Book Two—Chapter Three.
H.M. Gunboat “Bunting” in Chase—A Dark Night’s Dismal Work.
It was a night of inky darkness. All day it had been squally, with a more or less steady breeze blowing between each squall, and the sea had been greatly troubled; but now the wind had nearly fallen, the waves were crestless, foamless, but still they tossed and tumbled about so that the motion on board Her Majesty’s gunboat the Bunting was anything but an agreeable one. There could be but little danger, however, for she was well off the land, pretty far out, indeed, in the Indian Ocean.
Every now and then there was the growling of distant thunder; every now and then a bright flash of lurid lightning. But between these flashes was a darkness that could be felt, and never a star was visible. Nor could there be, for at sunset the clouds seemed a good mile thick.
The Bunting had been in chase most of the afternoon, but nightfall put an end to it.
It was in the days—not so long ago—when Said Maja reigned Sultan of Zanzibar, and all the coast line from near Delagoa Bay in the south to beyond Bareda in the north was more or less his sea-board. It was in the days when the slave trade in this strange wild city of the coast was flourishing in all its glory, the Sultan having liberty from our government to take slaves from any one portion of his dominions to another. Hundreds of dhows, nay, but thousands, then covered that portion of the Indian Ocean which laves the forest shores of Eastern Africa. They were either laden with slaves, or returning empty to fetch another cargo.
Our cruisers boarded all they met, but it was but seldom one fell into our hands as a prize, for these cruel and reckless dealers in human flesh found no difficulty in obtaining a permit from the Sultan’s ministers to carry on their inhuman traffic. A bribe was all that was necessary, and the words, “Household slaves of H.M. the Sultan,” in the certificate, were all that was necessary to set British law and British cruisers at defiance.
These dhows were and are still manned and officered by Arabs—gentlemen Arabs they term themselves. Many of these men are exceedingly handsome. I have often admired them in the slave market, both the old and the young. Let me try to describe them:
Here, then, is a young gentleman Arab, probably about twenty-five years of age.
He wears a kind of gilded night-dress of snow-white linen, which reaches some distance below the knee; around the waist of this is a gilded and jewelled sword-belt, supporting a splendid sword, and probably jewelled pistols. Over this linen garment may be a little jacket of crimson with gold braid, worn loose, and hardly visible, because over all is an immense flowing toga of camel’s hair of some dark colour. This is also worn open.
On the head is a gigantic turban, gilded or even jewelled, and the naked feet are placed in beautiful sandals.
He is very tall, lithe, wiry, and stately, and his face is goodly to behold, his nose being well chiselled, and mouth not large.
His colour is usually white or brown, though sometimes black, and dark hair in beautiful ringlets, escaping from under the turban, flows down nearly to the waist.
In his hand he bears a tall spear, on which he leans or touches the ground withal when walking, as a Highland mountaineer does with his long crook.
The carriage and walk of this Arab is grace itself, and gives the individual a noble and majestic appearance, which it is difficult to describe.
Except the Scottish costume, I know of no dress half so picturesque as that of the gentleman Arab and slave-owner.
But here is an old gentleman. Is he bent and decrepit? Nay, but sturdy and stately as his son, he walks with the same bold grace, is dressed in the same fashion, keeps quite as firm a hold of his spear, and could draw his powerful sword and wield it with equal if not greater skill and agility.
But his long beard and moustache are as white as the paper on which I am writing. His brow is wrinkled, and the eyes that glint and glare from beneath the bushy eye-brows are as quick and fierce as those of a golden eagle.
Those Arabs hate the English with a deadly hatred. Even the sight of a blue-jacket makes them scowl. I have passed—more than once—a doorway in Zanzibar, in which one of these men stood, and I have seen him gnash his teeth at the sight of my uniform, and finger his sword or knife, nervously, restlessly, as if he hardly could keep from plucking it out and plunging it into my heart.
It was in pursuit of one of the dhows manned by such gentleman Arabs that the Bunting had been all the previous afternoon.
Had the wind fallen earlier, this dhow would soon have been a prize; but as it did not, she had shown them a clean pair of heels, and might now be anywhere.
That she was a slaver without papers there was not a doubt, and well laden too, for she was deep in the water.
I am going to make a terrible statement, but it is a true one, and if it only has the effect of causing even one of my readers to hate slavery half as much as I do, it will not be made in vain.
Just then, as American traders in crossing the Atlantic, when a dangerous gale comes on, lighten the ship by throwing the cattle overboard, so, at times, do these gentleman Arabs lighten their dhows when chased.
It is a terrible sight to see poor oxen hoisted up in straps with block and tackle and whirled into the storm-lashed ocean. O God, how mournfully they moan, how they seem to plead for mercy! That moan once heard can never, never be forgotten.
The loading of a slave-ship is a terrible sight, but ah! the ruthless cruelty of lightening a dhow of slaves. They are got up one by one or two by two. Children, poor young girls and boys, are pitched screaming into the sea, probably to be devoured by sharks next moment. And sharks speedily come to a feast of blood of this kind.
