough." 
 
 " Lord love you, Tim," rejoined one of the topmen, " who 
 made you master of the ceremonies, old Ironfist, eh ? Where
 
 282 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 learnt you your breeding? Among the cockatoos up yon- 
 der?" 
 
 Tim laughed, who, although he ought to have been in his 
 bed, had taken his seat in the Dragonfly when her crew were 
 piped over the side in the evening, and thereby subjected him- 
 self to a rap over the knuckles from the captain ; but, where 
 the offence might be said to consist in a too assiduous discharge 
 of his duty, it was easily forgiven, unfortunate as the issue of 
 the race had been. So down we all trundled into the cabin, mas- 
 ters and men. It was brilliantly lighted up the table sparkling 
 with crystal and wine, and glancing with silver plate ; and there 
 on a sofa lay Aaron Bang in all his pristine beauty, and fresh 
 from his toilet, for he had just got out of his cot after an eight- 
 and-forty hours' sojourn therein nice white neckcloth white 
 jean waistcoat and trousers, and span-new blue coat. He was 
 reading when we entered ; and the captain, in his flame-coloured 
 costume, was close aboard of him before he raised his eyes, and 
 rather staggered him a bit ; but when seven sea-green spirits 
 followed, he was exceedingly nonplussed, and then came the six 
 red Dragonflies, who ranged themselves three on each side of the 
 door, with their net-bags in their hands, smoothing down their 
 hair, and sidling and fidgetting about at finding themselves so 
 far out of their element as the cabin. 
 
 "Mafame," said the captain, " a glass of grog a-piece to the 
 Dragonflies," and a tumbler of liquid amber (to borrow from 
 my old friend Cooper) sparkled in the large bony claw of each 
 of them. " Now, drink Mr Bang's health." They, as in duty 
 bound, let fly at our amigo in a volley. 
 
 " Your health, Mr Bang." 
 
 Aaron sprang from his seat, and made his salaam, and the 
 Dragonflies bundled out of the cabin again. 
 
 " I say, Transom, John Canoeing still always some frolic in 
 the wind." 
 
 We, the Watersprites, had shifted and rigged, and were all 
 mustered aft on the poop, enjoying the little air there was, as 
 it fanned us gently, and waiting for the announcement of supper. 
 It was a pitch-dark night, neither moon nor stars. The murky 
 clouds seemed to have settled down on the mastheads, shrouding 
 every object in the thickest gloom. 
 
 " Ready with the gun forward there, Mr Catwell ? " said 
 Yerk. 
 
 "All ready, sir." 
 
 "Fire!"
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 28& 
 
 Pent up as we were in a narrow channel, walled in on each 
 side with towering precipitous rocks, the explosion, multiplied 
 by the echoes into a whole broadside, was tremendous, and ab- 
 solutely deafening. 
 
 The cold, grey, threatening rocks, and the large overhanging 
 twisted branches of the trees, and the clear black water, and the 
 white Moro in the distance, glanced for an instant, and then all 
 was again veiled in utter darkness, and down came a rattling 
 shower of sand and stones from the cliffs, and of rotten branches 
 and heavy dew from the trees, sparkling in the water like a 
 shower of diamonds and the birds of the air screamed, and, 
 frightened from their nests and perches in crevices, and on 
 the boughs of the trees, took flight with a strong rushing noise, 
 that put one in mind of the rising of the fallen angels from the 
 infernal council in Paradise Lost ; and the cattle on the moun- 
 tain-side lowed, and the fish, large and small, like darts and 
 arrows of fire, sparkled up from the black abyss of waters, and 
 swam in haloes of flame round the ship in every direction, as if 
 they had been the ghosts of a shipwrecked crew, haunting the 
 scene of their destruction ; and the guanas and large lizards, 
 which had been shaken from the trees, skimmed and struggled 
 on the surface in glances of fire, like evil spirits watching to 
 seize them as their prey. At length the screaming and shrieking 
 of the birds, the clang of their wings, and the bellowing of the 
 cattle ceased, and the startled fish subsided slowly down into the 
 oozy caverns at the bottom of the sea, and becoming motionless, 
 disappeared, and all was again black and undistinguishable the 
 deathlike silence being only broken by the hoarse murmuring 
 of the distant surf. 
 
 " Magnificent ! " burst from the captain. " Messenger, send 
 Mr Portfire here." The gunpowder functionary he of the 
 flannel cartridge appeared. " Gunner, send one of your mates 
 into the maintop, and let him burn a blue light." 
 
 The lurid glare blazed up balefully amongst the spars and 
 rigging, lighting up the decks, and blasting the crew into the 
 likeness of the host of Sennacherib, when the day broke on 
 them and they were all dead corpses. Astern of us, indistinct 
 from the distance, the white Moro Castle reappeared, and rose 
 frowning, tier above tier, like a Tower of Babel, with its summit 
 veiled in the clouds, and the startled sea-fowl wheeling above 
 the higher batteries, like snow-flakes blown about in a storm ; 
 while, near at hand, the rocks on each side of us looked as if 
 fresh splintered asunder, with the sulphureous flames which had
 
 284 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 split them still burning ; the trees looked no longer green, but 
 were sicklied o'er with a pale ashy colour, as if sheeted ghosts 
 were holding their midnight orgies amongst their branches ; 
 cranes and water-fowl and birds of many kinds, and all the in- 
 sect and reptile tribes their gaudy noontide colours merged 
 into one and the same fearful deathlike sameness flitted and 
 sailed and circled above us, and chattered and screamed and 
 shrieked ; and the unearthly-looking guanas, and numberless 
 creeping things, ran out on the boughs to peer at us ; and a 
 large snake twined itself up a scathed stump that shot out from 
 a shattered pinnacle of rock that overhung us, with its glossy 
 skin, glancing like the brazen serpent set up by Moses in the camp 
 of the Israelites ; and the cattle on the beetling summit of the 
 cliff craned over the precipitous ledge to look down upon us ; 
 and, while everything around us and above us was thus glancing 
 in the blue and ghastly radiance, the band struck up a low 
 moaning air ; the fight burnt out, and once more we were cast, 
 by the contrast, into even more palpable darkness than before. 
 I was entranced, and stood with folded arms, looking forth into 
 the night, and musing intensely on the appalling scene which 
 had just vanished like a feverish dream " Dinner waits, sir," 
 quoth Mafame. 
 
 "Oh! I am coming;" and, kicking all my romance to Old 
 Nick, I descended, and we had a pleasant night of it, and some 
 wine and some fun, and there an end ; but I have often dreamed 
 of that dark pool, and the scenes I witnessed there that day 
 and night.
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 285 
 
 CHAPTEE XIII 
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 
 
 " When lovely woman stoops to folly, 
 
 And finds too late that men betray, 
 
 What charm can soothe her melancholy, 
 
 What art can wash her guilt away ? 
 
 " The only art her guilt to cover, 
 
 To hide her shame from every eye, 
 To give repentance to her lover, 
 And wring his bosom is to die." 
 
 Vicar of Wdkefield. 
 
 " Ay Dios, si sera possible que he ya hallado lugar que pueda servir de escondida 
 sepultura a la carga pesada deste cuerpo, que tan contra mi voluntad sostengo ? " 
 
 Don Quixote de la Mancha. 
 
 THE next morning, after breakfast, I proceeded to Santiago, 
 and landed at the customhouse wharf, where I found every- 
 thing bustle, dust, and heat. Several of the captains of the 
 English vessels were there, who immediately made up to me, 
 and reported how far advanced in their lading they were, and 
 inquired when we were to give them convoy, the latest news 
 from Kingston, &c. At length I saw our friend Kicardo Cam- 
 pana going along one of the neighbouring streets, and I imme- 
 diately made sail in chase. He at once recognised me, gave me 
 a cordial shake of the hand, and inquired how he could serve me. 
 I produced two letters which I had brought for him, but which 
 had been forgotten in the bustle of the preceding day ; they were 
 introductory, and, although sealed, I had some reason to conjec- 
 ture that my friend, Mr Pepperpot Wagtail, had done me much 
 more than justice. Campana, with great kindness, immediately 
 invited me to his house. " We foreigners," said he, " don't 
 keep your hours ; I am just going home to breakfast." It was 
 past eleven in the forenoon. I was about excusing myself on 
 the plea of having already breakfasted, when he silenced me. 
 " Why, I guessed as much, Mr Lieutenant, but then you have 
 not lunched ; so you can call it lunch, you know, if it will ease 
 your conscience." There was no saying nay to all this civility, so 
 we stumped along the burning streets, through a mile of houses, 
 large massive buildings, but very different in externals from the-
 
 286 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 gay domiciles of Kingston. Aaron Bang afterwards used to say 
 that they looked more like prisons than dwelling-houses, and he 
 was not in this very much out. Most of them were built of 
 brick and plastered over, with large windows, in front of each 
 of which, like the houses in the south of Spain, there was erected 
 a large heavy wooden balcony, projecting far enough from the 
 wall to allow a Spanish chair, such as I have already described, 
 to be placed in it. The front of these verandahs was closed in 
 with a row of heavy balustrades at the bottom, of a variety of 
 shapes, and by clumsy carved woodwork above, which effectually 
 prevented you from seeing into the interior. The whole had a 
 Moorish air, and in the upper part of the town there was a 
 Sabbath-like stillness prevailing, which was only broken now and 
 then by the tinkle of a guitar from one of the aforesaid veran- 
 dahs, or by the rattling of a crazy volante a sort of covered gig 
 drawn by a broken-kneed and broken-winded mule, with a 
 kiln-dried old Spaniard or dona in it. 
 
 The lower part of the town had been busy enough, and the 
 stir and hum of it rendered the quietude of the upper part of 
 it more striking. 
 
 A shovel-hatted friar now suddenly accosted us, 
 
 " SeTior Campana esepobrefamilia de Cangrejo ! Lastima ! 
 Lastima ! " 
 
 " Cangrejo Cangrejo ! " muttered I ; " why, it is the very 
 name attached to the miniature." 
 
 Campana turned to the priest, and they conversed earnestly 
 together for some moments, when he left him, and we again 
 held on our way. I could not help asking what family that 
 was, whose situation the "padre" seemed so feelingly to be- 
 moan. 
 
 " Never mind," said he ; " never mind ; they were a proud 
 family once, but that is all over now come along." 
 
 " But," said I, " I have a very peculiar cause of interest 
 with regard to this family. You are aware, of course, of the 
 trial and execution of the pirates in Kingston, the most con- 
 spicuous of whom was a young man called Federico Cangrejo, 
 from whom " 
 
 " Mr Cringle," said he, solemnly, " at a fitting time I will 
 hear you regarding that matter ; at present I entreat you will 
 not press it." 
 
 Good manners would not allow me to push it farther, and we 
 trudged along together, until we arrived at Don Eicardo Cam- 
 pana's door. It was a large brick building, plastered over as
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 287 
 
 already described, and whitewashed. There was a projecting 
 stair in front, with a flight of steps to the right and left, with a 
 parapet wall towards the street. There were two large windows, 
 with the wooden verandah or lattice already described, on the 
 first floor, and on the second a range of smaller windows of the 
 same kind. What answered to our ground-floor was used as a 
 warehouse, and filled with dry goods, sugar, coffee, hides, and a 
 vast variety of miscellaneous articles. We ascended the stairs 
 and entered a lofty room, cool and dark, and paved with large 
 diamond-shaped bricks, and every way desirable for a West 
 India lounge, all to the furniture, which was meagre enough ; 
 three or four chairs, a wormeaten old leathern sofa, and a large 
 clumsy hardwood table in the midst. 
 
 There were several children playing about, little sallow devils 
 although, I daresay, they could all of them have been fur- 
 nished with certificates of white parentage upon whom one or 
 two negro women were hovering in attendance beyond a large 
 folding door that fronted the entrance. 
 
 When we entered, the eldest of the children, a little girl of 
 about eight years old, was sitting in the doorway, playing with 
 a small blue toy that I could make nothing of, until, on a nearer 
 inspection, I found it to be a live land-crab, which the little lady 
 had manacled with a thread by the foot, the thread being fast- 
 ened to a nail driven into a seam of the floor. 
 
 As an article of food, I was already familiar with this crea- 
 ture ; it was in every respect like a sea-crab, only smaller, the 
 body being at the widest not above three inches across the back. 
 It fed without any apparent fear, and while it pattered over the 
 tiled floor with its hard claws, it would now and then stop and 
 seize a crumb of bread, in its forceps, and feed itself like a little 
 monkey. By the time I had exchanged a few words with the 
 little lady, the large door that opened into the hall on the right 
 hand moved, and mine hostess made her appearance a small 
 woman, dressed in a black gown, very laxly fitted. She was 
 the very converse of our old ship, she never missed stays, 
 although I did cruelly. 
 
 " This is my friend, Lieutenant Cringle," said mine host. 
 
 " A las pies de usted, senora" responded your humble ser- 
 vant. 
 
 " I am very glad to see you," said the lady ; " but break- 
 fast is ready ; welcome, sir, welcome." 
 
 The food was not amiss, the coffee decidedly good, and the 
 chocolate, wherein, if you had planted a tea-spoon, it would have
 
 288 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 stood upright, was excellent. When we had done with sub- 
 stantials, duke that is, the fruit of the guava preserved, in 
 small wooden boxes (like drums of figs), after being made into 
 a kind of jam was placed on the table, and mine host and his. 
 spouse had eaten a bushel of it a-piece, and drunk a gallon of 
 that most heathenish beverage, cold clear water, before the re- 
 past was considered ended. After a hearty meal and a pint of 
 claret I felt rather inclined to sit still, and expatiate for an hour 
 or so, but Campana roused me, and asked whether or not I felt 
 inclined to go and look at the town. I had no apology, and, 
 although I would much rather have sat still, I rose to accom- 
 pany him, when in walked Captain Transom and Mr Bang. 
 They were also kindly received by Don Ricardo. 
 
 " Glad of the honour of this visit," said he in French, with a 
 slight lift of the corner of his mouth ; " I hope neither you nor 
 your boat's crew took any harm after the heat of yesterday." 
 
 Transom laughed. 
 
 " Why, you did beat us very neatly, Don Ricardo. Pray, 
 where got you that canoe ? But a lady Mrs Campana, I pre- 
 sume 1 Have the goodness to introduce me." 
 
 The skipper was presented in due form, the lady receiving 
 him without the least mauvaise honte, which, after all, I believe 
 to be indigenous to our island. Aaron was next introduced, 
 who, as he spoke no lingo, as I knows of, to borrow Timotheus 
 Tailtackle's phraseology, but English, was rather posed in the 
 interview. 
 
 " I say, Tom, tell her I wish she may live a thousand years. 
 Ah, so, that will do." 
 
 Madama made her conge, and hoped " El seJior iomaria un 
 asiento." 
 
 " Mucho, muclio," sang out Bang, who meant by that that he 
 was much obliged. 
 
 At length Don Ricardo came to our aid. He had arranged a 
 party into the country for next morning, and invited us all to 
 come back to a tertulia in the evening, and to take beds in his 
 house he undertaking to provide bestias to carry us. 
 
 We therefore strolled out, a good deal puzzled what to make 
 of ourselves until the evening, when we fell in with one of the 
 captains of the English ships then loading, who told us that 
 there was a sort of hotel a little way down the street, where we 
 might dine at two o'clock at the table d'hote. It was as yet 
 only twelve, so we stumbled into this said hotel to reconnoitre, 
 and a sorry affair it was. The public room was fitted with
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 289 
 
 rough wooden tables, at which Spaniards, Americans, and Eng- 
 lishmen sat and smoked, aud drank sangaree, hot punch, or cold 
 grog, as best suited them, and committed a vast variety of mis- 
 cellaneous abominations during their potations. We were about 
 giving up all thoughts of the place, and had turned to go to the 
 door, when in popped our friend Don Ricardo. He saw we were 
 somewhat abroad. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said he, " if I may ask, have you any engage- 
 ment to dinner]" 
 
 " No, we have none." 
 
 " Well, then, will you do me the honour of partaking of my 
 family fare, at three o'clock ] I did not venture to invite you 
 before, because I knew you had other letters to deliver, and I 
 wished to leave you masters of your own time." We gladly 
 accepted his kind offer ; he had made his bow, and was cruising 
 amongst the smokers and punch-drinkers, where the blue-coated 
 masters of the English merchantmen and American skippers 
 were hobbing and nobbing with the gingham-coated Dons for 
 the whole Spanish part of the community were figged out in 
 Glasgow and Paisley ginghams when the priest, who had 
 attracted our attention in the morning, came up to him and drew 
 him aside. They talked earnestly together, the clerigo, every now 
 and then, indicating, by significant nods and glances towards us, 
 that we formed the burden of his song, whatever that might be. 
 Campana seemed exceedingly unwilling to communicate the 
 message, which we guessed he had been entreated to carry to us, 
 and made one or two attempts to shove the friar in propria per- 
 sona towards us, that he might himself tell his own story. At 
 length they advanced together to where we stood, when he 
 addressed me. 
 
 " You must pardon me, lieutenant ; but as the proverb hath 
 it, ' strange countries, strange manners ; ' my friend here, Padre 
 Carera, brings a message from El Senor Picador Cangrejo, one 
 of our magnates, that he will consider it an especial favour if 
 you will call on him, either this forenoon or to-morrow." 
 
 " Why, who is this Cangrejo, Don Ricardo ? If he be not the 
 father of the poor fellow I mentioned, there must be some 
 mystery about him." 
 
 " No mystery," chimed in the monk ; " no mystery, God help 
 us ; but mucha, mucha miseria, hijo mio; much misery, sir, and 
 more impending, and none to help save only He did 
 
 not finish the sentence ; but, taking off his shovel-hat, and show- 
 ing his finely-turned bald head, he looked up to heaven and 
 
 T
 
 290 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 crossed himself, the tears trickling down his wrinkled cheeks. 
 " But," continued he, " you will come, Mr Cringle ? " 
 
 " Certainly," said I, " to-morrow I will call, if my friend Don 
 Eicardo will be my guide." This being fixed, we strolled about 
 until dinner-time, friend Aaron making his remarks regarding 
 the people and their domiciles with great naivete. 
 
 " Strange now, Tom, I had expected to see little else amongst 
 the slave-population here than misery and starvation ; whereas, 
 so far as I can observe, they are all deucedly well cared for, and 
 fat and contented ; and from the inquiries I was making amongst 
 
 the captains of the merchantmen " (" Masters," interjected 
 
 Captain Transom, "Master of a merchantman, Captain, of a 
 
 man of -war ") " Well, captains of merchantmen masters, 
 
 I mean I find that the people whom they employ are generally 
 free ; and, further, that the slaves are not more than three to 
 one free person, yet they export a great deal of produce, Captain 
 Transom must keep my eyes about me." And so he did, as 
 will be seen by-and-by. But the dinner-hour drew near, and 
 we repaired to Don Bicardo's, where we found a party of eight 
 assembled, and our appearance was the signal for the repast 
 being ordered in. It was laid out in the entrance-hall. The 
 table was of massive mahogany, the chairs of the same material, 
 with stuffed bottoms, covered with a dingy coloured morocco, 
 which might have been red once. But devil a dish of any kind 
 was on the snow-white tablecloth when we sat down ; and our 
 situations, or the places we were expected to fill at the board, 
 were only indicated by a large knife and silver fork and spoon 
 laid down for each person. The company consisted of Don 
 Bicardo Campana, la Senora Campana, and a brother of hers, 
 two dark young men who were Don Bicardo's clerks, and three 
 young women, ladies, or senoms, as I ought to have called them, 
 who were sitting so far back into the shade at the dark end of 
 the room when we entered, that I could not tell what they 
 were. Our hostess was, although a little woman, a good-looking 
 dark Spaniard, not very polished, but very kind ; and, seeing 
 that our friend Aaron was the most helpless amongst us, she 
 took him under her especial care, and made many a civil speech 
 to him, although her husband did not fail to advertise her, that 
 he understood not one word of Spanish, that is, of all she was 
 saying to him. However, he replied to her kindnesses by his 
 never-failing exclamation of " mucho, mucho," and they appeared 
 to be getting on extremely well. " Bring dinner," quoth Don 
 Bicardo " trae la comida " and four black female domestics
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 291 
 
 entered ; the first with a large dish of pillaffe, or fowls smothered 
 in rice and onions ; the second with a nondescript melange flesh, 
 fish, and fowl apparently strongly flavoured with garlic ; the 
 third bore a dish of jerked beef, cut into long shreds, and swim- 
 ming in sebo, or lard ; and the fourth bore a large dish full of 
 that indescribable thing known by those who read Don Quixote 
 as an olla podrida. The sable handmaidens began to circulate 
 round the table, and every one helped himself to the dish that 
 he most fancied. At length they placed them on the board, and 
 brought massive silver salvers, with snow-white bread, twisted 
 into strands in the baking, like junks of a cable ; and water-jars, 
 and yams nicely roasted and wrapped in plantain-leaves. These 
 were, in like manner, handed round and then deposited on the 
 table, and the domestics vanished. 
 
 We all got on cheerily enough, and both the captain and my- 
 self were finishing off with the olla podrida, with which, it so 
 happened, we were familiar, and friend Bang, taking the time 
 from us, took heart of grace, and straightway followed our ex- 
 ample. There was a pause rather an irksome one from its con- 
 tinuance, so much so, indeed, that knocking off from my more im- 
 mediate business of gorging the aforesaid olla podrida, I looked 
 up, and as it so happened, by accident, towards our friend Bang 
 and there he was, munching and screwing up his energies to 
 swallow a large mouthful of the mixture, against which his 
 stomach appeared to rebel. " Smollet's feast after the manner 
 of the ancients," whispered Transom. At length he made a 
 vigorous effort, and straightway sang out " L'eau de vie, Don 
 Bicardibus some brandy, mon ami for the love of all the re- 
 spectable saints in the calendar." 
 
 Mine host laughed, but the females were most confoundedly 
 posed. The younger ones ran for aromatic salts, while the lady 
 of the house fetched some very peculiar distilled waters. She, 
 in her kindness, filled a glass and helped Bang, but the instant 
 he perceived the flavour he thrust it away. 
 
 "Aniseed damn aniseed no, no obliged mucho,mucho 
 but brandy plaino, that is, simple of itself, if you please 
 that's it Lord love you, my dear madam may you live a 
 thousand years though." 
 
 The pure brandy was administered, and once more the dark 
 beauties reappeared, the first carrying a bottle of vin-de-grave, 
 the second one of vinotinto, or claret, and the third one of Feau 
 de vie, for Aaron's peculiar use. These were placed before the 
 landlord, who helped himself to half a pint of claret, which he
 
 292 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 poured into a large tumbler, and then, putting a drop or two of 
 water into it, tasted it, and sent it to Ms wife. In like mannei 
 he gave a smaller quantity to each of the other senoras, when 
 the whole female part of the family drank our healths in a volley. 
 But all this time the devil a thing drinkable was there before 
 we males but goblets of pure cold water. Bang's " mucho, 
 mucho" even failed him, for he had only, in his modesty, got a 
 thimbleful of brandy to qualify the olla podrida. However, in 
 a twinkling a beautiful long-necked bottle of claret was planted 
 at each of our right hands, and of course we lost no time in 
 returning the unlooked for civility of the ladies. Until this 
 moment I had not got a proper glimpse of the three Virgins of 
 the Sun, who were seated at table with us. They were very 
 pretty Moorish-looking girls, as like as peas dark hair, black 
 eyes, clear colourless oh' ve complexion, and no stays ; but young 
 and elastic as their figures were, this was no disadvantage. 
 They were all three dressed in black silk petticoats, over a sort 
 of cambric chemise, with large frills hanging down at the bosom ; 
 but gown, properly so called, they had none, their arms being 
 unencumbered with any clothing heavier than a shoulder strap. 
 The eldest was a fine full young woman of about nineteen ; the 
 second was more tall and stately, but slighter ; and the youngest 
 was oh, she was an angel of light ! such hair, such eyes, and 
 such a mouth ! then her neck and bosom 
 
 " Oh, my Nora's gown for me, 
 To rise and fall as nature pleases," 
 
 when the wearer is, as in the present case she was, young and 
 beautiful They all wore a long plain white gauze strap, like a 
 broad ribbon (little Reefpoint afterwards said they wore boat- 
 pennants at their mastheads I don't know what Madam 
 Maradan Carson would call it) in their hair, which fell down 
 from amongst the braids nearly to their heels, and then they 
 replied in their magnificent language, when casually address- 
 ed during dinner, with so much naivete. We, the males of 
 the party, had drank little or nothing a bottle of claret or so 
 a-piece and a dram of brandy, to qualify a little vin -de-grave 
 that we had flirted with during dinner, when our landlord rose, 
 along with his brother-in-law, wished us a good afternoon, and 
 departed to his counting-house, saying he would be back by 
 dark, leaving the captain and me and friend Bang to amuse the 
 ladies the best way we could, as the clerks had taken wing along 
 with their master. Don Ricardo's departure seemed to be the 
 signal for all hands breaking loose, and a regular romping match
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 293 
 
 took place the girls producing their guitars ; and we were all 
 mighty frolicsome and happy, when a couple of. padres, from the 
 convent of La Merced, in their white flannel gowns, black girdles, 
 and shaven crowns, suddenly entered the hall. We, the foreign 
 part of the society, calculated on being pulled up by the clerigos, 
 but deuce a bit ; on the contrary, the young females clustered 
 round them, laughing and joking, while the Sefiora Campana 
 presented them with goblets of claret, in which they drank our 
 healths, once and again, and before long they were gamboling 
 about, all shaven and shorn, like a couple of three-year-olds. 
 Bang had a large share of their assiduity, and, to see him waltz- 
 ing with a fine, active, and what I fancy to be a rarity a clean- 
 looking priest, with his ever-recurring " mucho, mucho" was 
 rather entertaining. 
 
 The director of the post-office, and a gentleman who was 
 called the " Corregidor de Tabaco " literally the " corrector of 
 tobacco " dropped in about this time, and one or two ladies, 
 relatives of Mrs Campana, and Don Ricardo returning soon after, 
 we had sweetmeats and liqueurs, and coffee and chocolate, and a 
 game at monte, and maco, and were, in fact, very happy. But 
 the happiest day, as well as the most miserable, must have an 
 end, and the merry party dropped off, one after another, until 
 we were left all alone with our host's family. Madama soon 
 after took her departure, wishing us a good-night. She had no 
 sooner gone than Bang began to shoot out his horns a bit. " I 
 say, Tom, ask the Don to let us have a drop of something hot, 
 will you, a tumbler of hot brandy-and-water, after the waltzing, 
 eh ? I don't see the bedroom candles yet." Nor would he, if 
 we had sat there till doomsday. Campana seemed to have un- 
 derstood Bang ; the brandy was immediately forthcoming, and 
 we drew in to the table to enjoy ourselves Bang waxing talka- 
 tive. " Now, what odd names ; why, what a strange office it 
 must be for his majesty of Spain to employ at every port a 
 corrector of tobacco; that his liege subjects may not be im- 
 posed on, I suppose what capital cigars this same corrector 
 must have, eh? " 
 
 I suppose it is scarcely necessary to mention that, throughout 
 all the Spanish American possessions, tobacco is a royal mono- 
 poly, and that the officer above alluded to is the functionary 
 who has the management of it. Don Ricardo, hearing some- 
 thing about cigars, took the hint, and immediately produced a 
 straw case from his pocket and handed it to Bang. 
 
 " Mucho, mucho," quoth Bang ; " capital, real Havannah."
 
 294 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 So now, since we had all gotten fairly into the clouds, there 
 was no saying how long we should have remained in the seventh 
 heaven ; much would have depended upon the continuance of 
 the supply of brandy ; but two female slaves presently made 
 their appearance, each carrying a quatre. I believe I have 
 already described this easily-rigged couch somewhere : it is a 
 hardwood frame, like what supports the loose top of a laundry 
 table, with canvass stretched over the top of it, but in such a 
 manner that it can be folded up flat and laid against the wall 
 when not in use, while a bed can be immediately constructed 
 by simply opening it and stretching the canvass. The hand- 
 maidens accordingly set to work to arrange two beds, or qua t res 
 one on each side of the table where we were sitting while 
 Bang sat eyeing them askance, in a kind of wonderment as to 
 the object of their preparations, which were by no means new 
 either to the captain or me, who, looking on them as matters 
 of course, continued in close confabulation with Don Kicardo dur- 
 ing the operations. 
 
 " I say, Tom," at length quoth Bang, " are you to be laid out 
 on one of these outlandish pieces of machinery, eh ] " 
 
 " Why, I suppose so ; and comfortable enoxigh beds they are, 
 I can assure you." 
 
 "Don't fancy them much, however," said Bang; "rather 
 flimsy the framework." 
 
 The servants now very unceremoniously, no leave asked, 
 began to clear away all the glasses and tumblers on the table. 
 
 " Hillo ! " said the skipper, casting an inquiring glance at 
 Campana, who, however, did not return it, but, as a matter of 
 course apparently, rose, and taking a chair to the other end of 
 the room, close by the door of an apartment which opened from 
 it, began in cold blood to unlace and disburden himself of all 
 his apparel, even unto his shirt. 
 
 This surprised us all a good deal, but our wonderment was 
 lost on the Don, who got up from his seat, and in his linen gar- 
 ment, which was deucedly laconic, made his formal bow, wished 
 us good-night, and vanished through the door. By this, the 
 ebony ladies had cleared the table of the crystal, and had capped 
 it with a yellow leather mattress, with pillows of the same, both 
 embossed with large tufts of red silk ; on this they placed on? 
 sheet, and leaving a silver apparatus at the head, they disap- 
 peared " Buenos noches, senores las camas estan Ustas." 
 
 Bang had been unable to speak from excess of astonishment ; 
 but the skipper and I, finding there was no help for it, had
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 295 
 
 followed Campana's example, and kept pace with him in our 
 peeling, so that, by the time he disappeared, we were ready to 
 topple into our quatres, which we accordingly did, and by this 
 time we were both at full length, with our heads cased each in 
 one of Don Ricardo's silk nightcaps, contemplating Bang's ap- 
 pearance, as he sat in disconsolate mood in his chair at the head 
 of the table, with the fag-end of a cigar in the corner of his 
 cheek. 
 
 "Now, Bang," said Transom, "turn in, and let us have a 
 snooze, will ye ? " 
 
 Bang did not seem to like it much. 
 
 " Zounds, Transom, did you ever hear of a gentleman being 
 put to bed on a table ] Why, it must be a quiz. Only fancy 
 me dished out and served up like a great calipi in the shell ! 
 However, here goes But surely this is in sorry taste ; we had 
 our chocolate a couple of hours ago capital it was, by the by 
 in vulgar Staffordshire china, and now they give us silver " 
 
 " Be decent, Bang," cut in the skipper, who was by this time 
 more than half asleep. " Be decent, and go to bed that's a 
 good fellow." 
 
 " Ah, well ; " Aaron undressed himself and lay down ; and 
 there he was laid out, with a candle on each side of his head, 
 his red face surmounted by a redder handkerchief tied round 
 his head, sticking out above the white sheet ; and supported by 
 Captain Transom and myself, one on each side. All was now 
 quiet. I got up and put out the candles, and, as I fell asleep, 
 I could hear Aaron laughing to himself " Dished, and served 
 up, deuced like Saint Barts. I was intended for a doctor, Tom, 
 you must know. I hope the Don is not a medical amateur 
 I trust he won't have a touch at me before morning. Rum sub- 
 ject I should make he ! he ! " All was silent for some time. 
 
 " Hillo ! what is that 1 " said Aaron again, as if suddenly 
 aroused from his slumbers "I say, none of your fun, Transom." 
 
 A large bat was flawing about, and I could hear him occasion- 
 ally whir near our faces. 
 
 "Oh, a bat! hate bats how the skipper snores! I hope 
 there be no resurrection-men in St Jago, or I shall be stolen 
 away to a certainty before morning. How should I look as a 
 skeleton in a glass-case, eh 1 ? " 
 
 I heard no more until, it might be, about midnight, when I 
 was awakened, and frightened out of my wits, by Bang rolling 
 off the table on to my quatre, which he broke in his fall, and 
 then we both rolled over and over on the floor.
 
 296 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Murder ! " roared Bang. " I am bewitched and bedevilled. 
 Murder ! a scorpion has dropped from the roof into my mouth, 
 and stung me on the nose. Murder ! Tom Tom Cringle Cap- 
 tain Transom, my dear fellows, awake and send for the doctor. 
 Oh my wig ! oh dear ! oh dear ! " 
 
 At this uproar I could hear Don Ricardo striking a light, and 
 presently he appeared with a candle in his hand, more than half 
 naked, with la senora peering through the half -opened door be- 
 hind him. 
 
 " Ave Maria purissima what is the matter] Where is el 
 Senor Bang ? " 
 
 " Mucho, mucho" shouted Bang from below the table. "Send 
 for a doctoribus, Senor Richardum. I am dead and t'other thing 
 help! help!" 
 
 " Dios guarda usted" again ejaculated Campana. " What 
 h as befallen him?" addressing the skipper, who was by this 
 time on his head's antipodes in bed, rubbing his eyes, and in 
 great amazement. 
 
 " Tell him, my dear Transom, that a scorpion fell from the 
 roof, and stung me on the nose." 
 
 " What says he ] " inquired the Spaniard. 
 
 Poor Transom's intellect was at this time none of the clearest, 
 being more than half asleep, and not quite so sober as a hermit 
 is wont to be; besides he must needs speak Spanish, of which 
 he was by no means master, which led to a very comical blunder. 
 Alacran, in Spanish, means scorpion, and Cayman, an alligator, 
 not very similar in sound, certainly, but the termination being 
 the same, he selected in the hurry the wrong phrase. 
 
 " He says," replied Transom in bad Spanish, " that he has 
 swallowed an alligator, or something of that sort, sir." Then a 
 loud yawn. 
 
 " Swallowed a what 1 ! " rejoined Campana, greatly astonished. 
 
 " No, no," snorted the captain " I am wrong he says he 
 has been stung by an alligator." 
 
 " Stung by an alligator 1 ? impossible." 
 
 " Why, then," persisted the skipper, " if he be not stung by 
 an alligator, or if he has not really swallowed one, at all events, 
 an alligator has either stung or swallowed him so make the 
 most of it, Don Ricardo." 
 
 " Why, this is absurd, with all submission," continued Cam- 
 pana; "how the deuce could he swallow an alligator, or an alli- 
 gator get into my house to annoy him] " 
 
 " D n it," said Transom, half tipsy, and very sleepy "that's
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 297 
 
 his look-out. You are very unreasonable, Don Ricardo ; all that 
 is the affair of friend Bang and the alligator; my purpose is 
 solely to convey his meaning faithfully " a loud snore. 
 
 " Oh," said Campana, laughing, " I see, I see ; I left your 
 friend sobre mesa" [on the table], " but now I see he is sub rosa" 
 
 " Help, good people, help ! " roared Bang " help, or my nose 
 will reach from this to the Moro Castle Help ! " 
 
 We got him out, and were I to live a thousand years, which 
 would be a tolerably good spell, I don't think I could forget his 
 appearance. His nose, usually the smallest article of the kind 
 that I ever saw, was now swollen as large as my fist, and as 
 purple as a mulberry the distension of the skin, from the 
 venomous sting of the reptile for stung he had been by a 
 scorpion made it semi-transparent, so that it looked like a 
 large blob of currant jelly hung on a peg in the middle of his 
 face, or a gigantic leech, gorged with blood, giving his visage 
 the semblance of some grotesque old-fashioned dial, with a fan- 
 tastic gnomon. 
 
 " A poultice a poultice a poultice, good people, or I shall 
 presently be all nose together ! " and a poultice was promptly 
 manufactured from mashed pumpkin, and he was put to bed, 
 with his face covered up with it, as if an Italian artist had been 
 taking a cast of his beauties in plaster of Paris. 
 
 In the application of this said poultice, however, we had nearly 
 extinguished poor Aaron amongst us, by suffocating him out- 
 right ; for the skipper, who was the operating surgeon in the 
 first instance, with me for his mate, clapped a whole ladleful 
 over his mouth and nose, which, besides being scalding hot, 
 sealed those orifices effectually, and, indeed, about a couple of 
 tablespoonf uls had actually been forced down his gullet, notwith- 
 standing his struggles, and exclamations of " Pumpkin bad 
 softened with castor-oil d n it, skipper, you'll choke me" 
 spurt sputter sputter " choke me, man." 
 
 " Cuidado" said Don Ricardo; "let me manage" and he 
 got a small tube of wild cane, which he stuck into Bang's mouth, 
 through a hole in the poultice-cloth, and set a negro servant to 
 watch that it did not sink into his gullet as he fell asleep, and 
 with instructions to take the poultice off whenever the pain 
 abated ; and there he lay on his back, whistling through this 
 artificial beak, like a sick snipe. 
 
 At length, however, all hands of us seemed to have fallen 
 asleep ; but towards the dawning I was awakened by repeated 
 bursts of suppressed laughter, and, upon looking in the direction
 
 298 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 from whence the sounds proceeded, I was surprised beyond all 
 measure to observe Transom in a corner of the room in his 
 trousers and shirt, squatted like a tailor on his hams, with one 
 of the sable damsels on her knees beside him holding a candle, 
 while his Majesty's Post-Captain was plying his needle in a 
 style and with a dexterity that would have charmed our friend 
 Stultze exceedingly, and every now and then bending double 
 over his work, and swinging his body backwards and forwards, 
 with the water welling from his eyes, laughing all the while like 
 to choke himself. As for his bronze candlestick, I thought she 
 would have expired on the spot, with her white teeth glancing 
 like ivory, and the tears running down her cheeks, as she every 
 now and then clapped a handkerchief on her mouth to smother 
 the uncontrollable uproariousness of her mirth. 
 
 " Why, captain, what spree is this 1 " said I. 
 
 " Never you mind, but come here. I say, Mr Cringle, do you 
 see him piping away there?" and there he was, sure enough, 
 still gurgling through the wild cane, with his black guardian, 
 whose province it was to have removed the poultice, sound 
 asleep, snoring in the huge chair at Bang's head, wherein he 
 had established himself, while the candle at his patient's cheek 
 was flickering in the socket. 
 
 My superior was evidently bent on wickedness. 
 
 " Get up and put on your trousers, man." 
 
 I did so. 
 
 " Now wait a bit till I cooper him. Here, my darling" to 
 the sable virgin, who was now on the qui vive, bustling about 
 " here," said the captain, sticking out a leg of Bang's trousers, 
 " hold you there, my dear 
 
 She happened to be a native of Haiti, and comprehended his 
 French. 
 
 " Now, hold you that, Mr Cringle." 
 
 I took hold of the other leg, and held it in a fitting position, 
 while Transom deliberately sewed them both up. 
 
 " Now for the coat-sleeves." 
 
 We sealed them in a similar manner. 
 
 " So now for his shirt." 
 
 We sewed up the stem, and then the stern, converting it into 
 an outlandish-looking pillow-case, and finally both sleeves ; and, 
 last of all, we got two live land-crabs from the servants by dint 
 of persuasion and a little plata, and clapped one into each stock- 
 ing-foot. 
 
 We then dressed ourselves, and when all was ready we got a
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 299- 
 
 piece of tape for a lanyard, and made one end fast to the handle 
 of a large earthen water-jar, full to the brim, which we placed 
 on Bang's pillow, and passed the other end round the neck of 
 the sleeping negro. 
 
 " Now get you to bed," said the captain to the dingy hand- 
 maiden, " and stand by to be off, Mr Cringle." 
 
 He stepped to Don Kicardo's bedroom door, and tapped 
 loudly. 
 
 " Hillo ! " quoth the Don. On this hint, like men springing 
 a mine, the last who leave the sap, we sprang into the street, 
 when the skipper turned, and, taking aim with a large custard- 
 apple which he had armed himself with (I have formerly de- 
 scribed this fruit as resembling a russet bag of cold pudding), 
 he let fly. Spin flew the apple bash on the blackamoor's ob- 
 tuse snout. He started back, and in his terror and astonishment 
 threw a somersault over the back of his chair gush poured the 
 water smash fell the pipkin. " Murder ! " roared Bang, dash- 
 ing off the poultice-cast with such fury that it lighted in the 
 street and away we raced at the top of our speed. 
 
 We ran as fast as our legs could carry us for two hundred 
 yards, and then turning, walked deliberately home again, as if 
 we had been out taking a walk in the cool morning air. 
 
 As we approached, we heard the yells of a negro, and Bang 
 high in oath. 
 
 " You black rascal, nothing must serve your turn but practis- 
 ing your John Canoe tricks upon a gentleman ! Take that, you 
 villain, as a small recompense for floating me out of my bed or 
 rather off the table;" and the ludicrousness of his couch seemed 
 to come over the worthy fellow once more, and he laughed loud 
 and long. " Poor devil, I hope I have not hurt you ] Here,. 
 Quashi, there's a pistole ; go buy a plaster for your broken 
 pate." 
 
 By this time we had returned in front of the house, and as- 
 we ascended the front stairs, we again heard a loud racketing 
 within ; but blackie's voice was now wanting in the row, wherein 
 the Spaniard and our friend appeared to be the dramatis per- 
 sona: and sure enough there was Don Kicardo and Bang at it, 
 tooth and nail. 
 
 " Allow me to assist you," quoth the Don. 
 
 "Oh no mucho mucho" quoth Bang, who was spinning 
 round and round in his shirt on one leg, trying to thrust his 
 foot into his trousers ; but the garment was impervious ; and,, 
 after emulating Noblet in a pirouette, he sat down in despair.
 
 300 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 We appeared " Ah, Transom, glad to see you some evil spirit 
 has bewitched me, I believe overnight I was stung to death by 
 a scorpion half an hour ago I was deluged by an invisible 
 spirit and just now, when I got up, and began to pull on my 
 stockings, Lord ! a land-crab was in the toe part, and see how 
 he has scarified me" forking up his peg. "I then tried my 
 trousers," he continued, in a most doleful tone " and lo ! the 
 legs are sealed. And look at my face, saw you ever such an 
 unfortunate ? But the devil take you, Transom, I see through 
 your tricks now, and will pay you off for this yet, take my word 
 for it" 
 
 The truth is, that our amigo Aaron had gotten an awful fright 
 on his first awakening after his cold bath, for he had given the 
 poor black fellow an ugly blow upon the face before he had 
 gathered his senses well about him, and the next moment seeing 
 the blood streaming from his nose, and mixing with the custard - 
 like pulp of the fruit with which his face was plastered, he took 
 it into his noddle that he had knocked the man's brains out. 
 However, we righted the worthy fellow the best way we could, 
 and shortly afterwards coffee was brought, and Bang, having got 
 himself shaven and dressed, began to forget all his botherations. 
 
 But before we left the house, madama, Don Ricardo's better- 
 half, insisted on anointing his nose with some mixture famous 
 for reptile bites. His natural good-breeding made him submit 
 to the application, which was neither more nor less than an in- 
 fusion of indigo and ginger, with which the worthy lady painted 
 our friend's face and muzzle in a most ludicrous manner it 
 was heads and tails between him and an ancient Briton. Reef- 
 point at this moment appeared at the door with a letter from 
 the merchant captains, which had been sent down to the cor- 
 vette, regarding the time of sailing, and acquainting us when 
 they would be ready. While Captain Transom was perusing it, 
 Bang was practising Spanish at the expense of Don Ricardo, 
 whom he had boxed into a corner; but all his Spanish seemed 
 to be scraps of schoolboy Latin, and I noticed that Campana 
 had the greatest difficulty in keeping his countenance. At 
 length Don Ricardo approached us" Gentlemen, I have laid 
 out a little plan for the day ; it is my wife's saint's day, and a 
 holiday in the family, so we propose going to a coffee property 
 of mine about ten miles from Santiago, and staying till morning 
 What say you ? " 
 
 I chimed in " I fear, sir, that I shall be unable to accom- 
 pany you, even if Captain Transom should be good enough
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 301 
 
 to give me leave, as I have an errand to do for that unhappy 
 young fellow that we spoke about last evening some trinkets 
 which I promised to deliver; here they are" and I produced 
 the miniature and crucifix. 
 
 Campana winced " Unpleasant, certainly, lieutenant," said 
 he. 
 
 " I know it will be so myself, but I have promised " 
 
 " Then far be it from me to induce you to break your pro- 
 mise," said the worthy man. " My son," said he, gravely, " the 
 friar you saw yesterday is confessor to Don Picador Cangrejo's 
 family ; his reason for asking to obtain an interview with you 
 was from its being known that you were active in capturing the 
 unfortunate men with whom young Federico Cangrejo, his only 
 son, was leagued. Oh that poor boy ! Had you known him, 
 gentlemen, as I knew him, poor, poor Federico ! " 
 
 " He was an awful villain, however, you must allow," said 
 the captain. 
 
 " Granted in the fullest sense, my dear sir," rejoined Cam- 
 pana ; " but we are all frail, erring creatures, and he was hardly 
 dealt by. He is now gone to his heavy account, and I may as 
 well tell you the poor boy's sad story at once. Had you but 
 seen him in his prattling infancy, in his sunny boyhood ! 
 
 " He was the only son of a rich old father, an honest but 
 worldly man, and of a most peevish, irascible temper. Poor 
 Federico, and his sister Francisca, his only sister, were often 
 cruelly used ; and his orphan cousin, my sweet god-daughter, 
 Maria Olivera, their playmate, was, if anything, more harshly 
 treated ; for although his mother was and is a most excellent 
 woman, and always stood between them and the old man's ill 
 temper, yet at the time I speak of she had returned to Spain, 
 where a long period of ill-health detained her for upwards of 
 three years. Federico by this time was nineteen years of age, 
 tall, handsome, and accomplished beyond all the youth of his 
 rank and time of life in Cuba : but you have seen him, gentle- 
 men in his extremity it is true ; yet, fallen as he was, I mistake 
 if you thought him a common man. For good or for evil, my 
 heart told me he would be conspicuous, and I was, alas the day ! 
 too true a prophet. His attachment to his cousin, who, on the 
 death of her mother, had become an inmate of Don Picador's 
 house, had been evident to all but the purblind old man for a 
 long time; and when he did discover it, he imperatively forbade 
 all intercourse between them, as, forsooth, he had projected a 
 richer match for him, and shut Maria up in a corner of his large
 
 302 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 mansion. Federico, haughty and proud, could not stomach this. 
 He ceased to reside at his father's estate, which had been con- 
 fided to his management, and began to frequent the billiard-table, 
 and monte-table, and taverns, and in a thousand ways gave, from 
 less to more, such unendurable offence, that his father at length 
 shut his door against him, and turned him, with twenty doubloons 
 in his pocket, into the street. 
 
 " Friends interceded, for the feud soon became public, and, 
 amongst others, I essayed to heal it ; and with the fond, although 
 passionate father, I easily succeeded : but how true it is that 
 ' evil communication corrupts good manners ! ' I found Federico 
 by this time linked in bands of steel with a, junto of desperadoes, 
 whose calling was anything but equivocal, and implacable to a 
 degree, that, knowing him as I had known him, I had believed 
 impossible. But, alas ! the human heart is indeed desperately 
 wicked. I struggled long with the excellent Father Carera to 
 bring about a reconciliation, and thought we had succeeded, as 
 Federico was induced to return to his father's house once moiv, 
 and for many days and weeks we all flattered ourselves that he 
 had reformed ; until one morning, about four months ago, he 
 was discovered coining out of his cousin's room about the dawn- 
 ing by his father, who immediately charged him with seducing 
 his ward. High words ensued. Poor Maria rushed out and 
 threw herself at her uncle's feet. The old man, in a transport 
 of fury, kicked her on the face as she lay prostrate ; whereupon, 
 God help me ! he was felled to the earth by his own flesh and 
 bone and blood by his abandoned son. 
 
 'What rein can hold licentious wickedness, 
 When down the hill he holds his fierce career?' 
 
 " The rest is soon told ; he joined the pirate vessels at Puerto 
 Escondido, and, from his daring and reckless intrepidity, soon 
 rose to command amongst them, and was proceeding in his in- 
 fernal career, when the God whom he had so fearfully defied at 
 length sent him to expiate his crimes on the scaffold." 
 
 "But the priest " said I, much excited. 
 
 "True," continued Don Kicardo, "Padre Carera brought a 
 joint message from his poor mother and sister, and and, oh my 
 
 darling god-child, my heart-dear Maria ! " And the kind old 
 
 man wept bitterly. I was greatly moved. 
 
 " Why, Mr Cringle," said Transom, " if you have promised to 
 deliver the trinkets in propria persona, there's an end : take 
 leave nothing doing down yonder send Tailtackle for clothes. 
 Mr Reefpoint, go to the boat and send up Tailtackle ; so go you
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 303 
 
 must to these unfortunates, and we shall then start on our 
 cruise to the coffee estate with our worthy host," 
 
 " Why," said Campana, " the family are in the country ; they 
 live about four miles from Santiago, on the very road to my 
 property, and we shall call on our way ; but I don't much ad- 
 mire these interviews there will be a scene, I fear 
 
 " Not on my part," said I ; " but call I must, for I solemnly 
 promised" and presented the miniature to Don Ricardo. 
 
 Campana looked at it. It was exquisitely finished, and re- 
 presented a most beautiful girl a dark, large-eyed, sparkling, 
 Spanish beauty. " Oh, my dear, dear child," murmured Don 
 Ricardo, " how like this was to what you were ; how changed 
 you are now from what it -is alas ! alas ! But come, gentlemen, 
 my wife is ready, and my two nieces " the pretty girls who 
 were of our party the previous evening " and here are the 
 horses." 
 
 At this moment the little midshipman, Master Reefpoint a 
 great favourite of mine, by the by reappeared, with Tailtackle 
 behind him, carrying my bundle. I was regularly caught, as the 
 clothes, on the chance of a lark, had been brought from the ship, 
 although stowed out of sight under the stem-sheets of the boat. 
 
 " Here are your clothes, Mr Cringle," quoth middy. 
 
 " Devil confound your civility," internally murmured I. 
 
 The captain twigged, and smiled. Upon which little Reefy 
 stole up to me " Lord, Mr Cringle, could you but get me leave 
 to go, it would be such a- 
 
 " Hold your tongue, boy, how can I- 
 
 Transom struck in " Master Reefpoint, I see what you are 
 driving at ; but how shall the Firebrand be taken care of when 
 you are away, eh ? besides, you have no clothes, and we shall 
 be away a couple of days, most probably." 
 
 " Oh, yes, sir, I have clothes ; I have a hair-brush and a tooth- 
 brush, and two shirt-collars, in my waistcoat pocket." 
 
 " Very well, can we venture to lumber our kind friends with 
 this giant, Mr Cringle, and can we really leave the ship without 
 him?" Little Reefy was now all alive. "Tailtackle, go on 
 board say we shall be back to dinner the day after to-morrow," 
 said the captain. 
 
 We now made ready for the start, and certainly the cavalcade 
 was rather a remarkable one. First, there was an old lumber- 
 ing family volante, a sort of gig, with four posts or uprights 
 supporting a canopy covered with leather, and with a high dash- 
 iron or splash-board in front. There were curtains depending
 
 304 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 from this canopy, which on occasion could be let down, so as to 
 cover in the sides and front. The whole was of the most clumsy 
 workmanship that can be imagined, and hung by untanned 
 leather straps in a square wooden frame, from the front of which 
 again protruded two shafts, straight as Corinthian pillars, and 
 equally substantial, embracing an uncommonly fine mule, one 
 of the largest and handsomest of the species which I had seen. 
 The harnessing partook of the same kind of unwieldy strength 
 and solidity, and was richly embossed with silver and dirt. 
 Astride on this mulo sat a household negro, with a huge thong 
 of bullock's hide in one hand and the reins in the other. In 
 this voiture were ensconced La Sefiora Campana, a portly con- 
 cern, as already mentioned, two of her bright black-eyed laugh- 
 ing nieces, and Master Reefpoint, invisible as he lay smothered 
 amongst the ladies, all to his little glazed cocked-hat, and jab- 
 bering away in a most unintelligible fashion, so far as the young 
 ladies, and eke the old one, were concerned. However, they 
 appeared all mightily tickled by little Reefy, either mentally or 
 physically, for off they trundled, laughing and skirling loud 
 above the noise and creaking of the volante. Then came three 
 small, ambling, stoutish, long-tailed ponies, the biggest not above 
 fourteen hands high ; these were the barbs intended for mine 
 host, the skipper, and myself, caparisoned with high demipique 
 old-fashioned Spanish saddles, mounted with silver stirrups and 
 clumsy bridles, with a ton of rusty iron in each poor brute's 
 mouth for a bit, and curbs like a piece of our chain cable, all 
 very rich, and, as before mentioned with regard to the volante, 
 far from clean. Their pace was a fast run, a compound of walk, 
 trot, and canter, or rather of a trot and a canter, the latter broken 
 down and frittered away through the instrumentality of a fero- 
 cious Mameluke bit, but as easy as an arm-chair ; and this was 
 I speak it feelingly a great convenience, as a sailor is not a 
 Ceutaur not altogether of a piece with his horse, as it were ; 
 yet both Captain Transom and myself were rather goodish horse- 
 men for nauticals, although rather apt to go over the bows upon 
 broaching-to suddenly. Don Ricardo's costume would have been 
 thought a little out of the way in Leicestershire : most people 
 put on their boots " when they do a-riding go," but he chose 
 to mount in shoes and white cotton stockings, and white jean 
 small-clothes, with a flowing yellow-striped gingham coat, the 
 skirts of which fluttered in the breeze behind him, his withered 
 face shaded by a huge Panama hat, and with enormous silver 
 spurs on his heels, the rowels two inches in diameter.
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 305 
 
 Away lumbered the volante, and away we pranced after it. 
 For the first two miles the scenery was tame enough ; but after 
 that, the gently swelling eminences on each side of the road rose 
 abruptly into rugged mountains ; and the dell between them, 
 which had hitherto been verdant with waving guinea-grass, be- 
 came covered with large trees, under the dark shade of which 
 we lost sight of the sun, and the contrast made everything around 
 us for a time almost undistinguishable. The forest continued 
 to overshadow the high-road for two miles farther, only broken 
 by a small cleared patch now and then, where the sharp-spiked 
 limestone rocks shot up like minarets, and the fire-scathed stumps 
 of the felled trees stood out amongst the rotten earth in the 
 crevices, from which, however, sprang yams and cocoas, and 
 peas of all kinds, and granadillos, and a profusion of herbs and 
 roots, with the greatest luxuriance. 
 
 At length we came suddenly upon a cleared space a most 
 beautiful spot of ground where, in the centre of a green plot 
 of velvet grass, intersected with numberless small walks gravel- 
 led from a neighbouring rivulet, stood a large one-storey wooden 
 edifice, built in the form of a square, with a courtyard in the 
 centre. From the moistness of the atmosphere, the outside of 
 the unpainted weather-boarding had a green, damp appearance, 
 and, so far as the house itself was concerned, there was an air of 
 great discomfort about the place. A large open balcony ran 
 round the whole house on the outside, and fronting us there was 
 a clumsy wooden porch, supported on pillars, with the open 
 door yawning behind it. 
 
 The hills on both sides were cleared and planted with most 
 luxuriant coffee-bushes and provision grounds, while the house 
 was shaded by several splendid star-apple and kennip trees, and 
 there was a border of rich flowering shrubs surrounding it on 
 all sides. The hand of woman had been there ! 
 
 A few half-naked negroes were lounging about, and on hear- 
 ing our approach they immediately came up and stared wildly 
 at us. 
 
 " All fresh from the ship these," quoth Bang. 
 
 " Can't be," said Transom." Try and see." 
 
 I spoke some of the commonest Spanish expressions to them, 
 but they neither understood them nor could they answer me. 
 But Bang was more successful in Eboe and Mandingo, both of 
 which he spoke fluently accomplishments which I ought to 
 have excepted, by the by, when I declared he was little skilled 
 in any tongue but English.
 
 306 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Large herds of cattle were grazing on the skirts of the wood, 
 and about one hundred mules were scrambling and picking their 
 food in a rocky river-course which bisected the valley. The 
 hills, tree-covered, rose around this solitary residence in all direc- 
 tions, as if it had been situated in the bottom of a punch-bowl 
 while a small waterfall, about thirty feet high, fell so near one 
 of the corners of the building that, when the wind set that way, 
 as I afterwards found, the spray moistened my hair through the 
 open window in my sleeping apartment. We proceeded to the 
 door and dismounted, following the example of our host, and 
 proceeded to help the gentlewomen to alight from their volante. 
 When we all were accounted for in the porch, Don Ricardo began 
 to shout, " Criados, criados, ven acd pendejos, ven acd!" The 
 call was for some time unattended to ; at length two tall, good- 
 looking, decently -dressed negroes made their appearance and 
 took charge of our bestias and carriage ; but all this time there 
 was no appearance of any living creature belonging to the 
 family. 
 
 The dark hall, into which the porch opened, was paved with 
 the usual diamond-shaped bricks and tiles, but was not ceiled 
 the rafters of the roof being exposed. There was little or no 
 furniture in it that we could see, except a clumsy table in the 
 centre of the room, and one or two of the leathern-backed reclin- 
 ing chairs, such as Whiffle used to patronise. Several doors 
 opened from this comfortless saloon, which was innocent of paint, 
 into other apartments, one of which was ajar. 
 
 " Estrdiio" murmured Don Ricardo, " muy cstrano!" 
 
 " Coolish reception this, Tom," quoth Aaron Bang. 
 
 " Deucedly so," said the skipper. 
 
 But Campana hooking his little fat wife under his arm, 
 while we did the agreeable 'to the nieces now addressed him- 
 self to enter, with the constant preliminary ejaculation of all 
 well-bred Spaniards in crossing a friend's threshold, " Ave Maria 
 purissima" when we were checked by a loud tearing fit of 
 coughing, which seemed almost to suffocate the patient, and 
 female voices in great alarm, proceeding from the room beyond. 
 
 Presently a little anatomy of a man presented himself at the 
 door of the apartment, wringing his hands, and apparently in 
 great misery. Campana and his wife, with all the alacrity of 
 kind-hearted people, immediately went up to him and said some- 
 thing which I did not overhear, but the poor creature to whom 
 they spoke appeared quite bewildered. " What is it, Don Pica- 
 dor ? " at length we could hear Campana say " what is it ? Is
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 307 
 
 it my poor dear Maria who is worse, or what ? speak man 
 May my wife enter ? " 
 
 " Si, si yes, yes," said the afflicted Don Picador " yes, yes, 
 let her go in; send for I am unable to think or act send 
 one of my people back post to Santiago for the doctor Haste, 
 haste. Sangre hecha sangre por la boca." 
 
 " Good God, why did you not say so before 1 ? " rejoined Cam- 
 pana. 
 
 Here his wife called loudly to her husband, "Ricardo, Ricar- 
 do, por amor de su alma, manda por el medico she has burst a 
 bloodvessel Maria is dying ! " 
 
 " Let me mount myself ; I will go myself." And the excel- 
 lent man rushed for the door, when the poor heartbroken Pica- 
 dor clung to his knees. 
 
 " No, no, don't leave me. Send some one else " 
 
 " Take care, man, let me go " 
 
 Transom and I volunteered in a breath " No, no, I will go 
 myself," continued Don Ricardo ; " let go, man God help me, 
 the old creature is crazed el viejo no vale." 
 
 " Here, here ! help, Don Eicardo ! " cried his wife. 
 
 Off started Transom for the doctor, and into the room rushed 
 Don Picador and Campana, and from the sounds in the sick- 
 chamber, all seemed bustle and confusion. At length the former 
 appeared to be endeavouring to lift the poor sufferer, so as to 
 enable her to sit up in bed ; in the mean time her coughing had 
 gradually abated into a low suffocating convulsive gasp. 
 
 " So, so, lift her up, man," we could hear Campana say; "lift 
 her up quick or she will be suffocated." 
 
 At length, in a moment of great irritation, excited on the one 
 hand by his intense interest in the poor suffering girl, and anger 
 at the peevish, helpless Don Picador, Don Ricardo, to our unut- 
 terable surprise, rapped out, in gude broad Scotch, as he brushed 
 away Senor Cangrejo from the bedside with a violence that spun 
 him out of the door " God, the auld doited deevil is as fusion- 
 less as a docken." 
 
 My jaw dropped I was thunderstruck ; Bang's eye met 
 mine " Murder ! " quoth Bang, so soon as his astonishment let 
 him collect breath enough, " and here I have been for two whole 
 days practising Spanish, to my great improvement no doubt, 
 upon a Scotchman how edified he must have been ! " 
 
 " But the docken, man," said I ; "fiisionless as a docken 
 how classic ! what an exclamation to proceed from the mouth of 
 a solemn Don ! "
 
 308 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " No gibes regarding the docken," promptly chimed in Bang ; 
 " it is a highly respectable vegetable, let me tell you, and useful 
 on occasion, which is more." 
 
 The noise in the room ceased, and presently Campana joined 
 us. " We must proceed," said he, " it will never do for you to 
 deliver the jewels noiv, Mr Cringle; she is too much excited 
 already, even from seeing me." 
 
 But it was more easy to determine on proceeding than to put 
 it in execution, for a heavy cloud that had been overhanging 
 the small valley the whole morning had by this time spread out 
 and covered the entire face of nature like a sable pall. The 
 birds of the air flew low, and seemed perfectly gorged with the 
 superabundance of flies, which were thickly betaking themselves 
 for shelter under the evergreen leaves of the bushes. All the 
 winged creation, great and small, were fast hastening to the 
 cover of the leaves and branches of the trees. The cattle were 
 speeding to the hollows under the impending rocks; negroes, 
 men, women, and children, were hurrying with their hoes on 
 their shoulders past the windows to their huts. Several large 
 bloodhounds had ventured into the hall, and were crouching 
 with a low whine at our feet. The huge carrion crows were the 
 only living things which seemed to brave the approaching clm- 
 basco, and were soaring high up in the heavens, appearing to 
 touch the black agitated fringe of the lowering thunder-clouds. 
 All other kinds of winged creatures, parrots and pigeons and 
 cranes, had vanished by this time under the thickest trees, and 
 into the deepest coverts, and the wild ducks were shooting past 
 in long lines, piercing the thick air with outstretched neck and 
 clanging wing. 
 
 Suddenly the wind fell, and the sound of the waterfall in- 
 creased, and grew rough and loud, and the undefinable rushing 
 noise that precedes a heavy fall of rain in the tropics the voice 
 of the wilderness moaned through the high woods, until at 
 length the clouds sank upon the valley in boiling mists, rolling 
 half-way down the surrounding hills; and the water of the 
 stream, whose scanty rill but an instant before hissed over the 
 precipice, in a small transparent ribbon of clear grass-green, 
 sprinkled with white foam, and then threaded its way round 
 the large rocks in its capacious channel, like a silver eel twist- 
 ing through a dry desert, now changed in a moment to a dark 
 turgid chocolate colour ; and even as we stood and looked, lo ! 
 a column of water from the mountains pitched in thunder over 
 the face of the precipice, making the earth tremble, and driving
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 309 
 
 up from the rugged face of the everlasting rocks in smoke, and 
 forcing the air into eddies and sudden blasts, which tossed the 
 branches of the trees that overhung it, as they were dimly seen 
 through the clouds of drizzle, as if they had been shaken by a 
 tempest, although there was not a breath stirring elsewhere out 
 of heaven ; while little wavering spiral wreaths of mist rose up 
 thick from the surface of the boiling pool at the bottom of the 
 cataract, like miniature waterspouts, until they were dispersed 
 by the agitation of the air above. 
 
 At length the swollen torrent rolled roaring down the narrow 
 valley, filling the whole watercourse, about fifty yards wide, and 
 advancing with a solid front a fathom hiylt a fathom deep does 
 not convey the idea like a stream of lava, or as one may conceive 
 of the Ked Sea, when, at the stretching forth of the hand of the 
 prophet of the Lord, its mighty waters rolled back and stood 
 heaped up as a wall to the host of Israel. The channel of the 
 stream, which but a minute before I could have leaped across, 
 was the next instant filled, and utterly impassable. 
 
 " You can't possibly move," said Don Picador ; " you can 
 neither go on nor retreat ; you must stay until the river subsides." 
 And the rain now began pattering in large drops, like scattering 
 shots preceding an engagement, on the wooden shingles with 
 which the house was roofed, gradually increasing to a loud rush- 
 ing noise, which, as the rooms were not ceiled, prevented a word 
 being heard. 
 
 Don Ricardo began to fret and fidget most awfully " Be- 
 ginning of the seasons why, we may not get away for a week, 
 and all the ships will be kept back in their loading." 
 
 All this time the poor sufferer's tearing cough was heard in 
 the lulls of the rain ; but it gradually became less and less severe, 
 and the lady of the house, and Senora Campana, and Don Pica- 
 dor's daughter, at length slid into the room on tiptoe, leaving 
 one of Don Ricardo's nieces in the room with the sick person. 
 
 " She is asleep hush." The weather continued as bad as 
 ever, and we passed a very comfortless forenoon of it, Picador. 
 Campana, Bang, and myself, perambulating the large dark hall, 
 while the ladies were clustered together in a corner with their 
 work. At length the weather cleared, and I could get a glimpse 
 of mine hostess and her fair daughter. The former was a very 
 handsome woman, about forty ; she was tall, and finely formed ; 
 her ample figure set off by the very simple, yet, to my taste, 
 very elegant dress formerly described : it was neither more nor 
 less than the plain black silk petticoat over a chemise, made full
 
 310 TOM CRINGLE'S LOO. 
 
 at the bosom, with a great quantity of lace frills : her dark 
 glossy hair was gathered on the crown of her head in one long 
 braid, twisted round and round, and rising up like a small 
 turret. Over all she wore a loose shawl of yellow silk crape. 
 But the daughter, I never shall forget her ! Tall and full, and 
 magnificently shaped every motion was instinct with grace. 
 Her beautiful black hair hung a yard down her back long and 
 glossy in three distinct braids, while it was shaded, Madonna- 
 like, off her high and commanding forehead. Her eyebrows to 
 use little Reefy's simile looked as if cut out of a mouse's skin ; 
 and her eyes themselves, large, dark, and soft, yet brilliant and 
 sparkling at the same time, however contradictory this may read ; 
 her nose was straight, and her cheeks firm and oval, and her 
 mouth, her full lips, her ivory teeth, her neck and bosom, were 
 perfect, the latter if anything giving promise of too matronly a 
 womanhood ; but at the time I saw her, nothing could have 
 been more beautiful ; and, above all, there was an inexpressible 
 charm in the clear transparent darkness of her colourless skin, 
 into which you thought you could look ; her shoulders, and the 
 upper part of her arms, were peculiarly beautiful. Nothing is 
 so exquisitely lovely as the upper part of a beautiful woman's 
 arm, and yet we have lived to see this admirable feature shrouded 
 and lost in those abominable gigots. I say, messmate, lend a 
 hand and originate a crusade against those vile appendages. I 
 will lead into action if you like, " Woe to the women that sew 
 pillows to all arm-holes," Ezekiel, xiii. 18. May I venture on 
 such a quotation in such a place ] She was extremely like her 
 brother ; and her fine face was overspread with the pale cast of 
 thought a settled melancholy, like the shadow of a cloud in a 
 calm day on a summer landscape, mantled over her fine features : 
 and although she moved with the air of a princess, and was 
 possessed of that natural politeness which far surpasses all artifi- 
 cial polish, yet the heaviness of her heart was apparent in every 
 motion, as well as in all she said. 
 
 Many people labour under an unaccountable delusion, imagin- 
 ing, in their hallucination, that a Frenchwoman, for instance, or 
 even an Englishwoman nay, some have been heard to say that 
 a Scotchwoman has been known to walk. Egregious errors all I 
 An Irishwoman of the true Milesian descent can walk a step or 
 two sometimes, but all other women fair or brown, short or 
 tall, stout or thin only stump, shuffle, jig, or amble none but 
 a Spaniard can tvalff. 
 
 Once or twice she tried to enter into conversation with me
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 311 
 
 on indifferent subjects ; but there was a constant tendency to 
 approach (against her own pre-arranged determination) the one, 
 all-absorbing one, the fate of her poor brother. " Oh, had you 
 but known him, Mr Cringle had you but known him in his 
 boyhood, before bad company had corrupted him ! " exclaimed 
 she, after having asked me if he died penitent, and she turned 
 away and wept. " Francisca" said a low hoarse female voice from 
 the other room "Francisca, ven acd, mi querida hermana." 
 The sweet girl rose, and sped across the floor with the grace of 
 Taglioni (oh, the legs Taglionis! as poor dear Bang would 
 have ventured to have said, if the sylphide had then been known), 
 and presently returning, whispered something to her mother, 
 who rose and drew Don Picador aside. The waspish old man 
 shook himself clear of his wife, as he said with indecent asperity 
 " No, no ; she will but make a fool of herself." 
 
 His wife drew herself up, 
 
 " She never made a fool of herself, Don Picador, but once ; 
 and God forgive those who were the cause of it ! It is not kind 
 of you, indeed it is not." 
 
 " Well, well," rejoined the querulous old man, " do as you 
 will, do as you will ; always crossing me, always crossing." 
 
 His wife took no further notice, but stepped across the room 
 to me, " Our poor dying Maria knows you are here; and pro- 
 bably you are not aware that lie wrote to her after his" her 
 voice quivered " after his condemnation, the night before he 
 suffered, that you were the only one who showed him kindness, 
 and she has also read the newspapers giving an account of the 
 trial. She wishes to see you will you pleasure her? Sefiora 
 Campana has made her acquainted that you are the bearer 
 of some trinkets belonging to him, from which she infers you 
 witnessed his last moments, as one of them, she was told, was 
 her picture, poor dear girl ; and she knew that must have grown 
 to his heart till the last. But it will be too agitating. I will 
 try and dissuade her from the interview until the doctor comes, 
 at all events." 
 
 The worthy lady stepped again into Maria's apartment, and I 
 could not avoid hearing what passed. 
 
 " My dear Maria, Mr Cringle has no objection to wait on you ; 
 but after your severe attack this morning, I don't think it will 
 be wise. Delay it until Dr Bergara comes at any rate, until 
 the evening, Maria." 
 
 " Mother," she said, in a weak, plaintive voice, although husky 
 from the phlegm which was fast coagulating in her throat
 
 312 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Mother, I have already ceased to be of this world ; I am dying, 
 dearest mother, fast dying ; and oh, thou all-good and all-merci- 
 ful Being, against whom I have fearfully sinned, would that the 
 last struggle were now o'er, and that my weary spirit were re- 
 leased, and my shame hidden in the silent tomb, and my suffer- 
 ings and very name forgotten ! " She paused and gasped for 
 breath; I thought it was all over with her; but she rallied 
 again and proceeded "Time is rapidly ebbing from me, dear- 
 est mother for mother I must call you, more than a mother 
 have you been to me and the ocean of eternity is opening to my 
 view. If I am to see him at all, I must see him now ; I shall 
 be more agitated by the expectation of the interview than by 
 seeing him at once. Oh ! let me see him now, let me look on 
 one who witnessed his last moments." 
 
 I could see Senora Cangrejo where she stood. She crossed 
 her hands on her bosom, and looked up towards heaven, and 
 then turned mournfully towards me, and beckoned me to approach. 
 I entered the small room, which had been fitted up by the poor 
 girl with some taste ; the furniture was better than any I had 
 seen in a Spanish house before, and there was a mat on the floor, 
 and some exquisite miniatures and small landscapes on the walls. 
 It was her boudoir, opening apparently in a bedroom beyond. 
 It was lighted by a large open unglazed window, with a row of 
 wooden balustrades beyond it, forming part of a small balcony. 
 A Carmelite friar a venerable old man, with the hot tears fast 
 falling from his eyes over his wrinkled cheeks, whom I presently 
 found to be the excellent Padre Carera sat in a large chair by 
 the bedside, with a silver cup in his hand, beside which lay a 
 large crucifix of the same metal ; he had just administered ex- 
 treme unction, and the viaticum, he fondly hoped, would prove 
 a passport for his dear child to another and a better world. As 
 I entered he rose, held out his hand to me, and moved round to 
 the bottom of the bed. 
 
 The shutters had been opened, and, with a suddenness which 
 no one can comprehend who has not lived in these climates, the 
 sun now shone brightly on the flowers and garden plants which 
 grew in a range of pots on the balcony, and lighted up the pale 
 features of a lovely girl, lovely even in the jaws of death, as she 
 lay with her face towards the light, supported in a reclining 
 position on cushions, on a red morocco mattress, laid on a sort 
 of frame or bed. 
 
 " Light was her form, and darkly delicate 
 That brow, whereon her native sun hath sat. 
 But had not marred."
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 313 
 
 She was tall, so far as I could judge, but oh, how attenuated ! 
 Her lower limbs absolutely made no impression on the mattress, 
 to which her frame appeared to cling, giving a ghastly conspicu- 
 ousness to the cedematous swelling of her feet, and to her person, 
 for, alas ! she was in a way to have become a mother 
 
 " The offspring of his wayward youth, 
 When he betrayed Bianca's truth ; 
 The maid whose folly could confide 
 In him, who made her not his bride." 
 
