Tom Cringle's Log

“Let go the anchor,” sung 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 away 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 by the ring. The only laughable part of the story consisted in the old cook, an Irishman, with one leg and half an eye, scrambling out of the galley nearly naked, in his trowsers, shirt, and greasy nightcap, and sprawling on all fours after two tubsful of yams, which the third thump had capsized all over the deck. “Oh you scurvy-looking tief,” said he, eying the pilot; “if it was running us ashore you were set on, why the blazes couldn’t ye wait until the yams, were in the copper, bad luck to ye—and them all scraped too! I do believe, if they even had been taties, it would have been all the same to you.” We stood on, the channel narrowing still more the rocks rising to a height of at least five hundred feet from the water’s edge, as sharply and precipitously as if they had only yesterday been split asunder; the splintered projections and pinnacles on one side, having each their corresponding fissures and indentations on the other, as if the hand of a giant could have closed them together again.

Noble trees shot out in all directions wherever they could find a little earth and a crevice to hold on by, almost meeting overhead in several places, and alive with all kinds of birds and beasts incidental to the climate; parrots of all sorts, great and small, clomb, and hung, and fluttered amongst the branches; and pigeons of numberless varieties; and the glancing woodpecker, with his small hammer like tap, tap, tap; and the West India nightingale, and humming birds of all hues; while cranes, black, white, and grey, frightened from their fishing-stations, stalked and peeped about, as awkwardly as a warrant-officer in his long skirted coat on a Sunday; while whole flocks of ducks flew across the mastheads and through the rigging; and the dragon-like guanas, and lizards of many kinds, disported themselves amongst the branches, not lazily or loathsomely, as we, who have only seen a lizard in our cold climate, are apt to picture, but alert, and quick as lightning, their colours changing with the changing light or the hues of the objects to which they clung, becoming literally in one respect portions of the landscape.

And then the dark, transparent crystal depth of the pure waters under foot, reflecting all nature so steadily and distinctly, that in the hollows, where the overhanging foliage of the laurel-like bushes darkened the scene, you could not for your life tell where the elements met, so blended were earth and sea.

“Starboard,” said I. I had now come on deck. “Starboard, or the main topgallant-masthead will befoul of the limb of that tree. Foretop, there—lie out on the larboard fore-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,” sung out a great bushy-whiskered sailor from the crows nest, who turned out to be no other than our old friend Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilffied by the laughing scene. “Here am I, Jack, a booby amongst the singing-birds,” crowed he to one of his messmates in the maintop, as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand, and swung himself up into it. But the ship, as Old Nick would have it, at the very instant dropped astern a yew 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. “Oh Lord, sir!” sung out Timotheus, in a great quandary. “Captain, 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 the 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, chuckling 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? Come down this moment, sir. Rig out the main-topmast-studding-sail-boom, Mr Reefpoint, 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 immediately began to warp himself down, until he reached within three or four yards of the starboard fore-topsail-yardarm; but the corvette still dropped astern, so that, after a vain attempt to hook on by his feet, he swung off into mid air, hanging by his hands.

It was no longer a joke. “Here, you black fellows in the pilot canoe,” shouted the captain, as he threw them a rope himself. “Pass the end of that line round the stump yonder—that one below the cliff, there—now pull like devils, pull.”

They did not understand a word he said; but, comprehending his gestures, did what he wished.

“Now haul on the line, men—gently, that will do. Missed it again,” continued the skipper, as the poor fellow once more made a fruitless attempt to swing himself on to the yard.

“Pay out the warp again,” sung out Tailtackle—“quick, quick, let the ship swing from under, and leave me scope to dive, or I shall be obliged to let go, and be killed on the deck.”

“God bless me, yes,” said Transom, “stick out the warp, let her swing to her anchor.”

In an instant all eyes were again fastened with intense anxiety on the poor fellow, whose strength was fast failing, and his grasp plainly relaxing.

“See all clear to pick me up, messmates.”