But whether men or women—if they struggle, and sometimes whether they struggle or not—they are ruthlessly slain on the deck before being thrown overboard. The knife across the neck is used for this terrible butchery. I have been told by eye-witnesses, themselves prisoners, and expecting every minute that their turn would come, that the victims are handed on deck to those who do the work, and that these latter think less about it than a farm servant does of killing a fowl, sometimes laughing and joking with their companions the while; and if telling a story of any kind, they do not even permit the murder they are committing from interrupting their discourse for a single moment.
It is far more unpleasant for me to write these lines than it can possibly be for any one to read them.
“I think,” said Mr Dewar, the navigating sub-lieutenant, as he entered the captain’s cabin after a preliminary service tap at the door—“I think I’ve done all for the best, and done right, sir.”
“Well?” replied Captain Wayland—captain by courtesy, remember, for he really was but a first lieutenant by rank, though in command of the bold and saucy Bunting. He was seated now in his beautiful little saloon, which was situated right aft, right abaft the gun-room or ward-room—the Bunting had, of course, only one living deck, under that being the holds, and above it the main or upper deck, with no other covering except the sky, and now and then a sun awning. This last was not only a luxury but a positive necessity in these seas, where the sun blisters the paint, causes the pitch in the seams to bubble and boil, and takes the skin as effectually off one’s face as if a red-hot iron were passed over it.
I have called Captain Wayland’s quarters a beautiful little saloon. So it was, but do not imagine, dear reader, that the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty had anything to do with the decorating of it. No, they supplied a table, cushioned lockers, and a few chairs, also cushioned, but so hot and clumsy that sitting on one was like sitting on a large linseed-meal poultice.
Captain Wayland returned them to the dockyard, and bought himself others that could boast of elegance and comfort; he re-painted his saloon, too, and hung a few tasteful pictures in it and no end of curtains, to say nothing of a great punkah over the table, which was waving back and fore now, the propelling power being a little curly-headed nigger-boy who squatted in a far-off corner, string in hand.
“Well, sir,” replied Mr Dewar, in answer to the captain’s single word of inquiry, “I’ve douced every glim.”
“In mercy’s name,” cried the captain, “do speak English, Mr Dewar!”
“Well, sir, pardon me, I quite forgot myself, but really we’ve got into a slangy habit in the ward-room; the only one who does speak decent English is young Milvaine, and he is a Highland Scotchman.”
“Sit down,” said the captain, “and have a glass of claret. You’ll find it good.”
“Raggy Muffin!” he continued, turning half round in his easy chair.
The nigger-boy let go the punkah string and sprang to his feet.
“Raggy Muffin stand befoh you, sah!” he said, bowing his towsie head.
“Right, Raggy. Now bring a bottle of claret.”
“Right you are, sah. I fetchee he plenty quick.”
“And I’ll bring myself to an anchor,” said Mr Dewar, “and have a glass of grog with pleasure.”
Respect of person was not the crowning virtue of this warlike youth.
The captain fidgeted uneasily.
“Well, sir, I’ve douced—I mean I’ve put out all lights. I have men in the chains—not that we’re likely to fall in with shoal water here, you know—”
“Oh, bother, you’re right to be safe. The Wasp ran aground in about this same place. Well, who’s watch is it?”
“Young Milvaine’s.”
“Right, we’re safe.”
Mr Dewar looked at Captain Wayland for a few moments.
“You believe in that youngster, sir?” he asked.
“I do. He’s faithful, bold, or rather brave—”
“Yes, sir, he’s as plucky as a bantam. He thrashed big Crawford the first day he came on board. Crawford has been good-natured ever since. He showed fine fighting form when we brushed against those Arabs above ’Mbasa, and he jumped overboard, you know, and saved Raggy’s life off the Quillimane river.”
“Raggy die some day for Massa Milvaine,” put in the nigger-boy.
“Hush, Raggy, when your betters are talking.”
“Raggy die all same, though,” the boy persisted.
“The young scamp will have the last word. Yes, Mr Dewar, young Milvaine ought to have a medal for that; but, poor fellow, he won’t, though I’m told there were sharks about by the dozen.”
“I saw it all,” said young Dewar. “It was my cap that fell off, just before we crossed the bar. Raggy made a plunge for it, and over he went; Milvaine threw off his coat, and over he went. The coolness of the beggar, too, amused me.”
“Don’t say ‘beggar.’”
“Well, ‘fellow.’ There was a basking shark in the offing, with its fin above the water, and a bird perching on it like a starling on the back of a sheep. The cap—the very one I wear now, sir—was between this brute and Milvaine, but no sooner had he got Raggy—cockerty-koosie, as he called it—on his shoulder, than he swam away out and seized the cap with his teeth, then handed it to Raggy. And the young monkey put it on, too. We picked him up just in time, for the sharks looked hungry, and angry as well.”
Mr Dewar helped himself to another half-tumbler full of claret.
“There is a wine-glass at your elbow,” said the captain, with a mild kind of a smile.
“Bother the wine-glass!” replied the middy. “Pardon me, sir, but I’d have to fill it so often. My dear Captain Wayland, there’s no more pith and fooshion in this stuff than there is in sour buttermilk.”