 Her hand, grasping her pocket-handkerchief drenched, alas, 
 with blood hung over the side of the bed, thin and pale, with 
 her long taper fingers as transparent as if they had been fresh cut 
 alabaster, with the blue veins winding through her wrists, and 
 her bosom wasted and shrunk, and her neck no thicker than 
 her arm, with the pulsations of the large arteries as plain and 
 evident as if the skin had been a film ; and her beautiful features 
 although now sharpened by the near approaching death-agony 
 her lovely mouth, her straight nose, her arched eyebrows, black, 
 like pencilled jet lines, and her small ears ; and oh, who can 
 describe her rich black raven hair, lying combed out, and spread 
 all over the bed and pillow ? She was dressed in a long loose 
 gown of white crape ; it looked like a winding-sheet ; but the fire 
 of her eyes I have purposely not ventured to describe them 
 the unearthly brilliancy of her large, full, swimming eye ! 
 
 When I entered I bowed, and remained standing near the 
 door. She said something, but in so low a voice that I could not 
 catch the words ; and when I stepped nearer, on purpose to hear 
 more distinctly, all at once the blood mantled in her cheeks, and 
 forehead, and throat, like the last gleam of the setting sun ; but 
 it faded as rapidly, and once more she lay pale as her smock 
 
 ' Yet not such blush as mounts when health would show 
 All the heart's hue in that delightful glow ; 
 But 'twas a hectic tint of secret care, 
 That for a burning moment fevered there ; 
 And the wild sparkle of her eye seemed caught 
 From high, and lightened with electric thought ; 
 Though its black orb these long low lashes' fringe 
 Had tempered with a melancholy tinge." 
 
 Her voice was becoming morp and more weak, she said, so 
 she must be prompt. " You have some trinkets for me, Mr 
 Cringle 1 " I presented them. She kissed the crucifix fervently, 
 and then looked mournfully on her own miniature. " This was 
 thought like once, Mr Cringle. Are the newspaper accounts of 
 his trial correct ? " she next asked. I answered, that in the 
 main facts they were. " And do you believe in the commission
 
 314 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of all these alleged atrocities by him 1 " I remained silent. " Yes, 
 they are but too true. Hush, hush," said she " look there." 
 
 I did as she requested. There, glancing bright in the sun- 
 shine, a most beautiful butterfly fluttered in the air, in the very 
 middle of the open window. When we first saw it, it was flitting 
 gaily and happily amongst the plants and flowers that were 
 blooming in the balcony, but it gradually became more and 
 more slow on the wing, and at last poised itself so unusually 
 steady for an insect of its class, that even had Maria not spoken, 
 it would have attracted my attention. Below it, on the window- 
 sill, near the wall, with head erect, and its little basilisk eyes 
 upturned towards the lovely fly, crouched a chameleon lizard ; its 
 beautiful body, when I first looked at it, was a bright sea-green. 
 It moved into the sunshine, a little away from the shade of the 
 laurel bush, which grew on the side it first appeared on, and 
 suddenly the back became transparent amber, the legs and belly 
 continuing green. From its breast under the chin, it every now 
 and then shot out a semicircular film of a bright scarlet colour, 
 like a leaf of a tulip stretched vertically, or the pectoral fin of a 
 fish. 
 
 This was evidently a decoy, and the poor fly was by degrees 
 drawn down towards it, either under the impression of its being 
 in reality a flower, or impelled by some impulse which it could 
 not resist. It gradually flitted nearer and more near, the reptile 
 remaining all the while steady as a stone, until it made a sudden 
 spring, and in the next moment the small mealy wings were 
 quivering on each side of the chameleon's tiny jaws. While in 
 the act of gorging its prey, a little fork, like a wire, was pro- 
 jected from the opposite corner of the window ; presently a 
 a small round black snout, with a pair of little fiery blasting 
 eyes, appeared, and a thin black neck glanced in the sun. The 
 lizard saw it. I could fancy it trembled. Its body became of 
 a dark blue, then ashy pale, the imitation of the flower ; the 
 gaudy fin was withdrawn ; it appeared to shrink back as far as 
 it could ; but it was nailed or fascinated to the window-sill, for 
 its feet did not move. The head of the snake approached, with 
 its long forked tongue shooting out and shortening, and with a 
 low hissing noise. By this time about two feet of its body was 
 visible, lying with its white belly on the wooden beam, moving 
 forward with a small horizontal wavy motion, the head and six 
 inches of the neck being a little raised. I shrank back from 
 the serpent, but no one else seemed to have any dread of it ; 
 indeed, I afterwards learned, that this kind, being good mousers,
 
 THE PIRATE'S LEMAN. 315 
 
 and otherwise quite harmless, were, if anything, encouraged about 
 houses in the country. I looked again ; its open mouth was now 
 within an inch of the lizard, which by this time seemed utterly 
 paralysed and motionless ; the next instant its head was drawn 
 into the snake's mouth, and by degrees the whole body disap- 
 peared, as the reptile gorged it, and I could perceive from the 
 lump which gradually moved down the snake's neck, that it had 
 been sucked into its stomach. Involuntarily I raised my hand, 
 when the whole suddenly disappeared. 
 
 I turned, I could scarcely tell why, to look at the dying girl. 
 A transient flush had again lit up her pale wasted face. She 
 was evidently greatly excited. " Can you read me that riddle, 
 Mr Cringle ? Does no analogy present itself to you between 
 what you have seen, between the mysterious power possessed by 
 these subtile reptiles, and Look look again." 
 
 A large and still more lovely butterfly suddenly rose from be- 
 neath where the snake had vanished, all glittering in the dazzling 
 sunshine, and, after fluttering for a moment, floated steadily up 
 into the air, and disappeared in the blue sky. My eye followed 
 it as long as it was visible ; and when it once more declined to 
 where we had seen the snake, I saw a most splendid dragon-fly, 
 about three inches long, like a golden bodkin, with its gauze- 
 like wings moving so quickly, as it hung steadily poised in mid 
 air, like a hawk preparing to stoop, that the body seemed to be 
 surrounded by silver tissue, or a bright halo, while it glanced 
 in the sunbeam. 
 
 " Can you not read it yet, Mr Cringle 1 can you not read my 
 story in the fate of the first beautiful fly, and the miserable end 
 of my Federico, in that of the lizard 1 And oh, may the last 
 appearance of that ethereal thing, which but now rose, and 
 melted into the lovely sky, be a true type of what I shall be ! 
 But that poor insect, that remains there suspended between 
 heaven and earth shall I say hell? what am I to think of it? " 
 
 The dragon-fly was still there. She continued " En purga- 
 torio, ah Dios, tu quedas en jntrgaionoj" as if the fly had repre- 
 sented the unhappy young pirate's soul in limbo. Oh, let no 
 one smile at the quaintness of the dying fancy of the poor heart- 
 crushed girl. The weather began to lower again, the wind came 
 past us meaningly the sun was obscured large drops of rain 
 fell heavily into the room a sudden dazzling flash of lightning 
 took place, and the dragon-fly was no longer there. A long low 
 wild cry was heard. I started, and my flesh creeped. The cry 
 was repeated. " Es el el mismo, y ningun otro. Me venga,
 
 316 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Federico; me venga mi querido!" shrieked poor Maria, with 
 a supernatural energy, and with such piercing distinctness, that 
 it was heard shrill even above the rolling thunder. 
 
 I turned to look at Maria another flash. It glanced on the 
 crucifix which the old priest had elevated at the foot of the bed, 
 full in her view. It was nearer, the thunder was louder. " Is 
 that the rain-drops which are falling heavily on the floor through 
 the open window ] " O God ! God ! it is her warm heart's 
 blood, which was bubbling from her mouth like a crimson foun- 
 tain. Her pale fingers were clasped on her bosom in the attitude 
 of prayer a gentle quiver of her frame and the poor broken- 
 hearted girl, and her unborn babe, "sleeped the sleep that knows 
 no waking." 
 
 CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 
 
 Ariel. " Safely in harbour 
 
 Is the king's ship ; in the deep nook, where once 
 Thou calledst me up at midnight to fetch dew 
 Prom the still-vexed Bermoothes there she's hid." 
 
 The Tempest. 
 
 THE spirit had indeed fled the ethereal essence had departed 
 and the poor wasted and blood-stained husk which lay before 
 us, could no longer be moved by our sorrows, or gratified by 
 our sympathy. Yet I stood riveted to the spot, until I was 
 aroused by the deep-toned voice of Padre Carera, who, lifting 
 up his hands towards heaven, addressed the Almighty in extem- 
 pore prayer, beseeching his mercy to our erring sister who had 
 just departed. The unusualness of this startled me. " As the 
 tree falls, so must it lie," had been the creed of my forefathers, 
 and was mine ; but now for the first time I heard a clergyman 
 wrestling in mental agony, and interceding with the God who 
 hath said, " Repent before the night cometh, in which no man 
 can work," for a sinful creature, whose worn-out frame was now 
 as a clod of the valley. But I had little time for consideration,
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 317 
 
 as presently all the negro servants of the establishment set up a 
 loud howl, as if they had lost their nearest and dearest. " Oh, 
 our poor dear young mistress is dead ! She has gone to the 
 bosom of the Virgin ! She is gone to be happy ! " " Then 
 why the deuce make such a yelling ] " quoth Bang in the other 
 room, when this had been translated to him. Glad to leave the 
 chamber of death, I entered the large hall, where I had left our 
 friend. 
 
 " I say, Tom awful work. Hear how the rain pours, and 
 murder such a flash ! Why, in Jamaica, we don't startle greatly 
 at lightning, but absolutely I heard it hiss there again." The 
 noise of the thunder stopped farther colloquy, and the wind 
 now burst down the valley with a loud roar. 
 
 Don Ricardo joined us. " My good friends, we are in a scrape 
 here what is to be done ? a melancholy affair altogether." 
 Bang's curiosity here fairly got the better of him. 
 
 " I say, Don Bicardibus, do beg pardon, though do give 
 over this humbugging outlandish lingo of yours ; speak like a 
 Christian, in your mother tongue, and leave off your Spanish, 
 which now, since I know it is all a bam, seems to sit as 
 strangely on you as my grandmother's toupee would on Tom 
 Cringle's Mary." 
 
 " Now do, pray, Mr Bang," said I, when Don Kicardo broke 
 in 
 
 " Why, Mr Bang, I am, as you now know, a Scotchman." 
 
 " How do I know any such thing that is, for a certainty 
 while you keep cruising amongst so many lingoes, as Tom there 
 says 1 " 
 
 " The docken, man," said I. Don Ricardo smiled. 
 
 " I am a Scotchman, my dear sir ; and the same person who, 
 in his youth, was neither more nor less than wee Kichy Cloche, 
 in the long town of Kirkcaldy, is, in his old age, Don Ricardo 
 Camparia of St Jago de Cuba. But more of this anon ; at pre- 
 sent we are in the house of mourning, and alas the day ! that it 
 should be so." 
 
 By this time the storm had increased most fearfully, and as 
 Don Ricardo, Aaron, and myself sat in the dark corner of the 
 large gloomy hall, we could scarcely see each other, for the 
 lightning had now ceased, and the darkness was so thick that, 
 had it not been for the light from the large funeral wax tapers 
 which had been instantly lit upon poor Maria's death in the 
 room where she lay, that streamed through the open door, we' 
 should have been unable to see our very fingers before us.
 
 318 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " What is that 1 " said Campana ; " heard you nothing, gentle- 
 men?" 
 
 " By this the storm grew loud apace, 
 The water-wraith was shrieking ; 
 And in the scowl of heaven each face 
 Grew dark as they were speaking." 
 
 In the lulls of the rain and the blast the same long low cry 
 was heard which had startled me by Maria's bedside, and 
 occasioned the sudden and fatal exertion which had been the 
 cause of the bursting out afresh of the blood-vessel 
 
 " Why," said I, " it is little more than three o'clock in the 
 afternoon yet, dark as it is ; let us sally out, Mr Bang, for I 
 verily believe that the hollo we have heard is my captain's 
 voice, and, if I conjecture rightly, he must have arrived at the 
 other side of the river, probably with the doctor." 
 
 " Why, Tom," quoth Aaron, " it is only three in the after- 
 noon, as you say, although by the sky I could almost vouch for 
 its being midnight; but I don't like that shouting Did you 
 ever read of a water-kelpie, Don Richy ?" 
 
 " Poo, poo, nonsense," said the Don ; " Mr Cringle is, I fear, 
 right enough." At this moment the wind thundered at the door 
 and window-shutters, and howled amongst the neighbouring 
 trees and round the roof, as if it would have blown the house 
 down upon our devoted heads. The cry was again heard dur- 
 ing a momentary pause. 
 
 " Zounds ! " said Bang, " it is the skipper's voice, as sure as 
 fate he must be in danger let us go and see, Tom." 
 
 " Take me with you," said Campana the foremost always 
 when any good deed was to be done ; and, in place of clapping 
 on his greatcoat to meet the storm, to our unutterable surprise, 
 he began to disrobe himself, all to his trousers and large straw 
 hat. He then called one of the servants, " Trae me tin lasso." 
 The lasso, a long thong of plaited hide, was forthwith brought ; 
 he coiled it up in his left hand. " Now, Pedro," said he to the 
 negro servant who had fetched it a tall, strapping fellow 
 "you and Gaspar, follow me. Gentlemen, are you ready 1 ?" 
 Gaspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one 
 hand and a thong similar to Don Bicardo's in the other he, as 
 well as his comrade, being stark naked all to their waistcloths. 
 " Ah, well done, my sons," said Don Ricardo, as both the negroes 
 prepared to follow him. So off we started to the door, although 
 we heard the tonnenta raging without with appalling fury. Bang 
 undid the latch, and the next moment he was flat on his back,
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 319 
 
 the large leaf having flown open with tremendous violence, 
 capsizing him like an infant. 
 
 The Padre, from the inner chamber, came to our assistance, 
 and, by our joint exertions, we at length got the door to again 
 and barricaded, after which we made our exit from the lee side 
 of the house by a window. Under other circumstances it would 
 have been difficult to refrain from laughing at the appearance we 
 made. We were all drenched in an instant after we left the 
 shelter of the house, and there was old Campana, naked to the 
 waist, with his large sombrero and long pigtail hanging down 
 his back, like a mandarin of twenty buttons. Next followed 
 his two black assistants naked as I have described them all 
 three with their coils of rope in their hands, like a hangman 
 and his deputies ; then advanced friend Bang and myself, with- 
 out our coats or hats, with handkerchiefs tied round our heads, 
 and our bodies bent down so as to stem the gale as strongly as 
 we could. 
 
 But the planting attorney a great schemer, a kind of Will 
 Wimble in his way had thought fit, of all things in the world, 
 to bring his umbrella, which the wind, as might have been ex- 
 pected, reversed most unceremoniously the moment he attempted 
 to hoist it, and tore it from the staff, so that, on the impulse of 
 the moment, he had to clutch the flying red silk and thrust his 
 head through the centre, where the stick had stood, as if he had 
 been some curious flower. As we turned the corner of the house 
 the full force of the storm met us right in the teeth, when flap 
 flew Don Kicardo's hat past us ; but the two blackamoors had 
 taken the precaution to strap each of theirs down with a strong 
 grass lanyard. We continued to work to windward, while every 
 now and then the hollo came past us on the gale louder and 
 louder, until it guided us to the fording which we had crossed 
 on our first arrival. We stopped there ; the red torrent was 
 rushing tumultuously past us, but we saw nothing save a few 
 wet and shivering negroes on the opposite side, who had shel- 
 tered themselves under a cliff, and were busily employed in 
 attempting to light a fire. The holloing continued. 
 
 " Why, what can be wrong 1 " at length said Don Bicardo, 
 and he shouted to the people on the opposite side. 
 
 He might as well have spared his breath, for, although they 
 saw his gestures and the motion of his lips, they no more heard 
 him than we did them, as they very considerately in return 
 made mouths at us, bellowing, no doubt, that they could not 
 hear us.
 
 320 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Don Ricardo Don Kicardo ! " at this crisis sang out Caspar, 
 who had clambered up the rock, to have a peep about him 
 "A ve Maria Alia son dos pobres, que peresquen pronto, si 
 nosotros no pueden ayudarlos." 
 
 " Whereabouts 1 " said Campana " whereabouts ? speak, man, 
 speak." 
 
 " Down in the valley about a quarter of a league, I see two 
 men on a large rock, in the middle of the stream ; the wind is 
 in that direction, it must be them we heard." 
 
 " God be gracious to us ! true enough true enough, let us 
 go to them then, my children." And we again all cantered off 
 after the excellent Don Ricardo. But before we could reach the 
 spot we had to make a detour, and come down upon it from the 
 precipitous brow of the beetling cliff above, for there was no beach 
 nor shore to the swollen river, which was here very deep and 
 surged, rushing under the hollow bank with comparatively little 
 noise, which was the reason we heard the cries so distinctly. 
 
 The unfortunates who were in peril, whoever they might be, 
 seemed to comprehend our motions, for one of them held out a 
 white handkerchief, which I immediately answered by a similar 
 signal, when the shouting ceased, until, guided by the negroes, 
 we reached the verge of the cliff, and looked down from the red 
 crumbling bank on the foaming water as it swept past beneath. 
 It was here about thirty yards broad, divided by a rocky wedge- 
 like islet, on which grew a profusion of dark bushes and one large 
 tree, whose topmost branches were on a level with us where we 
 stood. This tree was divided, about twelve feet from the root, 
 into two limbs, in the fork of which sat, like a big monkey, no 
 less a personage than Captain Transom himself, wet and drip- 
 ping, with his clothes besmeared with mud, and shivering with 
 cold. At the foot of the tree sat, in rueful mood, a small antique 
 beau of an old man, in a coat which had once been blue silk, 
 wearing breeches, the original colour of which no man could tell, 
 and without his wig, his clear bald pate shining amidst the 
 surrounding desolation like an ostrich's egg. Besides these wor- 
 thies stood two trembling way-worn mules with drooping heads, 
 their long ears hanging down most disconsolately. The moment 
 we came in sight, the skipper hailed us. 
 
 " Why, I am hoarse with bawling, Don Ricardo, but here am 
 I and El Doctor Pavo Real in as sorry a plight as any two gen- 
 tlemen need be. On attempting the ford two hours ago, block- 
 heads as we were beg pardon, Don Pavo " the doctor bowed, 
 and grinned like a baboon " we had nearly been drowned ; in-
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 321 
 
 deed, we should have been drowned entirely, had we not brought 
 up on this island of Barataria here. But how is the young lady ? 
 tell me that," said the excellent-hearted fellow, even in the midst 
 of his own danger. 
 
 " Mind yourself, my beautiful child," cried Bang. " How are 
 we to get you on terra firma ? " 
 
 " Poo in the easiest way possible," rejoined he, with true 
 seaman -like self-possession. "I see you have ropes Tom 
 Cringle, heave me the end of the line which Don Eicardo 
 carries, will you ] " 
 
 " No, no I can do that myself," said Don Bicardo, and with 
 a swing he hove the leathern noose at the skipper, and whipped 
 it over his neck in a twinkling. The Scotch Spaniard, I saw, 
 was pluming himself on his skill, but Transom was up to him, 
 for in an instant he dropped out of it, while, in slipping through, 
 he let it fall over a broken limb of the tree. 
 
 " Such an eel such an eel ! " shouted the attendant negroes, 
 both expert hands with the lasso themselves. 
 
 " Now, Don Bicardo, since I am not to be had, make your 
 end of the thong fast round that large stone there." Campana 
 did so. " Ah, that will do." And so saying, the skipper warped 
 himself to the top of the cliff with great agility. He was no 
 sooner in safety himself, however, than the idea of having left 
 the poor doctor in peril flashed on him. 
 
 " I must return I must return ! If the river rises, the body 
 will be drowned out and out." And, notwithstanding our en- 
 treaties, he did return as he came, and, descending the tree, 
 began apparently to argue with the little medico, and to endea- 
 vour to persuade him to ascend, and make his escape as he him- 
 self had done ; but it would not do. Pavo Beal as brave a 
 little man as ever was seen made many salaams and obeisances, 
 but move he would not. He shook his head repeatedly, in a 
 very solemn way, as if he had said, " My very excellent friends, 
 I am much obliged to you, but it is impossible; my dignity 
 would be compromised by such a proceeding." 
 
 Presently Transom appeared to wax very emphatic, and pointed 
 to a pinnacle of limestone rock, which had stood out like a small 
 steeple above the surface of the flashing, dark red eddies, when 
 we first arrived on the spot, but now only stopped the water 
 with a loud gurgle, the top rising and disappearing as the stream 
 surged past, like a buoy jangling in a tideway. The small man 
 still shook his head, but the water now rose so rapidly that 
 there was scarcely dry standing-room for the two poor devils of 
 
 x
 
 322 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 mules, while the doctor and the skipper had the greatest diffi- 
 culty in finding a footing for themselves. 
 
 Time and circumstances began to press, and Transom, after 
 another unavailing attempt to persuade the doctor, began appar- 
 ently to rouse himself and muster his energies. He first drove 
 the mules forcibly into the stream at the side opposite where we 
 stood, which was the deepest water, and least broken by rocks 
 and stones, and we had the pleasure to see them scramble out 
 safe and sound ; he then put his hand to his mouth, and hailed 
 us to throw him a rope it was done he caught it, and then 
 by a significant gesture to Campana, gave him to understand 
 that now was the time. The Don comprehending him, hove his 
 noose with great precision, right over the little doctor's head, 
 and before he recovered from his surprise the captain slipped it 
 under his arms and signed to haul tight, while the medico kicked 
 and spurred and backed like a restive horse. At one and the 
 same moment Transom made fast a guy round his waist, and 
 we hoisted away while he hauled on the other line, so that we 
 landed the Lilliputian Esculapius safe on the top of the bank, 
 with the wind nearly out of his body, however, from his violent 
 exertions and the running of the noose. 
 
 It was now the work of a moment for the captain to ascend the 
 tree and again warp himself ashore, when he set himself to apo- 
 logise with all his might and main, pleading strong necessity ; 
 and, having succeeded in pacifying the offended dignity of the 
 doctor, we turned towards the house. 
 
 " Look out, there," sang out Campana sharply. 
 
 Time, indeed, thought I, for right ahead of us, as if an in- 
 visible gigantic ploughshare had passed over the woods, a valley 
 or chasm was suddenly opened down the hill-side with a noise 
 like thunder, and branches and whole limbs of trees were in- 
 stantly torn away and tossed into the air like straws. 
 
 " Down on your noses, my fine fellows," cried the skipper. 
 We were all flat in an instant, except the medico the stubborn 
 little brute who stood until the tornado reached him, when in 
 a twinkling he was cast on his back, with a violence sufficient, 
 as I thought, to have driven his breath for ever and aye out of 
 his body. While we lay we heard all kinds of things hurtle past 
 us through the air, pieces of timber, branches of trees, coffee- 
 bushes, and even stones. Presently it lulled again, and we got 
 on end to look round us. 
 
 " How will the old house stand all this, Don Bicardo ? " said 
 the drenched skipper. He had to shout to be heard. The Don
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 323 
 
 was too busy to answer, but once more strode on towards the 
 dwelling, as if he expected something even worse than we had 
 experienced to be still awaiting us. By the time we reached it 
 it was full of negroes, men, women, and children, whose huts 
 had already been destroyed poor, drenched, miserable devils, 
 with scarcely any clothing ; and to crown our comfort, we found 
 the roof leaking in many places. By this time the night began 
 to fall, and our prospects were far from flattering. The rain had 
 entirely ceased, nor was there any lightning, but the storm was 
 most tremendous blowing in gusts, and veering round from 
 east to north with the speed of thought. The force of the gale, 
 however, gradually declined, until the wind subsided altogether, 
 and everything became quite still The low murmured con- 
 versation of the poor negroes who environed us was heard dis 
 tinctly ; the hard breathing of the sleeping children could even be 
 distinguished. But I was by no means sure that the hurricane 
 was over, and Don liicardo and the rest seemed to think as I did, 
 for there was not a word interchanged between us for some time. 
 
 " Do you hear that ] " at length said Aaron Bang, as a low 
 moaning sound rose wailing into the night air. It approached 
 and grew louder. 
 
 " The voice of the approaching tempest amongst the higher 
 branches of the trees," said the captain. 
 
 The rushing noise overhead increased, but still all was so calm 
 where we sat that you could have heard a pin drop. Poo, 
 thought I, it has passed over us after all no fear now, when one 
 reflects how completely sheltered we are. Suddenly, however, 
 the lights in the room where the body lay were blown out, and 
 the roof groaned and creaked as if it had been the bulkheads 
 of a ship in a tempestuous sea, 
 
 " We shall have to cut and run from this anchorage presently, 
 after all," said I ; " the house will never hold on till morning." 
 
 The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when, as if a 
 thunderbolt had struck it, one of the windows in the hall was 
 driven in with a roar, as if the falls of Niagara had been pour- 
 ing overhead, and the tempest having thus forced an entrance, 
 the roof of that part of the house where we sat was blown up 
 as if by gunpowder ay, in the twinkling of an eye ; and there 
 we were with the bare walls, and the angry heavens overhead, 
 and the rain descending in bucketfuls. Fortunately, two large 
 joists or couples, being deeply imbedded in the substance of the 
 walls, remained, when the rafters and ridgepole were torn away, 
 or we must have been crushed in the ruins.
 
 324 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 There was again a death-like lull, the wind fell to a small 
 melancholy sough amongst the tree-tops, and once more, where 
 we sat, there was not a breath stirring. So complete was the 
 calm now, that after a light had been struck, and placed on the 
 floor in the middle of the room, showing the surrounding group 
 of shivering half-naked savages with fearful distinctness, the 
 flame shot up straight as an arrow, clear and bright, although 
 the distant roar of the storm still thundered afar off as it rushed 
 over the mountain above us. 
 
 This unexpected stillness frightened the women even more 
 than the fierceness of the gale, when at the loudest, had done. 
 
 " We must go forth," said Sefiora Campana ; " the elements 
 are only gathering themselves for a more dreadful hurricane 
 than what we have already experienced. We must go forth to 
 the little chapel in the wood, or the next burst may, and will, 
 bury us under the walls :" and she moved towards Maria's room, 
 where, by this time, lights had again been placed. " We must 
 move the body," we could hear her say ; " we must all proceed 
 to the chapel ; in a few minutes the storm will be raging again 
 louder than ever." 
 
 " And my wife is very right," said Don Ricardo ; " so Gaspar, 
 call the other people ; have some mats, and quatres, and mat- 
 tresses carried down to the chapel, and we shall all remove, for, 
 Avith half of the roof gone, it is but tempting the Almighty to 
 remain here longer." 
 
 The word was passed and we were soon under weigh, four 
 negroes leading the van, carrying the uncoffined body of the 
 poor girl on a sofa ; while two servants, with large splinters of 
 a sort of resinous wood for flambeaux, walked by the side of it. 
 Next followed the women of the family, covered up with all 
 the cloaks and spare garments that could be collected : then 
 came Don Picador Cangrejo, with Ricardo Campana, the skipper, 
 Aaron Bang, and myself the procession being closed by the 
 household negroes, with more lights, which all burned steadily 
 and clear. 
 
 We descended through a magnificent natural avenue of lofty 
 trees (whose brown moss-grown trunks and fantastic boughs 
 were strongly lit up by the blaze of the torches ; while the fresh 
 white splinter-marks, where the branches had been torn off by 
 the storm, glanced bright and clear, and the rain-drops on the 
 dark leaves sparkled like diamonds) towards the river, along 
 whose brink the brimful red-foaming waters rushed past us, 
 close by the edge of the path, now ebbing suddenly a foot or so,
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 325 
 
 and then surging up again beyond their former bounds, as if 
 large stones or trunks of trees above were from time to time 
 damming up the troubled waters and then giving way. After 
 walking about four hundred yards we came to a small but mas- 
 sive chapel, fronting the river, the back part resting against a 
 rocky bank, with two superb cypress-trees growing, one on each 
 side of the door ; we entered, Padre Carera leading the way. 
 The whole area of the interior of the building did not exceed a 
 parallelogram of twenty feet by twelve. At the eastern end, 
 fronting the door, there was a small altar-piece of hardwood, 
 richly ornamented with silver, and one or two bare wooden 
 benches standing on the tiled floor ; but the chief security we 
 had that the building would withstand the storm, consisted in 
 its having no window or aperture whatsoever, excepting two 
 small ports, one on each side of the altar-piece, and the door, 
 which was a massive frame of hardwood planking. 
 
 The body was deposited at the foot of the altar, and the ladies, 
 having been wrapped up in cloaks and blankets, were safely 
 lodged in quatres, while we, the gentlemen of the comfortless 
 party, seated ourselves, disconsolately enough, on the wooden 
 benches. 
 
 The door was made fast, after the servants had kindled a 
 blazing wood-fire on the floor ; and although the flickering light 
 cast by the wax tapers in the six large silver candlesticks which 
 were planted beside the bier, as it blended with the red glare of 
 the fire, and fell strong on the pale uncovered features of the 
 corpse, and on the anxious faces of the women, was often start- 
 ling enough, yet being conscious of a certain degree of security 
 from the thickness of the walls, we made up our minds to spend 
 the night where we were as well as we could. 
 
 " I say, Tom Cringle," said Aaron Bang, " all the females are 
 snug there, you see ; we have a blazing fire on the hearth, and 
 here is some comfort for we men slaves ;" whereupon he pro- 
 duced two bottles of brandy. Don Ricardo Campana, with 
 whom Bang seemed now to be absolutely in league, or, in vulgar 
 phrase, as thick as pickpockets, had brought a goblet of water, 
 and a small silver drinking cup, with him, so we passed the 
 creature round, and tried all we could to while away the tedious 
 night. But, as if a sudden thought had struck Aaron, he here 
 tucked the brandy bottle under his arm, and asking me to 
 carry the vessel with the water, he advanced, cup in hand, 
 towards the ladies 
 
 " Now, Tom, interpret carefully."
 
 326 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Ahem Madam and Signoras, this is a heavy night for all 
 of us, but the chapel is damp allow me to comfort you." 
 
 " Muchisimos gracias," was the gratifying answer, and Bang 
 accordingly gave each of our fair friends a heart-warming taste 
 of brandy-and-water. There was now a calm for a full hour, 
 and the captain had stepped out to reconnoitre ; on his return 
 he reported that the swollen stream had very much subsided. 
 
 " Well, we shall get away, I hope, to-morrow morning, after 
 all," whispered Bang. 
 
 He had scarcely spoken when it began to pelt and rain again, 
 as if a waterspout had burst overhead, but there was no wind. 
 
 " Come, that is the clearing up of it," said Cloche. 
 
 At this precise moment the priest was sitting with folded 
 arms beyond the body, on a stool or trestle, in the alcove or re- 
 cess where it lay. Right overhead was one of the small round 
 apertures in the gable of the chapel, which, opening on the bank, 
 appeared to the eye a round black spot in the whitewashed wall. 
 The bright wax-lights shed a strong lustre on the worthy deriyo'.i 
 figure, face, and fine bald head, which shone like silver, while 
 the deeper light of the embers on the floor was reflected in ruby 
 tints from the larger silver crucifix that hung at his waist The 
 rushing of the swollen river prevented me hearing distinctly, 
 but it occurred to me once or twice that a strange gurgling 
 sound proceeded from the aforesaid round aperture. The padre 
 seemed to hear it also, for every now and then he looked up, 
 and once he rose and peered anxiously through it ; but, appar- 
 ently unable to distinguish anything, he sat down again. How 
 ever, my attention had been excited, and, half asleep as I was, 
 I kept glimmering in the direction of the derigo. 
 
 The captain's deep snore had gradually lengthened out, so as 
 to vouch for hits forgetfulness, and Bang, Ricardo, Dr Pavo Real, 
 and the ladies, had all subsided into the most perfect quietude, 
 when I noticed, and I quaked and trembled like an aspen leaf 
 as I did so, a long black paw thrust through, and down from the 
 dark aperture immediately over Padre Carera's head, which, 
 whatever it was, it appeared to scratch sharply, and then giving 
 the caput a smart cuff, vanished. The priest started, put up 
 his hand, and rubbed his head, but seeing nothing, again leant 
 back, and was about departing to the land of nod, like the others, 
 once more. However, in a few minutes the same paw again 
 protruded, and this time a peering black snout, with two glanc- 
 ing eyes, was thrust through the hole after it. The paw kept 
 swinging about like a pendulum for a few seconds, and was then
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 327 
 
 suddenly thrust into the padrds open mouth as he lay back 
 asleep, and again giving him another smart crack, vanished as 
 before. 
 
 " Hobble, gobble," gurgled the priest, nearly choked. " Ave 
 Maria purissima, que bocado what a mouthful ! What can 
 that be ? " 
 
 This was more than I knew, I must confess, and altogether I 
 was consumedly puzzled, but, from a disinclination to alarm the 
 women, I held my tongue. Padre Carera this time moved away 
 to the other side from beneath the hole, but still within two feet 
 of it ; in fact, he could not get in this direction farther for the 
 altar-piece, and being still half asleep, he lay back once more 
 against the wall to finish his nap, taking the precaution, how- 
 ever, to clap on his long shovel hat, shaped like a small canoe, 
 crosswise, with the peaks standing out from each side of his 
 head, in place of wearing it fore and aft, as usual Well, thought 
 I, a strange party certainly ; but drowsiness was fast settling 
 down on me also, when the same black paw was again thrust 
 through the hole, and I distinctly heard a nuzzling, whining, 
 short bark. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, but before I was 
 quite awake, the head and neck of a large Newfoundland dog 
 was shoved into the chapel through the round aperture, and 
 making a long stretch, with the black paws thrust down and 
 resting on the wall, supporting the creature, the animal suddenly 
 snatched the padre's hat off his head, and giving it an angry 
 worry as much as to say, " Confound it, I had hoped to have 
 the head in it " it dropped it on the floor, and with a loud yell, 
 Sneezer, my own old dear Sneezer, leaped into the midst of us, 
 floundering amongst the sleeping women, and kicking the fire- 
 brands about, making them hiss again with the water he shook 
 from his shaggy coat, and frightening all hands like the very 
 devil. 
 
 " Sneezer, you villain, how came you here 1 " I exclaimed, in 
 great amazement " how came you here, sir 1 " The dog knew 
 me at once, and when benches were reared against him, after the 
 women had huddled into a corner, and everything was in sad 
 confusion, he ran to me, and leaped on my neck, gasping and 
 yelping ; but finding that I was angry, and in no mood for toy- 
 ing, he planted himself on end so suddenly, in the middle of 
 the floor, close by the fire, that all our hands were stayed, and 
 no one could find in his heart to strike the poor dumb brute, he 
 sat so quiet and motionless. ' " Sneezer, my boy, what have you 
 to say where have you come from 1 " He looked in the direc-
 
 328 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 tion of the door, and then walked deliberately towards it, and 
 tried to open it with his paws. 
 
 "Now," said the captain, "that little scamp, who would 
 insist on riding with me to St Jago, to see, as he said, if he 
 might not be of use in fetching the surgeon from the ship in 
 case I could not find Dr Bergara, has come back, although I 
 desired him to stay on board. The puppy must have returned 
 in his cursed troublesome zeal, for in no other way could your 
 dog be here. Certainly, however, he did not know that I had 
 fallen in with Dr Pavo Real ; " and the good-natured fellow's 
 heart melted as he continued " Returned ! why, he may be 
 drowned Cringle, take care little Reefpoint be not drowned." 
 
 Sneezer lowered his black snout, and for a moment poked it 
 into the white ashes of the fire, and then raising it and stretch- 
 ing his neck upward to its full length, he gave a short bark, and 
 then a long loud howL 
 
 " My life upon it, the poor boy is gone," said I. 
 
 " But what can we do? " said Don Ricardo ; " it is as dark as 
 pitch." 
 
 And we again set ourselves to have a small rally at the brandy- 
 and- water, as a resolver of our doubts, whether we should sit still 
 till daybreak, or sally forth now, and run the chance of being 
 drowned, with but small hope of doing any good ; and the old 
 priest having left the other end of the chapel, where the ladies 
 were once more reposing, now came to join our council of war, 
 and to have his share of the agua ardiente. 
 
 The noise of the rain increased, and there was still a little 
 puff of wind now and then, so that the padre, taking an alfom- 
 bra, or small mat used to kneel on, and placing it on the step 
 where the folding-doors opened inwards, took a cloak on his 
 shoulders, and sat himself down with his back against the 
 leaves, to keep them closed, as the lock or bolt was broken, and 
 was in the act of swigging off his cupful of comfort, when a 
 strong gust drove the door open, as if the devil himself had 
 kicked it, capsized the padre, blew out the lights once more, and 
 scattered the brands of the fire all about us. Transom and I 
 started up, the women shrieked ; but before we could get the 
 door to again, in rode little Reefpoint on a mule, with the doctor 
 of the Firebrand behind him, bound, or lashed, as we call it, to 
 him by a strong thong. The black servants and the females 
 took them for incarnate fiends, I fancy, for the yells and shrieks 
 they set up were tremendous. 
 
 " Yo, ho ! " sang out little Reefy ; " don't be frightened, ladies
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 329 
 
 Lord love ye, I am half drowned, and the doctor here is alto- 
 gether so quite entirely drowned, I assure you. I say, medico, 
 an't it true ] " And the little Irish rogue slewed his head round, 
 and gave the exhausted doctor a most comical look. 
 
 " Not quite," quoth the doctor, " but deuced near it. I say, 
 captain, would you have known us ? why, we are dyed chocolate 
 colour, you see, in that river, flowing not with milk and honey, 
 but with something miraculously like pea-soup water, I cannot 
 call it" 
 
 " But, Heaven help us, why did you try the ford, man 1 " said 
 Bang. 
 
 "You may say that, sir," responded icee Reefy; "but our 
 mule was knocked up, and it was so dark and tempestuous that 
 we should have perished by the road if we had tried back for 
 St Jago ; so seeing a light here the only indication of a living 
 thing and the stream looking narrow and comparatively quiet 
 confound it, it was all the deeper though we shoved across." 
 
 " But, bless me, if you had been thrown in the stream lashed 
 together as you are, you would have been drowned to a cer- 
 tainty," said the captain. 
 
 " Oh," said little Reefy, " the doctor was not on the mule in 
 crossing no, no, captain, I knew better- I had him in tow, sir ; 
 but after we crossed he was so faint and chill, that I had to lash 
 myself to him to keep him from sliding over the animal's counter, 
 and walk he could not." 
 
 " But, Master Reefpoint, why came you back ] did I not desire 
 you to remain on board of the Firebrand, sir] " 
 
 The midshipman looked nonplussed. " Why, captain, I forgot 
 to take my clothes with me, and and in truth, sir, I thought 
 our surgeon would be of more use than any outlandish gallipot 
 that you could carry back." 
 
 The good intentions of the lad saved him further reproof, 
 although I could not help smiling at his coming back for his 
 clothes, when his whole wardrobe on starting was confined to 
 the two false collars and a tooth-brash. 
 
 " But where is the young lady] " said the doctor. 
 
 "Beyond your help, my dear doctor," said the skipper; "she 
 is dead all that remains of her you see within that small rail- 
 ing there." 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! " quoth the medico, " poor girl poor girl 
 deep decline wasted, terribly wasted," said he, as he returned 
 from the railing of the altar-piece, where he had been to look 
 down upon the body ; and then, as if there never had been such
 
 330 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 a being as poor Maria Olivera in existence, he continued, " Pray,. 
 Mr Bang, what may you have in that bottle 1 " 
 
 " Brandy, to be sure, doctor," said Bang. 
 
 " A thimbleful, then, if you please." 
 
 " By all means." And the planting attorney handed the black 
 bottle to the surgeon, who applied it to his lips without more 
 circumlocution. 
 
 " Lord love us ! poisoned Oh, gemini ! " 
 
 " Why, doctor," said Transom, " what has come over you? " 
 
 " Poisoned, captain only taste." 
 
 The bottle contained soy. It was some time before we could 
 get the poor man quieted ; and when at length he was stretched 
 along a bench, and the fire stirred up, and new wood added to 
 it, the fresh air of early morning began to be scented. At this 
 time we missed Padre Carera, and, in truth, we all fell fast 
 asleep; but in about an hour or so afterwards I was awoke 
 by some one stepping across me. The same caxise had stirred 
 Transom. It was Aaron Bang, who had been to look out at 
 the door. 
 
 " I say, Cringle, look here the padre and the servants are 
 digging a grave close to the chapel are they going to bury the 
 poor girl so suddenly?" 
 
 I stepped to the door ; the wind had entirely fallen, but it 
 rained very fast. The small chapel door looked out on the still 
 swollen but subsiding river, and beyond that on the mountain 
 which rose abruptly from the opposite bank. On the side of the 
 hill facing us was situated a negro village of about thirty huts, 
 where lights were already twinkling, as if the inmates were pre- 
 paring to go forth to their work. Far above them, on the ridge, 
 there was a clear cold streak towards the east, against which the 
 outline of the mountain, and the large trees which grew on it, 
 were sharply cut out ; but overhead the firmament was as yet 
 dark and threatening. The morning star had just risen, and 
 was sparkling bright and clear through the branches of a magni- 
 ficent tree that shot out from the highest part of the hill ; it 
 seemed to have attracted the captain's attention as well as mine. 
 
 " Were I romantic now, Mr Cringle, I could expatiate on that 
 view. How cold and clear and chaste everything looks ! The 
 elements have subsided into a perfect calm ; everything is quiet 
 and still, but there is no warmth, no comfort in the scene." 
 
 " What a soaking rain ! " said Aaron Bang ; " why, the drops 
 are as small as pin-points, and so thick ! a Scotch mist is a 
 joke to them. Unusual all this, captain. You know our rain
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 331 
 
 in Jamaica usually descends in bucketf uls unless it be regularly 
 set in for a week, and then, but then only, it becomes what in 
 England we are in the habit of calling a soaking rain. One 
 good thing, however, while it descends so quietly, the earth will 
 absorb it all, and that furious river will not continue swollen." 
 
 " Probably not," said I. 
 
 " Mr Cringle," said the skipper, " do you mark that tree on 
 the ridge of the mountain that large tree in such conspicuous 
 relief against the eastern sky ? " 
 
 " I do, captain. But Heaven help us ! what necromancy 
 is this? It seems to sink into the mountain-top why, I only 
 see the uppermost branches now ! It has disappeared, and yet 
 the outline of the hill is as distinct and well-defined as ever ; I 
 can even see the cattle on the ridge, although they are running 
 about in a very incomprehensible way certainly." 
 
 " Hush ! " said Don Bicardo, " hush ! the padre is reading the 
 funeral service in the chapel, preparatory to the body being 
 brought out." 
 
 And so he was. But a low grumbling noise, gradually in- 
 creasing, was now distinctly audible. The monk hurried on 
 with the prescribed form he finished it and we were about 
 moving the body to carry it forth, Bang and I being in the very 
 act of stooping down to lift the bier, when the captain sang out 
 sharp and quick " Here, Tom ! " the urgency of the appeal 
 abolishing the Mister " Here ! zounds, the whole hill-side is in 
 motion!" And as he spoke, I beheld the negro village, that 
 hung on the opposite bank, gradually fetch away, houses, trees,, 
 and all, with a loud, harsh, grating sound. 
 
 " God defend us ! " I involuntarily exclaimed. 
 
 "Stand clear," shouted the skipper; "the whole hill -side 
 opposite is under weigh, and we shall be bothered here pre- 
 sently." 
 
 He was right ; the entire face of the hill over against us was 
 by this time in motion, sliding over the substratum of rock like 
 a first-rate gliding along the well-greased ways at launching an 
 earthly avalanche. Presently the rough, rattling, and crashing 
 sound, from the disrupture of the soil, and the breaking of the 
 branches, and tearing up by the roots of the largest trees, gave 
 warning of some tremendous incident. The lights in the huts 
 still burned, but houses and all continued to slide down the de- 
 clivity ; and anon a loud startled exclamation was heard here 
 and there, and then a pause, but the low mysterious hurtling 
 sound never ceased.
 
 :332 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 At length a loud continuous yell echoed along the hill-side. 
 The noise increased the rushing sound came stronger and 
 stronger the river rose higher, and roared louder ; it overleaped 
 the lintel of the door the fire on the floor hissed for a moment, 
 and then expired in smouldering wreaths of white smoke the 
 discoloured torrent gurgled into the chapel, and reached the 
 altar-piece ; and while the cries from the hill-side were highest 
 and bitterest and most despairing, it suddenly filled the chapel 
 to the top of the low door-post; and although the large tapers 
 which had been lit near the altar-piece were as yet unextin- 
 guished, like meteors sparkling on a troubled sea, all was misery 
 and consternation. 
 
 " Have patience and be composed now," shouted Don Ricardo. 
 " If it increases, we can escape through the apertures here, be- 
 hind the altar-piece, and from thence to the high grounds beyond. 
 The heavy rain has loosened the soil on the opposite bank, and 
 it has slid into the river-course, negro houses and all. But be 
 composed, my dears nothing supernatural in all this ; and rest 
 assured, although the river has unquestionably been forced from 
 its channel, that there is no danger, if you will only maintain 
 your self-possession." 
 
 And there we were an inhabitant of a cold climate cannot 
 go along with me in the description. We were all alarmed, but 
 we were not chilled cold is a great damper of bravery. At 
 New Orleans, the black regiments, in the heat of the forenoon, 
 were really the most efficient corps of the army; but in the 
 morning, when the hoar-frost was on the long wire-grass, they 
 were but as a broken reed. " Him too cool for brave to-day," 
 said the sergeant of the grenadier company of the West India 
 regiment which was brigaded in the ill-omened advance when 
 we attacked New Orleans ; but here, having heat, and seeing 
 none of the women egregiously alarmed, we all took heart of 
 grace, and really there was no quailing amongst us. 
 
 Senora Campana and her two nieces, Sefiora Cangrejo and 
 her angelic daughter, had all betaken themselves to a sort of 
 seat, enclosing the altar in a semicircle, with the peasoup-co- 
 loured water up to their knees. Not a word not an exclam- 
 ation of fear escaped from them, although the gushing eddies 
 from the open door showed that the soil from the opposite hill 
 was fast settling down, and usurping the former channel of the 
 river. 
 
 " All very fine this to read of," at last exclaimed Aaron Bang. 
 " Zounds, we shall be drowned. Look out, Transom ; Tom
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 333 
 
 Cringle, look out ; for my part, I shall dive through the door, 
 and take my chance." 
 
 " No use in that," said Don Ricardo ; " the two round open- 
 ings there at the west end of the chapel open on a dry shelf, 
 from which the ground slopes easily upward to the house ; let 
 us put the ladies through them, and then we males can shift for 
 ourselves as we best may." 
 
 At this moment the water rose so high that the bier on which 
 the corpse of poor Maria Olivera lay stark and stiff was floated off 
 the trestles, and, turning on its edge, after glancing for a mo- 
 ment in the light cast by the wax tapers, it sank into the thick 
 brown water, and was no more seen. 
 
 The old priest murmured a prayer, but the effect on us was 
 electric. " Sauve qui pent" was now the cry ; and Sneezer, 
 quite in his element, began to cruise all about, threatening the 
 tapers with instant extinction. 
 
 " Ladies, get through the holes," shouted Don Ricardo. 
 " Captain, get you out first." 
 
 " Can't desert my ship," said the gallant fellow ; " the last to 
 quit where danger is, my dear sir. It is my charter ; but, Mr- 
 Cringle, go you, and hand the ladies out." 
 
 " Indeed I will not," said I. " Beg pardon, sir ; I simply 
 mean to say, that I cannot usurp the pas from you." 
 
 " Then," quoth Don Ricardo a more discreet personage than 
 any of us " I will go myself;" and forthwith he screwed him- 
 self through one of the round holes in the wall behind the altar- 
 piece. " Give me out one of the wax tapers there is no wind 
 now," said Don Ricardo ; " and hand out my wife, Captain 
 Transom." 
 
 " Ave Maria!" said the matron, " I shall never get through 
 that hole." 
 
 " Try, my dear madam," said Bang, for by this time we were 
 all deucedly alarmed at our situation " try, madam ;" and we 
 lifted her towards the hole fairly entered her into it, head fore 
 most, and all was smooth till a certain part of the excellent 
 Avoman's earthly tabernacle stuck fast. 
 
 We could hear her invoking all the saints in the calendar on 
 the outside " to make her thin;" but the flesh and muscle were 
 obdurate ; through she would not go, until delicacy being now 
 blown to the winds Captain Transom placed his shoulder to 
 the old lady's extremity, and with a regular " Oh, heave oh ! " 
 shot her through the aperture into her husband's arms. The 
 young ladies we ejected much more easily, although Francesca
 
 334 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 'angrejo did stick a little too. The priest was next passed, 
 then Don Picador ; and so we went on, until in rotation we had 
 all made our exit, and were perched shivering on the high bank. 
 God defend us ! we had not been a minute there when the rush- 
 ing of the stream increased the rain once more fell in torrents 
 several large trees came down with a fearful impetus in the 
 roaring torrent, and struck the corner of the chapel It shook 
 we could see the small cross on the eastern gable tremble. 
 Another stump surged against it it gave way and in a mi- 
 nute afterwards there was not a vestige remaining of the whole 
 fabric. 
 
 " What a funeral for thee, Maria ! " said Don Ricardo. 
 
 Not a vestige of the body teas ever found. 
 
 There was nothing now for it. We all stopped, and turned, 
 , and looked there was not a stone of the building to be seen 
 all was red, precipitous bank, or dark flowing river so we 
 turned our steps towards the house. The sun by this time had 
 risen. We found the northern range of rooms still entire, so 
 we made the most of it ; and, by dint of the captain's and my 
 nautical skill, before dinner-time there was rigged a canvass 
 jury-roof over the southern part of the fabric, and we were once 
 more seated in comparative comfort at our meal. But it was all 
 melancholy work enough. However, at last we retired to our 
 beds ; and next morning, when I awoke, there was the small 
 stream once more trickling over the face of the rock, with the 
 slight spray wafting into my bedroom a little discoloured, cer- 
 tainly, but as quietly as if no storm had taken place. 
 
 We were kept at Don Picador's for three days, as, from the 
 shooting of the soil from the opposite hill, the river had been 
 dammed up, and its channel altered, so that there was no ventur- 
 ing across. Three negroes were unfortunately drowned, when 
 the bank shot, as Bang called it. But the wonder passed away ; 
 and by nine o'clock on the fourth morning, when we mounted 
 our mules to proceed, there was little apparently on the fair face 
 of nature to mark that such fearful scenes had been. However, 
 when we did get un:ler weigh, we found that the hurricane had 
 not passed over us without leaving fearful evidences of its 
 violence. 
 
 We had breakfasted the women had wept Don Ricardo had 
 blown his nose Aaron Bang had blundered and fidgeted about 
 and the bestias were at the door. We embraced the ladies. 
 
 " My son," said Senora Cangrejo, "we shall most likely never 
 meet again. You have your country to go to you have a
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 335 
 
 mother. Oh, may she never suffer the pangs which have wrung 
 my heart ! But I know I know that she never will." I 
 bowed. "We may never indeed, in all likelihood we shall 
 never meet again ! " continued she, in a rich, deep-toned, mellow 
 voice ; " but if your way of life should ever lead you to Cordova, 
 you will be sure of having many visitors, and many a door will 
 open to you, if you will but give out that you have shown kind- 
 ness to Maria Olivera, or to any one connected with her." She 
 wept, and bent over me, pressing both her hands on the crown 
 of my head. " May that great God, who careth not for rank 
 or station, for nation or for country, bless you, my son bless 
 you ! " 
 
 All this was sorry work. She kissed me on the forehead, and 
 turned away. Her daughter was standing close to her, " like 
 Niobe, all tears." "Farewell, Mr Cringle may you be happy ! " 
 I kissed her hand she turned to the captain. He looked in- 
 expressible things, and, taking her hand, held it to his breast ; 
 and then, making a slight genuflection, pressed it to his lips. 
 He appeared to be amazingly energetic, and she seemed to 
 struggle to be released. He recovered himself, however made 
 a solemn bow the ladies vanished. We shook hands with old 
 Don Picador, mounted our mules, and bid a last adieu to the 
 Valley of the Hurricane. 
 
 We ambled along for some time in silence. At length the 
 skipper dropped astern, until he got alongside of me. " I say, 
 Tom" I was well aware that he never called "me Tom unless 
 he was fou, or his heart was full, honest man " Tom, what 
 think you of Francesca Cangrejo ? " 
 
 Oh ho ! sits the wind in that quarter 1 thought I. " Why, 
 I don't know, captain I have seen her to disadvantage so 
 much misery fine woman though rather large to my taste 
 but " 
 
 " Confound your Ints" quoth the captain. " But never mind 
 push on, push on." I may tell the gentle reader in his ear, 
 that the worthy fellow, at the moment when I send this chapter 
 to the press, has his flag, and that Francesca Cangrejo is no less 
 a personage than his wife. 
 
 However, let us go along. " Doctor Pavo Real," said Don 
 Bicardo, " now, since you have been good enough to spare us a 
 day, let us get the heart of your secret out of you. Why, you 
 must have been pretty well frightened on the island there." 
 
 " Never so much frightened in my life, Don Bicardo ; that 
 English captain is a most tempestuous man but all has ended
 
 336 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 well ; and after having seen you to the crossing, I will bid you 
 good-bye." 
 
 " Poo nonsense. Come along here is the English medico, 
 your brother Esculapius ; so, come along, you can return in the 
 morning." 
 
 " But the sick folk in Santiago " 
 
 " Will be none the sicker for your absence, Dr Pavo Real," 
 responded Don Ricardo. 
 
 The little doctor laughed, and away we all cantered Don 
 Ricardo leading, followed by his wife and nieces, on three stout 
 mules, sitting, not on side-saddles, but on a kind of chair, with 
 a foot-board on the larboard side to support the feet ; then fol- 
 lowed the two Galens, and little Reef point, while the captain 
 and I brought up the rear. We had not proceeded five hundred 
 yards, when we were brought to a standstill by a mighty tree, 
 which had been thrown down by the wind fairly across the road. 
 On the right hand there was a perpendicular rock rising up to 
 a height of five hundred feet ; and on the left an equally preci- 
 pitous descent, without either ledge or parapet to prevent one 
 from falling over. What was to be done 1 We could not by 
 any exertion of strength remove the tree ; and if we sent back 
 for assistance, it would have been a work of time. So we dis- 
 mounted, got the ladies to alight, and Aaron Bang, Transom, 
 and myself, like true knights-errant, undertook to ride the mulos 
 over the stump. 
 
 Aaron Bang led gallantly, and made a deuced good jump of 
 it ; Transom followed, and made not quite so clever an exhibi- 
 tion ; I then rattled at it, and down came mule and rider. How- 
 ever, we were accounted for on the right side. 
 
 " But what shall become of us? " shouted the English doctor. 
 
 " And as for me, / shall return," said the Spanish medico. 
 
 " Lord love you, no," said little Reefpoint ; " here, lash me 
 to my beast, and no fear." The doctor made him fast, as de- 
 sired, round the mule's neck with a stout thong, and then drove 
 him at the barricade, and over they came, man and beast, al- 
 though, to tell the truth, little Reefy alighted well out on the 
 neck, with a hand grasping each ear. However, he was a gallant 
 little fellow, and in nowise discouraged, so he undertook to 
 bring over the other quadrupeds ; and in little more than a 
 quarter of an hour we were all under weigh on the opposite side, 
 in full sail towards Don Ricardo's property. But as we pro- 
 ceeded up the valley, the destruction caused by the storm be- 
 came more and more apparent. Trees were strewn about in all
 
 THE LEAP. 
 
 Page 336.
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 337 
 
 directions, having been torn up by the roots road there was 
 literally none ; and by the time we reached the coffee estate, 
 after a ride, or scramble, more properly speaking, of three hours, 
 we were all pretty much tired. In some places the road at the 
 best was but a rocky shelf of limestone not exceeding twelve 
 inches in width, where, if you had slipped, down you would have 
 gone a thousand feet. At this time it was white and clean, as 
 if it had been newly chiselled, all the soil and sand having been 
 washed away by the recent heavy rains. 
 
 The situation was beautiful; the house stood on a platform 
 scraped out of the hill-side, with a beautiful view of the whole 
 country down to St Jago. The accommodation was good ; more 
 comforts, more English comforts, in the mansion than I had yet 
 seen in Cuba ; and as it was built with solid slabs of limestone, 
 and roofed with strong hardwood timbers and rafters, and tiled, 
 it had sustained comparatively little injury, having the advan- 
 tage of being at the same time sheltered by the overhanging 
 cliff. It stood in the middle of a large platform of hard sun- 
 dried clay, plastered over, and as white as chalk, which extended 
 about forty feet from the eaves of the house, in every direction, 
 on which the coffee was cured. This platform was surrounded 
 on all sides by the greenest grass I had ever seen, and over- 
 shadowed, not the house alone, but the whole level space, by 
 one vast wild fig-tree. 
 
 " I say, Tom, do you see that Scotchman hugging the 
 Creole, eh ? " 
 
 " Scotchman ! " said I, looking towards Don Eicardo, who cer- 
 tainly did not appear to be particularly amorous ; on the contrary, 
 we had just alighted, and the worthy man was enacting groom. 
 
 " Yes," continued Bang, " the Scotchman hugging the Creole ; 
 look at that tree do you see the trunk of it 1 " 
 
 I did look at it. It was a magnificent cedar, with a tall 
 straight stem, covered over with a curious sort of fretwork, 
 woven by the branches of some strong parasitical plant, which 
 had warped itself round and round it by numberless snake-like 
 convolutions, as if it had been a vegetable Laocoon. The tree 
 itself shot up branchless to the uncommon height of fifty feet ; 
 the average girth of the trunk being four-and-twenty feet, or 
 eight feet in diameter. The leaf of the cedar is small, not unlike 
 the ash ; but when I looked up, I noticed that the feelers of 
 this ligneous serpent had twisted round the larger boughs, and 
 blended their broad leaves with those of the tree, so that it 
 looked like two trees grafted into one ; but, as Aaron Bang said, 
 
 Y
 
 338 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 in a very few years the cedar would entirely disappear, its 
 growth being impeded, its pith extracted, and its core rotted, 
 by the baleful embraces of the wild fig of "this Scotchman 
 hugging the Creole" 
 
 After we had fairly shaken into our places, there was every 
 promise of a very pleasant visit. Our host had a tolerable cellar, 
 and although there was not much of style in his establishment, 
 still there was a fair allowance of comfort, everything considered. 
 The evening after we arrived was most beautiful The house 
 situated on its white plateau of barbicues, as the coffee plat- 
 forms are called, where large piles of the berries in their red 
 cherry-like husks had been blackening in the sun the whole fore- 
 noon, and on which a gang of negroes was now employed cover- 
 ing them up with tarpaulings for the night stood in the centre 
 of an amphitheatre of mountains, the front box, as it were ; the 
 stage part opening on a bird's-eye view of the distant town and 
 harbour, with the everlasting ocean beyond it, the currents and 
 flaws of wind making its surface look like ice, as we were too 
 distant to discern the heaving of the swell or the motion of the 
 billows. The fast-falling shades of evening were deepened by 
 the sombrous shadow of the immense tree overhead, and all down 
 in the deep valley was now becoming dark and undistinguish- 
 able, through the blue vapours that were gradually floating up 
 towards us. To the left, on the shoulder of the Horseshoe Hill, 
 the sunbeams still lingered, and the gigantic shadows of the 
 trees on the right-hand prong were strongly cast across the 
 valley on a red precipitous bank near the top of it. The sun 
 was descending beyond the wood, flashing through the branches, 
 as if they had been on fire. He disappeared. It was a most 
 lovely still evening ; the air but hear the skipper 
 
 " It is the hour when from the boughs 
 
 The nightingale's high note is heard ; 
 It is the hour when lovers' vows 
 
 Seem sweet in every whispered word ; 
 And gentle winds and waters near, 
 Make music to the lonely ear. 
 Each flower the dews have lightly wet, 
 And in the sky the stars are met, 
 And on the wave is deeper blue, 
 And on the leaf is browner hue. 
 And in the heaven that clear obscure, 
 So softly dark, and darkly pure, 
 Which follows the decline of day, 
 When twilight melts beneath the moon away." 
 
 "Well recited, skipper," shouted Bang. " Given as the noble 
 poet's verses should be given. I did not know the extent of
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 339 
 
 your accomplishments ; grown poetical ever since you saw Fran- 
 cesca Cangrejo, eh 1 ?" 
 
 The darkness hid the gallant captain's blushes, if blush he did. 
 
 " I say, Don Ricardo, who are those 1 " half-a-dozen well-clad 
 negroes had approached the house by this time. 
 
 " Ask them, Mr Bang ; take your friend Mr Cringle for an 
 interpreter." 
 
 " Well, I will. Tom, who are they? Ask them do." 
 
 I put the question, " Do you belong to the property 1 " 
 
 The foremost, a handsome negro, answered me, " No, we don't, 
 sir; at least, not till to-morrow." 
 
 "Not till to-morrow ?" 
 
 "No, sir; sbmos caballeros hoy" (we are gentlemen to-day). 
 
 "Gentlemen to-day! and, pray, what shall you be to- 
 morrow ? " 
 
 " Esclavos otra ves" (slaves again, sir), rejoined the poor 
 fellow, nowise daunted. 
 
 " And you, my darling," said I to a nice well-dressed girl, 
 who seemed to be the sister of the spokesman, " what are you 
 to-day, may I ask ? " 
 
 She laughed " Esclava, a slave to-day, but to-morrow I shall 
 be free." 
 
 " Very strange" 
 
 " Not at all, senor ; there are six of us in a family, and one of 
 us is free each day, all to father there," pointing to an old grey- 
 headed negro, who stood by, leaning on his staff " he is free 
 two days in the week ; and as I am going to have a child," a 
 cool admission, " I want to buy another day for myself too ; 
 but Don Ricardo will tell you all about it." 
 
 The Don by this time chimed in, talking kindly to the poor 
 creatures ; but we had to retire, as dinner was now announced, 
 to which we sat down. 
 
 Don Ricardo had been altogether Spanish in Santiago, because 
 he lived there amongst Spaniards, and everything was Spanish 
 about him ; so with the tact of his countrymen he had gradually 
 merged into the society in which he moved, and, having married 
 a very high-caste Spanish lady, he at length became regularly 
 amalgamated with the community. But here, in his mountain 
 retreat, sole master, his slaves in attendance on him, he was once 
 more an Englishman in externals, as he always was at heart, 
 and Richie Cloche, from the Lang Toun of Kirkcaldy, shone 
 forth in all his glory as the kind-hearted landlord. His head 
 household servant was an English, or rather a Jamaica negro ;
 
 340 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 his equipment, so far as the dinner set out was concerned, was 
 pure English; he would not even speak anything but English 
 himself. 
 
 The entertainment was exceedingly good, the only thing that 
 puzzled us uninitiated subjects was a fricassee of Macaca worms, 
 that is, the worm which breeds in the rotten trunk of the cotton - 
 tree, a beautiful little insect, as big as a miller's thumb, with a 
 white trunk and a black head in one word, a gigantic caterpillar. 
 
 Bang fed thereon he had been accustomed to it in Jamaica 
 in some Creole families where he visited, he said but it was 
 beyond my compass. However, all this while we were having 
 a great deal of fun, when Senora Campana addressed her hus- 
 band " My dear, you are now in your English mood, so I sup- 
 pose we must go." We had dined at six, and it might now be 
 about eight. Don Kicardo, with all the complacency in the 
 world, bowed, as much as to say, " You are right, my dear, you 
 may go," when his youngest niece addressed him. 
 
 " Tio my uncle," said she, in a low silver-toned voice, " Juana 
 and I have brought our guitars " 
 
 " Not another word to be said," quoth Transom " the guitars 
 by all means." 
 
 The girls in an instant, without any preparatory blushing, or 
 other botheration, rose, slipped their heads and right arms 
 through the black ribbons that supported their instruments, and 
 stepped into the middle of the room. 
 
 " ' The Moorish Maid of Granada,' " said Senora Campana. 
 They nodded. 
 
 "You shall take Fernando the sailor's part," said Senora 
 Candalaria, the youngest sister, to Juana, " for your voice is 
 deeper than mine, and I shall be Anna." 
 
 " Agreed," said Juana, with a lovely smile, and an arch twinkle 
 of her eye towards me, and then launched forth in full tide, 
 accompanying her sweet and mellow voice on that too much 
 neglected instrument, the guitar. It was a wild, irregular sort 
 of ditty, with one or two startling arabesque bursts in it. As 
 near as may be, the following conveys the meaning, but not the 
 poetry : 
 
 THE MOORISH MAID OF GRANADA. 
 
 FERNANDO. 
 
 " The setting moon hangs over the hill ; 
 On the dark pure breast of the mountain lake 
 Still trembles her greenish silver wake, 
 And the blue mist floats over the rill.
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 341 
 
 And the cold streaks of dawning appear, 
 Giving token that sunrise is near ; 
 And the fast-clearing east is flushing, 
 And the watery clouds are blushing ; 
 
 And the day-star is sparkling on high, 
 
 Like the fire of my Anna's dark eye. 
 
 ' The ruby-red clouds in the east 
 
 Float like islands upon the sea, 
 When the winds are asleep on its breast ; 
 Ah, would that such calm were for me ! 
 
 ' And $ee, the first streamer-like ray 
 From the unrisen god of day, 
 Is piercing the ruby-red clouds, 
 Shooting up like golden shrouds : 
 And like silver gauze falls the shower, 
 Leaving diamonds on bank, bush, aud bower, 
 Amidst many an unopened flower 
 Why walks the dark maid of Granada? " 
 
 " At evening when labour is done, 
 And cooled in the sea is the sun ; 
 And the dew sparkles clear on the rose, 
 And the flowers are beginning to close. 
 Which at nightfall again in the calm 
 Their incense to God breathe in balm ; 
 And the bat flickers up in the sky, 
 And the beetle hums meaningly by ; 
 And to rest in the brake speeds the deer, 
 While the nightingale sings loud and clear. 
 
 " Scorched by the heat of the sun's fierce light, 
 The sweetest flowers are bending most 
 
 Upon their slender stems ; 
 More faint are they than if tempest tost, 
 
 Till they drink of the sparkling gems 
 That fall from the eye of night. 
 
 " Hark ! from lattices guitars are tinkling, 
 And though in heaven the stars are twinkling, 
 No tell-tale moon looks over the mountain, 
 To peer at her pale cold face in the fountain ; 
 
 And serenader's mellow voice. 
 Wailing of war, or warbling of love, 
 
 Of love, while the melting maid of his choice 
 Leans out from her bower above. 
 
 " All is soft and yielding towards night, 
 When blending darkness shrouds all from the sight, 
 But chaste, chaste, is this cold pure light, 
 Sang the Moorish maid of Granada." 
 
 After the song, we all applauded, and the ladies, having made 
 their conges, retired. The captain and I looked towards Aaron 
 Bang and Don Ricardo ; they were tooth and nail at something 
 which we could not understand. So we wisely held our tongues. 
 
 " Very strange all this," quoth Bang. 
 
 " Not at all," said Ricardo. " As I tell you, every slave here 
 can have himself or herself appraised, at any time they may 
 choose, with liberty to purchase their freedom day by day." 
 
 " But that would be compulsory manumission," quoth Bang. 
 
 " And if it be," said Ricardo, " what then 1 The scheme
 
 342 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 works well here why should it not do so there I mean with 
 you, who have so many advantages over us 1 ?" 
 
 This is an unentertaining subject to most people, but having 
 no bias myself, I have considered it but justice to insert in my 
 log the following letter, which Bang, honest fellow, addressed 
 to me, some years after the time I speak of : 
 
 " MY DEAR CRINGLE, Since I last saw you in London, it is 
 nearly, but not quite, three years ago. I considered at the time 
 we parted, that if I lived at the rate of 3000 a-year, I was not 
 spending one-half of my average income, and on the faith of this 
 I did plead guilty to my house in Park Lane, and a carriage for 
 my wife, and, in short, I spent my 3000 a-year. Where am 
 I now 1 ? In the old shop at Mammee Gully my two eldest 
 daughters, little things, in the very middle of their education, 
 hastily ordered out shipped, as it were, like two bales of goods 
 to Jamaica ; my eldest nephew, whom I had adopted, obliged 
 to exchange from the Light Dragoons, and to enter a foot 
 regiment, receiving the difference, which but cleared him from 
 his mess accounts. But the world says I was extravagant. Like 
 Timon, however no, d n Timon I spent money when I 
 thought I had it, and therein I did no more than the Duke of 
 Bedford, or Lord Grosvenor, or many another worthy peer ; and 
 now when I no longer have it, why, I cut my coat by my cloth, 
 have made up my mind to perpetual banishment here, and I owe 
 no man a farthing. 
 
 " But all this is wandering from the subject. We are now 
 asked in direct terms to free our slaves. I will not even glance 
 at the injustice of this demand, the horrible infraction of rights 
 that it would lead to ; all this I will leave untouched ; but, my 
 dear fellow, were men in your service or the army to do us jus- 
 tice, each in his small sphere in England, how much good might 
 you not do us ! Officers of rank are, of all others, the most in- 
 fluential witnesses we could adduce, if they, like you, have had 
 opportunities of judging for themselves. But I am rambling 
 from my object. You may remember our escapade into Cuba, 
 a thousand years ago, when you were a lieutenant of the Fire- 
 brand. Well, you may also remember Don Ricardo's doctrine 
 regarding the gradual emancipation of the negroes, and how we 
 saw his plan in full operation at least I did, for you knew little 
 of these matters. Well, last year I made a note of what then 
 passed, and sent it to an eminent West India merchant in Lon- 
 don, who had it published in the Courier, but it did not seem
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 343 
 
 to please either one party or the other a signal proof, one would 
 have thought, that there was some good in it. At a later period, 
 I requested the same gentleman to have it published in Black- 
 wood, where it would at least have had a fair trial on its own 
 merits, but it was refused insertion. My very worthy friend 
 
 , who acted for old Kit at that time as secretary of state 
 for colonial affairs, did not like it, I presume ; it trenched a little, 
 it would seem, on the integrity of his great question; it ap- 
 proached to something like compulsory manumission, about 
 which he does rave. Why will he not think on this subject 
 like a Christian man? The country I say so will never sanc- 
 tion the retaining in bondage of any slave, who is willing to pay 
 his master his fair appraised value. 
 
 " Our friend injures us, and himself too, a leeile by his 
 
 ultra notions. However, hear what I propose, and what, as I 
 have told you formerly, was published in the Courier by no less 
 a man than Lord : 
 
 " ' Scheme for the gradual Abolition of Slavery. 
 
 " ' The following scheme of redemption for the slaves in our 
 colonies is akin to a practice that prevails in some of the Spanish 
 settlements. 
 
 " ' We have now bishops (a most excellent measure), and we 
 may presume that the inferior clergy will be much more efficient 
 than heretofore It is therefore proposed, That every slave, 
 on attaining the age of twenty-one years, should be, by Act of 
 Parliament, competent to apply to his parish clergyman, and 
 signify his desire to be appraised. The clergyman's business 
 would then be to select two respectable appraisers from amongst 
 his parishioners, who would value the skve, calling in an umpire 
 if they disagreed. 
 
 " ' As men even of good principles will often be more or less 
 swayed by the peculiar interests of the body to which they 
 belong, the rector should be instructed, if he saw any flagrant 
 swerving from an honest appraisement, to notify the same to 
 his bishop, who, by application to the governor, if need were, 
 could thereby rectify it. When the slave was thus valued, the 
 valuation should be registered by the rector, in a book to be kept 
 for that purpose, an attested copy of which should be annually 
 lodged amongst the archives of the colony. 
 
 " ' We shall assume a case, where a slave is valued for 120, 
 Jamaica currency. He soon, by working by-hours, selling the 
 produce of his provision-grounds, <fcc., acquires 20 ; and how
 
 344 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 easily and frequently this is done, every one knows, who is at 
 all acquainted with West India affairs. 
 
 " ' He then shall have a right to pay to his owner this 20 
 as the price of his Monday for ever, and his owner shall be bound 
 to receive it. A similar sum would purchase him his freedom 
 on Tuesday; and other four instalments, to use a West India 
 phrase, would buy him free altogether. You will notice, I con- 
 sider that he is already free on the Sunday. Now, where is the 
 insurmountable difficulty here ? The planter may be put to in- 
 convenience, certainly great inconvenience, but he has com- 
 pensation, and the slave has his freedom if he deserves it ; and 
 as his emancipation, in nine cases out of ten, would be a work of 
 time, he would, as he approached absolute freedom, become more 
 civilised that is, more fit to be free ; and as he became more 
 civilised, new wants would spring up, so that when he was finally 
 free, he would not be content to work a day or two in the week 
 for subsistence merely. He would work the whole six to buy 
 many little comforts, which, as a slave suddenly emancipated, 
 he never would have thought of. 
 
 " ' As the slave becomes free, I would have his owner's allow- 
 ance of provisions and clothing decrease gradually. 
 