Tailtackle slipped down to the extreme end of the black withe, that looked like a scorched snake, pressed his legs close together, pointing his toes downwards, and then steadying himself 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 any thing better done?” said Yerk. “Why he clipped into the water with the speed of light, as clean and clear as if he had been a marlinspike.”

“Thank heaven!” gasped the captain; for if he had struck the water horizontally, or fallen headlong, he would have been shattered in pieces every bone would have been broken—he would have been as completely smashed as if he had dropped upon one of the limestone rocks on the ironbound shore.

“Ship, ahoy!” We were all breathlessly looking over the side where he fell, expecting to see him rise again; but the hail came from the water on t’other side. “Ship, ahoy—throw me a rope, good people—a rope, if you please. Do you mean to careen the ship, that you have all run to the starboard side, leaving me to be drowned to port here?”

“Ah, Tailtackle! well done, old boy,” sung 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.

When he came on deck the captain slyly said, “I don’t think you’ll go a bird nesting 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 sticking 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. Mafame,” 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 little wicked 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. I 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 underfoot; so I sha’n’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.”

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 any thing, widened his distance from the ship.

At this instant the lad on the spritsail-yard sung out quick and suddenly, “A shark, a shark!”

And the monster, like a silver pillar, suddenly shot up perpendicularly 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 impending rocks into piercing echoes, and these again were reverberated from cavern, to cavern, until they died away amongst the hollows in the distance, as if they had been the faint shrieks of the damned—yet he held fast for a second or two—the ravenous tyrant of the sea tug, tugging at him, till the stiff, taught cable shook again. At length he was torn from his hold, but did not disappear; the animal continuing on the surface crunching 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 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 stem voice thrill along my nerves, as if an echo of the beating of my heart had become articulate. “Thomas, a fortnight ago you impressed that poor boy—who was, and now is not—out of a Bristol ship.” Alas conscience spoke no more than the truth.

Our instructions were to be 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, taught and stiff as he was at sea, always encouraged all kinds of fun and larking, both amongst the men and the officers, on occasions like the present. Amongst his other pleasant qualities, he was a great boat racer, constantly building and altering gigs and pulling boats, at his own expense, and matching the men against each other for small prizes.

He had just finished what the old carpenter considered his chef d’oeuvre, 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 trowsers 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 dropped 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 foaming into white smoke at the bows, and hissing away in her wake.

She disappeared in a twinkling round a reach of the canal where we were anchored, and we, the officers, for we must needs have our boat also, were making ready to be off, to have a shot at some beautiful cranes that, floating on their large pinions, slowly passed us with their long legs stuck straight out astern, and their longer necks gathered into their crops, when we heard a loud shouting in the direction where the Captain’s boat had vanished. Presently the Devil’s Darning Needle, as the Scotch part of the crew loved to call the Dragonfly, stuck her long snout round the headland, and came spinning along with a Spanish canoe manned by four negroes, and steered by an elderly gentleman, a sharp acute-looking little man, in a gingham coat, in her wake, also pulling very fast; however, the Don seemed dead beat, and the captain was in great glee. By this time, both boats were alongside, and the old Spaniard, Don Ricardo Campana, addressed the captain, judging that he was one of the seamen. “Is the Captain on board?” said he in Spanish. The Captain, who understood the language, but did not speak it, answered him in French, which Don Ricardo seemed to speak fluently, “No, sir, the Captain is not on board; but there is Mr Yerk, the first lieutenant, at the gangway.” He had come for the letter-bag he said, and if we had any newspapers, and could spare them, it would be conferring a great favour on him.

