iim^imim ^^^, ^^n^jm^ W^fv"^ m^%i m '^P r\ M tmf^-.,::^ ^^WW' **5^ft.i6>»:R.i k^ri^f^f^ i^^Mf^- S^^^'^^i^, Iltll' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 'f^f^ PRESENTED BY PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID mryk'f^^-.^ ^-^^m^^ -r"''' . ^s^^^^-sT'^;-.' 'n% . ^'«lSiw., -^l^v^ i£"r^^- -, TOM CRINGLE'S LOG BY MICHAEL SCOTT " 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." Chii.dr IIaroi.p. A NEW EDITION, WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AVILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND S0:N^S EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXII j^&ik. (t. PREFATORY NOTICE. The few particulars M'hich we know with regard to the Author of Tom Cringle's Log may be compressed alnuost 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 bom 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, W.U '7:\im 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 Blackwood's Magazine ever enjoyed more general or continued popularity : they were characterised by the Quarterly Revieiv^ as the most brilliant series of magazine papers of the time ; and by Coleridge, in his TaUe 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. CON T E N T S I. THE LAUNCHING OF THE LOG, II. THE CRUISE OF THE TORCH, III. THE QUENCHING OF THE TORCH, IV. SCENES ON THE COSTA FIRME, V. THE PICCAROON, . VL THE CRUISE OF THE SPARK, VII. SCENES IN JAMAICA, . VIII. THE CHASE OF THE SMUG 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. AU was silent ; the sun shone down upon us Hke 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 alHgator, 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 baUast, 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 I 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 cap- tain 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 1 " 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 f " 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 1 " " 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 beheve they fired first. But the crews are not murdered ; on the con- trary, they have been w^ell 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 f " " 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 1 then give us the jifteen.'' " 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 ^chooner 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 phght, 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 hiuL 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 wasJi 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 CRINGLES 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 Eoyal, 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 taUow 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 j and, as if I had been 198 TOM cringle's LOG. actually possessed by some wandering spirit, who liad taken the small liberty of using my faculties and tongue without my con- currence, I hasily asked the man if he was an American i 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. AU 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 PRIETO. 199 "Well, tlie imagination does sometimes play one strange tricks ; I verily beUeve 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 j" 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 weU as Macbeth, but nevertheless it was with an indescribable feeling of curiosity, dashed with av.e, 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 ? 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 Ms face, and no fan- ciful grouping of my heated brain. Look there, sir — look there — ^I know it can't be — hut 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 difiiculty 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. YOMITO PRIETO. 201 " By heavens ! it heaves," I exclaimed, mucli moved — " how is this 1 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 Jiis body. Pray, Captain Transom, what trick is this 1 — Is there anything below that cloak there 1 " " What cloak do you mean 1 " " 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 tvhnt is there below that cloak." He looked surprised beyond all measure. " Why, Mr Cringle, I cannot for the soul of me comprehend you j indeed I cannot ; but, Mafame, indulge him. See if there be anything below my cloak. The serv^ant 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 ■w-ith 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 Vill 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 vnW 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, aU 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 de\il, 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 twinkUng 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 notv — 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 1 " 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 hy, these gentry are fond of singing of the blessed sun — were they sailors they would bless the moon also, VOMITO PRIETO. 203 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 pUl-boxes, where, to ride the simile to death at once, I have w^arped 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 Httle 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 1 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, w^hose 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 Tvdth 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. tlie 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-w^hite 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 hke 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- YOMITO 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 I Boatswain's mate, call the watch." Whi-whew, whi-whew, chirrup, chip, chip — the deck was alive in an instant, " as bees hizz 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 tui^ns 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 ? — 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 cringle'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 joul" — (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 weU, that mil 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 1 " The man's voice, reflected from the concave surface of the schooner's mainsail, had a hollow, echoing sound, that startled ma " 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 oif 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. \Vhen 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 1 " " No, sir, no." " Afterguard, fire, and let go the life-buoy — lower away the quarter-boats — -j oUy-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 tlirough 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 all 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 id^a 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 tlirough 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 itseK with pleasing recollections, had produced a corres- ponding calm in the animal ; but the poor fellow to whom I had expressed myseK 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. AU 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, w^hich was gaily Kt 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 hlue- 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, and 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, loUing 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 rotundOj some melodious ditty, with infinite complacency, and, to aU appearance, to the great delight of his auditory, when his eyes Kghted 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, ^ith 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 aU 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 yeUow, not as saffron, but as the skin of a ripe lime ; the icMte of my eyes, to use an Irishism, ditto ; my mouth and lips had festered and broke outy 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 bander 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 tlie 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, haK-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 hve? " lU 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 PRIETO. 213 and back as I advanced, ^T.tli 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, Rem ! " 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 twinkUng, 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 heastesses 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 dumfoundered 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 haK an hour at a time. 214 TOM cringle's log. I say, messmate, have you ever liad the yellow fever, the vomito prietOy black vomit, as the Spaniards call it 1 — No 1 Have you ever had a bad bilious fever, then ? — 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 smaU. 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 whisU ; 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 tlie 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 yourseK too much, Tom ; take it coolly, man, and thank God that you are now fairly round the corner. Is your head painful ? " "No— why should it?" 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, miy fingers instinctively moved to take hold of my hair, for I was in no smaU 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 poicers 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 1 " " 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 1 " 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, heutenant ? Why, you are positively gay this morning ! Preserve me I — 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 '? Now, what is that crackling on my chest % More plantain-leaves, as I hve ! " " 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 1 " " 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 game-hoXy 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 taJdng 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 " Jolin Crow ! — Coroner's inquest ! — Cool shavers those West India chaps, after all 1 " 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 ahnighty 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 haK-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 lie 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 himseK, 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 XI MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. "There be land-rats and water-rats— water-tliieves 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 — enjo3dng 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 wlien I visited it ; tlie 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 httle 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 1 " " Dere now," grumbled the negro, " dere now — easy ting to deal wid white gentleman, but debil cannot satisfy dem worsted sash." Then aloud — " Me Ao 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 hrain you, but it is not worth while ! " — I question if he could, however, know- ing, as I did, the thickness of their skuUs. — " 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 Heavystem ? — 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 icliy you left him." And he approached Snowdrop with his cane raised in act to strike. "Top, massa," shouted the negro; "me wiH teU 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, •vsithout 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 "WTath, now all alive and kicking from the smart — " Because Cucumbershin is loaded wid light infantry, sir, and all of mine are grenadier, IMassa 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 yeerie — but him say, five grenadier — especially wid Corporal Bumblechop for one — is good load — ay, wery tif load — equal to seven talHon 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 ice re 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 CRINGLES 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 ; can 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 MOKE 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 a 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 him : 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 wdll 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 ! But as I do not intend to w^ite an essay on yellow fever, I will make an end, and get on shipboard as fast as 1 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 1 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 to^vn, 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 w^ere, by lights in the night ? The admiral, for instance, had a semaphore in the stationary flag-ship at Port Eoyal, which communicated with another at his Perij 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 fiag-lieutenaut, he drove me up in his ketureen to lunch. 