 " ' It may be objected " Suppose slaves partly free to be 
 taken in execution and sold for debt 1 " I answer, let them be 
 so. Why cannot three days of a man's labour be sold by the 
 deputy-marshal as well as six ? 
 
 " ' Again " Suppose the gang is mortgaged, or liable to judg- 
 ments against the owner of it 1 " I still answer, let it be so 
 only, in this case let the slave pay his instalments into court, in 
 place of paying them to his owners, and let him apply to his 
 rector for information in such a case. 
 
 " ' By the register I would have kept, every one could at once 
 see what property an owner had in his gang that is, how many 
 were actually slaves, and how many were in progress of becom- 
 ing free. Thus well-disposed and industrious slaves would soon 
 become freemen. But the idle and icorthless would still continue 
 slaves, and why the devil shouldn't tliey ? 
 
 (Signed) A. B.' " 
 
 There does seem to be a rough, yet vigorous sound sense in 
 all this. But I take leave of the subject, which I do not profess 
 to understand, only I am willing to bear witness in favour of 
 my old friends, so far as I can conscientiously. 
 
 We returned next day to Santiago, and had then to undergo
 
 SCENES IN CUBA. 345 
 
 the bitterness of parting. With me it was a slight affair, but 
 the skipper ! However, I will not dwell on it. We reached the 
 town towards evening. The women were ready to weep, I saw ; 
 but we all turned in, and next morning at breakfast we were 
 moved, I will admit some more, some less. Little Reefy, poor 
 fellow, was crying like a child ; indeed he was little more, being 
 barely fifteen. 
 
 " Oh, Mr Cringle, I wish I had never seen Miss Candalaria 
 de los Dolores ; indeed I do." 
 
 This was Don Ricardo's youngest niece. 
 
 " Ah, Reefy, Reefy," said I, " you must make haste, and be 
 made post, and then " 
 
 " What does he call her 1 " said Aaron. 
 
 " Senora Tomassa Candalaria de los Dolores Gonzales y Val- 
 lejo" blubbered out little Reefy. 
 
 " What a complicated piece of machinery she must be ! " 
 gravely rejoined Bang. 
 
 The meal was protracted to a very unusual length, but time 
 and tide wait for no man. We rose. Aaron Bang advanced to 
 make his bow to our kind hostess; he held out his hand, but 
 she, to Aaron's great surprise apparently, pushed it on one side, 
 and regularly closing with our friend, hugged him in right 
 earnest. I have before mentioned that she was a very small 
 woman ; so, as the devil would have it, the golden pin in her 
 hair was thrust into Aaron's eye, which made him jump back, 
 wherein he lost his balance, and away he went, dragging Madama 
 Campana down on the top of him. However, none of us could 
 laugh now ; we parted, jumped into our boat, and proceeded 
 straight to the anchorage, where three British merchantmen were 
 by this time riding, all ready for sea. We got on board. " Mr 
 Yerk," said the captain, " fire a gun, and hoist blue Peter at the 
 fore. Loose the foretopsail." The masters came on board for 
 their instructions ; we passed but a melancholy evening of it, 
 and next morning I took my last look of Santiago de Cuba.
 
 346 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE CRUISE OF THE WAVE THE ACTION WITH THE SLAVER, 
 
 " O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, 
 Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free. 
 Far as the breeze can hear the billow's foam, 
 Survey our empire, and behold our home, 
 These are our realms, no limits to their sway 
 Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey." 
 
 The Corsair. 
 
 AT three o'clock next morning, about an hour and a half be- 
 fore day-dawn, I was roused from my cot by the gruff voice of 
 the boatswain on deck "All hands up anchor." 
 
 The next moment the gunroom steward entered with a lantern, 
 which he placed on the table " Gentlemen, all hands up anchor, 
 if you please." 
 
 "Botheration! " grumbled one. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " yawned another. 
 
 " How merrily we live that sailors be ! " sang a third, in a most 
 doleful strain, and in all the bitterness of heart consequent on 
 being roused out of a warm nest so unceremoniously. But no 
 help for it ; so up we all got, and, opening the door of my berth, 
 I got out, and sat me down on the bench that ran along the star- 
 board side of the table. 
 
 For the benefit of the uninitiated, let me describe a gunroom 
 on board of a sloop of war. Everybody knows that the captain's 
 cabin occupies the after part of the ship ; next to it, on the same 
 deck, is the gunroom. In a corvette, such as the Firebrand, it 
 is a room, as near as may be, twenty feet long by twelve wide, 
 and lighted by a long scuttle, or skylight, in the deck above. 
 On each side of this room runs a row of small chambers, seven 
 feet long by six feet wide, boarded off from the main saloon, or, 
 in nautical phrase, separated from it by bulkheads, each with a 
 door and small window opening into the same, and, generally 
 speaking, with a small scuttle in the side of the ship towards 
 the sea. These are the officers' sleeping apartments, in which 
 they have each a chest of drawers and basin-stand ; while over- 
 head is suspended a cot, or hammock, kept asunder by a wooden
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 347 
 
 frame, six feet long by about two broad, slung from cleats nailed 
 to the beams above, by two lanyards fastened to rings, one at 
 the head and the other at the foot ; from which radiate a num- 
 ber of smaller cords, which are fastened to the canvass of the 
 cot; while a small strip of canvass runs from head to foot on 
 each side, so as to prevent the sleeper from rolling out. The 
 dimensions of the gunroom are, as will be seen, very much cir- 
 cumscribed by the side berths ; and when you take into account 
 that the centre is occupied by a long table, running the whole 
 length of the room, flanked by a wooden bench, with a high 
 back to it, on each side, and a large clumsy chair at the head 
 and another at the foot, not forgetting the sideboard at the head 
 of the table (full of knives, forks, spoons, tumblers, glasses, &c. 
 &c. <fcc. stuck into mahogany sockets), all of which are made 
 fast to the deck by strong cleats and staples, and bands of spun- 
 yarn, so as to prevent them fetching away, or moving, when the 
 vessel pitches or rolls, you will understand that there is no great 
 scope to expatiate upon, free of the table, benches, and bulkheads- 
 of the cabins. While I sat monopolising the dull light of the 
 lantern, and accoutring myself as decently as the hurry would 
 admit of, I noticed the officers, in their nightgowns and night- 
 caps, as they extricated themselves from their coops ; and pic- 
 turesque-looking subjects enough there were amongst them, in 
 all conscience. At length that is, in about ten minutes from 
 the time we were called we were all at stations, a gun was 
 fired, and we weighed, and then stood out to sea, running along 
 about four knots, with the land-wind right aft. Having made 
 an offing of three miles or so, we outran the terral, and got be- 
 calmed in the belt of smooth water between it and the sea-breeze. 
 It was striking to see the three merchant-ships gradually draw 
 out from the land, until we were all clustered together in a 
 bunch, with half a gale of wind curling the blue waves within 
 musket-shot, while all was long swell and smooth water with us. 
 At length the breeze reached us, and we made sail with our con- 
 voy to the southward and eastward, the lumbering merchantmen 
 crowding every inch of canvass, while we could hardly keep 
 astern, under close-reefed topsails, foresail, jib, and spanker. 
 
 " Pipe to breakfast," said the captain to Mr Yerk. 
 
 " A sail abeam of us to windward ! " 
 
 " What is she ] " sang out the skipper to the man at the mast- 
 head who had hailed. 
 
 " A small schooner, sir ; she has fired a gun, and hoisted an 
 ensign and pennant."
 
 348 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " How is she steering?" 
 
 " She has edged away for us, sir." 
 
 " Very well. Mr Yerk, make the signal for the convoy to 
 tand on. Have the men gone to breakfast 1 ?" 
 
 " No, sir, but they are just going." 
 
 " Then pipe belay with breakfast for a minute. All hands 
 make sail, if you please. Crack on, Mr Yerk, and let us over- 
 haul this small swaggerer." 
 
 In a trice we had all sail set, and were staggering along on 
 the larboard tack, close upon a wind. We hauled out from the 
 merchant-ships like smoke, and presently the schooner was seen 
 from the deck. About this time it fell nearly calm. " Go to 
 breakfast now." The crew disappeared, all to the officers, man 
 at the helm, quartermaster at the conn, and signalman. 
 
 The first-lieutenant had the book open on the drum of the 
 capstan before him. "Make our number," said the captain. 
 It was done. " What does she answer ]" 
 
 The signalmen answered from the fore-rigging, where he had 
 perched himself with his glass " She makes the signal to tele- 
 graph, sir 3, 9, 2, at the fore, sir" and so on ; which trans- 
 lated was simply this " The Wave, with despatches from the 
 admiral" 
 
 " Oh, ho," said Transom ; " what is she sent for 1 Whenever 
 the people have got their breakfast, tack, and stand towards 
 her, Mr Yerk." 
 
 The little vessel approached. " Shorten sail, Mr Yerk, and 
 heave the ship to," said the captain to the first-lieutenant 
 
 " Ay, ay, sir." 
 
 " All hands, Mr Catwell." 
 
 Presently the boatswain's whistle rang sharp and clear, while 
 his gruff voice, to which his mates bore anything but mellow 
 burdens, echoed through the ship "All hands shorten sail 
 fore and mainsails haul up haul down the jib in topgallant- 
 sails now back the main-topsail." 
 
 By heaving-to, we brought the Wave on our weather bow. 
 She was now within a cable's length of the corvette ; the captain 
 was standing on the second foremost gun, on the larboard side. 
 
 " Mafame," to his steward, " hand me up my trumpet." 
 He hailed the little vessel " Ho, the Wave, ahoy ! " 
 
 Presently the responding " hillo ! " came down the wind to 
 us from the officer in command of her, like an echo. 
 
 " Run under our stern and heave-to, to leeward." 
 
 "Ay, ay, sir."
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 349" 
 
 As the Wave came to the wind, she lowered down her boat r 
 and Mr Jigmaree, the boatswain of the dockyard in Jamaica, 
 came on board, and, touching his hat, presented his despatches 
 to the captain. Presently he and the skipper retired into the 
 cabin, and all hands were inspecting the Wave in her new char- 
 acter of one of his Britannic Majesty's cruisers. When I had 
 last seen her, she was a most beautiful little craft, both in hull 
 and rigging, as ever delighted the eye of a sailor ; but the dock- 
 yard riggers and carpenters had fairly bedevilled her, at least so 
 far as appearances went. First, they had replaced the light rail 
 on her gunwale by heavy solid bulwarks four feet high, sur- 
 mounted by hammock-nettings, at least another foot, so that the 
 symmetrical little vessel, that formerly floated on the foam light 
 as a sea-gull, now looked like a clumsy, dish-shaped, Dutch dog- 
 ger. Her long, slender wands of masts, which used to swing 
 about as if there were neither shrouds nor stays to support them,, 
 were now as taut and stiff as church-steeples, with four heavy 
 shrouds of a side, and stays and back-stays, and the devil knows 
 what all 
 
 " Now," quoth Tailtackle, " if them heav'emtauts at the yard 
 have not taken the speed out of the little beauty, I am a Dutch- 
 man." Timotheus, I may state in the bygoing, was not a 
 Dutchman ; but his opinion was sound, and soon verified to my 
 cost. Jigmaree now approached. 
 
 " The captain wants you in the cabin, sir," said he. 
 
 I descended, and found the skipper seated at a table, with 
 his clerk beside him, and several open letters lying before him. 
 " Sit down, Mr Cringle." I took a chair. " There read that," 
 and he threw an open letter across the table to me, which ran 
 as follows : 
 
 " SIR, The Vice- Admiral, commanding on the Jamaica sta- 
 tion, desires me to say, that the bearer, the boatswain of the 
 dockyard, Mr Luke Jigmaree, has instructions to cruise for, and 
 if possible to fall in with you, before you weather Cape Maize, 
 and falling in with you, to deliver up charge of the vessel to 
 you, as well as of the five negroes, and the pilot, Peter Man- 
 grove, who are on board of her. The Wave having been armed 
 and fitted with everything considered necessary, you are to man 
 her with thirty-five of your crew, including officers, and to place 
 her under the command of Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, who is 
 to be furnished with a copy of this letter authenticated by your 
 signature, and to whom you are to give instructions, that he is,.
 
 350 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 first of all, to cruise in the great Cuba channel, until the 1 4th 
 proximo, for the prevention of piracy, and the suppression of the 
 slave trade carried on between the island of Cuba and the coast 
 of Africa, and to detain and carry into Havanna, or Nassau, 
 New Providence, all vessels having slaves on board, which he 
 may have reason to believe have been shipped beyond the pre- 
 scribed limits on the African coast, as specified on the margin ; 
 and after the 14th he is to proceed direct to New Providence, 
 if unsuccessful, there to land Mr Jigmaree and the dockyard 
 negroes, and await your return from the northward, after having 
 seen the merchantmen clear of the Caicos passage. When you 
 have rejoined the Wave at Nassau, you are to proceed with her 
 us your tender to Crooked Island, and there to await instructions 
 from the Vice- Admiral, which shall be transmitted by the packet 
 to sail on the 9th proximo, to the care of the postmaster. I 
 have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 ' , Sec. 
 
 " To the Hon. Captain Transom, 
 " &c. &c. &<x" 
 
 To say sooth, I was by no means amorous of this independent 
 command, as an idea had, at the time I speak of, gone abroad 
 in the navy, that lieutenants commanding small vessels seldom 
 rose higher, unless through extraordinary interest, and I took 
 the liberty of stating my repugnance to my captain. 
 
 He smiled, and threw over another letter to me ; it was a 
 private one from the Admiral's Secretary, and was as follows : 
 
 (Confidential.} 
 
 "My DEAR TRANSOM, The Vice- Admiral has got a hint 
 
 from Sir , to kick that wild splice, young Cringle, about 
 
 a bit. It seems he is a nephew of old Blueblazes, and as he has 
 taken a fancy to the lad, he has promised his mother that he will 
 do his utmost to give him opportunities of being knocked on the 
 head, for all of whicbHhe old lady has professed herself wonder- 
 fully indebted. As the puppy has peculiar notions, hint, directly 
 or indirectly, that he is not to be permanently bolted down to 
 the little Wave, and that if half-a-dozen skippers (you, my dar- 
 ling, among the rest) were to evaporate during the approaching 
 hot months, he may have some small chance of t'other swab. 
 Write me, and mind the claret and curac,oa. Put no address on 
 either ; and on coming to anchor, send notice to old Peterkin in 
 the lodge at the Master Attendant's, and he will relieve you and
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 351 
 
 the pies de gallo* some calm evening, of all further trouble re- 
 garding them. Don't forget the turtle from Crooked Island, 
 and the cigars. Always, my dear Transom, yours sincerely, 
 
 " Oh, I forgot. The Admiral begs you will spare him some 
 steady old hands to act as gunner, boatswain, &c. elderly men, 
 if you please, who will shorten sail before the squall strikes him. 
 If you float him away with a crew of boys, the little scamp will 
 get bothered, or capsized in a jiffy. All this for your worship's 
 government. How do you live with your passenger prime 
 
 fellow, an't he? My love to him. Lady is dying to see 
 
 him again." 
 
 " Well, Mr Cringle, what say you?" 
 
 " Of course, I must obey, sir ; highly flattered by Mr Secre- 
 tary's good opinion, anyhow." The captain laughed heartily. 
 
 " It is nearly calm, I see. We must set about manning this 
 seventy -four for you, without delay. So, come along, Captain 
 Cringle." 
 
 When we got on deck, " Hail the Wave to close, Mr Yerk 
 I shall go in the yawl," said Transom. 
 
 " Lower away the boat, and pipe away the yawlers, boatswain's 
 mate," quoth Yerk. 
 
 Presently the captain and I were on the Wave's deck, where 
 I was much surprised to find no less personages than Pepperpot 
 Wagtail and Paul Gelid, Esquires. Mr Gelid, a Couch, or 
 native of the Bahamas, was the same yawning, drawling, long- 
 legged Creole as ever. He had been ill with fever, and had 
 asked a passage to Nassau, where his brother was established. 
 At bottom, however, he was an excellent fellow, warm-hearted, 
 honourable, and upright. As for little Wagtail oh, he was a 
 delight ! a small round man, with all the Jamaica Creole irrita- 
 bility of temper, but also all the Jamaica warmth of heart about 
 him straightforward, and scrupulously conscientious in his deal- 
 ings, but devoted to good cheer in every shape. He had also 
 been ailing, and had adventured on the cruise in order to recruit. 
 I scarcely know how to describe his figure better than by 
 comparing his corpus to an egg, with his little feet stuck 
 through the bottom of the shell ; but he was amazingly active 
 withal 
 
 * Customhouse officers, from the resemblance of the broad arrow, or mark of seizure, 
 to the impression of a fowl's foot.
 
 352 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Both the captain and myself were rejoiced to see our old 
 friends ; and it was immediately fixed that they should go on 
 board the corvette, and sling their cots alongside of Mr Bang, so 
 long as the courses of the two vessels lay together. This being 
 carried into execution, we set about our arrangements. Our 
 precious blockheads at the dockyard had fitted a thirty-two pound 
 carronade on the pivot, and stuck two long sixes, one on each 
 side of the little vessel. I hate carronades. I had, before now, 
 seen thirty-two pound shot thrown by them jump off a ship's 
 side with a rebound like a football, when a shot from an eighteen- 
 pounder long gun went crash, at the same range, through both 
 sides of the ship, whipping off a leg and arm, or aiblins a head 
 or two, in its transit. 
 
 " My dear sir," said I, " don't shove me adrift with that old 
 pot there do lend me one of your long brass eighteen-pounders." 
 
 " Why, Master Cringle, what is your antipathy to carronades ? " 
 
 " I have no absolute antipathy to them, sir they are all very 
 well in their way. For instance, I wish you would fit me with 
 two twelve-pound carronades instead of those two popgun long 
 sixes. These, with thirty muskets and thirty-five men or so, 
 would make me very complete." 
 
 " A modest request," said Captain Transom. 
 
 " Now, Tom Cringle, you have overshot your mark, my fine 
 fellow," thought I ; but it was all right, and that forenoon the 
 cutter was hoisted out with the guns in her, and the other dis- 
 mounted, and sent back in exchange ; and in fine, after three 
 days' hard work, I took the command of H.B.M. schooner Wave, 
 with Timothy Tailtackle as gunner, the senior midshipman as 
 master, one of the carpenter's crew as carpenter, and a boat- 
 swain's mate as boatswain, a surgeon's mate as surgeon, the 
 captain's clerk, as purser, and thirty foremast-men, besides the 
 blackies, as the crew. But the sailing of the little beauty had 
 been regularly spoiled. We could still in light winds weather 
 on the corvette, it is true, but then she was a slow top unless 
 it blew half a gale of wind ; and as for going anything free, why 
 a sand-barge would have beaten us. 
 
 We kept company with the Firebrand until we weathered 
 Cape Maize. It was near five o'clock in the afternoon, the cor- 
 vette was about half a mile on our lee-bow, when, while walk- 
 ing the deck, after an early dinner, Tailtackle came up to me. 
 
 " The commodore has hove-to, sir." 
 
 "Very like," said I ; "to allow the merchant-ships to close, I 
 presume."
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 353 
 
 " A gun," said little Reefpoint. " All what signal now ] " 
 It was the signal to close. 
 
 " Put the helm up and run down to him," said I. It was 
 done and presently the comfortable feeling of bowling along 
 before the breeze succeeded the sharp yerking digging motion 
 of a little vessel, tearing and pitching through a head sea close 
 upon a wind. The water was buzzing under our bows, and we 
 were once more close on the stern of the corvette. There 
 was a boat alongside ready manned. The captain hailed, " I 
 send your orders on board, Mr Cringle, to bear up on your 
 separate cruise." At the same moment, the Firebrand's ensign 
 and pennant were hoisted. We did the same. A gun from the 
 commodore ditto from the tidy little Wave and, lo ! Thomas 
 Cringle, Esquire, launched for the first time on his own bottom. 
 
 By this time the boat was .alongside, with Messieurs Aaron 
 Bang, Pepperpot Wagtail, and Paul Gelid the former with 
 his cot, and half-a-dozen cases of wine, and some pigs, and 
 some poultry, all under the charge of his black servant. 
 
 " Hillo," said I ; " Mr Wagtail is at home here, you know, 
 Mr Bang, and so is Mr Gelid ; but to what lucky chance am I 
 indebted for your society, my dear sir] " 
 
 "Thank your stars, Tom Captain Cringle, I beg pardon 
 and be grateful ; I am sick of rumbling tumbling in company 
 with these heavy tools of merchantmen, so I entreated Transom 
 to let me go and take a turn with you, promising to join the 
 Firebrand again at Nassau." 
 
 " Why, I am delighted," and so I really was. " But, my 
 dear sir, I may lead you a dance, and, peradventure, into trouble 
 a small vessel may catch a Tartar, you know." 
 
 " D n the expense," rejoined my jovial ally ; " why, the 
 hot little epicurean Wagtail, and Gelid, cold and frozen as he 
 is, have both taken a fancy to me and no wonder, knowing 
 my pleasant qualities as they do ahem ; so, for their sakes, I 
 volunteer on this piece of knight-errantry as much as " 
 
 " Poo you be starved, Aaron dear," rapped out little Wag- 
 tail; "you came here, because you thought you should have 
 more fun, and escape the formality of the big ship, and eke the 
 captain's sour claret." 
 
 " Ah," said Gelid, " my fine fellow," with his usual Creole 
 drawl, "you did not wait for my opinion. Ah oh why, 
 Captain Cringle, a thousand pardons. Friend Bang, there, swears 
 that he can't do without you ; and all he says about me is neither 
 more nor less than humbug ah."
 
 354 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " My lovely yellowsnake," quoth Aaron, " and my amiable 
 dumpling gentlemen both, now do hold your tongues. Why, 
 Tom, here we are, never you mind how, after half a quarrel with, 
 the skipper will you take us, or will you send us back, like 
 rejected addresses ?" 
 
 " Send you back, my boys ! No, no ; too happy to get you." 
 Another gun from the corvette. " Firebrands, you must shove 
 off. My compliments, Wiggins, to the captain, and there's a 
 trifle for you to drink my health, when you get into port." The 
 boat shoved off the corvette filled her maintopsaiL " Put the 
 helm up ease off the mainsheet stand by to run up the square- 
 sail How is her head, Mr Tailtackle? " 
 
 Timothy gave a most extraordinary grin at my bestowing the 
 Mister on him for the first time. 
 
 " North-west, sir." 
 
 " Keep her so ; " and having bore up, we rapidly widened our 
 distance from the commodore and the fleet. 
 
 All men know, or should know, that on board of a man-of- 
 war there is never any " yo-heave-oh-ing." That is confined to 
 merchant vessels. But when the crew are having a strong pull 
 of any rope, it is allowable for the man next the belaying-pin to 
 sing out, in order to give unity to the drag, " one iwo three," 
 the strain of the other men increasing with the figure. The tack 
 of the mainsail had got jammed somehow, and on my desiring it 
 to be hauled up, the men, whose province it was, were unable 
 to start it. 
 
 " Something foul aloft," said I. 
 
 Tailtackle came up. " What are you fiddling at, men ? Give 
 me here one two three." 
 
 Crack went the strands of the rope under the paws of the 
 Titan, whereby the head of the outermost sailor pitched right 
 into Gelid's stomach, knocked him over, and capsized him head- 
 foremost into the windsail which was let down through the sky- 
 light into the little well-cabin of the schooner. It so happened 
 that there was a bucket fxill of Spanish brown paint standing 
 on the table in the cabin, right below the hoop of the canvass 
 funnel, and into it popped the august pate of Paul Gelid, Esquire. 
 Bang had, in the mean time, caught him by the heels, and with 
 the assistance of Pearl, the handsome negro formerly noticed, 
 who, from his steadiness, had been spared to me as quarter- 
 master, the Conch was once more hoisted on deck, with a scalp 
 of red paint, reaching down over his eyes. 
 
 "I say," quoth Bang, " Gelid, my darling, not quite so smooth
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 355 
 
 as the real Macassar, eh ? Shall I try my hand can shave 
 beautifully eh ? " 
 
 " Ah," drawled Gelid, " don't require it lucky my head was 
 shaved in that last fever, Aaron dear. Ah let me think you 
 tall man you sailor fellow ah do me the favour to scrape 
 me with your knife ah and pray call my servant." 
 
 Timothy, to whom he had addressed himself, set to, and 
 scraped the red paint off his poll ; and having called his servant, 
 Chew Chew, handed him over to the negro, who, giving his arm 
 to him, helped him below, and with the assistance of Cologne 
 water, contrived to scrub him decently clean. 
 
 As the evening fell, the breeze freshened ; and during the 
 night it blew strong, so that from the time we bore up, and 
 parted company with the Firebrand, until day-dawn next morn- 
 ing, we had run 130 miles or thereby to the northward and 
 westward, and were then on the edge of the Great Bahama Bank. 
 The breeze now failed us, and we lay roasting in the sun until 
 mid-day, the current sweeping us to the northward, and still 
 farther on to the bank, until the water shoaled to three fathoms. 
 At this time the sun was blazing fiercely right overhead ; and 
 from the shallowness of the water, there was not the smallest 
 swell or undulation of the surface. The sea, as far as the eye 
 could reach, was a sparkling light green, from the snow-white 
 sand at the bottom, as if a level desert had been suddenly sub- 
 merged under a few feet of crystal clear water, which formed a 
 cheery spectacle when compared with the customary leaden or 
 dark-blue colour of the rolling fathomless ocean. It was now 
 dead calm. " Fishing lines there Idlers, fishing lines," said I ; 
 and in a minute there were forty of them down over the side. 
 
 In Europe, fish in their shapes partake of the sedate character 
 of the people who inhabit the coasts of the seas or rivers in which 
 they swim at least I think so. The salmon, the trout, the cod, 
 and all the other tribes of the finny people, are reputable in 
 their shapes, and altogether respectable-looking creatures. But 
 within the tropics, Dame Nature plays strange vagaries; and 
 here, on the Great Bahama Bank, every new customer, as he 
 floundered in on deck no joke to him, poor fellow elicited 
 shouts of laughter from the crew. They were in no respect 
 shaped like fish of our cold climates ; some were all head 
 others all tail some, so far as shape went, had their heads 
 where, with submission, I conceived their tails should have 
 been ; and then the colours, the intense brilliancy of the scales 
 of these monstrous-looking animals! We hooked up a lot of
 
 356 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 bonitos, ten pounds apiece, at the least. But Wagtail took small 
 account of them. 
 
 " Here," said Bang, at this moment, " by all that is wonder- 
 ful, look here ! " And he drew up a fish about a foot long, with 
 a crop like a pigeon of the tumbler kind, which began to make 
 a loud snorting noise. 
 
 " Ah," drawled Gelid, " good fish, with claret sauce." 
 
 " Daresay," rejoined Aaron ; " but do your Bahama fish speak, 
 Paul, eh? Balaam's ass was a joke to this fellow." 
 
 I have already said that the water was not quite three fathoms 
 deep, and it was so clear that I could see down to the very sand, 
 and there were the fish cruising about in great numbers. 
 
 " Haul in, Wagtail you have hooked him," and up came a 
 beautiful black grouper, about four pounds weight. 
 
 " Ah, there is the regular jiggery-jiggery," sang out little Reef- 
 point at the same moment, as he in turn began to pull up his 
 line. " Stand by to land him," and a red snapper, for all the 
 world like a gigantic gold-fish, was hauled on board ; and so we 
 carried on, black snappers, red snappers, and rock fish, and a 
 vast variety, for all of which, however, Wagtail had names pat, 
 until at length I caught a most lovely dolphin a beauty to look 
 at but dry, terribly dry to eat. I cast it on the deck, and the 
 cameleon tints of the dying fish, about which so many lies have 
 been said and sung, were just beginning to fade, and wax pale, 
 and ashy, and death-like, when I felt another strong jiggery- 
 jiggery at my line, which little Reefpoint had, in the mean time, 
 baited afresh. " Zounds ! I have caught a whale a shark at 
 the very least " and I pulled him in, hand over hand. 
 
 ' A most noble Jew fish," said I. 
 
 ' A Jew fish ! " responded WagtaiL 
 
 ' A Jew fish ! " said Aaron Bang. 
 
 'A Jew fish! " said Paul Gelid. 
 
 'My dear Cringle," continued Wagtail, "when do you dine?" 
 
 ' At three, as usual." 
 
 ' Then, Mr Reefpoint, will you have the great kindness to 
 cast off your sink, and hook that splendid fellow by the tail 
 only through the gristle don't prick him in the flesh and let 
 him meander about till half -past two? " 
 
 Reefy was half inclined to be angry at the idea of his Majesty's 
 officer being converted into a cook's mate. 
 
 " Why," said I, " we shall put him in a tub of water here on 
 deck, Mr Wagtail, if you please." 
 
 " God bless me, no ! " quoth the gastronome. " Why, he is
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 357 
 
 strong as an eagle, and will smash himself to mummy in half 
 an hour in a tub. No no ; see, he weighs twelve pounds at 
 the very lightest. Lord ! Mr Cringle, I am surprised at you." 
 
 The fish was let overboard again, according to his desire, and 
 hauled in at the very moment he indicated by his watch, when, 
 having seen him cut up and cleaned, with his own eyes I be- 
 lieve I may say with his own hands he betook himself to his 
 small crib to dress. 
 
 At dinner our Creole friend was very entertaining. Bang 
 drew him out, and had him to talk on all his favourite topics, in 
 a most amusing manner. All at once Gelid lay back on his chair. 
 
 " My God," said he, " I have broken my tooth with that con- 
 founded hard biscuit terrible really ; ah ! " and he screwed 
 up his face, as if he had been eating sour-crout, or had heard of 
 the death of a dear friend. 
 
 "Poo," quoth Aaron, "any combmaker will furnish you forth 
 as good as new ; those grinders you brag of are not your own, 
 Gelid, you know that." 
 
 " Indeed, Aaron, my dear, I know nothing of the kind ; but 
 this I know, that I have broken a most lovely white front tooth 
 ah!" 
 
 " Oh, you be hanged," said Aaron ; "why, you have been be- 
 chopped any time these ten years, I know." 
 
 The time wore on, and it might have been half-past seven 
 when we went on deck. 
 
 It was a very dark night Tailtackle had the watch. "Any- 
 thing in sight, Mr Tailtackle] " 
 
 " Why, no, sir ; but I have just asked your steward for your 
 night-glass, as, once or twice but it is so thick Pray, sir, how 
 far are we off the Hole in the Wall? " 
 
 " Why, sixty miles at the least." 
 
 The Hole in the Wall is a very remarkable rock in the Crooked 
 Island Passage, greatly resembling, as the name betokens, a wall 
 breached by the sea or by battering cannon, which rises abruptly 
 out of the water, to a height of forty feet. 
 
 " Then," quoth Tailtackle sharply, " there must be a sail close 
 aboard of us, to windward there." 
 
 " Where?" said I. " Quick, send for my night-glass." 
 
 " I have it here in my hand, sir." 
 
 " Let me see ;" and I peered through it until my eyes ached 
 again. I could see nothing, and resumed my walk on the 
 quarterdeck. Tailtackle, in the mean time, continued to look 
 through the telescope, and as I turned from aft to walk forward,
 
 358 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 a few minutes after this " Why, sir," said he, " it clears a bit, 
 and I see the object that has puzzled me again." 
 
 "Eh? give me the glass" in a second I caught it. "By 
 Jupiter, you say true, Tailtackle ! beat to quarters quick clear 
 away the long gun forward there ! " 
 
 All was bustle for a minute. I kept my eye on the object, 
 but I could not make out more than that it was a strange sail ; 
 I could neither judge of her size nor her rig, from the distance 
 and the extreme darkness of the night. At length I handed 
 the glass to Tailtackle again. We were at this time standing 
 in towards the Cuba shore, with a fine breeze, and going along 
 seven knots, as near as could be. 
 
 " Give the glass to Mr Jigmaree, Mr Tailtackle, and come for- 
 ward here, and see all snug." 
 
 The long gun was slewed round, both carronades were run out, 
 all three being loaded, double-shotted, and carefully primed 
 the whole crew, with our black supernumeraries, being at 
 quarters. 
 
 " I see her quite distinct now, sir," sang out Timotheus. 
 
 " Well, what looks she like?" 
 
 " A large brig, sir, by the wind on the same tack you can 
 see her now without the glass there with the naked eye." 
 
 I looked, and certainly fancied I saw some towering object 
 rising high and dark to windward, like some mighty spectre 
 walking the deep, but I could discern nothing more. 
 
 " She is a large vessel, sure enough, sir," said Timothy once 
 more "now she is hauling up her courses, sir she takes in 
 topgallant sails why, she is bearing up across our bows, sir 
 mind she don't rake us." 
 
 " The deuce ! " said I. I now saw the chase very distinctly 
 bear up. " Put the helm up keep her away a bit steady 
 that will do fire a shot across her bows, Mr Tailtackle and, 
 Mr Reef point, show the private signal." The gun was fired, 
 and the lights shown, but our spectral friend was all darkness 
 and silence. " Mr Scarf em well," said I to the carpenter, " stand 
 by the long gun. Tailtackle, I don't like that chap open the 
 magazine." By this time the strange sail was on our quarter 
 we shortened sail, while he, finding that his manoeuvre of 
 crossing our bows had been foiled by our bearing up also, got 
 the foretack on board again, and set his topgallant sails, all very 
 cleverly. He was not far out of pistol-shot. Tailtackle, in his 
 shirt and trousers and felt shoes, now stuck his head up the 
 main hatchway.
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 359 
 
 " I would recommend your getting the hatches on, sir that 
 fellow is not honest, sir, take my word for it." 
 
 " Never mind, Mr Tailtackle, never mind. Forward, there ; 
 Mr Jigmaree, slap a round shot into him, since he won't speak 
 or heave-to right between his masts, do you hear are you 
 ready?" 
 
 " All ready, sir." 
 
 " Fire ! " The gun was fired, and simultaneously we heard a 
 crash on board the strange sail, followed by a piercing yell, 
 similar to what the negroes raise over a dead comrade, and then 
 a long melancholy howl. 
 
 " A slaver, and the shot has told, sir," said Mr Handland, the 
 master. 
 
 " Then we shall have some fun for it," thought I. I had 
 scarcely spoken, when the brig once more shortened sail ; and 
 the instant that the foresail rose, he let fly his bow gun at us 
 then another, another, and another. 
 
 " Nine guns of a side, as I am a sinner," quoth Jigmaree ; 
 and three of the shot struck us, mortally wounded one poor 
 fellow, and damaged poor little Reefy by a splinter in the 
 side. 
 
 " Standby, men take good aim fire ! " and we again let drive 
 the long gun and carronade ; but our friend was too quick for 
 us, for by this time he had once more hauled his wind, and made 
 sail as close to it as he could stagger. We crowded everything 
 in chase, but he had the heels of us, and in an hour he was once 
 more nearly out of sight in the dark night, right to windward. 
 
 " Keep at him, Mr Jigmaree ;" and as I feared he was run- 
 ning us in under the land, I dived to consult the chart. There, 
 in the cabin, I found Wagtail, Gelid, and Bang, sitting smoking 
 on each side of the small table, with some brandy-and-water 
 before them. 
 
 " Ah," quoth Gelid, " ah ! fighting a little? Not pleasant in 
 the evening, certainly." 
 
 " Confound you !" said Aaron ; "why will you bother at this 
 awkward moment?" 
 
 Meanwhile Wagtail was a good deal discomposed. 
 
 " My dear fellow, hand me over that devilled biscuit." 
 
 Bang handed him over the dish, slipping into it some frag- 
 ments of ship biscuit, as hard as flint. All this time I was busy 
 poring over the chart. Wagtail took up a piece and popped it 
 into his mouth. 
 
 " Zounds, Bang ! my dear Aaron, what dentist are you
 
 360 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 in league with? Gelid first breaks his pet fang, and now 
 
 you " 
 
 "Poo, poo," quoth his friend, "don't bother now hillo 
 what the deuce I say, Wagtail Gelid, my lad, look there " 
 as one of the seamen, with another following him, brought down 
 on his back the poor fellow who had been wounded, and laid 
 his bloody load on the table. To those who are unacquainted 
 with these matters, it may be right to say that the captain's 
 cabin, in a small vessel like the Wave, is often in an emergency 
 used as a cockpit and so it was in the present instance. 
 
 " Beg pardon, captain and gentlemen," said the surgeon, "but 
 I must, I fear, perform an ugly operation on this poor fellow. I 
 fancy you had better go on deck, gentlemen." 
 
 Now I had an opportunity to see of what sterling metal my 
 friends were at bottom made. Mr Bang in a twinkling had his 
 coat off. 
 
 " Doctor, I can be of use, I know it no skill, but steady 
 nerves," although he had reckoned a leetle without his host 
 here. " And I can swathe a bandage too, although no surgeon," 
 said Wagtail 
 
 Gelid said nothing, but he was in the end the best surgeon's 
 mate amongst them. The poor fellow, Wiggins, one of the cap- 
 tain's gigs, and a most excellent man in quarterdeck parlance, 
 was now laid on the table a fine handsome young fellow, faint 
 and pale, very pale, but courageous as a lion, even in his ex- 
 tremity. It appeared that a round shot had shattered his leg 
 above the knee. A tourniquet had been applied on his thigh, 
 and there was not much bleeding. 
 
 " Captain," said the poor fellow, while Bang supported him 
 in his arms, " I shall do yet, sir; indeed I have no great pain." 
 
 All this time the surgeon was cutting off his trousers, and 
 then, to be sure, a terrible spectacle presented itself. The foot 
 and leg, blue and shrunk, were connected with the thigh by a 
 band of muscle about two inches wide and an inch thick ; that 
 fined away to a bunch of white tendons or sinews at the knee, 
 which again swelled out as they melted into the muscles of the 
 calf of the leg ; but as for the kneebone, it was smashed to 
 pieces, leaving white spikes protruding from the shattered limb 
 above, as well as from the shank beneath. The doctor gave the 
 poor fellow a large dose of laudanum in a glass of brandy, and 
 then proceeded to amputate the limb, high up on the thigh. 
 Bang stood the knife part of it very steadily, but the instant 
 the saw rasped against the shattered bone he shuddered.
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 361 
 
 -I am going, Cringle can't stand that sick as a dog;" and 
 he was so faint that I had to relieve him in supporting the poor 
 fellow. Wagtail had also to go on deck, but Paul Gelid re- 
 mained firm as a rock. The limb was cut off, the arteries taken 
 up very cleverly, and the surgeon was in the act of slackening 
 the tourniquet a little, when the thread that fastened the largest 
 or femoral artery suddenly gave way a gush like the jet from 
 a fire-engine took place. The poor fellow had just time to cry 
 out, " Take that cold hand off my heart ! " when his chest col- 
 lapsed, his jaw fell, and in an instant his pulse stopped. 
 
 " Dead as Julius Caesar, captain," said Gelid, with his usual 
 deliberation. Dead enough, thought I ; and I was leaving the 
 cabin to resume my post on deck, when I stumbled against 
 something at the ladder foot 
 
 " Why, what is that?" grumbled I. 
 
 "It is me, sir," said a small faint voice. 
 
 " You ! who are you ? " 
 
 "Reef point, sir." 
 
 "Bless me, boy, what are you doing here? Not hurt, I 
 hope?" 
 
 "A little, sir a graze from a splinter, sir the same shot 
 that struck poor Wiggins knocked it off, sir." 
 
 " Why did you not go to the doctor, then, Mr Reef point?" 
 
 " I waited till he was done with Wiggins, sir ; but now, since 
 it is all over with him, I will go and be dressed." 
 
 His voice grew fainter and fainter, until I could scarcely hear 
 him. I got him in my arms, and helped him into the cabin, 
 where, on stripping the poor little fellow, it was found that he 
 was much hurt on the right side, just above the hip. Bang's 
 kind heart for by this time a glass of water had cured him of 
 his faintness shone conspicuous on this occasion. 
 
 "Why, Reefy little Reefy you are not hurt, my man 
 surely you are not wounded such a little fellow I should have 
 as soon thought of firing at a musquito." 
 
 " Indeed, sir, but I am ; see here." Bang looked at the hurt 
 as he supported the wounded midshipman in his arms. 
 
 " God help me ! " said the excellent fellow ; " you seem to me 
 fitter for your mother's nursery, my poor dear boy, than to be 
 knocked about in this coarse way here." 
 
 Reefy at this moment fell over into his arms in a dead faint 
 
 " You must take my berth, with the captain's permission," 
 said Aaron, while he and Wagtail undressed him with the great- 
 est care, and placed him in the narrow crib.
 
 362 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Thank you, my dear sir," moaned little Reef point ; " were 
 my mother here, sir, she would thank you too." 
 
 Stern duty now called me on deck, and I heard no more. 
 The night was still very dark, and I could see nothing of the 
 chase, but I made all the sail I could in the direction which I 
 calculated she would steer, trusting that before morning we 
 might get another glimpse of her. In a little while Bang came 
 on deck. 
 
 " I say, Tom, now since little Reefy is asleep what think you 
 big craft that nearly caught a Tartar not very sorry he has 
 escaped, eh?" 
 
 " Why, my dear sir, I trust he has not escaped : I hope, when 
 the day breaks, now since we have less wind, that we may have 
 a tussle with him yet." 
 
 " No, you don't wish it, do you, really and truly 1 " 
 
 " Indeed I do, sir ; and the only thing which bothers me is 
 the peril that you and your friends must necessarily encounter." 
 
 " Poo, poo! don't mind us, Tom don't mind us; butan't he 
 too big for you, Tom ? " 
 
 He said this in such a comical way, that, for the life of me, I 
 could not help laughing. 
 
 " Why, we shall see ; but attack him I must, and shall, if I 
 can get at him. However, we shall wait till morning ; so I recom- 
 mend your turning in now, since they have cleared away the 
 cockpit out of the cabin ; so good-night, my dear sir I must 
 stay here, I fear." 
 
 " Good-night, Tom ; God bless you. I shall go and comfort 
 Wagtail and Paul" 
 
 I was at this time standing well aft on the larboard side of 
 the deck, close abaft to the tiller-rope, so that, with no earthly 
 disposition to be an eavesdropper, I could neither help seeing 
 nor hearing what was going on in the cabin, as the small open 
 skylight was close to my foot. All vestiges of the cockpit had 
 been cleared away, and the table was laid for supper. Wagtail 
 and Gelid were sitting on the side I stood on, so that I could 
 not see them, although I heard every word they said. Presently 
 Bang entered, and sat down opposite his allies. He crossed his 
 arms, and leant down over the table, looking at them steadily. 
 
 " My dear Aaron," I could hear little Wagtail say, " speak, 
 man, don't frighten a body so." 
 
 "Ah, Bang," drawled out Paul, "jests are good, being well 
 timed ; what can you mean by that face of yours note, since the 
 fighting is all over?"
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 36 
 
 My curiosity fairly overcame my good manners, and I moved 
 round more amidships, so as to command a view of both parties, 
 as they sat opposite each other at the narrow table. 
 
 Bang still held his peace for another minute ; at length, in a 
 very solemn tone, he said, " Gentlemen, do you ever say your 
 prayers 1 " I don't know if I mentioned it before, but Aaron 
 had a most musical deep mellow voice, and now it absolutely 
 thrilled to my very soul. 
 
 Wagtail and Paul looked at him, and then at each other, with 
 a most absurd expression between fear and jest between cry- 
 ing and laughing but gave him no answer. 
 
 " Are you, my lads, such blockheads as to be ashamed to 
 acknowledge that you say your prayers?" 
 
 " Ah," said Gelid, " why, ah no not that is 
 
 " Oh, you Catholics are all so bigoted. I suppose we should 
 cross ourselves, eh 1 ?" said Wagtail, hastily. 
 
 " I am a Catholic, Master Wagtail," rejoined Bang " better 
 that than nothing. Before sunrise, we may both have proved 
 the truth of our creeds, if you have one ; but if you mean it as 
 a taunt, Wagtail, it does discredit to your judgment to select 
 such a moment, to say nothing of your heart. However, you 
 cannot make me angry with you, Pepperpot, you little Creole 
 wasp, do as you will." A slight smile here curled Aaron's lip for 
 an instant, although he immediately resumed the solemn tone in 
 which he had previously spoken. " But I had hoped that two 
 such old friends, as you both have been to me, would not alto- 
 gether have made up their minds in cold blood, if advertised of 
 their danger, to run the chance of dying like dogs in a ditch, 
 without one preparatory thought towards that tremendous Being, 
 before whom we may all stand before morning." 
 
 " Murder ! " quoth Wagtail, fairly frightened ; " are you really 
 serious, Aaron ? I did not would not for the world hurt your 
 feelings in earnest, my dear : why do you desire so earnestly to 
 know whether or not I ever say my prayers 1 " 
 
 " Oh, don't bother, man," rejoined Bang, resuming his usual 
 friendly tone ; " you had better say boldly that you do not, with- 
 out any roundaboutation." 
 
 " But why, my dear Bang why do you ask the question 1 " 
 persisted Wagtail, in a deuced quandary. 
 
 " Simply " and here our friend's voice once more fell to the 
 low deep serious tone in which he had opened the conference 
 " simply because, in my humble estimation, if you don't say your 
 prayers to-night, it is three to one you shall never pray again."
 
 364 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " The deuce ! " said Pepperpot, twisting himself in all direc- 
 tions, as if his inexpressibles had been nailed to his seat, and he 
 was trying to escape from them. " What, in the devil's name, 
 mean you, man ? " 
 
 " I mean neither more nor less than what I say. I speak 
 English, don't 1 1 I say, that that pestilent young fellow, 
 Cringle, told me half an hour ago that he was determined, as he 
 words it, to stick to this Guineaman, who is three times his 
 size, has eighteen guns, while Master Tommy has only three ; 
 and whose crew, I will venture to say, triples our number ; and 
 the snipe, from what I know of him, is the very man to keep his 
 word so what say you, my darling, eh 1 " 
 
 " Ah, very inconvenient, ah I shall stay below," said Paul. 
 
 " So shall I," quoth Pepperpot ; " won't stick my nose on 
 deck, Aaron dear no, not for the whole world." 
 
 " Why," said Bang, in the same steady low tone, " you shall 
 do as you please, ah " and here he very successfully imitated 
 our amigo Gelid's drawl "and as best suits you, ah; but I 
 have consulted the gunner, an old ally of mine, who, to be plain 
 with you ah says that the danger from splinter- wounds below 
 is much greater than from their musketry on deck ah the 
 risk from the round-shot being pretty equal ah in either 
 situation." At this announcement you could have jumped down 
 either Wagtail's or Gelid's throat Wagtail's for choice without 
 touching their teeth. " Farther, the aforesaid Timothy, and be 
 hanged to him ! deponeth that the only place in a small vessel 
 where we could have had a moderate chance of safety was the 
 run so called, I presume, from people running to it for safety ; 
 but where the deuce this sanctuary is situated I know not, nor 
 does it signify greatly, for it is now converted into a spare 
 powder-magazine, and of course sealed to us. So here we are, 
 my lads, in as neat a taking as ever three unfortunate gentlemen 
 were in, in this weary world. However, now since I have com- 
 forted you, let us go to bed time enough to think on all this 
 in the morning, and I am consumedly tired." 
 
 I heard no more, and resumed my solitary walk on deck, peer- 
 ing every now and then through the night-glass until my eyes 
 ached again. The tedious night at length wore away, and the 
 grey dawn found me sound asleep, leaning out at the gangway. 
 They had scarcely begun to wash down the decks, when we 
 discerned our friend of the preceding night, about four miles to 
 windward, close-hauled on the same tack, apparently running in 
 for the Cuba shore as fast as canvass would carry him. If this
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 365 
 
 was his object, we had proved too quick for him, as by casting oft* 
 stays and slacking shrouds, and, in every way we could think of, 
 loosening the rigid trim of the little vessel, we had in a great 
 measure recovered her sailing : so when he found he was cut off 
 from the land, he resolutely bore up, took in his topgallant sails, 
 hauled up his courses, fired a gun, and hoisted his large Spanish 
 ensign, all in regular man-of-war fashion. By this time it was 
 broad daylight, and Wagtail, Gelid, and Bang were all three on 
 deck, performing their morning ablutions. As for myself, I was 
 well forward, near the long gun. Pegtop, Mr Bang's black 
 valet, came up to me. 
 
 " Please, Massa Captain, can you spare me any muskets ] " 
 "Any muskets 1 " said I; "why, half-a-dozen if you choose." 
 " De wery number my massa told me to hax for. Tank you, 
 Massa Captain." And forthwith he and the other two black 
 servants in attendance on Wagtail and Gelid, each seized his two 
 muskets out of the arm-chest, with the corresponding ammuni- 
 tion, and, like so many sable Robinson Crusoes, were stumping 
 aft, when I again accosted the aforesaid Pegtop. 
 
 " I say, my man, now since you have got the muskets, does 
 your master really intend to fight 1" The negro stopped short, 
 and faced right round, his countenance expressing very great 
 surprise and wonderment. " Massa Bang fight ! Massa Aaron 
 Bang fight 1 " and he looked up in my face with the most serio- 
 comic expression that could be imagined. "Ah, massa," con- 
 tinued the poor fellow, "you is joking surely you is joking 
 my Massa Aaron Bang fight ? Oh, massa, surely you can't know 
 he surely you never see him shoot snipe and wild-duck oh 
 dear ! why, him kill wild-duck on de wing ah, me often see 
 him knock down teal wid single ball, one hundred ah, one 
 hundred and fifty yards and man surely more big mark den 
 teal?" 
 
 " Granted," I said ; " but a teal has not a loaded musket in 
 its claws, as a Spanish buccaneer may have a small difference, 
 Master Pegtop, in that?" 
 
 " None at all, massa," chimed in Pegtop, very energetically 
 " I myshef, Gabriel Pegtop, Christian man as me is, am one of 
 de Falmouth black shot. Ah, I have been in de woods wid 
 Massa Aaron one time particular, when dem wery debils, 
 Sambo Moses, Corromantee Tom, and Eboe Peter, took to de 
 bush, at Crabyaw estate after breakfast ten black shot me 
 was one go out along wid our good massa, Massa Aaron. O 
 Lord, we walk troo de cool wood, and over de hot cleared ground,
 
 366 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 six hour, when everybody say, ' No use dis, Massa Bang all 
 we tired too much must stop here kindle fire cook wittaL' 
 ' Ah, top dem who hab white liver,' said Massa Aaron ; ' you, 
 Pegtop, take you fusee and cutlass, and follow me, my shild' 
 Massa Aaron alway call me him shild, and troo enough, as par- 
 son Calaloo say, him family wery much like Joseph coat many 
 colour among dem, massa though none quite so deep as mine 
 eider" and here the negro grinned at liis own jest. " Well, 
 I was follow him, or rader was go before him, opening up de 
 pass wid me cutlass troo de wery tangle underwood. We walk 
 four hour see no one all still and quiet no breeze shake de 
 tree oh, I sweat too much dem hot, massa sun shine right 
 down, when we could catch glimpse of him yet no trace of de 
 runaways. At length, on turning corner, perched on small plat- 
 form of rock, overshadowed by plumes of bamboos, like ostrich 
 feather lady wear at de ball, who shall we see but dem wery 
 dividual d rascall I was mention, standing all tree, each wid 
 one carabine pointed at us, at him shoulder, and cutlass at him 
 side ] ' Pegtop, my boy,' said Massa Aaron, " we is in for it 
 follow me, but don't fire.' So him pick off Sambo Moses oh ! 
 cool as one cucumber. ' Now,' say he, ' man to man ' and wid 
 dat him tro him gun on de ground, and, drawing him cutlass, 
 we push up in one moment him and Corromantee Tom close. 
 Tom put up him hand to fend him head whip ah massa 
 cutlass shred de hand at de wrist, like one carrot down Tom 
 go atop of him jump Massa Aaron. I master de leetle one, 
 Eboe Peter, and we carry dem both prisoners into Falmouth. 
 Massa Aaron fight] Ah, massa, no hax dat question again." 
 
 " Well, but will Mr Gelid fight? " said I. 
 
 " I tink him will too great friend of Massa Bang good duck- 
 shot too oh yes, tink Massa Paul will fight." 
 
 " Why," said I, " your friends are all heroes, Pegtop will 
 Mr Wagtail fight also 1 ?" He stole close up to me, and ex- 
 changed his smart Creole gibberish for a quiet sedate accent, as 
 he whispered 
 
 " Not so sure of he nice little fat man, but too fond of him 
 belly. When I wait behind Massa Aaron chair, Pegtop some- 
 time hear funny ting. One gentleman say ' Ah, dat month 
 we hear Lord Wellington take Saint Sebastian when, dat is, 
 what time we hear dat news, Massa Wagtail ] ' him say, ' Eh,' 
 say Massa Wagtail ' oh, we hear of dem news dat wery day 
 de first of de ringtail pigeon come to market.' Den again, 'Dat 
 big fight dem had at soch auoder place, when we hear of dat,
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 367 
 
 Massa Wagtail ? ' say somebody else. ' Oh, oh, de wery day 
 we hab dat beautiful grouper wid claret-sauce at Massa Whiffle's.' 
 Oh, make me laugh to hear white gentleman mark great fight 
 in him memory by what him eat de day de news come; so, 
 Massa Captain Cringle, me no quite sure weder Massa Wagtail 
 will fight or no." 
 
 So saying, Pegtop, Chew Chew, and Yampea, each shouldered 
 two muskets apiece, and betook themselves to the after-part of 
 the schooner, where they forthwith set themselves to scour and 
 oil and clean the same in a most skilful manner. I expected 
 the breeze would have freshened as the day broke, but I was 
 disappointed ; it fell, towards six o'clock, nearly calm. Come, 
 thought I, we may as well go to breakfast ; and my guests and 
 I forthwith sat down to our morning meal Soon after, the 
 wind died away altogether and " out sweeps " was the word ; 
 but I soon saw we had no chance with the chase at this game, 
 and as to attacking him with the boats, it was entirely out of 
 the question ; neither could I, in the prospect of a battle, afford 
 to murder the people by pulling all day under a roasting sun, 
 against one who could man his sweeps with relays of slaves, 
 without one of his crew putting a finger to them ; so I reluc- 
 tantly laid them in, and there I stood looking at him the whole 
 forenoon, as he gradually drew ahead of us. At length I piped 
 to dinner, and the men, having finished theirs, were again on 
 deck ; but the calm still continued ; and seeing no chance of it 
 freshening, about four in the afternoon we sat down to ours in 
 the cabin. There was little said ; my friends, although brave 
 and resolute men, were naturally happy to see the brig creeping 
 away from us, as fighting could only bring them danger ; and 
 my own feelings were of that mixed quali ty, that while I deter- 
 mined to do all I could to bring him to action, it would not 
 have broken my heart had he escaped. We had scarcely finished 
 dinner, however, when the rushing of the water past the run of 
 the little vessel, and the steadiness with which she skimmed 
 along, showed that the light air had freshened. 
 
 Presently Tailtackle came down. " The breeze has set down, 
 sir ; the strange sail has got it strong to windward, and brings it 
 along with him cheerily." 
 
 " Beat to quarters, then, Tailtackle ; all hands stand by to 
 shorten sail. How is she standing ] " 
 
 " Right down for us, sir." 
 
 I went on deck, and there was the Guineaman, about two 
 miles to windward, evidently cleared for action, with her decks
 
 368 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 crowded with men, bowling along steadily under her single- 
 reefed topsails. 
 
 I saw all clear. Wagtail and Gelid had followed me on deck, 
 and were now busy with their black servants inspecting the 
 muskets. But Bang still remained in the cabin. I went down. 
 He was gobbling his last plantain, and forking up along with it 
 most respectable slices of cheese, when I entered. 
 
 I had seen before I left the deck that an action was now un- 
 avoidable, and, judging from the disparity of force, I had my 
 own doubts as to the issue. I need scarcely say that I was 
 greatly excited. It was my first command : my future standing 
 in the service depended on my conduct now and, God help me, 
 I was all this while a mere lad not more than twenty-one years 
 old. A strange indescribable feeling had come over me, and an 
 irresistible desire to disburden my mind to the excellent man 
 before me. I sat down. 
 
 "Hey-day," quoth Bang, as he laid down his coffee-cup ; "why, 
 Tom, what ails you] You look deuced pale, my boy." 
 
 " Up all night, sir, and bothered all day," said I ; " wearied 
 enough, I can tell you." 
 
 I felt a strong tremor pervade my whole frame at this moment ; 
 and I was impelled to speak by some unknown impulse, which 
 I could not account for nor analyse. 
 
 " Mr Bang, you are the only friend whom I could count on in 
 these countries ; you know all about me and mine, and, I believe, 
 would willingly do a kind action to my father's son." 
 
 " What are you at, Tom, my dear boy ? come to the point, 
 man." 
 
 " I will. I am distressed beyond measure at having led you 
 and your excellent friends, Wagtail and Gelid, into this danger ; 
 but I could not help it, and I have satisfied my conscience on 
 that point ; so I have only to entreat that you will stay below, 
 and not unnecessarily expose yourselves. And if I should fall 
 may I take this liberty, my dear sir," and I involuntarily took 
 his hand " if I should fall, and / doubt if I shall ever see the 
 sun set again, as we are fearfully overmatched " 
 
 Bang struck in 
 
 " Why, if our friend be too big why not be off then 1 Pull 
 foot, man, eh] Havannah under your lee? " 
 
 " A thousand reasons against it, my dear sir. I am a young 
 man and a young officer ; my character is to make in the service. 
 No, no, it is impossible an older and more tried hand might 
 have bore up, but I must fight it out. If any stray shot carries
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 369 
 
 me off, my dear sir, will you take " Mary, I would have said, 
 but I could not pronounce her name for the soul of me " will 
 you take charge of her miniature, and say I died as I have " 
 a choking lump rose in my throat, and I could not proceed for 
 a second; "and will you send my writing-desk to my poor 
 mother, there are letters in " the lump grew bigger, the hot 
 tears streamed from my eyes in torrents. I trembled like an 
 aspen-leaf, and, grasping my excellent friend's hand more firmly, 
 I sank down on my knees in a passion of tears, and wept like 
 a woman, while I fervently prayed to that great God, in whose 
 almighty hand I stood, that I might that day do my duty as an 
 English seaman. Bang knelt by me. Presently the passion waa 
 quelled. I rose, and so did he. 
 
 " Before you, my dear sir, I am not ashamed to have " 
 
 " Don't mention it, my good boy don't mention it ; neither 
 of us, as the old general said, will fight a bit the worse." 
 
 I looked at him. " Do you then mean to fight? " said I. 
 
 " To be sure I do why not? I have no wife " he did not 
 say he had no children. " Fight? To be sure I do." 
 
 "Another gun, sir," said Tailtackle through the open sky- 
 light. Now all was bustle, and we hastened on deck. Our 
 antagonist was a large brig, three hundred tons at the least, a 
 long low vessel, painted black out and in, and her sides round 
 as an apple, with immensely square yards. She was apparently 
 full of men. The sun was getting low, and she was coming 
 down fast on us, on the verge of the dark-blue water of the sea- 
 breeze. I could make out ten ports and nine guns of a side. 
 I inwardly prayed they might not be long ones ; but I was not 
 a little startled to see through the glass that there were crowds 
 of naked negroes at quarters, and on the forecastle and poop. 
 That she was a contraband Guineaman I had already made up 
 my mind to believe and that she had some fifty hands of a 
 crew I also considered likely ; but that her captain should have 
 resorted to such a perilous measure perilous to themselves as 
 well as to us as arming the captive slaves, was quite unex- 
 pected, and not a little alarming, as it evinced his determination 
 to make the most desperate resistance. 
 
 Tailtackle was standing beside me at this time, with his jacket 
 off, his cutlass girded on his thigh, and the belt drawn very 
 tight. All the rest of the crew were armed in a similar fashion, 
 the small-arm-men with muskets in their hands, and the rest at 
 quarters at the guns ; while the pikes were cast loose from the 
 spars round which they had been stopped, with tubs of wadding 
 
 2 A
 
 370 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 and boxes of grape all ready ranged, and everything clear for 
 action. 
 
 " Mr Tailtackle," said I, " you are gunner here, and should be 
 in the magazine. Cast off that cutlass ; it is not your province 
 to lead the boarders." The poor fellow blushed, having, in the 
 excitement of the moment, forgotten that he was anything more 
 than captain of the Firebrand's maintop. 
 
 " Mr Timotheus," said Bang, " have you one of these bodkins 
 to spare? " 
 
 Timothy laughed. " Certainly, sir ; but you don't mean to 
 head the boarders, sir, do you ? " 
 
 " Who knows, now since I have learned to walk on this danc- 
 ing cork of a craft ? " rejoined Aaron, with a grim smile, while 
 he pulled off his coat, braced on his cutlass, and tied a large red 
 cotton shawl round his head. He then took off his neckerchief 
 and fastened it round his waist as tight as he could draw. 
 
 " Strange that all men in peril on the uneasiness, like," said 
 he, " should always gird themselves as tightly as they can." 
 
 The slaver was now within musket-shot, when he put his helm 
 to port, with the view of passing under our stern. To prevent 
 being raked, we had to luff up sharp in the wind, and fire a 
 broadside. I noticed the white splinters glance from his black 
 wales ; and once more the same sharp yell rang in our ears, fol- 
 lowed by the long melancholy howl already described. 
 
 " We have pinned some of the poor blacks again," said Tail- 
 tackle, who still lingered on the deck ; small space for remark, 
 for the slaver again fired his broadside at us with the same cool 
 precision as before. 
 
 " Down with the helm, and let her come round," said I ; 
 " that will do master, run across his stern out-sweeps forward, 
 and keep her there get the other carronade over to leeward 
 that is it now, blaze away while he is becalmed fire, small- 
 arm-men, and take good aim." 
 
 We were now right across his stem, with the spanker-boom 
 within ten yards of us ; and although he worked his two stern- 
 chasers with great determination, and poured whole showers of 
 musketry from his rigging and poop and cabin-windows, yet, 
 from the cleverness with which our sweeps were pulled, and the 
 accuracy with which we were kept in our position right athwart 
 his stern, our fire, both from the cannon and musketry, the former 
 loaded with round and grape, was telling, I could see, with fear- 
 ful effect. 
 
 Crash " There, my lads, down goes his maintopmast pepper
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 371 
 
 him well while they are blinded and confused among the wreck. 
 Fire away there goes the peak, shot away cleverly, close by the 
 throat. Don't cease firing although his flag be down it was 
 none of his doing. There, my lads, there he has it again ; you 
 have shot away the weather foretopsail sheet, and he cannot get 
 from under you." 
 
 Two men at this moment lay out on his larboard fore-yard- 
 arm, apparently with the intention of splicing the sheet, and 
 getting the clew of the foretopsail once more down to the yard ; 
 if they had succeeded in this, the vessel would again have fetched 
 way, and drawn out from under our fire. Mr Bang and Paul 
 Gelid had all this time been firing with murderous precision from 
 where they had ensconced themselves under the shelter of the 
 larboard bulwark, close to the taffrail, with their three black 
 servants in the cabin loading the six muskets, and little Wagtail, 
 who was no great shot, sitting on the deck, handing them up 
 and down. 
 
 " Now, Mr Bang," cried I, "for the love of Heaven" and 
 may Heaven forgive me for the ill-placed exclamation " mark 
 these two men down with them ! " 
 
 Bang tiirned towards me with all the coolness in the world 
 " What, those chaps on the end of the long stick ? " 
 
 "Yes yes" (I here, spoke of the larboard fore-yard-arm) 
 " yes, down with them." 
 
 He lifted his piece as steadily as if he had really been duck- 
 shooting. 
 
 " I say, Gelid, my lad, take you the innermost." 
 
 " Ah ! " quoth Paul. They fired and down dropped both 
 men, and squattered for a moment in the water like wounded 
 waterfowl, and then sank for ever, leaving two small puddles of 
 blood on the surface. 
 
 " Now, master," shouted I, " put the helm up and lay him 
 alongside there stand by with the grapplings one round the 
 backstay the other through the chainplate there so you have 
 it." As we ranged under his counter " Mainchains are your 
 chance, men boarders, follow me ! " And in the enthusiasm of 
 the moment I jumped into the slaver's main channel, followed 
 by twenty-eight men. We were in the act of getting over the 
 netting when the enemy rallied, and fired a volley of small arms, 
 which sent four out of the twenty-eight to their account, and 
 wounded three more. We gained the quarterdeck, where the 
 Spanish captain and about forty of his crew showed a determined 
 front, cutlass and pistol in hand : we charged them they stood
 
 372 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 their grcnmd. Tailtackle (who, the moment he heard the board- 
 ers called, had jumped out of the magazine and followed me) at 
 a blow clove the Spanish captain to the chine ; the lieutenant, 
 or second in command, was my bird, and I had disabled him by 
 a sabre-cut on the sword-arm, when he drew his pistol, and shot 
 me through the left shoulder. I felt no pain, but a sharp pinch 
 and then a cold sensation, as if water had been poured down my 
 neck. 
 
 Jigmaree was close by me with a boarding-pike, and our 
 fellows were fighting with all the gallantry inherent in British 
 sailors. For a moment the battle was poised in equal scales. 
 At length our antagonist gave way, when about fifteen of the 
 slaves, naked barbarians, who had been ranged with muskets in 
 their hands on the forecastle, suddenly jumped down into the 
 waist with a yell, and came to the rescue of the Spanish part of 
 the crew. 
 
 I thought we were lost. Our people, all but Tailtackle, poor 
 Handlead, and Jigmaree, held back. The Spaniards rallied, and 
 fought with renewed courage, and it was now, not for glory, but 
 for dear life, as all retreat was cut off by the parting of the 
 grapplings and warps that had lashed the schooner alongside of 
 the slaver, for the Wave had by this time forged ahead, and lay 
 across the brig's bows, in place of being on our quarter, with her 
 foremast jammed against the slaver's bowsprit, whose spritsail- 
 yard crossed our deck between the masts. We could not there- 
 fore retreat to our own .vessel if we had wished it, as the 
 Spaniards had possession of the waist and forecastle ; all at once, 
 however, a discharge of round and grape crashed through the 
 bridleport of the brig, and swept off three of the black auxil- 
 iaries before mentioned, and wounded as many more, and the 
 next moment an unexpected ally appeared on the field. When 
 we boarded, the Wave had been left with only Peter Mangrove ; 
 the five dockyard negroes ; Pearl, one of the captain's gigs, the 
 handsome black already introduced on the scene; poor little 
 Reefpoint, who, as already stated, was badly hurt ; Aaron Bang, 
 Paul Gelid, and WagtaiL But this Pearl without price, at the 
 very moment of time when I thought the game was up, jumped 
 on deck through the bowport, cutlass in hand, followed by the 
 five black carpenters and Peter Mangrove, after whom appeared 
 no less a personage than Aaron Bang himself and the three 
 blackamoor valets, armed with boarding-pikes. Bang flourished 
 his cutlass for an instant. 
 
 " Now, Pearl, my darling, shout to them in Coromantee,
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 373 
 
 shout;" and forthwith the black quartermaster sang out, "Co- 
 romantee Sheik Cocoloo, kockernony populorum fiz," which, 
 as I afterwards learned, being interpreted, is, " Behold the 
 Sultan Cocoloo, the great ostrich, with a feather in his tail like 
 a palm-branch ; fight for him, you sons of female dogs." In an 
 instant the black Spanish auxiliaries sided with Pearl and Bang 
 and the negroes, and joined in charging the white Spaniards, 
 who were speedily driven down the main hatchway, leaving one- 
 half of their number dead or badly wounded on the blood- 
 slippery deck. But they still made a desperate defence by firing 
 up the hatchway. I hailed them to surrender. 
 
 " Zounds," cried Jigmaree, " there's the clink of hammers ; 
 they are knocking off the fetters of the slaves." 
 
 " If you let the blacks loose," I sang out in Spanish, " by the 
 heaven above us, I will blow you up, although I should go with 
 you ! Hold your hands, Spaniards ! Mind what you do, mad- 
 men ! " 
 
 " On with the hatches, men," shouted Tailtackle. 
 
 They had been thrown overboard, or put out of the way, they 
 could nowhere be seen. The firing from below continued. 
 
 " Cast loose that carronade there ; clap in a canister of grape 
 so now run it forward, and fire down the hatchway." It 
 was done, and taking effect amongst the pent-up slaves, such a 
 yell arose God ! O God ! I never can forget it. Still the 
 maniacs continued firing up the hatchway. 
 
 " Load and fire again." My people were now furious, and 
 fought more like incarnate fiends broke loose from hell than 
 human beings. 
 
 " Kun the gun up to the hatchway once more." They ran 
 the carronade so furiously forward that the coaming or ledge 
 was split off, and down went the gun, carriage and all, with a 
 crash into the hold. Presently smoke appeared rising up the 
 fore-hatchway. 
 
 " They have set fire to the brig ; overboard ! regain the 
 schooner, or we shall all be blown into the air like peels of 
 onions ! " sang out little Jigmaree. 
 
 But where was the Wave ? She had broke away, and was 
 now a cable's length ahead, apparently fast leaving us, with Paul 
 Gelid and Wagtail, and poor little Reefpoint, who, badly wounded 
 as he was, had left his hammock and come on deck in the emer- 
 gency, making signs of their inability to cut away the halyards ; 
 and the tiller being shot away, the schooner had become utterly 
 unmanageable.
 
 374 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Up, and let fall the foresail, men down with the foretack 
 cheerily now get way on the brig and overhaul the Wave 
 promptly, or we are lost," cried I. It was done with all the 
 coolness of desperate men. I took the helm, and presently we 
 were once more alongside of our own vessel. Time we were so, 
 for about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, whose shackles 
 had been knocked off, now scrambled up the fore-hatchway, and 
 we had only time to jump overboard when they made a rush aft ; 
 and no doubt, exhausted as we were, they would have massacred 
 us on the spot, frantic and furious as they had become from the 
 murderous fire of grape that had been directed down the hatch- 
 way. 
 
 But the fire was quicker than they. The smouldering smoke, 
 that was rising like a pillar of cloud from the fore-hatchway, 
 was now streaked with tongues of red flame, which, licking the 
 masts and spars, ran up and caught the sails and rigging. In 
 an instant the fire spread to every part of the gear aloft, while 
 the other element, the sea, was also striving for the mastery in 
 the destruction of the doomed vessel ; for our shot, or the fall of 
 the carronade into the hold, had started some of the bottom 
 planks, and she was fast settling down by the head. We could 
 hear the water rushing in like a mill-stream. The fire increased 
 her guns went off as they became heated she gave a sudden 
 heel and while five hundred human beings, pent up in her 
 noisome hold, split the heavens with their piercing death-yells, 
 down she went with a heavy lurch, head foremost, right in the 
 wake of the setting sun, whose level rays made the thick dun 
 wreaths that burst from her as she disappeared glow with the 
 hue of the amethyst ; and while the whirling clouds, gilded by 
 his dying radiance, curled up into the blue sky in rolling masses, 
 growing thinner and thinner until they vanished away, even like 
 the wreck whereout they arose, and the circling eddies, created 
 by her sinking, no longer sparkled and flashed in the red light, 
 and the stilled waters where she had gone down, as if oil had 
 been cast on them, were spread out like polished silver, shining 
 like a mirror, while all around was dark-blue ripple, a puff of 
 fat black smoke, denser than any we had yet seen, suddenly 
 emerged, with a loud gurgling noise, from out the deep bosom 
 of the calmed sea, and rose like a balloon, rolling slowly upwards, 
 until it reached a little way above our mastheads, where it 
 melted and spread out into a dark pall, that overhung the scene 
 of death, as if the incense of such a horrible and polluted sacri- 
 fice could not ascend into the pure heaven, but had been again
 
 THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 375 
 
 crushed back upon our devoted heads, as a palpable manifesta- 
 tion of the wrath of Him who hath said, " Thou shalt not kill" 
 
 For a few moments all was silent as the grave, and I felt as 
 if the air had become too thick for breathing, while I looked up 
 like another Cain. 
 
 Presently about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, men, 
 women, and children, who had been drawn down by the vortex, 
 rose amidst numberless pieces of smoking wreck to the surface 
 of the sea ; the strongest yelling like fiends in their despair, 
 while the weaker, the women and the helpless gasping little 
 ones, were choking, and gurgling, and sinking all around. Yea, 
 the small thin expiring cry of the innocent sucking infant torn 
 from its sinking mother's breast, as she held it for a brief 
 moment above the waters, which had already for ever closed 
 over herself, was there. But we could not perceive one single 
 individual of her white crew ; like desperate men, they had all 
 gone down with the brig. We picked up about one-half of the 
 miserable Africans, and my pen trembles as I write it fell 
 necessity compelled us to fire on the remainder, as it was utterly 
 impossible for us to take them on board. Oh that I could erase 
 such a scene for ever from my memory ! One incident I can- 
 not help relating. We had saved a woman, a handsome, clear- 
 skinned girl, of about sixteen years of age. She was very faint 
 when we got her in, and was lying with her head over a port- 
 sill, when a strong athletic young negro swam to the part of 
 the schooner where she was. She held down her hand to him ; 
 he was in the act of grasping it, when he was shot through the 
 heart from above. She instantly jumped overboard, and, clasp- 
 ing him in her arms, they sank, and disappeared together. " Oh, 
 woman, whatever may be the colour of your skin, your heart is 
 of one only ! " said Aaron. 
 