He got his letters and newspapers handed down, and very civilly gave the Captain a dollar, who touched his cap, tipped the money to the men, and winking slightly to old Yerk and the rest of us, addressed himself to shove off. The old Don, drawing up his eyebrows a little, (I guess he rather saw who was who, for all his make-believe innocence,) bowed to the officers at the gangway, sat down, and desiring his people to use their broad-bladed, clumsy looking oars, or paddles, began to move awkwardly away. We, that is the gunroom officers, all except the second Lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master, now got into our own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all went in a covey; the purser and doctor, and three of the middies forward, Thomas Cringle, gentleman, pulling the stroke oar, with old Moses Yerk as coxswain; and as the Dragonflies were all red, so we were all seagreen, boat, oars, trowsers, shirts, and nightcaps. We soon distanced the cumbrous looking Don, and the strain was between the Devil’s Darning Needle and our boat the Watersprite, which was making capital play, for although we had not the bottom of the topmen, 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 Tams, as intent on the game as if all our lives had depended on it, when in an instant the long black dirty prow of the canoe was thrust in between us, the old Don singing out, “Dexa mi lugar, paysanos, dexa mi lugar, mis hijos.” We kept away right and left, to look at the miracle;—and there lay the canoe, rumbling and splashing, with her crew walloping about, and grinning and yelling like incarnate fiends, and as naked as the day they were born, and the old Don himself so staid and so sedate and drawley as he was a minute before, now all alive, shouting “Tira diablitos, tira!” flourishing 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, gentlemen, give way for the honour of the ship—Gentlemen, stretch out—Men, pull like devils; twenty pounds if you beat him.”

We pulled, and they pulled, and the water roared, and the men strained their muscles and sinews to cracking, and all was splash, splash, and whiz, whiz, and pech, pech, about us, but it would not do the canoe headed us like a shot, and in passing, the cool old Don again subsided into a calm as suddenly as he had been roused from it, and sitting once more, stiff as a poker, turned round and touched his sombrero, “I will tell that you are coming, gentlemen.”

It was now the evening, near nightfall, and we had been so intent on beating our awkward-looking opponent, that we had none of us 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 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 harbour, from which we were now debauching, ran out in all its precipitousness and beauty, (with its dark evergreen bushes overshadowing 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 towards the east; the higher parts of the town sparkled in the evening sun, on this dun ridge, like golden turrets on the back of an elephant, while the houses that were in the shade covered the declivity with their dark masses, until it sank down to the water’s edge. On the right hand the haven opened boldly out into a basin about four miles broad by seven long, in which the placid waters spread out beyond the shadow of the western bank into one vast sheet of molten gold, with the canoe tearing along the shining surface, her side glancing in the sun, and her paddles flashing back his rays, and leaving a long train of living fire sparkling in her wake.

It was now about six o’clock in the evening; the sun had set to us, as we pulled along under the frowning brow of the cliff, where the birds were fast settling on their nightly perches, with small happy twitterings, and the lizards and numberless other chirping things began to send forth their evening hymn to the great Being who made them and us, and a solitary white sailing owl would every now and then flit spectre like from one green tuft, across the bald face of the cliff, to another, and the small divers around us were breaking up the black surface of the waters into little sparkling circles as they fished for their suppers. All was becoming brown and indistinct near us; but the level beams of the setting sun still lingered with a golden radiance 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 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 extended 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, grumbled 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 remarking, as we were rowing leisurely along, upon the strange effect produced by the reports, as they were frittered away amongst the overhanging cliffs in chattering reverberations, when the captain suddenly sung out, “Oars!” All hands lay on them. “Look there,” he continued—“There—between the gigs—saw you ever any thing like that, gentlemen?” We all leant over; and although the boats, from the way they had, were skimming along nearer seven than five knots—there lay a large shark; he must have been twelve feet long at the shortest, swimming right in the middle, and equidistant from both, and keeping way with us most accurately.

He was distinctly visible, from the strong and vivid phosphorescence 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 he disappeared altogether. He was then at rest, and suspended motionless in the water; and the only thing that indicated his proximity, was an occasional sparkle from the motion of a fin. We brought the boats nearer together, after pulling a stroke or two, but he seemed to sink as we closed, until at last we could merely perceive an indistinct halo far down in the clear black profound. But as we separated, and resumed our original position, he again rose near the surface; and although the ripple and dip of the oars rendered him invisible while we were pulling, 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 melancholy occurrence of the forenoon.