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 ] " 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 d table have we got here ? A red ball, two pennants under — What can that mean 1 — Ball — it is the bo7met-rouf/e, or I am a Dutchman, with two short streamers " — Another look — " A red night-cap and a j^air 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 w^as 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 oi 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. " Call the first-heutenant." " 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 aw^ay 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, r 226 TOJi 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, wdth 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 puU." " 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?" "Why, do you think the Firebrands are thieves, you old canary, you % " "How much, eh? " said the boatswain's mate. " 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. ^27 more tlian she asked ; but, by way of taking out tlie 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 vdih 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 itseK, as she was held, kicking and spurring, high above their heads. At length the captain, who was no gTeat 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 tabfe 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, hke sheep in a Smith- 228 TOM cringle's log. field pen tlie evening before market-day. These were tlie foriy 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 1 — 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- Eosa-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 ran 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 feUow-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 beheve 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 1 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 honte, 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. MOBE 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 1 " " 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 w^ay 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 ? " 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 castas, 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, Jike an ugly corbie in its dirty nest — " Crier, caU 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 1 " " 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 1 " " 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 1 " 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 wJietv ! " 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 sheared me on — on — why, please your honour, he seared me on — idth a redhot iron ! " " Why, I guessed as much, if he seared you at all ; but ^chere 234 TOM cringle's log. did he sear you 1 Come now," coaxingly, " tell tlie 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 Hke, 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 ? " " 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 ? " Immediately after the judgment was pronounced, which, both as to import, and Kterally, 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 sohriqjiet 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, inevitahle deathj with greater firmness than British soldiers or sailors. 236 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 wiU 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 indifi'erence ! — 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 me ] " I answered kindly, I presume ; who could have done so harshly ] 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. You have a mother ? " said he. I assented. " And an only sister f " 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 cava 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 tiU 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 icill deliver it. Promise a dying man — promise a great sinner." But it was momentary — he queUed the passion with a fierce and savage energy, as he said sternly, "Promise! ijromise! " 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, jNIaria, 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 suff'ered 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 dell 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 j^atience, 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 fran?Led 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'?" and he started to his feet, and almost embraced me. Now, I had never met the said Peregrine Whiffle but twice in my hfe ; 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 diahle came you not to see me, man? 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 liome 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 ofif — 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 IX 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 sabnon, 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 A^ished, 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. Captam Transom by this time had landed and came up with us. " Ah, Transom," said WhiiSe, " 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, ekl" " 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 ^dth 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, /o?" 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. " Diahle porte T amour, ^^ whispered Captain Transom. " Swallowed a Scotch pint of salt water to a certainty. — Run, PiKer, 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 Hke 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 liis 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 Fa^e 241, MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 241 quit Yerk of having been, directly or indirectly, the cause of liis 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 we 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 jioints 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 d^appui for a sheep's tail. He had an enormous cocked-bat on, to w^hichwas 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 mowdngs, first wiping my shoes with his moiiclwir, 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 CRINGLES 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 were ; but the Thi7ig 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 eff'ect 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 Jlddle 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 tbe tune of Guinea Corn, the following ditty : — *' Massa Buccra lob for see Bullock caper like monkee — 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. All, 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 j " away with you, sir ! " 244 TOM cringle's log. Here the morrice-dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, keeping liim 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 feUow'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 puUed 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 aU the intermediate gradations of colour. Each set was dressed pin for pin alike, and carried 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 2^icauiny, 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 looman — brown lady. But — as if the whole city had been tom-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 Flace d'ArmeSy 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 thfi 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 ofiicers 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 mm — 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 buUocks 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 ivhite 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 dra^\^l sword in its hand, with which it made various flourishes, at each one of which I trembled for its Kosinante's ears. The Device was followed by about fifty other odd-looking creatures, aU 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 — aU. 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 1" " 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 — ^leftwe 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 to 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, ehl You no see me tick him into de gim before we yoke de mule, dem, ehl — ^You tief you, ehV " No ! " roared the other — " you Walkandnyam, you hab no brokefast, you liard — 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 hutt 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 sufl'ocated 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 f eepenny, 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, aU sitting with their legs cocked up, their feet resting on a sort of surbase, above which the jealousies, 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 tlian his country friend, has contrived to extract his paw, and holds it out in act to shake. " Ah ! how do you do, Katoon 1 " 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, off 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 jiggery. On horseback, 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 w*hips under their arms, or crossing them in their teeth, it may be, they commence the rugging and riving operation. In this case — Shingle's bit of blood swerves, we may assume — Eatoon 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 1 — glad to see you, Canetop. How do you do, / liope.^^ — " How MORE SCENES IN JAMAICA. 251 are you, Yamfu, my dear fellow 1 " their horses fretting and jumj)ing 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 I 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 indi\idual in the company. I looked to Captain Transom, as much as to say, " Can they mean us to take them at their word 1 " He nodded. " We are soiry 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 77ie." " 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 ketureen, 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 yef? " 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 tlie 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 afi'ord 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 is 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'imi^orte, 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 aU 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 niglitcap ! " quoth our host. " Oh, is it that you are at ? " 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 teU a story." " Thank you, Tom," said Fyall ; " I owe you a good turn for that, my boy." " Fyall's story — iMr Fyall's story 1 " resounded on all hands. Fyall, glad to escape the song and wet nightcap, instantly began. L " Why, my friends, you all know Isaac Grimm, the Jew snuff- I merchant and cigar-maker, in Harbour Street. Weil, Isaac had I a brother, Ezekiel by name, who carried on business at Cura^oa ; I 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 ? " " Certainly ! " shouted both Captain Transom and myseK in a breath, although we had never heard of him before. " Hah, I knew it 1 Well then, Ezekiel was very rich ; he f, came down in August last in the Pickle schooner, and, as bad I luck would have it, he feU 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 viU, 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 Cura^oa. I love dat place ; twenty years since I left de ]\Iinories, all dat time I cheat dere, and tell lie dere, and lif dere happily. Oh, you most sent my pody for its puryment to Curagoa ! ' — ' 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 1 ' 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 Cura^oa, 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 brouglit 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 inteed.' — ' 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," if 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 1 ' — ' 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 1 ' Isaac grew pale as a corpse. * O mine Got — mine poor broder, dat you ever was live, to tie in Janiaic — Oh tear, oh tear!'" " 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, WTinging the captain's hand, in a voice tremulous and scarcely audible from extreme emotion, * O 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 po7' — de onclean peast, I mean. If you had put invoish him ash peef 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 V" " 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. FyaU, Captain Transom, Whiffle, Aaron Bang, and myseK 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 hy 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 FyaU, and the rest, eh T' 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 % — 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? — 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 Kft." " 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 mndow-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, dnmk 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 slioulders — 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 Ramihes — broke my back, Tom — spoiled my qua- drilKng for ever and a day : d — n the judge's ice, though, and the saw particularly." " Where is he — where is Whiffle 1 " 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 CRINGLES LOG. " But liand us back little Whiffle/' continued Fyall, " and we shall be oiF." 