The captain laughed outright. Mr Dewar was an officer of a very old and obsolete type.
“Why, my dear sir, that is my very best claret. Claret Lagrange, Mr Dewar; I paid seventy-five shillings a dozen for it.”
“Raggy,” he added; “bring the rum, Raggy.”
“Try a drop of that, then.”
“Ah! that indeed, captain,” exclaimed Mr Dewar, with beaming eyes. “That’s a drop o’ real ship’s.”
He was moderate, though, but he smacked his lips. “I feel in famous form now,” he said. “I hope we’ll come up with that rascally dhow before long. With my good sword now, Captain Wayland, and a brace of colts, I think—”
At this moment Midshipman Milvaine—our Harry—entered, cap in hand.
He has greatly improved since we last saw him, almost a giant, with a bright and fearless eye and a most handsome face and agile figure. His shoulders are square and broad. He is very pliant in the waist; indeed, the body above the hips seems to move independent of hips or legs. Harry had now been four years in the service, and was but little over sixteen years of age.
“Anything occurred, Mr Milvaine?”
“Yes, sir, something is occurring, something terrible, murder or mutiny. The night is now very still, and the stars are out I can’t see anything, but from away over yonder, two or three points off the port bow, there is fearful screaming, and I can even hear splashing in the water.”
Captain Wayland sprang up, so did young Dewar.
“The scoundrels!” cried the former. “It is the dhow. They are lightening ship to get away from us with the morning breeze.”
“Mr Milvaine,” he added, hurriedly, “we’ll go to quarters. Do not sound the bugle.—Let all be done quietly. Keep her, Mr Milvaine, straight for the sounds you hear, and tell the engineers to go ahead at full speed.”
“The moon will rise in half an hour,” said Harry.
“Thank Heaven for that,” was the captain’s reply.
For the boats of a small ship like the Bunting to board a heavily armed fighting dhow like the one they had been giving chase to, is no mean exploit even by day: by night such an adventure requires both tact and skill and determination as well.
But the thing has been done before, and it was going to be tried again now.
The captain himself went on deck.
There was already a faint glimmer of light from the rising moon on the south-eastern sky.
But the sea was all as silent as the grave; there was the rattling of the revolving screw and the noise of the rushing, bubbling, lapping waves as the vessel cleaved her way through them. Further than this, for the space of many minutes, sound there was none.
“In what direction did you say you heard the cries?” asked Captain Wayland of young Harry Milvaine.
“We are steering straight for it now, sir, and—”
Suddenly he was interrupted. From a point still a little on the port bow, and apparently a mile distant, came a series of screams, so mournful, so pleading, so pitiful, as almost to freeze one’s blood.
“Ah-h! Oh-h-h! Oh! Oh! Oo-oo-ok!”
The last cry was wildly despairing, and cut suddenly short, as I have tried to describe, by the letters “ok.”
A moment or two afterwards there came across the water the sound of a plash, and next minute there was a repetition of the dreadful yells and cries.
The captain took two or three hasty turns up and down the deck. He was a very humane and kindly-hearted officer.
“I hardly know what to do for the best,” he said.
“Suppose, sir,” replied Mr Dewar, whom he seemed to be addressing, “we fire a gun to let her know we are near?”
“No,” replied the captain; “there is still wind enough, and time enough, for her to escape in the dark. We’ll keep on yet a short time. Stand by to lower the boats. They are already armed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Escape in the dark!” muttered the captain to himself through his set teeth. “Dark indeed will be the work as soon as our lads get on board of this fiend’s ship.”
Book Two—Chapter Four.
Life in a Gunboat—The Captain’s Birthday.
Mr Dewar had charge of the first cutter, Mr Mavers, sub-lieutenant, of the second, and Harry himself commanded the whaler.
These were all the boats told off for the fight, about five-and-thirty men all told.
Five-and-thirty men? Yes, but they were five-and-thirty broad-shouldered British blue-jackets, armed with cutlass and revolver. And what is it, pray, that blue-jackets will not dare, ay, and do as well as dare?
Even Dr Scott and the other officers had left their swords behind them, preferring the ship’s cutlass.
Every man had stripped to the waist before starting, for the night was sultry and hot.
The boats were silently lowered before they came in sight of the dhow, therefore before the dhow could see the Bunting.
With muffled oars, nearer and nearer they sweep to the spot from whence the sounds proceed.
The whaler, being lighter, well-manned and well-steered by Harry, took the lead.
The Bunting came slowly on after the boats.
But behold! the latter are seen from the dhow’s decks, and lights spring up at once, and a rattling volley flies harmlessly over the heads of our advancing heroes. At the same time it is evident that boarding-nets are being quickly placed along the bulwarks of the slaver.
In a few minutes the whaler is at the bows of the dhow. This was unprotected by netting, and low in the water, for the vessel was deep. Harry was the first to spring on board, followed instantly by his fellows.
He speedily parried an ugly thrust made at his throat by a spear, and next moment his assailant fell on his face with a gash on his neck and his life’s blood welling away. For a few seconds this part of the dhow bristled with spears, and one or two of Harry’s men succumbed to the lunges and fell to the deck.