“That’s the very identical, damnable baste himself, as murthered poor little Louis this morning, yeer honour; I knows him from the tom 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,” sung out the skipper, in reply.

“Man the side-gangway lanterns there,” quoth the officer on duty; and by the time we were close to, there were two sidesmen 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 learnt you your breeding? Among the cockatoos up yonder?”

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 himself 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, masters 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 neck cloth white jean waistcoat and trowsers, 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 fidgeting about at finding themselves so far out of their element as the cabin.

“Mafame,” said the Captain, “a glass of grog apiece 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 sprung 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 Water Sprites, had shifted and rigged, and were all mustered aft on the poop, enjoying the little air there was, as it fanned 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!”

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 absolutely deafening.

The cold, grey, threatening rocks, and the large overhanging twisted branches of the trees, and the clear black water, and the white Moro in the distance, glanced for an instant, and then all was again veiled in utter darkness, and down came a rattling shower of sand and stones from the cliffs, and of rotten branches, and heavy dew from the trees, sparkling in the water like a shower of diamonds; and the birds of the air screamed, and, frightened from their nests and perches in crevices, and on the boughs of the trees, took flight with a strong rushing noise, that put one in mind of the rising of the fallen angels from the infernal council in Paradise Lost; and the cattle on the mountain-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, and clang of their the cattle, ceased; and the startled fish oozy caverns at the bottom of the sea, 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 bum a blue light.”

The lurid glare blazed up balefully amongst the spars and rigging, lighting up the decks, and blasting the crew into the likeness of the host of Sennacherib, when the day broke on them, and they were all dead corpses. A—stem 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 snowflakes blown about in storm; while, near at hand, the rocks on each side of us looked as if fresh splintered asunder, with the sulphurous flames which had 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 waterfowl, and birds of many kinds, and all the insect 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 every thing 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.

CHAPTER XIII.—The Pirate’s Leman

The next morning after breakfast I proceeded to Santiago, and landed at the custom house wharf, where I found everything bustle, dust, and heat; several of the captains of the English vessels were there, who immediately made up to me, and reported how far advanced in their lading they were, and enquired when we were to give them convoy, the latest news from Kingston, &c. At length I saw our friend Ricardo Campana going along one of the neighbouring streets, and I immediately made sail in chase. He at once recognised me, gave me a cordial shake of the hand, and enquired how he could serve me. I produced two letters which I had brought for him, but which had been forgotten in the bustle of the preceding day; they were introductory, and although sealed, I had some reason to conjecture 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; 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 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 verandas 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 verandas, 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.

“Senor Campana—ese pobre familia de Cangrejo! Lastima! Lastima!” “Cangrejo—Cangrejo!” muttered I; “why, it is the very name attached to the miniature.”

Campana turned to the priest, and they conversed earnestly together for some moments, when he left him, and we again held on our way. I could not help asking him what family that was, whose situation the “padre” seemed so feelingly to bemoan.

“Never mind,” said he, “never mind; they were a proud family once, but that is all over now—come along.”

“But,” said I, “I have a very peculiar cause of interest with regard to this family. You are aware, of course, of the trial and execution of the pirates in Kingston, the most conspicuous of whom was a young man called Federico Cangrejo, from whom....”

“Mr Cringle,” said he, solemnly, “at a fitting time I will hear you regarding that matter; at present I entreat you will not press it.”

Good manners would not allow me to push it farther, and we trudged along together, until we arrived at Don Ricardo Campana’s door. It was a large brick building, plastered over as already described, and whitewashed. There was a projecting stair in front, with a flight of steps to the right and left, with a parapet wall towards the street. There were two large windows, with the wooden veranda or lattice already described, on the first floor, and on the second a range of smaller windows, of the same kind. What answered to our ground floor was used as a warehouse, and filled with dry goods, sugar, coffee, hides, and a vast variety of miscellaneous articles. We ascended the stairs, and entered a lofty room, cool and dark, and paved with large diamond— shaped bricks, and every way desirable for a West India lounge, all to the furniture, which was meagre enough; three or four chairs, a worm— eaten old leathern sofa, and a large clumsy hardwood table in the midst.