 Soon all was quiet; a wounded black here and there was 
 shrieking in his great agony, and struggling for a moment before 
 he sank into his watery grave for ever ; a few pieces of wreck 
 were floating and sparkling on the surface of the deep in the 
 blood-red sunbeams, which streamed in a flood of glorious light 
 on the bloody deck, shattered hull, and torn sails and rigging 
 of the Wave, and on the dead bodies and mangled limbs of those 
 who had fallen ; while some heavy scattering drops of rain fell 
 sparkling from a passing cloud, as if Nature had wept in pity 
 over the dismal scene ; or as if they had been blessed tears, shed 
 by an angel, in his heavenward course, as he hovered for a 
 moment, and looked down in pity on the fantastic tricks played
 
 376 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 by the worm of a day by weak man in bis little moment of 
 power and ferocity. I said something ill and hastily. Aaron 
 was close beside me, sitting on a carronade slide, while the sur- 
 geon was dressing a pike-wound in his neck. He looked up 
 solemnly in my face, and then pointed to the blessed luminary 
 that was now sinking in the sea, and blazing up into the re- 
 splendent heavens " Cringle, for shame for shame your im- 
 patience is blasphemous. Remember this morning and thank 
 ffim" here he looked up and crossed himself "thank Him 
 who, while He has called poor Mr Handlead and so many brave 
 fellows to their last awful reckoning, has mercifully brought us 
 to the end of this fearful day ; oh, thank Him, Tom, that you 
 have seen the sun set once more.! " 
 
 CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 
 
 " I longed to see the Isles that gem 
 Old Ouean's purple diadem ; 
 I sought by turns, and saw them all." 
 
 Bride of Abydos. 
 
 THE puncture in Mr Bang's neck from the boarding-pike was 
 not very deep, still it was an ugly lacerated wound ; and if he 
 had not, to use his own phrase, been somewhat bull-necked, 
 there is no saying what the consequences might have been. 
 
 " Tom, my boy," said he, after the doctor was done with him, 
 " I am nicely coopered now nearly as good as new a little 
 stiffish or so lucky to have such a comfortable coating of muscle, 
 otherwise the carotid would have been in danger. So come 
 here, and take your turn, and I will hold the candle." 
 
 It was a dead calm, and as I had desired the cabin to be 
 again used as a cockpit, it was at this time full of poor fellows, 
 waiting to have their wounds dressed whenever the surgeon 
 could go below. The lantern was brought, and, sitting down on 
 a wadding tub, I stripped. The ball, which I knew had lodged
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 377 
 
 in the fleshy part of my left shoulder, had first of all struck me 
 right over the collar-bone, from which it had glanced, and then 
 buried itself in the muscle of the arm just below the skin, where 
 it stood out as if it had been a sloe both in shape and colour. 
 The collar-bone was much shattered, and my chest was a good 
 deal shaken and greatly bruised ; but I had perceived nothing 
 of all this at the time I was shot ; the sole perceptible sensation 
 was the feeling of cold water running down, and the pinch in 
 the shoulder, as already described. I was much surprised (every 
 man who has been seriously hit being entitled to expatiate) 
 with the extreme smallness of the puncture in the skin through 
 which the ball had entered ; you could not have forced a pea 
 through it, and there was scarcely any flow of blood. 
 
 " A very simple affair this, sir," said the surgeon, as he made 
 a minute incision right over the ball, the instrument cutting 
 into the cold dull lead with a cheep, and then pressing his fingers, 
 one on each side of it, it jumped out nearly into Aaron's mouth. 
 
 " A pretty sugar-plum, Tom : if that collar-bone of yours had 
 not been all the harder, you would have been embalmed in a 
 gazette, to use your own favourite expression. But, my good 
 boy, your bruise on the chest is serious ; you must go to bed, 
 and take care of yourself." 
 
 Alas! there was no bed for me to go to. The cabin was 
 occupied by the wounded, where the surgeon was still at work. 
 Out of our small crew, nine had been killed and eleven wounded, 
 counting passengers twenty out of forty-two a fearful pro- 
 portion. 
 
 The night had now fallen. 
 
 " Pearl, send some of the people aft, and get a spare square- 
 sail from the sailmaker, and " 
 
 " Will the awning not do, sir 1 " 
 
 " To be sure it will," said I it did not occur to me. " Get 
 the awning triced up to the stancheons, and tell my steward to 
 get the beds on deck a few flags to shut us in will make the 
 thing complete." 
 
 It was done ; and while the sharp cries of the wounded who 
 were immediately under the knife of the doctor, and the low 
 moans of those whose wounds had been dressed, or were wait- 
 ing their turn, reached our ears distinctly through the small sky- 
 light, our beds were arranged on deck under the shelter of the 
 awning, a curtain of flags veiling our quarters from the gaze of 
 the crew. Paul Gelid and Pepperpot occupied the starboard side 
 of the little vessel, Aaron Bang and myself the larboard. By
 
 378 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 this time it was close on eight o'clock in the evening. I had 
 merely looked in on our friends, ensconced as they were in their 
 temporary hurricane-house ; for I had more work than I could 
 accomplish on deck in repairing damages. Most of our stand- 
 ing, and great part of our running rigging, had been shot away, 
 which the tired crew were busied in splicing and knotting the 
 best way they could. Our mainmast was very badly wounded 
 close to the deck. It was fished as scientifically as our circum- 
 stances admitted. The foremast had fortunately escaped it 
 was untouched ; but there were no fewer than thirteen round- 
 shot through our hull, five of them between wind and water. 
 
 When everything had been done which ingenuity could devise, 
 or the most determined perseverance execute, I returned to our 
 canvass shed aft, and found Mr Wagtail sitting on the deck, 
 arranging, with the help of my steward, the supper equipment 
 to the best of his ability. Our meal, as may easily be imagined, 
 was frugal in the extreme salt beef, biscuit, some roasted yams, 
 and cold grog some of Aaron's excellent rum. But I mark it 
 down, that I question if any one of the four who partook of it 
 ever made so hearty supper before or since. We worked away 
 at the junk until we had polished the bone clean as an elephant's 
 tusk, and the roasted yams disappeared in bushelfuls ; while the 
 old rum sank in the bottle, like mercury in the barometer indi- 
 cating an approaching gale. 
 
 " I say, Tom," quoth Aaron, "how do you feel, my boy?" 
 
 " Why, not quite so buoyant as I could wish. To me it has 
 been a day of fearful responsibility." 
 
 " And well it may," said he. " As for myself, I go to rest with 
 the tremendous consciousness that even I, who am not a pro- 
 fessional butcher, have this blessed day shed more than one 
 fellow-creature's blood a trembling consideration and all for 
 what, Tom 1 You met a big ship in the dark, and desired her 
 to stop. She said she would not. You said, ' You shall.' She 
 rejoined, ' I'll be d d if I do.' And thereupon you set about 
 compelling her ; and certainly you have interrupted her course 
 to some purpose, at the trivial cost of the lives of only five or 
 six hundred human beings, whose hearts were beating cheerily 
 in their bosoms within these last six hours, but whose bodies are 
 now food for fishes." 
 
 I was stung. " At your hands, my dear sir, I did not ex- 
 pect this, and " 
 
 " Hush," said he, " I don't blame you it is all right ; but 
 why will not the Government at home arrange by treaty that this
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 379 
 
 nefarious trade should be entirely put down ] Surely all our vic- 
 tories by sea and land might warrant our stipulating for so much,, 
 in place of hugger-muggering with doubtful ill-defined treaties,, 
 specifying that you John Crapeau, and you Jack Spaniard, shall 
 steal men, and deal in human flesh, in such and such a degree 
 of latitude only, while if you pick up one single slave a league 
 to the northward or southward of the prescribed line of coast,, 
 then we shall blow you out of the water wherever we meet you. 
 Why should poor devils, who live in one degree of latitude, be 
 allowed to be kidnapped, whilst we make it felony to steal their 
 immediate neighbours?" Aaron waxed warm as he proceeded 
 "Why will not Englishmen lend a hand to put down the 
 slave-trade amongst our opponents in sugar-growing, before they 
 so recklessly endeavour to crush slavery in our own worn-out 
 colonies, utterly regardless of our rights and li ves 1 Mind, Tom, 
 I don't defend slavery I sincerely wish we could do without it ; 
 but am I to be the only one to pay the piper in compassing its ex- 
 tinction 1 If, however, it really be that Upas-tree, under whose 
 baleful shade every kindly feeling in the human bosom, whether 
 of master or servant, withers and dies, I ask, Who planted it ? 
 If it possess the magical, and incredible, and most pestilential 
 quality that the English gentleman, who shall be virtuous and 
 beneficent, and just in all his ways, before he leaves home, and 
 after he returns home, shall, during his temporary sojourn with- 
 in its influence, become a very Nero for cruelty, and have his 
 warm heart of flesh smuggled out of his bosom by some hocus 
 pocus utterly unintelligible to any unprejudiced rational being, 
 or indurated into the flint of the nether millstone, or frozen into 
 a lump of ice ' 
 
 " Lord ! " ejaculated Wagtail, " only fancy a snowball in a 
 man's stomach, and in Jamaica too ! " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Waggy, my love," continued Aaron; "if 
 all this were so, I would again ask, Who planted it 1 Say not 
 that we did it I am a planter, but I did not plant slavery. I 
 found it growing and flourishing, and fostered by the Govern- 
 ment, and made my home amongst the branches like a respect- 
 able corbie craic, or a pelican in a wild-duck's nest, with all my 
 pretty little tender black branchers hopping about me, along 
 with numberless other unfortunates, and now find that the tree 
 is being uprooted by the very hands that planted and nourished 
 it, and seduced me to live in it, and all " 
 
 I laughed aloud " Come, come, my dear sir, you are a perfect 
 Lord Castlereagh in the congruily of your figures. How the
 
 380 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 deuce can any living thing exist among the poisonous branches 
 of the Upas-tree or a wild-duck build 
 
 " Get along with your criticism, Tom, and don't laugh hang 
 it, don't laugh but who told you that a corbie cannot 1 " 
 
 " Why there are no corbies in Java." 
 
 " Pah botheration there are pelicans then ; but you know 
 it is not an Upas-tree, you know it is all a chimera, and, like 
 the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth, ' that there is no such thing.' 
 Now, that is a good burst, Gelid, my lad, ain't it 2 " said Bang, 
 as he drew a long breath, and again launched forth. 
 
 " Our Government shall quarrel about sixpence here or six- 
 pence there of discriminative duty in a foreign port, while they 
 have clapped a knife to our throats, and a flaming fagot to our 
 houses, by absurd edicts and fanatical intermeddling with our 
 own colonies, where the slave-trade has notoriously, and to their 
 own conviction, entirely ceased ; while, I say it again, they will 
 not put out their little finger to prevent, nay, they calmly look 
 on and permit, a traffic utterly repugnant to all the best feelings 
 of our nature, and baneful to an incalculable degree to our own 
 West Indian possessions ; provided, forsooth, the slaves be stolen 
 within certain limits, which, as no one can prove, naturally leads 
 to this infernal contraband, the suppression of which Lord, 
 what a thing to think of ! has nearly deprived the world of 
 the invaluable services of me, Aaron Bang, Esquire, Member of 
 Council of the Island of Jamaica, and Gustos Rotulomm Popu 
 lorum Jig of the Parish of " 
 
 "Lord," said Wagtail, "why, the yam is not hah' done." 
 
 " But the rum & ah ! " drawled Gelid. 
 
 " D n the yam and the rum too," rapped out Bang. "Why, 
 you belly -gods, you have interrupted such a torrent of elo- 
 quence ! " 
 
 I began to guess that our friends were waxing peppery. 
 " Why, gentlemen, I don't know how you feel, but 7 am regu- 
 larly done up it is quite calm, and I hope we shall all sleep, so 
 good-night." 
 
 We nestled in, and the sun had risen before I was called next 
 morning. I hope 
 
 " I rose a sadder and a wiser man, 
 Upon that morrow's morn." 
 
 " On deck, there," said I, while dressing. Mr Peter Swop, 
 one of the Firebrand's master-mates, and now, in consequence of 
 poor Handlead's death, acting-master of the Wave, popped in his
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 381 
 
 head through the opening in the flags. " How is the weather, 
 Mr Swop?" 
 
 " Calm all night, sir ; not a breath stirring, sir." 
 
 " Are the sails shifted 1 " said I, " and the starboard main- 
 shrouds replaced 1 " 
 
 " They are not yet, sir ; the sails are on deck, and the rigging 
 is now stretching, and will be all ready to be got over the mast- 
 head by breakfast-time, sir." 
 
 "How is her head?" 
 
 "Why," rejoined Swop, "it has been boxing all round the 
 compass, sir, for these last twelve hours ; at present it is north- 
 east." 
 
 " Have we drifted much since last night, Mr Swop 1 " 
 
 " No, sir much where we were. There are several pieces of 
 wreck and three dead bodies floating close to, sir." 
 
 By this time I was dressed, and had gone from under the 
 awning on deck. The first thing I did was to glance my eye 
 over the nettings, and there perceived on our quarter three dead 
 bodies, as Mr Swop had said, floating one a white Spaniard, 
 and the other the corpses of two unfortunate Africans, who had 
 perished miserably when the brig went down. The white man's 
 remains, swollen as they were from the heat of the climate and 
 sudden putrefaction consequent thereon, floated quietly within 
 pistol-shot, motionless and still; but the bodies of the two 
 negroes were nearly hidden by the clustering sea-birds which 
 perched on them. There were at least two dozen shipped on each 
 carcass, busy with their beaks and claws, while on the other 
 hand, the water in the immediate neighbourhood seemed quite 
 alive, from the rushing and walloping of numberless fishes, who- 
 were tearing the prey piecemeal. The view was anything but 
 pleasant, and I naturally turned my eyes forward to see what 
 was going on in the bows of the schooner. I was startled from 
 the number of black faces which I saw. 
 
 " Why, Mr Tailtackle, how many of these poor creatures have 1 
 we on board 1 " 
 
 " There are fifty-nine, sir, under hatches in the forehold," said 
 Timothy, " and thirty-five on deck ; but I hope we shan't have 
 them long, sir. It looks like a breeze to windward. We shall 
 have it before long, sir." 
 
 At this moment Mr Bang came on deck. 
 
 " Lord, Tom, I thought it was a flea-bite last night, but, mercy ! 
 I am as stiff and sore as a gentleman need be. How do you 
 feel ] I see you have one of your fins in a sling eh ] "
 
 382 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " I am a little stiff, certainly ; however, that will go off ; but 
 come forward here, my dear sir; come here, and look at this 
 shot-hole saw you ever anything like that ?" 
 
 This was the smashing of one of our pumps from a round 
 shot, the splinters from which were stuck into the bottom of 
 the launch, which overhung it, forming really a figure very like 
 the letter A. 
 
 " Don't take it to myself, Tom, no, not at all" 
 
 At this moment the black savages on the forecastle discovered 
 our friend, and shouts of " Sheik Cocoloo" rent the skies. Mr 
 Bang, for a moment, appeared startled ; so far as I could judge, 
 he had forgotten that part of his exploit, and did not know what 
 to make of it, until at last the actual meaning seemed to flash 
 on him, when, with a shout of laughter, he bolted in through 
 the opening of the flags to his former quarters below the awn- 
 ing. I descended to the cabin, breakfast having been announced, 
 and sat down to our meal, confronted by Paul Gelid and Pepper- 
 pot Wagtail Presently we heard Aaron sing out, the small 
 scuttle being right overhead, " Pegtop, come here Pegtop, I say, 
 help me on with my neckcloth so that will do ; now I shall 
 go on deck. Why, Pearl, my boy, what do you want ? " and 
 before Pearl could get a word in, Aaron continued, " I say, 
 Pearl, go to the other end of the ship, and tell your Coromantee 
 friends that it is all a humbug that I am not the Sultan Coco- 
 loo : furthermore, that I have not a feather in my tail like a 
 palm-branch, of the truth of which I offer to give them ocular 
 proof." 
 
 Pearl made his salaam. " Oh, sir, I fear that we must not 
 say too much on that subject ; we have not irons for one-half of 
 them savage negirs " (the fellow was as black as a coal himself) ; 
 " and were they to be undeceived, why, reduced as our crew is, 
 they might at any time rise on and massacre the whole watch." 
 
 " The devil ! " we could hear friend Aaron say ; " oh, then, 
 go forward, and assure them that I am a bigger ostrich than 
 ever, and I shall astonish them presently, take my word for it. 
 Pegtop, come here, you scoundrel," he continued ; " I say, Peg- 
 top, get me out my uniform coat" our friend was a captain of 
 Jamaica militia " so and my sword that will do ; and here, 
 putt off my trousers, it will be more classical to perambulate in 
 my shirt, in case it really be necessary to persuade them that the 
 palm-branch was all a figure of speech. Now, my hat there ; 
 walk before me, and fan me with the top of that herring- 
 barrel"
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 383 
 
 This was a lid of one of the wadding-tubs, which, to come up 
 to Jigmaree's notions of neatness, had been fitted with covers, 
 and forth stumped Bang, preceded by Pegtop doing the honours. 
 But the instant he appeared from beneath the flags, the same 
 wild shout arose from the captive slaves forward, and such of 
 them as were not fettered immediately began to bundle and 
 tumble round our friend, rubbing their flat noses and woolly 
 heads all over him, and taking hold of the hem of his garment, 
 whereby his personal decency was so seriously perilled, that, 
 after an unavailing attempt to shake them off, he fairly bolted, 
 and ran for shelter once more under the awning, amidst the 
 suppressed mirth of the whole crew, Aaron himself laughing 
 louder than any of them all the while. " I say, Tom, and fel- 
 low-sufferers," quoth he, after he had run to earth under the 
 awning, and looking down the scuttle into the cabin where 
 we were at breakfast, " how am I to get into the cabin ? if I go 
 out on the quarterdeck but one arm's length in order to reach 
 the companion, these barbarians will be at me again. Ah, I 
 see " 
 
 Whereupon, without much more ado, he stuck his legs down 
 through the small hatch right over the breakfast table, with the 
 intention of descending, and the first thing he accomplished was 
 to pop his foot into a large dish of scalding hominy, or hasty- 
 pudding, made of Indian-corn meal, with which Wagtail was in 
 the habit of commencing his stowage at breakfast. But this 
 proving too hot for comfort, he instantly drew it out, and, in his 
 attempt to reascend, he stuck his bespattered toe into Paul 
 Gelid's mouth. " Oh ! oh ! " exclaimed Paul, while little Wag- 
 tail lay back laughing like to die ; but the next instant Bang 
 gave another struggle, or wallop, like a pelloch in shoal-water, 
 whereby Pepperpot borrowed a good kick on the side of the 
 head, and down came the Great Ostrich, Aaron Bang, but with- 
 out any feather in his tail, as I can avouch, slap upon the table, 
 smashing cups and saucers and hominy, and devil knows what 
 all, to pieces, as he floundered on the board. This was so 
 absurd that we were all obliged to give uncontrolled course to 
 our mirth for a minute or two, when, making the best of the 
 wreck, we contrived to breakfast in tolerable comfort. 
 
 Soon after the meal was finished, a light air enabled us once 
 more to lie our course, and we gradually crept to the northward 
 until twelve o'clock in the forenoon, after which time it fell calm 
 again. I went down to the cabin ; Bang had been overhauling 
 my small library, when a shelf gave way (the whole affair having
 
 384 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 been injured by a round shot in the action, which had torn right 
 through the cabin), so down came several scrolls, rolled up, and 
 covered with brown paper. 
 
 " What are all these ? " I could hear our friend say. 
 
 " They are my logs," said I. 
 
 " Your what 1 " 
 
 " My private journals." 
 
 " Oh, I see," said Aaron, " I will have a turn at them, with 
 your permission. But what is this so carefully bound with red 
 tape, and sealed, and marked let me see, ' Thomas Cringle, his 
 Log-book.' " 
 
 He looked at me. " Why, my dear sir, to say the truth, this 
 is my first attempt ; full of trash, believe me ; what else Could 
 you expect from so mere a lad as I was when I wrote it ? " 
 
 " ' The child is father to the man,' Tom, my boy ; so, may I 
 peruse it ] may I read it for the edification of my learned allies, 
 Pepperpot Wagtail and Paul Gelid, Esquires ? " 
 
 " Certainly," I replied, " no objection in the world ; but you 
 will laugh at me, I know ; still, do as you please only, had you 
 not better have your wound dressed first 1 " 
 
 " My wound ! Poo, poo ! just enough to swear by a flea- 
 bite never mind it ; so here goes " and he read aloud what 
 is detailed in the " Launching of the Log," making his remarks 
 with so much naivete, that I daresay the reader will be glad to 
 hear a few of them. His anxiety, for instance, when he read of 
 the young aide-de-camp being shot and dragged by the stirrup,* 
 to know " what became of the empty horse," was very entertain- 
 ing; and when he had read the description of Davoust's face 
 and person, where I describe his nose t " as neither fine nor 
 dumpy a fair enough proboscis as noses go " he laid down 
 the Log with the most laughable seriousness. 
 
 " Now," quoth he, " very inexplicit all this, Tom. Why, I 
 am most curious in noses. I judge of character altogether from 
 the nose. I never lost sight of a man's snout, albeit I never 
 saw the tip of my own. You may rely on it that it is all a 
 mistake to consider the regular Roman nose, with a curve like 
 a shoemaker's paring-knife, or the straight Grecian, with a thin 
 transparent ridge that you can see through, or the Deutsch meer- 
 schaum, or the Saxon pump-handle, or the Scotch mull, or any 
 other nose, that can be taken hold of, as the standard gnomon. 
 No, no ; I never saw a man with a large nose who was not a 
 blockhead eh ! Gelid, my love ] But allons." And where, 
 
 * Page 32. t Page 18.
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 385 
 
 having introduced the German refugees to Captain Deadeye, I 
 go on to say that I thereupon dived into the midshipmen's berth 
 for a morsel of comfort, and was soon " far into the secrets of a 
 pork -pie," * he lay back, and exclaimed, with a long drawling 
 emphasis, " A pork -pie ! " 
 
 " A pork -pie ! " said Paul Gelid. 
 
 " Why, do you know," said Mr Wagtail " I why, I never 
 in all my life saw a pork-pie." 
 
 "My dear Pepperpot," chimed in Gelid, "we both forget. 
 Don't you remember the day we dined with the Admiral at the 
 Pen, in July last?" 
 
 " No," said Wagtail, " I totally forgot it." Bang, I saw, was 
 all this while chuckling to himself. " I absolutely forget it alto- 
 gether." 
 
 " Bless me," said Gelid, " don't you remember the beautiful 
 calipeever we had that day 1 " 
 
 " Really I do not," said Pepperpot, " I have had so many 
 good feeds there." 
 
 " Why," continued Gelid, " Lord love you, Wagtail, not re- 
 member that calipeever, so crisp in the broiling] " 
 
 " No," said Wagtail, " really I do not." 
 
 " Lord, man, it had a pudding in its belly" 
 
 " Oh, now I remember," said Wagtail. 
 
 Bang laughed outright, and I could not help making a holy 
 in my manners also, even prepared as I was for my jest by my 
 sable crony Pegtop. To proceed. 
 
 Aaron looked at me with one of his quizzical grins ; " Cringle, 
 my darling, do you keep these Logs still ? " 
 
 " I do, my dear sir, invariably." 
 
 " What," struck in little Wagtail, " the deuce ! for instance, 
 shall I, and Paul, and Aaron there, all be embalmed or preserved " 
 (" Say pickled," quoth the latter) " in these said Logs of yours? " 
 This was too absurd, and I could not answer my allies for laugh- 
 ing. As for Gelid, he had been swaying himself backwards and 
 forwards, half asleep, on the hind-legs of his chair all this while, 
 puffing away at a cigar. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, half asleep, and but partly overhearing what 
 was going on : " ah, Tom, my dear, you don't say that we shall 
 all be handed down to our poster " a long yawn " to our 
 poster " another yawn when Bang, watching his opportunity 
 as he sat opposite, gently touched one of the fore-legs of the 
 balanced chair with his toe, while he finished Gelid's sentence 
 
 * Page 33. 
 2B
 
 386 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 by interjecting "iors" as the Conch fell back and floundered over 
 on his stern, his tormentor drawling out in wicked mimicry 
 
 " Yes, dear Gelid, so sure as you have been landed down on 
 your posteriors now ah you shall be handed down to your 
 posterity hereafter by that pestilent little scamp Cringle. Ah, 
 Tom, / know you. Paul, Paul, it will be paulo post futurum 
 with you, my lad." 
 
 Here we were interrupted by my steward's entering with his 
 tallow face. " Dinner on the table, sir." We adjourned accord- 
 ingly. 
 
 After dinner we carried on very much as usual, although the 
 events of the previous day had their natural effect ; there was 
 little mirth, and no loud laughter. Once more we all turned in, 
 the calm still continuing, and next morning, after breakfast, 
 friend Aaron took to the Log again. 
 
 But the most amusing exhibition took place when he came to 
 the description of the row in the dark stair at the agent's house, 
 where the negroes fight for the scraps, and capsize Treenail, my- 
 self, and the brown lady, down the steps.* 
 
 " Why, I say, Tom," again quoth Aaron, " I never knew be- 
 fore that you were in Jamaica at the period you here write of." 
 
 " Why, my dear sir, I scarcely can say that I was there, my 
 visit was so hurried." 
 
 " Hurried ! " rejoined he, " hurried by no means ; were you 
 not in the island for four or five hours 1 Ah ! long enough to 
 have authorised your writing an anti-slavery pamphlet of one 
 hundred and fifty pages." 
 
 I smiled. 
 
 " Oh, you may laugh, my boy, but it is true : what a subject 
 for an anti-slavery lecture ! listen, and be instructed." Here 
 our friend shook himself as a bruiser does to ascertain that all 
 is right before he throws up his guard, and for the first five 
 minutes he only jerked his right shoulder this way, and his left 
 shoulder t'other way, while his fins walloped down against his 
 sides like empty sleeves ; at length, as he warmed, he stretched 
 forth his arms like Saint Paul in the Cartoon and although he 
 now and then could not help sticking his tongue in his cheek, 
 still the exhibition was so true, and so exquisitely comical, that 
 I never shall forget it. " The whole white inhabitants of Kings- 
 ton are luxurious monsters, living in more than Eastern splen- 
 dour; and their universal practice, during their magnificent 
 repasts, is to entertain themselves, by compelling their black 
 
 * Page 49.
 
 THE SECOND CKUISE OF THE WAVE. 387 
 
 servants to belabour each other across the pate with silver ladles, 
 and to stick drumsticks of turkeys down each other's throats. 
 Merciful heaven ! only picture the miserable slaves, each with 
 the spaul of a turkey sticking in his gob ! dwell upon that, my 
 dearly-beloved hearers, dwell upon that and then let those who 
 have the atrocious hardihood to do so, speak of the kindliness 
 of the planters' hearts. Kindliness! kindliness! to cram the 
 leg of a turkey down a man's throat, while his yoke -fellow in 
 bondage is fracturing his tender woolly skull for all negroes, 
 as is well known, have craniums much thinner and more fragile 
 than an egg-shell with so tremendous a weapon as a silver 
 ladle ! Ay, a silver ladle ! ! ! Some people make light of a silver 
 ladle as an instrument of punishment it is spoken of as a very 
 slight affair, and that the blows inflicted by it are mere child's 
 play. If any of you, my beloved hearers, labour under this 
 delusion, and will allow me, for your edification, to hammer you 
 about the chops with one of the aforesaid silver soup-ladles of 
 those yellow tyrants for one little half -hour, I pledge myself 
 the delusion shall be dispelled once and for ever. Well, then, 
 after this fearful scene has continued for I dare not say how 
 long, the black butler ay, the black butler, a slave himself 
 oh, my friends, even the black butlers are slaves the very men 
 who minister the wine in health, which maketh their hearts glad, 
 and the castor-oil in sickness, which maketh them anything but 
 of a cheerful countenance this very black butler is desired, on 
 peril of having a drumstick stuck into his own gizzard also, and 
 his skull fractured by the aforesaid iron ladles red hot, it may 
 be ay, and who shall say they are not full of molten lead ? 
 yes, molten lead : does not our reverend brother Lachrima; 
 Roarem say that the ladles might have been full of molten lead / 
 and what evidence have we on the other side that they were not. 
 full of molten lead ? Why, none at all, none nothing but the 
 oaths of all the naval and military officers who have ever served 
 in these pestilent settlements ; and of all the planters and mer- 
 chants in the West Indies, the interested planters those planters 
 who suborn all the navy and army to a man those planters 
 whose molasses is but another name for human blood. (Here 
 a large puff and blow, and a swabification of the white hand- 
 kerchief, while the congregation blow a flourish of trumpets.) 
 My friends (another puff) my friends we all know, my 
 friends, that bullocks' blood is largely used in the sugar-re- 
 fineries in England ; but, alas ! there is no bullocks' blood used 
 in the refineries in the West Indies. This I will prove to you
 
 388 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 on the oath of six Dissenting clergymen. No. What, then, is 
 the inference 1 Oh, is it not palpable ? Do you not every day, 
 as jurors, hang men on circumstantial evidence 1 Are not many 
 of yourselves hanged and transported every year, on the simple 
 fact being proved of your being found stooping down in pity 
 over some poor fellow with a broken head, with your hands in 
 his breeches pockets in order to help him up 1 ? And can you 
 fail to draw the proper inference in the present case? Oh no, 
 no! my friends, it is the Mood of the negroes that is used in 
 these refining pandemoniums of the poor negroes, who are 
 worth one hundred pounds apiece to their masters, and on whose 
 health and capacity for work these same planters absolutely and 
 entirely depend." 
 
 Here our friend gathered all his energies, and began to roar 
 like a perfect bull of Bashan, and to swing his arms about like 
 the sails of a windmill, and to stamp and jump, and lollop about 
 with his body as he went on. 
 
 " Well, this butler, this poor black butler this poor black 
 slave butler this poor black Christian slave butler for he 
 may have been a Christian, and most likely was a Christian, and 
 indeed must have been a Christian is enforced, after all the 
 cruelties already narrated, on pain of being choked with the leg 
 of a turkey himself, and having molten lead poured down his 
 own throat, to do what? who would not weep? to to to 
 chuck each of his fellow-servants, poor, miserable creatures! 
 each with a bone in his throat, and molten lead in his belly, and 
 a fractured skull to chuck them, neck and crop, one after 
 another, down a dark staircase, a pitch-dark staircase, amidst a 
 chaos of plates and dishes, and the hardest and most expensive 
 china, and the finest-cut crystal that the wounds inflicted may 
 be the keener and silver spoons, and knives, and forks yea. 
 my Christian brethren, carving-knives and pitchforks right 
 down on the top of their brown mistresses, who are thereby in- 
 variably bruised like the clown in the pantomime at least as I 
 am told he is, for / never go to such profane places oh, no 1 
 bruised as flat as pancakes, and generally murdered outright on 
 the spot. Last of all, the landlord gets up, and kicks the miser- 
 able butler himself down after his mates, into the very heart of 
 the living mass ; and this not once and away, but every day in 
 the week, Sundays not excepted. Oh, my dear, dear hearers, 
 can you can you, with your fleshy hearts thumping and bump- 
 ing against your small ribs, forget the black butler, and the 
 mulatto concubines, and the pitchforks, and the iron ladles full
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 389 
 
 of molten lead 1 My feelings overpower me ; I must conclude. 
 Go in peace, and ponder these things in your hearts, and pay 
 your sixpences at the doors. Exeunt omnes, piping their eyes, 
 and blowing their noses." 
 
 Our shouts of laughter interrupted our friend, who never 
 moved a muscle. 
 
 Again, where old Crowfoot asks his steward " How does the 
 privateer lay ?"* 
 
 " There again, now," said Aaron, with an irritable girn 
 " why, Tom, your style is most pestilent you lay here, and you 
 lay there ; are you sure that you are not a hen, Tom 1 " 
 
 One more touch at Massa Aaron, and I have done. After com- 
 ing to the description of the horrible carnage that the fire from 
 the transport caused on the privateer's deck before she sheered 
 off,t I remarked, " I never recall that early and dismal scene to 
 my recollection the awful havoc created on the schooner's deck 
 by our fire the struggling and crawling, and wriggling of the 
 dark mass of wounded men, as they endeavoured, fruitlessly, to 
 shelter themselves from our guns, even behind the dead bodies 
 of their slain shipmates without conjuring up a very fearful 
 and harrowing image." 
 
 " Were you ever at Biggleswade, my dear sir ? " 
 
 " To be sure I was," said Mr Bang. 
 
 " Then did you ever see an eel-pot with the water drawn off, 
 when the snake-like fish were twining, and twisting, and crawl 
 ing, like Brobdignag maggots, in living knots, a horrible and 
 disgusting mass of living abomination amidst the filthy slime at 
 the bottom 1 " 
 
 " Ach have done, Tom hang your similes. Can't you cut 
 your coat by me, man 1 Only observe the delicacy of mine." 
 
 " The corbie craw, for instance," said I, laughing. 
 
 " Ever at Biggleswade 1 " struck in Paul Gelid. " Ever at 
 Biggleswade 1 Lord love you, Cringle, we have all been at 
 Biggleswade. Don't you know" (how he conceived I should 
 have known, I am sure I never could tell) " don't you know 
 that Wagtail and I once made a voyage to England, ay, in the 
 hurricane months, too ah for the express purpose of eating 
 eels there; and Lord, Tom, my dear fellow" (here he sank his 
 voice into a most dolorous key), " let me tell you that we were 
 caught in a hurricane in- the Gulf, and very nearly lost, when, 
 instead of eating eels, sharks would have eaten us ah and at 
 length driven into Havannah ah. And when we did get home" 
 
 * Page 64. t Page 65.
 
 390 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 (here I thought my excellent friend would have cried out- 
 right) " Lord, sir ! we found that the fall was not the season 
 to eat eels in after all ah that is, in perfection. But we 
 found out from Whiffle, whom we met in town, and who had 
 learned it from the guard of the North mail, that one of the 
 last season's pots was still on hand at Biggleswade ; so down we 
 trundled in the mail that very evening." 
 
 " And don't you remember the awful cold I caught that night, 
 being obliged to go outside 1 " quoth Waggy. 
 
 " Ah, and so you did, my dear fellow," continued his ally. 
 " But gracious on alighting, we found that the agent of a 
 confounded gormandising lord mayor had that very evening 
 boned the entire contents of the only remaining pot for a cursed 
 livery-dinner ah. Eels, indeed ! we got none but those of the 
 new catch, full of mud, and tasting of mud and red worms. 
 Wagtail was really very ill in consequence ah." 
 
 Pepperpot had all this while listened with mute attention, as 
 if the narrative had been most moving, and I question not he 
 thought so ; but Bang oh, the rogue looked also very grave 
 and sympathising, but there was a kughing devil in his eye, 
 that showed he was inwardly enjoying the beautiful rise of his 
 friends. 
 
 We were here interrupted by a hail from the look-out man at 
 the masthead " Land right ahead." 
 
 " What does it look like ? " said I. 
 
 " It makes in low hummocks, sir. Now I see houses on the 
 highest one." 
 
 " Hurrah, Nassau, New Providence, ho ! " 
 
 Shortly after we made the land about Nassau, the breeze died 
 away, and it fell nearly calm. 
 
 " I say, Thomas," quoth Aaron, " for this night at least we 
 must still be your guests, and lumber you on board of your 
 seventy-four. No chance, so far as I see, of getting into port 
 to-night; at least if we do, it will be too late to go on shore." 
 
 He said truly, and we therefore made up our minds to sit 
 down once more to our rough- and-round dinner, in the small, 
 hot, choky cabin of the Wave. As it happened, we were all in 
 high glee. I flattered myself that my conduct in the late affair 
 would hoist me up a step or two on the roster for promotion, 
 and my excellent friends were delighted at the idea of getting 
 on shore. 
 
 After the cloth had been drawn, Mr Bang opened his fire. 
 
 " Tom, my boy, I respect your service, but I have no great
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 391 
 
 ambition to belong to it. I am sure no bribe that I am aware 
 of could ever tempt me to make 'my home upon the deep ;' and 
 I really am not sure that it is a very gentlemanly calling after alL 
 Nay, don't look glum ; what I meant was, the egregious weari- 
 ness of spirit you must all undergo from consorting with the 
 same men day after day, hearing the same jokes repeated for the 
 hundredth time, and, whichever way you turn, seeing the same 
 faces morning, noon, and night, and listening to the same voices. 
 Oh ! I should die in a year's time were I to become a sailor." 
 
 "But," rejoined I, "you have your land-bores in the same 
 way that we have our sea-bores ; and we have this advantage 
 over you, that if the devil should stand at the door, ice can 
 always escape from them sooner or later, and can buoy up our 
 souls with the certainty that we can so escape from them at the 
 end of the cruise at the farthest ; whereas if you happen to have 
 taken root amidst a colony of bores on shore, why you never 
 can escape, unless you sacrifice all your temporalities for that 
 purpose; ergo, my dear sir, our life has its advantages, and yours 
 has its disadvantages." 
 
 " Too trae too true," rejoined Mr Bang. " In fact, judging 
 from my own small experience, borism is fast attaining a head 
 it never reached before. Speechifying is the crying and promi- 
 nent vice of the age. Why will the ganders not recollect that 
 eloquence is the gift of heaven, Thomas ? A man may improve 
 it, unquestionably, but the Promethean fire, the electrical spark, 
 must be from on high. No mental perseverance or education 
 could ever have made a Demosthenes or a Cicero in the ages 
 long past ; nor an Edmund Burke " 
 
 " Nor an Aaron Bang in times present," said L 
 
 " Hide my roseate blushes, Thomas," quoth Aaron, as he con- 
 tinued. " Would that men would speak according to their gifts, 
 study Shakespeare and Don Quixote, and learn of me ; and that 
 the real blockhead would content himself with speaking when 
 he is spoken to, drinking when he is drucken to, and ganging to 
 the kirk when the bell rings. You never can go into a party 
 nowadays, that you don't meet with some shallow, prosing, pesti- 
 lent ass of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversa- 
 tion ; and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the 
 blockhead's composition ; but a creature of this calibre you can 
 wither, for it is not worth crushing, by withholding the sunshine 
 of your countenance from it, or by leaving it to drivel on, until 
 the utter contempt of the whole company claps to change the 
 figure a wet nightcap as an extinguisher on it, and its small,
 
 392 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 stinking flame flickers and goes out of itself. Then there is 
 your sentimental water-fly, who blaws in the lugs of the women 
 and clips the King's English, and your high-flying dominie body, 
 who whumles them outright. I speak in a figure. But all 
 these are as dust in the balance to the wearisome man of pon- 
 derous acquirements, the solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, 
 and, if he happen to be rich, fancies himself entitled to prose 
 and palaver away as if he were Sir Oracle, or as if the pence in 
 his purse could ever fructify the cauld parritch in his pate into 
 pregnant brain. There is a plateful of P's for you, at any rate, 
 Tom. Beautiful exemplification of the art alliterative ain't it? 
 
 ' Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, 
 To see ourselves as libers see us t ' 
 
 My dear boy, speechifying has extinguished conversation. Public 
 meetings, God knows, are rife enough, and why will the numb- 
 skulls not confine their infernal dulness to them 1 why not be 
 satisfied with splitting the ears of the groundlings there 1 why 
 will they not consider that convivial conversation should be 
 lively as the sparkle of musketry, brilliant, sharp, and sprightly, 
 and not like the thundering of heavy cannon, or heavier tombs. 
 But no you shall ask one of the Drawleys across the table to 
 take wine. ' Ah,' says he and how he makes out the concat- 
 enation, God only knows 'this puts me in mind, Mr Thingum 
 bob, of what happened when I was chairman of the county club, 
 on such a day. Alarming times these were, and deucedly nervous 
 I was when I got up to return thanks. My friends, said I, this 
 
 unexpected and most unlooked-for honour this ' Here, 
 
 blowing all your breeding to the winds, you fire a question across 
 his bows, into the fat pleasant fellow, who speaks for society, 
 beyond him, and expect to find that the dull sailor has hauled 
 his wind, or dropped astern (do you twig how nautical I have 
 become in my lingo, under Tailtackle's tuition, Tom ]) but, 
 alas ! no sooner has the sparkle of our fat friend's wit lit up 
 the whole worshipful society, than at the first lull, down comes 
 Drawley again upon you, like a heavy-sterned Dutch dogger, 
 right before the wind ' As I was saying this unexpected and 
 most unlooked-for honour' and there you are pinned to the 
 stake, and compelled to stand the fire of all his blunt bird-bolts 
 for half an hour on end. At length his mud has all dribbled 
 from him, and you hug yourself ' Ah, come, here is a talking 
 man opening his fire, so we shall have some conversation at last.' 
 But alas and alack-a-day ! Prosey the second chimes in, and
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 393 
 
 works away, and hems and haws, and hawks up some old scraps 
 of schoolboy Latin and Greek, which are all Hebrew to you, 
 honest man, until at length he finishes off by some solemn 
 twaddle about fossil turnips and vitrified brickbats ; and thus 
 concludes Fozy No. 2. Oh, shade of Edie Ochiltree ! that we 
 should stand in the taunt of such unmerciful spendthrifts of our 
 time on earth. Besides, the devil of it is, that whatever may 
 be said of the flippant palaverers, the heavy bores are generally 
 most excellent and amiable men, so that one can't abuse the 
 xumphs with anything like a quiet conscience." 
 
 " Come," said I, " my dear sir, you are growing satirical." 
 
 " Quarter less three," sang out the leadsman in the chains. 
 
 We were now running in past the end of Hog Island to the 
 port of Nassau, where the lights were sparkling brightly. We 
 .anchored, but it was too late to go on shore that evening, so, 
 after a parting glass of swizzle, we all turned in for the night. 
 
 To be near the wharf, for the convenience of refitting, I had 
 run the schooner close in, being aware of the complete security 
 of the harbour, so that in the night I could feel the little vessel 
 gently take the ground. This awoke me and several of the 
 crew ; for, accustomed as sailors are to the smooth bounding 
 motion of a buoyant vessel rising and falling on the heaving 
 bosom of the ocean, the least touch on the solid ground, or 
 against any hard floating substance, thrills to their hearts with 
 electrical quickness. Through the thin bulkhead I could hear 
 the officers speaking to each other. 
 
 " We are touching the ground," said one. 
 
 " And if we be, there is no sea here all smooth land-locked 
 entirely," quoth another. 
 
 So all hands of us, except the watch on deck, snoozed away 
 once more into the land of deep forgetfulness. We had all for 
 some days previously been overworked, and over-fatigued ; in- 
 deed, ever since the action had caused the duty of the little 
 vessel to devolve on one-half of her original crew, those who had 
 escaped had been subjected to great privations, and were nearly 
 worn out. 
 
 It might have been four bells in the middle watch when I 
 was awakened by the discontinuance of Mr Swop's heavy step 
 overhead ; but judging that the poor fellow might have toppled 
 over into a slight temporary snooze, I thought little of it, per- 
 suaded as I was that the vessel was lying in the most perfect 
 safety. In this belief I was falling over once more, when I heard 
 a short startled grunt from one of the men in the steerage then
 
 394 TOM CRINGLES LOG. 
 
 a sudden sharp exclamation from another a louder ejaculation 
 of surprise from a third and presently Mr Wagtail, who was 
 sleeping on a mattress spread on the locker below me, gave a 
 spluttering cough. A heavy splash followed, and, simultaneously, 
 several of the men forward shouted out, " Ship full of water 
 water up to our hammocks;" while Waggy, who had rolled off 
 his narrow couch, sang out at the top of his pipe, " I am 
 drowned, Bang. Tom Cringle, my dear- Gelid, I am drowned 
 we are all drowned the ship is at the bottom of the sea, 
 and we shall have eels enough here, if we had none at Biggies- 
 wade. Oh! murder! murder!" 
 
 " Sound the well," I could hear Tailtackle, who had run on 
 deck, sing out. 
 
 " No use in that," I called out, as I splashed out of my warm 
 cot up to my knees in water. " Bring a light, Mr Tailtackle ; a 
 bottom plank must have started, or a butt, or a hidden-end. The 
 schooner is full of water beyond doubt, and as the tide is still 
 making, stand by to hoist out the boats, and get the wounded 
 into them. But don't be alarmed, men ; the schooner is on the 
 ground, and it is near high-water. So be cool and quiet. Don't 
 bother now don't " 
 
 By the time I had finished my extempore speech I was on 
 deck, where I soon found that, in very truth, there was no use 
 in sounding the well, or manning the pumps either, as some 
 wounded plank had been crushed out bodily by the pressure of 
 the vessel when she took the ground ; and there she lay the 
 tidy little Wave regularly bilged, with the tide flowing into her. 
 
 Every one of the crew was now on the alert. Bedding and 
 bags and some provisions were placed in the boats of the" 
 schooner, and several craft from the shore, hearing the alarm, 
 were now alongside ; so danger there was none, except that of 
 catching cold, and I therefore bethought me of looking in on 
 my guests in the cabin. I descended and waded into our late 
 dormitory with a candle in my hand, and the water nearly 
 up to my waist. I there found my steward, also with a light, 
 splashing about in the water, catching a stray hat here, and fish- 
 ing up a spare coat there, and anchoring a chair, with a piece of 
 spunyarn, to the pillar of the small side-berth on the starboard 
 side, while our friend Massa Aaron was coolly lying in his cot 
 on the larboard, the bottom of which was by this time within 
 an inch of the surface of the water, and bestirring himself in an 
 attempt to get his trousers on, which by some lucky chance he 
 had stowed away under his pillow overnight ; and there he was,
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 395 
 
 sticking up first one peg and then another, until, by sidling and 
 shifting in his narrow lair, he contrived to rig himself in his 
 nether garments. " But, steward, my good man," he was saying 
 when I entered, " where is my coat, eh ] " The man groped for 
 a moment down in the water, which his nose dipped into, with 
 his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his armpits, and then held up some 
 dark object, that, to me at least, looked like a piece of black 
 cloth hooked out of a dyer's vat. Alas ! this was Massa Aaron's 
 coat ; and while the hats were bobbing at each other in the other 
 corner like seventy -fours, with a squadron of shoes in their 
 wakes, and Wagtail was sitting in the side-berth, with his wet 
 night-gown drawn about him, his muscular development in high 
 relief through the clinging drapery, and bemoaning his fate in 
 the most pathetic manner that can be conceived, our ally Aaron 
 exclaimed, " I say, Tom, how do you like the cut of my Sunday 
 coat, eh ] " while our friend Paul Gelid, who, it seems, had slept 
 through the whole row, was at length startled out of his sleep, 
 and, sticking one of his long shanks over the side of his cot in 
 act to descend, immersed it in the cold salt brine. 
 
 " Lord, Wagtail ! " he exclaimed, " my dear fellow, the cabin 
 is full of water we are sinking ah ! Deucedly annoying to 
 be drowned in this hole, amidst dirty water, like a tubful of ill- 
 washed potatoes ah." 
 
 "Tom Tom Cringle," shouted Mr Bang at this juncture, 
 while he looked over the edge of his cot on the stramask below, 
 " saw ever any man the like of that 1 Why, see there there, 
 just under your candle, Tom a bird's nest floating about with 
 a mavis in it, as I am a gentleman." 
 
 " D n your bird's nest and mavis too, whatever that may 
 be," roared little Mr Pepperpot. " By Jupiter, it is my wig, 
 with a live rat in it ! " 
 
 " Confound your wig ! ah," quoth Paul, as the steward fished 
 up what I took at first for a pair of brimful water-stoups. 
 " Zounds ! look at my boots." 
 
 " And confound both the wig and boots, say I," sang out Mr 
 Bang. " Look at my Sunday coat. Why, who set the ship on 
 jire, Tom?" 
 
 Here his eye caught mine, and a few words sufficed to ex- 
 plain how we were situated, and then the only bother was how 
 to get ashore, and where we were to sojourn, so as to have our 
 clothes dried, as nothing could now be done until daylight. I 
 therefore got our friends safely into a Nassau boat alongside, 
 with their wet trunks and portmanteaus in charge of their black
 
 396 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 servants, and left them to fish their way to their lodging-house 
 as they best could. By this our negro captives had been landed, 
 and delivered over to the proper authorities, and the wounded 
 and the sound part of the crew had been placed on board of two 
 merchant brigs that lay close to us : the masters of them prov- 
 ing accommodating men, I got them alongside, as the tide flowed, 
 one on the starboard, the other on the larboard side, right over 
 the Wave; and next forenoon, when they took the ground, we 
 rigged two spare topmasts from one vessel to another, and mak- 
 ing the main and fore-rigging of the schooner fast to them as 
 the tide once more made, we weighed her, and floated her along- 
 side of the sheer-hulk, against which we were enabled to heave 
 her out, so as to get at the leak, and then by rigging bilge- 
 pumps we contrived to free her and keep her dry. The damaged 
 plank was soon removed ; and, being in a fair way to surmount 
 all my difficulties, about half -past five in the evening I equipped 
 myself in dry clothes, and proceeded on shore to call on our 
 friends at their new domicile. When I entered I was shown 
 into the dining-hall by my ally, Pegtop. 
 
 " Massa will be here presently, sir." 
 
 " Oh tell him he need not hurry himself. But how are Mr 
 Bang and his friends 1 " 
 
 " Oh, dem all wery so-so, only Massa Wagtail hab take soch 
 a terrible cold, dat him tink he is going to dead; him wery 
 sorry for himshef, for true, massa." 
 
 " But where are the gentlemen, Pegtop ? " 
 
 " All, every one on dem, is in him bed. Wet clothes have 
 been drying all day." 
 
 " And when do they mean to dine 1 " 
 
 Here Pegtop doubled himself up, and laughed like to split 
 himself. 
 
 "Dem is all dining in bed, massa. Shall I show you to 
 dem?" 
 
 "I shall be obliged; but don't let me intrude. Give my 
 compliments, and say I have looked in simply to inquire after 
 their health." 
 
 Here Mr Wagtail shouted from the inner apartment. 
 
 " Hillo ! Tom, my boy ! Tom Cringle ! here, my lad, here ! " 
 
 I was shown into the room from whence the voice proceeded, 
 which happened to be Massa Aaron's bedroom ; and there were 
 my three friends stretched on sofas, in their night-clothes, with 
 a blanket, sheet, and counterpane over each, forming three sides 
 of a square round a long table, on which a most capital dinner
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 397 
 
 was smoking, with wines of several kinds, and a perfect galaxy 
 of wax candles, and their sable valets, in nice clean attire and 
 smart livery-coats, waiting on them. 
 
 " Ah, Tom," quoth Massa Paul, "delighted to see you ; come, 
 tyou seem to have dry clothes on, so take the head of the table." 
 
 I did so, and broke ground forthwith with great zeal. 
 
 " Tom, a glass of wine, my dear," said Aaron. " Don't you 
 admire us classical, after the manner of the ancients, eh .< 
 Wagtail's head-dress and Paul's night-cap -oh, the comforts of 
 a woollen one ! Ah, Tom, Tom, the Greeks had no Kilmarnock 
 none." 
 
 We all carried on cheerily, and Bang began to sparkle. 
 
 " Well, now since you have weighed the schooner and found 
 not much wanting, I feel my spirits rising again. A glass of 
 champagne, Tom your health, boy. The dip the old hooker 
 has got must have surprised the rats and cockroaches. Do you 
 know, Tom, I really have an idea of writing a history of the 
 cruise ; only I am deterred from the melancholy consciousness 
 that every blockhead nowadays fancies he can write." 
 
 " Why, my dear sir, are you not coquetting for a compliment ] 
 Don't we all know that many of the crack articles in Ebony's 
 Mag 
 
 " Bah," clapping his hand on my mouth ; " hold your tongue ; 
 all wrong in that " 
 
 " Well, if it be not you then, I scarcely know to whom to 
 attribute them. Until lately, I only knew you as the warm- 
 hearted West Indian gentleman; but now I am certain I am 
 to 
 
 " Tom, hold your tongue, my beautiful little man. For 
 although I must plead guilty to having mixed a little in literary 
 society in my younger days 
 
 ' Alas ! my heart, those days are gane.' 
 
 Ah, Mr Swop," continued Mr Bang, as the master was ushered 
 into the room. " Plate and glasses for Mr Swop." 
 
 The sailor bowed, perched himself on the very edge of his 
 chair, scarcely within long arm's-length of the table, and sitting 
 bolt upright as if he had swallowed a spare studding-sail-boom, 
 drank our healths and smoothed down his hair on his brow. 
 
 " Captain, I come to report the schooner ready to " 
 
 " Poo," rattled out Mr Bang ; " time for your tale by-and-by ; 
 
 help yourself to some of that capital beef, Peter, so Yes, 
 
 my love," continued our friend, resuming his yarn, " I once
 
 398 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 coped even with John Wilson himself. Yea, in the fulness of 
 my powers, I feared not even the Professor." 
 
 "Indeed! "said I. 
 
 " True, as I am a gentleman. Why, I once, in a public trial 
 of skill, beat him, even him, by eighteen measured inches, from 
 toe to heel." 
 
 I stared. 
 
 " I was the slighter man of the two, certainly. Still, in a flying 
 leap, I always had the best of it, until he astonished the world 
 with the 'Isle of Palms.' From that day forth my springiness 
 and elasticity left me. ' Fallen was my muscles' brawny vaunt.' 
 I quailed. My genius stood rebuked before him. Nevertheless 
 at hop-step-and-jump I was his match still. When out came 
 the 'City of the Plague!' From that hour the Great Ostrich 
 could not hold the candle to the Flying Philosopher. And now, 
 Heaven help me ! I can scarcely cover nineteen feet, with every 
 advantage of ground for the run. It is true, the Professor was 
 always in condition, and never required training ; now, unless I 
 had time for my hard food, I was seldom in wind." 
 
 Mr Peter Swop, emboldened and brightened by the \\ine he 
 had so industriously swilled, and willing to contribute his quota 
 of conversation, having previously jumbled in his noddle what 
 Mr Bang had said about an ostrich and hard food, asked across 
 the table 
 
 " Do you believe ostriches eat iron, Mr Bang 1 " 
 
 Mr Bang slowly put down his glass, and, looking with the 
 most imperturbable seriousness the innocent master right in the 
 face, exclaimed 
 
 " Ostriches eat iron ! Do I believe ostriches eat iron, did you 
 say, Mr Swop 1 Will you have the great kindness to tell me 
 if this glass of madeira be poison, Mr Swop 1 Why, when 
 Captain Cringle there was in the Bight of Benin, from which 
 
 1 One comes out 
 Where a hundred go in,' 
 
 on board of the what d'ye call her ] I forget her name they 
 had a tame ostrich, which was the wonder of the whole squadron. 
 At the first go-off it had plenty of food, but at length they had 
 to put it on short allowance of a Winchester bushel of tenpenny 
 nails and a pumpbolt a day ; but their Supplies failing, they had 
 even to reduce this quantity, whereby the poor bird, after un- 
 availing endeavours to get at the iron ballast, was driven to pick 
 out the iron bolts of the ship in the clear moonlight nights, 
 when no one was thinking of it ; so that the craft would soon
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 399 
 
 have been a perfect wreck. And as the commodore would not 
 hear of the creature being killed, Tom here undertook to keep it on 
 copper bolts and sheathing until they reached Cape Coast. But 
 it would not do ; the copper soured on its stomach and it died. 
 Believe an ostrich eats iron, quotha ! But to return to the train- 
 ing for the jump I used to stick to beefsteaks and a thimble- 
 ful of Burton ale ; and again I tried the dried knuckle parts of 
 legs of five-year-old blackfaced muttons ; but, latterly, I trained 
 best on birsled peas and whisky - 
 
 " On what 1 " shouted I, in great astonishment ; " on what ? " 
 " Yes, my boys ; parched peas and whisky. Charge properly 
 with birsled peas, and if you take a caulker just as you begin 
 your run, there is the linstock to the gun for you, and away you 
 fly through the air on the principle of the Congreve rocket. 
 Well might that amiable, and venerable, and most learned 
 Theban, Cockibus Bungo, who always held the stakes on 
 these great occasions, exclaim, in his astonishment, to Cliecscy, 
 the Janitor of many days as 
 
 ' Lake fire from flint I glanced away,' 
 
 disdaining the laws of gravitation 
 
 Epa.ap.iri ire'Aeio, 
 n66ei>, ir60 
 
 By Mercury, I swear yea, by his winged heel, I shall hare 
 at the Professor yet, if I live, and whisky and birsled peas fail 
 me not." 
 
 Here Paul and I laughed outright ; but Mr Wagtail appeared 
 out of sorts somehow ; and Swop looked first at one and then 
 at another, with a look of the most ludicrous uncertainty as to 
 whether Mr Bang was quizzing him, or telling a verity. 
 
 " Why, Wagtail," said Gelid, " what ails you, my boy 1 " 
 
 I looked towards our little amiable fat friend. His face was 
 much flushed, although I learned that he had been unusually 
 abstemious, and he appeared heated and restless, and had evi- 
 dently feverish symptoms about him. 
 
 " Who's there ? " said Wagtail, looking towards the door with 
 a raised look. 
 
 It was Tailtackle, with two of the boys carrying a litter, fol- 
 lowed by Peter Mangrove, as if he had been chief mourner at a 
 funeral. Out of the litter a black paw, with fishes or splints 
 whipped round it by a band of spunyarn, protruded, and kept 
 swaying about like a pendulum.
 
 400 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " What have- you got there, Mr Tailtackle 1 '* 
 
 The gunner turned round. 
 
 " Oh, it is a vagary of Peter Mangrove's, sir. Not contented 
 with getting the doctor to set Sneezer's starboard fore-leg, he 
 insists on bringing him away from amongst the people at the 
 capstan-house." 
 
 " True, massa Massa Tailtackle say true ; de poor dumb dog 
 never shall cure him leg none at all, 'mong de men dere ; dey all 
 love him so mosh, and make of him so mosh, and stuff him wid 
 salt wittal so mosh, till him blood inflammation like a hell ; and 
 den him so good temper, and so gratify wid dere attention, dat 
 I believe him will eat till him kickeriboo of sorefut [surfeit, I 
 presumed] ; and, beside, I know de dog healt will instantly mend 
 if him see you. Oh, Massa Aaron [our friend was smiling], it 
 not like you to make fun of poor black fellow, when him is take 
 de part of soch old friend as poor Sneezer. De captain dere 
 cannot laugh, dat is if him will only tink on dat fearful cove at 
 Puerto Escondido, and what Sneezer did for bote of we dere." 
 
 " Well, well, Mangrove, my man," said Mr Bang, " I will ask 
 leave of my friends here to have the dog bestowed in a comer 
 of the piazza ; so let the boys lay him down there, and here is 
 a glass of grog for you so. Now go back again," as the poor 
 fellow had drunk our healths. 
 
 Here Sneezer, who had been still as a mouse all this while, 
 put his black snout out of his hammock, and began to cheep 
 and whine in his gladness at seeing his master, and the large 
 tears ran down his coal-black muzzle as he licked my hand, while 
 every now and then he gave a short fondling bark, as if he had 
 said, " Ah, master, I thought you had forgotten me altogether, 
 ever since the action where I got my leg broke by a grape-shot, 
 but I find I am mistaken." 
 
 " Now, Tailtackle, what say you ] " 
 
 " We may ease off the tackles to-morrow afternoon," said the 
 gunner, " and right the schooner, sir ; we have put in a dozen 
 cashaw knees, as tough as leather, and bolted the planks tight 
 and fast. You saw these heavy quarters did us no good, sir ; I 
 hope you will beautify her again, now since the Spaniard's shot 
 has pretty well demolished them already. I hope you won't 
 replace them, sir. I hope Captain Transom may see her as she 
 should be as she was when your honour had your first pleasure 
 cruise in her." Here but I may have dreamed it I thought 
 the quid in the honest fellow's cheek stuck out in higher relief 
 than usual for a short space.
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 401 
 
 " We shall see we shall see," said I. 
 
 "I say, Don Timotheus," quoth Bang, "you don't mean to 
 be off without drinking our healths ? " as he tipped him a tum- 
 bler of brandy-grog of very dangerous strength. 
 
 The warrant-officer drank it and vanished ; and presently Mr 
 Gelid's brother, who had just returned from one of the out 
 islands, made his appearance, and, after the greeting between 
 them was over, the stranger advanced, and with much grace in- 
 vited us en masse to his house. But by this time Mr Wagtail 
 was so ill that we could not move that night, our chief concern 
 now being to see him properly bestowed ; and very soon I was 
 convinced that his disease was a violent bilious fever. 
 
 The old brown landlady, like all her caste, was a most excel- 
 lent nurse ; and after the most approved and skilful surgeon of 
 the town had seen him, and prescribed what was thought right, 
 we all turned in. Next morning, before any of us were up, a 
 whole plateful of cards were handed to us, and during the fore- 
 noon these were followed by as many invitations to dinner. We 
 had difficulty in making our election, but that day I remember 
 we dined at the beautiful Mrs C 's, and in the evening ad- 
 journed to a ball a very gay affair ; and I do freely avow that 
 I never saw so many pretty women in a community of the same 
 size before. Oh ! it was a little paradise, and not without its 
 Eve. But such an Eve ! I scarcely think the old Serpent him- 
 self could have found it in his heart to have beguiled her. 
 
 " I say, Tom, my dear boy," said Mr Bang, " do you see that 
 darling 1 Oh, who can picture- to himself, without a tear, that 
 such a creature of light, such an ethereal-looking thing, whose 
 step ' would ne'er wear out the everlasting flint,' that floating 
 gossamer on the thin air, shall one day become an anxious-look- 
 ing, sharp-featured, pale-faced, loud-tongued, thin -bosomed, 
 broad-hipped wife ! " 
 
 The next day, or rather in the same night, his Majesty's ship 
 Rabo arrived, and the first tidings we had of it in the morning 
 were communicated by Captain Qeuedechat himself, an honest, 
 uproarious sailor, who chose to begin, as many a worthy ends, 
 by driving up to the door of the lodging in a cart. 
 
 " Is the captain of the small schooner that was swamped 
 here]" he asked of Massa Pegtop. 
 
 " Free and easy this," thought I. 
 
 " Yes, sir, Captain Cringle is here, but him no get up yet." 
 
 " Oh, never mind ; tell him not to hurry himself. But where 
 is the table laid for breakfast 1 ?" 
 
 2c
 
 402 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Here, sir," said Pegtop, as he showed him into the piazza. 
 
 " Ah, that will do so, give me the newspaper tol de rol ! " 
 and he began reading and singing, in all the buoyancy of mind 
 consequent on escaping from shipboard after a three months' 
 cruise. 
 
 I dressed and came to him as soon as I could ; and the gal- 
 lant captain, whom I had figured to myself a fine light gossamer 
 lad of twenty-two, stared me in the face as a fat elderly cock of 
 forty at the least ; and as to bulk, I would not have guaranteed 
 that eighteen stone could have made him kick the beam. How- 
 ever, he was an excellent fellow, and that day he and his crew 
 were of most essential service in assisting me in refitting the 
 Wave, for which I shall always be grateful I had spent the 
 greater part of the forenoon in my professional duty, but about 
 two o'clock I had knocked off, in order to make a few calls on 
 the families to whom I had introductions, and who were after- 
 wards so signally kind to me. I then returned to our lodgings 
 in order to dress for dinner, before I sallied forth to worthy old 
 Mr N 's, where we were all to dine, when I met Aaron. 
 
 " No chance of our removing to Peter Gelid's this evening." 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh, poor Pepperpot Wagtail is become alarmingly ill ; in- 
 flammatory symptoms have appeared, and " Here the col- 
 loquy was cut short by the entrance of Mrs Peter Gelid a 
 pretty woman enough. She had come to learn herself from our 
 landlady how Mr Wagtail was, and with the kindliness of the 
 country she volunteered to visit- poor little Waggy in his sick- 
 bed. I did not go into the room with her ; but when she re- 
 turned, she startled us all a good deal by stating her opinion 
 that the worthy man was really very ill, in which she was cor- 
 roborated by the doctor, who now arrived. So soon as the 
 medico saw him, he bled him, and after prescribing a lot of 
 effervescing draughts and various febrifuge mixtures, he left a 
 large blister with the old brown landlady, to be applied over his 
 stomach if the wavering and flightiness did not leave him before 
 
 morning. We returned early after dinner from Mr N 's to 
 
 our lodgings, and as I knew Gelid was expected at his brother's 
 in the evening, to meet a large assemblage of kindred, and as 
 the night was rainy and tempestuous, I persuaded him to trust 
 the watch to me ; and as our brown landlady had been up nearly 
 the whole of the previous night, I sent for Tailtackle to spell me, 
 while the black valets acted with great assiduity in their capa- 
 city of surgeon's mates. About two in the morning Mr Wagtail
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 403 
 
 became delirious, and it was all that I could do, aided by my 
 sable assistants and an old black nurse, to hold him down in his 
 bed. Now was the time to clap on the blister, but he repeatedly 
 tore it off, so that at length we had to give in up for an impracti- 
 cable job ; and Tailtackle, whom I had called from his pallet, 
 where he had gone to lie .down for an hour, placed the canstico, 
 as the Spaniards call it, at the side of the bed. 
 
 " No use in trying this any more at present," said I ; "we 
 must wait until he gets quieter, Mr Tailtackle ; so go to your bed, 
 and I shall lie down on this sofa here, where Marie Paparoche" 
 (this was our old landlady) " has spread sheets, I see, and made 
 all comfortable. And send Mr Bang's servant, will you?" 
 (friend Aaron had ridden into the country after dinner to visit 
 a friend, and the storm, as I conjectured, had kept him there); 
 " he is fresh, and will call me in case I be wanted, or Mr Wag- 
 tail gets worse." 
 
 I lay down, and soon fell fast asleep, and I remembered 
 nothing until I awoke about eleven o'clock next morning, and 
 heard Mr Bang speaking to Wagtail, at whose bedside he was 
 standing. 
 
 " Pepperpot, my dear, be thankful you are quite cool a fine 
 moisture on your skin this morning be thankful, my little man 
 how did your blister rise ? " 
 
 " My good friend," quoth Wagtail, in a thin weak voice, " I 
 can't tell I don't know ; but this I perceive, that I am unable 
 to rise, whether it has risen or no." 
 
 " Ah weak," quoth Gelid, who had now entered the room. 
 
 " Nay," said Pepperpot, " not so weak as deucedly sore, and 
 on a very unromantic spot, my dears." 
 
 " Why," said Aaron, " the pit of the stomach is not a very 
 genteel department, nor the abdomen neither." 
 
 " Why," said Wagtail, " I have no blister on either of those 
 places, but if it were possible to dream of such a thing, I would 
 say it had been clapped on " 
 
 Here his innate propriety tongue-tied him. 
 
 " Eh ? " said Aaron ; " what ! has the caustico that was in- 
 tended for the frontiers of Belgium been clapped by mistake 
 on the broad Pays Bas?" 
 
 And so in very truth it turned out ; for while we slept the 
 patient had risen, and sat down on the blister that lay, as already 
 mentioned, on a chair at his bedside, and, again toppling into 
 bed, had fallen into a sound sleep, from which he had but a few 
 moments before the time I write of awoke.
 
 404 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Why, now," continued Aaron to the doctor of the Wave, who 
 had just entered " why, here is a discovery, my dear doctor. 
 You clap a hot blister on a poor fellow's head to cool it, but 
 Doctor Cringle there has cooled Master Wagtail'i, brain by blis- 
 tering his stern eh 1 ? Make notes, and mind you report this 
 to the College of Surgeons."* 
 
 I cleared myself of these imputations. Wagtail recovered : 
 our refitting was completed ; our wood and water and provisions 
 replenished ; and after spending one of the happiest fortnights 
 of my life, in one continued round of gaiety, I prepared to leave 
 with tears in my eyes, I will confess the clear waters, bright 
 blue skies, glorious climate, and warm-hearted community of 
 Nassau, New Providence. Well might that old villain Black- 
 beard have made this sweet spot his favourite rendezvous. By 
 the way, this same John Teach, or Blackbeard, had fourteen 
 wives in the lovely island ; and I am not sure but I could have 
 picked out something approximating to the aforesaid number 
 myself, with time and opportunity, from among such a galaxy 
 of loveliness as then shone and sparkled in this dear little town. 
 Speaking of the pirate Blackbeard, I ought to have related that 
 one morning when I was at breakfast at Mrs C 's, the ami- 
 able and beautiful and innocent girl -matron ay, you super- 
 cilious son of a sea-cook, you may turn up your nose at the ex- 
 
 * In the manuscript Log forwarded by Mr Bang, who kindly undertakes to correct 
 the proofs during his friend Cringle's absence in the North Sea, there is a leaf wafered 
 in here, with the following in Mr Aaron's own handwriting : 
 
 "Master Tommy has allowed his fancy some small poetical licences in this his Log. 
 First of all, in Chapter II. of this volume, he lays me out on the table, and makes the 
 scorpion sting me in the night, at Don Ricardo Campana's, whereas the villain himself 
 was the hero of the story, and the man on whom Transom played off his tricks. But 
 not content with this, he makes a bad pun, when speaking of Francesca Cangrejo, 
 which he puts into my mouth, forsooth, as if I had not sins enough of my own to 
 answer for. And, secondly, in the present chapter, why, lie was himself in very truth 
 the real King of the Netherlands, the integrity of whose low countries was violated, 
 and not poor Wagtail as thus : Squire Pepperpot, in his delirium, irritated by the 
 part that Cringle had good-naturedly taken in endeavouring to clap the blister on his 
 stomach, watched his opportunity, and when all hands had fallen into a sound sleep, 
 he got up and approached the sofa, where the nautical was snoozing. Tom, honest 
 fellow ! dreaming no harm, was luxuriating in the genial climate, and sleeping very 
 much as we are given to believe little pigs do, as described in the old song, so that 
 Pepperpot had no difficulty in applying the argument a posteriori ; and having covered 
 up the sleeping man-of-war, with the cawsfico adhering to his latter end like bird-lime, 
 he retired noiseless as a cat to his own quarters. Time ran on, and when the blister 
 should have riten next morning on Wagtail's stomach, Captain Cringle could not rise, 
 and the jest went round ; but Thomas nevertheless went about as usual, and was the 
 gayest of the gay, dancing and singing ; but whenever he dined out, he always carried 
 a brechum with him. This I vouch for. A. B."
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 405 
 
 pression, but if you could have seen the burden of my song * as 
 I saw her, and felt the elegancies of her manner and conversa- 
 tion as I felt them but let us stick to Blackbeard, if you please. 
 We were all comfortably seated at breakfast ; I had finished my 
 sixth egg, had concealed a beautiful dried snapper, before which 
 even a rizzard haddock sank into insignificance, and was be- 
 thinking me of finishing off with a slice of Scotch mutton-ham, 
 when in slid Mr Bang. He was received with all possible cor- 
 diality, and commenced operations very vigorously. 
 
 He was an amazing favourite of our hostess (as where was he 
 not a favourite?), so that it was some time before he even looked 
 my way. We were in the midst of a discussion regarding the 
 beauty of New Providence, and the West India islands in 
 general ; and I was remarking that nature had been liberal, that 
 the scenery was unquestionably magnificent in the larger islands, 
 and beautiful in the smaller; but there were none of those 
 heart-stirring reminiscences, none of those thrilling electrical 
 associations, which vibrate to the heart at visiting scenes in 
 Europe famous in antiquity famous as the spot in which re- 
 cent victories had been achieved famous even for the very free- 
 booters, who once held unlawful sway in the neighbourhood. 
 " Why, there never has flourished hereabouts, for instance, even 
 one thoroughly melodramatic thief." Massa Aaron let me go 
 on, until he had nearly finished his breakfast. At length he 
 fired a shot at me. 
 
 " I say, Tom, you are expatiating, I see. Nothing heart-stir- 
 ring, say you 1 In new countries it would bother you to have 
 old associations certainly ; and you have had your Rob Roy, I 
 grant you, and the old country has had her Robin Hood. But 
 has not Jamaica had her Three-fingered Jack ] Ay, a more 
 gentleman-like scoundrel than either of the former. When did 
 Jack refuse a piece of yam, and a cordial from his horn, to the 
 wayworn man, white or black ? When did he injure a woman ? 
 When did Jack refuse food and a draught of cold water the 
 greatest boon, in our ardent climate, that he could offer to a 
 wearied child 1 Oh, there was much poetry in the poor fellow ! 
 And here, had they not that most melodramatic (as you choose 
 to word it) of thieves, Blackbeard, before whom Ztfwebeard must 
 for ever hide his diminished head ? Why Bluebeard had only 
 one wife at a time, although he murdered five of them, whereas 
 Blackbeard had seldom fewer than a dozen, and he was never 
 
 * "Burden. Tom was right here; she was within a week of her confinement. 
 A. B."
 