But the Arabs retreated before the charge, fighting for every inch of deck, however.
Meanwhile the cutters were boarding. They were cutters in more ways than one, for they had not only to defend themselves against spear-lunging, but to slash through the netting.
A bright white light now gleamed over the dhow’s deck. The Bunting was nearly alongside, and burning lights.
It was well this was so, for on the deck of that slave dhow stood fully seventy as brave Arabs as ever drew a sword or carried a spear.
They went down before our blue-jackets, nevertheless, in twos and threes. The modern colt is a glorious weapon when held in a cool hand and backed by a steady eye.
Their very numbers told against these Arabs, but they fought well and desperately, for they were fighting with the pirate-rope around their necks. Arab dhows who fire on our British cruisers are treated as pirates, and, when taken red-handed, have a short shrift and a long drop.
That they fought with determined courage cannot be gainsaid—gentlemen Arabs always do—but they have not the bull-dog pluck of our fellows. They cannot hang on, so to speak; they lack what is technically called “stay.” Nor were they fighting in a good cause, and they knew it.
They knew or felt that they could not, if killed, walk straight from that blood-slippery battle-deck into the paradise of Mahomed.
Add to this that their weapons were far inferior to ours. Their spears were easily shivered, and even their swords; while their pistols could scarcely be called arms of precision.
So after a brave but ineffectual attempt to stem the wild, stern rush of our British blue-jackets, they fell back towards the poop, so huddled together that the fire of our men riddled two at a time. They finally sought refuge in the poop saloon, and even down below among the remainder of those poor trembling slaves who had not been butchered or forced to walk the plank.
Many were driven overboard, or preferred the deadly plunge into the ocean to falling into the hands of the British.
The captain surrendered his sword, standing by the mainmast. He was a tall and somewhat swarthy Arab, and spoke good English.
“Slay me now, if so minded, you infidel dogs,” he shouted, “or keep me to satiate your revenge?”
Meanwhile, up rose the moon—a vermilion moon—a moon that seemed to stain all the waves with long quivering ribbons of blood, and the shadows of the two ships were cast darkling on the water far to the west.
A wretched half-caste Arab was found skulking under the poop, and dragged forth by one of the Bunting’s men. He had not been in the fight, yet he had a most terrible appearance.
He was very black and ferocious-looking, dressed only in one white cotton garment, with a rope for a girdle, from which dangled an ugly knife.
This fiend in human form was dabbled in blood; his face, hands, bare arms, and all the front of his garment were wet with gore. He had been the butcher of the innocent slaves.
He was dragged forth and dragged forward, but suddenly, with an unearthly yell, he sprang from the sailor’s grasp, and next moment had leapt into the sea.
He was watched for a few moments swimming quickly away from the ship, then a strange commotion was seen near him, and the wretch threw up his arms and disappeared.
He had been dragged under by the sharks.
It is through no love of the sensational I pen these lines, reader, nor describe the capture of this blood-stained dhow. The story is almost from the life, and I deem it not wrong that my young readers should know something of the horrors of the slave trade.
Two hundred living slaves were found in the hold of the dhow, many dead were among the living, and many dying. And it will never be known in this world how many poor creatures were butchered or thrown overboard to lighten the ship.
The vessel was condemned at Zanzibar, and taken away out to sea and set on fire. Nothing was taken out of her except a few shields and spears that the men got by way of curios. She was simply burned, and sank hissing and flaming beneath the waves.
The slaves were liberated. Well, even their liberty was something. But that would not restore them their far-off happy homes amid the wild and beautiful scenery in the African interior: no, nor restore them their friends and kindred. Henceforward they must languish in a foreign land.
“What became of the captain of the dhow?” I fancy I hear some of my readers ask. Have I not, I reply, given you horrors enough in this chapter? But, nevertheless, I will tell you. He and five others were hanged. This end was at all events less revolting than an Arab execution as sometimes carried out. Fancy five political offenders tied hand and foot, and placed on their backs all in a row in the prison yard, an Arab executioner with a sharp sword leisurely stepping from one to another and half-beheading them!
It was a very lovely morning. Harry came on the quarter-deck just as a great gun was fired from the bows of the Bunting; making every window in the front part of the town rattle, and multiplying its echo among the distant coral islands. That gun told the condemned men that their day had come.
“What a lovely morning!” said Harry to Mavers, who was leaning over the bows, looking seaward and eastward where the sun was silvering a broad belt of long rippling wavelets.
“Charming,” replied Mavers; “but bother it all, Milvaine, old man, I fell asleep last night thinking about those poor beggars that have to die this morning.”
“So did I,” said Harry, “and I dreamt about them.”
“You see,” continued Mavers, “it is one thing dying sword in hand on a battle-deck, and another being coolly hanged. But notwithstanding, Milvaine, don’t let us fall into the blues over the matter; the villains richly deserve their fate.”
“Yes,” he added, after a pause, “it is a lovely morning. What a beautiful world it would be if there was neither sin nor sorrow in it!”