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 CHAPTEE XII. THE CRUISE OF THE FIEEBRAND. Showing, amongst other pleasant matters well worthy of being recorded, how 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 ? " The 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 glob6 — 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 BoJce ; 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 ckingle'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 carefuUy 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 Tenerifi'e, 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, tt'7ie?'e 7ia?;e 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 monipHes. 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 Tvith 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, hke 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 Coiisdences — such as they are. I myself now — even I, Thomas Cringle, Esquire — amongst sundry vain imaginings, conceive that I 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 EIREBRAND. 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 thnist 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 my next-door neighbour. Madam Adversity, tirhng 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 iDhir, 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' erdoweel, Tam," 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 li Whare hae ye stowed him, man — tell me that 1 " 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 otlier, 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 wiR 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 ad\ice, and you'll be some credit to yourfreens 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 glowered 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 liaverlng, seldom acts the monitor in this way, unless against respectable crimes, such as murder, debauching your friend's wife, or stealing. But the cliield 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 greiosome 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 ? " 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 1 " 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 broicn game — and he is not far -wTong 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 noii\ my boy li " But just at this instant, Jack strikes out with, "Cringle, order me a tumbler -r- 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. Consliy lias 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 straio in the amber, Tom, and the only wonder is, hoiu 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 1 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 lug — why don't you go to the fountain-head — why don't you try your hand in a curtain lecture on Old Kit North himseK — the hoary sinner who seduced me?" 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. 267 his cachinnation ; 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 Belief Bill, and, last of all, the Keform 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 Boyal 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 thitber by the pestilent breath of European liberalism. What a vineyard for Abbe Sieyes to have laboured in ! Every Capltania 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 hoil 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 clififs 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 Tvith 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 ? " *' 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 fljdng in the stern, came alongside ; and the pilot, a tall brown man, a moi'eno, 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. " Seiior," quoth he to me, " is de harbour blow up yet? I mean, you see de viento walking into him*? — 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 whicli they were driven up in clonds, 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 v/ithin 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 hotella de Roma "por el honor del pais." 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 tlie 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 icould 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 Tvith 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, w^ho 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 hoUows, 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 he foid of tlie limb of that 272 TOM cringle'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 Reefpoint ; 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 ?" " 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 f ore-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 saving 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 kiUed 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- seK 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 1 " 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 aU run to the starboard side, leaving me to be drowned to port hereV " 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 hurry 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 reached 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 hoUows 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 ivas, 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 clief- d^oeuvrey 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 wliite 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 w^e, 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 Daming-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 1 " 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 gangw^ay." 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 gang^^ay, 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, ^78 . TOM CRINGLES LOG. tlie Watersprite, wliicli was making capital play ; for although we had not the bottom of the toymen, 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 niiracle ; 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 " Tlra, diahlitos, 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 fhe water roared, and the men strained their muscles and sinews to cracking ; and all was splash, splash, and icliiz, whiz, and 2'>ech, pech, about us ; hut it tvould 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, countrjrmen— 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 cliiF, 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 sohtary white-sailing owl would every now and then flit spectre-like from one green tuft, across the bald face of the chff, to another, and the small divers around us were breaking up the black surface of the waters into httle 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 ? " 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 1 " 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 tvay with us most accurately. He was distinctly visible, from the strong and vivid phos- phorescefice 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 lie 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 j&n. 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 haste 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 mizentop. " 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 % " We arrived within pistol-shot of the ship. As we approached, the sentry hailed, " Boat, ahoy ! " " Firebrand," sang out the skipper, in reply. " j\Ian 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 manropes 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^ " " 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 1 — Among the cockatoos up yon- der T' 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 CBUISE OF THE FIREBRAND. 283 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 j 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, hghting 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 light 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 CHAP TEE 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 Wakefield. " Ay Dios, si sera possible que he ya hallado lugar que pueda senir de escondida sepnltura a la carga pesada deste cuei^o, que tan contra mi voluntad sostengo ? " Don Quixote de la Mancha. The next morning, after breakfast, I proceeded to Santiago, and landed at tlie customhouse wliarf, 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 w^ere, and inquired when we were to give them convoy, the latest news from Kingston, &c. At length I saw our friend Eicardo 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 tw^o 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 ^6- 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. " SeUor Campana — esepobrefamilia de Cangrejo ! Lastima ! Lastima I " " Cangrejo — Cangrejo T' 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 f eehngly 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 ii^. 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 wiU not press it." Good manners would not allow me to push it farther, and we trudged along together, until we arrived at Don Ricardo Cam- pana's door. It was a large brick building, plastered over as THE pirate's LEMAK. 287 already described, and whitewaslied. Tliere was a projecting stair in front, Tvith 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 fiUed 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 w^hom 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, w^hich 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 w^hile 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 go^vn, very laxly fitted. She was the very converse of our old ship, she never missed staySy although I did cruelly. " TMs is my friend. Lieutenant Cringle," said mine host. " A las 2nes 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, w^elcome." 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 Tipriglit, was excellent. When we had done with sub- stantials, dulce — 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 Kicardo. " 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 % — Have the goodness to introduce me." The skipper was presented in due form, the lady receiving him without the least mauvaise lionte, 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 sellor tomaria un asiento." " Muclio, 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 hestias 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 Enghsh 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 cVhote. 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 wliich Spaniards, Americans, and Eng- lishmen sat and smoked, and 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, ^\ill 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 \vished 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 bobbing 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 projjria 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 Seiior Picador Cangrejo, one of our magnates, that he will consider it an especial favour if you wdll call on him, either this forenoon or to-morrow." " Why, wlio IS this Cangrejo, Don Ricardol 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 mucliaj muclia miseria, liijo 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, Cajjtain 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 Ricardo'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 b6en red orice. 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 Ricardo Campana, la Senora Campana, and a brother of hers, two dark young men who were Don Ricardo'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 weU. " Bring dinner," quoth Don Ricardo — " trae la comida " — ^and four black female domestics THE pirate's LEMAN. 291 entered ; the first with a large dish of pUlaffe, 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, Hke 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- seK were finishing off with the olla podrida, vtdth 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 " SmoUet's feast after the manner of the ancients," whispered Transom. At length he made a vigorous effort, and straightway sang out — " Leau de vie, Don Ricardibus — 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 Veau 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 his wife. In like mannei he gavfe 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 " mucliOy muclio^^ 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 olive 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 Noi-a's gown for me. To rise and fall as nature pleases," when the wearer is, as in the present case she ivas, 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 repHed 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 riRATE'S LEMAN. 1^93 took place — the girls producing their guitars ; and we were all mighty frolicsome and happy, when a couple oijxidres, 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 Seiiora 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 Eicardo returning soon after, we had sweetmeats and liqueurs, and coff'ee 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 droj) of something hot, will you, a tumbler of hot brandy-and-water, after the waltzing, eh 1 — 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 ofiicer 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 liad all gotten fairly into tlie 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 quatres — 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 enough 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 one sheet, and leaving a silver apparatus at the head, they disap- peared — " Buenas noches, senores — las camas est an list as." 