 406 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 known to murder above three. But I have fallen in with such 
 a treasure ! Oh, such a discovery ! I have been communing 
 with Noah himself with an old negro who remembers this very 
 Blackbeard the pirate Blackboard." 
 
 "The deuce!" said I; "impossible!" 
 
 ** But it is true. Why, it is only ninety-four years ago since 
 the scoundrel flourished, and this old cock is one hundred and 
 ten. I have jotted it down worth a hundred pounds. Read, 
 my adorable Mrs C , read." 
 
 " But, my dear Mr Bang," said she, " had you not better read 
 it yourself ] " 
 
 " You, if you please," quoth Aaron, who forthwith set himself 
 to make the best use of his time. 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN TEACH, ESQUIRE, VULGARLY CALLED BLACKBEARD, 
 BY AARON BANG, ESQUIRE, F.R.S. 
 
 " He was the mildest-mannered man 
 
 That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat ; 
 With such true breeding of a gentleman. 
 
 You never could discern his real thought. 
 Pity he loved adventurous life's variety, 
 He was so great a loss to good society." 
 
 John Teach, or Blackbeard, was a very eminent man a very 
 handsome man, and a very devil amongst the ladies. 
 
 He was a Welshman, and introduced the leek into Nassau 
 about the year 1718, and was a very remarkable personage, 
 although, from some singular imperfection in his moral consti- 
 tution, he never could distinguish clearly between meum and 
 tuum. 
 
 He found his patrimony was not sufficient to support him, 
 and, as he disliked agricultural pursuits as much as mercantile, he 
 got together forty or fifty fine young men one day, and borrowed 
 a vessel from some merchants that was lying at the Nore, and 
 set sail for the Bahamas. On his way he fell in with several 
 West Indiamen, and, sending a boat on board of each, he asked 
 them for the loan of provisions and wine, and all their gold and 
 silver and clothes, which request was, in every instance but one, 
 civilly acceded to ; whereupon, drinking their good healths, he 
 returned to his ship. In the instance where he had been uncivilly 
 treated, to show his forbearance he saluted them with twenty-one 
 guns; but by some accident the shot had not been withdrawn, 
 so that, unfortunately, the contumacious ill-bred craft sank, and, 
 as Blackboard's own vessel was very crowded, he was unable to
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 407 
 
 save any of the crew. He was a great admirer of fine air, and 
 accordingly established himself on the island of New Providence, 
 and invited a number of elegant young men, who were fond of 
 pleasure cruises, to visit him, so that presently he found it neces- 
 sary to launch forth, in order to borrow more provisions. 
 
 At this period he was a great dandy; and, amongst other 
 vagaries, he allowed his beard to grow a foot long at the shortest, 
 and then plaited it into three strands, indicating that he was a 
 bashaw of no common dimensions. He wore red breeches, but 
 no stockings, and sandals of bullock's hide. He was a perfect 
 Egyptian in his curiousness in fine linen, and his shirt was 
 always white as the driven snow when it was clean, which was 
 the first Sunday of every month. In waistcoats he was especially 
 select ; but the cut of them very much depended on the fashion 
 in favour with the last gentleman he had borrowed from. He 
 never wore anything but a full-dress purple velvet coat, under 
 which bristled three brace of pistols, and two naked stilettoes, 
 only eighteen inches long, and he had generally a lighted match 
 fizzing in the bow of his cocked scraper, whereat he lighted his 
 pipe, or fired off a cannon, as pleased him. 
 
 One of his favourite amusements, when he got half slewed, 
 was to adjourn to the hold with his compotators, and, kindling 
 some brimstone matches, to dance and roar as if he had been 
 the devil himself, until his allies were nearly suffocated. At an- 
 other* time he would blow out the candles in the cabin, and blaze 
 away with his loaded pistols at random, right and left, where- 
 by he severely wounded the feelings of some of his intimates 
 by the poignancy of his wit, all of which he considered a most 
 excellent joke. But he was kind to his fourteen wives so long 
 as he was sober, as it is known that he never murdered above 
 three of them. His borrmcing, however, gave offence to our 
 government, no one can tell how; and at length two of our 
 frigates, the Lime and Pearl, then cruising off the American 
 coast, after driving him from his stronghold, hunted him down 
 in an inlet in North Carolina, where, in an eight-gun schooner, 
 with thirty desperate fellows, he made a defence worthy of his 
 honourable life, and fought so furiously that he killed and 
 wounded more men of the attacking party than his own crew con- 
 sisted of ; and, following up his success, he boarded, sword in 
 hand, the headmost of the two armed sloops, which had been 
 detached by the frigates, with ninety men on board, to capture 
 him; and being followed by twelve men and his trusty lieuten- 
 ant, he would have carried her out and out, maugre the disparity
 
 408 TOM CRINGLE'S LOO. 
 
 of force, had he not fainted from loss of blood, when, falling on 
 his back, he died where he fell, like a hero 
 
 " His face to the sky, and his feet to the foe " 
 
 leaving eleven forlorn widows, being the fourteen wives, minus 
 the three that he had throttled. 
 
 " No chivalrous associations indeed ! Match me such a cha- 
 racter as this." 
 
 We all applauded to the echo. But I must end my song, for 
 I should never tire in dwelling on the happy days we spent in 
 this most enchanting little island. The lovely blithe girls, and 
 the hospitable kind-hearted men, and the children ! I never 
 saw such cherubs with all the sprightliness of the little pale- 
 faced Creoles of the West Indies, while the healthy bloom of 
 Old England blossomed on their cheeks. 
 
 " I say, Tom," said Massa Aaron, on one occasion when I was 
 rather tedious on the subject, " all those little cherubs, as you 
 call them, at least the most of them, are the offspring of the 
 cotton bales captured in the American war." 
 
 "The what?" said I. 
 
 " The children of the American war and I will prove it thus 
 taking the time from no less an authority than Hamlet, when 
 he chose to follow the great Dictator, Julius Caesar hirfself, 
 through all the corruption of our physical nature, until he found 
 him stopping a beer barrel (only imagine the froth of one of 
 our disinterested friend Buxton's beer barrels, savouring of 
 quassia, not hop, fizzing through the clay of Julias Caesar the 
 Roman!) as thus: If there had been no Yankee war, there 
 would have been no prize cargoes of cotton sent into Nassau ; if 
 there had been no prize cargoes sent into Nassau, there would 
 have been little money made ; if there had been little money 
 made, there would have been fewer marriages ; if there had been 
 fewer marriages, there would have been fewer chenibs. There 
 is logic for you, my darling." 
 
 " Your last is a non sequitur, my dear sir," said I, laughing. 
 " But, in the main, Parson Malthus is right out of Ireland, that 
 is after all." 
 
 That evening I got into a small scrape, by impressing three 
 apprentices out of a Scotch brig, and if Mr Bang had not stood 
 my friend, I might have got into serious trouble. Thanks to 
 him, the affair was soldered.
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 409 
 
 When on the eve of sailing having received a letter order- 
 ing me to join the Firebrand at Crooked Island my excellent 
 friends, Messrs Bang, Gelid, and Wagtail, determined, in con- 
 sequence of letters which they had received from Jamaica, to 
 return home in a beautiful armed brig that was to sail in a 
 few days, laden with flour. I cannot well describe how much 
 this moved me. Young and enthusiastic as I was, I had grap- 
 pled myself with hooks of steel to Mr Bang ; and now, when he 
 unexpectedly communicated his intention of leaving me, I felt 
 more forlorn and deserted than I was willing to plead to. 
 
 " My dear boy," said he, " make my peace with Transom. If 
 urgent business had not pressed me, I would not have broken 
 my promise to rejoin him ; but I am imperiously called for in 
 Jamaica, where I hope soon to see you." He continued, with 
 a slight tremor in his voice, which thrilled to my heart, as it 
 vouched for the strength of his regard " If ever I am where 
 you may come, Tom, and you don't make my house your home, 
 provided you have not a better of your own, I will never forgive 
 you." He paused. " You young fellows sometimes spend faster 
 than you should do, and quarterly bills are long of coming 
 round. I have drawn for more money than I want. I wish 
 you would let me be your banker for a hundred pounds, Tom." 
 
 I squeezed his hand. " No, no many, many thanks, my 
 dear sir but I never outrun the constable. Good-by, God bless 
 you. Farewell, Mr Wagtail Mr Gelid, adieu." I tumbled 
 into the boat and pulled on board. The first thing I did was 
 to send the wine and sea stock, a most exuberant assortment 
 unquestionably, belonging to my Jamaica friends, ashore ; but, 
 to my surprise, the boat was sent back, with Mr Bang's card, 
 on which was written in pencil, " Don't affront us, Captain 
 Cringle." Thereupon I got the schooner under weigh, and no 
 event worth narrating turned up until we anchored close to the 
 post-office at Crooked Island, two days after. 
 
 We found the Firebrand there, and the post-office mail-boat, 
 with her red flag and white horse in it, and I went on board the 
 corvette to deliver my official letter detailing the incidents of 
 the cruise, and was most graciously received by my captain. 
 
 There was a sail in sight when we anchored, which at first 
 we took for the Jamaica packet ; but it turned out to be the 
 Tinker, friend Bang's flour-loaded brig ; and by five in the 
 evening our allies were all three once more restored to us, but, 
 alas! so far as regarded two of them, only for a moment. 
 Messrs Gelid and Wagtail had, on second thoughts, it seems,
 
 410 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 hauled their wind to lay in a stock of turtle at Crooked Island, 
 and I went ashore with them, and assisted in the selection from 
 the turtle - crawls filled with beautiful clear water and lots of 
 fine lively fresh - caught fish, the postmaster being the turtle- 
 merchant. 
 
 " I say, Paul, happier in the fish way here than you were at 
 Biggleswade, eh?" said Aaron. 
 
 After we had completed our purchases, our friends went on 
 board the corvette, and I was invited to meet them at dinner, 
 where the aforesaid postmaster, a stout conch, with a square-cut 
 coatee and red cape and cuff's, was also a guest. 
 
 He must have had but a dull time of it, as there were no 
 other white inhabitants, that I saw, on the island besides him- 
 self ; his wife having gone to Nassau, which he looked on as a 
 prime city of the world, to be confined, as he told us. Bang 
 said that she must rather have gone to be delivered from confine- 
 ment; and, in truth, Crooked Island was a most desolate domicile 
 for a lady ; our friend the postmaster's family, and a few negroes 
 employed in catching turtle, and making salt, and dressing some 
 scrubby cotton-trees, composing the whole population. In the 
 evening the packet did arrive, however, and Captain Transom 
 received his orders. 
 
 " Captain Transom, my boy," quoth Bang, towards nightfall, 
 " the best of friends must part we must move good-night 
 we shall be off presently good-by," and he held out his hand. 
 
 " Devil a bit," said Transom ; " Bang, you shall not go, neither 
 you nor your friends. You promised, in fact shipped with me 
 
 for the cruise, and Lady has my word and honour that you 
 
 shall be restored to her longing eye sound and safe; so you 
 must all remain, and send down the flour brig to say you are 
 coming." 
 
 To make a long story short, Massa Aaron was boned, but his 
 friends were obdurate, so we all weighed that night, the Tinker 
 bearing up for Jamaica, while we kept by the wind, steering for 
 Gonaives in St Domingo. 
 
 The third day we were off Cape St Nicholas, and, getting a 
 slant of wind from the westward, we ran up the Bight of Leo- 
 gane all that night, but towards morning it fell calm : we were 
 close in under the high land, about two miles from the shore, 
 and the night was the darkest I ever was out in anywhere. 
 There were neither moon nor stars to be seen, and the dark 
 clouds settled down until they appeared to rest upon our mast- 
 heads, compressing, as it were, the hot steamy air upon us until
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE "WAVE. 411 
 
 it became too dense for breathing. In the early part of the 
 night it had rained in heavy showers now and then, and there 
 were one or two faint flashes 6f lightning, and some heavy peals 
 of thunder, which rolled amongst the distant hills in loud shak- 
 ing reverberations, which gradually became fainter and fainter, 
 until they grumbled away in the distance in hoarse murmurs, 
 like the low notes of an organ in one of our old cathedrals ; but 
 now there was neither rain nor wind all nature seemed fear- 
 fully hushed ; for where we lay, in the smooth bight, there was 
 no swell, not even a ripple, on the glass-like sea ; the sound of 
 the shifting of a handspike, or the tread of the men as they rail 
 to haul on a rope, or the creaking of the rudder, sounded loud 
 and distinct. The sea in our neighbourhood was strongly phos- 
 phorescent, so that the smallest chip thrown overboard struck 
 fire from the water, as if it had been a piece of iron cast on flint ; 
 and when you looked over the quarter, as I delight to do, and 
 tried to penetrate into the dark clear profound beneath, you 
 every now and then saw a burst of pale light, like a halo, far 
 down in the depths of the green sea, caused by the motion of 
 some fish, or of what Jack, no great natural philosopher, usually 
 calls blubbers; and when the dolphin, or skipjack, leapt into 
 the air, they sparkled out from the still bosom of the deep dark 
 water like rockets, until they fell again into their element in a 
 flash of fire. This evening the corvette had showed no lights, 
 and although I conjectured she was not far from us, still I could 
 not with any certainty indicate her whereabouts. It might now 
 have been about three o'clock, and I was standing on the after- 
 most gun on the starboard side, peering into the impervious 
 darkness over the taffrail, with my dear old dog Sneezer by my 
 side, nuzzling and fondling after his affectionate fashion, while 
 the pilot, Peter Mangrove, stood within handspike length of me. 
 The dog had been growling, but all in fun, and snapping at me, 
 when in a moment he hauled off, planted his paws on the rail, 
 looked forth into the night, and gave a short anxious bark, like 
 the solitary pop of the sentry's musket to alarm the main-guard 
 in outpost work. 
 
 Peter Mangrove advanced, and put his arm round the dog's 
 neck. " What you see, my shild 1 " said the black pilot. 
 
 Sneezer uplifted his voice, and gave a long continuous growl. 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mangrove, sharply, " Massa Captain, someting 
 near we never doubt dat de dog y eerie someting we can't 
 y eerie, and see someting we can't see." 
 
 I had lived long enough never to despise any caution, from
 
 412 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 whatever quarter it proceeded. So I listened, still as a stone. 
 Presently I thought I heard the distant splash of oars. I placed 
 my hand behind my ear, and wafted with breathless attention. 
 Immediately I saw the sparkling dip of them in the calm black 
 water, as if a boat, and a large one, was pulling very fast towards 
 us. " Look-out, hail that boat," said I. 
 
 " Boat ahoy ! " sang out the man to whom I had spoken. No 
 answer. "Coming here?" reiterated the seaman. No better 
 success. The boat or canoe, or whatever it might be, was by 
 this time close aboard of us, within pistol-shot at the farthest 
 no time to be lost ; so I hailed myself, and this time the challenge 
 did produce an answer. 
 
 "Sore boat fruit and loegitab." 
 
 " Shore boat, with fruit and vegetables, at this time of night 
 I don't like it," said I. " Boatswain's mate all hands pipe 
 away the boarders. Cutlasses, men quick a piratical row- 
 boat is close to." And verily we had little time to lose, when 
 a large canoe or row-boat, pulling twelve oars at the fewest, and 
 carrying twenty-five men or thereabouts, swept up on our lar- 
 board quarter, hooked on, and the next moment upwards of 
 twenty unlooked-for visitors scrambled up our shallow side, and 
 jumped on board. All this took place so suddenly that there 
 were not ten of my people ready to receive them, but those ten 
 were the prime men of the ship. 
 
 " Surrender ! you scoundrels surrender ! You have boarded 
 a man-of-war. Down with your arms, or we shall kill you to 
 a man." 
 
 But they either did not understand me, or did not believe 
 me, for the answer was a blow from a cutlass, which, if I had 
 not parried with my night-glass, which it broke in pieces, might 
 have effectually stopped my promotion. 
 
 " Cut them down, boarders ! down 'with them they are 
 pirates ! " shouted I ; " heave cold shot into their boat along- 
 side all hands, Mr Bxmse-em-out" (to the boatswain), " call all 
 hands." 
 
 We closed. The assailants had no firearms, but they were 
 armed with swords and long knives, and as they fought with 
 desperation, several of our people were cruelly haggled ; and 
 after the first charge, the combatants on both sides became so 
 blended that it was impossible to strike a blow without running 
 the risk of cutting down a friend. By this time all hands were 
 on deck; the boat alongside had been swamped by the cold 
 shot that had been hove crashing through her bottom, when
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 413 
 
 down came a shower from the surcharged clouds, or waterspout 
 call it which you will that absolutely deluged the decks, the 
 scuppers being utterly unable to carry off the water. So long as 
 the pirates fought in a body, I had no fears, as, dark as it was, 
 our men, who held together, knew where to strike and thrust ; 
 but when the torrent of rain descended in bucketfuls, the former 
 broke away, and were pursued singly into various corners about 
 the deck, all escape being cut off from the swamping of their 
 boat. Still they were not vanquished, and I ran aft to the 
 binnacle, where a blue-light was stowed away one of several 
 that we had got on deck to burn that night, in order to point 
 out our whereabouts to the Firebrand. I fired it, and, rushing 
 forward cutlass in hand, we set on the gang of black desper- 
 adoes with such fury, that, after killing two of them outright, 
 and wounding and taking prisoners seven, we drove the rest 
 overboard into the sea, where the small-armed men, who by this 
 time had tackled to their muskets, made short work of them, 
 guided as they were by the sparkling of the dark water as they 
 struck out and swam for their lives. The blue-light was imme- 
 diately answered by another from the corvette, which lay about 
 a mile off; but before her boats, two of which were immediately 
 armed and manned, could reach us, we had defeated our anta- 
 gonists, and the rain had increased to such a degree, that the 
 heavy drops, as they fell with a strong rushing noise into the 
 sea, flashed it up into one entire sheet of fire. 
 
 We secured our prisoners, all blacks and mulattoes, the most 
 villanous-looking scoundrels I had ever seen, and shortly after 
 it came on to thunder and lighten, as if heaven and earth had 
 been falling together. A most vivid flash it almost blinded 
 me. Presently the Firebrand burnt another blue-light, whereby 
 we saw that her maintopmast was gone close by the cap, with 
 the topsail and upper spars and yards and gear all hanging down 
 in a lumbering mass of confused wreck ; she had been struck by 
 the levin brand, which had killed four men and stunned several 
 more. 
 
 By this time the cold grey streaks of morning appeared in 
 the eastern horizon soon after the day broke ; and by two 
 o'clock in the afternoon both corvette and schooner were at 
 anchor at Gonaives. The village, for town it could not be called, 
 stands on a low hot plain, as if the washings of the mountains 
 on the left-hand side as we stood in had been carried out into 
 the sea and formed into a white plateau of sand ; all was hot 
 and stunted and scrubby. We brought up, inside of the cor-
 
 414 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 vette, in three fathoms water. My superior officer had made 
 the private signal to come on board and dine. I dressed, and 
 the boat was lowered down, and we pulled for the corvette, but 
 our course lay under the stern of two English ships that were 
 lying there loading cargoes of coffee. 
 
 "Pray, sir," said a decent-looking man, who leant on the 
 taffrail of one of them " Pray, sir, are you going on board of 
 the commodore ? " 
 
 " I am," I answered. 
 
 " I am invited there too, sir ; will you have the kindness to 
 say I will be there presently ] " 
 
 " Certainly give way, men." 
 
 Presently we were alongside the corvette, and the next mo- 
 ment we stood on her deck, holystoned white and clean, with 
 my stanch friend Captain Transom and his officers, all in full 
 fig, walking to and fro under the awning, a most magnificent 
 naval lounge, being thirty-two feet wide at the gangway, and 
 extending fifty feet or more aft, until it narrowed to twenty at 
 the taffrail We were all the two masters of the merchant- 
 men, decent respectable men in their way, included graciously 
 received, and sat down to an excellent dinner, Mr Bang taking 
 the lead as usual in all the fun ; and we were just on the verge 
 of cigars and cold grog when the first-lieutenant came down and 
 said that the captain of the port had come off, and was then on 
 board. 
 
 "Show him in," said Captain Transom, and a tall vulgar- 
 looking blackamoor, dressed apparently in the cast-off coat of a 
 French grenadier officer, entered the cabin with his chapeau in 
 his hand, and a Madras handkerchief tied round his woolly skull. 
 He made his bow, and remained standing near the door. 
 
 " You are the captain of the port ? " said Captain Transom. 
 The man answered in French, that he was. " Why, then, take 
 a chair, sir, if you please." 
 
 He begged to be excused, and after tipping off his bumper of 
 claret, and receiving the captain's report, he made his bow and 
 departed. 
 
 I returned to the Wave, and next morning I breakfasted on 
 board of the commodore, and afterwards we all proceeded on 
 
 shore to Monsieur B 's, to whom Massa Aaron was known. 
 
 The town, if I may call it so, had certainly a very desolate ap- 
 pearance. There was nothing stirring ; and although a group 
 of idlers, amounting to about twenty or thirty, did collect about 
 us on the end of the wharf which, by the by, was terribly out
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 415 
 
 of repair yet they all appeared ill-clad, and in no way so well 
 furnished as the blackies in Jamaica ; and when we marched up 
 through a hot, sandy, unpaved street into the town, the low, one- 
 storey, shabby-looking houses were fallen into decay, and the 
 streets more resembled river-courses than thoroughfares, while 
 the large carrion-crows were picking garbage on the very crown 
 of the causeway, without apparently entertaining the least fear 
 of us, or of the negro children who were playing close to them 
 so near, in fact, that every now and then one of the urchins 
 would aim a blow at one of the obscene birds, when it would 
 give a loud discordant croak, and jump a pace or two with out- 
 spread wings, but without taking flight. Still, many of the 
 women, who were sitting under the small piazzas or projecting 
 eaves of the houses, with their little stalls filled with pullicate 
 handkerchiefs, and pieces of muslin, and ginghams for sale, were 
 healthy-looking, and appeared comfortable and happy. As we 
 advanced into the town, almost every male we met was a soldier, 
 all rigged, and well dressed too, in the French uniform ; in fact, 
 the remarkable man, King Henry, or Christophe, took care to 
 have his troops well fed and clothed in every case. On our way 
 
 we had to pass by the Commandant, Baron B 's house, when 
 
 it occurred to Captain Transom that we ought to stop and pay 
 our respects ; but Mr Bang, being bound by no such etiquette, 
 
 bore up for his friend, Monsieur B 's. As we approached 
 
 the house a long, low, one-storey building, with a narrow piazza, 
 and a range of unglazed windows, staring open, with their' 
 wooden shutters, like ports in a ship's side, towards the street 
 we found a sentry at the door, who, when we announced our- 
 selves, carried arms, all in regular style. Presently a very good- 
 looking negro, in a handsome aide-de-camp's uniform, appeared, 
 and, hat in hand, with all the grace in the world, ushered us 
 into the presence of the Baron, who was lounging in a Spanish 
 chair half asleep ; but on hearing us announced, he rose, and 
 received us with great amenity. He was a fat elderly negro, so 
 far as I could judge, about sixty years of age, and was dressed 
 in very wide jean trousers, over which a pair of well-polished 
 Hessian boots were drawn, which, by adhering close to his legs, 
 gave him, in contrast with the wide puffing of his garments 
 above, the appearance of being underllmbed, which he by no 
 means was, being a stout old Turk. 
 
 After a profusion of congees and fine speeches, and super- 
 abundant assurances of the esteem in which his master King 
 Henry held our master King George, we made our bows, and
 
 416 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 repaired to Monsieur B 's, where I was engaged to dine. 
 
 As for Captain Transom, he went on board that evening to 
 superintend the repairs of the ship. 
 
 There was no one to meet us but Monsieur B and his 
 
 daughter, a tall and very elegant brown girl, who had been edu- 
 cated in France, and did the honours incomparably well. We 
 sat down, Massa Aaron whispering in my hig, that in Jamaica 
 it was not quite the thing to introduce brown ladies at dinner ; 
 but, as he said, " Why not ? Neither you nor I are high-caste 
 Creoles so en avant." 
 
 Dinner was nearly over, when Baron B 's aide-de-camp 
 
 slid into the room. Monsieur B rose. " Captain Latour, 
 
 you are welcome be seated. I hope you have not dined I " 
 
 " Why, no," said the negro officer, as he drew a chair, while 
 he exchanged glances with the beautiful Eugenie, and sat him- 
 self down close to el Senor Bang. 
 
 " Hillo, Quashie ! Whereaway, my lad ] a little above the 
 salt, ain't you 1 ?" ejaculated our amigo; while Pegtop, who had 
 just come on shore, and was standing behind his master, stared 
 and gaped in the greatest wonderment. But Mr Bang's natural 
 good-breeding and knowledge of the world instantly recalled him 
 to time and circumstances ; and when the young officer looked 
 at him, regarding him with some surprise, he bowed, and invited 
 him, in the best French he could muster, to drink wine. The 
 aide-de-camp was, as I have said, jet-black as the ace of spades ; 
 but he was, notwithstanding, so far as figure went, a very hand- 
 some man tall and well made, especially about the shoulders, 
 which were beautifully formed, and, in the estimation of a statu- 
 ary, would probably have balanced the cucumber curve of the 
 shin ; his face, however, was regular negro flat nose, heavy lips,, 
 fine eyes, and beautiful teeth ; and he wore two immense gold 
 ear-rings. His woolly head was bound round with a pullicate 
 handkerchief, which we had not noticed until he took off his 
 laced cocked-hat. His coat was the exact pattern of the French 
 staff uniform at the time plain blue, without lace, except at the 
 cape and cuffs, which were of scarlet cloth covered with rich em- 
 broidery. He wore a very handsome straight sword, with steel 
 scabbard, and white trousers and long Hessian boots already de- 
 scribed as part of the costume of his general. 
 
 Mr Bang, as I have said, had rallied by this time, and, with 
 the tact of a gentleman, appeared to have forgotten whether his 
 new ally was black, blue, or green, while the claret, stimulat- 
 ing him into self-possession, was evaporating in broken French.
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 417 
 
 But his man, Pegtop, had been pushed off his balance altogether ; 
 his equanimity was utterly gone. When the young officer 
 brushed passed him, at the first go off, while he was rinsing some 
 glasses in the passage, his sword banged against Pegtop' s der- 
 riere as he stooped down over his work. He started and looked 
 round, and merely exclaimed " Eigh, Massa Niger, wurra dat ! " 
 But now, when standing behind his master's chair, he saw the 
 aide-de-camp consorting with him, whom he looked upon ts the 
 greatest man in existence, on terms of equality, all his faculties 
 were paralysed. 
 
 " Pegtop," said I, " hand me some yam, if you please." 
 
 He looked at me all agape, as if he had been half strangled. 
 
 " Pegtop, you scoundrel ! " quoth Massa Aaron, " don't you 
 hear what Captain Cringle says, sir?" 
 
 " Oh yes, massa ; " and thereupon the sable valet brought me 
 a bottle of fish-sauce, which he endeavoured to pour into my wine- 
 glass. All this while Eugenie and the aide-de-camp were play : 
 ing the agreeable and in very good taste, too, let me tell you. 
 
 I had just drunk wine with mine host, when I cast my eye 
 along the passage that led out of the room, and there was Peg- 
 top dancing and jumping and smiting his thigh, in an ecstasy 
 of laughter, as he doubled himself up, with the tears welling 
 over his cheeks. 
 
 " O Lord ! Oh ! Massa Bang bow, and make face, and drink 
 wine, and do everyting shivil, to one dam black rascall nigger ! 
 Oh, blackee more worser dan me, Gabriel Pegtop O Lard ! 
 ha! ha! ha!" Thereupon he threw himself down in the 
 piazza, amongst plates and dishes, and shouted and laughed in 
 a perfect frenzy, until Mr Bang got up, and thrust the poor 
 fellow out of doors, in a pelting shower, which soon so far 
 quelled the hysterical passion, that he came in again, grave as a 
 judge, and took his place behind his master's chair once more, 
 and everything went on smoothly. The aide-de-camp, who ap- 
 peared quite unconscious that he was the cause of the poor 
 fellow's mirth, renewed his attentions to Eugenie ; and Mr Bang, 
 
 M. B , and myself, were again engaged in conversation, and 
 
 our friend Pegtop was in the act of handing a slice of melon to 
 the black officer, when a file of soldiers, with fixed bayonets, 
 stepped into the piazza, and ordered arms, one taking up his 
 station on each side of the door. Presently another aide-de- 
 camp, booted and spurred, dashed after them ; and, as soon as 
 he crossed the threshold, sang out, " Place pour Monsieur le 
 Baron" 
 
 2D
 
 418 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 The electrical nerve was again touched "Oh! oh! oh! 
 Garamighty ! here comes anoder on dem," roared Pegtop, stick- 
 ing the slice of melon, which was intended for Mademoiselle 
 Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the paroxysm, if possible 
 (while he fractured the plate on the black aide's skull), and im- 
 mediately blew it out again, with an explosion, and a scattering 
 of the fragments, as if it had been the blasting of a stone 
 quarry. 
 
 " Zounds, this is too much ! " exclaimed Bang, as he rose and 
 kicked the poor fellow out again with such vehemence, that his 
 skull, encountering the paunch of our friend the baron, who was 
 entering from the street at that instant, capsized him outright, 
 and away rolled his Excellency the General de Division, Com- 
 mandant de 1'Arrondissement, &c. &c., digging his spurs into 
 poor Pegtop's transom, and sacreing furiously, while the black 
 servant roared as if he had been harpooned by the very devil. 
 The aides started to their feet and one of them looked at Mr 
 Bang and touched the hilt of his sword, grinding the word 
 " satisfaction " between his teeth, while the other ordered the 
 sentries to run the poor fellow, whose mirth had been so uproari- 
 ous, through. However, he got off with one or two progues in 
 
 a very safe place ; and when Monsieur B explained how 
 
 matters stood, and that the " pauvre diable," as the black baron 
 coolly called him, was a mere servant, and an uncultivated 
 creature, and that no insult was meant, we had all a hearty 
 laugh, and everything rolled right again. At length the baron 
 and his black tail rose to wish us a good-evening, and we were 
 thinking of finishing off with a cigar and a glass of cold grog, 
 
 when Monsieur B 's daughter returned into the piazza very 
 
 pale, and evidently much frightened. " Mon peir" said she 
 while her voice quavered from excessive agitation " My father 
 why do the soldiers remain 1 " 
 
 We all peered into the dark passage, and there, true enough, 
 were the black sentries at their posts beside the doorway, still 
 
 and motionless as statues. Monsieur B , poor fellow, fell back 
 
 in his chair at the sight, as if he had been shot through the heart. 
 
 " My fate is sealed I am lost O Eugenie ! " were the only 
 words he could utter. 
 
 " No, no," exclaimed the weeping girl, " God forbid the 
 baron is a kind-hearted man, King Henry cannot no, no he 
 knows you are not disaffected, he will not injure you." 
 
 Here one of the black aides-de-camp suddenly returned. It 
 was the poor fellow who had been making love to Eugenie dur-
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 419 
 
 ing the entertainment. He looked absolutely blue with dismay ; 
 his voice shook, and his knees knocked together as he approached 
 our host. 
 
 He tried to speak, but could not. " Pierre, Pierre," 
 moaned, or rather gasped Eugenie, " what have you come to 
 communicate ? what dreadful news are you the bearer of ] " 
 
 He held out an open letter to poor B , who, unable to read 
 
 it from excessive agitation, handed it to me. It ran thus : 
 
 " MONSIEUR LE BARON, Monsieur has been arrested 
 
 here this morning ; he is a white Frenchman, and there are strong 
 
 suspicions against him. Place his partner M. B under the 
 
 surveillance of the police instantly. You are made answerable 
 for his safe custody. 
 
 " Witness his Majesty's hand and seal, at Sans Souci, this . . . 
 
 " The COUNT ." 
 
 " Then I am doomed," groaned poor M. B . His daughter 
 
 fainted, the black officer wept, and, having laid his senseless 
 
 mistress on a sofa, he approached and wrung B 's hand. 
 
 " Alas, my dear sir how my heart bleeds ! But cheer up 
 King Henry is just all may be right all may still be right ; 
 and so far as my duty to him will allow, you may count on 
 nothing being done here that is not absolutely necessary for 
 holding ourselves blameless with the Government." 
 
 Enough and to spare of this. We slept on shore that night, 
 and a very neat catastrophe was likely to have ensued thereupon. 
 Intending to go on board ship at daybreak, I had got up and 
 dressed myself, and opened the door into the street to let myself 
 out, when I stumbled unwittingly against the black sentry, who 
 must have been half asleep, for he immediately stepped several 
 paces back, and, presenting his musket, the clear barrel glancing 
 in the moonlight, snapped it at me. Fortunately it missed fire, 
 which gave me time to explain that it was not M. B attempt- 
 ing to escape ; but that day week he was marched to the prison 
 of La Force, near Cape Henry, where his partner had been pre- 
 viously lodged ; and from that hour to this, neither of them were 
 ever heard of. Next evening I again went ashore, but I was 
 denied admittance to him ; and, as my orders were imperative 
 not to interfere in any way, I had to return on board with a 
 heavy heart. 
 
 The day following Captain Transom and myself paid a formal 
 visit to the black baron, in order to leave no stone unturned to
 
 420 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 obtain poor B 's release if we could. Mr Bang accompanied 
 
 us. We found the sable dignitary lounging in a grass hammock 
 (slung from corner to corner of a very comfortless room, for the 
 floor was tiled, the windows were unglazed, and there was no 
 furniture whatever but an old-fashioned mahogany sideboard and 
 three wicker chairs) apparently half asleep, or ruminating after 
 his breakfast. On our being announced by a half -naked negro 
 servant, who aroused him, he got up and received us very kindly 
 I beg his lordship's pardon, I should write graciously and 
 made us take wine and biscuit, and talked and rattled ; but I 
 saw he carefully avoided the subject which he evidently knew 
 was the object of our visit. At length, finding it would be im- 
 possible for him to parry it much longer single-handed, with 
 tact worthy of a man of fashion, he called out, " Marie ! Marie ! " 
 Our eyes followed his, and we saw a young and very handsome 
 brown lady rise, whom we had perceived seated at her Avork 
 when we first entered, in a small, dark, back porch, and advance, 
 after curtsying to us seriatim, with great elegance, as the old 
 fat nigger introduced her to us as " Madame la Baronne." 
 " His wife ? " whispered Aaron ; " the old rank goat ! " 
 Her brown ladyship did the honours of the wine-ewer with 
 the perfect quietude and ease of a well-bred woman. She was 
 a most lovely, clear-skinned, quadroon girl. She could not have 
 been twenty ; tall, and beautifully shaped. Her long coal-black 
 tresses were dressed high on her head, which was bound round 
 with the everlasting Madras handkerchief, in which pale blue 
 was the prevailing colour; but it was elegantly adjusted, and 
 did not come down far enough to shade the fine development 
 of her majestic forehead Pasta's in Semiramide was not more 
 commanding. Her eyebrows were delicately arched and sharply 
 defined, and her eyes of jet were large and swimming ; her nose 
 had not utterly abjured its African origin, neither had her lips, 
 but, notwithstanding, her countenance shone with all the beauty 
 of expression so conspicuous in the Egyptian sphinx Abys- 
 sinian, but most sweet; while her teeth were as the finest 
 ivory, and her chin, and throat, and bosom, as if her bust had 
 been an antique statue of the rarest workmanship. The only 
 ornaments she wore were two large virgin gold ear-rings, massive 
 yellow hoops without any carving, but so heavy, that they seemed 
 to weigh down the small thin transparent ears which they per- 
 forated ; and a broad black velvet band round her neck, to whick 
 was appended a large massive crucifix of the same metal. She 
 also wore two broad bracelets of black velvet clasped with gold..

 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 421 
 
 Her beautifully moulded form was scarcely veiled by a cambric 
 chemise, with exceedingly short sleeves, over which she wore a 
 rose-coloured silk petticoat, short enough to display a finely- 
 formed foot and ankle, with a well-selected pearl-white silk 
 stocking, and a neat low-cut French black kid shoe. As for 
 gown, she had none. She wore a large sparkling diamond ring 
 on her marriage finger, and we were all bowing before the deity 
 when our attention was arrested by a cloud of dust at the top 
 of the street, and presently a solitary black dragoon sparked out 
 from it, his accoutrements and headpiece blazing in the sun, 
 then three more abreast, and immediately a troop of five-and- 
 twenty cavaliers, or thereabouts, came thundering down the 
 street. They formed opposite the Baron's house, and I will 
 say I never saw a better appointed troop of horse anywhere. 
 Presently an aide-de-camp scampered up ; and having arrived 
 opposite the door, dismounted, and entering, exclaimed, " Les 
 Comtes de Lemonade et Marmalade" "The who?" said Mr 
 Bang ; but presently two very handsome young men of colour, 
 in splendid uniforms, rode up, followed by a glittering staff, of 
 at least twenty mounted officers. They alighted, and entering, 
 
 made their bow to Baron B . The youngest, the Count 
 
 Lemonade, spoke very decent English ; and what between Mr 
 Bang's and my bad, and Captain Transom's very good, French, 
 we all made ourselves agreeable. I may state here that Lemon- 
 ade and Marmalade are two districts of the island of St Do- 
 mingo, which had been pitched on by Christophe to give titles 
 to two of his fire-new nobility. The grandees had come on a 
 survey of the district ; and although we did not fail to press the 
 
 matter of poor B 's release, yet they either had no authority 
 
 to interfere in the matter, or they would not acknowledge that 
 they had, so we reluctantly took leave and went on shipboard. 
 
 " Tom, you villain," said Mr Bang, as we stepped into the 
 boat, " if my eye had caught yours when these noblemen made 
 their entree, I should have exploded with laughter, and most 
 likely have had my throat cut for my pains. Pray, did his 
 Highness of Lemonade carry a punch-ladle in his hand 1 ? I am 
 sure I expected he of Marmalade to have carried a jelly-can ! 
 Oh, Tom, at the moment I heard them announced, my old dear 
 mother flitted before my mind's eye, with the bright, well- 
 scoured, large brass pans in the background, as she superin- 
 tended her handmaidens in their annual preservations." 
 
 After the fruitless interview, we weighed, and sailed for Port- 
 au-Prince, where we arrived the following evening.
 
 422 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 I had heard much of the magnificence of the scenery in the 
 Bight of Leogane, but the reality far surpassed what I had pic- 
 tured to myself. The breeze, towards noon of the following 
 day, had come up in a gentle air from the westward, and we 
 were gliding along before it like a spread eagle, with all our 
 light sails abroad to catch the sweet zephyr, which was not even 
 strong enough to ruffle the silver surface of the land-locked sea 
 that glowed beneath the blazing mid-day sun, ' with a dolphin 
 here and there cleaving the shining surface with an arrowy 
 ripple, and a brown-skinned shark glaring on us, far down in 
 the deep, clear, green profound, like a water fiend, and a slow- 
 sailing pelican overhead, after a long sweep on poised wing, 
 dropping into the sea like lead, and flashing up the water like 
 the bursting of a shell, as we sailed up into a glorious amphi- 
 theatre of stupendous mountains, covered with one eternal forest, 
 that rose gradually from the hot sandy plains that skirted the 
 shore ; while what had once been smiling fields and rich sugar- 
 plantations, in the long misty level districts at their bases, were 
 now covered with brushwood, fast rising up into one impervious 
 thicket ; and, as the island of Gonave closed in the view behind 
 us to seaward, the sun sank beyond it, amidst rolling masses of 
 golden and blood-red clouds, giving token of a goodly day to- 
 morrow, and gilding the outline of the rocky islet (as if to a cer- 
 tain depth it had been transparent) with a golden halo, gradually 
 deepening into imperial purple. Beyond the shadow of the 
 tree-covered islet, on the left hand, rose the town of Port-au- 
 Prince, with its long streets rising like terraces on the gently 
 swelling shore, while the mountains behind it, still gold-tipped 
 in the declining sunbeams, seemed to impend frowningly over it 
 and the shipping in the roadstead at anchor off the town were 
 just beginning to fade from our sight in the gradually increasing 
 darkness and a solitary light began to sparkle in a cabin win- 
 dow and then disappear, and to twinkle for a moment in the 
 piazzas of the houses on shore like a will-of-the-wisp and the 
 chirping buzz of myriads of insects and reptiles was coming off 
 from the island astern of us, borne on the wings of the light 
 wind, which, charged with rich odours from the closing flowers, 
 fanned us " like the sweet south, soft breathing o'er a bed of 
 violets" when a sudden flash and a jet of white smoke puffed 
 out from the hill-fort above the town, the report thundering 
 amongst the everlasting hills, and gradually rumbling itself 
 away into the distant ravines and valleys, like a lion growling 
 itself to sleep, and the shades of night fell on the dead face of
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 423 
 
 nature like a pall, and all was undistinguishable. When I had 
 
 written thus far it was at Port-au-Prince, at Mr S 's Mr 
 
 Bang entered " Ah ! Tom at the Log, polishing using the 
 plane shaping out something for Ebony let me see." 
 
 Here our friend read the preceding paragraphs. They did 
 not please him. " Don't like it, Tom." 
 
 " No ] Pray, why, my dear sir ? I have tried to " 
 
 " Hold your tongue, my good boy. 
 
 ' Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer, 
 
 List, old ladies, o'er your tea, 
 At description Tom's a tailor, 
 When he is compared to me. 
 Tooral looral loo.' 
 
 Attend brevity is the soul of wit ahem. Listen how I shall 
 crush all your lengthy yarn into an eggshell. ' The Bight of 
 Leogane is a horseshoe Cape St Nicholas is the caulker on the 
 northern heel Cape Tiberoon, the ditto on the south Port-au- 
 Prince is the tip at the toe towards the east Gonaives, Leogane, 
 Petit Trouve, &c. &c. &c., are the nails, and the island of Gonave 
 is the frog.' Now every human being who knows that a horse 
 has four legs and a tail of course this includes all the human 
 race, excepting tailors and sailors must understand this at once ; 
 it is palpable and plain, although no man could have put it so 
 perspicuously, excepting my friend William Cobbett, or myself. 
 By the way, speaking of horses, that blood thing of the old 
 baron's nearly gave you your quietus t'other day, Tom. Why 
 will you always pass the flank of a horse in place of going ahead 
 of him, to use your own phrase 1 Never ride near a led horse 
 on passing when you can help it ; give him a wide berth, or clap 
 the groom's corpus between you and his heels ; and never, never 
 go near the croup of any quadruped bigger than a cat, for even 
 a cow's is inconvenient, when you can by any possibility help 
 it." 
 
 I laughed " Well, well, my dear sir, but you undervalue 
 my equestrian capability somewhat too, for I do pretend to 
 know that a horse has four legs and a tail." 
 
 There was no pleasing Aaron this morning, I saw. 
 
 " Then, Tammas, my man, you know a deuced deal more than 
 I do. As for the tail, concedftur but devilish few horses have 
 four legs nowadays, take my word for it. However, here comes 
 Transom ; I am off to have a lounge with him, and I will finish 
 the veterinary lecture at some more convenient season. Tol lol 
 de rol." Exit singing.
 
 424 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 The morning after this I went ashore at daylight, and, guided 
 by the sound of military music, proceeded to the Place Republi- 
 cain, or square before President Petion's palace, where I found 
 eight regiments of foot under arms, with their bands playing, 
 and in the act of defiling before General Boyer, who commanded 
 the arrondissement. This was the garrison of Port-au-Prince ; 
 but neither the personal appearance of the troops, nor their ap- 
 pointments, were at all equal to those of King Henry's well- 
 dressed and well-drilled cohorts that we saw at Gonaives. The 
 president's guards were certainly fine men, and a squadron of dis- 
 mounted cavalry, in splendid blue uniforms, with scarlet trousers 
 richly laced, might have vied with the elite of Nap's own, bailing 
 the black faces. But the materiel of the other regiments was 
 not superfine* as M. Boyer, before whom they were defiling, 
 might have said. 
 
 I went to breakfast with Mr S , one of the English mer- 
 chants of the place, a kind and most hospitable man ; and under 
 his guidance, the captain, Mr Bang, and I, proceeded afterwards 
 to call on Petion. Christophe, or King Henry, had some time 
 before retired from the siege of Port-au-Prince, and we found 
 the town in a very miserable state. Many of the houses were 
 injured from shot ; the president's palace, for instance, was per- 
 forated in several places, which had not been repaired. In the 
 antechamber you could see the blue heavens through the shot- 
 holes in the roof. " Next time I come to court, Tom," said Mr 
 Bang, " I will bring an umbrella." Turning out of the parade, 
 we passed through a rickety, unpainted open gate, in a wall 
 about six feet high ; the space beyond was an open green or 
 grass-plot, parched and burned up by the sun, with a common 
 fowl here and there fluttering and hatching in the hole she had 
 scratched in the arid soil ; but there was neither sentry nor ser- 
 vant to be seen, nor any of the usual pomp and circumstance 
 about a great man's dwelling. Presently we were in front of a 
 long, low, one-storey building, with a flight of steps leading up 
 into an entrance-hall, furnished with several gaudy sofas and 
 half-a-dozen chairs with a plain wooden floor, on which a slight 
 approach to the usual West India polish had been attempted, 
 but mightily behind the elegant domiciles of my Kingston 
 friends in this respect. In the centre of this room stood three 
 young officers, fair mulattoes, with their plumed cocked-hats in 
 their hands, and dressed very handsomely in French uniforms ; 
 
 * The present excellent President of the Haytian Republic had at one time been a 
 tailor, I believe.
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 425 
 
 and it always struck me as curious, that men who hated the 
 very name of Frenchman, as the devil hates holy water, should 
 copy all the customs and manners of the detested people so 
 closely. I may mention here, once for all, that Petion's officers, 
 who, generally speaking, were all men of colour, and not negroes, 
 were as much superior in education, and, I fear I must say, in 
 intellect, as they certainly were in personal appearance, to the 
 black officers of King Henry, as his soldiery were superior to 
 those of the neighbouring black republic. 
 
 " Ah, Monsieur S , comment vous portez-vous ? Je suis 
 
 bien aise de vous voir" said one of the young officers; " how 
 are you, how have you been 1 " 
 
 " Vous devenez tout a fait rare," quoth a second. " Le pre- 
 sident will be delighted to see you. Why, he says he thought 
 you must have been dead, and les messieurs la " 
 
 " Who 1 Introduce us." 
 
 It was done in due form the Honourable Captain Transom, 
 Captain Cringle of his Britannic Majesty's schooner Wave, and 
 Aaron Bang, Esquire. And presently we were all as thick as 
 pickpockets. 
 
 " But come, the president will be delighted to see you." We 
 followed the officer who spoke, as he marshalled us along ; and 
 in an inner chamber, wherein there were also several large holes 
 in the ceiling through which the sun shone, we found President 
 Petion, the black Washington, sitting on a very old ragged sofa, 
 amidst a confused mass of papers, dressed in a blue military 
 undress frock, white trousers, and the everlasting Madras hand- 
 kerchief bound round his brows. He was much darker than I 
 expected to have seen him, darker than one usually sees a mu- 
 latto, or the direct cross between the negro and the white, yet 
 his features were in no way akin to those of an African. His 
 nose was as high, sharp, and well defined as that of any Hindoo 
 I ever saw in the Hoogly, and his hair was fine and silky. In 
 fact, dark as he was, he was at least three removes from the 
 African ; and when I mention that he had been long in Europe 
 he was even for a short space acting adjutant-general of the army 
 of Italy with Napoleon his general manner, which was extremely 
 good, kind, and affable, was not matter of so much surprise. 
 
 He rose to receive us with much grace, and entered into con- 
 versation with all the ease and polish of a gentleman " Je me 
 porte assez bien aujourd'hui; but I have been very unwell, M. 
 
 S , so tell me the news." Early as it was, he immediately 
 
 ordered in coffee ; it was brought by two black servants, followed
 
 426 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 by a most sylph-like girl, about twelve years of age, the presi- 
 dent's natural daughter; she was fairer than her father, and 
 acquitted herself very gracefully. She was rigged, pin for pin, 
 like a little woman, with a perfect turret of artificial flowers 
 twined amongst the braids of her beautiful hair ; and although 
 her neck was rather overloaded with ornaments, and her poor 
 little ears were stretching under the weight of the heavy gold 
 and emerald ear-rings, while her bracelets were like manacles, 
 yet I had never seen a more lovely little girl. She wore a frock 
 of green Chinese crape, beneath which appeared the prettiest 
 little feet in the world. 
 
 We were invited to attend a ball in the evening, given in 
 honour of the president's birthday, and after a sumptuous dinner 
 
 at our friend Mr S 's, we all adjourned to the gay scene. 
 
 There was a company of grenadiers of the president's guard, 
 with their band, on duty in front of the palace, as a guard of 
 honour ; they carried arms as we passed, all in good style ; and 
 at the door we met two aides-de-camp in full dress, one of 
 whom ushered us into an anteroom, where a crowd of brown, 
 with a sprinkling of black ladies, and a whole host of brown 
 and black officers, with a white foreign merchant here and there, 
 were drinking coffee, and taking refreshments of one kind or 
 another. The ladies were dressed in the very height of the newest 
 Parisian fashion of the day hats and feathers, and jewellery, 
 real or fictitious, short sleeves, and shorter petticoats fine silks, 
 and broad blonde trimmings and flounces, and low-cut corsage* 
 some of them even venturing on rouge, which gave them the 
 appearance of purple dahlias ; but as to manner, all lady -like 
 and proper; while the men, most of them militaires, were as 
 fine as gold and silver lace, and gay uniforms, and dress-swords 
 could make them and all was blaze, and sparkle, and jingle ; 
 but the black officers, in general, covered their woolly pates with 
 Madras handkerchiefs, as if ashamed to show them, the brown 
 officers alone venturing to show their own hair. Presently a mili- 
 tary band struck up with a sudden crash in the inner-room, and 
 the large folding doors being thrown open, the ball-room lay be- 
 fore us, in the centre of which stood the president, surrounded by 
 his very splendid staff, with his daughter on his arm. He was 
 dressed in a plain blue uniform with gold epaulets, and acquitted 
 himself extremely well ; conversing freely on European politics, 
 and giving his remarks with great shrewdness, and a very pecu- 
 liar naivete. As for his daughter, however much she might 
 appear to have been overdressed in the morning, she was now
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 427 
 
 simple in her attire as a little shepherdess a plain white muslin 
 frock, white sash, white shoes, white gloves, pearl ear-rings and 
 necklace, and a simple, but most beautiful, Camilla japonica in 
 her hair. Dancing now commenced, and all that I shall say is, 
 that before I had been an hour in the room, I had forgotten 
 whether the faces around me were black, brown, or white ; every- 
 thing was conducted with such decorum. However, I could see 
 that the fine jet was not altogether the approved style of beauty, 
 and that many a very handsome woolly-headed belle was des- 
 tined to ornament the walls, until a few of the young white 
 merchants made a dash amongst them, more for the fun of the 
 tiling, as it struck me, than anything else, which piqued some 
 of the brown officers, and for the rest of the evening blacker. 
 had it hollow. And there was friend Aaron waltzing with a 
 very splendid woman, elegantly dressed, but black as a coal, 
 with long kid gloves, between which and the sleeve of her gown 
 a space of two inches of the black skin, like an ebony armlet, wa& 
 visible ; while her white dress, and rich white satin hat, and a 
 lofty plume of feathers, with a pearl necklace and diamond ear- 
 rings, set off her loveliness most conspicuously. At every wheel 
 round Mr Bang slewed his head a little on one side and peeped 
 in at one of her bright eyes, and then tossing his cranium on 
 t'other side, took a squint in at the other, and then cast his 
 eyes towards the roof, and muttered with his lips as if he had 
 been shot all of a heap by the blind boy's butt-shaft ; but every 
 now and then as we passed, the rogue would stick his tongue in 
 his cheek, yet so slightly as to be perceptible to no one but my- 
 self. After this heat, Massa Aaron and myself were perambu 
 lating the ball-room, quite satisfied with our own prowess, and 
 I was churming to myself " Voulez-toii'S danser, mademoiselle" 
 " De tout mon coeur" said a buxom brown dame, about eighteen 
 stone by the coffee-mill in St James's Street. The devil Aaron 
 gave me a look that I swore I would pay him for, the villain, a* 
 the extensive mademoiselle, suiting the action to the word, 
 started up, and hooked on, and as a cotillon had been called, there 
 I was, figuring away most emphatically, to Bang and Transom's 
 great entertainment. At length the dance was at an end, and 
 a waltz was once more called, and having done my duty, I 
 thought I might slip out between the acts ; so I offered to hand my 
 solid armful to her seat " Certainement vom pouvez bien rester 
 encore un moment" The devil confound you and Aaron Bang, 
 thought I ; but waltz I must, and away we whirled until the 
 room span round faster than we did, and when I was at length
 
 428 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 emancipated, my dark fair and fat one whispered, in a regular 
 die-away, " J 'espere vous revoir bientot." All this while there 
 was a heavy firing of champagne and other corks, and the fun 
 grew so fast and furious, that I remembered very little more of 
 the matter, until the morning breeze whistled through my muslin 
 curtains, or mosquito net, about noon on the following day. 
 
 I arose, and found mine host setting out to bathe at Madame 
 Le Clerc's bath, at Marquesan. I rode with him ; and after a 
 cool dip we breakfasted with President Petion at his country- 
 house there, and met with great kindness. About the house 
 itself there was nothing particularly to distinguish it from many 
 others in the neighbourhood ; but the little statues, and fragments 
 of marble steps, and detached portions of old-fashioned wrought- 
 iron railing, which had been grouped together so as to form an 
 ornamental terrace below it, facing the sea, showed that it had 
 been a compilation from the ruins of the houses of the rich 
 French planters, which were now blackening in the sun on the 
 plain of Leogane. A couple of Buenos Ayrean privateers were 
 riding at anchor in the bight just below the windows, manned, 
 as I afterwards found, by Americans. The president, in his 
 quiet way, after contemplating them through his glass, said, 
 " Ces pavilions sont bien neuf." 
 
 The next morning, as we were pulling in my gig, no less a 
 man than Massa Aaron steering, to board the Arethusa, one of 
 the merchantmen lying at anchor off the town, we were nearly 
 run down by getting athwart the bows of an American schooner 
 standing in for the port. As it was, her cutwater gave us so 
 smart a crack that I thought we were done for ; but our Palin- 
 urus, finding he could not clear her, with his inherent self- 
 possession put his helm to port, and kept away on the same 
 course as the schooner, so that we got off with the loss of our 
 two larboard oars, which were snapped off like parsnips, and a 
 good heavy bump that nearly drove us into staves. 
 
 " Never mind, my dear sir, never mind," said I ; " but here- 
 after listen to the old song 
 
 ' Steer clear of the stem of a sailing ship.'" 
 
 Massa Aaron was down on me like lightning 
 
 " Or the stern of a kicking horse, Tom." 
 
 While I continued 
 
 " 'Or you a wet jacket may catch, and a dip ' " 
 
 He again cleverly clipped the word out of my mouth 
 
 " Or a kick on the croup, which is worse, Tom."
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 429' 
 
 "Why, my dear sir, you are an improvisatore of the first 
 quality." 
 
 We rowed ashore, and nothing particular happened that day 
 
 until we sat down to dinner at Mr S 's. We had a very 
 
 agreeable party. Captain Transom and Mr Bang were, as 
 usual, the life of the company; and it was verging towards 
 eight o'clock in the evening, when an English sailor, apparently 
 belonging to the merchant service, came into the piazza, and 
 planted himself opposite to the window where I sat. 
 
 He made various nautical salaams until he had attracted my 
 
 attention. " Excuse me," I said to Mr S , " there is some 
 
 one in the piazza wanting me." I rose. 
 
 " Are you Captain Transom ] " said the man. 
 
 " No, I am not. There is the captain ; do you want him ? " 
 
 " If you please, sir," said the man. 
 
 I called my superior officer into the dark narrow piazza. 
 
 " Well, my man," said Transom, " what want you with me 1 " 
 
 " I am sent, sir, to you from the captain of the Haytian ship, 
 
 the E , to request a visit from you, and to ask for a prayer 
 
 book." 
 
 " A what 1 " said Transom. 
 
 " A prayerbook, sir. I suppose you know that he and the 
 
 captain of that other Haytian ship, the P , are condemned 
 
 to be shot to-morrow morning." 
 
 " I know nothing of all this," said Transom. " Do you, 
 Cringle ? " 
 
 " No, sir," said I. 
 
 " Then let us adjourn to the dining-room again ; or, stop, ask 
 Mr S and Mr Bang to step here for a moment." 
 
 They appeared ; and when Transom explained the affair, so- 
 far as consisted with his knowledge, Mr S told us that the 
 
 two unfortunates in question were, one of them a Guernsey man, 
 and the other a man of colour, a native of St Vincent's, whom the 
 president had promoted to the command of two Haytian ships, 
 that had been employed in carrying coffee to England ; but on 
 their last return voyage, they had introduced a quantity of base 
 Birmingham coin into the republic; which fact having been 
 proved on their trial, they had been convicted of treason against 
 the state, condemned, and were now under sentence of death ; 
 and, the government being purely military, they were to be shot 
 to-morrow morning. A boat was immediately sent on board, 
 the messenger returned with a prayerbook ; and we prepared to 
 visit the miserable men.
 
 430 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Mr Bang insisted on joining us ever first where misery was 
 to be relieved and we proceeded towards the prison. Follow- 
 ing the sailor, who was the mate of one of the ships, presently 
 we arrived before the door of the place where the unfortunate 
 men were confined. We were speedily admitted ; but the build- 
 ing had none of the common appurtenances of a prison. There 
 were neither long galleries nor strong iron-bound and clamped 
 doors to pass through, nor jailers with rusty keys jingling, nor 
 fetters clanking ; for we had not made two steps past the black 
 grenadiers who guarded the door, when a sergeant showed us 
 into a long ill-lighted room, about thirty feet by twelve in 
 truth, it was more like a gallery than a room with the windows 
 into the street open, and no precautions taken, apparently at 
 least, to prevent the escape of the condemned. In truth, if they 
 had broken forth, I imagine the kindhearted president would not 
 have made any very serious inquiry as to the Itow. 
 
 There was a small rickety old card-table, covered with tattered 
 green cloth, standing in the middle of the floor, which was com- 
 posed of dirty unpolished pitch pine planks, and on this table 
 glimmered two brown wax candles, in old-fashioned brass candle- 
 sticks. Between us and the table, forming a sort of line across 
 the floor, stood four black soldiers, with their muskets at their 
 shoulders, while beyond them sat, in old-fashioned armchairs, 
 three figures, whose appearance I never can forget. 
 
 The man fronting us rose on our entrance. He was an un- 
 commonly handsome elderly personage ; his age I should guess 
 to have been about fifty. He was dressed in white trousers and 
 shirt, and wore no coat; his head was very bald, but he had 
 large and very dark whiskers and eyebrows, above which 
 towered a most splendid forehead, white, massive, and spread- 
 ing. His eyes were deep-set and sparkling, but he was pale, 
 very pale, and his fine features were sharp and pinched. He 
 sat with his hands clasped together, and resting on the table, 
 his fingers twitching to and fro convulsively, while his under 
 jaw had dropped a little, and, from the constant motion of his 
 head and the heaving of his chest, it was clear that he was 
 breathing quick and painfully. 
 
 The figure on his right hand was altogether a more vulgar- 
 looking personage. He was a man of colour; his caste being 
 indicated by his short curly black hair, and his African descent 
 vouched for by his obtuse features ; but he was composed and 
 steady in his bearing. He was dressed in white trousers and 
 waistcoat, and a blue surtout ; and on our entrance he rose, and
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 431 
 
 remained standing. But the person on the elder prisoner's left 
 hand riveted my attention more than either of the other two. 
 She \vas a respectable-looking, little, thin woman, but dressed 
 with great neatness, in a plain black silk gown. Her sharp 
 features were high and well formed ; her eyes and mouth were 
 not particularly noticeable, but her hair was most beautiful 
 her long shining auburn hair although she must have been forty 
 years of age, and her skin was like the driven snow. When we 
 entered, she was seated on the left hand of the eldest prisoner, 
 and was lying back on her chair, with her arms crossed on her 
 bosom, her eyes wide open, and staring upwards towards the 
 roof, with the tears coursing each other down over her cheeks, 
 while her lower jaw had fallen down, as if she had been dead 
 her breathing was scarcely perceptible her bosom remaining 
 still as a frozen sea for the space of a minute, when she would 
 draw a long breath with a low moaning noise, to which suc- 
 ceeded a convulsive crowing gasp, like a child in the hooping- 
 cough, and all would be still again. 
 
 At length Captain Transom addressed the elder prisoner. 
 
 " You have sent for us, Mr ; what can we do for you in 
 
 accordance with our duty as English officers?" 
 
 The poor man looked at us with a vacant stare, but his fellow- 
 sufferer instantly spoke. " Gentlemen, this is kind very kind. 
 I sent my mate to borrow a prayerbook from you, for our con- 
 solation now must flow from above ; man cannot comfort us." 
 
 The female, who was the elder prisoner's wife, suddenly leant 
 forward in her chair, and peered intently into Mr Bang's face. 
 " Prayerbook," said she ; " prayerbook why, I have a prayer- 
 book. I will go for my prayerbook," and she rose quickly from 
 her seat. 
 
 " Restez" quoth the black sergeant The word seemed to 
 rouse her; she laid her head on her hands, on the table, and 
 sobbed out as if her heart were bursting " O God ! O God ! 
 is it come to this is it come to this 1 " the frail table trembling 
 beneath her, with her heart -crushing emotion. His wife's 
 misery now seemed to recall the elder prisoner to himself. He 
 made a strong effort, and in a great degree recovered his com- 
 posure. 
 
 " Captain Transom," said he, " I believe you know our story. 
 That we have been justly condemned, I admit, but it is a fear- 
 ful thing to die, captain, in a strange country, and by the hands 
 
 of these barbarians, and to leave my own dear " Here his 
 
 voice altogether failed him ; presently he resumed. " The Gov-
 
 432 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 eminent have sealed up my papers and packages, and I have 
 neither Bible nor prayerbook will you spare us the use of one, 
 or both, for this night, sir?" 
 
 The captain said he had brought a prayerbook, and did all he 
 could to comfort the poor fellows. But, alas ! their grief " knew 
 not consolation's name." 
 
 Captain Transom read prayers, which were listened to by 
 both of the miserable men with the greatest devotion, but all 
 the while the poor woman never moved a muscle, every faculty 
 appearing to be once more frozen up by grief and misery. At 
 length, the elder prisoner again spoke, " I know I have no claim 
 on you, gentlemen ; but I am an Englishman at least I hope I 
 may call myself an Englishman and my wife there is an English- 
 woman : when I am gone oh, gentlemen, what is to become of 
 her? If I were but sure that she would be cared for and enabled 
 to return to her friends, the bitterness of death would be past." 
 Here the poor woman threw herself round her husband's neck, 
 and gave a shrill sharp cry, and, relaxing her hold, fell down 
 across his knees, with her head hanging back, and her face 
 towards the roof, in a dead faint. For a minute or two, the 
 husband's sole concern seemed to be the condition of his wife. 
 
 " I will undertake that she shall be sent safe to England, my 
 good man," said Mr Bang. 
 
 The felon looked at him drew one hand across his eyes, 
 which were misty with tears, held down his head, and again 
 looked up ; at length he found his tongue. " That God who 
 rewardeth good deeds here, that God whom I have offended, 
 before whom I must answer for my sins by daybreak to-morrow, 
 will reward you ; I can only thank you." He seized Mr Bang's 
 hand and kissed it. 
 
 With heavy hearts we left the miserable group ; and I may 
 mention here, that Mr Bang was as good as his word, and paid 
 the poor woman's passage home, and, so far as I know, she is 
 now restored to her family. 
 
 We slept that night at Mr S 's, and as the morning 
 
 dawned we mounted our horses, which our worthy host had 
 kindly desired to be ready, in order to enable us to take our 
 exercise in the cool of the morning. As we rode past the Place 
 d'Armes, or open space in front of the president's palace, we 
 heard sounds of military music, and asked the first chance pas- 
 senger what was going on. " Execution militaire; or rather," 
 said the man, " the two sea-captains, who introduced the base 
 money, are to be shot this morning there, against the rampart."
 
 THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 433 
 
 Of the fact we were aware, but we did not dream that we had 
 ridden so near the whereabouts. 
 
 " Ay, indeed ? " said Mr Bang. He looked towards the cap- 
 tain. " My dear Transom, I have no wish to witness so horrible 
 a sight, but still what say you shall we pull up, or ride on ? " 
 
 The truth was, that Captain Transom and myself were both of 
 us desirous of seeing the execution from what impelling motive, 
 let learned blockheads, who have never gloated over a hanging, 
 determine ; and quickly it was determined that we should wait 
 and witness it. 
 
 First advanced a whole regiment of the president's guards, 
 then a battalion of infantry of the line, close to which followed 
 a whole bevy of priests clad in white, which contrasted conspicu- 
 ously with their brown and black faces. After them marched 
 two firing parties of twelve men each, drafted indiscriminately, 
 as it would appear, from the whole garrison ; for the grenadier 
 cap was there intermingled with the glazed shako of the battalion 
 company and the light morion of the dismounted dragoon. Then 
 came the prisoners; the elder culprit respectably clothed in 
 a white shirt, waistcoat, and trousers, and blue coat, with an In- 
 dian silk yellow handkerchief bound round his head. His lips 
 were compressed together with an unnatural firmness, and his 
 features were sharpened like those of a corpse. His complexion 
 was ashy blue. His eyes were half shut, but every now and 
 then he opened them wide, and gave a startling rapid glance 
 about him, and occasionally he staggered a little in his gait. As 
 he approached the place of execution, his eyelids fell, his under- 
 jaw dropped, his arms hung dangling by his side like empty 
 sleeves ; still he walked on, mechanically keeping time, like an 
 automaton, to the measured tread of the soldiery. His fellow- 
 sufferer followed him. His eye was bright, his complexion 
 healthy, his step firm, and he immediately recognised us in the 
 throng, made a bow to Captain Transom, and held out his hand 
 to Mr Bang, who was nearest to him, and shook it cordially. 
 The procession moved on. The troops formed into three sides 
 of a square, the remaining one being the earthen mound that 
 constituted the rampart of the place. A halt was called. The 
 two firing parties advanced to the sound of muffled drums, 
 and having arrived at the crest of the glacis, right over the 
 counterscarp, they halted on what, in a more regular fortification, 
 would have been termed the covered-way. The prisoners, per- 
 fectly unfettered, advanced between them, stepped down with a 
 firm step into the ditch, led each by a grenadier. In the centre 
 
 2
 
 434 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of it they turned and kneeled, neither of their eyes being bound. 
 A priest advanced, and seemed to pray with the brown man fer- 
 vently ; another offered spiritual consolation to the Englishman, 
 who seemed now to have rallied his torpid faculties ; but he 
 waved him away impatiently, and, taking a book from his bosom, 
 seemed to repeat a prayer from it with great fervour. At this 
 very instant of time Mr Bang caught his eye. He dropped the 
 book on the ground, placed one hand on his heart, while he 
 pointed upwards towards heaven with the other, calling out in a 
 loud clear voice, " Remember ! " Aaron bowed. A mounted 
 officer now rode quickly up to the brink of the ditch, and called 
 out " Depechez." 
 
 The priests left the miserable men, and all was still as death 
 for a minute. A low solitary tap of the drum the firing parties 
 came to the recover, and presently, taking the time from the 
 sword of the staff-officer who had spoken, came down to the 
 present, and fired a rattling, straggling volley. The brown man 
 sprang up into the air three or four feet, and fell dead ; he had 
 been shot through the heart; but the white man was only 
 wounded, and had fallen, writhing and struggling and shrieking, 
 to the ground. I heard him distinctly call out, as the reserve 
 of six men stepped into the ditch, " Dans la tete, dans la tete." 
 One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close 
 to his face, fired. The ball splashed into his skull through the 
 left eye, setting fire to his hair and clothes and the handkerchief 
 bound round his head, and making the brains and blood flash 
 up all over his face and the person of the soldier who had given 
 him the coup de grace. 
 
 A strong murmuring noise, like the rushing of many waters, 
 growled amongst the ranks and the surrounding spectators, while 
 a short sharp exclamation of horror every now and then gushed 
 out shrill and clear, and fearfully distinct, above the appalling 
 monotony. 
 
 The miserable man stretched out his legs and arms straight 
 and rigidly, a strong shiver pervaded his whole frame, his jaw 
 fell, his muscles relaxed, and he and his brother in calamity be- 
 came a portion of the bloody clay on which they were stretched.
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 435 
 
 CHAPTEE XVII. 
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 
 
 " Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean roll ! 
 
 Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain : 
 
 Man marks the earth "with ruin his control 
 
 Stops with the shore, upon the watery plain 
 
 The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
 
 A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, 
 
 When for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
 
 He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
 Without a grave, uuknelled, uucoffined, and unknown." 
 
 Childe Harold. 
 
 I HAD been invited to breakfast on board the corvette, on the 
 morning after this ; and Captain Transom, Mr Bang, and myself, 
 were comfortably seated at our meal on the quarterdeck, under 
 the awning, screened off by flags from the view of the men. The 
 ship was riding to a small westerly breeze that was rippling up 
 the bight. The ports on each quarter, as well as the two in the 
 stern, were open, through which we had an extensive view of 
 Port-au-Prince and the surrounding country. 
 
 " Now, Transom," said our amigo, Massa Aaron, " I am quite 
 persuaded that the town astern of us there must always have 
 been, and is now, exceedingly unhealthy. Only reflect on its 
 situation : it fronts the west, with the hot sickening afternoon's 
 sun blazing on it every evening, along the glowing mirror of the 
 calm bight, under whose influence the fat black mud that com- 
 poses the beach must send up most pestilent effluvia ; while in 
 the forenoon it is shut out from the influence of the regular 
 easterly sea - breeze, or trade - wind, by the high land behind. 
 However, as I don't mean to stay here longer than I can help, 
 
 it is not my affair ; and as Mr S will be waiting for us, 
 
 pray order your carriage, my dear fellow, and let us go on 
 shore." 
 
 The carriage our friend spoke of was the captain's gig, by this 
 time alongside, ready manned each of the six seamen who com- 
 posed her crew with his oar resting between his knees, the blade 
 pointed upwards towards the sky. We all got in. " Shove off" 
 dip fell the oars into the water. " Give way, men" the good 
 ash staves groaned, and cheeped, and the water buzzed, and
 
 436 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 away we shot towards the wharf. We landed, and having pro- 
 ceeded to Mr S 's, we found horses ready for us, to take our 
 
 promised ride into the beautiful plain of the Cul de Sac, lying 
 to the northward and eastward of the town ; the cavalcade being 
 
 led by Massa Aaron and myself, while Mr S rode beside 
 
 Captain Transom. 
 
 Aforetime, from the estates situated on this most magnificent 
 plain (which extends about fifteen miles into the interior, while 
 its width varies from ten to five miles, being surrounded by hills 
 on three sides) there used to be produced no less than thirty 
 thousand hogsheads of sugar. This was during the ancien 
 regime; whereas now, I believe, the only articles it yields beyond 
 plantains, yams, and pot herbs for the supply of the town, are a 
 few gallons of syrup, and a few puncheons of tafia, a very in- 
 ferior kind of rum. The whole extend of the sea-like plain, for 
 there is throughout scarcely any inequality higher than my staff, 
 was once covered with well-cultivated fields and happy homes ; 
 but now, alas! with brushwood from six to ten feet high ii> 
 truth, by one sea of jungle, through which you have to thread 
 your difficult way along narrow, hot, sandy bridle-paths (with 
 the sand-flies and mosquitoes flaying you alive), which every 
 now and then lead you to some old ruinous courtyard, with the 
 ground strewed with broken boilers and mill-rollers, and decaying 
 hardwood timbers, and crumbling bricks ; while, a little farther 
 on, you shall find the blackened roofless walls of what was most 
 probably an unfortunate planter's once happy home, where the 
 midnight brigand came, and found peace and comfort and all the 
 elegancies of life, and left blood and ashes ; with the wild- 
 flowers growing on the window-sills, and the prickly pear on the 
 tops of the walls, while marble steps, and old shutters, and 
 window-hinges, and pieces of china, are strewn all about ; the 
 only tenant now being most likely an old miserable negro who 
 has sheltered himself in a coarsely-thatched hut, in a corner of 
 what had once been a gay and well-furnished saloon.. 
 