The doctor joined them. He was a young man of a somewhat poetical temperament, curiously blended with an intense love for anatomy and post-mortems, and a very good fellow on the whole.
“Talking about the condemned criminals? Eh?” he said. Then he laughed such a happy laugh.
“I’m going to post-mortem them. Will you come and see the operation?”
“Horrible—no!”
“Oh, it is all for the good of science. Shall I describe it?”
“No, no, no?” cried Harry.
“Then come below to breakfast, boys.”
“Why,” said Mavers, “you’ve almost taken away my appetite.”
“And mine too,” said Harry Milvaine.
“Stay,” exclaimed the doctor, “I will restore it. Listen.”
He threw himself into an attitude as he spoke.
“Sweetly, oh, sweetly the morning breaks
With roseate streaks,
Like the first faint blush on a maiden’s cheeks.
Alas! that ever so fair a sun
As that which its course has now begun
Should gild with rays, so light and free,
That dismal dark-frowning gallows-tree.”
“I’m not sure,” said Mavers, laughing, “that you haven’t made matters worse. But come along, we’ll go below, anyhow.”
The Bunting, as her name implies, was only a little bit of a gunboat, but to the slave-dealing dhows she became the scourge of the seas in the Indian Ocean, all the way south from Delagoa Bay, to Brava and Magadoxa in the north.
She was always appearing where least expected, sometimes far out at sea, at other times inland on rivers or wooded creeks. She could sail as well as any dhow, and that is saying a good deal, and she could steam well also.
Many a prize fell to her lot, many a cutting-out expedition the boats had, and right bravely they did their work. So the prize money that would fall to the share of even the ordinary seamen when the commission was completed, would be rather more than a trifle.
On Saturday nights, when, after dancing for a time to the merry tunes the doctor played on his fiddle, the sailors would assemble round the fo’c’s’le to smoke their pipes and quaff the modest drop of rum they had saved to toast their sweethearts and wives in, they might be heard building castles in the air as to what they would do with their prize money.
Perhaps the conversation would be somewhat as follows:—
“I’m going to pour all my prize money into my old mother’s lap straight away as soon as I gets it.”
“Ah! well, Jack, you have a mother, I hain’t, but I’ll give mine to my Soosie. My eye! maties, but she’s a slick fine lass. Talk about a figure! Soosie’s is the finest ever you saw. Blow’d if two arms would meet round her waist, fact I tells ye, mates. I’ve seen a rye-nosser-oss with not ’arf so fine a figure as Soosie’s got.”
“But,” another would say, “I’m going to keep all my prize money in the bank till I serves my time out in the service; then I’ll take a public-house.”
“That’s my ambition too, Bill.”
“Yes, and ain’t it a proper ambition too?”
“That it be.”
“And if ever any of you old chums drops round to see Jack behind his bar counter—ahem! my eye! maties, won’t I be glad to see you just! Won’t I get out the longest clay pipe in the shanty, and the best nigger head! And won’t I draw ye a drop o’ summut as will make all the ’air on your ’eads stand straight up like a frightful porkeypine’s! And maybe there won’t be much to pay for it either?”
It will be noted from the above conversation that the aims in life of the British man-o’-war sailor are seldom of a very exalted character.
But even in the little ward-room prize money was not altogether left out of count in conversation on Saturday nights.
“I believe,” said the doctor once, “I shall have over a thousand pounds when I get home. I think I’ll cut the service, buy a shore practice, and settle down.”
“Bah!” cried Mavers, “you’re too old a sailor for that, Mr Sawbones. Don’t talk twaddle. Take out your old fiddle and give us a tune.”
The worthy medico never required two biddings to make him obey a behest like this.
Out would come the violin, and his messmates would speedily be in dreamland as they listened; for the doctor played well on that king of instruments.
Songs were sure to follow, during which very often the door would open, and there would be seen standing smiling the captain himself.
You may be sure that room was speedily made for him, and so these happy evenings would pass away till eight bells (twelve o’clock) rang out Ding-ding, ding-ding, ding-ding, ding-ding—that is the way they went, and this warned every one it was time to turn in.
The Bunting could not be said to be a very well-found ship, as far as the officers’ mess was concerned. There is as much difference usually between the mess in a gunboat and a flagship as between that of a humble cottage and a lord mayor’s mansion.
So the Buntings, as the other ships called them, roughed it rather. They could have bought nice things about big towns like the city of the Cape, or even at Zanzibar, but they had only the ship’s cook, and the steward was a half-caste Portuguese, whose only strong point was an excellent curry, into which, however, he often slipped more garlic that was palatable to English tastes.
For three more years the Bunting carried it with a high hand among the slavers on the Eastern coast. Even Harry himself now began to long for home, and to see his dear mother and father again.
Letters came but about once in three months, and the mail never failed to bring Harry a bundle that kept him reading for a week, because he read them all over and over again, put them aside for days, took them out once more, and again read them.
His old friend Andrew’s letters were always comical, and his good-natured, simple face invariably rose up before our hero’s mind’s eye as he perused them.