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 Eicardo'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 tabled Why, it must be a quiz. Only fancy me dished out and served up like a great calijDi 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?" said Aaron again, as if suddenly aroused from his slumbers — "I say, none of your fun. Transom." A large bat was fiaffing 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 ? " 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 bewitclied and bedevilled. Murder ! — a scorpion lias 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 f " " Mucho, muchoj' shouted Bang from below the table. " Send for a doctoribus, Senor Bichardum. I am dead and t'other thing —help!— help!" " Dios guarda usted^^ again ejaculated Campana. " What has 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 alhgator, 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 alhgator, or something of that sort, sir." Then a loud yawn. " Swallowed a what? " rejoined Campana, greatly astonished. " No, no," snorted the captain — " I am wrong — he says he has been stung by an alhgator." " Stung by an alligator? — impossible." " Why, then," persisted the skipper, " if he be not stung by an alhgator, or if he has not really swallowed one, at all events, an alhgator has either stung or swallowed him — so make the most of it, Don Bicardo." " Why, this is absurd, with all submission," continued Cam- pana; "how the deuce could he swallow an alligator, or an alh- gator get into my house to annoy him? " " D — n it," said Transom, half tipsy, and very sleepy — "that's THE pirate's LEMAK. 297 Ms look-out. — You are very unreasonable, Don Eicardo ; 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 sohre 7nesa" [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'U choke me" — spurt — sputter — sputter — " choke me, man." " Cuidado,'' said Don Eicardo; "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 Ins 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 iiOS 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 ? " 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, stiR 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 PIRATES 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 1 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- sonce — and sure enough there was Don Ricardo and Bang at it, tooth and nail. " Allow me to assist you," quoth the Don. "Oh no — mucho — muclw,^' 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 1 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 streammg 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 Kicardo'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 ^vith 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 pikate's lemax. 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 myseK, 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 j " 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 stomacli 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 more, and for many days and weeks we all flattered ourselves that he had reformed ; until one morning, about four months ago, he was discovered coming 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 herseK 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 Ricardo, " 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 liave 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. 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. u -S06 .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 aHght from their volante. When we all were accounted for in the porch, Don Kicardo 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 hestias and carriage ; but all this time there was no appearance of any living creature belonging to the family. The dark hail, 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. " EstraTiOj^ murmured Don Kicardo, " tmiy estrano ! " " 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 wlio is worse, or what 1 — speak man — May my wife enter 1 " " 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 — heclia sangre por la bocar " Good God, why did you not say so before? " 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 Picardo ! " 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, Hft 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 gitde broad Scotch, as he brushed away Seiior 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 dockeny 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 lie must have been ! " " But the docken, man," said I ; " fiisionless as a docJcen — how classic ! what an exclamation to proceed from the mouth of a solemn Don ! " . 308 TOM cringle's log. "No gibes regarding the dockeii," 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 now, Mr Cringle j 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 lie 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 cliu- bascOf 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 chaimel, 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 high — a fathom deep does not convey the idea — like a stream of lava, or as one may conceive of the Red 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 sufi'erer'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 log. 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 ivhicli you tlwuglit 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, xiil 18. May I venture on such a quotation in such a place ? — She was extremely like her brother ; and her fine face was overepread 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 xoalk. Egregious errors all ! An Irishwoman of the true Milesian descent can loalk 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 loalk. Once or twice she tried to enter into conversation with me THE pirate's LEMAN. Sit on indijfferent 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. ^^ Frandsca,^^ said a low hoarse female voice from the other room — " Francisca, ven acd, mi querida liermanaP 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 he 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*? Senora 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 WMst 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 djdng ; 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 Ids 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 1 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," 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 oedematous 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, mth 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 -wTists, 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 eyebroM^s, 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 1 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 more and more weak, she said, so she must be prompt. "You have some trinkets for me, Mr Cringle V 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 ? " 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 itseK 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 tuUp 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 comer 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 nzard 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 %vithin 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 1 Does no analogy present itseK to you between what you have seen, between the mysterious power possessed by these subtile reptiles, and — Look — look again." A large and stiU 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 heUI — what am I to think of it?" The dragon-fly was still there. She continued — " En purga- torio, all Dios, tu quedas en purgatorio,^^ 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 moaningly — the sun was obscured — large drops of rain fell heavily into the room — a sudden dazzling flash of lightning took place, and the dragon-fiy 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 queridoV^ 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 ! O 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 IX CUBA. Arid. " Safely in harbour Is the king's ship ; in the deep nook, where once Thou calledst me up at midnight to fetch dew From the still-vexed Bermoothes — there she's hid." r/ie 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 sjTnpathy. 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 clergyinan 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 1 " quoth Bang in the other room, when this had been translated to him. Glad to leave the chamber of death, I entered the large haU, 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 coUoquy, and the wind now burst down the vaUey with a loud roar. Don Eicardo 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 Ricardibus, 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 aU 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 Eicardo 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 saysr' " The docken, man," said I. — Don Eicardo smiled. " I am a Scotchman, my dear sir ; and the same person who, in his youth, was neither more nor less than wee Eichy Cloche, in the long town of Kirkcaldy, is, in his old age, Don Eicardo Campana 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 fearfuUy, and as Don Eicardo, 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 T' " 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 un 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" Caspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one hand and a thong similar to Don Eicardo'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[tormenta 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 — aU 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 mnd, 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 comer of the house the full force of the storm met us right in the teeth, when flap flew Don Eicardo'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 hoUo 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 hoUoing continued. " Why, what can be wrong ? " at length said Don Ricardo, 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 Eicardo — Don Ricardo ! " at this crisis sang out Gaspar, who had clambered up the rock, to have a peep about him — "Ave Maria — Alia son dos pobres, que ■peresquen pronto j si nosotros no iiueden ayudarlos." Whereabouts ? " said Campana — " whereabouts ? speak, man, " 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 cHff, 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 sliould have been drowned entirely, had we not brought up on tliis island of Barataria here. — But how is the young lady 1 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 yolt 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 Ricardo carries, will you 1 " " No, no — I can do that myself," said Don Ricardo, 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 Ricardo, 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 himseK 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 Real — 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, cofi*ee- bushes, and even stones. Presently it luUed again, and we got on end to look round us. " How will the old house stand all this, Don Kicardo ? " 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 w^as 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 en\ironed 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 Ricardo 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 T' 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 haU 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 w^as blown up as if by gunpowder— ay, in the twinkling of an eye; and there we were witb 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 Senora 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 idlly 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 wlQ 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 aU remove, for, with 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 nished 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 gi\ing 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 w^ould withstand the storm, consisted in its having no window or aperture whatsoever, excepting two small i^orts, one on each side of the altar-piece, and the door, w^hich 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 ice, the gentlemen of the comfortless party, seated ourselves, disconsolately enough, on the wooden benches. The door was made fast, after the ser\^ants 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. " 1 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 tee 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." 