 After having extended our ride, under a hot broiling sun, 
 until two o'clock in the afternoon, we hove about and returned 
 towards the town. We had not ridden on our homeward journey 
 above three miles, when we overtook a tall good-looking negro 
 dressed in white Osnaburg trousers rolled up to his knees, and 
 a check shirt. He wore neither shoes nor stockings, but his 
 head was bound round with the usual handkerchief, over which 
 he wore a large glazed cocked-hat, with a most conspicuous Hay- 
 tian blue-and-red cockade. He was goading on a jackass before
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 437 
 
 (him, loaded with a goodly burden apparently ; but what it was 
 we could not tell, as the whole was covered by a large sheepskin, 
 with the wool outermost. I was pricking past the man, when 
 
 Mr S sang out to me to shorten sail, and the next moment 
 
 he startled me by addressing the pedestrian as Colonel Gabaroche. 
 The colonel returned the salute, and seemed in no way put out 
 from being detected in this rather unmilitary predicament. He 
 was going up to Port-au-Prince to take his turn of duty with his 
 regiment. Presently up came another half -naked black fellow, 
 with the same kind of glazed hat and handkerchief under it ; but 
 he was mounted, and his nag was not a bad one by any means. 
 It was Colonel Gabaroche's captain of grenadiers, Papotiere by 
 name. He was introduced to us, and we all moved jabbering 
 along. At the time I write of, the military force of the Haytian 
 Republic was composed of one-third of the whole male popula- 
 tion capable of bearing arms, which third was obliged to be on 
 permanent duty for four months every year ; but the individuals 
 of the quota were allowed to follow their callings as merchants, 
 planters, or agriculturists, during the remaining eight months ; 
 they were, I believe, fed by government during their four months 
 of permanent duty. The weather, by the time we had ridden a 
 couple of miles farther, began to lower, and presently large heavy 
 drops of rain fell, and, preserving their globular shape, rolled like 
 peas, or rather like bullets, amidst the small finely pulverised 
 dust of the sandy path. "Umbrella" was the word; but this 
 was a luxury unknown to our military friends. However, the 
 colonel immediately unfurled a blanket from beneath the sheep- 
 skin, and sticking his head through a hole in the centre of it, 
 there he stalked like a herald in his tabard, with the blanket 
 hanging down before and behind him. As for the captain, he 
 dismounted, disencumbered himself of his trousers, which he 
 crammed under the mat that served him for a saddle, and, taking 
 off his shirt, he stowed it away in the capacious crown of his 
 cocked-hat, while he once more bestrid his Bucephalus in puris 
 naturalibus, but conversing with all the ease in the world and 
 the most perfect sang froid, while the thunder-shower came 
 down in bucketfuls. In about half an hour we arrived at the 
 skirt of the brushwood or jungle, and found on our left hand 
 some rice-fields, which from appearance we could not have dis- 
 tinguished from young wheat ; but on a nearer approach, we per- 
 ceived that the soil, if soil it could be called on which there was 
 no walking, was a soft mud, the only passages through the fields 
 and along the ridges being by planks, on which several of the
 
 438 .TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 labourers were standing as we passed, one of whom, turning to 
 look at us, slipped off, and instantly sank amidst the rotten slime 
 up to his waist. The neighbourhood of these rice-swamps is 
 generally extremely unhealthy. At length we got on board the 
 Firebrand, drenched to the skin, to a late dinner, after which it 
 was determined by Captain Transom of which intention, by 
 the by, with all his familiarity, I had not the smallest previous 
 notice that I should cross the island to Jacmel, in order to 
 communicate with the merchant-ships loading there ; and by the 
 time I returned, it was supposed the Firebrand would be ready 
 for sea, when I was to be detached in the Wave, to whip in the 
 craft at the different outports, after which we were all to sail in 
 a fleet to Port Royal 
 
 " I say, skipper," quoth Mr Bang, " I have a great mind to 
 ride with Tom ; what say you? " 
 
 " Why, Aaron, you are using me ill ; that shaver is seducing 
 you altogether; but come, you won't be a week away, and if 
 you want to go, I see no objection." 
 
 It was fixed accordingly, and on the morrow Mr Bang and I 
 completed our arrangements, hired horses and a guide, and all 
 being in order, clothes packed, and everything else made ready 
 
 for the cruise, we rode out along with Mr S (we were to 
 
 dine and sleep at his house) to view the fortifications on the hill 
 above the town, the site of Christophe's operations when he be- 
 sieged the place ; and pretty hot work they must have had of it, 
 for in two different places the trenches of the besiegers had been 
 pushed on to the very crest of the glacis, and in one the counter- 
 scarp had been fairly blown into the ditch, disclosing the gallery 
 of the mine behind, as if it had been a cavern, the crest of the 
 glacis having remained entire. We walked into it, and Mr S 
 pointed out where the president's troops, in Fort Republicain, 
 had countermined, and absolutely entered the other chamber 
 from beneath, after the explosion, and, sword in hand, cut off 
 the storming party (which had by this time descended into the 
 ditch), and drove them up through the breach into the fort, 
 where they were made prisoners. 
 
 The assault had been given three times in one night, and he 
 trembled for the town ; however, Petion's courage and indomit- 
 able resolution saved them all. For by making a sally from the 
 south gate at grey dawn, even when the firing on the hill was 
 hottest, and turning the enemy's flank, he poured into the 
 trenches, routed the covering party, stormed the batteries, 
 spiked the guns, and that evening's sun glanced on the bayonets
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 439 
 
 ef King Henry's troops as they raised the siege, and fell back 
 in great confusion on their lines, leaving the whole of their bat- 
 tering train and a great quantity of ammunition behind them. 
 
 Next morning we were called at daylight, and having ac- 
 coutred ourselves for the journey, we descended, and found two 
 stout ponies, th*e biggest not fourteen hands high, ready saddled, 
 with old-fashioned demipiques, and large holsters at each of the 
 saddlebows. A very stout mule was furnished for Monsieur Peg- 
 top ; and our black guide, who had contracted for our transit 
 across the island, was also .in attendance, mounted on a very 
 active, well-actioned horse. We had coffee, and started. By the 
 time we reached Leogane, the sun was high and fierce. Here 
 we breakfasted in a low one-storey building, our host being no 
 
 smaller man than Major L of the Fourth Regiment of the 
 
 line. We got our chocolate, and eggs, and fricasseed fowl, and 
 roasted yam, and in fact made, even according to friend Aaron's 
 conception of matters, an exceedingly comfortable breakfast. 
 
 Mr Bang here insisted on being paymaster, and tendered a 
 sum that the black major thought so extravagantly great, con- 
 sidering the entertainment we had received, that he declined 
 taking more than one-half. However, Mr Bang, after several 
 unavailing attempts to press the money on the man who, by 
 the by, was simply a good-looking blackamoor, dressed in a 
 check shirt, coarse but clean white trousers, with the omnipre- 
 sent handkerchief bound round his head and finding that he 
 could not persist without giving offence, was about pocketing 
 the same, when Pegtop audibly whispered him, "Massa, you 
 ever shee black niger refuse money before ? but don't take it to 
 heart, massa ; me, Pegtop, will pocket him, if dat foolis black 
 person won't." 
 
 " Thank you for nothing, Master Pegtop," said Aaron. 
 
 We proceeded, and rode across the beautiful plain, gradually 
 sloping up from the mangrove-covered beach, until it swelled 
 into the first range of hills that formed the pedestal of the high 
 precipitous ridge that intersected the southern prong of the 
 island, winding our way through the ruins of sugar-plantations, 
 with fragments of the machinery and implements employed in 
 the manufacture scattered about, and half sunk into the soil of 
 the fields, which were fast becoming impervious jungle, and 
 interrupting our progress along the narrow bridle-paths. At 
 length we began to ascend, and the comparative coolness of the 
 climate soon evinced that we were rapidly leaving the hot plains 
 as the air became purer and thinner at every turn. After a
 
 440 TOM CKLNGLE'S LOG. 
 
 long, hot, hot ride, we reached the top of the ridge, and, turning 
 back, had a most magnificent view of the whole Bight of Leo- 
 gane, and of the Horseshoe, and Aaron's Frog ; even the tops 
 of the mountains above the Mole, which could not have been 
 nearer than seventy miles, were visible, floating like islands or 
 blue clouds in the misty distance. Aaron took off his hat, 
 reined up, and, turning the head of his Bucephalus towards the 
 placid waters we had left, stretched forth his hand 
 
 " ' Ethereal air, and ye swift-winged winds, 
 
 Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves 
 That o'er th' interminable ocean wreath 
 Your crisped smiles, thou all-producing Earth, 
 And thee, bright Sun, I call, whose flaming orb 
 Views the wide world beneath. See ! ' 
 
 Nearly got a stroke of the sun, Tom what Whiffle would 
 call a cul de sac by taking off my chapeau in my poetical 
 frenzy ; so shove on." 
 
 We continued our journey through most magnificent defiles, 
 and under long avenues of the most superb trees, until, deeply 
 embosomed in the very heart of the eternal forest, we came to 
 a shady clump of bamboos, overhanging, with their ostrich- 
 feather-like plumes, a round pool of water, mantled or creamed 
 over with a bright green coating, as if it had been vegetable 
 velvet, but nothing akin to the noisome scum that ferments on 
 a stagnant pool in England. It was about the time we had 
 promised ourselves dinner, and in fact our black guide and Peg- 
 top had dismounted to make their preparations. 
 
 " Why, we surely cannot dine here 1 You don't mean to drink 
 of that stagnant pool, my dear sir 1 " 
 
 " Siste paulisper, my boy," said Mr Bang, as he stooped 
 down and skimmed off the green covering with his hand, dis- 
 closing the water below, pure and limpid as a crystal-clear 
 fountain. We dined on the brink, and discussed a bottle of vin- 
 de-grave apiece, and then had a small pull at brandy-and- water ; 
 but we ate very little, although I was very hungry but Mr 
 Bang would not let me feed largely. 
 
 " Now, Tom, you really do not understand things. When one 
 rides a goodish journey on end say seventy miles or so on 
 the same horse, one never feeds the trusty creature with half a 
 bushel of oats \ at least, if any wooden spoon does, the chances 
 are he knocks him up. No, no ; you give him a mouthful of 
 corn, but plenty to drink a little meal-and-water here, and a 
 bottle of porter in water there, and he brings you in handsomely. 
 Zounds ! how would you yourself, Tom, like to dine on turtle-
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 441 
 
 soup and venison in the middle of a hissing hot ride of sixty 
 miles, thirty of them to be covered after the feed ? Lord ! what 
 between the rich food and the punch, you would have fermented 
 like a brewer's vat before you reached the end of the journey ; 
 and if you had not a boll imperial measure of carbonate of soda 
 with you, the chances are you would explode like a catamaran 
 your head flying through some old woman's window, and cap- 
 sizing her teapot on the one hand, while on the other your four 
 quarters are scattered north, south, cast, and west. But gaude- 
 amus sweet is pleasure after pain, Tom, and all you sailors and 
 tailors I love to class you together are tender not hearted 
 creatures. Strange now that there should be three classes 
 of his Majesty's subjects who never can be taught to ride to 
 whom riding is, in fact, a physical impossibility ; and these three 
 are the aforesaid sailors, and tailors, and dragoon officers. How- 
 ever, hand me the brandy-bottle ; and Pegtop, spare me that 
 black jack that you are rinsing so. Useful commodity a cup 
 of this kind " here our friend dashed in a large qualifier of 
 cognac " it not only conceals the quality of the water, for you 
 can sometimes perceive the animalcule hereabouts without a 
 microscope, but also the strength of the libation. So a piece 
 of biscuit now, and the smallest morsel of that cold tongue 
 your health, Thomas" a long pull "speedy promotion to 
 you, Thomas." Here our friend rested the jug on his knee. 
 " Were you ever at a gandeamus of Presbyterian clergymen on 
 the Monday after the Sacrament Sunday, Tom that is, at the 
 dinner at the manse 1 " 
 
 " No, my dear sir ; you know I am an Episcopalian." 
 " And I am a Roman Catholic. What then ? I have been 
 at a gaudeanuts, and why might not you have been at one too ? 
 Oh, the fun of such a meeting ! the feast of reason and the flow 
 of Ferintosh, and the rich stories, ay, fatter than even I would 
 venture on, and the cricket-like chirps of laughter of the proba- 
 tioner, and the loud independent guffaw of the placed minister, 
 and the sly innuendos, when our freens get half foo. Oh, how 
 I honour a gaudeainus! And why," he continued, " should the 
 excellent men not rejoice, Tom 1 ? Are they not the very men 
 who should be happy 1 Is a minister to be for ever boxed up 
 in his pulpit for ever to be wagging his pow, bald, black, or 
 grizzled, as it may be, beneath his sounding-board, like a bull- 
 frog below a toadstool? And, like the aforesaid respectable 
 quadruped or biped (it has always puzzled me which to call it), 
 is he never to drink anything stronger than water? ' Hath not
 
 442 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 a minister eyes? hath not a minister hands, organs, dimensions, 
 senses, affections, passions 1 Fed with the same food, hurt with 
 the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the 
 same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and sum- 
 mer, that another man is] If you prick them, do they not 
 bleed ? If you tickle them, do they not laugh V And shall we 
 grudge them a gaudeamus now and then ? Shall opera peracta 
 ludemus be in the mouths of all mankind, from the dirty little 
 greasy-faced schoolboy who wears a red gown, and learns the 
 Humanities and Whiggery in the Nineveh of the West, as the 
 Bailie glories to call it, to the King upon his throne, and a dead 
 letter, as well as a dead language, to them, and them only? 
 Forbid it, the Honourable the Lord Provost ; forbid it, the Hon- 
 ourable the Lord Provost and all the Bailies; forbid it, the 
 Honourable the Lord Provost and all the Bailies, and those who 
 sit in Council with them ! Forbid it, the whole august aggregate 
 of terror to evil-doers and praise of them who do well ! Forbid 
 it, the devil and Dr Faustus ! " 
 
 By this time I had smuggled the jug out of our amigo's claw 
 and had done honour to his pledge. " Do you know, my dear 
 Mr Bang, I have always been surprised that a man of your strong 
 intellect, and clear views of most matters, should continue, in 
 profession at least, a Roman Catholic?" 
 
 Aaron looked at me with a seriousness, an unaffected serious- 
 ness, in his manner, that possessed me with the notion that I 
 had taken an unwarrantable liberty. " Profession," at length 
 said he, slowly and deliberately, apparently weighing every word 
 carefully as it fell from him, as one is apt to do when approach- 
 ing an interesting subject on which you desire not to be misun- 
 derstood " Profession ! what right have you to assumo this of 
 me or any man, that my mode of faith is but profession?" and 
 then the kind-hearted fellow, perceiving that his rebuke had mor- 
 tified me, altering his tone, continued, but still with a strong tinge 
 of melancholy in his manner, " Alas ! Tom, how often will weak 
 man, in his great arrogance, assume the prerogative of his Maker, 
 and attempt to judge honestly, we will even allow, according 
 to his conception of the heart and secret things of another, but 
 too often, in reality, by the evil scale of his own ! Shall the 
 potsherd say to his frail fellow, ' Thou art weak, but I am 
 strong?' Shall the moudieicort say to his brother mole (I say, 
 Quashie, mind that mule of yours don't snort in the water, will 
 ye?) ' Blind art thou, but lo, I see? ' Ah, Tom, I am a Roman 
 Catholic ! but is it thou who shalt venture down into the depths
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 44$ 
 
 of my heart, and then say, whether I be so in profession only, 
 or in stern, unswerving sincerity]" 
 
 I fcmnd I had unwittingly touched a string that vibrated to 
 his heart. 
 
 " I am a Roman Catholic, but, I humbly trust, not a bigoted 
 one ; for were it not against the canons of both our churches, 1 
 fear I should incline to the doctrine of Pope 
 
 ' He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.' 
 
 My fathers, Tom, were all Catholics before me ; they may have 
 been wrong ; but I am only my father's son not a better, and, 
 I fear, I fear, not so wise a man. Pray, Tom, did you ever hear 
 of even a good Jew, who, being converted, did not become a bad 
 Christian? Have you not all your life had a repugnance to- 
 consort with a sinner converted from the faith of his fathers, 
 whether they were Jews or Gentiles, Hindoos or Mohammedans,, 
 dwellers in Mesopotamia, or beyond Jordan 1 You have such 
 a repugnance, Tom, I know; and / have it too.'' 
 
 " Well," I proceeded, on the strength of the brandy grog, 
 " in the case of an unenlightened, or ignorant, or half-educated 
 man, I might, indeed, suspect duplicity, or even hypocrisy, at 
 the bottom of the abjuration of his fathers' creed ; but in a gen- 
 tleman of your acquirements and knowledge " 
 
 " There again now, Cringle, you are wrong. The clodhopper 
 might be conscientious in a change of creed; but as to the ad- 
 vantage I have over him from Superior knowledge ! Know- 
 ledge, Tom ! what do I know what does the greatest and the 
 best of us know to venture on a saying somewhat of the tritest 
 but that he knows nothing ] Oh, my dear boy, you and I 
 have hitherto consorted together on the deck of life, so to speak, 
 with the bright joyous sun sparkling, and the blue heavens 
 laughing overhead, and the clear green sea dancing under foot, 
 and the merry breeze buzzing past us right cheerily. We have 
 seen but the fair-weather side of each other, Thomas, without 
 considering that all men have their deep feelings, that lie far, 
 far down in the hold of their hearts, were they but stirred up. 
 Ay, you smile at my figures, but I repeat it in the deep hold 
 of their hearts ; and may I not follow out the image with verity 
 and modesty, and say that those feelings, often too deep for tears, 
 are the ballast that keeps the whole ship in trim, and without 
 which we should be every hour of our existence liable to be 
 driven out of our heavenward course, yea, to broach to, and 
 founder, and sink for ever, under one of the many squalls in
 
 444 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 this world of storms? And here, in this most beautiful spot, 
 with the deep, dark, crystal-clear pool at our feet, fringed with 
 that velvet grass, and the green quivering leaf above flickering 
 between us and the bright blue cloudless sky and the everlast- 
 ing rocks, with those diamond-like tears trickling down their 
 rugged cheeks impending over us and those gigantic gnarled 
 trees, with their tracery of black withes fantastically tangled, 
 whose naked roots twist and twine amongst the fissures, like 
 serpents trying to shelter themselves from the scorching rays of 
 the vertical sun and those feather-like bamboos high arching 
 overhead, and screening us under their noble canopy and the 
 cool plantains, their broad ragged leaves bending under the 
 weight of dew-spangles, and the half -opened wild-flowers yea. 
 even here, the ardent noontide sleeping on the hill, when even 
 the quick-eyed lizard lies still, and no longer rustles through the 
 dry grass, and there is not a breath of air strong enough out of 
 heaven to stir the gossamer that floats before us, or to wave 
 that wild-flower on its hair-like stem, or to ruffle the fairy plum- 
 age of the humming-bird, which, against the custom of its kind, 
 is now quietly perched thereon ; and while the bills of the chat- 
 tering paroquets, that are peering at us from the branches above, 
 are closed, and the woodpecker interrupts his tapping to look 
 down upon us, and the only sound we hear is the moaning of 
 the wood-pigeon, and the lulling buzz of myriads of happy in- 
 sects booming on the ear, loud as the rushing of a distant water- 
 fall (Confound these mosquitoes, though !) Even here, on 
 this 
 
 ' So sweet a spot of earth, you might, I ween, 
 Have guessed some congregation of the elves, 
 To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves.' 
 
 Even in such a place could I look forward without a shudder to 
 set up my everlasting rest, to lay my weary bones in the earth, 
 and to mingle my clay with that whereout it was moulded. No 
 fear of being Iwucked here, Thomas, and preserved in a glass 
 case, like a stuffed woodcock, in Surgeon's Hall. I am a bar- 
 barian, Tom, in these respects ; I am a barbarian, and nothing 
 of a philosopher. Quiero Paz is to be my epitaph. Quiero Paz 
 * Cursed be he who stirs these bones.' Did not even Shake- 
 speare write it 1 What poetry in this spot, Thomas ! Oh, 
 
 1 There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
 There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
 There is society, where none intrudes, 
 By the deep sea, and music in its roar :
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 445* 
 
 I love not man the less, but nature more, 
 From these our interviews, in which I steal 
 From all I may be, or have been before, 
 To mingle with the universe, and feel 
 What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.' 
 
 Yes, even here, where nature is all beautiful and everything, 
 and man abject and nothing even here, Tom, amidst the loneli- 
 ness of earth, rugged and half -mad as you must sometimes have 
 thought me, a fellow wholly made up of quips and jests, even / 
 at this moment could, like an aboriginal Charib of the land, ' lift 
 up my voice to the Great Spirit,' and kneel, and weep, and pray." 
 
 I was much moved. 
 
 " You have spoken of knowledge, Tom. Knowledge ! what 
 do I know? Of myself I know as little as I do of any other 
 grub that crawls on the surface of this world of sin and suffer- 
 ing ; and what I do know, adds little to my self-esteem, Torn,, 
 and affords small encouragement to inquire farther. Knowledge, 
 say you? How is that particle of sand here? I cannot tell. 
 How grew that blade of grass ? I do not know. Even when I 
 look into that jug of brandy grog (I'll trouble you for it, Thomas), 
 all that I know is, that if I drink it, it will make me drunk, and 
 a more desperately wicked creature, if that were possible, than 
 I am already. And when I look forth on the higher and more 
 noble objects of the visible creation, abroad on this beautiful 
 earth, above on the glorious universe studded with shining orbs, 
 without number numberless, what can I make of them ? Nothing 
 absolutely nothing ; yet they are all creatures like myself. But 
 if I try audaciously try to strain my finite faculties in the- 
 futile attempt to take in what is infinite if I aspiringly, but 
 hopelessly, grapple with the idea of the immensity of space, for 
 instance, which my reason yet tells me must of necessity be 
 boundless do I not fall fluttering to the earth again, like an 
 owl flying against the noontide sun? Again, when I venture 
 to think of eternity ay, when, reptile as I feel myself to be, I 
 even look up towards heaven, and bend my erring thoughts to- 
 wards the Most High, the Maker of all things, who was, and is,, 
 and is to come ; whose flaming minister, even while I speak, is 
 pouring down a flood of intolerable day on one-half of the dry 
 earth, and all that therein is ; and when I reflect on what this 
 tremendous, this inscrutable Being has done for me and my sin- 
 ful race, so beautifully shown forth in both our creeds, what do 
 I know? but that I am a poor miserable worm, crushed before 
 the moth, whose only song should be the miserere, whose only 
 prayer ' God be merciful to me a sinner ! ' '
 
 446 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 There was a long pause, and I began to fear that . my friend 
 was shaken in his mind, for he continued to look steadfastly 
 into the clear black water, where he had skimmed off the green 
 velvet coating with his stick. 
 
 " Ay, and is it even so ? and is it Tom Cringle who thinks 
 and says that I am a man likely to profess to believe what he 
 knows in his heart to be a lie ] A Roman Catholic! Had I 
 lived before the Roman Conquest I would have been a Druid, 
 for it is not under the echoing domes of our magnificent cathe- 
 drals, with all the grandeur of our ritual, the flaming tapers, and 
 bands of choristers, and the pealing organ, and smoking censers, 
 and silver-toned bells, and white-robed priests, that the depths 
 of my heart are stirred up. It is Ji ere, and not in a temple made 
 with hands, however gorgeous here, in the secret places of the 
 everlasting forest ; it is in such a place as this that I feel the 
 immortal spark within me kindling into a flame, and wavering 
 up heavenward. I am superstitious, Thomas, I am superstitious, 
 when left alone in such a scene as this. I can walk through a 
 country churchyard at midnight, and stumble amongst the rank 
 .grass that covers the graves of those I have lived with and loved, 
 even if they be ' green in death, and festering in their shrouds,' 
 with the wind moaning amongst the stunted yew-trees, and the 
 rain splashing and scattering on the moss-covered tombstones, 
 -and the blinding blue lightning flashing, while the headstones 
 glance like an array of sheeted ghosts, and the thunder is grum- 
 bling overhead, without a qualm ; direness of this kind cannot 
 once daunt me. It is here and now, when all nature sleeps in 
 the ardent noontide, that I become superstitious, and would not 
 willingly be left alone. Thoughts too deep for tears ! ay, 
 indeed, and there be such thoughts, that, long after time has 
 allowed them to subside, and when, to the cold eye of the world, 
 ah 1 is clear and smooth above, will, when stirred up, like the 
 .sediment of this fountain of the wood, discolour and embitter 
 the whole stream of life once more, even after the lapse of long 
 long years. When my heart-crushing loss was recent when the 
 wound was green, I could not walk abroad at this to me witch- 
 ing time of day, without a stock or a stone, a distant mark on 
 the hill-side, or the outline of the grey cliff above, taking the 
 very fashion of her face, or figure, on which I would gaze, and 
 gaze, as if spell-bound, until I knew not whether to call it a 
 grouping of the imagination, or a reality from without of her 
 with whom I fondly hoped to have travelled the weary road of 
 life. Friends approved fortune smiled one little month, and
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 447 
 
 we should have been one ; but it pleased Him, to whom in my 
 present frame of mind I dare not look up, to blight my beauti- 
 ful flower, to canker my rose-bud, to change the fair countenance 
 of my Elizabeth, and send her away. She drooped and died, 
 even like that pale flower under the scorching sun ; and I was 
 driven forth to worship Mammon in these sweltering climes ; but 
 the sting remains, the barbed arrow sticks fast." 
 
 Here the clear surface of the water, into which he was stead- 
 fastly looking, was gradually contracted to a small round spot 
 about a foot in diameter, by the settling back of the green 
 floating matter that he had skimmed aside. His countenance 
 became very pale ; ho appeared even more excited than he had 
 hitherto been. 
 
 " By heavens ! look in that water, if the green covering of it 
 has not arranged itself round the clear spot into the shape of a 
 medallion into lier features ! I had dreamed of such things 
 before, but now it is a palpable reality it is her face her 
 straight nose her Grecian upper lip her beautiful forehead, 
 and her very bust ! even, 
 
 ' As when years apace 
 llad bound her lovely waist with woman's zone." 
 
 Oh, Elizabeth Elizabeth ! " 
 
 Here his whole frame shook with the most intense emotion, 
 but at length tears, unwonted tears, did come to his relief, and 
 he hid his face in his hands and wept bitterly. I was now con- 
 vinced he was mad, but I durst not interrupt him. At length 
 he slowly removed his hands, by which time, however, a beauti- 
 ful small black diver, the most minute species of duck that I 
 ever saw it was not so big as my fist but which is common 
 in woodland ponds in the West Indies, had risen in the centre 
 of the eye of the fountain, while all was so still that it floated 
 quietly like a leaf on the water, apparently without the least 
 fear of us. 
 
 " The devil appeared in paradise under the shape of a cor- 
 morant," said Mr Bang, half angrily, as he gazed sternly at the 
 unlooked-for visitor ; " what imp art thou 1 " 
 
 Tip the little fellow dived ; presently it rose again in the 
 same place, and, lifting up its little foot, scratched the side of its 
 tiny yellow bill and little red-spotted head, shook its small wings, 
 bright and changeable as shot silk, with a snow-white pen-feather 
 in each, and then tipped up its little purple tail, and once more 
 disappeared. 
 
 Aaron's features were gradually relaxing ; a change was com-
 
 448 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 ing over the spirit of his dream. The bird appeared for the 
 third time, looked him in the face, first turning up one little 
 sparkling eye, and then another, with its neck changing its hues 
 like a pigeon's. Aaron began to smile; he gently raised his 
 stick " Do you cock your fud at me, you tiny thief, you ] " 
 and thereupon he struck at it with his stick. Tip the duck 
 dived, and did not rise again ; and all that he got was a sprink- 
 ling shower in the face, from the water flashing up at his blow, 
 and once more the green covering settled back again, and the 
 bust of his dead love, or what he fancied to be so, disappeared. 
 Aaron laughed outright, arose, and began to shout to the black 
 guide, who, along with Pegtop, had taken the beasts into the 
 wood in search of provender. " Ayez le bonte de donner moi 
 mon cheval. Bringibus the horsos, Massa Bungo venga los 
 quadrupedos make haste, vite, mucho, mucho" 
 
 Come, there is my Massa Aaron once more, at all events, 
 thought I ; but oh, how unlike the Aaron of five minutes ago ! 
 
 "So now let us mount, my boy," said he, and we shoved 
 along until the evening fell, and the sun bid us good-by very 
 abruptly. "Cheep, cheep," sang the lizard "chirp, chirp," 
 sang the crickets " snore, snore," moaned the tree-toad and 
 it was night. 
 
 " Dame Nature shifts the scene without much warning here, 
 Thomas," said Massa Aaron ; " we must get along. Depechez, 
 mon cher depechez ; diggez votre spurs into the flankibus of 
 votre cheval, mon ami," shouted Aaron to our guide. 
 
 " Oui, monsieMr," replied the man, " mats " 
 
 I did not like this ominous " but," nevertheless we rode on. 
 No more did Massa Aaron. The guide repeated his mais again. 
 "Mais, mon filo" said Bang, "mais que meanez-vous by 
 baaing comme un sheep, eh 1 Que vizzy-vous, eh ? " 
 
 We were at this time riding in a bridle-road, to which the 
 worst sheep-paths in Westmoreland would have been a railway, 
 with our horses every now and then stumbling and coming 
 down on their noses on the deep red earth, while we as often 
 stood a chance of being pitched bodily against some tree on the 
 pathside. But we were by this time all alive again, the dulness 
 of repletion having evaporated ; and Mr Bang, I fancied, began 
 to peer anxiously about him, and to fidget a good deal, and to 
 murmur and grumble something in his gizzard about " arms 
 no arms," as, feeling in his starboard holster, he detected a re- 
 gular long cork of claret, where he had hoped to clutch a pistol, 
 while in the larboard, by the praiseworthy forethought of our
 
 SEE HOW THE MOONLIGHT SLEEPS." 1 ''age 449.
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 449 
 
 guide, a good roasted capon was ensconced. "I say, Tom tohoo 
 mind I don't shoot you," presenting the bottle of claret. " If 
 it had been soda-water, and the wire not all the stronger, I might 
 have had a chance in this climate ; but we are somewhat caught 
 here, my dear we have no arms." 
 
 " Poo," said I, " never mind ; no danger at hard, take my 
 word for it." 
 
 " Maybe not, maybe not but, Pegtop, you scoundrel, why 
 did you not fetch my pistols 1 " 
 
 " Eigh, you go fight, massa? " 
 
 " Fight ! no, you booby ; but could not your own numskull 
 the fellow's a fool so come ride on, ride on." 
 
 Presently we came to an open space, free of trees, where the 
 moon shone brightly; it was a round precipitous hollow, that 
 had been excavated apparently by the action of a small clear 
 stream or spout of water, that sparkled in the moonbeams like 
 a web of silver tissue, as it leaped in a crystal arch over our 
 heads from the top of a rock about twenty feet high, that rose 
 on our right hand, the summit clearly and sharply defined 
 against the blue firmament, while, on the left, there was a small 
 hollow or ravine, down which the rivulet gurgled and vanished ; 
 while ahead the same impervious forest prevailed, beneath which 
 we had been travelling for so many hours. 
 
 The road led right through this rugged hollow, crossing it 
 about the middle, or, if anything, nearer the base of the cliff; 
 and the whole clear space between the rock and the branches of 
 the opposite trees might have measured twenty yards. In front 
 of us, the path took a turn to the left, as if again entering below 
 the dark shadow of the wood; but towards the right, with 
 the moon shining brightly on it, there was a most beautiful 
 bank, clear of underwood, and covered with the finest short 
 velvet grass that could be dreamed of as a fitting sward to be 
 pressed by fairy feet. We all halted in the centre of the open 
 space. 
 
 " See how the moonlight sleeps on yonder bank ! " said I. 
 
 " I don't know what sleeps there, Tom," said Aaron ; " but 
 does that figure sleep, think you 1 " pointing to the dark crest 
 of the precipitous eminence on the right hand, from which the 
 moonlight rill was gushing, as if it had been smitten by the rod 
 of the prophet. 
 
 I started, and looked a dark half-naked figure, with an 
 enormous cap of the t shaggy skin of some wild creature, was 
 kneeling on one knee, on the very pinnacle, with a carabine rest- 
 
 2F
 
 450 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 ing across his thigh. I noticed our guide tremble from head to 
 foot, but he did not speak. 
 
 " Vous avez des arms?" said Bang, as he continued, with 
 great fluency, but little grammar ; " ayez le bonte de cockez cot re 
 pistolettes ? " 
 
 The man gave no answer. We heard the click of the carabine lock. 
 
 " Zounds ! " said Aaron, with his usual energy when excited, 
 " if you won't use them, give them to me;" and forthwith he 
 snatched both pistols from our guide's holsters. " Now, Tom, 
 get on. Shove t'other blackie ahead of you, Pegtop, will you 1 
 Confound you for forgetting my Mantous, you villain ! I will 
 bring up the rear." 
 
 " Well, I will get on," said I ; " but here, give me a pistol." 
 
 " Ridez-vous en avant, blackimoribus ambos en avant, you 
 black rascals laissez le capitan and me pour fightez" shouted 
 Bang, as the black guide, guessing his meaning, spurred his 
 horse against the moonlight bank. 
 
 "Ah ah!" exclaimed the man, as he wheeled about, after 
 he had ridden a pace or two under the shadow of the trees 
 " Voila ces autres brigands Id." 
 
 "Where?" said I. 
 
 " There," said the man, in an ecstasy of fear " there ; " and, 
 peering up into the forest, where the checkering dancing moon- 
 light was flickering on the dun, herbless soil, as the gentle night- 
 breeze made the leaves of the trees twinkle to and fro, I saw 
 three dark figures advancing upon us. 
 
 " Here's a catastrophe, Tom, my boy," quoth Aaron, who, 
 now that he had satisfied himself that the pistols were properly 
 loaded and primed, had resumed all his wonted coolness in 
 danger. " Ask that fellow who is enacting the statue on the 
 top of the rock what he wants. I am a tolerable shot, you know ; 
 and if he means evil, I shall nick him before he can carry his 
 carabine to his shoulder, take my word for it." 
 
 " Who is there, and what do you want?" No answer; the 
 man above us continued as still as if he had actually been a 
 statue of bronze. Presently one of the three men in the wood 
 sounded a short snorting note on a bullock's horn. 
 
 It would seem that until this moment their comrade above us 
 had not been aware of their vicinity, for he immediately called 
 out in the patois of St Domingo, " Advance, and seize the tra- 
 vellers;" and thereupon was in the act of raising his piece to 
 his shoulder, when crack Bang fired his pistol The man 
 uttered a loud hah, but did not falL
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 451 
 
 " Missed him, by all that is wonderful ! " said my companion. 
 " Now, Tom, it is your turn." 
 
 I levelled, and was in the very act of pulling the trigger, when 
 the dark figure fell over slowly and stiffly on his back, and then 
 began to struggle violently, and to cough loudly as if he were 
 suffocating. At length he rolled over and down the face of the 
 rock, where he was caught by a strong clump of brushwood, arid 
 there he hung, while the coughing and crowing increased, and I 
 felt a warm shower, as of heated water, sputter over my face. 
 It was hot hot, and salt God of my fathers! it was blood. 
 But there was no time for consideration ; the three figures by 
 this time had been reinforced by six more, and they now, with 
 a most fiendish yell, jumped down into the hollow basin and 
 surrounded us. 
 
 " Lay down your arms," one of them shouted. 
 
 " No," I exclaimed ; " we are British officers, and armed, and 
 determined to sell our lives dearly ; and if you do succeed in 
 murdering us, you may rest assured you shall be hunted down 
 by bloodhounds." 
 
 I thought the game was up, and little dreamed that the name 
 of Britain would, amongst the fastnesses of Hayti, have proved 
 a talisman ; but it did so. " We have no wish to injure 
 you, but you must follow us and see our general," said the 
 man who appeared to take the lead amongst them. Here two 
 of the men scrambled up the face of the rock, and brought 
 their wounded comrade down from where he hung, and laid 
 him on the bank; he had been shot through the lungs, and 
 could not speak. After a minute's conversation, they lifted 
 him on their shoulders ; and as our guide and Monsieur Peg- 
 top had been instantly bound, we were only two to nine armed 
 men, and accordingly had nothing for it but to follow the 
 bearers of the wounded man, with our horses tumbling and 
 scrambling up the river-course, into which, by their order, we 
 had now turned. 
 
 We proceeded in this way for about half a mile, when it 
 was evident that the jaded beasts could not travel farther 
 amongst the twisted trunks of trees and fragments of rock with 
 which the river-course was now strewed. We therefore dis- 
 mounted, and were compelled to leave them in charge of two of 
 the brigands, and immediately began to scramble up the hill-side, 
 through a narrow foot-path, in one of the otherwise most imper- 
 vious thickets that I had ever seen. Presently a black savage, 
 half-naked like his companions, hailed, and told us to stand.
 
 452 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Some password that we could not understand was given by our 
 captors, and we proceeded, still ascending, until, turning sharp off 
 to the left, we came suddenly round a pinnacle of rock, and looked 
 down into a deep dell, with a winding path leading to the brink of 
 it. It was a round cockpit of a place, surrounded with precipi- 
 tous limestone rocks on all sides, from the fissures of which large 
 trees and bushes sprang, while the bottom was a level piece of 
 ground, covered with long hay-like grass, evidently much trodden 
 down. Close to the high bank, right opposite, and about thirty 
 yards from us, a wood fire was sparkling cheerily against the 
 grey rock; while, on the side next us, the roofs of several hut& 
 were visible, but there was no one moving about that we could 
 see. The moment, however, that the man with the horn 
 sounded a rough and most unmelodious blast, there was a buzz, 
 and a stir below, and many a short grunt arose out of the pit, 
 and long yawns, and eigh, eiglis ! while a dozen splinters of 
 resinous wood were instantly lit, and held aloft, by whose light 
 I saw fifty or sixty half-naked but well-armed blacks, gazing up 
 at us from beneath, their white eyes and whiter teeth glancing. 
 Most of them had muskets and long knives, and several wore 
 the military shako, while others had their heads bound round 
 with the never-failing handkerchief. At length a fierce-looking 
 fellow, dressed in short drawers, a round blue jacket, a pair of 
 epaulets, and a most enormous cocked hat, placed a sort of rough 
 ladder, a plank with notches cut in it with a hatchet, against 
 the bank next us, and in a loud voice desired us to descend. I 
 did so with fear and trembling, but Mr Bang never lost his pre- 
 sence of mind for a moment ; and, in answer to the black chief's 
 questions, I again rested our plea on our being British officers, 
 despatched on service from a squadron (and as I used the word, 
 the poor little Wave and solitary corvette rose up before me) 
 across the island to Jacmel, to communicate with another Brit- 
 ish force lying there. The man heard me with great patience ; 
 but when I looked round the circle of tatterdemalions, for there 
 was ne'er a shirt in the whole company Falstaff's men were a 
 joke to them with their bright arms sparkling to the red glare 
 of the torches, that flared like tongues of flame overhead, while 
 they grinned with their ivory teeth, and glared fiercely with 
 their white eyeballs on us I felt that our lives were not worth 
 an hour's purchase. 
 
 At length the leader spoke " I am General Sanchez, driven 
 to dispute President Petion's sway by his injustice to me but 
 I trust our quarrel is not hopeless ; will you, gentlemen, on your
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 453 
 
 return to Port-au-Prince, use your influence with him to with- 
 draw his decree against me ? " 
 
 This was so much out of the way the idea of our being de- 
 puted to mediate between such great personages as President 
 Petion and one of his rebel generals was altogether so absurd, 
 that, under other circumstances, I would have laughed in the 
 black fellow's face. However, a jest here might have cost us 
 our lives ; so we looked serious, and promised. 
 
 " Upon your honours ] " said the poor fellow. 
 
 " Upon our words of honour," we rejoined. 
 
 " Then embrace me " and the savage thereupon, stinking of 
 tobacco and cocoa-nut oil, hugged me, and kissed me on both 
 cheeks, and then did the agreeable in a similar way to Mr Bang. 
 Here the coughing and moaning of the wounded man broke in 
 upon the conference. 
 
 " What is that ? " said Sanchez. One of his people told him. 
 " Ah ! " said he, with a good deal of savageness in his tone 
 "Aha! blood]" 
 
 We promptly explained how it happened ; for a few moments, 
 I did not know how he might take it. 
 
 " But I forgive you," at length, said he ; " however, my men 
 may revenge their comrade. You must drink and eat with them." 
 
 This was said aside to us, as it were. He ordered some 
 roasted plantains to be brought, and mixed some cruel bad tafia 
 with water in an enormous gourd. He ate, and then took a 
 pull himself we followed ; and he then walked round the circle, 
 and carefully observed that every one had tasted also. Being 
 satisfied on this head, he abruptly ordered us to ascend the lad- 
 der and to pass on our way. 
 
 The poor fellow was mad, I believe. However, some time 
 afterwards, the president hunted him down, and got hold of 
 him, but I believe he never punished him. As for the wounded 
 man 
 
 " Whether he did live or die, 
 Tom Cringle does not know." 
 
 We were reconducted by our former escort to where we left 
 our horses, remounted, and, without further let or hindrance, 
 arrived by day-dawn at the straggling town of Jacmel. The 
 situation is very beautiful ; the town being built on the hill-side, 
 looking out seaward on a very safe roadstead, the anchorage 
 being defended to the southward by bright blue shoals, and 
 white breakers, that curl and roar over the coral-reefs and 
 ledges. As we rode up to Mr S 's, the principal merchant
 
 454 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 in the place, and a Frenchman, we were again struck with the 
 dilapidated condition of the houses, and the generally ruinous 
 state of the town. The brown and black population appeared 
 to be lounging about in the most absolute idleness ; and here, 
 as at Port-au-Prince, every second man you met was a soldier. 
 The women sitting in their little shops, nicely set out with a 
 variety of gay printed goods, and the crews of the English ves- 
 sels loading coffee, were the only individuals who seemed to be 
 capable of any exertion. 
 
 " I say, Tom," quoth Massa Aaron, " do you see that old fel- 
 low there?" 
 
 "What! that old grey-headed negro sitting in the arbour 
 there?" 
 
 " Yes ; the patriarch is sitting under the shadow of his own 
 Lima bean" 
 
 And so in very truth he was. The stem was three inches in 
 diameter, and the branches had been trained along and over a 
 sparred arch, and were loaded with pods. 
 
 " I shall believe in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk hence- 
 forth and for ever," said I. 
 
 We were most kindly entertained by Mr S , and spent 
 
 two or three days very happily. The evening of the day on 
 which we arrived, we had strolled out about nine o'clock to take 
 the air our host and his clerks being busy in the counting- 
 house and were on our way home, when we looked in on them 
 at their desks before ascending to the apartments above. There 
 
 were five clerks and Mr S , all working away on the top of 
 
 their tall mahogany tripods, by the light of their brown home- 
 made wax candles, while three masters of merchantmen were 
 sitting in a corner, comparing bills of lading, making up mani- 
 fests, and I do not know what beside. 
 
 " It is now about time to close," said Mr S ; " have you 
 
 any objection to a little music, gentlemen 1 or are you too much 
 fatigued?" 
 
 "Music music," said Mr Bang; "I delight in good music, 
 
 but " He was cut short by the whole bunch, the clerks and 
 
 their master, closing their ledgers and journals and day-books 
 and cash-books with a bang, while one hooked up a fiddle, 
 another a clarionet, another a flute, &c., while Mr S - offered, 
 with a smile, his own clarionet to Massa Aaron, and holding out 
 at the same time, with the true good-breeding of a Frenchman, a 
 span-new reed. To my unutterable surprise he took it sucked 
 in his lips wet the reed in his mouth ; then passing his hand
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 455 
 
 across his muzzle, coolly asked Mr S what the piece was to 
 
 be] " Adeste fideles, if you please," said S , rather taken 
 
 aback. Mr Bang nodded, sounded a bar or two, gave another 
 very scientific flourish, and then calmly awaited the opening. He 
 then tendered a fiddle to me altogether beyond my compass 
 but I offered to officiate on the kettledrum, the drummer being 
 competent to something else. At a signal from our host away 
 they all launched, in full crash, and very melodious it was too, 
 let me tell you, Aaron's instrument telling most famously. 
 
 The next day we went to visit a tafia property in the neigh- 
 bourhood. On our way we passed a dozen miserable-looking 
 blacks, cleaning canes, followed by an ugly Turk of a brown 
 man, almost naked, with the omnipresent glazed cocked-hat, and 
 a drawn cutlass in his hand. He was abusing the poor devils 
 most lustily as we rode along, and stood so pertinaciously in the 
 path that I could not for the life of me pass without jostling 
 him. " Je vous demande pardon" said I, with a most abject 
 salaam to my saddle-bow. He knit his brows and shut his teeth 
 hard, as he ground out between the glancing ivory, " Sacre! 
 voila ces foutres blancs la" clutching the hilt of his couteau 
 firmly all the while. I thought he would have struck me. But 
 Mr S , coming up, mollified the savage, and we rode on. 
 
 The tafia estate was a sore affair. It had once been a pros- 
 perous sugar-plantation, as the broken panes and ruined houses, 
 blackened by fire, were melancholy vouchers for ; but now the 
 whole cultivation was reduced to about a couple of acres of 
 wiry sugar-canes, and the boiling and distilling were carried on 
 in a small unroofed nook of the original works. 
 
 Two days after this we returned to Port-au-Prince, and I 
 could not help admiring the justness of Aaron's former descrip- 
 tion ; for noisome exhalations were rising thick, as the evening 
 sun shone hot and sickly on the long bank of fat black mud 
 that covers the beach beneath the town. We found Captain 
 
 Transom at Mr S 's. I made my report of the state of the 
 
 merchantmen loading on the south side of the island, and retired 
 to rest, deucedly tired and stiff with my ride. Next morning 
 Bang entered my room. 
 
 " Hillo, Tom ! the skipper has been shouting for you this 
 half -hour; get up, man get up." 
 
 " My dear sir, I am awfully tired." 
 
 Oh ! " sang Bang 
 
 " 'I have a silent sorrow here ' 
 
 eh I"
 
 456 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 It was true enough ; no sailor rides seventy miles on end with 
 impunity. That same evening we bade adieu to our excellent 
 
 host Mr S , and the rising moon shone on us under weigh 
 
 for Kingston, where two days after we safely anchored with the 
 homeward-bound trade. 
 
 " The roaring seas 
 Is not a place of ease," 
 
 says a Point ditty. No more is the command of a small schooner 
 in the West Indies. We had scarcely anchored when the board- 
 ing-officer from the flag-ship brought me a message to repair 
 thither immediately. I did so. As I stepped on deck, the lieu- 
 tenant was leaning on the drum-head of the capstan, with the 
 signal-book open before him, while the signal-man was telling 
 off the semaphore, which was rattling away at the Admiral's pen, 
 situated about five miles off. 
 
 " Ah ! Cringle," said he, without turning his head, " how are 
 you] glad to see you wish you joy, my lad. Here lend me a 
 hand, will you] it concerns you." I took the book, and as the 
 man reported, I pieced the following comfortable sentence to- 
 gether. 
 
 " Desire Wave fit wood water instantly to take con- 
 voy to Spanish Main to-morrow morning Mr Cringle re- 
 main on board orders will be sent evening." 
 
 " Heigh ho, says Rowley," 
 
 sang I Thomas, in great wrath and bitterness of spirit, " D d 
 hard ; am I a duck, to live in the water altogether, entirely]" 
 
 " Tom, my boy," sang out a voice from the water. It was 
 Aaron Bang's, who, along with Transom, had seen me go on 
 board the receiving ship. " Come along, man come along ; 
 Transom is going to make interest to get you a furlough on 
 shore ; so come along, and dine with us in Kingston." 
 
 " I am ordered to sea to-morrow morning, my dear sir," said 
 I, like to cry. "No!" " Too true, too true." So no help for 
 it, I took a sad farewell of my friends, received my orders, laid 
 in my provisions and water, hauled out into the fairway, and 
 sailed for Santa Martha next morning at daybreak, with three 
 merchant schooners under convoy one for Santa Martha, 
 another for Carthagena, and the third for Porto-Bello. 
 
 We sailed on the 24th of such a month, and, after a pleasant 
 passage, anchored at Santa Martha at 8 A.M. on the 31st. When 
 we came to anchor we saluted, which seemed to have been a 
 somewhat unexpected honour, as the return was fired from the
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 457 
 
 fort after a most primitive fashion. A black fellow appeared 
 with a shovel of live embers, one of which another sans calotte 
 caught up in his hand, chucking it from palm to palm until he 
 ran to the breech of the first gun, where, clapping it on the 
 touch-hole, he fired it off, and so on seriatim through the whole 
 battery, until the required number of guns were given, several 
 of which, by the by, were shotted, as we could hear the balls 
 whiz overhead. The town lies on a small plain, at the foot of 
 very high mountains, or rather on a sand-bank, formed from the 
 washings from these mountains. The summit of the highest of 
 them, we could see from the deck, was covered with snow, which 
 at sunrise, in the clear light of the cool grey dawn, shone, when 
 struck by the first rays of the sun, like one entire amethyst. 
 Oh, how often I longed for the wings of the eagle, to waft me 
 from the hot deck of the little vessel, where the thermometer 
 in the shade stood at 95, far up amongst the shining glaciers, 
 to be comforted with cold ! 
 
 One striking natural phenomenon is exhibited here, arising 
 out of the vicinity of this stupendous prong of the Cordilleras. 
 The sea-breeze blows into the harbour all day, but in the night, 
 or rather towards morning, the cold air from the high regions 
 rushes down, and blows with such violence off the land, that my 
 convoy and myself were nearly blown out to sea the first night 
 after we arrived ; and it was only by following the practice of 
 the native craft, and anchoring close under the lee of the beach 
 in fact, by having an anchor high and dry on the shore itself 
 the playa, as the Spaniards call it that we could count on 
 riding through the night with security or comfort. 
 
 There are several small islands at the entrance of the harbour, 
 on the highest of which is a fort that might easily be rendered 
 impregnable ; it commands both the town and harbour. The 
 place itself deserves little notice : the houses are mean, and in- 
 terspersed with negro huts, but there is one fine church with 
 several tolerable paintings in it. One struck me as especially 
 grotesque, although I had often seen queer things in Roman 
 Catholic churches in Europe. It was a representation of Hell, 
 with Old Nicholas, under the guise of a dragon, entertaining 
 himself with the soul of an unfortunate heretic in his claws, 
 who certainly appeared far from comfortable, while a lot of his 
 angels were washing the sins off a set of fine young men, as you 
 would the dirt off scabbit potatoes, in a sea of liquid fire. But 
 their saints ! I often rejoiced that Aaron Bang was not with 
 me; we should unquestionably have quarreled; for as to the
 
 458 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 manner in which they were dressed and decorated, the most 
 fantastic mode a girl ever did up her doll in was a joke to it. 
 Still these wooden deities are treated with such veneration, that 
 I do believe their ornaments, which are of massive gold and 
 silver, are never, or very rarely, stolen. 
 
 On the evening of the 2d of the following month, we sailed 
 again, but having been baffled by calms and light winds, it was 
 the 4th before we anchored off the St Domingo _gate at Cartha- 
 gena, and next morning we dropped down to Boca Chica, and 
 saw our charge, a fine dashing schooner of 150 tons, safe into 
 the harbour. About 9 A.M. we weighed, but we had scarcely 
 got the anchor catted, when it came on to blow great guns from 
 the north-west a most unusual thing hereabouts so it was 
 down anchor again ; and as I had made up my mind not to at- 
 tempt it again before morning, I got the gig in the water with 
 all convenient speed ; and that same forenoon I reached the 
 town, and immediately called on the Viceroy, but under very 
 different circumstances from the time Mr Splinter and I had 
 entered it along with the conquering army. 
 
 We dined with the magnate, and found a very large party 
 assembled. ' Amongst others, I especially recollect that the 
 Inqumdor- General was conspicuous; but every one, with the 
 exception of the Captain-General and his immediate staff, was 
 arrayed in gingham jackets; so there was not much style in the 
 affair. 
 
 I had before dinner an opportunity to inspect the works of 
 Carthagena at my leisure. It is unquestionably a very strong 
 place, the walls, which are built of solid masonry, being armed 
 with at least three hundred pieces of brass cannon, while the 
 continual ebb and flow of the tide in the ditch creates a current 
 so strong, that it would be next to impossible to fill it up, as 
 fascines would be carried away by the current ; so that, were 
 the walls even breached, it would be impracticable to storm 
 them. The appearance of Carthagena from the sea that is, from 
 a vessel anchored off the St Domingo gate is singularly beauti- 
 ful and picturesque. It is situated on a sandy island, or rather 
 a group of islands ; and the beach here shoals so gradually, that 
 boats of even a very small draught of water cannot approach 
 within musket-shot. The walls and numerous batteries have a 
 very commanding appearance. The spires and towers on the 
 churches are numerous, and many of them were decorated with 
 flags when we were there ; and the green trees, shooting up amidst 
 the red-tiled houses, afforded a beautiful relief to the prospect.
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 
 
 A little behind the town, on a gentle acclivity, is the citadel, or 
 Fort San Felipe, whose appearance conveys an idea of impreg- 
 nable strength (but all this sort of thing, is it not written in 
 Roderick Random ?), and on the ship-like hill beyond it, the 
 only other eminence in the neighbourhood, stands the convent 
 of the Popa, like a poop lantern on the high stern of a ship, 
 from which, indeed, it takes its name. This convent had been 
 strongly fortified ; and, commanding San Felipe, was of great use 
 to Morillo, who carried it by assault during the siege, and held 
 it until the insurgents shelled him out from the citadel. The 
 effect, when I first saw it, was increased by the whole scene 
 city, and batteries, and Popa being reflected in the calm smooth 
 sea as distinctly as if it had been glass ; so clear, in fact, was 
 the reflection, that you could scarcely distinguish the shadow 
 from the reality. We weighed next morning that is, on the 
 6th of the month, and arrived safe at Porto-Bello on the llth, 
 after a tedious passage, during which we had continual rains r 
 accompanied with vivid lightning and tremendous thunder. I 
 had expected to have fallen in with one of our frigates here ; 
 but I afterwards learned that, although I had slid down cheerily 
 along shore, the weather current that prevailed farther out at 
 sea had swept her away to the eastward ; so I ran in and an- 
 ehored, and immediately waited on the Governor, who received 
 me in what might once have been a barn, although it did not 
 now deserve the name. 
 
 Porto-Bello was originally called Nombre de Dios, having re- 
 ceived the former name from the English when we took it. It 
 is a miserable, dirty, damp hole, surrounded by high, forest-clad 
 hills, round which everlasting mists curl and obscure the sun, 
 whose rays, at any chance moment when they do reach the 
 steamy swamp on which it is built, or the waters of the lead- 
 coloured land-locked cove that constitutes the harbour, imme- 
 diately exhale a thick sickly moisture, in clouds of sluggish 
 white vapours, smelling diabolically of decayed vegetables and 
 slime and mud. I will venture a remark that will be found, I 
 am persuaded, pretty near the truth, that there were twenty 
 carrion crows to be seen in the streets for every inhabitant. The 
 people seem every way worthy of such an abode saffron, dingy, 
 miserable, emaciated-looking devils. As for the place itself, it 
 appeared to my eyes one large hospital, inhabited by patients in 
 the yellow fever. During the whole of the following day there 
 was still no appearance of the frigate, and I had in consequence 
 now to execute the ulterior part of my orders, which were, that
 
 460 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 if I did not find her at anchor when I arrived, or if she did not 
 make her appearance within forty-eight hours thereafter, I was 
 myself to leave the Wave in Porto-Bello, and to proceed over- 
 land across the isthmus to Panama, and to deliver, on board of 
 H. M. S. Bandera, into the captain's own hands, a large packet 
 with despatches from the Government at home, as I understood, 
 of great importance, touching the conduct of our squadron, with 
 reference to the vagaries of some of the mushroom American 
 Republics on the Pacific. But if I fell in with the frigate, then 
 I was to deliver the said packet to the captain, and return im- 
 mediately in the Wave to Port Ex>yaL 
 
 Having, therefore, obtained letters from the Governor of 
 Porto-Bello to the Commandant at Chagres, I chartered a canoe, 
 with four stout canoemen and a steersman, or patron, as he is 
 called, to convey me to Grazes ; and having laid in a good stock 
 of eatables and drinkables, and selected the black pilot, Peter 
 Mangrove, to go as my servant, accompanied by his never-failing 
 companion, Sneezer, and taking my hammock and double-bar- 
 relled gun, and a brace of pistols with me, we shoved off at 6 
 A.M. on the morning of the 14th. 
 
 It was a rum sort of conveyance this said canoe of mine. In 
 the first place, it was near forty feet long, and only five wide at 
 the broadest, being hollowed out of one single wild cotton-tree ; 
 how this was to be pulled through the sea on the coast, by four 
 men, I could not divine. However, I was assured by the old 
 thief who chartered it to me, that it would be all right ; whereas, 
 had my innocence not been imposed on, I might, in a caiuco, 
 or smaller canoe, have made the passage in one half the time it 
 took me. 
 
 About ten feet of the afterpart was thatched with palm leaves, 
 over a framework of broad ash hoops ; which awning, called the 
 toldo, was open both towards the steersman that guided us with 
 a long broad-bladed paddle in the stern, and in the direction of 
 the men forward, who, on starting, stripped themselves stark 
 naked, and, giving a loud yell every now and then, began to pull 
 their oars, or long paddles, after a most extraordinary fashion. 
 First, when they lay back to the strain, they jumped backwards 
 and upwards on the thwart with their feet, and then, as they once 
 more feathered their paddles again, they came crack down on 
 their bottoms with a loud skelp on the seats, upon which they 
 again mounted at the next stroke, and so on. 
 
 When we cleared the harbour it was fine and serene, but about 
 Jioon it came on to blow violently from the north-east. All this
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 461 
 
 while we were coasting it along about pistol-shot from the white 
 coral beach, with the clear light green swell on our right hand, 
 and beyond it the dark and stormy waters of the blue rolling 
 ocean ; and the snow-white roaring surf on our left. By the 
 time I speak of, the swell had been lashed up into breaking 
 waves, and, after shipping more salt water than I had bargained 
 for, we were obliged, about 4 P.M., to shove into a cove within the 
 reef, called Naranja. 
 
 Along this part of the coast there is a chain of salt-water 
 lagoons, divided from the sea by the coral beach, the crest of 
 which is covered here and there with clumps of stunted man- 
 groves. 
 
 This beach, strangely enough, is higher than the land imme- 
 diately behind it, as if it had been a dyke, or natural breakwater 
 thrown up by the sea. Every here and there there were gaps in 
 this natural dyke, and it was through one of these we shoved, 
 and soon swung to our grapnel in perfect security, but in a most 
 outlandish situation certainly. 
 
 As we rode to the easterly breeze, there was the beach as 
 described, almost level with the water, on our left hand, the land 
 or lee side of it covered with most beautiful white sand and 
 shells, with whole warrens of land-crabs running out and in their 
 holes like little rabbits, their tiny green bodies seeming to roll 
 up and down, for I was not near enough to see their feet, or 
 the mode of their locomotion, like bushels of grapeshot trund- 
 ling all about on the shining white shore. Beyond, the roaring 
 surf was flashing up over the clumps of green bushes and thun- 
 dering on the seaward face. On the right hand, ahead of us 
 and astern of us, the prospect was shut in by impervious thickets 
 of mangroves, while in the distance the blue hills rose glimmer- 
 ing and indistinct as seen through the steamy atmosphere. We 
 were anchored in a stripe of clear water, about three hundred 
 yards long by fifty broad. There was a clear space abeam of 
 us, landward, of about half an acre in extent, on which was built 
 a solitary Indian hut close to the water's edge, with a small 
 canoe drawn up close to the door. We had not been long at 
 anchor when the canoe was launched, and a monkey-looking 
 naked old man paddled off, and brought us a most beautiful 
 chicken-turtle, some yams, and a few oranges. I asked him his 
 price. He rejoined, " por amor de Dios;" that it was his 
 saint's day, and he meant it as a gift. However, he did not re- 
 fuse a dollar when tendered to him before he paddled away. 
 
 That night, when we were all at supper, master and men, I
 
 462 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 heard and felt a sharp crack against the side of the canoe. " Hillo, 
 Peter, what is that '? " said I. 
 
 "Nothing, sir," quoth Peter, who was enjoying his scraps 
 abaft with the headman, patron, or whatever you may call him, 
 of my crew. There was a blazing fire kindled on a bed of white 
 sand, forward in the bow of the canoe, round which the four 
 bogas, or canoemen, were seated, with three sticks stuck up 
 triangularly over the fire, from which depended an earthen pot, 
 in which they were cooking their suppers. 
 
 I had rigged my hammock between the foremost and aftermost 
 hoops of the toldo, and as I was fatigued and sleepy, and it was 
 now getting late, I desired to betake myself to rest ; so I was just 
 flirting with a piece of ham, preparatory to the cold grog, when 
 I again felt a similar thump and rattle against the side of the 
 canoe. There was a small aperture in the palm thatch, right 
 opposite to where I was sitting, on the outside of which I now 
 heard a rustling noise, and presently a long snout was thrust 
 through, and into the canoe, which kept opening and shutting 
 with a sharp rattling noise. It was more like two long splinters 
 of mud-covered and half-decayed timber, than anything I can 
 compare it to ; but as the lower jaw was opened, like a pair of 
 Brobdignag scissors, a formidable row of teeth was unmasked, 
 the snout from the tip to the eyes being nearly three feet long. 
 The scene at this moment was exceedingly good, as seen by the 
 light of a small, bright, silver lamp, fed with spirits of wine, 
 that I always travelled with, which hung from one of the hoops 
 of the toldo. First, there was our friend Peter Mangrove, 
 cowering in a corner under the afterpart of the awning, covered 
 up with a blanket and shaking, as if with an ague-fit, with the 
 patron peering over his shoulder, no less alarmed. Sneezer, 
 the dog, was sitting on end, with his black nose resting on the 
 table, waiting patiently for his crumbs ; and the black boatmen 
 were forward in the bow of the canoe, jabbering, and laughing, 
 and munching, as they clustered round a sparkling fire. When 
 I first saw the apparition of the diabolical-looking snout, I was 
 in a manner fascinated, and could neither speak nor move. 
 Mangrove and the patron were also paralysed with fear, and the 
 others did not see it ; so Sneezer was the only creature amongst 
 us, aware of the danger, who seemed to have his wits about 
 him, for the instant he noticed it, he calmly lifted his nose off 
 the table, and gave a short startled bark, and then crouched and 
 drew himself back as if in act to spring, glancing his eyes from 
 the monstrous jaws to my face, and nuzzling and whining with
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 463 
 
 a laughing expression, and giving a small yelp now and then, 
 and again riveting his eyes with intense earnestness on the alliga- 
 tor, telling me as plainly as if he had spoken it " If you choose, 
 master, I will attack it as in duty bound, but really such a cus- 
 tomer is not at all in my way." And not only did he say this, 
 but he showed his intellect was clear, and no way warped through 
 fear, for he now stood on his hind legs, and, holding on the ham- 
 mock with his forepaws, he thrust his snout below the pillow, 
 and pulled out one of my pistols, which always garnished the 
 head of my bed on such expeditions as the present. 
 
 My presence of mind returned at witnessing the courage arid 
 sagacity of my noble dog. I seized the loaded pistol, and as by 
 this time the eyes of the alligator were inside of the toldo, I 
 clapped the muzzle to the larboard one and fired. The creature 
 jerked back so suddenly and convulsively, that part of the toldo 
 was torn away : and as the dead monster fell off, the canoe rolled 
 as if in a seaway. My crew shouted " Q,ue es esto ? " Peter Man- 
 grove cheered ; Sneezer barked and yelled at a glorious rate, and 
 could scarcely be held in the canoe ; and looking overboard, we 
 saw the monster, twelve feet long at least, upturn his white belly 
 to the rising moon, struggle for a moment with his short paws, 
 and after a solitary heavy lash of his scaly tail, he floated away 
 astern of us, dead and still. To proceed : poor Peter Mangrove, 
 whose nerves were consumedly shaken by this interlude, was 
 seized during the night with a roasting fever, brought on in a 
 great measure, I believe, by fear, at finding himself so far out of 
 his latitude ; and that he had grievous doubts as to the issue of 
 our voyage, and as to where we were bound for, was abundantly 
 evident. I dosed him most copiously with salt water, a very 
 cooling medicine, and no lack of it at hand. 
 
 We weighed at grey dawn, on the morning of the 15th, and 
 at 11 o'clock A.M. arrived at Chagres, a more miserable place, 
 were that credible, even than Porto-Bello. The eastern side of 
 the harbour is formed by a small promontory that runs out into 
 the sea about five hundred yards, with a bright little bay to 
 windward ; while a long muddy mangrove-covered pit forms the 
 right-hand bank as you enter the mouth or estuary of the river 
 Chagres on the west. The easternmost bluff is a narrow saddle, 
 with a fort erected on the extreme point facing the sea, which, 
 so far as situation is concerned, is, or ought to be, impregnable ; 
 the rock being precipitous on three faces, while it is cut off to 
 landward by a deep dry ditch, about thirty feet wide, across 
 which a movable drawbridge is let down, and this compartment
 
 464 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 of the defences is all very regular, with scarp and counterscarp, 
 covered-way, and glacis. The brass guns mounted on the castle 
 were numerous and beautiful, but everything was in miserable 
 disrepair; several of the guns, for instance, had settled down 
 bodily on the platform, having fallen through the crushed rotten 
 carriages. I found an efficient garrison in this stronghold of 
 three old negroes, who had not even a musket of any kind, but 
 the commandant was not in the castle when I paid my visit ; 
 however, one of the invincibles undertook to pilot me to El 
 Senor Torre's house, where his honour was dining. The best 
 house in the place this was, by the by, although only a thatched 
 hut ; and here I found his Excellency the Commandant, a little 
 shrivelled insignificant-looking creature. He was about sitting 
 down to his dinner, of which he invited me to partake, along- 
 side of El Senor Torre, who was neither more nor less than a 
 reputable negro ; and as I was very hungry, I contrived to do 
 justice to the first dish, but my stomach was grievously offended 
 at the second, which seemed to me to be a compound of garlic, 
 brick-dust, and train-oil, so that I was glad to hurry on board 
 of my canoe, to settle all with a little good madeira. 
 
 At 4 P.M. I proceeded up the river, which is here about a 
 hundred yards across, and very deep ; it rolls sluggishly along 
 through a low swampy country, covered to the water's edge with 
 thick sedges and underwood, below which the water stagnates, 
 and generates myriads of mosquitoes and other troublesome in- 
 sects, and sends up whole clouds of noxious vapours, redolent of 
 yellow fever and ague and cramps, and all manner of comfort- 
 able things. 
 
 At 10 P.M. we anchored by a grapnel in the stream, and I set 
 Peter Mangrove forthwith to officiate in his new capacity of 
 cook, and really he made a deuced good one. I then slung my 
 hammock under the toldo, and, lighting a slow match at the end 
 of it forwards to smoke away the mosquitoes having previously 
 covered the aftermost end with a mat I wrapped myself in my 
 cloak and turned in to take my snooze. We weighed again 
 about two in the morning. As the day dawned the dull grey 
 steamy clouds settled down on us once more, while the rain fell 
 in a regular waterspout. It was anything but a cheering pros- 
 pect to look along the dreary vistas of the dull brimful Lethe- 
 like stream, with nothing to be seen but the heavy lowering sky 
 above, the red swollen water beneath, and the gigantic trees high 
 towering overhead, and growing close to the water's edge, laced 
 together with black snake -like withes, while the jungle was
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 465 
 
 thick and impervious, and actually grew down into the water, 
 for beach, or shore, or cleared bank, there was none all water 
 and underwood, except where a soft slimy steaming black bank 
 of mud hove its shining back from out the dead waters near the 
 shore, with one or more monstrous alligators sleeping on it, like 
 dirty rotten logs of wood, scarcely deigning to lift their abomin- 
 able long snouts to look at us as we passed, or to raise their 
 scaly tails, with the black mud sticking to the scales in great 
 lumps oh ! horrible most horrible ! But the creatures, 
 although no beauties certainly, are harmless after all. For 
 instance, I never heard a well-authenticated case of their attack- 
 ing a human being hereabouts ; pigs and fowls they do tithe, 
 however, like any parson. I don't mean to say that they would 
 not make free with a little fat ^dumpling of a piccaniny, if he 
 were thrown to them, but they seem to have no ferocious pro- 
 pensities. I shot one of them ; he was about twelve feet long ; 
 the bullet entered in the joints of the mail, below the shoulder 
 of the forepaw, where the hide was tender; but if you fire at 
 them with the scale that is, with the monster looking at you a 
 musket-ball will glance. I have often in this my Log spoken 
 of the Brobdignag lizards, the guanas. I brought down one this 
 day, about three feet long, and found it, notwithstanding its 
 dragon-like appearance, very good eating. At 11 A.M., on the 
 18th, we arrived at the village of Grazes, the point where the 
 river ceases to be navigable for canoes, and from whence you 
 take horse, or rather mule, for Panama. For about fifteen or 
 twenty miles below Grazes the river becomes rapid, and full of 
 shoals, when the oars are laid aside, and the canoes are propelled 
 by long poles. 
 
 The Town, as it is called, is a poor miserable place, composed 
 chiefly of negro huts ; however, a Spanish trader of the name of 
 Villaverde, who had come over in the Wave as a passenger, and 
 had preceded me in a lighter canoe, and to whom I had shown 
 some kindness, now repaid it as far as lay in his power. 
 
 He lodged me for the night, and hired mules for me to pro- 
 ceed to Panama in the morning ; so I slung my hammock in an 
 old Spanish soldier's house, who keeps a kind of posada, and 
 was called by my friend Villaverde at daydawn, whose object 
 was, not to tell me to get ready for my journey, but to ask me 
 if I would go and bathe before starting. Rather a rum sort of 
 request, it struck me ; nevertheless, a purification, after the many 
 disagreeables I had endured, could not come amiss ; and slipping 
 on my trousers, and casting my cloak on my shoulders, away we 
 
 2 G
 
 466 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 trudged to a very beautiful spot, about a mile above Grazes, 
 where, to my surprise, I found a score of Crusanos, all plouter- 
 ing in the water, puffing and blowing and shouting. " Now an 
 alligator might pick and choose," thought I ; however, no one 
 seemed in the least afraid, so I dashed amongst them. Presently, 
 about pistol-shot from us, a group of females appeared. "Come," 
 thought I, " rather too much for a modest young man this too," 
 and deuce take me, as I am a gentleman, if the whole bevy did 
 not disrobe in cold blood, and squatter, naked as their mother 
 Eve was in the garden of Eden, before she took to the herbage, 
 right into the middle of the stream, skirling and laughing, as if 
 not even a male mosquito had been within twenty miles. How- 
 ever, my neighbour took no notice of them; it seemed all a 
 matter of course. But let ti\at pass. About 8 o'clock A.M. I 
 got under weigh, with Peter Mangrove, on two good stout 
 mules, and a black guide running before me with a long stick, 
 with which he sprang over the sloughs and stones in the road 
 with great agility; I would have backed him against many 
 a passable hunter, to do four miles over a close country in a 
 steeple-chase. 
 
 Panama is distant from Crazes about seven leagues. The 
 road is somewhat like what the Highland ones must have been 
 before General Wade took them in hand, and only passable for 
 mules ; indeed, in many places where it has been hewn out of 
 the rock in zigzags on the face of the hill, it is scarcely passable 
 for two persons meeting. But the scenery on each side is very 
 beautiful, as it winds, for the most part, amongst steep rocks, 
 overshadowed by magnificent trees, amongst which birds of all 
 sizes, and of the most beautiful plumage, are perpetually glan- 
 cing ; while a monkey, every here and there, would sit grimacing 
 and chattering and scratching himself in the cleft of a tree. 
 
 I should think, judging from my barometer but I may have 
 made an inaccurate calculation, and I have not Humboldt by 
 me that the ridge of the highest is fifteen hundred feet above 
 the level of the ocean, so that it would be next to impossible 
 to join the two seas at this point by a canal with water in it. 
 However, I expect to see a Joint Stock Company set agoing 
 some fine day yet, for the purpose of cutting it that is, when 
 the national capital next accumulates (and Lord knows when 
 that will be) to a plethora, and people's purses become so dis- 
 tended that they require bleeding. 
 
 After travelling about twenty miles, the scene gradually opens, 
 and one begins to dream about Vasco Nunez and the enthusias-
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 467 
 
 tic first explorers of the Isthmus; but my first view of the 
 Pacific was through a drenching shower of rain, that wet me to 
 the skin, and rather kept my imagination under ; for this said 
 imagination of mine is like a barn-door chuckey, brisk and 
 crotise enough when the sun shines, and the sky is blue, and 
 plenty of grub at hand ; but I can't write poetry when I am 
 cauld and hungry and drooked. Still, when I caught my first 
 glimpse of the distant Pacific, I felt that, even through a miser- 
 able drizzle, it was a noble prospect. 
 
 As you proceed, you occasionally pass through small open 
 savannahs, which become larger, and the clear spaces wider, 
 until the forest you have been travelling under gradually breaks 
 into beautiful clumps of trees, like those in a gentleman's park ; 
 and every here and there a placid clear piece of water spreads 
 out, full of pond turtle, which I believe to be one and the same 
 with the tortoise and eels the latter of which, by the by, are 
 very sociable creatures for in the clear moonlight nights, with 
 the bright sparkling dew on the short moist grass, they fre- 
 quently travel from one pond to another, wriggling along the 
 grass like snakes. I have myself found them fifty yards from 
 the water ; but whether the errand was love or war, or merely to 
 drink tea with some of the slippery young females in the next 
 pool, and then return again, the deponent sayeth not. 
 