There were several children playing about, little sallow devils, although, I dare say, they could all of them have been furnished with certificates of white parentage, upon whom one or two negro women were hovering in attendance beyond a large folding door that fronted the entrance.

When we entered, the eldest of the children, a little girl of about eight years old, was sitting in the doorway, playing with a small blue toy that I could make nothing of, until on a nearer inspection I found it to be a live land-crab, which the little lady had manacled with a thread by the foot, the thread being fastened to a nail driven into a seam of the floor.

As an article of food, I was already familiar with this creature, but I had never seen a living one before; it was in every respect like a sea crab, only smaller, the body being at the widest not above three inches across the back. It fed without any apparent fear, and while it pattered over the tiled floor, with its hard claws, it would now and then stop and seize a crum of bread in its forceps, and feed itself like a little monkey. By the time I had exchanged a few words with the little lady, the large door that opened into the hall on the right hand moved, and mine hostess made her appearance; a small woman, dressed in a black gown, very laxly fitted. She was the very converse of our old ship, she never missed stays, although I did cruelly.

“This is my friend, Lieutenant Cringle,” said mine host.

“A las pies de usted, senora,” responded your humble servant.

“I am very glad to see you,” said the lady; “but breakfast is ready; welcome, sir, welcome.”

The food was not amiss, the coffee decidedly good, and the chocolate, wherein, if you had planted a teaspoon, it would have stood upright, was excellent. When we had done with substantials, 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 apiece, and drank a gallon of that most heathenish beverage, cold clear water, before the repast 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 accompany him, when in walked Captain Transom and Mr Bang. They were also kindly received by Don Ricardo.

“Clad 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 presume?—Have the goodness to introduce me.”

The skipper was presented in due form, the lady receiving him without the least mauvaise honte, which, after all, I believe to be indigenous to our island. Aaron was next introduced, who, as he spoke no lingo, as I knows of, to borrow Timotheus Tailtackle’s phraseology but English, was rather posed in the interview.

“I say, Tom, tell her I wish she may live a thousand years. Ah, so, that will do.”

Madama made her conge, and hoped “El Senora Maria un asiento.” “Mucho, mucho,” sung out Bang, who meant by that that he was much obliged.

At length Don Ricardo came to our aid. He had arranged a party into the country for next morning, and invited us all to come back to a tertulia in the evening, and to take beds in his house, he undertaking to provide bestias to carry us.

We therefore strolled out, a good deal puzzled what to make of ourselves until the evening, when we fell in with one of the captains of the English ships then loading, who told us that there was a sort of hotel a little way down the street, where we might dine at two o’clock at the table d’hote. It was as yet only twelve, so we stumbled into this hotel to reconnoitre, and a sorry affair it was. The public room was fitted with rough wooden tables, at which Spaniards, Americans, and Englishmen, sat and smoked, and drank sangaree, hot punch, or cold grog, as best suited them, and committed a vast variety of miscellaneous 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 engagement to dinner?”

“No, we have none.”

“Well, then, will you do me the honour of partaking of my family fare, at three o’clock? I did not venture to invite you before, because I knew you had other letters to deliver, and I wished to leave you masters of your own time.” We gladly accepted his kind offer; he had made his bow, and was cruising amongst the smokers, and punch drinkers, where the blue coated masters of the English merchantmen and American skippers, were hobbing and nobbing with the gingham-coated Dons, for the whole Spanish part of the community were figged out in Glasgow and Paisley ginghams; when the priest, who had attracted our attention in the morning, came up to him, and drew him aside. They talked earnestly together, the clerigo, every now and then, indicating by significant nods and glances towards us, that we formed the burden of his song, whatever that might be. Campana seemed exceedingly unwilling to communicate the message, which we guessed he had been entreated to carry to us, and made one or two attempts to shove the friar in propria persona towards us, that he might himself tell his own story. At length they advanced together to where we stood, when he addressed me.