32^ T03I 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 w^ax-lights shed a strong lustre on the worthy derigds 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 his 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, vdth two glanc- ing eyes, was thrust through the hole after it. The paw kept swinging about hke a pendulum for a few seconds, and was then . SCENES IN CUBA. 327 suddenly thrust into the padre^s 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 pui'issima, que hocado — 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 padres 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 aU hands like the very devil. " Sneezer, you villain, how came you here ? " I exclaimed, in great amazement — " how came you here, sir ? " 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 ? " He looked in the direc- 528 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 1 " 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 agiia 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 IX 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 1 why, we are dyed chocolate colour, you see, in that river, flowing not with milk and honey, but with something miraculously like pea-soujD — water, I cannot caU it." " But, Heaven help us, why did you try the ford, man ? " 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, 1 knew better — I had him in tow, sir ; but after we crossed he was so faint and chill, that I had to lash mj^self 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, sirl " 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 gaUqwt that yo^l 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-brush. "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, lie 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 cause 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 twinkhng, 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 outhne 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 wiU 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 skyi" " 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 Ricardo, " 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 aU, 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 icays at launching — an eartkhj 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 shd 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 wdll 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 braise 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, Senora 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 Eicardo ; " 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 peut,'^ 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 Eicardo. " 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 Eicardo — 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 Eicardo ; " 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 j" 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 woman'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. Cangrejo 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 was 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 under 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 hestias 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 himseK, 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 Hurncane. 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 1 " Oh ho ! sits the wind in that quarter ? 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 hutSj' quoth the captain. " But never mind — push on, push on." I may tell the gentle reader in his ear, that the w^orthy 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 Ricardo, " 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 Ricardo ; 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 i-s 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 Eeal," responded Don Ricardo. The little doctor laughed, and away we all cantered — Don Eicardo 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 Reefpoint, 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 % 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 usf " 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 Pa§e 336. Tl. SCENES IN CUBA. 337 directions, having been torn np 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 cliiff. 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 1 " " Scotchman ! " said I, looking towards Don Ricardo, who cer- tainly did not appear to be particularly amorous ; on the contrary, we had just ahghted, 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 ? " 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 trep 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 tlie 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 harbicues, 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 wirids 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, ehV The darkness hid the gallant captain's blushes, if blush he did. " I say, Don Eicardo, who are those 1 " — haK-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; sdmos cahalleros lioif^ (we are gentlemen to-day). "Gentlemen to-day! and, pray, what shall you be to- morrow % " " Esclavos otra -yes" (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 1 " She laughed — " Esclava, a slave to-day, but to-morrow I shall be free." " Very strange." " Not at all, seiior ; 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 staflf — " 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. Ms 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 Eicardo, with all the complacency in the world, bowed, as much as to say, " You are right, my dear, you 7nay 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, Avith a lovely smile, and an arch twinkle of her eye towards me, and then launched forth in full tide, accompanpng 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, Ghing 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 I " And see, the first streamer-like ray From the un risen 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, and 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 flickei-s up in the sky. And the beetle hums moaningly by ; And to rest in the brake speeds the deer, Wliile 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 faU 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 iu 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 himseK 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 ? 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?" This is an unentertaining subject to most people, but having no bias myseK, 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 deak 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? 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 y but it did not seem SCENES IN CUBA. 543 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- woodj where it would at least have had a fair trial on its own inerits, 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 ]ike 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 jpay his master his fair ajgpraised value. " Our friend injures us, and himself too, a leetle 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 slave, 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 &2/-hours, selling the produce of his provision-grounds, &c., acquires £20 ; and how 344 TOxAi 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 hhn 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 emancipaiedy 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 % " 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 pajdng 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. Bid the idle and icorthless would still continue slaves, and why the devil shouldvUt they ? (Signed) A. B.' ) 5> 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 Keefy, poor fellow, was crying like a child ; indeed he was little more, being barely fifteen. " Oh, Mr Cringle, I wish I had never seen IVIiss CandalaHa de los Dolores ; indeed I do." This was Don Eicardo's youngest niece. " Ah, Reefy, Reefy," said I, " you must make haste, and be made post, and tJien " " What does he call her ? " said Aaron. " Senora Tomassa Gandalaria de los Dolores Gonzales y Val- lejoP blubbered out little Reefy. " What a complicated piece of machinery she must be ! " gravely rejoined Bang. The meal was protracted to a veiy 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. CHAPTEE XV. THE CEUISE OF THE WAVE — THE ACTION WITH THE SLAVES. " 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 ther 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. &c. 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 \vill 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 ferral, 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 stand on. Have the men gone to breakfast?" " 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." "AU hands, Mr Catwell." Presently the boatswain's whistle rang sharp and clear, while his gruff voice, to which his mates bore an3d;hing 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, 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 stijff 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 falhng 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 tlie great Cuba channel, until tlie 14th 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 as 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 9 th proximo, to the care of the postmaster. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, ^' ^ Sec. " To the Hon. Captain Transom, 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 Teansom, — 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 wiU do his utmost to give him opportunities of being knocked on the head, for all of which the 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 curaQoa. 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 jnes de gallo* some calm evening, of all further trouble re- garding tliem. Don't forget the turtle from Crooked Island, and the cigars. — Always, my dear Transom, yours sincerely. " Oh, I forgot. The Admiral begs you \sill 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 wdth 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 Wag-tail and Paul Gelid, Esquires. Mr Gelid, a Conch, 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 aihlins 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 hlackies, 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 Reef point. " AL. — whsd, signal now 1 " — It was the signal to close. " Put tlie 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 smaU. 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." z 354 TOM cringle's log. " My lovely yellowsnake," quotli 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 1 " " 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 1 " 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 — two — 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 1 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 full 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, eli ? Sliall I try my hand — can shave beautifully— eh 1 " " 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, CJiew 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 monstroiis-lodking 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 Reef point, 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 haK-past seven when we went on deck. It was a very dark night — Tailtackle had the watch. "Any- thing in sight, Mr Tailtackle 1 " " 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 WaU?" " AYhy, 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 abmptly 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. " WeU, 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 emwell," 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 tlie 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 Eeefy 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 saU as close to it as he could stagger. We crowded everjrthing 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, IMr 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 1 " Meanwhile Wagtail was a good deal discomposed. " My dear fellow, hand me over that devilled biscuit." Bang handed him over the dish, shpping 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 swatha 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 itseK. 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 Kmb 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 lie 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 Reefpoint?" " 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 hij). 