 As you approach the town the open spaces, before mentioned, 
 become more frequent, until at length you gain a rising-ground 
 about three miles from Panama, where, as the sun again shone 
 out, the view became truly enchanting. 
 
 There lay the town of Panama, built on a small tongue of 
 land jutting into the Pacific, surrounded by walls, which might 
 have been a formidable defence once ; but I wish my promotion 
 depended on my rattling the old bricks and stones about their 
 ears, with one single frigate, if I could only get near enough ; 
 but in the impossibility of this lies the strength of the place, as 
 the water shoals so gradually that the tide retires nearly a mile 
 and a half from the walls, rising, I consider, near eighteen feet 
 at the springs; while, on the opposite side of the isthmus, at 
 Chagres for instance, there is scarcely any at all, the Gulf stream 
 neutralising it almost entirely. 
 
 On the right hand a hill overhangs the town, rising precipi- 
 tously to the height of a thousand feet or thereabouts, on the 
 extreme pinnacle of which is erected a signal station, called the 
 Viyia, which, at the instant I saw it, was telegraphing to some 
 craft out at sea. As for the city, to assume our friend Mr Bang's
 
 468 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 mode of description, it was shaped like a tadpole, the body re- 
 presenting the city, and the suburb the tail ; or a stewpan, the 
 city and its fortifications being the pan, while the handle, tend- 
 ing obliquely towards us, was the Raval or long street, extend- 
 ing savannahward, without the walls. At the distance from 
 which we viewed it, the red-tiled houses, cathedral with its 
 towers, and the numerous monasteries and nunneries, seemed 
 girt in with a white ribbon ; while a series of black spots here 
 and there denoted the cannon on the batteries. To the left of 
 the town there was a whole flotilla of small craft, brigs, schooners, 
 and vegetable boats ; while farther out at sea, beyond the forti- 
 fications, three large ships rode at anchor; and beyond them 
 again, the beautiful group of islands lying about five miles off 
 the town, appeared to float on and were reflected in, the calm 
 glass-like expanse of the Pacific, like emeralds chased in silver ; 
 while the ocean itself, towards the horizon, seemed to rise up 
 like a scene in a theatre, or a burnished bright silver wall, grow- 
 ing more and more blue and hazy and indistinct as it ascended, 
 until it melted into the cloudless heaven, so that no one could 
 tell where water and sky met. 
 
 " Thou glorious mirror, 
 
 in all time, 
 
 Calm or convulsed in breeze, or gale, or storm. 
 
 Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 
 
 Dark heaving boundless, endless, and sublime. 
 
 The image of Eternity the throne 
 
 Of the Invisible." 
 
 While a sperm-whale every now and then rose between us and 
 the islands, and spouted up a high double jet into the air, like 
 a blast of steam, and then, with a heavy flounder of his broad 
 tail, slowly sank again ; and a boat here and there glided athwart 
 the scene, and a sleepy sail arose, with a slow motion and a fit- 
 ful rattle and a greasy cheep, on the mast of some vessel getting 
 all ready to weigh ; while small floating trails of blue smoke 
 were streaming away astern from the tiny cabooses of the craft 
 at anchor, and a mournful distant " Yo, heave oh ! " came boom- 
 ing past us on the light air ; and the everlasting tinkle of the 
 convent bells sounded cheerily, and the lowing of the kine around 
 us called up old associations in my bosom, as I looked forth on 
 the glorious spectacle from beneath a magnificent bower of 
 orange-trees and shaddocks, while all manner of wild-flowers 
 blossomed and bloomed around us. 
 
 We arrived at Panama about 3 P.M., covered to the eyes 
 with mud, and after some little difficulty I found out Sefior
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 469 
 
 Hombrecillo Justo's house, who received me very kindly. Next 
 morning I waited on the Governor, made my bow, and told him 
 my errand. He was abundantly civil, professing himself ready 
 to serve me in any way, and promising to give me the earliest 
 intelligence of the arrival of the Bandera. I then returned to 
 mine host's, to whom I had strong letters of introduction from 
 some Kingston friends. 
 
 I soon found that I had landed amongst a family of originals. 
 Mine host was a little thin withered body, with a face that might 
 have vied with the monkey whom the council of Aberdeen took 
 for a sugar-planter. He wore his own grey hair in a long greasy 
 queue, and his costume, when I first saw him, was white cotton 
 stockings, white jane small-clothes and waistcoat, and a little 
 light-blue silk coat; he wore large solid gold buckles in his 
 shoes, and knee-buckles of the same. His voice was small and 
 squeaking, and when heated in argument, or crossed by any 
 member of his family and he was very touchy it became so 
 shrill and indistinct that it pierced the ear without being in the 
 least intelligible. In those paroxysms he did not walk, b\it 
 sprung from place to place like a grasshopper with unlooked-for 
 agility, avoiding the chairs and tables and other movables with 
 great dexterity. I often thought he would have broken what- 
 ever came in his way ; but although his erratic orbit was small, 
 he performed his evolutions with great precision and security. 
 His general temper, however, was very kind, humane, and good- 
 humoured, and he seldom remained long under the influence of 
 passion. His character, both as a man and a merchant, was un- 
 impeachable, and indeed proverbial in the place. His better 
 half appeared to be some years older, and also a good deal of an 
 original. She was a little short thick woman ; but stout as she 
 was when I had the honour of an embrace, she must have been 
 once much stouter, for her skin appeared, from the colour and 
 texture, to have come to her at secondhand, and to have origin- 
 ally belonged to a much larger person, for it bagged and hung 
 in flaps about her jowls and bosom like an ill-cut maintopsail 
 which sits clumsily about the clews. I think I could have reefed 
 her with advantage below the chin. 
 
 Her usual dress was a shift, with a whole sail-room of frills 
 about the sleeves and bosom, and a heavy pink taffeta petticoat 
 (gowns being only worn by those fair ones as you put on a great- 
 coat that is, when they go abroad), and a small round apron 
 like a flap of black silk. Over these she wore a Spanish aroba, 
 or 25 Ib. weight of gold chains, saints, and crucifixes, and a large
 
 470 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 black velvet patch, of the size of a wafer, on each temple, which 
 I found, by the by, to be an ornament very much in fashion 
 amongst the fair of Panama. Her hair, or rather the scanty 
 remnant thereof, was plaited into two grizzled braids, with a 
 black bow of ribbon at the end of each, and hung straight down 
 her back. Like many excellent wives, she loved to circulate her 
 spouse's blood by a little well-timed opposition now and then; 
 but she never tried her strength too far, and she always softened 
 down in proportion as he waxed energetic and began to acceler- 
 ate his motions, so that by the time he had given one or two 
 hops, she had either fairly given in, or moved out. They had 
 no children, but had in a manner adopted a little black creature 
 about four years old, which, being a female, the kdy had chris- 
 tened by the familiar diminutive of Didblita. 
 
 Another curiosity was the maternal aunt of Don Hombrecillo, 
 a little superannuated woman about four feet high if she could 
 have stood erect, but old age had long since bent her nearly 
 double ; she was on the verge of eighty-five years of age, and 
 had outlived all her faculties. This poor old creature, in place 
 of being respectably lodged and taken care of, was allowed to go 
 about the house, tame, without any fixed abode, so far as I could 
 learn ; nor did she always meet with that attention, I am sorry 
 to say it, from the family, or even from the servants, that she 
 was entitled to from her extreme helplessness. She had a 
 droll custom of eating all her meals walking, and it was her 
 practice to move round the dinner-table in this her dotage, and 
 to commit pranks that, against my will, made me laugh, and 
 even in despite of the feelings of pity and self-humiliation that 
 arose in my bosom at the sight of such miserable imbecility in a 
 fellow-creature. Thus keeping on the wing as I have described, 
 it was her practice to cruise about behind the chairs, occasionally 
 snatching pieces of food from before the guests, so slyly, that the 
 first intimation of her intentions was the appearance of her yel- 
 low shrivelled bird-like claw in your plate. 
 
 The brother of our host was a little stout man, but still very 
 like Sefior Justo himself. For instance, I always gloried in liken- 
 ing the latter to a dried prune ; then, to conceive of his plump 
 brother, imagine him boiled, and so swell out the creases in his 
 skin, and there you have him. 
 
 This little dumpling was very asthmatic, and used to blow like 
 a porpoise by the time he reached the top of the stairs. The 
 only time he had ever been out of Panama was whilst he made 
 a short visit to Lima, the wonders of which he used to chant un-
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 471 
 
 ceasingly. But the continual cause of my annoyance I fear I 
 must write disgust was the stepmother of mine host, a large 
 fat dirty old woman. She had a pouch under her chin like a 
 pelican, while her complexion, from the quantity of oil and foul 
 feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany. She 
 despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly 
 devouring her meat with her fingers, whatever its consistency 
 might be ; if flesh, she tore it with both hands ; if soup, she 
 bah ! and, as the devil would have it, the venerable beauty chose 
 to take a fancy to me. Oh, she was a baloon ! I have often 
 expected to see her rise to the roof. 
 
 These polished personages may be called Senor Justo's family, 
 but it was occasionally increased by various others; none of 
 whom, however, can I heave-to to describe at present. 
 
 The day after my arrival, the operation of covering dollar- 
 boxes with wet hides had been going on in the dinner saloon 
 the whole forenoon, which drove me forth to look about me ; 
 but I returned about half-past two, this being the hour of dinner, 
 and found all the family, excepting mine hostess, assembled, and 
 my appearance was the signal for dinner being ordered in. I 
 may mention here that this worthy family were all firmly 
 impressed with the idea that an Englishman was an ostrich, 
 possessing a stomach capable of holding and digesting four times 
 as much as any other person ; and under this belief they were 
 so outrageously kind that I was often literally stuffed to suffoca- 
 tion when I first came amongst them; and when at length I 
 resolutely refused to be immolated after this fashion, they swore 
 I was sick, or did not like my food, which was next door to 
 insulting them. El Senor Justo's fat dumpling of a brother 
 thought medical advice ought to be taken, for when he was in 
 Lima several seamen belonging to an English whaler had died, 
 and he had remarked, the twaddling body, that they had invari- 
 ably lost their appetites previous to their dissolution. 
 
 But to return. Dinner, being ordered, was promptly placed 
 on the table, and mine host insisted on planting me at the foot 
 thereof, while he sat on my left hand ; so the party sat down ; 
 but the chair opposite, that ought to have been filled by Madama 
 herself, was still vacant. 
 
 " Adonde esta su ama" quoth Don Hombrecillo to one of the 
 black waiting- wenches. The girl said she did not know, but she 
 would go and see. It is necessary to mention here that the 
 worthy Senor's counting-house was in a back building, separated 
 from the house that fronted the street by a narrow court ; and
 
 472 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 in a small closet off this counting-house my quatre had been 
 rigged the previous night, and there had my luggage been de- 
 posited. Amongst other articles in my commissariat there was 
 a basket with half-a-dozen of champagne, and some hock, and a 
 bottle of brandy, that I had placed under Peter Mangrove's care, 
 to comfort us in the wilderness. We all lay back in our chairs 
 to wait for the lady of the house, but neither did she nor Tom- 
 assa, the name of the handmaiden who had been despatched in 
 search of her, seem inclined to make their appearance. Don 
 Hombrecillo became impatient. 
 
 " Josef a" to another of the servants " run and desire your 
 mistress to come here immediately." Away she flew, but neither 
 did this second pigeon return. Mine host now lost his temper 
 entirely, and spluttered out, as loud as he could roar, " Somos 
 comiendo, Panchita, somos comiendo;" and forthwith, as if in 
 spite, he began to fork up his food, until he had nearly choked 
 himself. Presently a short startled scream was heard from the 
 counting-house, then a low suppressed laugh, then a loud shout, 
 a long uproarious peal of laughter, and the two black ser- 
 vants came thundering across the wooden gangway or draw- 
 bridge that connected the room where we sat with the outhouse, 
 driven onwards by their mistress herself. They flew across the 
 end of the dining-room into the small balcony fronting the lane, 
 and began without ceremony to shout across the narrow street 
 to a Carmelite priest, who was in a gallery of the opposite mon- 
 astery, " that their mistress was possessed." 
 
 Presently in danced our landlady, in proprid persona, jump- 
 ing and screaming and laughing, and snapping her fingers, and 
 spinning round like a Turkish dervish, " Mira el fandango. 
 mira el fandango dexa me baylar, dexa me baylar See my 
 fandango, see my fandango ! let me dance let me dance ! 
 ha, ha, ha!" 
 
 " Pauchita ! " screamed Justo, in extreme wrath, " tu es loco, 
 you are mad sit down, por amor de Dios seas decent e be 
 decent." 
 
 She continued gamboling about, "Joven soy y virgin I am 
 young and a virgin y tu Viejo diablo que queres tu and you, 
 old devil, what do you want, eh ? Una virgin por Dios soy 
 I am young," and, seizing a boiled fowl from the dish, she let 
 fly at her husband's head, but missed him fortunately ; where- 
 upon she made a regular grab at him with her paw, but he slid 
 under the table in all haste, roaring out, " Ave Maria, que es 
 esso manda por el padre Send for the priest, y trae nna
 
 THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 473 
 
 puerca, en donde echar el demonio, manda, manda send for a 
 
 priest, and a pig, into which the demon may be cast, send " 
 
 " Dexa me, dexa me baylar" continued the old dame "tu 
 no vale, bobo viejo, you are of no use, you old blockhead 
 you are a forked radish and not a man let me catch you, let 
 me catch you ! " and here she made a second attempt, and got 
 hold of his queue, by which she forcibly dragged him from be- 
 neath the table, until, fortunately, the ribbon that tied it slid off 
 in her hand, and the little Senor instantly ran back to his bur- 
 row, with the speed of a rabbit, while his wife sang out, " Tu 
 gastas calzones, eh ? para que, damelos damelos, yo los quitare?" 
 and if she had caught the worthy man, I believe she would 
 really have shaken him out of his garments, peeled him on the 
 spot, and appropriated them to herself, as her threat ran. " I 
 am a cat, a dog, and a devil hoo hoo hoo ! let me catch 
 you, you miserable wretch, you forked radish, and if I don't peel 
 off your breeches I shall wear them, I shall wear them Ave 
 Maria" Here she threw herself into a chair, being completely 
 blown ; but after a gasp or two she started to her legs again, 
 dancing and singing and snapping her fingers as if she had held 
 castanets between them, " Venga Venya dexa me baylar 
 Dankee, Dankee la Dankee, Dankee la mi guitarra mi 
 guitarra Dankee, Dankee la ha, ha, ha ! " and away she 
 trundled down-stairs again, where she met the priest, who had 
 been sent for, in the lower hall, who happened to be a very 
 handsome young man. Seeing the state she was in, and utterly 
 unable to account for it, he bobbed as she threw herself on him, 
 eluded her embraces, and then bolted up-stairs, followed by Mrs 
 Potiphar at full speed. " Padre, father !" cried she, " stop till I 
 peel that forked radish there, and I will give you his breeches 
 Dankee, Dankee la." All this while Don Hombrecillo was 
 squeaking out from his lair, at the top of his pipe " Padre, 
 padre, trae la puerca, venga la puerca echar el demonio 
 echar el demonio bring the pig, the pig, and cast out the devil." 
 " Mi guitarra, canta, canta y bayle, viejo diablito, canta o yo 
 te matarras Bring my guitar, dance, dance and sing, you little 
 old devil you, or I'll murder you ! Dankee, Dankee la." 
 
 In fine, I was at length obliged to lend a hand, and she was 
 bodily laid hold of and put to bed, where she soon fell into a 
 profound sleep, and next morning awoke in her sound senses, 
 totally unconscious of all that had passed, excepting that she 
 remembered having taken a glass of the Englishman's small- 
 beer.
 
 474 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 Now the secret was out. The worthy woman, like most South 
 American Spaniards, was distractedly fond of cervesa blanca, or 
 small-beer, and seeing the champagne-bottles with their wired 
 corks (beer requiring to be so secured in hot climates) in my 
 basket, she could not resist making free with a bottle, and, as I 
 charitably concluded, small-beer being a rarity in those countries, 
 she did not find out the difference until it was made evident 
 by the issue ; however, I have it from authority that she never 
 afterwards ventured on anything weaker than brandy, and from 
 that hour utterly eschewed that most dangerous liquor, cervesa 
 blanca. 
 
 CHAPTEE XVIII. 
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 
 
 " Now, massa, pipe belay 
 
 Wid your weary, weary Log, O ! 
 Peter sick of him, me say, 
 Ah ! sick more as one dog, O ! 
 
 The humble Petition of Peter Mangrove, Branch Pilot. 
 
 LIKE all Portuguese towns, and most Spanish, Panama does 
 not realise the idea which a stranger forms of it from the first 
 view, as he descends from the savannah. The houses are gene- 
 rally built of wood, and three storeys high : in the first or ground 
 floor are the shops, in the second the merchants have their ware- 
 houses, and in the third they usually live with their families. 
 Those three different regions, sorry am I to say it, are all very 
 dirty ; indeed, they may be said to be the positive, comparative, 
 and superlative degrees of uncleanness. There are no glazed 
 sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the shutters 
 are closed, you are involved in utter darkness. The furniture 
 is miserably scanty some old-fashioned, high-backed, hardwood 
 chairs, with a profusion of tarnished gilding ; a table or two in 
 the same style, with a long grass hammock slung from corner to 
 corner, intersecting the room diagonally, which, as they hang 
 very low, about six inches only from the floor, it was not once
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 475 
 
 Only, that entering a house during the siesta, when the windows 
 were darkened, I have tumbled headlong over a Don or Dona 
 taking his or her forenoon nap. But if movables were scarce, 
 there was no paucity of silver dishes ; basins, spitboxes, censers, 
 and utensils of all shapes, descriptions, and sizes, of this precious 
 metal, were scattered about without any order or regularity, while 
 some nameless articles, also of silver, were thrust far out of their 
 latitude, and shone conspicuously in the very centre of the rooms. 
 The floors were usually either of hardwood plank, ill kept, or 
 terraced, or tiled ; some indeed were flagged with marble, but 
 this was rare ; and as for the luxury of a carpet, it was utterly 
 unknown, the nearest approach to it being a grass mat, plaited 
 prettily enough, called an estera. Round the walls of the house 
 are usually hung a lot of dingy-faced, worm-eaten pictures of 
 saints, and several crucifixes, which appear to be held in great 
 veneration. The streets are paved, but exceedingly indifferently ; 
 and the frequent rains or rather waterspouts (and from the posi- 
 tion of the place, between the two vast oceans of the Atlantic 
 and Pacific, they have considerably more than their own share 
 of moisture), washing away the soil and sand from between the 
 stones, render the footing for bestias of all kinds extremely in- 
 secure. There are five monasteries of different orders, and a 
 convent of nuns, within the walls, most of which, I believe, are 
 but poorly endowed. All these have handsome churches attached 
 to them ; that of La Merced is very splendid. The cathedral 
 is also a fine building, with some good pictures, and several lay 
 relics of Pizarro, Almagro, and Vasco Nunez, that riveted my 
 attention ; while their fragments of the Vera Cruz, and arrow- 
 points that had quivered in the muscles of St Sebastian, were 
 passed by as weak inventions of the enemy. 
 
 The week after my arrival was a fast, the men eating only 
 once in the twenty-four hours (as for the women, who the deuce 
 can tell how often a woman eats ?), and during this period all 
 the houses were stripped of their pictures, lamps, and ornaments, 
 to dress out .the churches, which were beautifully illuminated in 
 the evenings, while a succession of friars performed service in 
 them continually. High mass is, even to the eye of a heretic, 
 a very splendid ceremony; and the music in this outlandish 
 corner was unexpectedly good, everything considered; in the 
 church of La Merced especially, they had a very fine organ, and 
 the congregation joined in the Jubilate with very good taste. 
 By the way, in this same church, on the right of the high 
 altar, there was a deep and lofty recess, covered with a thick
 
 476 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 black veil, in which stood concealed a figure of our Saviour, as 
 large as Mfe, hanging on a great cross, with the blood flowing 
 from his wounds, and all kinds of horrible accompaniments. At 
 a certain stage of the service, a drum was beaten by one of the 
 brethren, upon which the veil was withdrawn, when the whole 
 congregation prostrated themselves before the image, with every 
 appearance of the greatest devotion. Even the passengers in 
 the streets within ear-shot of the drum stopped and uncovered 
 themselves, and muttered a prayer; while the inmates of the 
 houses knelt and crossed themselves with all the externals of 
 deep humility; although, very probably, they were at the moment 
 calculating in their minds the profits on the last adventure from 
 Kingston. One custom particularly struck me as being very 
 beautiful. As the night shuts in, after a noisy prelude on all 
 the old pots in the different steeples throughout the city, there 
 is a dead pause ; presently the great bell of the cathedral tolls 
 slowly, once or twice, at which every person stops from his 
 employment, whatever that may be, or wherever he may be, un- 
 covers himself, and says a short prayer all hands remaining still 
 and silent for a minute or more, when the great bell tolls again, 
 and once more everything rolls on as usual 
 
 On the fourth evening of my residence in Panama I had re- 
 tired early to rest. My trusty knave, Peter Mangrove, and 
 trustier still, my dog Sneezer, had both fallen asleep on the 
 floor, at the foot of my bed if the piece of machinery on which 
 I lay deserved that name when in the dead of night I was 
 awakened by a slight noise at the door. I shook myself and 
 listened. Presently it opened, and the old woman that I have 
 already described as part and portion of Don Hombrecillo Justo's 
 family, entered" the room in her usual very scanty dress, with a 
 lighted candle in her hand, led by a little naked negro child. I 
 was curious to see what she would do, but I was not certain how 
 the dog might relish the intrusion ; so I put my hand over my 
 quatre, and, snapping my finger and thumb, Sneezer immedi- 
 ately rose and came to my bedside. I immediately judged, from 
 the comical expression of his face, as seen by the taper of the 
 intruder, that he thought it was some piece of fun, for he walked 
 quietly up, and, confronting the old lady, deliberately took the 
 candlestick out of her hand. The little black urchin thereupon 
 began shouting, " Perro Detnonw Perro Demonio " and in 
 their struggle to escape, she and the old lady tumbled headlong 
 over the sleeping pilot, whereby the candle was extinguished, 
 and we were left in utter darkness. I had therefore nothing
 
 TROPICAL HIGH- JINKS. 477 
 
 for it but to get out of bed, and go down to the cobbler, who 
 lived in the entresol, to get a light. He had not gone to sleep, 
 and I gave him no small alarm indeed, he was near absconding 
 at my unseasonable intrusion ; but at length I obtained the object 
 of my visit, and returned to my room, when, on opening the 
 door, I saw poor Mangrove lying on his back in the middle of 
 the floor, with his legs and arms extended as if he had been on 
 the rack, his eyes set, his mouth open, and every faculty be- 
 numbed by fear. At his feet sat the negro child, almost as 
 much terrified as he was, and crying most lamentably; while at 
 a little distance sat the spectre of the old woman, scratching its 
 head with the greatest composure, and exclaiming in Spanish, 
 " A little brandy for love of the Holy Virgin." But the most 
 curious part of it was the conduct of our old friend Sneezer. 
 There he was, sitting on end upon the table, grinning and show- 
 ing his ivory teeth, his eyes of jet sparkling like diamonds with 
 fun and frolic, and evidently laughing after his fashion, like to 
 split himself, as he every now and then gave a large sweeping 
 whisk of his tail, like a cat watching a mouse. A length I got 
 the cobbler and his sable rib to take charge of the wanderers, 
 and once more fell asleep. 
 
 On my first arrival I was somewhat surprised at my Spanish 
 acquaintances always putting up their umbrellas when abroad 
 after nightfall in the streets ; the city had its evil customs, it 
 seemed, as well as others of more note, with this disadvantage, 
 that no one had the discretion to sing out yardyloo. 
 
 There was another solemn fast about this time, in honour of 
 a saint having had a tooth drawn, or some equally important 
 event, and Don Hombrecillo and I had been at the evening ser- 
 vice in the church of the convent of La Merced, situated, as I 
 have already mentioned, directly opposite his house, on the 
 other side of the lane ; and this being over, we were on the eve 
 of returning home, when the flannel-robed superior came up and 
 invited us into the refectory, whereunto, after some palaver, we 
 agreed to adjourn, and had a good supper, and some bad Malaga 
 wine, which, however, seemed to suit the palates of the Frailes, 
 if taking a very decent quantity thereof were any proof of the 
 same. Presently two of the lay brothers produced their fiddles, 
 and as I was determined not to be outdone, I volunteered a song, 
 and, as a keystone to my politeness, sent to Don Hombrecillo's 
 for the residue of my brandy, which, coming after the bad wine, 
 acted most cordially, opening the hearts of all hands like an 
 oyster-knife, the Superior's especially, who in turn drew on his-
 
 478 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 private treasure also, when out came a large green vitrified 
 earthen pipkin, one of those round -bottomed jars that won't 
 stand on end, but must perforce lie on their sides, as if it had 
 been a type of the predicament in which some of us were to be 
 placed ere long through its agency. The large cork, buried an 
 inch deep in green wax, was withdrawn from the long neck, and 
 out gurgled most capital old Xeres. So we worked away until 
 we were all pretty well fou, and anon we began to dance ; and 
 there were half-a-dozen friars, and old Justo and myself, in great 
 glee, jumping and gamboling about, and making fools of our- 
 selves after a very fantastic fashion the witches in Macbeth as 
 an illustration. 
 
 At length, after being two months in Panama, and still no 
 appearance of the Bandera, I received a letter from the Admiral 
 desiring me to rejoin the Wave immediately, as it was then 
 known that the line-of-battle ship had returned to the River 
 Plate. Like most young men who have hearts of flesh in their 
 bosoms, I had in this short space begun to have my likings 
 may I not call them friendships'? in this, at the time I write 
 of, most primitive community ; and the idea of bidding farewell 
 to it, most likely for ever, sank deep. However, I was His 
 Majesty's officer, and my services and obedience were his, 
 although my feelings were my own ; and accordingly, stifling 
 the latter, I prepared for my departure. 
 
 On the very day whereon I was recalled, a sister of mine host's 
 a most reverend mechanic, who had been fourteen years mar- 
 ried without chick or child was brought to bed, to the unutter- 
 able surprise of her spouse, and of all the little world in Panama, 
 of a male infant. It had rained the whole day, notwithstanding 
 which, and its being the only authenticated production ever 
 published by the venerable young lady, the piccaniny was car- 
 ried to the Franciscan church, a distance of half a mile, at nine 
 o'clock at night, through a perfect storm, to be christened, and 
 the evil star of poor Mangrove rose high in the ascendant on 
 the occasion. 
 
 After the ceremony, I was returning home chilled with stand- 
 ing uncovered for an hour in a cold damp church, and walking 
 very fast in order to bring myself into heat, when on turning 
 a corner, I heard a sound of flutes and fiddles in the street, and 
 from the number of lanterns and torches that accompanied 
 it, I conjectured rightly that it was a Function of no small 
 importance no less, in fact, than a procession in honour of 
 the Virgin. Poor Mangrove at this time was pattering close
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 479 
 
 to my heels, and I could hear him chuckling and laughing to 
 himself. 
 
 "What dis can be I say, Sneezer?" to his never-failing 
 companion "what you tink? John Canoe, after Spanish 
 fashion, it mosh be, eh?" 
 
 The dog began to jump and gambol about. 
 
 " Ah," continued the black pilot, " no doubt it must be John 
 Canoe I may dance why not eh? oh, yes I shall dance." 
 
 And as the music struck into rather a quicker tune at the 
 moment, our ebony friend began to caper and j ump about as if 
 he had been in Jamaica at Christmas-time, whereupon one of 
 the choristers, or music-boys, as they were called, a beautiful 
 youth about forty years of age, six feet high, and proportionably 
 strong, without the least warning, incontinently smote our amigo 
 across the pate with a brazen saint that he carried, and felled 
 him to the earth ; indeed, if el Senor Justo had not been on the 
 spot to interfere, we should have had a scene of it in all likeli- 
 hood, as the instant the man delivered his blow, Sneezer's jaws 
 were at his throat, and had he not fortunately obeyed me, and 
 let go at the sound of my voice, we might have had a double of 
 Macaire and the dog of Montargis. As it was, the noble ani- 
 mal, before he let go, brought the culprit to the ground like a 
 shot. I immediately stood forward and got the feud soldered 
 as well as I could, in which the worthy Justo cordially lent me 
 a hand. 
 
 Next morning I rode out on my mule, to take my last dip in 
 the Quebrada of the Loseria, a rapid in a beautiful little rivulet 
 distant from Panama about three miles ; and a most exquisite 
 bath it was. Let me describe it. After riding a couple of 
 miles, and leaving the open savannah, you struck off sharp to 
 the left through a narrow bridle-path into the wood, with an 
 impervious forest on either hand, and proceeding a mile farther, 
 you came suddenly upon a small, rushing, roaring, miniature 
 cascade, where the pent-up waters leaped through a narrow gap 
 in the limestone rock, that you could have stepped across, down 
 a tiny fall about a fathom high, into a round foaming buzzing 
 basin, twenty feet in diameter, where the clear cool water bubbled 
 and eddied round and round like a boiling caldron, until it 
 rushed away once more over the lower ledge, and again disap- 
 peared, murmuring beneath the thick foliage of the rustling 
 branches. The pool was about ten feet deep, and never was 
 anything more luxurious in a hot climate. 
 
 After having performed my morning ablutions, and looking
 
 480 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 with a heavy heart at the sweet stream, and at every stock and 
 stone, and shrub and tree, as objects I was never to see again, I 
 trotted on, followed by Peter Mangrove, my man-at-arms, who 
 bestrode his mule gallantly, to Don Hombrecillo's pen, as the 
 little man delighted to call his country-house, situated about 
 five miles from Panama, and which I was previously informed 
 had been given up to the use of his two maiden sisters. I got 
 there about half-past ten in the forenoon, and found that el 
 Senor Justo had arrived before me. The situation was most 
 beautiful ; the house was embosomed in high wood, the lowest 
 spurs put forth by the gigantic trees being far above the ridge- 
 pole of the wooden fabric. It was a low one-storey building of 
 unpainted timber, which, from the action of the weather, had 
 been bleached on the outside into a whitish-grey appearance, 
 streaked by numerous green weather-stains, and raised about 
 five feet on wooden posts, so that there was room for a flock of 
 goats to shelter themselves below it. Access was had to the 
 interior by a rickety rattletrap of a wooden ladder or stair of 
 half-a-dozen steps, at the top of which you landed in an unceiled 
 hall, with the rafters of the roof exposed, and the bare green 
 vitrified tiles for a canopy, while a small sleeping apartment 
 opened off each end. In the centre room there was no furniture 
 except two grass hammocks slung across the room, and three or 
 four old-fashioned leather or rather hide covered chairs, and an 
 old rickety table ; while overhead the tiles were displaced in one 
 or two places, where the droppings from the leaves of the trees, 
 and the sough of their rustling in the wind, came through. 
 There were no inmates visible when we entered but a little 
 negro girl, of whom el Senor Hombrecillo asked " where the 
 Senoras were 1 ?" "En cavilla," said the urchin. Whereupon 
 we turned back and proceeded to a little tiny stone chapel, little 
 bigger than a dog-house, the smallest affair in the shape of a 
 church I had ever seen, about a pistol-shot distant in the wood, 
 where we found the two old ladies and Senor Justo's natural 
 son engaged at their devotions. On being aware of our presence 
 they made haste with the service, and, having finished it, arose 
 and embraced their brother, while the son approached and kissed 
 his hand. 
 
 One of the ancient demoiselles appeared in bad health ; never- 
 theless, they both gave us a very hearty reception, and prepared 
 breakfast for us ; fricasseed fowls, a little too much of the lard, 
 
 but still , fish from the neighbouring stream, <kc. ; and I 
 
 was doing the agreeable to the best of my poor ability, when el
 
 TROPICAL HIGH -JINKS. 481 
 
 Senor Justo asked me abruptly if I would go and bathe. A 
 curious country, thought I, and a strange way people have of 
 doing things. After a hearty meal, instead of giving you time 
 to ruminate, and to allow the gastric juices to operate, away they 
 lug you to be plumped over head and ears into a pool of ice-cold 
 water. I rose, confoundedly against my inclination, I will con- 
 fess, and we proceeded to a small rocky waterfall, where a man 
 might wash himself, certainly, but as to swimming, which is to me 
 the grand desideratum, it was impossible ; so I prowled away 
 down the stream, to look out for a pool, and at last I was success- 
 ful. On returning, as I only took a dip to swear by, the situation 
 of my venerable Spanish ally was entertaining enough. There 
 he was, the most forlorn little mandrake eye ever rested on, 
 cowering like a large frog under the tiny cascade, stark naked, 
 with his knees drawn up to his chin, and his grey queue gathered 
 carefully under a green gourd or calabash that he wore on his 
 head, while his natural son was dashing water in his face, as if 
 the shower-bath overhead had not been sufficient 
 
 "Soy baJlando soij banando, capitan fresco fresquito!" 
 squealed Hombrecillo ; while, splash between every exclamation, 
 his dutiful son let fly a gourdful of agua at his head. 
 
 That same evening we returned to Panama ; and next morn- 
 ing, being the 22d of such a month, I left my kind friends, 
 and, with Peter Mangrove, proceeded on our journey to Cruzes, 
 mounted on two stout mules. I got there late in the evening, 
 the road, from the heavy rains, being in sad condition ; but next 
 morning the recua, or convoy of silver, which was to follow me 
 for shipment on merchants' account to Kingston, had not arrived. 
 Presently I received a letter from Don Justo, sent express, to 
 intimate that the muleteers had proceeded immediately after we 
 had started for about a mile beyond the suburbs, where they 
 were stopped by the officer of a kind of military post or barrier, 
 under pretence of the passport being irregular ; and this difficulty 
 was no sooner cleared up than the accounts of a bull-fight, that 
 was unexpectedly to take place that forenoon, reached them, 
 when the whole bunch, half drunk as they were, started off to 
 Panama again, leaving the money with the soldiers ; nor would 
 they return, or be prevailed on to proceed, until the following 
 morning. However, on the 24th, at noon, the money did arrive, 
 which was immediately embarked on board of a large canoe that 
 I had provided ; and having shipped a beautiful little mule also, 
 of which I had made a purchase at Panama, we proceeded down 
 the river to the village of Gorgona, where we slept. My apart, 
 
 2H
 
 482 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 inent was rather a primitive concern. It was simply a roof or 
 shed, thatched with palm-tree leaves, about twelve feet long by 
 eight broad, and supported on four upright posts at the corners, 
 the eaves being about six feet high. Under this I slung my 
 grass hammock transversely from corner to corner, tricing it well 
 up to the rafters, so that it hung about five feet from the 
 ground ; while beneath Mangrove lit a fire, for the twofold pur- 
 pose, as it struck me, of driving off the mosquitoes, and con- 
 verting his Majesty's officer into ham or hung beef; so after 
 having made mnlo fast to one of the posts, with a bundle of 
 malojo, or the green stems of Indian corn or maize, under his 
 nose, he borrowed a plank from a neighbouring hut and laid 
 himself down on it at full length, covered up with a blanket, as 
 if he had been a corpse, and soon fell fast asleep. As for 
 Sneezer, he lay with his black muzzle resting on his fore-paws, 
 which were thrust out straight before him, until they almost 
 stirred up the white embers of the fire, with his eyes shut, and 
 apparently asleep ; but from the constant nervous twitchings 
 and pricking up of his ears, and his haunches being gathered up 
 well under him, and a small quick switch of his tail now and 
 then, it was evident he was broad awake, and considered him- 
 self on duty. All continued quiet and silent in our bivouac 
 until midnight, however, except the rushing of the river hard 
 by, when I was awakened by the shaking of the shed from the 
 violent struggles of mulo to break loose, his strong tremblings 
 thrilling along the taut cord that held him, down the lanyard 
 of my hammock to my neck, as he drew himself in the intervals 
 of his struggles as far back as he could, proving that the poor 
 brute suffered under a paroxysm of fear. " What noise is that ? " 
 I roused myself. It was repeated. It was a wild cry, or rather 
 a loud shrill mew, gradually sinking into a deep growl. " What 
 the deuce is that, Sneezer 1 ?" said I. The dog made no answer, 
 but merely wagged his tail once, as if he had said, " Wait a bit 
 now, master ; you shall see how well I shall acquit myself, for 
 this is in my way." Ten yards from the shed under which I 
 slept there was a pig-sty, surrounded by a sort of tiny stockade 
 a fathom high, made of split cane, wove into wicker-work be- 
 tween upright rails sunk into the ground: and by the clear 
 moonlight I could, as I lay in my hammock, see an animal 
 larger than an English bull-dog, but with the stealthy pace of 
 the cat, crawl on in a crouching attitude until within ten feet 
 of the sty, when it stopped, looked round, and then drew itself 
 back, and made a scrambling jump against the cane defence,
 
 MAKING A CHOICE. 
 
 Page 483.
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 483 
 
 hooking on to the top of it by its fore-paws, the claws of its 
 hind -feet scratching and rasping against the dry cane splits, 
 until it had gathered its legs into a bunch, like the aforesaid 
 puss, on the top of the enclosure; from which elevation the 
 creature seemed to be reconnoitring the unclean beasts within. 
 I grasped my pistols. Mangrove was still sound asleep. The 
 struggles of mulo increased ; I could hear the sweat raining off 
 him ; but Sneezer, to my great surprise, remained motionless as 
 before. We now heard the alarmed grunts, and occasionally a 
 sharp squeak, from the piggery, as if the beauties had only now 
 become aware of the vicinity of their dangerous neighbour, who, 
 having apparently made his selection, suddenly dropped down 
 amongst them ; when mulo burst from his fastenings with a yell, 
 enough to frighten the devil, tearing away the upright to which 
 the lanyard of my hammock was made fast, whereby I was 
 pitched like a shot right down on Mangrove's corpus, while a 
 volley of grunting and squeaking split the sky, such as I never 
 heard before ; in the very nick, Sneezer, starting from his lair 
 with a loud bark, sprang at a bound into the enclosure, which 
 he topped like a first-rate hunter ; and Peter Mangrove, awaken- 
 ing all of a heap from my falling on him, jumped upon his feet 
 as noisy as the rest. 
 
 " Garamighty in a tap wurra all dis my tomach bruise 
 home to my backbone like one pancake;" and while the short 
 fierce bark of the noble dog was blended with the agonised cry 
 of the fjatto del monte, the shrill treble of the poor porkers rose 
 high above both, and mulo was galloping through the village with 
 the post after him, like a dog with a pan at his tail, making the 
 most unearthly noises ; for it was neither bray nor neigh. The 
 villagers ran out of their huts headed by the padre cura, and 
 all was commotion and uproar. Lights were procured. The 
 noise in the sty continued, and Mangrove, the warm-hearted 
 creature, unsheathing his knife, clambered over the fence to the 
 rescue of his four-footed ally, and disappeared, shouting, " Sneezer 
 often fight for Peter, so Peter now will fight for he;" and soon 
 began to blend his shouts with the cries of the enraged beasts 
 within. At length the mania spread to me upon hearing the 
 poor follow shout, " Tiger here, captain tiger here tiger too 
 many for we Lud-a-mercy tiger too many for we, sir if you 
 no help we, we shall be torn in piece." Then a violent struggle, 
 and a renewal of the uproar, and of the barking and yelling and 
 squeaking. It was now no joke ; the life of a fellow-creature 
 was at stake. So I scrambled up after the pilot to the top of
 
 484 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 the fence with a loaded pistol in my hand, a young active Span- 
 iard following with a large brown wax candle, that burned like 
 a torch; and, looking down on the melee below, there Sneezer 
 lay with the throat of the leopard in his jaws, evidently much 
 exhausted, but still giving the creature a cruel shake now and 
 then, while Mangrove was endeavouring to throttle the brute 
 with his bare hands. As for the poor pigs, they were all huddled 
 together, squeaking and grunting most melodiously in the 
 corner. I held down the light. " Now, Peter, cut his throat, 
 man cut his throat." 
 
 Mangrove, the moment he saw where he was, drew his knife 
 across the leopard's weasand, and killed him on the spot. The 
 glorious dog, the very instant he felt he had a dead antagonist 
 in his fangs, let go his hold, and, making a jump with all his 
 remaining strength, for he was bleeding much, and terribly torn, 
 I caught him by the nape of the neck, and, in my attempt to 
 lift him over and place him on the outside, down I went, dog 
 and all, amongst the pigs, upon the bloody carcass; out of 
 which mess I was gathered by the cura and the standers-by in 
 a very beautiful condition ; for, what between the filth of the 
 sty and blood of the leopard, and so forth, I was not altogether 
 a fit subject for a side -box at the opera. 
 
 This same tiger or leopard had committed great depredations in 
 the neighbourhood for months before, but he had always escaped, 
 although he had been repeatedly wounded ; so Peter and I be- 
 came as great men for the two hours longer that we sojourned 
 in Gorgona, as if we had killed the dragon of Wantley. Our 
 quarry was indeed a noble animal, nearly seven feet from the 
 nose to the tip of the tail. At day-dawn, having purchased his 
 skin for three dollars, I shoved off; and on the 25th, at five in 
 the evening, having had a strong current with us the whole way 
 down, we arrived at Chagres once more. I found a boat from 
 the Wave waiting for me, and, to prevent unnecessary delay, I 
 resolved to proceed with the canoe along the coast to Porto- 
 Bello, as there was a strong weather-current running, and little 
 wind ; and, accordingly, we proceeded next morning, with the 
 canoe in tow, but towards the afteroon it came on to blow, 
 which forced us into a small cove, where we remained for the 
 night in a very uncomfortable situation, as the awning proved 
 an indifferent shelter from the rain that descended in torrents. 
 
 We had made ourselves as snug as it was possible to be in 
 such weather, under an awning of boat-sails, and had kindled a 
 fire in a tub at the bottom of the boat, at which we had made-
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 485 
 
 ready some slices of beef, and roasted some yams, and were all 
 hands, master and men making ourselves comfortable with a 
 glass of grog, when the warp by which we rode suddenly parted, 
 from a puff of wind that eddied down on us over the little cape, 
 and before we could get the oars out we were tailing on the 
 beach at the opposite side of the small bay. However, we soon 
 regained our original position, by which time all was calm again 
 where we lay ; and this time we sent the end of the line ashore, 
 making it fast round a tree, and once more rode in safety. But 
 I could not sleep, and the rain having ceased, the clouds broke 
 away, and the moon once more shone out cold, bright, and clear. 
 I had stepped forward from under the temporary awning, and 
 was standing on the thwart, looking out to windward, endea- 
 vouring to judge of the weather at sea, and debating in my own 
 mind whether it would be prudent to weigh before daylight or 
 remain where we were. But all in the offing, beyond the small 
 headland, under the lee of which we lay, was dark and stormy 
 water, and white-crested howling waves, although our snug little 
 bay continued placid and clear, with the moonbeams dancing on 
 the twinkling ripple, that was lap, lapping, and sparkling like 
 silver on the snow-white beach of sand and broken shells ; while 
 the hills on shore, that rose high and abrupt close to, were 
 covered with thick jungle, from which here and there a pinnacle 
 of naked grey rock would shoot up like a gigantic spectre, or a 
 tall tree would cast its long black shadow over the waving sea 
 of green leaves that undulated in the breeze beneath. 
 
 As the wind was veering about rather capriciously, I had cast 
 my eye anxiously along the warp, to see how it bore the strain, 
 when, to my surprise, it appeared to thicken at the end next the 
 tree, and presently something like a screw, about a foot long, 
 that occasionally shone like glass in the moonlight, began to 
 move along the taut line, with a spiral motion. All this time 
 one of the boys was fast asleep, resting on his folded arms on 
 the gunwale, his head having dropped down on the stem of the 
 boat ; but one of the Spanish bogas in the canoe, which was 
 anchored close to us, seeing me gazing at something, now looked 
 in the same direction ; the instant he caught the object he 
 thumped with his palms on the side of the canoe, exclaiming, in 
 a loud, alarmed tone " Culebra culebra ! a snake, a snake ! " 
 on which the reptile made a sudden and rapid slide down the 
 line towards the bow of the boat where the poor lad was sleep- 
 ing, and immediately afterwards dropped into the sea. 
 
 The sailor rose and walked aft, as if nothing had happened,
 
 486 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 amongst his messmates, who had been alarmed by the cries of 
 the Spanish canoeman, and I was thinking little of the matter 
 when I heard some anxious whispering amongst them. 
 
 "Fred," said one of the men, "what is wrong, that you 
 breathe so hard ? " 
 
 " Why, boy, what ails you 1 " said another. 
 
 " Something has stung me," at length said the poor little 
 fellow, speaking thick, as if he had laboured under sore throat. 
 The truth flashed on me, a candle was lit, and, on looking at 
 him, he appeared stunned, complained of cold, and suddenly 
 assumed a wild startled look. 
 
 He evinced great anxiety and restlessness, accompanied by a 
 sudden and severe prostration of strength still continuing to 
 complain of great and increasing cold and chilliness, but he did 
 not shiver. As yet no part of his body was swollen, except very 
 slightly about the wound ; however, there was a rapidly increas- 
 ing rigidity of the muscles of the neck and throat, and within 
 half an hour after he was bit he was utterly unable to swallow 
 even liquids. The small whip-snake the most deadly asp in 
 the whole list of noxious reptiles peculiar to South America 
 was not above fourteen inches long ; it had made four small 
 punctures with its fangs, right over the left jugular vein, about 
 an inch below the chin. There was no blood oozing from them, 
 but a circle, about the size of a crown-piece, of dark red surrounded 
 them, gradually melting into blue at the outer rim, which again 
 became fainter and fainter, until it disappeared in the natural 
 colour of the skin. By the advice of the Spanish boatmen, we 
 applied an embrocation of the leaves of the palma Cltristi, or 
 castor-oil nut, as hot as the lad could bear it, but we had neither 
 oil nor hot milk to give internally, both of which, they informed 
 us, often proved specifics. Rather than lie at anchor until 
 morning under these melancholy circumstances, I shoved out 
 into the rough water, but we made little of it, and when the day 
 broke I saw that the poor fellow's fate was sealed. His voice 
 had become inarticulate, the coldness had increased, all motion 
 in the extremities had ceased, the legs and arms became quite 
 stiff, the respiration slow and difficult, as if the blood had coagu- 
 lated, and could no longer circulate through the heart, or as if, 
 from some unaccountable effect of the poison on the nerves, the 
 action of it had been impeded ; still the poor little fellow was 
 perfectly sensible, and his eye bright and restless. His breath- 
 ing became still more interrupted he could no longer be said 
 to breathe, but gasped and in another half hour, like a steam-
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 487 
 
 engine when the fire is withdrawn, the strokes, or contractions 
 and expansions of his heart, became slower and slower until they 
 ceased altogether. 
 
 From the very moment of his death the body began rapidly 
 to swell and become discoloured ; the face and neck especially 
 were nearly as black as ink within half an hour of it, when blood 
 began to flow from the mouth, and other symptoms of rapid 
 decomposition succeeded each other so fast that, by nine in the 
 morning, we had to sew him up in a boatsail, with a large stone, 
 and launch the body into the sea. 
 
 We continued to struggle against the breeze until eleven o'clock 
 in the forenoon of the 27th, when the wind again increased to 
 such a pitch that we had to cast off our tow and leave her on 
 the coast under the charge of little Reefpoint, with instructions 
 to remain in the creek where he was until the schooner picked 
 him up ; we then pushed once more through the surf for Porto- 
 Bello, where we arrived in safety at 5 P.M. Next morning at 
 daylight we got under weigh, and stood down for the canoe ; and 
 having received the money on board, and the Spaniards who 
 accompanied it, and poor mulo, we made sail for Kingston, 
 Jamaica, and on the 4th of the following month were off Cartha- 
 gena once more, having been delayed by calms and light winds. 
 The captain of the port shoved out to us, and I immediately re- 
 cognised him as the officer to whom poor old Deadeye once gave 
 a deuced fright, when we were off the town, in the old Torch, 
 during the siege, shortly before she foundered in the hurricane ; 
 but in the present instance he was all civility. On his departure 
 we made sail, and arrived at Kingston, safe and sound, in the 
 unusually short passage of sixty hours from the time we left 
 Carthagena. 
 
 Here the first thing I did was to call on some of my old 
 friends, with one of whom I found a letter lying for me from Mr 
 Bang, requesting a visit at his domicile in St-Thomas-in-the-Vale 
 so soon as I arrived ; and through the extreme kindness of my 
 Kingston allies, I had, on my intention of accepting it being 
 known, at least half-a-dozen gigs offered to me, with servants 
 and horses, and I don't know what all I made my selection, 
 and had arranged to start at day-dawn next morning, when a 
 cousin of mine, young Palma, came in where I was dining, and 
 said that his mother and the family had arrived in town that 
 very day, and were bound on a pic-nic party next morning to 
 visit the Falls in St David's. I agreed to go, and to postpone 
 my visit to friend Aaron for the present; and very splendid
 
 488 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 scenery did we see ; but as I had seen the Falls of Niagara, of 
 course I was not astonished. There was a favourite haunt and 
 cave of Three-fingered Jack shown to us in the neighbourhood, 
 very picturesque and romantic, and all that sort of thing ; but 
 I was escorting my Mary, and the fine scenery and roaring waters 
 were at this time thrown away on me. However, there was one 
 incident amusing enough. Mary and I had wandered away from 
 the rest of the party, about a mile above the cascade, where the 
 river was quiet and still, and divided into several tiny streams 
 or pools, by huge stones that had rolled from the precipitous 
 banks down into its channel, when, on turning an angle of the 
 rock, we came unexpectedly on my old ally Whiffle, with a cigar 
 in his mouth, seated on a cane-bottomed chair, close to the brink 
 of the water, with a little low table at his right hand, on whicli 
 stood a plate of cold meat, over which his black servant held a 
 green branch, with which he was brushing the flies away, while 
 a large rummer of cold brandy grog was immersed in the pool 
 at his feet, covered up with a cool plantain leaf. He held a 
 long fishing-rod in his hands, eighteen feet at the shortest, fit to 
 catch salmon with, which he had to keep nearly upright, in order 
 to let his hook drop into the pool, which was not above five feet 
 wide ; why he did not heave it by hand I am sure I cannot 
 tell ; indeed, I would as soon have thought of angling for gold- 
 fish in my aunt's glass globe and there he sat fishing with great 
 complacency. However, he seemed a little put out when we 
 came up. "Ah, Tom how do you do1 Miss, your most obse- 
 quious No rain mullet deucedly shy, Tom ah! what a 
 glorious nibble there there again I have him;" and sure 
 enough, he had hooked a fine mountain mullet, weighing about 
 a pound and a half, and in the ecstasy of the moment, and his 
 hurry to land him handsomely, he regularly capsized in his 
 chair, upset the rummer of brandy grog, and table and all the 
 rest of it. We had a good laugh, and then rejoined our party, 
 and that evening we all sojourned at Lucky Valley, a splendid 
 coffee estate, with a most excellent man and an exceedingly ob- 
 liging fellow for a landlord. 
 
 Next day we took a long ride, to visit a German gentleman, 
 who had succeeded in a wonderful manner in taming fish. He 
 received us very hospitably, and after lunch we all proceeded to 
 his garden, through which ran a beautiful stream of the clearest 
 water. It was about four feet broad and a foot deep, where it 
 entered the garden, but gradually widened in consequence of a 
 dam with stakes at the top having been erected at the lower
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 489 
 
 part of it, until it became a pool twelve feet broad, and four 
 feet deep, of the most beautiful crystal-clear water that can be 
 imagined, while the margin on both sides was fringed with the 
 fairest flowers that Europe or the tropics could afford. We all 
 peered into the stream, but could see nothing except an occa- 
 sional glance of a white scale or fin now and then. " Liver- 
 pool ! " shouted the old German who was doing the honours, 
 " Liverpool, come bring de food for de fis." Liverpool, a re- 
 spectable-looking negro, approached, and stooping down at the 
 water's edge, held a piece of roasted plantain close to the surface 
 of it. In an instant, upwards of a hundred mullet, large fine 
 fish, some of them above a foot long, rushed from out the dark 
 clear depths of the quiet pool, and jumped, and walloped, and 
 struggled for the food, although the whole party were standing 
 close by. Several of the ladies afterwards tried their hand, and 
 the fish, although not apparently quite so confident, after a tack 
 here and a tack there, always in the end came close to and made 
 a grab at what was held to them. 
 
 That evening I returned to Kingston, where I found an order 
 lying for me to repair as second lieutenant on board the Fire- 
 brand once more, and to resign the command of the Wave to no 
 less a man than Moses Yerk, Esquire ; and a happy man was 
 Moses, and a gallant fellow he proved himself in her, and earned 
 laurels and good freights of specie, and is now comfortably domi- 
 ciled amongst his friends. 
 
 The only two Waves that I successfully made interest at their 
 own request to get back with me were Tailtackle and little Reef- 
 point. 
 
 Time wore on days and weeks and months passed away, 
 during which we were almost constantly at sea ; but incidents 
 worth relating had grown scarce, as we were now in piping 
 times of peace, when even a stray pirate had become a rarity, 
 and a luxury denied to all but the small craft people. On one 
 of our cruises, however, we had been working up all morning to 
 the southward of the Pedro shoals, with the wind strong at east, 
 a hard fiery sea-breeze. We had hove about, some three hours 
 before, and were standing in towards the land, on the starboard 
 tack, when the look-out at the masthead hailed. 
 
 "The water shoals on the weather-bow, sir;" and presently, 
 " Breakers right ahead." 
 
 " Very well," I replied" all right." 
 
 "We are nearingthe reefs, sir," said I, walking aft, and address- 
 ing Captain Transom ; " shall we stand by to go about, sir ? "
 
 490 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Certainly heave in stays as soon as you like, Mr Cringle." 
 
 At this moment the man aloft again sang out " There is a 
 wreck on the \veathermost point of the long reef, sir." 
 
 "Ay ! what does she look like ]" 
 
 " I see the stumps of two lower masts, but the bowsprit is 
 gone, sir I think she must be a schooner or a brig, sir." 
 
 The captain was standing by, and looked up to me, as I stood 
 on the long eighteen at the weather-gangway. 
 
 " Is the breeze not too strong, Mr Cringle 1 " 
 
 I glanced my eye over the side " Why, no, sir a boat will 
 live well enough there is not so much sea, in shore here." 
 
 " Very well haul the courses up, and heave to." 
 
 It was done. 
 
 " Pipe away the yawlers, boatswain's mate." 
 
 The boat over the lee-quarter was lowered, and I was sent to 
 reconnoitre the object that had attracted our attention. As we 
 approached we passed the floating swollen carcasses of several 
 bullocks, and some pieces of wreck ; and getting into smooth 
 water, under the lee of the reef, we pulled up under the stern of 
 the shattered hull which lay across it, and scrambled on deck by 
 the boat-tackles that hung from the davits, as if the jolly-boat 
 had recently been lowered. The vessel was a large Spanish 
 schooner, apparently about one hundred and eighty tons burden, 
 nearly new ; everything strong and well fitted about her, with a 
 beautiful spacious flush deck, surrounded by high solid bulwarks. 
 All the boats had disappeared; they might either have been 
 carried away by the crew, or washed overboard by the sea. 
 Both masts were gone about ten feet above the deck, which, 
 with the whole of their spars and canvass, and the wreck of the 
 bowsprit, were lumbering and rattling against the lee-side of the 
 vessel, and splashing about in the broken water, being still at- 
 tached to the hull by the standing rigging, no part of which had 
 been cut away. The mainsail, gaff-topsail, foresail, fore-topsail, 
 fore-staysail, and jib were all set, so she must most likely have 
 gone on the reef, either under a press of canvass in the night, in 
 ignorance of its vicinity, or by missing stays. 
 
 She lay on her beam-ends across the coral rock, on which 
 there was about three feet water where shallowest, and had 
 fallen over to leeward, presenting her starboard broadside to the 
 sea, which surged along it in a slanting direction, while the lee 
 gunwale was under water. The boiling white breakers were 
 dashing right against her bows, lifting them up with every send, 
 and thundering them down again against the flint-hard coral
 
 TROPICAL HIGH- JINKS. 491 
 
 spikes, with a loud gritting rumble ; while every now and then 
 the sea made a fair breach over them, flashing up over the whole 
 deck aft to the taffrail in a snowstorm of frothy flakes. Forward 
 in the bows there lay, in one horrible fermenting and putrifying 
 mass, the carcasses of about twenty bullocks, part of her deck- 
 load of cattle, rotted into one hideous lump, with the individual 
 bodies of the poor brutes almost obliterated and undistinguish- 
 able, while streams of decomposed animal matter were ever and 
 anon flowing down to leeward, although as often washed away 
 by the hissing waters. But how shall I describe the scene of 
 horror that presented itself in the after-part of the vessel, under 
 the lee of the weather-bulwarks ! 
 
 There, lashed to the ring-bolts, and sheltered from the sun 
 and sea by a piece of canvass, stretched across a broken oar r 
 lay, more than half naked, the dead bodies of an elderly female, 
 and three young women j one of the latter with two lifeless 
 children fastened by handkerchiefs to her waist, while each of 
 the other two had the corpse of an infant firmly clasped in her 
 arms. 
 
 It was the dry season, and as they lay right in the wake of 
 the windward ports, exposed to a thorough draft of air, and were 
 defended from the sun and the spray, no putrefaction had taken 
 place ; the bodies looked like mummies, the shrunken muscles 
 and wasted features being covered with a dry horny skin, like 
 parchment ; even the eyes remained full and round, as if they 
 had been covered over with a hard dim scale. 
 
 On looking down into the steerage we saw another corpse, 
 that of a tall young slip of a Spanish girl, surging about in the 
 water, which reached nearly to the deck, with her long black 
 hair floating and spread out all over her neck and bosom, but it 
 was so offensive and decayed, that we were glad to look another 
 way. There was no male corpse to be seen, which, coupled 
 with the absence of the boats, evinced but too clearly that the 
 crew had left the females, with their helpless infants, on the 
 wreck to perish. There was a small round-house on the after- 
 part of the deck, in which we found three other women alive, 
 but wasted to skeletons. We took them into the boat, but one 
 died in getting her over the side ; the other two we got on 
 board, and I am glad to say that they both recovered. For two 
 days neither could speak; there seemed to be some rigidity 
 about the throat and mouth that prevented them ; but at length 
 the youngest (the other was her servant) a very handsome 
 woman, became strong enough to tell us, " that it was the
 
 492 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 schooner Caridad that we had boarded, bound from Rio de la 
 Hache to Savana la Mar, where she was to have discharged her 
 deck-load of cattle, and afterwards to have proceeded to Bata- 
 bano, in Cuba. She had struck, as I surmised, in the night, 
 about a fortnight before we fell in with her ; and next morning, 
 the crew and male passengers took to the boats, which with 
 difficulty contained them, leaving the women under a promise 
 to come back that evening, with assistance from the shore, but 
 they never appeared, nor were they ever after heard of." And 
 here the poor thing cried as if her heart would break. " Even 
 my own Juan, my husband, left me and my child to perish on 
 the wreck. God ! O God ! I could not have left him I 
 could not have left him." 
 
 There had been three families on board, with their servants, 
 who were emigrating to Cuba, all of whom had been abandoned 
 by the males, who, as already related, must in all human proba- 
 bility have perished after their unmanly desertion. As the 
 whole of the provisions were under water, and could not be got 
 at, the survivors had subsisted on raw flesh so long as they had 
 strength to cut it, or power to swallow it; what made the poor 
 creature tell it, I cannot imagine, if it were not to give the most 
 vivid picture possible, in her conception, of their loneliness and 
 desolation, but she said, " no sea-bird even ever came near us." 
 
 It were harrowing to repeat the heart-rending description 
 given by her, of the sickening of the heart when the first night 
 fell, and still no tidings of the boats ; the second sun set still 
 the horizon was speckless ; the next dreary day wore to an end, 
 and three innocent helpless children were dead corpses ; on the 
 fourth, madness seized on their mothers, and but I will not 
 dwell on such horrors. 
 
 During these manifold goings and comings I naturally en- 
 larged the circle of my acquaintance in the island, especially in 
 Kingston, the mercantile capital ; and often does my heart glow 
 within me when the scenes I have witnessed in that land of fun 
 and fever rise up before me after the lapse of many years under 
 the influence of a good fire and a glass of old madeira. Take the 
 following example of Jamaica High-Jinks as one of many : On 
 a certain occasion I had gone to dine with Mr Isaac Shingle, an 
 extensive American merchant, and a most estimable man, who 
 considerately sent his gig down to the wherry-wharf for me. 
 At six o'clock I arrived at my friend's mansion, situated in the 
 upper part of the town, a spacious one-storey house, over- 
 shadowed by two fine old trees, and situated back from the street
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 493- 
 
 about ten yards the intervening space being laid out in a beau- 
 tiful little garden, raised considerably above the level of the ad- 
 joining thoroughfare, from which it was divided by a low para- 
 pet wall, surmounted by a green painted wooden railing. There 
 was a flight of six brick steeps from the street to the garden, and 
 you ascended from the latter to the house itself, which was raised 
 on brick pillars a fathom high, by another stair of eight broad 
 marble slabs. The usual verandah, or piazza, ran along the 
 whole front, beyond which you entered a large and lofty, but 
 very darksome hall, answering to our European drawing-room, 
 into which the bedrooms opened on each side. It did strike 
 me at first as odd, that the principal room in the house should 
 be a dark dungeon of a place, with nothing but borrowed lights, 
 until I again recollected that darkness and coolness were con- 
 vertible terms within the tropics. Advancing through this room 
 you entered, by a pair of folding doors, on a very handsome 
 dining-room, situated in what I believe is called a back-jamb, a 
 sort of outrigger to the house, fitted all round with movable 
 blinds, or jealousies, and open like a lantern to all the winds of 
 heaven except the west, in which direction the main body of the 
 house warded off the sickening beams of the setting sun. And 
 how sickening they are, let the weary sentries under the pillars 
 of the Jamaica viceroy's house in Spanish Town tell, reflected 
 as they were there from the hot brick walls of the palace.- 
 
 This room again communicated with the back-yard, in which 
 the negro houses, kitchen, and other offices were situated, by a 
 wooden stair of the same elevation as that in front. Here the 
 table was laid for dinner, covered with the finest diaper, and 
 snow-white napkins, and silver wine-coolers, and silver forks, 
 and fine steel, and cut-glass, and cool green finger-glasses with 
 lime-leaves floating within, and tall wax-lights shaded from the 
 breeze in thin glass barrels, and an epergne filled with flowers, 
 with a fragant fresh-gathered lime in each of the small leaf-like 
 branches, and salt-cellars with red peppers in them, &c. &c., all 
 of which made the tout ensemble the most captivating imagin- 
 able to a hungry man. 
 
 I found a large party assembled in the piazza and the dark 
 hall, to whom I was introduced in due form. In Jamaica, of all 
 countries I ever was in, it is a most difficult matter for a stranger 
 to ascertain the real names of the guests at a bachelor dinner 
 like the present, where all the parties were intimate there were 
 so many sobriquets amongst them ; for instance, a highly respect- 
 able merchant of the place, with some fine young women for
 
 494 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 daughters, by the way, from the peculiarity of a prominent front 
 tooth, was generally known as the Grand Duke of Tuscany ; while 
 an equally respectable elderly man, with a slight touch of paraly- 
 sis in his head, was christened Old Steady in the AVest, bccim*'- 
 he never kept his head still ; so, whether some of the names of 
 the present party were real or fictitious I really cannot telL 
 
 First, there was Mr Seco, a very neat gentleman-like little 
 man, perfectly well-bred, and full of French phrases. Then 
 came Mr Eschylus Stave, a tall, raw-boned, well-informed per- 
 sonage ; a bit of a quiz on occasion, but withal a pleasant fellow. 
 Mr Isaac Shingle, mine host, a sallow, sharp, hatchet-faced, small 
 homo, but warm-hearted and kind, as I often experienced during 
 my sojourn in the West, only sometimes a little peppery and 
 argumentative. Then came Mr Jacob Bumble, a sleek fat-pated 
 Scotchman. Next I was introduced to Mr Alonzo Smoothpate, 
 a, very handsome fellow, with an uncommon share of natural 
 good-breeding and politeness. Again I clapper-clawed, according 
 to the fashion of the country, a violent shake of the paw being 
 the Jamaica infeftment to acquaintanceship, with Mr Percales, 
 whom I took for a foreign Jew somehow or other at first, 
 from his uncommon name, until I heard him speak, and per- 
 ceived he was an Englishman ; indeed, his fresh complexion, 
 very neat person, and gentleman-like deportment, when I had 
 time to reflect, would of themselves have disconnected him from 
 all kindred with the sons of Levi. Then came a long, dark- 
 complexioned, curly-pated slip of a lad with white teeth and 
 high strongly marked features, considerably pitted with small- 
 pox. He seemed the great promoter of fun and wickedness in 
 the party, and was familiarly addressed as the Don, although I 
 believe his real name was Mr Lucifer Longtram. Then there 
 was Mr Aspen Tremble, a fresh-looking, pleasant, well-informed 
 man, but withal a little nervous, his cheeks quivering when he 
 spoke like shapes of calf 's-foot jelly ; after him came an exceed- 
 ingly polite old gentleman, wearing hair -powder and a queue, 
 ycleped Nicodemus ; and a very devil of a little chap of the name 
 of Rubiochico, a great ally in wickedness with Master Long- 
 tram ; the last in this eventful history being a staid, sedate- 
 looking, elderly-young man, of the name of Onyx Steady, an 
 extensive foreign merchant, with a species of dry caustic readi- 
 ness about him that was dangerous enough. We sat clown, 
 Isaac Shingle doing the honours, confronted by Eschylus Stave, 
 and all was right and smooth and pleasant, and in no way 
 different from a party of well-bred men in England.
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 495 
 
 When the second course appeared I noticed that the blackie, 
 who brought in two nice tender little ducklings, with the con- 
 comitant green peas, both just come in season, was chuckling 
 and grinning, and showing his white teeth most vehemently, as 
 he placed both dishes, right under Jacob Bumble's nose. Shingle 
 and Longtram exchanged looks. I saw there was some mischief 
 toward, and presently, as if by some preconcerted signal, every- 
 body asked for duck, duck, duck. Bumble, with whom the dish 
 was a prime favourite, carved away with a most stern counte- 
 nance, until he had got half through the second bird, when some 
 unpleasant recollection seemed to come over him, and his coun- 
 tenance fell ; and lying back on his chair, he gave a deep sigh. 
 But, " Mr Bumble, that breast, if you please thank you." "Mr 
 Bumble, that back, if you please," succeeded each other rapidly, 
 until all that remained of the last of the ducklings was a beauti- 
 ful little leg, which, under cover of the following story, Jacob 
 cannily smuggled on to his own plate. 
 
 " Why, gentlemen, a most remarkable circumstance happened 
 to me while dressing for dinner. You all know I am next-door 
 neighbour to our friend Shingle our premises being only 
 divided by a brick wall, about eight feet high. Well, my 
 dressing-room window looks out on this wall, between which and 
 the house, I have my duck-pen " 
 
 "Your what?" said I. 
 
 " My poultry-yard as I like to see the creatures fed myself 
 and I was particularly admiring two beautiful ducklings which 
 I had been carefully fattening for a whole week" (here our 
 friend's voice shook, and a tear glistened in his eye) " when 
 first one and then another jumped out of the little pond, and 
 successively made a grab at something which I could not see, 
 and immediately began to shake their wings, and struggle with 
 their feet, as if they were dancing, until, as with one accord 
 deuce take me ! " (here he almost blubbered aloud) " if they 
 did not walk up the brick wall with all the deliberation in the 
 world, merely helping themselves over the top by a small flaff of 
 their wings ; and where they have gone, none of Shingle's people 
 know." 
 
 " I'll trouble you for that leg, Julius," said Longtram, at this 
 juncture, to a servant, who whipped away the plate from under 
 Bumble's arm, before he could prevent him, who looked after it 
 as if it had been a pound of his own flesh. It seemed that 
 Longtram, who had arrived rather early, had found a fishing- 
 tackle in the piazza, and knowing the localities of Bumble's
 
 496 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 premises, as well as his peculiarities, he, by way of adding his 
 quota to the entertainment, baited two hooks with pieces of raw 
 potatoes, and throwing them over the wall, had, in conjunction 
 with Julius the black, hooked up the two ducklings out of the 
 pen, to the amazement of Squire Bumble. 
 
 By-and-by, as the evening wore on, I saw the Longtram lad 
 making demonstrations to bring on a general drink, in which he 
 was nobly seconded by Rubiochico ; and, I grieve to say it, I 
 was noways loth, nor indeed were any of the company. There 
 had been a great deal of mirth and frolic during dinner all 
 within proper bounds however but as the night made upon us, 
 we set more sail more, as it turned out, than some of us had 
 ballast for when lo ! towards ten of the clock, up started Mr 
 Eschylus to give us a speech. His seat was at the bottom of 
 the table, with the back of his chair close to the door that opened 
 into the yard ; and after he had got his breath out, on I forget 
 what topic, he sat down, and lay back on his balanced chair, 
 stretching out his long legs with great complacency. However, 
 they did not prove a sufficient counterpoise to his very square 
 shoulders, which, obeying the laws of gravitation, destroyed his 
 equilibrium, and threw him a somersault, when exit Eschylus 
 Stave, Esquire, head foremost, with a formidable rumble-tumble 
 and hurry-scurry, down the back steps, his long shanks disap- 
 pearing last, and clipping between us and the bright moon like 
 a pair of flails. However, there was no damage done ; and, after a 
 good laugh, Stave's own being loudest of all, the Don and Rubio- 
 chico righted him, and helped him once more into his chair. 
 
 Jacob Bumble now favoured us with a song that sounded as 
 if he had been barrelled up in a puncheon, and was cantando 
 through the bunghole ; then Rubiochico sang, and the Don sang, 
 and we all sang and bumpered away ; and Mr Seco got on the 
 table and gave us the newest quadrille step ; and, in fine, we 
 were all becoming dangerously drunk. Longtram, especially, 
 had become uproarious beyond all bounds, and getting up from 
 his chair, he took a short run of a step or two, and sprang right 
 over the table, whereby he smashed the epergne, full of fruit and 
 flowers, scattering the contents all about like hail, and driving 
 a volley of preserved limes like grapeshot, in all their syrup and 
 stickiness, slap into my face a stray one spinning with a sloppy 
 whit into Jacob Bumble's open mouth as he sang, like a musket- 
 ball into a winter turnip ; while a fine preserved pine-apple flew 
 bash on Isaac Shingle's sharp snout, like the bursting of a shrap- 
 nel shelL
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 497 
 
 " D n it," hiccuped Shingle, " won't stand this any longer, 
 by Ju-Ju-Jupiter ! Give over your practicals, Lucifer. Con- 
 found it, Don, give over do, now, you mad long-legged son of 
 a gun ! " Here the Don caught Shingle round the waist, and 
 whipping him bodily out of his chair, carried him, kicking and 
 spurring, into the hall, now well lit up, and laid him on a sofa, 
 and then returning, coolly installed himself in his seat. 
 
 In a little we heard the squeaking of a pig in the street, and 
 our friend Shingle's voice high in oath. I sallied forth to see 
 the cause of the uproar, and found our host engaged in single 
 combat with a drawn sword-stick that sparkled blue and bright 
 in the moonbeam, his antagonist being a strong porker that he 
 had taken for a town -guard, and had hemmed into a corner 
 formed by the stair and the garden wall, which, on being pressed, 
 made a dash between his spindle-shanks, and fairly capsized him 
 into my arms. I carried him back to his couch again ; and, 
 thinking it was high time to be off, as I saw that Smoothpate 
 and Steady and Nicodemus, and the more composed part of the 
 company, had already absconded, I seized my hat, and made 
 sail in the direction of the former's house, where I was to sleep, 
 when that devil Longtram made up to me. 
 
 " Hillo, my little man of war heave-to a bit, and take me 
 with you. Why, what is that] what the deuce is that? " We 
 were at this time staggering along under the dark piazza of a 
 long line of low wooden houses, every now and then thundering 
 against the thin boards, or bulkheads, that constituted the side 
 next the street, making, as we could distinctly hear, the inmates 
 start and snort in the inside, as they turned themselves in their 
 beds. In the darkest part of the piazza there was the figure of 
 a man in the attitude of a telescope levelled on its stand, with 
 its head, as it were, countersunk or mortised into the wooden 
 partition. Tipsy as we both were we stopped in great surprise. 
 
 " D n it, Cringle," said the Don, his philosophy utterly at 
 fault, " the trunk of a man without a head ! : How is this 1 " 
 
 "Why, Mr Longtram," I replied, "this is our friend Mr 
 Smoothpate, or I mistake greatly." 
 