“You must pardon me, Lieutenant; but as the proverb hath it, strange countries, strange manners; my friend here, Padre Carera, brings a message from El Senor Picador Cangrejo, one of our magnates, that he will consider it an especial favour if you will can on him, either this forenoon or tomorrow.”

“Why, who is this Cangrejo, Don Ricardo? if he be not the father of the poor fellow I mentioned, there must be some mystery about him.”

“No mystery,” chimed in the monk; “no mystery, God help us, but mucha, mucha miseria, hijo mio; much misery, sir, and more impending, and none to help save only”—He did not finish the sentence, but taking off his shovel hat, and shewing his finely turned bald head, he looked up to heaven, and crossed himself, the tears trickling down his wrinkled cheeks. “But,” continued he, “you will come, Mr Cringle?”

“Certainly,” said I, “tomorrow I will call, if my friend Don Ricardo will be my guide.” This being fixed, we strolled about until dinnertime, friend Aaron making his remarks regarding the people and their domiciles with great naivety.

“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 enquiries I was making amongst the captains of the merchantmen”—(“Masters,” interjected Captain Transom, “Master of a merchantman, Captain of a man-of-war.”) “Well, captains of merchantmen,—masters, I mean,—I find that the people whom they employ are generally free; and, farther, 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 been red once. But devil a dish of any kind was on the snow-white table-cloth 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 senoras, as I ought to have called them, who were sitting so far back into the shade, at the dark end of the room, when we entered, that I could not tell what they were. Our hostess was, although a little woman, a good looking dark Spaniard, not very polished, but very kind; and seeing that our friend Aaron was the most helpless amongst us, she took him under her especial care, and made many a civil speech to him, although her husband did not fail to advertise her, that he understood not one word of Spanish, that is, of all she was saying to him. However, he replied to her kindnesses by his never-failing exclamation of “mucho, mucho,” and they appeared to be getting on extremely well. “Bring dinner,” quoth Don Ricardo, “trae la comida;” and four black female domestics entered, the first with a large dish of pillaffe, or fowls smothered in rice and onions; the second with a nondescript melange, flesh, fish, and fowl apparently, strongly flavoured with garlic; the third bore a dish of jerked beef, cut into long shreds, and swimming in seba or lard; and the fourth bore a large dish full of that indescribable thing known by those who read Don Quixote, as an olla podrida. The sable handmaidens began to circulate round the table, and every one helped himself to the dish that he most fancied. At length they placed them on the board, and brought massive silver salvers, with snow white bread, twisted into strands in the baking, like junks of a cable; and water jars, and yams nicely roasted and wrapped in plantain leaves. These were in like manner handed round, and then deposited on the table, and the domestics vanished.

We all got on cheerily enough, and both the Captain and myself were finishing off with the olla podrida, with which, it so happened, we were familiar, and friend Bang, taking the time from us, took heart of grace and straightway followed our example. There was a pause rather an irksome one from its continuance, so much so indeed, that knocking off from my more immediate business of gorging the aforesaid olla podrida, I looked up, and as it so happened, by accident towards our friend Bang and there he was munching and screwing up his energies to swallow a large mouthful of the mixture, against which his stomach appeared to rebel. “Smollet’s feast after the manner of the ancients,” whispered Transom. At length he made a vigorous effort and straightway sung out “l’eau de vie, Don Ricardibus—some brandy, mon ami—for the love of all the respectable saints in your heathenish 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.