Even his old dominie did not forget Harry. By almost every mail now the Buntings expected a letter from their lordships ordering them home.
It came at last, and, strange to say, it came on. Captain Wayland’s birthday.
“Putting both events together, boys,” said the doctor to his messmates, “I really don’t think we can do better than invite the skipper to dinner.”
“Good?” cried Harry.
“Hurrah!” cried another.
“Steward!” cried Dewar.
“Ess, sir; Ise here, sir.”
“Well, come here, you dingy son of a Portuguese cook.”
The steward threw his apron over his left shoulder and entered from the steerage.
“Can you give us a ripping good feed to-night, and have it all on the table smart at half-past six?”
“Let me see, sir,” said the steward, placing a forefinger on the corner of his mouth and looking profoundly wise. “What I would propose, sir, would be diss ting.”
“Well?—out with it.”
“Der is French Charlie on shore here.”
The ship, by the bye, was lying off the Sultan’s Palace, in the roadstead at Zanzibar.
“Yes—French Charlie?”
“Well, sir, he cook one excellent dinner, and wait too; and myself, sir, vill make de curry.”
“Very well, steward, but mind this, if there be one-sixth of a grain of garlic in the whole boiling of it, you shall swing at the yard’s arm.”
“Ver goot, sir.”
“Now, off with you on shore, and give your orders. Don’t forget to be off in time. Take the dingy and bring off quickly a boat-load of flowers and green stuff.”
Mr Dewar was just as quick at work as he was with his tongue and sword, and both of the latter, it was universally allowed, he could make the best of.
He was ably supported on this occasion by the whole strength of the mess, including Simmonds, the clerk—they were but five in all—and the engineer himself.
The captain cheerfully accepted the invitation, and proposed to the surgeon that forward in the course of the evening they should splice the main-brace.
The doctor assented with alacrity, and the ship’s stores thus expended were afterwards put down as sick-bay comforts.
The steward was off in good time, with foliage and flowers. Then a huge awning was rigged on deck, and lined with flags and candles stuck amidst the flowers, and branching bayonets and cutlasses.
The steward did his duty nobly; so did French Charlie.
For once there smoked on the tables of the Bunting a banquet that the Sultan himself would have enjoyed.
The toast of the evening, after the loyal ones, was of course Captain Wayland; and that gentleman replied in the neatest little speech that had ever been heard on the deck of a man-o’-war.
The dessert on the table deserves especial notice. No place in the world can vie with Zanzibar for its fruit, and here were samples of probably a score of different sorts, almost unknown in England. The pine-apples were especially delightful, appealing to eye, to scent, and taste all at once. But probably the king of fruits was the mango. If this is indeed Eve’s apple, one can hardly wonder our first parent fell. The trees these grow on in the forest of this beautiful isle of the sea are a picture. Fancy an enormous chestnut with its branches weighted to the ground with fragrant fruit somewhat like peaches, but each as big as a cocoanut!
The sides of the deck-tent were decorated with flowers, but on the table itself stood the choicest of all. Shall I describe them? I cannot, for—
Here my muse her wings must cower,
’Twere far indeed beyond her power
To praise enough e’en one sweet flower.
When dessert had been done moderate justice to, then the end of the curtain was drawn aside, the steward brought up the “sick-bay comforts,” and in due form the main-brace was spliced; and every man as he raised the cup to his lips wished long life and prosperity to their jolly captain.
After this there was a wild hurrah! and in the very midst of it the doctor started playing.
Well, some of my readers may have seen sham sailors dancing on the stage. But never on any stage is such wild footing witnessed as that which graces the deck of a man-of-war on a night like the present.
But everything has an end. The men retired at last to the bows and fo’c’s’le to talk of home and spin yarns till long past midnight.
Meanwhile the officers once more surrounded the festive board, and after a few songs story-telling commenced.
As one at least of the yarns spun was not devoid of humour, I do not think I need apologise for repeating it.
It was the doctor’s yarn.
He helped himself to an orange and a mango and a handful of nuts and raisins, to pare, to eat, to crack, and to pick, because the truth is the doctor was a Scotchman, and Scotchmen never talk half so well as when they are doing something, if it be only whittling a stick.
“Ahem!” began the doctor, clearing his throat.
“Attention, gentlemen,” said Mr Dewar, the president.
Book Two—Chapter Five.
The Surgeon’s Yarn.
“You must know, then,” said Dr Scott, “that though I do not vouch for the absolute truth of this story, the reason is that I was not myself one of the actors therein. But I have it on what I call indisputable authority, for old Brackenbury, who is the principal hero, told it to me one evening in his little place down in sunny Devonshire. And I do not believe that Brackenbury ever told an untrue tale in his life.
“A funny old fellow was Brackenbury, and it seemed to me that he must always have been old—must have been born old. He wasn’t a handsome man, nor had he a pretty face; his nearest and dearest wouldn’t have said he had. Yet, gentlemen, it is truly wonderful what a change for the better the play of a good-natured smile throws over even the plainest countenance. And Brackenbury used to smile from his very heart. Then he had such honest, truthful eyes that you couldn’t have helped liking the man.