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 ghmpse 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, ehV " 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 ; but an'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 1 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 Gehd 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 7i02v, since the fighting is all over?" THE FIRST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 363 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 V 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, ehl" 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." " iSIurder ! " quoth Wagtail, fairly frightened ; " are you really serious, Aaron 1 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 Mmself 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 11 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 j 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 "? " " 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 off 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 1 " " 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 Eobinson 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 T' 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 1 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 teair' " 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 thati" " 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 mucli — 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 his 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 ghmpse 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, Uke 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 fights 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?" 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 anoder 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 Wbiffle's.' Ob, 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 forth"vvith 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 do^vn 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 Tvith 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 quality, 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 youl 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 ? 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 was 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 everytHng 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 It " 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, mth 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 sharj^ 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 j 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 stern, 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 FIKST CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 371 Mm 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 turned towards me with all the coolness in the world — " What, those chaps on the end of the long stick 1 " "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 ground. 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 Keefpoint, 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 forthwitli 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 mil 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. " Run 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 1 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 tlie 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, hcking 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 hke 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, roUing 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 child7'en, 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, vvhen 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 Ms 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 Him" — 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 its to the end of this fearful day ; — oh, thank Him, Tom, that you have seen the sun set once more! " CHAPTER XVI. TEE SECOND CKUISE OF THE WAVE. " I longed to see the Isles that gem Old Ocean's purple diadem ; 1 sought by turns, and saw them all." Bride of Ahydos. 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 WAYE. 377 in tlie 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 w^as the feeling of cold water running down, and the pinch in the shoulder, as already described. 1 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 aff'air 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 embahned 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 myseK 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 o?ily 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 1 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 Jolin Crapeau, and you Jaclt 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 — "Wliy 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 w^orn-out colonies, utterly regardless of our rights and lives ? 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 ? If, however, it really he 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 jpocus 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 aU this were so, I would again ask. Who planted it? — Say not that ice 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 craw, 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 congruity 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? " " Why there are no corbies in Java." " Pah — botheration — ^there are pelicans then ; but you know it is not an UjKis-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 if? " 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 tq 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 Rotulorum Popu- lorum Jig of the Parish of " " Lord," said Wagtail, " why, the yam is not haK done." " But the rum is — 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 7jou feel, but / 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 mom. " " 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 ? " 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 headl" "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 we on board 1 " " There are fifty-nine, sir, under hatches in the f orehold," 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 shaR 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 1 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 anjrthing like that "?" This was the smashing of one of our pumps froni 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 tKe 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 1 " 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 off'er 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 — ^tliat will do ; and here, pull off my trousers, it will be more classical to perambidate 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 himseK 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 1 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 Gi'eat 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 aU, 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 r' " 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 1 " " ' The child is father to the man,' Tom, my boy ; sd, may I peruse it ? may I read it for the edification of my learned allies, Pepperpot Wagtail and Paul Gelid, Esquires 1 " " 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 + " 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 he taken hold of, as the standard gnomon. No, no ; I never saw a man with a large nose who was not a blockhead — eh 1 Gelid, my love 1 But allons.'^ — And where, * Page 32. t Page 18. o 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 r' " 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 calipee ver we had that day? " "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 jyndding 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 ! " sdid 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 tlie Concli fell back and floundered over on his stern, Ms tormentor drawling out in wicked mimicry — " Yes, dear Gelid, so sure as you have been landed down on your posteriors noiv — 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 jpaulo 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 CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 387 servants to belabour each other across tbe 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 f yes, molten lead : does not our reverend brother Lachrimse Roarem say that the ladles might have been full of molten lead? and what evidence have we on the other side that they loere 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- <;hant6 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 aU 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? And can you fail to draw the proper inference in the present case? Oh no, no! my friends, it is the blood 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 w^hose 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 Hke 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 Hkely 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 ! — 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 fuU 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 layf^ " 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 ofi',t I remarked, " I never recall that early and dismal scene to my recollection — the a^^ul 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 tmning, 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 r' " 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 ? 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. 39(J 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 % " 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 laughing 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 L " 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 afl'air would hoist me up a step or two on the roster for promotion, and my excellent friends were delighted at the idea of getting oh 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. Zvl ambition to belong to it I am sure no bribe tbat 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, tue 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 true — too true," rejoined Mr Bang. " In fact, judging from my own small experience, horism 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 1 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 I. " 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 TOJi cringle's log. stinking flame flickers and goes out of itself. Then there is your sentimental water-fly, who hlaivs 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 jms, 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 caidd 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 ithers see us ! ' 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 sphtting 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 homhs. 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 ! Frosey the second chimes in, and THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 393 works away, and herns 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 fiv^T^dJit palaverers, the heavy bores are generally most excellent and amiable men, so that one can't abuse the sumphs 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 39i TOM cringle's 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 Biggles- 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 Avas 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 spunyam, 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 sliifting 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, ehl " 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 stramasli below, " saw ever any man the lUce 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-stouj)s. " 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 /re, Tom r' 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 fisli 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 aU 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 j 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 spht 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, you 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 u'eiglied 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 TVTite." " 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 j " hold your tongue j 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 hterary society in my younger days — * Alas ! my heart, those days are gane.* Ah, ISIr 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 yourseK to some of that capital beef, Peter, — so Yes, my love," continued our friend, resuming his yam, "I once 398 TOM cringle's log. coped even with Jolin 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 wine 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 bard food, asked across the table — " Do you believe ostriches eat iron, Mr Bang*?" 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? Why, when Captain Cringle there was in the Bight of Benin, from which • 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 sJupplies 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 blackf aced 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 Cheesei/y the Janitor of many days — as ' Like fire from flint I glanced away,' disdaining the laws of gravitation — Epacr/xir] ireAeja, n6dfv, irddev Trtraacu, By Mercury, I swear — ^yea, by his vinged heel, I shall have 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 jVIr 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 spunyam, 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 mil 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 f eUow, 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 corner 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 1 " " 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 ]\Ir Bang, " do you see that darling ] Oh, who can picture to himseK, 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 ] " 2c 402 •' TOM cringle's LOG. " Here, sir," said Pegtop, as lie 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 valeta 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, ]\Ir 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 Avas 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 Pmjs Basf" 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 tlie 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's brain by blis- tering his stern — eh] 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 S9me 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, he 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 tlie part that Cringle had good-naturedly taken in endeavouring to clap the blister on his stomach, watched his opportunity, and when all hands had falle'n 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 caustico 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 risen 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 hira. This I vouch for.