“Anniseed—damn anniseed—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 vino tinto, or claret, and the third one of l’eau de vie, for Aaron’s peculiar use. These were placed before the landlord, who helped himself to half a pint of claret, which he 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 manner, he gave a smaller quantity to each of the other Senoras, when the whole female part of the family drank our healths in a volley. But all this time the devil a thing drinkable was there before we males, but goblets of pure cold water. Bang’s “mucho mucho” even failed him, for he had only in his modesty got a thimbleful of brandy to qualify the olla podrida. However, in a twinkling a beautiful long-necked bottle of claret was planted at each of our right hands, and of course we lost no time in returning the unlooked-for civility of the ladies. Until this moment I had not got a proper glimpse of the three Virgins of the Sun, who were seated at table with us. They were very pretty Moorish-looking girls, as like as peas, dark hair, black eyes, clear colourless 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 when the wearer is, as in the present case she was, young and beautiful. They all wore a long plain white gauze strap, like a broad ribbon, (little Reefpoint afterwards said they wore boat pennants at their mastheads,) I don’t know what Madam Maradon Carson would call it, in their hair, which fell down from amongst the braids nearly to their heels, and then they replied in their magnificent language, when casually addressed during dinner, with so much naivete. We, the males of the party, had drank little or nothing, a bottle of claret or so apiece, 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 I, 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 took place, the girls producing their guitars, and we were all mighty frolicsome and happy, when a couple of padres from the convent of La Merced, in their white flannel gowns, black girdles, and shaven crowns, suddenly entered the hall. We the foreign part of the society, calculated on being pulled up by the clerigos, but deuce a bit; on the contrary, the young females clustered round them, laughing and joking, while the Senora 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 waltzing 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 postoffice, and a man who was called the “Corregidor de Tabaco,” literally the “corrector of tobacco,” dropped in about this time, and one or two ladies, relatives of Mrs Campana, and Don Ricardo returning soon after, we had sweet meats and liqueurs, and coffee, and chocolate, and a game at monte, and maco, and were, in fact, very happy. But the happiest day, as well as the most miserable, must have an end, and the merry party dropped off, one after another, until we were left all alone with our host’s family. Madama soon after took her departure, wishing us a goodnight. She had no sooner gone, than Bang began to shoot out his horns a bit. “I say, Tom, ask the Don to let us have a drop of something hot, will you, a tumbler of hot brandy and water after the waltzing, eh? I don’t see the bedroom candles yet.” Nor would he, if we had sat there till doomsday. Campana seemed to have understood Bang, the brandy was immediately forthcoming, and we drew in to the table to enjoy ourselves, Bang waxing talkative. “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 imposed 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 monopoly, and that the officer above alluded to is the functionary who has the management of it. Don Ricardo, hearing something 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.”

So now, since we had all gotten fairly into the clouds, there was no saying how long we should have remained in the seventh heaven much would have depended upon the continuance of the supply of brandy—but two female slaves presently made their appearance, each carrying a quatre. I believe I have already described this easily rigged couch somewhere; it is a hard-wood 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 handmaidens 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 the 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 Ricardo during the operations.

“I say, Tom,” at length quoth Bang, “are you to be laid out on one of those 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 enquiring 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 garment, which was deucedly laconic, made his formal bow, wished us goodnight, and presenting the reverse of his medal, which was extremely picturesque, he vanished through the door. By this, the ebony ladies had cleared the table of the crystal, and had capped it with a yellow leather mattrass, 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 disappeared—“Buenos noches, senores—las camas estan listas.”

Bang had been unable to speak from excess of astonishment; but the skipper and I, finding there was no help for it, had followed Campana’s example, and kept pace with him in our peeling, so that by the time he disappeared, we were ready to topple into our quatres, which we accordingly did, and by this time we were both at full length, with our heads cased each in one of Don Ricardo’s silk nightcaps, contemplating Bang’s appearance, as he sat in disconsolate mood in his chair at the head of the table, with the fag-end of a cigar in the corner of his cheek.

“Now, Bang,” said Transom, “turn in, and let us have a snooze, will ye?”

Bang did not seem to like it much.