“But to my tale, as Burns says.
“Goodness knows how long ago it is, but Brackenbury was then about in his prime, and commanded a fine vessel, that, after discharging a mixed cargo at Sydney, was ordered on a kind of a mixed cruise round to San Francisco, which was only a small village then, but had the gold fever rampant. Here he had to take on board specie, with a gentleman as supercargo. They were then to slip southwards along the western shores of South America, calling at Callao for goods from Lima, and so onwards round the Horn and home.
“I don’t think that Brackenbury and the supercargo, Mr O’Brady, liked each other over much. There was a natural jealousy between them. Brackenbury looked upon O’Brady as a kind of spy on his actions, and O’Brady didn’t like Brackenbury’s airs, as he was pleased to call them.
“Never mind, they were shipmates and messmates, and they settled down together as well as they could.
“Lima was in those days a hot place, socially speaking, but Brackenbury and his supercargo found themselves most hospitably treated. There was one tall, dark, handsome gentleman, called Pedro Dolosa, whom they frequently met at dinner-parties, who used to smoke much with them and hob-nob in the cool verandahs after dessert. He took to them very much apparently, and they were both flattered by his attention, for was he not a count, Le Comte Pedro de Dolosa? That was his tally complete.
“Brackenbury opened his heart to him; O’Brady was jealous, and opened his heart still more wide to Le Comte Pedro de Dolosa; and these two old fools did what they had no right to do—they told this strange count what their cargo was.
“However, the Adelaide left Callao at last, and after encountering a gale that blew them a long way out of their course, they lost their reckoning; but one day they found themselves pretty close to the shore again, and, the weather being now fine, they managed to find out their whereabouts.
“They were south the line, and on a lovely coast.
“‘I move,’ said Brackenbury, ‘that we enjoy ourselves a bit; I’m fond of shooting and botany.’
“‘So am I,’ replied O’Brady.
“Now more than once they had seen a very pretty little yacht careering about, as if watching them, but they had no suspicion of anything like foul play.
“It was seen again and again after this, but when one day it stood away in through an island-bound creek—
“‘I’ll bet a penny,’ said Brackenbury, ‘that that is some English lord out on the sport; what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, let’s follow him.’
“‘Agreed,’ said O’Brady.
“And so they did.
“They soon found themselves in an unusually romantic spot. A little bay it was, with a native village at the head of it, which looked imposing as seen from the sea. Then there was a beautiful river meandering down through a well-wooded, rolling valley, and far inland were hills and mountains.
“The yacht lay there at anchor, but she had hoisted Spanish colours. Next morning at breakfast—
“‘I feel unusually young this morning,’ said Brackenbury.
“‘So do I,’ replied O’Brady. ‘It’s the air, I suppose, but I do feel as gay as a lark.’
“‘Suppose we have a little lark, then, all by ourselves up in this valley—eh? What say? A kind of private picnic?’
“‘Is it safe?’
“‘Yes, safe as anything. We’ll take a few blue-jackets with us and a big hamper.’
“‘Well, I’m with you,’ said O’Brady, briskly.
“The spot looked so sweetly peaceful. Who could ever have dreamed that danger lurked in those lovely woods? The whole scene was more like one in our own delightful Devonshire than in the wilds of South America.
“Nor had the usual crowd of boats surrounded the vessel, and when the gig from the Adelaide landed the supercargo and captain, so well clad were the natives, and so peaceful did they seem, that Brackenbury felt half inclined to apologise to them for his armed escort.
“Two padres met them and saluted, and when told the errand that had brought them on shore, at once agreed to escort them to the head of the valley, where, the padres assured their illustrious visitors, there was the finest scenery in the world. This interpreter was a tall Chilian, a by-no-means prepossessing fellow either. He was enveloped in a kind of blanket cloak, carried a pole in his hand, and wore a broad, peak-crowned sombrero of very greasy straw. His pointed beard and long black locks were greasy also. In fact he was altogether grim and greasy, and his speech was too oily to be pleasant.
“The coach that the padres had provided was apparently about a hundred years old, but the four horses attached to it seemed fit for anything.
“They took their seats at last, the padres crowded in beside them, and the great hamper was put up on top, the Chilian interpreter sat down beside the driver, and away they rumbled and rattled.
“Rumbled? Yes, rumbled; that is the exact word. Brackenbury and O’Brady had never got such a shaking and jolting before. But the higher up the valley the coach went, the grander grew the scenery. Every now and then at a turn of the road, away beneath them they caught glimpses of the green glen basking in the summer sunshine, the river gliding through it like a silver thread, falling at last into the bright blue bay, where lay the ship with its little white boats floating peacefully astern.
“But the scene grew wilder still, and oh! what a wealth of woodland beauty was all around them, covering the tops of the round hills, climbing halfway up the sides of precipitous mountains, clinging over cliffs and waterfalls, and fringing lovely lakes, the water of which was so pellucid that the sandy bottom was seen yards and yards from the shore.
“Anon the coach would plunge into a wood of pines and mimosa, draped in the most gorgeous of creeping flowers, while down beneath lovely snow-white heather showed in charming contrast to the mantle of scarlet and green, that half hid the sun from them.