— A. B." THE SECOND CBUISE 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 aU 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- diahty, 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 neio countries it would bother you to have old associations certainly ; and you have had your Kob Koy, I grant you, and the old country has had her Eobin Hood. But has not Jamaica had her Three-fingered Jack 1 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 1 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, 5ZacA:beard, before whom ^Zwebeard must for ever hide his diminished head 1 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.~1om was right here ; she was within a week of her confinement.— A. B." 40^ TOM cringle's log. known to murder above three. But 1 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 Blackbeard." " The deuce ! " said I j " 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. Bead, 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 or 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, HeVas 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 Blackbeard's own vessel was very crowded, he was unable to THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. ^OJ. 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 boi'row 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 w^as 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 whe7i 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 lorroiced from. He never w^ore 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 haK 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 harrowing, 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 40S TOM cringle's log. of force, liad he not fainted from loss of blood, wiien, falling on Ms back, lie 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, minu.s 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 clieruhSy 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 himself, 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 cherubs. 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 CKUISE 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 thriUed 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, Caiiiain 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. Jiauled 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 cuffs, 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 covfine- 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 of lightning, and some heavy peals of thunder, which rolled amongst the distant hiUs 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 ran 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 throwm 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 afi'ectionate 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 ? " 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 yeerie someting we can't yeerie, and see someting we can't see." I had lived long enough never to despise any caution, from 412 TOM cringle's LQG. ■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 waited 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 wegitah.''^ " 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 Kouse-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 SECO^'D CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 413 down came a shower from tlie 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, w^here 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 doA^ai 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 fuU 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 (Hnner, 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 taU 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 ns on the end of the wharf — which, by the by,. was terribly oitt THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 415 of repair — yet tliey 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. StiU, many of the women, who were sitting under the smaU piazzas or projecting eaves of the houses, with their little stalls fiUed with pullicate handkerchiefs, and pieces of muslin, and ginghams for sale, were healthy-looking, and appeared comfortable and happy. As we advanced into the towTi, 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 'Sir Bang, being bound by no such etiquette, bore up for his friend, ^lonsieur 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, mth 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 underlimbed, 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 w^hich Jiis 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, lie 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 lugj 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 1 " " Why, no," said the negro officer, as he drew a chair, while he exchanged glances with the beautiful Eugenie, and sat him- seK down close to el Senor Bang. " Hillo, Quashie ! Whereaway, my lad 1 a little above the salt, ain't youl" 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 Ms 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 de7'- riere as he stooped dowm 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 as 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 sLivil, 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 I'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 expMned 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 pere,^^ 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 — 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 witb 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 1 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 : — " MoNSiEUE LE Bakon, — Monsicur has been arrested here this morning ; he is a white Frenchman, and there are strong suspicions against liim. 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 how to this, neither of them icere 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 CRINGLES 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 ladij rise, whom we had perceived ,seated at her work 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 wifeV^ 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 &emir amide 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 which was appended a large massive crucifix of the same metal. She also wore two broad bracelets of black velvet clasped with gold. t THE SECOND CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 421 Her beautifully moulded form was scarcely veiled by a canrbric 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 apjDointed 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? 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 preservationsr After the fruitless interview, we weighed, and sailed for Port- au-Prince, where we arrived the following evening. 422 TOM cringle's log. Lhad 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 pehcan 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 ; wlule 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 roUing 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 purjjle. 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 pufl'ed 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 undistinguisliable. ^Ylien 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 triend read the preceding paragraphs. They did not please him. " Don't like it, Tom." " No 1 Pray, why, my dear sir 1 — 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 ] Never ride near a led horse on passing when you can helj) 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 kno.w 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, conceditur — 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 Eepubli- 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, barring 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 liotching 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 liis soldiery were superior to those of the neighbouring black republic, " Ah, ^Monsieur S , comment vous jportez-vous ? Je mis Men 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 '?— 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 mil be delighted to see you." We followed the officer who spoke, as he marshalled us along ; and in an inner chamber, wJierein 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 Men aujourdliui; 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 tv/o 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 tmned 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 Httle 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 corsages — 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 mi lit a ires, 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 helle 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 thing, as it struck me, than anything else, which piqued some of the brown ofiicers, and for the rest of the evening hlackee 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, was 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-vous danser, mademoiselle" — "Z)e 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, as 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 — " Certcdnement vous pouvez Men rester encore nn moment." The devil confound you and Aaron Bang, thought I j 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 hientot'^ 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 j^civillons sont hien neufy 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 stem 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 im2')rovisatore 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 1 " 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 ? " 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 1 " " 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 afi'air, 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 promot^fi 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 how. 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 ghmmered 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 tLe person on the elder prisoner's left hand riveted my attention more than either of the other two. She was 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 cro\ving 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 wdth our duty as English ofl&cersl" 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. "i?e.9fe^," 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, sirl" 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 herf 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 herseK 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 1 " 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 onT' 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 mth 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 E 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 " jDepec/ie^." 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 teteP One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close to his face, fired. The ball splashed into his skuU 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 cowp 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 XYII. THE THIED CEUISE 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 waterj' 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, imknelled, un coffined, and unkno^vn." Childe Harold. I HAD been invited to breakfast on board tbe 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 weU 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 efiluvia ; 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 mth 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 — in 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 cramm±ed 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 naturalihus^ 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 LOtt. 