 " Let me see," said Longtram ; " if it be him, he used to have 
 a head somewhere, I know. Let me see. Oh, it is him ; you 
 are right, my boy ; and here is his head after all, and a devil of 
 a size it has grown to since dinner-time, to be sure. But I know 
 his features bald pate high forehead and cheekbones." 
 
 Nota Bene. We were still in the piazza, where Smoothpate 
 was unquestionably present in the body, but the head was 
 
 2i
 
 498 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 within the house, and altogether, as I can avouch, beyond the 
 Don's ken. 
 
 " Where ? " said I, groping about, " very odd, for deuce take 
 me if I can see his head. Why, he has none a phenomenon 
 four legs and a tail, but no head, as I am a gentleman lively 
 enough, too, he is don't seem to miss it much." Here poor 
 Smoothpate made a violent walloping in a vain attempt to dis- 
 entangle himself. 
 
 We could now hear shouts of laughter within, and a voice that 
 I was sure belonged to Mr Smoothpate, begging to be released 
 from the pillory he had placed himself in, by removing a board 
 in the wooden partition, and sliding it up, and then thrusting 
 his caput from without into the interior of the house, to the no 
 small amazement of the brown fiddler and his daughter who in- 
 habited the same, and who had immediately secured their prize 
 by slipping the displaced board down again, wedging it firmly 
 on the back of his neck, as if he had been fitted for the guillo- 
 tine, thus nailing him fast, unless he had bolted, and left his 
 head in pawn. 
 
 We now entered, and perceived it was really Don Alonzo's 
 flushed but very handsome countenance that was grinning at us 
 from where it was fixed, like a large peony rose stuck against 
 the wall. After a hearty laugh we relieved him, and being now- 
 joined by Percales, who came up in his gig, with Mr Smooth- 
 pate's following in his wake, we embarked for an airing at half- 
 past one in the morning Smoothpate and Percales, Longtram 
 and Tom Cringle. Amongst other exploits we broke into a 
 proscribed conventicle of drunken negroes but I am rather 
 ashamed of this part of the transaction, and intended to have 
 held my tongue, had Aaron managed his, although it was noto- 
 rious as the haunt of all the thieves and slight ladies of the place ; 
 here we found Parson Charley, a celebrated black preacher, three 
 parts drunk, extorting, as Mawworm says, a number of devotees, 
 male and female, all very tipsy, in a most blasphemous fashion, 
 the table being covered with rummers of punch and fragments 
 of pies and cold meat; but this did not render our conduct 
 more excusable, I will acknowledge. Finally, as a trophy, 
 Percales, who was a wickeder little chap than I took him 
 for, with Longtram's help, unshipped the bell of the conventicle 
 from the little belfry, and fastening it below Smoothpate's 
 gig, we dashed back to Mr Shingle's with it clanging at every 
 jolt. In our progress the horse took fright, and ran away, and 
 no wonder.
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 499 
 
 " Zounds, Don, the weather-rein has parted what shall we 
 do?" said I. 
 
 " Do ? " rejoined Lucifer, with drunken gravity, " haul on 
 the other, to be sure there is one left, ain't there 1 so hard 
 a-port, and run him up against that gun at the street corner, will 
 ye ? That will stop him, or the devil is in it." 
 
 Crash it was done and over the horse's ears we both flew 
 like skyrockets ; but, strange to tell, although we had wedged 
 the wheel of the ketureen fast as a wreck on a reef, with the 
 cannon that was stuck into the ground postwise between it and 
 the body, there was no damage done beyond the springing of 
 the starboard shaft ; so, with the assistance of the negro servant, 
 who had been thrown from his perch behind, by a shock that 
 frightened him out of his wits, we hove the voiture off again, 
 and arrived in safety at friend Shingle's once more. Here we 
 found the table set out with devilled turkey, and a variety of 
 high-spiced dishes; and, to make a long story short, we had 
 another set-to, during which, as an interlude, Longtram capsized 
 Shingle out of the sofa he had again lain down on, in an attempt 
 to jump over it, and broke bis arm ; and, being the soberest man 
 of the company, I started off, guided by a negro servant, for 
 Doctor Greyfriars. On our return, the first thing that met our 
 eyes was the redoubted Don himself, lying on his back where 
 he had fallen at his leap, with his head over the step at the door 
 of the piazza. I thought his neck was broken ; and the doctor, 
 considering that he was the culprit to be carved, forthwith had 
 him carried in, his coat taken off, and was about striking a 
 phleme into him, when Isaac's voice sounded from the inner 
 apartment, where he had lain all the while below the sofa like 
 a crushed frog ; the party in the background, who were boosing 
 away, being totally unconscious of his mishap, as they sat at 
 table in the room beyond, enjoying themselves, impressed ap- 
 parently with the belief that the whole affair was a lark. 
 
 " Doctor, doctor," shouted he in great pain, " here, here it 
 is me that is murdered that chap is only dead drunk, but I 
 am really dead, or will be, if you don't help." 
 
 At length the arm was set, and Shingle put to bed, and the 
 whole crew dispersed themselves, each moving off as well as he 
 could towards his own home. 
 
 But the cream of the jest was richest next day. Parson 
 Charley, who, drunk as he had been overnight, still retained a 
 confused recollection of the parties who had made the irruption, 
 in the morning applied to Mr Smoothpate to have his bell re-
 
 500 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 stored, when the latter told him, with the utmost gravity, that 
 Mr Onyx Steady was the culprit, who, by the by, had disap- 
 peared from Shingle's before the bell interlude, and, in fact, was 
 wholly ignorant of the transaction. " Certainly," quod Smooth- 
 pate, with the greatest seriousness, " a most unlikely person, I 
 will confess, Charley, as he is a grave, respectable man ; still, 
 you know, the most demure cats sometimes steal cream, Charley ; 
 so, parson, my good man, Mr Onyx Steady has your bell, and 
 no one else." 
 
 Whereupon, away trudged Charley to Mr Steady's warehouse, 
 and, pulling off his hat with a formal salaam, " Good Massa 
 Onyx sweet Massa Teady pray give me de bell" Here the 
 sable clerigo gathered himself up, and leant composedly on his 
 long staff, hat still in hand, and ear turned towards Mr Steady, 
 awaiting his answer. 
 
 "Bell?" ejaculated Steady, in great amazement "bell! 
 what bell?" 
 
 " Oh, good, sweet Massa Onyx, dear Massa Onyx Teady, every- 
 body know you good person quiet, wise somebody you is all 
 person sabe dat," whined Charley ; then slipping near our friend, 
 he whispered to him " But de best of we lob bit of fun now 
 and den de best of we lef to himshef sometime." 
 
 " Confound the fellow ! " quoth Onyx, rather pushed off his 
 balance by such an unlooked-for attack before his clerks ; " get 
 out of my house, sir ; what the mischief do I know of you or 
 your infernal bell] I wish the tongue of it was in your stomach 
 get out, sir, away with you." 
 
 Charley could stand this no longer, and losing patience, "D n 
 me eye, you is de tief, sir so give me de bell, Massa Teady, or 
 I sail pull you go before de Mayor, Massa Teady, and you sail 
 be shame, Massa Teady ; and, it may be, you sail be export to de 
 Bay of Honduras, Massa Teady. Aha, how you will like dat, 
 Massa Teady ? you shall be export, maybe, for break into chapel 
 during sarvice, and teal bell aha, teal bell whoever yeerie one 
 crime equal to dat?" 
 
 " My good man," quoth Onyx, who now felt the absurdity of 
 the affair, " I know nothing of all this believe me, there is a 
 mistake. Who sent you here ? " 
 
 " Massa Smoothpate," roared Charley " Massa Smoothpate 
 he who neber tell lie to nobody. Massa Smoothpate sent me, 
 sir ; so de debil if you no give up de bell, I sall- 
 
 " Mr Smoothpate oh ho ! " sang out Steady, " I see, I see- 
 
 Finally, the affair was cleared up; a little hush-money made
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 501 
 
 all snug, and Charley, Laving got back his instrument, bore no 
 malice ; so he and Steady resumed their former friendly footing 
 the " statu quo ante bellum." 
 
 Another story, and I have done 
 
 About a week after this several of the same party again met 
 at dinner, when my excellent friend Mr Nicodemus amused us 
 exceedingly by the following story, which, for want of a better 
 title, I shall relate under the head of 
 
 A SLIPPERY YOUTH. 
 
 "We all know," quoth old Nic, "that house robberies have 
 been very rife of late, and on peril even of having the laugh 
 against me, I will tell you how I suffered, no longer than three 
 nights ago ; so, Tom Cringle, will you and Bang have the charity 
 to hold your tongues, and be instructed? 
 
 " Old Gelid, Longtram, Steady, and myself, had been eating 
 ratoons, at the former's domicile, and it was about nine in the 
 evening when I got home. We had taken next to no wine, a 
 pint of madeira a-piece during dinner, and six bottles of claret 
 between us afterwards, so I went to bed as cool as a cucum- 
 ber, and slept soundly for several hours, until awakened by 
 my old gander now, do be quiet, Cringle by my old watch- 
 man of a gander, cackling like a hero. I struck my repeater 
 half -past one so I turned myself, and was once more falling over 
 into the arms of Morpheus, when I thought I saw some dark 
 object flit silently across the open window that looks into the 
 piazza, between me and the deep blue and as yet moonless sky. 
 This somewhat startled me, but it might have been one of the 
 servants. Still I got up and looked out, but I could see nothing. 
 It did certainly strike me once or twice that there was some 
 dark object cowering in the deep gloom caused by the shade of 
 the orange-tree at the end of the piazza, but I persuaded myself 
 it was fancy, and once more slipped into my nest. However, 
 the circumstance had put sleep to flight. Half an hour might have 
 passed, and the deep dark purity of the eastern sky was rapidly 
 quickening into a greenish azure, the forerunner of the rising 
 moon" ("Oh, confound your poetry," said Rubiochico) "which 
 was fast swamping the sparkling stars, like a bright river flow- 
 ing over diamonds, when the old gander again set up his gabble- 
 ment and trumpeted more loudly than before. ' If you were not 
 so tough, my noisy old cock,' thought I, 'next Michaelmas 
 should be your last.' So I now resolutely shut my eyes and 
 tried to sleep perforce, in which usually fruitless attempt I was
 
 502 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 actually beginning to succeed, do you know, when a strong odour 
 of palm oil came through the window, and, on opening my eyes, 
 I saw by the increasing light a naked negro standing at it, 
 with his head and shoulders in sharp relief against the pale 
 broad disc of the moon, at that moment just peering over the 
 dark summit of the Long Mountain. 
 
 " I rubbed my eyes and looked again ; the dark figure was 
 still there ; but, as if aware that some one was on the watch, it 
 gradually sank down, until nothing but the round bullet head 
 appeared above the window-sill. This was trying enough, but 
 I made an effort and lay still. The stratagem succeeded : the 
 figure, deceived by my feigned snoring and quietude, slowly 
 rose, and once more stood erect. Presently it slipped one foot 
 into the room, and then another, but so noiselessly that, when I 
 saw the black figure standing before me on the floor, I had some 
 misgivings as to whether or not it was really a being of this 
 world. However, I had small space for speculation, when it 
 slid past the foot of the bed towards my open bureau ; I seized 
 the opportunity started up turned the key of the door, and 
 planted myself right between the thief and the open window. 
 ' Now, you scoundrel, surrender, or I will murder you on the 
 spot.' I had scarcely spoken the words when, with the speed 
 of light, the fellow threw himself on me we closed I fell 
 when, clip, he slipped through my fingers like an eel bolted 
 through the window, cleared the balcony at a bound, and dis- 
 appeared. The thief had stripped himself as naked as he_was born, 
 and soaped his woolly skull, and smeared his whole corpus with 
 palm oil, so that in the struggle I was charmingly lubricated." 
 
 Nicodemus here lay back on his chair, evidently desirous of 
 our considering this the whole of the story, but he was not to 
 be let off so easily, for presently Longtram, with a wicked 
 twinkle of his eye, chimed in 
 
 " Ay, and what happened next, old Nic did nothing fol- 
 low, eh 1" 
 
 Nic's countenance assumed an irresolute expression ; he saw 
 he was jammed up in the wind, so at a venture he determined 
 to sham deafness 
 
 " Take wine, Lucifer a glass of hermitage?" 
 
 " With great pleasure," said his Satanic majesty. The pro- 
 pitiatory libation, however, did not work, for no sooner had his 
 glass touched the mahogany again than he returned to the 
 charge. 
 
 " Now, Mr Nicodemus, since you won't, I will tell the com-
 
 TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 503 
 
 pany the reason of so nice an old gentleman wearing Baltimore 
 flour in his hair instead of perfumed Mareschale powder, and 
 none of the freshest either, let me tell you ; why, I have seen 
 three weavels take flight from your august pate since we sat 
 down to dinner." 
 
 Old Nic, seeing he was caught, met the attack with the greatest 
 good-humour 
 
 " Why, I will tell the whole truth, Lucifer, if you don't bother." 
 ("The devil thank you," said Longtram.) "So you must 
 know," continued Nicodemus, " that I immediately roused the 
 servants, searched the premises in every direction without suc- 
 cess nothing could be seen ; but, at the suggestion of my valet, 
 I lit a small spirit-lamp, and placed it on the table at my bed- 
 side, on which it pleased him to place my brace of Mantons, 
 loaded with slug, and my naked small sword, so that, thought 
 I, if the thief ventures back, he shall not slip through my fingers 
 again so easily. I do confess that these imposing preparations did 
 appear to me somewhat preposterous, even at the time, as it was 
 not, to say the least of it, very probable that my slippery gentle- 
 man would return the same night. However, my servant in his 
 zeal was not to be denied, and I was not so fit to judge as usual, 
 from having missed my customary quantity of wine after dinner 
 the previous day ; so, seeing all right, I turned in, thus bristling 
 like a porcupine, and slept soundly until daylight, when I be- 
 thought me of getting up. I then rose, slipped on my night- 
 gown, and," here Nicodemus laughed more loudly than ever, 
 " as I am a gentleman, my spirit-lamp, naked sword, loaded 
 pistols, my diamond breast-pin, and all my clothes, even unto 
 my unmentionables, had disappeared ; but what was the crudest 
 cut of all, my box of Mareschale powder, my patent puff, and 
 all my pomade divine, had also vanished ; and, true enough, as 
 Lucifer says, it so happened that, from the delay in the arrival 
 of the running ships, there was not an ounce of either powder 
 or pomatum to be had in the whole town, so I have been driven 
 in my extremity oh most horrible declension ! to keep my 
 tail on hog's lard and Baltimore flour ever since." 
 
 " Well, but," persisted Lucifer, " who the deuce was the man 
 in the moon? Come, tell us. And what has become of the 
 queue you so tenderly nourished, for you sport a crop, Master 
 Nic, now, I perceive? " 
 
 Here Nicodemus was neither to hold nor to bind ; he was ab- 
 solutely suffocating with laughter, as he shrieked out, with long 
 intervals between
 
 504 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 "Why, the robber was my own favourite body - servant, 
 
 Crabclaw, after all, and be d d to him the identical man 
 
 who advised the warlike demonstrations ; and as for the pigtail, 
 why, on the very second night of the flour and grease, it was so 
 cruelly damaged by a rat while I slept, that I had to amputate 
 the whole affair, stoop and roop, this very morning." And, so 
 saying, the excellent creature feU back in his chair, like to choke 
 from the uproariousness of his mirth, while the tears streamed 
 down his cheeks, and washed channels in the flour, as if he had 
 been a tatooed Mandingo. 
 
 CHAPTEE XIX. 
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 
 
 " And whether we shall meet again, I know not." 
 
 Brutus to Cassius, in Julius Ccesar. 
 
 ONE fine morning about this time we had just anchored on 
 our return from a cruise, when I received, as I was dressing, a 
 letter from the secretary, desiring me instantly to wait on the 
 Admiral, as I was promoted to the rank of commander (how I 
 did dance and sing, my eye !), and appointed to the Lotus-Leaf, 
 of eighteen guns, then refitting at the dockyard, and under 
 orders for England. 
 
 I accordingly, after calling and making my bow, proceeded to 
 the dockyard to enter on my new command, and I was happy in 
 being able to get Tailtackle and Reefpoint once more removed 
 along with me. 
 
 The gunner of Lotus-Leaf having died, Timotheus got an 
 acting warrant, which I rejoice to say was ultimately confirmed, 
 and little Reefy, now a commander in the service, weathered it 
 many a day with me afterwards, both as midshipman and lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 After seeing everything in a fair train on board, I applied 
 for a fortnight's leave, which I got, as the trade which I was to
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 505 
 
 convoy had not yet congregated, nor were they likely to do so 
 before the expiry of this period. 
 
 Having paid my respects at the Admiral's pen, I returned to 
 Kingston. Most of the houses in the lower part of the town are 
 surmounted by a small look-out, as it is called, like a little belfry 
 fitted with green blinds, and usually furnished with one or more 
 good telescopes. It is the habit of the Kingstonians to resort 
 in great numbers to those gardemange-lodking boxes whenever 
 a strange sail appears in the offing, or any circumstance takes 
 place at sea worth reconnoitring. It was about nine o'clock on 
 a fine morning, and I had taken my stand in one of them, peer- 
 ing out towards the east, but no white speck on the verge of the 
 horizon indicated an approaching sail; so I slewed round the 
 glass to the westward, to have a squint at the goings-on amongst 
 the squadron, lying at anchor at Port Royal, about six miles off, 
 then mustering no fewer than eighteen pennants; viz., one line- 
 of-battle ship, one fifty, five frigates, two corvettes, one ship- 
 sloop, four eighteen-gun brigs, three schooners, and a cutter. 
 All was quiet, not even one solitary signal making amongst 
 them ; so I again scoured the horizon towards the east, when I 
 noticed a very dashing schooner, which had sailed that morning, 
 as she crept along the Palisadoes. She was lying up the inner 
 channel, taking advantage of the land-wind, in place of stagger- 
 ing away to the southward through the ship-channel, already 
 within the influence of the sea-breeze, but which was as yet 
 neutralised close in-shore where she was by the terral. The 
 speed of the craft the rapidity with which she slid along the 
 land with the light air riveted my attention. On inquiry I 
 found she was the Carthagenian schooner Josefa. At this 
 moment the splash of oars was heard right below where we 
 stood, and a very roguish-looking craft, also schooner-rigged, 
 about a hundred tons burden apparently, passed rapidly beneath 
 us, tearing up the shining surface of the sleeping harbour with 
 no fewer than fourteen sweeps. She was very heavily rigged, 
 with her mainmast raking over the taffrail, and full of men. I 
 noticed she had a long gun on a pivot, and several carronades 
 mounted. Presently there was a good deal of whispering 
 amongst the group of half-a-dozen gentlemen who were with 
 me in the look-out, who, from their conversation, I soon found 
 were underwriters on the schooner outside. 
 
 " Heyday," said one, " the Antonio is off somewhat suddenly 
 this morning." 
 
 " Where may that schooner that is sweeping so handsomely
 
 506 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 down harbour belong tol" said I to the gentleman who had 
 spoken. 
 
 " To Havanna," was the answer ; " but I fear he intends to 
 overhaul the Josefa there, and she would be a good prize to him, 
 now since Carthagena has thrown off allegiance to Spain." 
 
 " But he will never venture to infract the neutrality of the 
 waters, surely," rejoined I, "within sight of the squadron too 1 ?" 
 
 The gentleman I spoke to smiled incredulously ; and as I had 
 nothing particular to do for a couple of hours, I resolved to re- 
 main and see the issue. In a few minutes the sea-breeze came 
 thundering down, in half a gale of wind, singing through the 
 rigging of the ships alongside of the wharfs, and making the 
 wooden blinds rattle again. The Antonio laid in her sweeps, 
 spread her canvass in an instant, and was lying-to, off the fort 
 at Port Koyal, to land her pass, in little more than half an hour 
 from the time she passed us, a distance of no less than seven 
 miles, as she had to sail it. In a minute the jibsheet was again 
 hauled over to leeward, and away she was like an arrow, crowd- 
 ing all sail. I had seldom seen a vessel so weatherly before. 
 In an hour more she was abreast of the town and abeam of the 
 Josefa, who, from being cooped up in the narrow inner channel, 
 had, ever since the sea-breeze set down, been bothering with 
 short tacks, about and about, every minute. Presently the 
 Antonio dashed in through a streak of blue water in the reef, so 
 narrow, that, to look at it, I did not think a boat could have 
 passed, and got between the Josefa and Port Koyal, when he 
 took in his gaff-topsail and hauled down his flying-jib, but made 
 no hostile demonstration, beyond keeping dead to leeward, tack 
 for tack with the Josefa ; and once, when the latter seemed about 
 to bear up and run past him, I noticed the foot of his foresail 
 lift, and his sails shiver as he came to the wind, as much as to 
 say, " Luff again, my lady, or I'll fire at you." It was now clear 
 Josefa did not like her playmate, for she cracked on all the can- 
 vass she could carry ; and having tried every other manoauvre 
 to escape without effect, she at length, with reckless desperation, 
 edged away a point, and flew like smoke through another gap, 
 even smaller and shallower than the one the Antonio had entered 
 by. We all held our breath until she got into blue water again, 
 expecting every moment to see her stick fast, and her masts 
 tumble over the side ; but she scraped clear very cleverly, and 
 the next moment was tearing and plunging through the tum- 
 bling waves outside of the reefs. Antonio, as I expected, fol- 
 lowed her, but all very quietly, still keeping well to leeward,
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 507 
 
 however. Thus they continued for half an hour, running to the 
 southward and eastward, when I noticed the Havanero, who had 
 gradually crept up under the Josef a's lee -quarter, hoist his 
 colours and pennant, and fire a gun at her. She immediately 
 tacked in great confusion, and made all sail to get back through 
 the canal into the inner channel, with the other schooner close 
 at her heels, blazing away from his long gun as fast as he could 
 load. A Spaniard, who was one of the principal owners of the 
 Josefa's cargo, happened to be standing beside me in the look- 
 out ; at every shot, he would, with a face of the most intense 
 anxiety, while the perspiration hailed off his brow, slap his hands 
 on his thighs, and shrink down on his hams, cowering his head 
 at the same time, as if the shot had been aimed at him and he 
 was trying to shun it, apostrophising himself, with an agitated 
 voice, as follows : 
 
 " Valga me Dios, que demonio, que demonio ! All, Pancho 
 Roque, tu es ruinado, mi amigo." Another shot. " Tu es 
 ruinado, chicatico, tan qierto como navos no son coles." A third 
 flash. " Oh, rabo de lechon de San Antonio, que es eso, que es 
 eso!"* 
 
 Neck and neck, however, in came the Josefa, staggering right 
 through the narrow channel once more, persecuted by the An- 
 tonio, with the white breakers foaming and flashing close to on 
 each side of her ; but by this time there was a third party in the 
 game. I had noticed a lot of signals made in the flag-ship. 
 Presently one of the sloops of war fired a gun, and before the 
 smoke blew off she was under weigh, with her topsails, foresail, 
 spanker, and foretopmast-staysail set. This was his Majesty's 
 sloop-of-war Seaflower, which had slipped from her moorings, 
 and was now crowding all sail in chase of the arrogant Don, who 
 had dared to fire a shot in anger in the sanctuary of British 
 waters. All this while the Antonio had been so intent on hook- 
 ing the Carthagenian, that the sloop was nearly up to him before 
 he hove about and gave up the chase ; and now the tables were 
 beautifully turned on him, for the Seaflower's shot was flying 
 over and over him in whole broadsides, and he must have been 
 taken, when, crack ! away went the sloop's foretop-gallant-mast, 
 which gave the rogue a start. In an hour he was away to wind- 
 ward as far as you could see, and his pursuer and the Josefa 
 were once more at anchor in Port RoyaL 
 
 * Thus freely : " Heaven defend me, what a devil ! Ah, Pancho Roqne, you are 
 ruined, my fine fellow you are ruined, my little man, so sure as turnips are not cauli- 
 flowers. Oh, tail of St Anthony's pig, that it should come to this ! "
 
 508 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 That evening I returned to the dockyard, where I found 
 everything going on with Lotus-Leaf as I could wish. So I 
 returned, after a three days' sojourn on board, to Kingston, and 
 next afternoon mounted my horse, or rather a horse that a friend 
 was fool enough to lend me, at the agent's wharf, with the ther- 
 mometer at ninety-five in the shade, and, cantering off, landed 
 at my aunt Mrs Palma's mountain residence, where the mercury 
 stood at sixty-two at nightfall, just in time to dress for dinner. 
 I need not say that we had a pleasant party, as Mary was there ; 
 so, having rigged very killingly, as I thought, I made my ap- 
 pearance at dinner, a mighty man, indeed, with my two epaulets; 
 but, to my great disappointment, when I walked into the piazza, 
 not a soul seemed to acknowledge my promotion. " How blind 
 people are ! " thought I. Even my cousins, little Creole urchins, 
 dressed in small transparent cambric shifts tied into a knot over 
 their tails, and with devil the thing else on, seemed to perceive 
 no difference, as they pulled me about, with a volley of " Cousin 
 Taam, what you bring we ? " 
 
 At length dinner was announced, and we adjourned from the 
 dark balcony to the dining-room. " Come, there is light enough 
 here ; my rank will be noticed now, surely ; but no so patience." 
 The only males of the party were the doctor of the district, two 
 
 Kingston gentlemen, young Palma, and Colonel B of the 
 
 Guards; the ladies at dinner being my aunt, Mary, and her 
 younger sister. We sat down all in high glee ; I was sitting 
 opposite my dearie. "Deuced strange neither does she take 
 any notice of my two epaulets ; " and I glanced my eye, to be 
 sure that they were both really there. I then, with some small 
 misgivings, stole a look towards the Colonel a very handsome 
 fellow with all the ease and polish of a soldier and a gentleman 
 about him. " The devil, it cannot be, surely ! " for the black- 
 eyed and black-haired pale face seemed annoyingly attentive to 
 the militaire. At length this said officer addressed me, " Captain 
 Cringle, do me the honour to take wine." Mary started at the 
 Captain 
 
 " She gazed, she reddened like a rose, 
 Syne pale as ony lily." 
 
 " Aha," thought I, " all right still." She trembled extremely, 
 and her mother at length noticed it, I saw ; but all this while 
 
 B was balancing a land-crab on his silver fork, while, with 
 
 a wine-glass in his other claw, he was ogling me in some wonder- 
 ment. I saw the awkwardness of the affair, and seizing a bottle 
 of catchup for one of sercial, I filled my glass with such vehemence
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 509 
 
 that I spilt a great part of it ; but even the colour and flavour 
 did not recover me ; so, with a face like a north-west moon, I 
 swilled off the potion, and instantly fell back in, my chair 
 " Poisoned ! by all that is nonsensical poisoned catchup O 
 Lord ! " and off I started to my bedroom, where, by dint of an 
 ocean of hot water, I got quit of the sauce, and, clinching the 
 whole with a caulker of brandy, I returned to the dinner-table 
 a good deal abashed, I will confess, but endeavouring most 
 emphatically all the while to laugh it off as a good jest. But 
 my Mary was flown ; she had been ailing for some days, her 
 mother alleged, and she required rest. Presently my aunt rose, 
 and we were left to our bottle, and, sorry am I to say it, I 
 bumpered away from some strong unaccountable impulse until 
 I got three parts drunk, to the great surprise of the rest of the 
 party, for guzzling wine was not certainly a failing of mine, 
 unless on the strong provocation of good fellowship. 
 
 Mary did not appear that evening, and I may as well tell the 
 whole truth, that she was pledged to marry me whenever I got 
 my step ; and next morning all this sort of thing was duly com- 
 municated to mamma, &c. &c. &c., and I was the happiest, and 
 so forth all of which, as it concerns no one but myself, if you 
 please, we shall say no more about it. 
 
 The beautiful cottage where we were sojourning was situated 
 about three thousand feet above the level of the sea, and half- 
 way up the great prong of the Blue Mountains, known by the 
 name of the Liguanea range, which rises behind, and overhangs 
 the city of Kingston. The road to it, after you have ridden 
 about five miles over the hot plain of Liguanea, brings you to 
 Hope estate, where an anatomy of an old watchman greeted me 
 with the negro's constant solicitation " Massa, me beg you for 
 one feepenny." This youth was, as authentic records show, 
 one hundred and forty years old only. The Hope is situated in 
 the very gorge of the pass, wherein you have to travel nine miles 
 further, through most magnificent scenery ; at one time strug- 
 gling among the hot stones of the all but dry river-course, at 
 others winding along the breezy cliffs, on mule-paths not twelve 
 inches wide, with a perpendicular wall of rock rising five hun- 
 dred feet above you on one side, while a dark gulf, a thousand 
 feet deep, yawned on the other, from the bottom of which arose 
 the hoarse murmur of the foliage-screened brook. Noble trees 
 spread their boughs overhead, and the most beautiful shrubs and 
 bushes grew and blossomed close at hand, and all was moist and 
 cool and fresh until you turned the bare pinnacle of some lime-
 
 510 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 stone-rock, naked as the summit of the Andes where the hot 
 sun, even through the thin attenuated air of that altitude, would 
 suddenly blaze on you so fiercely that your eyes were blinded 
 and your face blistered, as if you had been suddenly transported 
 within the influence of a sirocco. Well, now since you know 
 the road, let us take a walk after breakfast. It shall be a beau- 
 tiful clear day not a speck or cloud in the heavens. Mary is 
 with me. 
 
 "Well, Tom," says she, "you were very sentimental last 
 evening." 
 
 " Sentimental ! I was deucedly sick, let me tell you ; a wine- 
 glassful of cold catchup is rather trying even to a lover's stomach, 
 Mary. Murder ! I never was so sick, even in my first cruise in 
 the old Breeze. Bah ! Do you know I did not think of you 
 for an hour afterwards J not until that bumper of brandy stayed 
 my calamity. But come, when shall we be married, Maria? 
 Oh ! have done with your blushing and botheration to-morrow 
 or next day 1 ? It would not be quite the thing this evening, 
 would it?" 
 
 " Tom, you are crazy. Time enough, surely, when we all meet 
 in England." 
 
 "And when may that be 1 ?" said I, drawing her arm closer 
 through mine. " No, no to-morrow I will call on the Admiral ; 
 and as you are all going to England in the fleet at any rate, I 
 will ask his leave to give you a passage, and and and " 
 
 All of which, as I said before, being parish news, we shall 
 drop a veil over it so a small touch at the scenery again. 
 
 Immediately under foot rose several lower ranges of moun- 
 tains those nearest us, covered with the laurel-looking coffee- 
 bushes, interspersed with negro villages hanging amongst the 
 fruit-trees like clusters of birds' nests on the hill-side, with a 
 bright green patch of plantain-suckers here and there, and a 
 white painted overseer's house peeping from out the wood, and 
 herds of cattle in the Guinea-grass 'pieces. Beyond these 
 stretched out the lovely plain of Liguanea, covered with luxuri- 
 ant cane-pieces, and groups of negro-houses, and Guinea-grass 
 pastures of even a deeper green than that of the canes ; and 
 small towns of sugar-works rose every here and there, with their 
 threads of white smoke floating up into the clear sky, while, as 
 the plain receded, the cultivation disappeared, and it gradually 
 became sterile, hot, and sandy, until the Long Mountain hove 
 its back like a whale from out the sea-like level of the plain, 
 while to the right of it appeared the city of Kingston, like a
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 511 
 
 model, with its parade, or place d'armes, in the centre, from 
 which its long lines of hot sandy streets stretched out at right 
 angles, with the military post of Up-park Camp, situated about 
 a mile and a half to the northward and eastward of the town. 
 Through a tolerably good glass, the church-spire looked like a 
 needle, the trees about the houses like bushes, the tall cocoa-nut 
 trees like harebells ; a slow crawling black speck here and there 
 denoted a carriage moving along; while waggons, with their 
 teams of eighteen or twenty oxen, looked like so many centi- 
 pedes. At the camp, the two regiments drawn out on parade, 
 with two nine-pounders on each flank, and their attendant 
 gunners, looked like a red sparkling line, with two black spots 
 at each end, surrounded by small black dots. Presently the red 
 line wavered, and finally broke up as the regiments wheeled into 
 open column, when the whole fifteen hundred men crawled past 
 three little scarlet spots, denoting the general and his staff. 
 When they began to manoeuvre, each company looked like a. 
 single piece in a game at chess, and, as they fired by companies, 
 the little tiny puffs of smoke floated up like wreaths of wool, 
 suddenly surmounting and overlaying the red lines ; while the 
 light companies, breaking away into skirmishers, seemed for all 
 the world like two red bricks suddenly cast down, and shattered 
 on the ground, whereby the fragments were scattered all over 
 the green fields, and under the noble trees, the biggest of which 
 looked like small cabbages. At length the line was again 
 formed, and the inspection being over, it broke up once more, 
 and the minute red fragments presently vanished altogether like 
 a nest of ants the guns looking like so many barley-corns, 
 under the long lines of barracks, that seemed no bigger than 
 houses in a child's toy. As for the other arm, we of the navy 
 had no reason to glorify ourselves ; for while the review pro- 
 ceeded on shore, a strange man-of-war hove in sight in the off- 
 ing, looming like a mussel-shell, although she was a forty-four- 
 gun frigate, and ran down before the wind close to the Palisadoes, 
 or natural tongue of land, which juts out like a bow from Rock 
 Fort, to the eastward of Kingston, and hoops in the harbour, 
 and then lengthens out, trending about five miles due west, 
 where it widens out into a sandy flat, on which the town and 
 forts of Port Royal are situated. She was saluting the Admiral 
 when I first saw her. A red spark and a small puff on the starboard 
 side a puff, but no spark on the larboard, which was the side 
 farthest from us, but no report from either reached our ears ; 
 and presently down came the little red flag, and up went the St
 
 512 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 George's ensign, white, with a red cross, while the sails of the 
 gallant craft seemed about the size of those of a little school- 
 boy's plaything. After a short interval the flag-ship, a seventy- 
 four, lying at Port Royal, returned the salute. She, again,, 
 appeared somewhat loftier ; she might have been an oyster-shell ; 
 while the squadron of four frigates, two sloops of war, and seve- 
 ral brigs and schooners, looked like ants in the wake of a beetle. 
 As for the dear little Wave, I can compare her to nothing but a 
 mosquito, and the large 500-ton West Indiamen lying off King- 
 ston, five miles nearer, were but as small cock-boats to the eye. 
 In the offing the sea appeared like ice, for the waves were not 
 seen at all, and the swell could only be marked by the difference 
 in the reflection of the sun's rays as it rose and fell, while 
 a hot haze hung over the whole, making everything indistinct, 
 so that the water blended into sky without the line of demarca- 
 tion being visible. But, even as we looked forth on this most 
 .glorious scene, a small black cloud rose to windward. At this 
 time we were both sitting on the grass on a most beautiful bank, 
 beneath an orange-tree. The ominous appearance increased in 
 size, the sea-breeze was suddenly stifled, the swelling sails of 
 the frigate that had first saluted, fell, and, as she rolled, flattened 
 in against the masts the rustling of the green leaves overhead 
 ceased. 
 
 The cloud rolled onward from the east, and spread out, and 
 out, as it sailed in from seaward, and on, and on, until it gra- 
 dually covered the whole scene from our view (shipping and 
 harbour and town and camp and sugar estates), boiling and 
 rolling in black eddies under our feet. Anon the thunder be- 
 gan to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out from one 
 dark mass into another, while all where we sat was bright and 
 smiling under the unclouded noonday sun. This continued for 
 half an hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the 
 clouds below us brightened into a sea of white fleecy vapour like 
 wool, which gradually broke away into detached masses, dis- 
 covering another layer of still thinner vapour underneath, which 
 again parted, disclosing through the interstices a fresh gauze- 
 like veil of transparent mist, through which the lower ranges of 
 hills and the sugar estates and the town and shipping were once 
 more dimly visible ; but this in turn vanished, and the clouds, 
 attracted by the hills, floated away, and hung around them in 
 festoons, and gradually rose and rose xintil presently we were 
 enveloped in mist, and Mary spoke " Tom, there will be thun- 
 der here what shall we do 1 "
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 513 
 
 " Pooh, never mind, Mary ; you have a conductor on the 
 house." 
 
 " True," said she ; " but the servants, when the post that 
 supported it was blown down t'other day, very judiciously un- 
 linked the rods, and now, since I remember me, they are, to use 
 your phrase, ' stowed aioay ' below the house;" and so they were, 
 sure enough. However, we had no more thunder, and soon the 
 only indications of the spent storm were the increased distinct- 
 ness of objects at a distance, the coolness and purity of the air, 
 the brighter green of the cane-fields, and the red discoloured 
 appearance of the margin of the harbour, from the rush of muddy 
 water off the land, and the chocolate colour of the previously 
 snow-white sandy roads, that now twisted through the plain like 
 black snakes, and a fleecy dolphin-shaped cloud here and there 
 stretching out, and floating horizontally in the blue sky, as if it 
 had been hooked to the precipitous mountain-tops above us. 
 
 Next day it was agreed that we should all return to Kingston ; 
 and the day after that, we proceeded to Mr Bang's Pen, on the 
 Spanish Town road, as a sort of half-way house or stepping-stone 
 to his beautiful residence in St-Thomas-in-the-Vale, where we 
 were all invited to spend a fortnight. Our friend himself was 
 on the other side of the island, but he was to join us in the 
 valley, and we found our comforts carefully attended to ; and as 
 the day after we had set up our tent at the Pen was to be one 
 of rest to my aunt, I took the opportunity of paying my re- 
 spects to the Admiral, who was then careening at his mountain 
 retreat in the vicinity with his family. Accordingly, I took horse, 
 and rode along the margin of the great lagoon, on the Spanish 
 Town road, through tremendous defiles ; and after being driven 
 into a watchman's hut by the rain, I reached the house, and was 
 most graciously received by Sir Samuel Semaphore and his lady 
 and their lovely daughters. Oh, the most splendid women that 
 ever were built ! The youngest is now, I believe, the prime orna- 
 ment of the Scottish Peerage ; and I never can forget the plea- 
 sure I so frequently experienced in those days in the society of 
 this delightful family. The same evening I returned to the Pen. 
 On my way I fell in with three officers in white jackets and 
 broad-brimmed straw hats, wading up to the waist amongst the 
 reeds of the lagoon, with gims held high above their heads. 
 They Avere shooting ducks, it seemed ; and their negro servants 
 were heard ploutering and shouting amidst the thickets of 
 the crackling reeds, while their dogs were swimming all about 
 them. 
 
 2K
 
 514 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 " Hillo ! " shouted the nearest " Cringle, my lad whither 
 bound? how is Sir Samuel and Lady Semaphore, eh 1 ? Capital 
 sport, ten brace of teal there ; " and the spokesman threw two 
 beautiful birds ashore to me. This wise man of the bulrushes 
 was no less a personage than Sir Jeremy Mayo, the commander 
 of the forces, one of the bravest fellows in the army, and re- 
 spected and beloved by all who ever knew him, but a regular 
 dare-devil of an Irishman, who, not satisfied with his chance of 
 yellow fever on shore, had thus chosen to hunt for it with his 
 staff in the Caytnanas Lagoon. 
 
 Next morning we set out in earnest on our travels for St- 
 Thomas-in-the-Vale, in two of our friend Bang's gigs, and my 
 aunt's ketureen, laden with her black maiden and a lot of band- 
 boxes, while two mounted servants brought up the rear, and my 
 old friend Jupiter, who had descended not from the clouds, 
 but from the excellent Mr Fyall, who was by this time gathered 
 to his fathers to Massa Aaron, rode a musket-shot ahead of the 
 convoy to clear away or give notice of any impediments of wag- 
 gons or carts, or droves of cattle, that might be meeting us. 
 
 After driving five miles or so we reached the seat of govern- 
 ment, Spanish Town. Here we stopped at the Speaker's house 
 by the way, one of the handsomest and most agreeable men 
 I ever saw intending to proceed in the afternoon to our des- 
 tination. But the rain in the forenoon fell so heavily that we 
 had to delay our journey until next morning ; and that afternoon 
 I spent in attending the debates in the House of Assembly, 
 where everything was conducted with much greater decorum 
 than I ever saw maintained in the House of Commons, and no 
 great daring in the assertion either. The Hall itself, fitted with 
 polished mahogany benches, was handsome and well aired, and 
 between it and the grand court, as it is called, occupying the 
 other end of the building, which was then sitting, there is a 
 large cool saloon, generally in term time well filled with wigless 
 lawyers and their clients. The House of Assembly (this saloon 
 and the court-house forming one side of the square) is situated 
 over against the Government House; while another side is 
 occupied by a very handsome temple, covering in a statue erected 
 to Lord Rodney, the saver of the island, as he is always called, 
 from having crushed the fleet of Count de Grasse. 
 
 At length, at grey dawn the next day, as the report of the 
 morning gun came booming along the level plain from Port 
 Royal, we weighed, and finally started on our cruise. As we 
 drove up towards St-Thomas-in-the-Vale from Spanish Town,
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 515 
 
 along the hot sandy road, the plain gradually roughened into 
 small rocky eminences, covered with patches of bushes here and 
 there, with luxuriant Guinea-grass growing in the clefts ; the 
 road then sank between abrupt little hills, the Guinea-corn fields 
 began to disappear, the grass became greener, the trees rose 
 higher, the air felt fresher and cooler, and, proceeding still 
 farther, the hills on either side swelled into mountains and be- 
 came rocky and precipitous, and drew together, as it were, until 
 they appeared to impend over us. We had now arrived at the 
 gorge of the pass leading into the valley, through which flowed 
 a most beautiful limpid clear blue stream, along the margin of 
 which the road wound, while the tree-clothed precipices rose 
 five hundred feet perpendicularly on each brink. Presently 
 we crossed a wooden bridge, supported by a stone pier in 
 the centre, when Jupiter pricked ahead to give notice of the 
 approach of waggons, that our cavalcade might haul up, out 
 of danger, into some nook in the rock, to allow the lumbersome 
 teams to pass. 
 
 " What is that? " I was driving my dearie in the leading gig 
 "is that a pistol-shot? " It was the crack of the long whip 
 carried by the negro waggoner, reverberated from hill to hill, 
 and from cliff to cliff; and presently the father of gods came 
 thundering down the steep acclivity we were ascending. 
 
 " Massa, draw up into dat corner ; draw up." 
 
 I did as I was desired, and presently the shrill whistle of the 
 negro waggoners, and the increasing sharpness of the reports of 
 their whips, the handles of which were as long as fishing-rods, 
 and their wild exclamations to their cattle, to whom they ad- 
 dressed themselves by name, as if they had been reasonable 
 creatures, gave notice of the near approach of a train of no 
 fewer than seven waggons, each with three drivers, eighteen 
 oxen, three hogsheads of sugar, and two puncheons of rum. 
 
 "Come," thought I; "if the negroes are overworked, it is 
 more than the bullocks are, at all events." They passed us with 
 abundance of yelling and cracking, and as soon as the coast was 
 clear we again pursued our way up the ravine, than which nothing 
 could be more beautiful or magnificent. On our right hand now 
 rose, almost perpendicularly, the everlasting rocks, to a height 
 of a thousand feet, covered with the richest foliage that imagin- 
 ation can picture ; while here and there a sharp steeple-like pin- 
 nacle of grey stone, overgrown with lichens, shot up and out 
 from the face of them into the blue sky, mixing with the tall 
 forest trees that overhung the road, festooned with ivy and
 
 516 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 withes of different kinds like the rigging of a ship, round which 
 the tendrils of many a beautiful wild-flower crept twining up, 
 while all was fresh with the sparkling dew that showered down 
 on us, with every breath of wind, like rain. On our left foamed 
 the roaring river, and on the other brink the opposite bank rose 
 equally precipitously, clothed also with superb trees, that spread 
 their blending boughs over the chasm, until they wove themselves 
 together with those that grew on the side we were on, qualifying 
 the noonday fierceness of a Jamaica sun into a green cool twilight, 
 while the long misty reaches of the blue river, with white foam- 
 ing rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them, length- 
 ened out beneath in the distance. Oh ! the very look of it re- 
 freshed one unspeakably. 
 
 Presently a group of half-a-dozen country buccras overseers, 
 or coffee-planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either 
 hove in sight, all in their blue- white jane trousers, and long 
 Hessian boots pulled up over them, and new blue, square-cut, 
 bright -buttoned coatees, and threadbare, silk, broad -brimmed 
 hats. They dashed past us on goodish nags, followed at a 
 distance of three hundred yards by a covey of negro servants, 
 mounted on mules, in white Osnaburg trousers, with a shirt or 
 frock over them, no stockings, each with one spur, and the 
 stirrup-iron held firmly between the great and second toes, while 
 a snow-white sheep's fleece covered their massas' pormanteaus, 
 strapped on to the mail pillion behind. We drove on for about 
 seven miles, after entering the pass the whole scenery of which 
 was by far the finest thing I had ever seen the precipices on 
 each side becoming more and more rugged and abrupt as we 
 advanced, until all at once we emerged from the chasm on the 
 parish of St- Thomas- in -the -Vale, which opened on us like a 
 magical illusion, in all its green luxuriance and freshness. But 
 by this time we were deucedly tired, and Massa Aaron's man- 
 sion, situated on its little airy hill above a sea of canes, which 
 rose and fell before the passing breeze like the waves of the 
 ocean, was the most consolatory object in the view; and thither 
 we drove as fast as our wearied horses could carry us, and found 
 everything most carefully prepared for our reception. Having 
 dressed, we had a glorious dinner and lots of good wine ; and, 
 the happiest of the happy, I tumbled into bed, dreaming of 
 leading a division of line-of -battle ships into action, and of Mary, 
 and of our eldest son being my first-lieutenant, and 
 
 " Massa," quoth Jupiter " you take cup of coffee dis marn- 
 ing, massa ? "
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 517 
 
 " Thank you ; certainly." 
 
 It was by this time grey dawn. My window had been left 
 open the evening before, when it was hot and sultry enough ; 
 but it was now cold and damp, and a wetting mist boiled in 
 through the open sash, like rolling wreaths of white smoke. 
 
 " What is that where are we in the North Sea, or on the 
 top of Mont Blanc ? Why, clouds may be all in your way, 
 Massa Jupiter, but : 
 
 " Cloud ! " rejoined the deity " him no more den marning 
 fag, massa ; always hab him over de Vale in de marning, until 
 de sun melt him. And where is you ? why, you is in Massa 
 Aaron house, here in St-Thomas-in-de-Vale and Miss " 
 
 " Miss ! " said I" what Miss ? " 
 
 " Oh, for you Miss," rejoined Jupiter, with a grin. " Miss 
 Mary up and dress already, and de horses are at de door ; him 
 wait for you to ride wid him before breakfast, massa, and to see 
 de clearing of de fag." 
 
 "Eide before breakfast! see the clearing of the fog!" 
 grumbled I. " Romantic it may be, but consumedly incon- 
 venient." However, my knighthood was at stake ; so up I got, 
 drank my coffee, dressed, and adjourned to the piazza, where 
 my adorable was already rigged with riding-habit and whip. 
 Straightway we mounted, she into her side-saddle, with her 
 riding-habit and who knows how many petticoats beneath her, 
 while I, Pilgarlic, embarked in thin jane trousers upon a cold, 
 damp, indeed wet saddle, that made me shiver again. But I 
 was understood to be in love, ergo, I was expected to be agree- 
 able. However, a damp saddle and a thin pair of trousers allay 
 one's ardour a good deal too. But if any one had seen the 
 impervious fog in which we sat why, you could not see a tree 
 three yards from you a cabbage looked like a laurel-bush, 
 Sneezer became a dromedary, and the negroes passing the little 
 gate to their work were absolute Titans. Boom a long rever- 
 berating noise thundered in the distance and amongst the hills, 
 gradually dying away in a hollow nimble. " The Admiral tumb- 
 ling down the hatchway, Tom the morning gun fired at Port 
 Royal," said Mary ; and so it was. 
 
 The fire-flies were still glancing amongst the leaves of the beau- 
 tiful orange-trees in front of the house ; but we could see no 
 farther, the whole view being shrouded under the thick watery 
 veil which rolled and boiled about us, sometimes thick, and 
 sometimes thinner, hovering between a mist and small rain, and 
 wetting one's hair and face and clothes most completely. We
 
 518 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 descended from the eminence on which the house stood, rode 
 along the level at the foot of it, and, after a canter of a couple of 
 miles, we began to ascend a bridle-path, through the Guinea-grass 
 pastures, which rose rank and soakingly wet, as high as one's 
 saddlebow, drenching me to the skin in the few patches where 
 I was not wet before. All this while the fog continued as thick 
 as ever ; at length we suddenly rose above it rode out of it, as 
 it were. 
 
 St-Thomas-in-the-Vale is, as the name denotes, a deep valley, 
 about ten miles long by six broad, into which there is but one 
 inlet comfortably passable for carriages the road along which 
 we had to come. The hills, by which it is surrounded on all 
 sides, are, for the most part, covered with Guinea-grass pastures 
 on the lower ranges, and with coffee plantations and provision 
 grounds higher up. When we had ridden clear of the mist the 
 sun was shining brightly overhead, and everything was fresh and 
 sparkling with dewdrops near us ; but the vale was still concealed 
 under the wool-like sea of white mist, only pierced here and there 
 by a tall cocoa-nut tree rising above it, like the mast of a foun- 
 dered vessel. But anon the higher ridges of the grass pieces 
 appeared, as the fog undulated in fleecy waves in the passing 
 breeze, which, as it rose and sank like the swell of the ocean, 
 disclosed every now and then the works on some high-lying sugar 
 estate, and again rolled over them like the tide covering the 
 shallows of the sea, while shouts of laughter and the whooping 
 of the negroes in the fields, rose from out the obscurity, blended 
 with the signal-cries of the sugar boilers to the stokeholemen of 
 " Fire, fire grand copper, grand copper," and the ca-ca'iny, like 
 so many rooks, of the children driving the mules and oxen in 
 the mills, and the everlasting splashing and panting of the water- 
 wheel of the estate immediately below us, and the crashing and 
 smashing of the canes, as they were crushed between the mill 
 rollers; and the cracking of the wain and waggonmen's long 
 whips, and the rumbling and creaking and squealing of the 
 machinery of the mills, and of the carriage- wheels ; while the 
 smoke from the unseen chimney-stalks of the sugar-works rose 
 whirling darkly up through the watery veil, like spinning 
 waterspouts, from out the bosom of the great deep. Anon the 
 veil rose, and we were once more gradually enveloped in vapour. 
 Presently the thickest of the mist floated up, and rose above us 
 like a gauze-like canopy of fleecy clouds overhanging the whole 
 level plain, through which the red quenched sun, which a moment 
 before was flaming with intolerable brightness overhead, suddenly
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 519 
 
 assumed the appearance of a round red globe in an apothecary's 
 window, surrounded by a broad yellow sickly halo, which dimly 
 lit up, as if the sun had been in eclipse, the cane fields, then in 
 arrow, as it is called (a lavender- coloured flower, about three 
 feet long, that shoots out from the top of the cane, denoting 
 that it is mature, and fit to be ground), and the Guinea-grass 
 plats, and the nice-looking houses of the bushas, and the busy 
 mill-yards, and the noisy gangs of negroes in the field, which 
 were all disclosed, as if by the change of a scene. 
 
 At length, in love as we were, we remembered our breakfast ; 
 and, beginning to descend, we encountered in the path a gang 
 of about three dozen little glossy black piccaninies going to their 
 work, the oldest not above twelve years of age, under the care 
 of an old negress. They had all their little packies, or cala- 
 bashes, on their heads, full of provisions ; while an old cook, with 
 a bundle of fagots on her head, and a fire-stick in her hand, 
 brought up the rear her province being to cook the food which 
 the tiny little workpeople carried. Presently several book- 
 keepers, or deputy white superintendents on the plantation, 
 also passed strong healthy-looking young fellows in stuff 
 jackets and white trousers, and all with good cudgels in their 
 hands. The mist, which had continued to rise up and up, grow- 
 ing thinner and thinner as it ascended, now rent overhead about 
 the middle of the vale, and the masses, like scattered clouds, 
 drew towards the ledge of hills that surrounded it, like floating 
 chips of wood in a tub of water, sailing in long shreds towards 
 the most precipitous peaks, to which, as they ascended, they 
 attached themselves and remained at rest. And now the fierce 
 sun, reasserting his supremacy, shone once more in all his tropi- 
 cal fierceness right down on the steamy earth, and all was glare 
 and heat and bustle. 
 
 Next morning I rode out at daylight along with Mr Bang, 
 who had arrived on the previous evening. We stopped to 
 breakfast at a property of his about four miles distant, and cer- 
 tainly we had no reason to complain of our fare ; fresh fish from 
 the gully, nicely-roasted yams, a capital junk of salt beef, a dish 
 I always glory in on shore, although a hint ef it at sea makes 
 me quake ; and, after our repast, I once more took the road to 
 see the estate in company of my learned friend. There was a 
 long narrow saddle, or ridge of limestone, about five hundred 
 feet high, that separated the southern quarter of the parish from 
 the northern. The cane-pieces, and cultivated part of the estate, 
 lay in a dead level of deep black mould, to the southward of
 
 520 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 this ridge, from out which the latter rose abruptly. The lower 
 part of the ridge was clothed with the most luxuriant orange, 
 shaddock, lime, star-apple, bread-fruit, and custard-apple trees, 
 besides numberless others that I cannot particularise, while the 
 summit was shaded by tall forest timber. Proceeding along a 
 rough bridle-path for the space of two miles, we attained the 
 highest part of the saddle, and turned sharp off to the right, to 
 follow a small footpath that had been billed in the bush, being 
 the lines recently run by the land-surveyor between Mr Bang's 
 property and the neighbouring estate, the course of which mine 
 host was desirous of personally inspecting. We therefore left 
 our horses in charge of our servants, who had followed us, run- 
 ning behind, holding on by their tails, and began to brush through 
 the narrow path cut in the hot underwood. After walking a 
 hundred yards or so, we arrived at the point where the path 
 ended abruptly, abutting against a large tree that had been felled, 
 the stump of which remained, being about three feet high, and 
 at least five in diameter. Mr Bang immediately perched himself 
 on it to look about him, to see the lay of the land over the sea 
 of brushwood. I remained below, complaining loudly of the 
 heat and confined air of my situation, and swabbing all the while 
 most energetically, when I saw my friend start. 
 
 " Zounds, Tom, look behind you ! " We had nothing but our 
 riding-switches in our hands. A large snake, about ten feet 
 long, had closed up the path in our rear, sliding slowly from one 
 branch to another, and hissing and striking out its forked tongue 
 as it twisted itself, at the height of my head from the ground, 
 amongst the trees and bushes, round and round about, occasion- 
 ally twining its neck round a tree as thick as my body, on one 
 side of the path, and its tail round another, larger in girth than 
 my leg, on the other ; when it would, with prodigious strength 
 but the greatest ease and the most oily smoothness, bend the 
 smaller tree like a hoop, until the trunks nearly touched, although 
 growing full six feet asunder, as if a teicklefall or other strong 
 purchase, had been applied ; but continuing all the while it was 
 putting forth its power to glide soapily along, quite uncon- 
 cernedly, and to all appearance as pliant as a leather thong, 
 shooting out its glancing neck, and glowering about with its 
 little blasting fiery eyes, and sliding the forepart of the body 
 onwards without pausing, as if there had been no strain on the 
 tail whatsoever, until the stems of the two trees were at length 
 brought together, when it let the smaller go with a loud spank, 
 that shook the dew off the neighbouring branches, and the per-
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 521 
 
 spiration from Tom Cringle's forehead whose nerves were not 
 more steady than the tree like rain, and frightened all the 
 birds in the neighbourhood ; while it, the only unstartled thing, 
 continued steadily and silently on its course, turning and looking 
 at us and poking its head within arm's length, and raising it 
 with a loud hiss, and a threatening attitude, on our smallest 
 motion. 
 
 " A modern group of the Laocoon ; lord, what a neckcloth we 
 shall both have presently!" thought I. 
 
 Meanwhile, the serpent seemed to be emboldened from our 
 quietude, and came so near that I thought I perceived the hot 
 glow of its breath, with its scales glancing like gold and silver, 
 and its diamond-like eyes sparkling ; but all so still and smooth 
 that, unless it were an occasional hiss, its motions were noise- 
 less as those of an apparition. 
 
 At length the devil came fairly between us, and I could stand 
 it no longer. We had both up to this period been really and 
 truly fascinated ; but the very instant that the coast was clear 
 in my wake, by the snake heading me, and gliding between me 
 and Mr Bang, my manhood forsook me all of a heap, and, turn- 
 ing tail, I gave a loud shout and started off down the path at 
 speed, never once looking behind, and leaving Bang to his fate, 
 perched on his pedestal, like the laughing satyr ; however, the 
 next moment I heard him thundering in my rear. My panic 
 had been contagious, for the instant my sudden motion had 
 frightened the snake out of its way, Bang started forth after me 
 at speed, and away we both raced, until a stump caught my 
 foot, and both of us, after flying through the air a couple of 
 fathoms or so, trundled head over heels, over and over, shouting 
 and laughing. Pegtop now came up to us in no small surprise, 
 but the adventure was at an end, and we returned to Mr Bang's 
 to dinner. 
 
 Here we had an agreeable addition to our party in Sir Jeremy 
 Mayo, and the family of the Admiral, Sir Samuel Semaphore, 
 his lady, his two most amiable daughters, and the husband of 
 the eldest. 
 
 Next morning we rode out to breakfast with a very worthy 
 man, Mr Stornaway, the overseer of Mount Olive estate, in the 
 neighbourhood of which there were several natural curiosities to 
 be seen. Although the extent of our party startled him a good 
 deal, he received us most hospitably. He ushered us into the 
 piazza, where breakfast was laid, when up rose ten thousand flies 
 from the breakfast-table, that was covered with marmalade, and
 
 522 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 guava jelly, and nicely-roasted yams, and fair white bread, and 
 the fragrant bread-fruit roasted in the ashes and wrapped in 
 plantain-leaves ; while the chocolate and coffee pots the latter 
 equal in cubic contents to one of the Wave's water-butts emu- 
 lated each other in the fragrance of the odours which they sent 
 forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork 
 hams, and really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that 
 flanked the main body of the entertainment on a side-table all 
 strong provocatives to fall to. 
 
 "You, Quacco Peter Monkey," shouted Stornaway, " where 
 are you, with your brushes'? don't you see the flies covering the 
 table 1 " The three sable pages forthwith appeared, each with 
 a large green branch in his hand, which they waved over the 
 viands, and we sat down and had a most splendid breakfast. 
 Lady Semaphore and I for I have always had a touch of the 
 old woman in me were exceedingly tickled with the way in 
 which the piccaniny mummas, that is, the mothers of the negro 
 children, received our friend Bang. After breakfast, a regular 
 muster took place under the piazza of all the children on the pro- 
 perty under eight years of age, accompanied by their mothers. 
 
 " Ah, Massa Bang," shouted one, " why you no come see we 
 oftener 1 you forget your poor piccaniny hereabout." 
 
 " You grow foolish old man now," quoth another. 
 
 " You no wort you go live in town, an' no care about we 
 who make massa money here ; you no see we all tarving here ;" 
 and the nice cleanly-looking fat matron, who made the remark, 
 laughed loudly. 
 
 He entered into the spirit of the affair with great kindliness, 
 and verily, before he got clear, his pockets were as empty as a 
 half -pay lieutenant's. His fee-pennies were flying about in all 
 directions. 
 
 After breakfast we went to view the natural bridge a band 
 of rock that connects two hills together and beneath which a 
 roaring stream rushes, hid entirely by the bushes and trees that 
 grow on each side of the ravine. We descended by a circuitous 
 footpath into the river-course, and walked under the natural 
 arch, and certainly never was anything finer; a regular Der 
 Freyschutz delL The arch overhead was nearly fifty feet high, 
 and the echo was superb, as we found, when the sweet voices of 
 the ladies, blending in softest harmony (lord, how fine you be- 
 come, Tom !) in one of Moore's melodies, were reflected back 
 on us at the close with the most thrilh'ng distinctness ; while a 
 stone, pitched against any of the ivy-like creepers with which
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 523 
 
 the face of the rock was covered, was sure to dislodge a whole 
 cloud of birds, and not unf requently a slow-sailing white- winged 
 owL Shortly after the Riomagno Gully, as it is called, passes this 
 most interesting spot, it sinks, and runs for three miles under 
 ground, and again reappears on the surface, and gurgles over the 
 stones, as if nothing had happened. By the by, this is a com- 
 mon vagary of nature in Jamaica. For instance, the Rio Cobre, 
 I think it is, which, after a subterranean course of three miles, 
 suddenly gushes out of the solid rock at Bybrook estate, in a 
 solid cube of clear cold water, three feet in diameter; and I 
 remember, in a cruise that I had at another period of my life, 
 in the leeward part of the island, we came to an estate where 
 the supply of water for the machinery rose up within the bounds 
 of the mill-dam itself, into which there was no flow, with such 
 force, that above the spring, if I might so call it, the bubbling 
 water was projected into a blunt cone, like the bottom of a 
 caldron, the apex of which was a foot higher than the level of 
 the pond, although the latter was eighteen feet deep. 
 
 Alter an exceedingly pleasant day we returned home, and 
 next morning, when I got out of bed, I complained of a violent 
 itching and pain, a sort of nondescript sensation, a mixture 
 of pain and pleasure, in my starboard great toe, and on recon- 
 noitring, I discovered it to be a good deal inflamed on the ball, 
 round a blue spot about the size of a pin-head. Pegtop had 
 come into the room, and while he was placing my clothes in 
 order, I asked him "What this could be gout, think you, 
 Massa Pegtop gout ] " 
 
 " Gote, massa gote no, no ; him chiger, massa chiger 
 little something like one flea; poke him head under de kin, 
 dere lay egg ; ah, great luxury to Creole gentleman and lady 
 dat chiger; sweet pain, Creole miss say nice for cratch him, 
 him say." 
 
 " Why, it may be a Creole luxury, Pegtop, but I wish you would 
 relieve me of it." 
 
 " Surely, massa, surely, if you wish it," said Pegtop, in some 
 surprise at my want of taste. " Lend me your penknife den, 
 massa ; " and he gabbled away as he extracted from my flesh the 
 chiger bag like a blue pill in size and colour. 
 
 " 0, massa, top till you marry Creole wife, she will tell you 
 me say true ; ah, daresay Miss Mary himself love chiger to tickle 
 him to be sure him love to be tickle him love to be tickle 
 ay, all Creole miss love to be tickle he, he, he ! " 
 
 By agreement, Mr Bang and I met Mr Stornaway this morn-
 
 524 TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 ing, in order to visit some other estates together, and during 
 our ride I was particularly gratified by his company. He was 
 a man of solid and very extensive acquirements, and far above 
 what his situation in life at that time led one to expect. When 
 I revisited the island, some years afterwards, I was rejoiced to 
 find that his intrinsic worth and ability had floated him up into 
 a very extensive business, and I believe he is now a man of 
 property. I rather think he is engaged in some statistical work 
 connected with Jamaica, which, I am certain, will do him credit 
 whenever it appears. Odd enough, the very first time I saw 
 him I said I was sure he would succeed in the world ; and I am 
 glad to find I was a true prophet. To return : Our chief object 
 at present was to visit a neighbouring estate, the overseer of 
 which was, we were led to believe, from a message sent to Mr 
 Bang, very ill with fever. He was a most respectable young 
 man, Mr Stornaway told me, a Swede by birth, who had come 
 over to England with his parents at the early age of eight years, 
 where both he and his cousin Agatha had continued, until he 
 embarked for the West Indies. This was an orphan girl whom 
 his father had adopted, and both of them, as he had often told Mr 
 Stornaway, had utterly forgotten their Swedish ; in fact, they 
 understood no language but English at the time he embarked. 
 I have been thus particular, from a very extraordinary pheno- 
 menon that occurred immediately preceding his dissolution, of 
 which I was a witness. 
 
 We rode up in front of the door, close to the fixed manger, 
 where the horses and mules belonging to the busha are usually 
 fed, and encountered a negro servant on a mule, with an um- 
 brella-case slung across his back, and a portmanteau behind him, 
 covered with the usual sheep's fleece, and holding a saddle-horse. 
 
 " Where is your master 1 " said Mr Bang. 
 
 " De dactor is in de hose," replied Quashie. " Busha dere 
 upon dying." 
 
 We ascended the rocky unhewn steps, and entered the cool 
 dark hall, smelling strong of camphor, and slid over the polished 
 floors towards an open door, that led into the back piazza, where 
 we were received by the head book-keeper and carpenter. They 
 told us that the overseer had been seized three days before with 
 fever, and was now desperately ill; and presently the doctor 
 came forth out of the sick-room. 
 
 " Poor Wedderf elt is fast going, sir ; cold at the extremities 
 already very bad fever the bilious remittent of the country, 
 of the worst type."
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 525 
 
 All this while the servants, male and female, were whispering 
 to each other, while a poor little black fellow sat at the door of 
 the room, crying bitterly this was the overseer's servant. We 
 entered the room, which was darkened from the jealousies being 
 all shut, except one of the uppermost, which happening to be 
 broken, there was a strong pemil of light cast across the head 
 of the bed where the sick man lay, while the rest of the apart- 
 ment was involved in gloom. 
 
 The sufferer seemed in the last stage of yellow fever ; his skin 
 was a bright yellow, his nose sharp, and his general features 
 very much pinched. His head had been shaven, and there was 
 a handkerchief bound round it over a plantain-leaf, the mark of 
 the blister coming low down on his forehead, where the skin 
 was shrivelled like dry parchment; apparently it had not risen. 
 There was also a blister on his chest. He was very restless, 
 clutching the bedclothes, and tossing his limbs about ; his mouth 
 was ulcerated, and blood oozed from the corners ; his eyes were 
 a deep yellow, with the pupil much, dilated, and very lustrous ; 
 he was breathing with a heavy moaning noise when we entered, 
 and looked wildly round, mistaking Mr Bang and me for some 
 other persons. Presently he began to speak very quickly, and 
 to lift one of his hands repeatedly close to his face, as if there 
 was something in it he wished to look at. I presently saw that 
 it held a miniature of a fair-haired, blue-eyed, Scandinavian girl ; 
 but apparently he could not see it, from the increasing dimness 
 of his eyes, which seemed to distress him greatly. After a still 
 minute, during which no sound was heard but his own heavy 
 breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no one in 
 the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively ; 
 it struck me as being like I was certain of it it was Swedish, 
 which in health he had entirely forgotten, but now in his dying 
 moments vividly remembered. Alas ! it was a melancholy and 
 a moving sight, to perceive all the hitherto engrossing thoughts 
 and incidents of his youth and manhood, all save the love of one 
 dear object, suddenly vanished from the tablet of his memory, 
 ground away and abrased, as it were, by his great agony ; or like 
 worthless rubbish, removed from above some beautiful ancient 
 inscription, which for ages it had hid, disclosing in all their 
 primeval freshness, sharp cut into his dying heart, the long- 
 smothered but never-to-be-obliterated impressions of his early 
 childhood. I could plainly distinguish the name Agatha, when- 
 ever he peered with fast glazing eyes on the miniature. All this 
 while a nice little brown child was lying playing with his watch
 
 526 TOM CRINGLE S LOGL 
 
 and seals on the bed beside him, while a handsome coloured 
 girl, a slight young creature, apparently its mother, sat on the 
 other side of the dying man, supporting his head on her lap, 
 and wetting his mouth every now and then with a cloth dipped 
 in brandy. 
 
 As he raised the miniature to his face, she would gently en- 
 deavour to turn away his hand, that he might not look at one 
 whom she, poor thing, no doubt considered was usurping the 
 place in his fluttering heart that she long fancied had been 
 filled by herself solely ; and at other times she would vainly try 
 to coax it out of his cold hand, but the dying grasp was now 
 one of iron, and her attempts evidently discomposed the depart- 
 ing sinner ; but all was done kindly and quietly, and a flood of 
 tears would every now and then stream down her cheeks, as she 
 failed in her endeavours, or as the murmured, gasped name, 
 Agatha, reached her ear. 
 
 "Ah!" said she, "him heart not wid me now it far away 
 in him own country him never will make me yeerie what him 
 say again no more." 
 
 Oh, woman, woman ! who can fathom that heart of thine ! 
 By this time the hiccup grew stronger, and all at once he sat up 
 strong in his bed without assistance, " light as if he felt no 
 wound;" but immediately thereafter gave a strong shudder, 
 ejecting from his mouth a jet of dark matter like the grounds 
 of chocolate, and fell back dead whereupon the negroes began 
 to howl and shriek in such a horrible fashion that we were glad 
 to leave the scene. 
 
 Next day, when we returned to attend the poor fellow's 
 funeral, we found a complete bivouac of horses and black ser- 
 vants under the trees in front of the house, which was full of 
 neighbouring planters and overseers, all walking about, and talk- 
 ing, and laughing, as if it had been a public meeting on parish 
 business. Some of them occasionally went into the room to 
 look at the body as it lay in the open coffin, the lid of which 
 was at length screwed down, and the corpse carried on four 
 negroes' shoulders to its long home, followed by the brown girl 
 and all the servants, the latter weeping and howling ; but she, 
 poor thing, said not a word, although her heart seemed, from 
 the convulsive heaving of her bosom, like to burst. He was 
 buried under a neighbouring orange-tree, the service being read 
 by the Irish carpenter of the estate, who got half a page into 
 the marriage service by mistake before either he or any one else 
 noticed he was wrong.
 
 THE LAST OF THE LOG TOM CRINGLE'S FAREWELL. 527 
 
 Three days after this the Admiral extended my leave for a 
 fortnight, which I spent in a tour round this most glorious 
 island with friend Aaron, whose smiling face, like the sun (more 
 like the nor'west moon in a fog, by the by), seemed to diffuse 
 warmth and comfort and happiness wherever he went, while Sir 
 Samuel and his charming family, and the general, and my dearie 
 and her aunt, returned home ; and after a three weeks' philan- 
 dering I was married, and all that sort of thing, and a week 
 afterwards embarked with my treasure for I had half a million 
 of dollars on freight, as well as my own particular jewel; and 
 don't grin at the former, for they gave me a handsome sum, and 
 helped to rig us when we got to Quid England, where Lotus- 
 Leaf was paid off, and I settled for a time on shore, the happiest, 
 &c. &c. &c., until some years afterwards, when the wee Cringles 
 began to tumble home so deucedly fast that I had to cut and 
 run, and once more betake myself to the salt sea. My aunt and 
 her family returned at the same time to England, in a merchant- 
 ship under my convoy, and became our neighbours. Bang also 
 got married soon after to Miss Lucretia Wagtail, by whom he 
 got the Slap estate. But old Gelid and my other allies remain, 
 I believe, in single blessedness until this hour. 
 
 My tale is told my yarn is ended ; and were I to spin it 
 longer I fear it would be only bending it " end for end ; " yet 
 still I linger, " like the sough of an auld sang " on the ear, loth 
 to pronounce that stern heart-crushing word, that yet " has been 
 and must be," and which, during my boisterous and unsettled 
 morning, has been, alas ! a too familiar one with me. I hope I 
 shall always bless Heaven for my fair blinks, although, as the 
 day has wore on, I have had my own share of lee-currents, hard 
 gales, and foul weather ; and many an old and dear friend has 
 lately swamped alongside of me, while few new ones have shoved 
 out to replace them. But suffering, that scathes the heart, does 
 not always make it callous ; and I feel much of the woman hang- 
 ing about mine still even now, when the tide is on the turn 
 with me, and the iron voice of the inexorable First-Lieutenant, 
 Time, has sung out, " Strike the bell eight," every chime smit- 
 ing on my soul as if an angel spoke, to warn me that my stormy 
 forenoon watch is at length over; that the sun, now passing 
 the meridian, must soon decline towards the western horizon, 
 and who shall assure himself of a cloudless setting 1 
 
 I have, in very truth, now reached the summit of the bald
 
 528 ^ TOM CRINGLE'S LOG. 
 
 spray-washed promontory, and stand on the slippery ledge of 
 the cliff that trembles to the thundering of the surge beneath : 
 but the plunge must be made so at once, Farewell, all hands, 
 and God bless ye ! If, while chucking the cap about at a ven- 
 ture but I hope and trust there has been no such thing it 
 has alighted on the head of some ancient ally, and pinched in 
 any the remotest degree, I hereby express my most sincere and 
 heartfelt regret ; and to such a one I would say as he said who 
 wrote for all time, 
 
 " I have shot 
 Mine arrow o'er the house, and hurt my brother." 
 
 Thus I cut rny stick while the play is good, and before the 
 public gets wearied of me ; and as for the Log, it is now 
 launched, swim or founder : if those things be good, it will float 
 from its own buoyancy ; if they be naught, let it sink at once 
 and for ever all that Tom Cringle expects at the hands of his 
 countrymen, is A CLEAR STAGE, AND NO FAVOUR. 
 
 THE 
 
 PRINTED AND ELECTROTYPED DY W. BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.
 
 University of California Library 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
 ersewais- 
 310/825-9188 
 
 AC 
 
 OCT15 
 
 *-. - 
 
 as m