“It was well into the afternoon before the coach drew up at the ruins of an ancient monastery, and our pleasure-seekers descended. Close by was a splendid waterfall; it came foaming down from a precipice in a gorge, and descended past them into a gloomy pool that looked dark as midnight, so far beneath was it.
“But the thunders of the falling cataract shook the ground on which the two sailors stood gazing almost awestruck. Far beneath was a forest glen that bore terrible evidence to the fury of a recent storm.
“And now the lunch was spread on the green grass, and the padres waxed quite merry over it. O’Brady had never seen priests drink wine before, as these fellows did, and he now began to entertain a suspicion that they were not quite what they pretended to be. He could not now help wondering at their own folly in trusting themselves so far inland without having brought the blue-jackets to protect them.
“‘Why,’ said Brackenbury, starting up at last, ‘the sun is almost setting. We must be going. Where are the horses?’
“‘The horses,’ cried the Chilian, suddenly showing a pistol, ‘are round the corner, and our way now lies up the valley.’
“Both Brackenbury and O’Brady attempted to draw revolvers, but were immediately surrounded and disarmed by a crowd of cut-throat Chilians, who sprang from a neighbouring thicket.
“‘What means this indignity?’ shouted Brackenbury, purple with rage.
“‘It means, gentlemen,’ said the Chilian, ‘dat you are now de preesoners of Le Comte Pedro de Dolosa.’
“‘Pedro de Dolosa!’ cried O’Brady, aghast. ‘Curses on our folly! we are ruined men! This count is a bandit.’
“‘Your master shall live to rue this outrage!’ cried Brackenbury, as he and his companion, with cords around their wrists, were dragged away and thrust into the carriage.
“Their companions, the two sham padres, had now quite altered in their bearing towards their prisoners. They talked and laughed with each other, and although neither Brackenbury nor O’Brady knew the exact meaning of the words, their looks and smiles of derision were easily enough translated.
“At sunset the carriage stopped, and the villainous-looking interpreter informed the two officers that they were already in bed, and must remain there all night.
“So they made the best of a bad job and slumbered away in their respective corners till daylight. If ever during the night any thought of escape rose in their minds, one glance out at the carriage windows, where the vigilant and fierce-looking armed sentries stood statue-like in the starlight, was enough to banish it.
“The journey was resumed at daybreak, and continued without intermission until they arrived at this very place. Here the carriage was stopped, and they were ordered to descend.
“Standing like an equestrian statue at the edge of the forest was a tall, dark, armed man on horseback. As soon as the officers alighted he rode forward, and, taking off his sombrero, bowed until his face almost touched his splendid horse’s mane.
“The face was Dolosa’s.
“‘Is it really yourself, then, you robber chief?’ cried the bold captain of the Adelaide.
“‘It is I,’ was the answer—‘Le Comte Pedro de Dolosa. But let me advise you to study civility while in my power. We know not the meaning of the term robber chief. Beware how you provoke me!’
“All the horses were now taken out of the carriage, except one. This was blindfolded and led to the very brink of the terrible precipice. Then a shout was raised, the whip descended with force across the poor doomed animals’ flanks, they made a plunge forward, and next moment carriage and all had disappeared.
“Dolosa turned laughingly round to his prisoners.
“‘Now, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘you see what has happened; I’m sorry to inform you, you will have to walk all the rest of the way to my little cottage among the mountains. Good-bye, my men will see you safe.’
“And away rode the robber chief.
“‘What does the destruction of the carriage mean, I wonder?’ said O’Brady.
“‘Without doubt,’ replied Brackenbury, ‘it is to put our fellows off the scent.’
“Brackenbury was right for once in his lifetime.
“The march inland was soon resumed by the officers and their captors. A little distance farther on and the road ended in a series of narrow footpaths, like the tracks of deer or other wild animals. These led in different directions into the forest, and one was chosen by the leader of the band. They walked in single file, and care was apparently taken to destroy all trail.
“All that day the journey was continued, through jungle and forest, across streams, and up through dreary glens, till, as night fell, they found themselves at the gate of an ancient wall. It was opened to admit them, and immediately re-closed with a ponderous bang.
“In a quarter of an hour afterwards they were issued into a kind of armoury, and thence into a lofty and well-lighted supper-room.
“Tired and weary from wandering in forest wilds, here had they arrived, and suddenly found themselves plunged into the very midst of luxury of every imaginable kind. A room with gilded cornices and hand-painted roof, carpets soft as cushions, furniture as chaste and refined as modern art could produce, servants in livery to wait on them, and a supper-table laid out with viands the most tempting, and wines from every part of the world.
“They fell to like wise and hungry men, and did justice to the good things set before them.
“They supped alone, the count never appeared.
“After a few hours a servant came to conduct them to their bed-chamber, and they followed him in silence.
“The servant was as silent as they were.
“He showed them the room, pointed to the beds, and left them in the dark.
“This wasn’t pleasant, nor was it pleasant to hear the key turned in the door.
“But there was no help for it.”