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 Eoyal. "I say, skipper," quoth Mr Bang, "I have a great mind to ride with Tom; w^hat say you 1 " " 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 Kepublicain, 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 of 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, the 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 Kegiment 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 unavaihng 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 1 but don't take it to heart, massa ; me, Pegtop, will pocket him, if dat f oolis 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 cringle'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 rivei's springing from fresh founts, ye waves That o'er tli' interminable ocean wreath Your crisped smiles, tliou 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 Whiflle 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 pauUsper, 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. Wlien 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, east, and west. But gaude- ainus — 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 animalculse 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 gcmdeamus 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 Eoman Catholic. What then ? I have been at a gaudeamus, and why might not you have been at one too 1 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 gcmdeamus! And why," he continued, " should the excellent men not rejoice, Tom? 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 1 ' Hath not 442 TOM cringle's log. a minister eyes'? hath not a minister hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions '? 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 1' 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 amigds 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 1 " 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 assume 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 reaUty, by the evil scale of his own ! Shall the potsherd say to his frail fellow, *Thou art weak, but I am strong r Shall the moudiewort 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. 443 of my heart, and then say, whether I be so in profession only, or in stern, unswerving sincerity '] " I found 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, I 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 1 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 haK-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 I Know- ledge, Tom ! what do I know — what does the greatest and the best of us know — to venture on a saying soi^ewhat of the tritest — but that he knows nothing 1 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 1 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 koucJced 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. Quiei^o Paz is to be my epitaph. Quiero Paz — ' Cursed be he who stirs these bones.' Did not even Shake- speare write it ? What poetry in this spot, Thomas ! Oh, ' There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on tlie lonely shore. There is society, whore 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 knowl 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 seH-esteem, Tom, and affords small encouragement to inquire farther. Knowledge, say you 1 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 themf 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 OAvl flying against the noontide sun 1 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, ivhat do Iknoiv? 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 CRINGLES 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 1 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 Druidy 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 liere, 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, all 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. 44Y 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 ; he 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 Had 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 hke 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 honte de donner mot man cheval. Briii gibus the liorsos, ^assa Bungo — venga los guadrupedos — make haste, vite^ mucho, mucho." Come, there is mij Massa Aaron once more, at all events, thought I ; but oh, how unlike the Aaron of five minutes ago ! "So now Jet 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. Depecliez, mon clier — depecliez ; diggez voire spurs into the fiankibus of voire cheval, mon ami^^ shouted Aaron to our guide. " Old, monsieur" replied the man, " mais " I did not like this ominous " hui,'^ 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 vizzij-vous, eh 1 " 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 lal'board, by the praiseworthy forethought of our See h nlight sleeps. Pa^e 449. THE THIRD CRUISE OF THE WAVE. 449 guide, a good roasted capon was ensconced. "I say, Tom — tolioo — 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 hand, take my word for it." " Maybe not, maybe not — but, Pegtop, you scoundrel, why did you not fetch my pistols?" ^' Eigh, you go fight, massal" " 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 hke 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, mth 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?" 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 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 ; " ai/ez le honte de coekez voire 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 ? Confound you for forgetting my Mantons, 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, hlacldmoribus ambos — en avant, you black rascals — laissez le capitan a,nd me pourjightez" 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, and 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 bankj 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 haK 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 immeiately 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 huts 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 eigli, elglis ! 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 1 " 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 — *' Whetlier 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 heanr 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] 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, «f?re aura, 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 renetVal 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 follomng wdth 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 M-^e 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 puif of wdnd 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 — " Culehra — culehra ! — 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 liis 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 1 " " 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 Chridi, 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 mnd 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 Eeefpoint, 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 which 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 do? — 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- sj^ectable-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 — lieave in stays as soon as you like, Mr Cringle." At this moment the man aloft again sang out — " There is a wreck on the weathermost point of the long reef, sir." "Ay ! what does she look like 1 " " 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 taff'rail 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, lay, more than half naked, the dead bodies of an elderly female, and three young women ; 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 liimy 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 steps 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 \iceroy'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-Hke 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 aU 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 Uuke of Tuscany ; while an equally respectable elderly man, with a slight touch of paraly- sis in his head, was christened Old Steady in the West, hecause 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 mckedness 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 httle nervous, his cheeks quivering when he spoke like shapes of caK'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 down, Isaac Shingle doing the honours, confronted by Eschylus Stave, and all was right and smooth and pleasant, and in no way different fronl a party of well-bred men in England. TROPICAL HIGH- JINKS. 495 AYhen 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 sho^ving 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 duckhngs 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 -VN-indow 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 ghstened 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 ckingle'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 w^as 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 wliit 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 Sliingle, " 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 himseK in his seat. In a little we heard the squeaking of a pig in the street, and our friend Shingle's voice lugh 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 hs 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 1 what the deuce is that 1 " 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 aU, 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 1 " 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, thi^ee 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. I TROPICAL HIGH-JINKS. 491) " Zounds, Don, tlie weather-rein has parted — what shall we dol" said I. " Do 1 " rejoined Lucifer, with drunken gravity, — " haul on the other, to be sure — there is one left, ain't there? — so hard a-port, and run him up against that gun at the street corner, will jel — 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 his 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 helj}." 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 Mm, 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. *' Belli" ejaculated Steady, in great amazement — "bell! what bell r' " 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 belli — I wish the tongue of it was in your stomach ■ — get out, sir, aw^ay 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 1 you shall be export, maybe, for break into chapel during sarvice, and teal bell — aha, teal bell — whoever yeerie one crime, equal to dat 1 " " My good man," quoth Onyx, who now felt the absurdity of the affair, " I know nothing of all this — beUeve 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 sail " " 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 helium^ 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 \^ine, 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 myseK it was fancy, and once more slipped into my nest. However, the circumstance had put sleep to flight. HaK 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," saidRubiochico) — "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 liis 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 hke 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 ivhole 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 ? " 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 tban 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 1 " 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, tlie 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 fell 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 FAP.EWELL. 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-lookmg 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 Koyal, 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 fuU 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 haK-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 to?" 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 vdW never venture to infract the neutrality of the waters, surely," rejoined I, "within sight of the squadron too?" 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 Eoyal, 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 manoeuvre 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 liowever. 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, w^hile the perspiration hailed off his brow, slap his hands on his thighs, and shrink dow^n 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 ! Ah, Pancho Roque, tu es ruinado, mi amigo." Another shot. " Tu es ruinado, chicatico, tan gierto 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 w^ar 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 wdnd- 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 Roque, you are mined, 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 ejjaulets; 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 1 " 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 oflf the potion, and instantly fell back in my chair — " Poisoned ! by all that is nonsensical — poisoned — catchup — O Lord ! " and oflf 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 oflf 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, 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 RENEWALS ANC ^CHARGES MAY EF '^'vrTv ■ gj'.Vr ~. ,: : H -; r_ LJ^ UAT^ LOAN PERIODS \RE 1-MCNTH, 3-MONTHS. Ai^ D 1-YEAfl. 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