“Zounds, Transom, did you ever hear of a gentleman being put to bed on a table? Why, it must be a quiz. Only fancy me dished out and served up like a great calipi in the shell! However, here goes—But surely this is in sorry taste; we had our chocolate a couple of hours ago—capital it was by the by—in vulgar Staffordshire china, and now they give us silver....”

“Be decent, Bang,” cut in the skipper, who was by this time more than half asleep. “Be decent, and go to bed—that’s a good fellow.”

“Ah, well” Aaron undressed himself, and lay down; and there he was laid out, with a candle on each side of his head, his red face surmounted by a redder handkerchief tied round his head, sticking out above the white sheet; and supported by Captain Transom and myself, one on each side. All was now quiet. I got up and put out the candles, and as I fell asleep, I could hear Aaron laughing to himself “Dished, and served up, deuced like Saint Barts. I was intended for a doctor, Tom, you must know. I hope the Don is not a medical amateur; I trust he won’t have a touch at me before morning. Rum subject I should make. Possibly he may want to practice cutting for the stone—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 flaffing about, and I could hear him occasionally 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.

“Murder!” roared Bang. “I am bewitched and bedevilled. Murder! a scorpion has dropped from the roof into my mouth, and stung me on the nose. Murder! Tom—Tom Cringle—Captain—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 behind him.

“Ave Maria purissima—what is the matter? Where is el Senior Bang?”

“Mucho, mucho,” shouted Bang from below the table. “Send for a doctoribus, Senor Richarsum. I am dead and t’other thing help!—help!”

“Dios guardo 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?” enquired the Spaniard.

Poor Transom’s intellect was at this time none of the clearest, being more than half asleep, and not quite so sober as a hermit is wont to be; besides, he must needs speak Spanish, of which he was by no means master, which led to a very comical blunder. Alacran, in Spanish, means scorpion, and Cayman, an alligator, not very similar in sound certainly, but the termination being the same, he selected in the hurry the wrong phrase.

“He says,” replied Transom in bad Spanish, “that he has swallowed an alligator, or something of that sort, sir.” Then a loud yawn.

“Swallowed a what?” rejoined Campana, greatly astonished.

“No, no,” snorted the captain—“I am wrong—he says he has been stung by an alligator.”

“Stung by an alligator!—impossible.”

“Why, then,” persisted the skipper, “if he be not stung by an alligator, or if he has not really swallowed one, at all events an alligator has either stung or swallowed him—so make the most of it, Don Ricardo.”

“Why this is absurd, with all submission,” continued Campana; “how the deuce could he swallow an alligator, or an alligator get into my house to annoy him?”

“D—n it,” said Transom, half tipsy and very sleepy, “that’s his look out. You are very unreasonable, Don Ricardo; all that is the affair of friend Bang and the alligator; my purpose is solely to convey his meaning faithfully”—a loud snore.

“Oh,” said Campana, laughing, “I see, I see; I left your friend sobre mesa, [on the table,] but now I see he is sub rosa.”

“Help, good people, help!” roared Bang—“help, or my nose will reach from this to the Moro Castle—Help!”

We got him out, and were I to live a thousand years, which would be a tolerably good spell, I don’t think I could forget his appearance. His nose, usually the smallest article of the kind that I ever saw, was now swollen as large as my fist, and as purple as a mulberry—the distension of the skin, from the venomous sting of the reptile—for stung he had been by a scorpion—made it semi—transparent, so that it looked like a large blob of currant jelly hung on a peg in the middle of his face, or a gigantic leech, gorged with blood, giving his visage the semblance of some grotesque old-fashioned dial, with a fantastic 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 outright; 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 tablespoonfuls had actually been forced down his gullet, notwithstanding his struggles, and exclamations of “Pumpkin bad—softened with castor oil—d——n it, skipper, you’ll choke me” spurt—sputter—sputter—“choke me, man.”

“Cuidado,” said Don Ricardo; “let me manage”—and he got a small tube of wild cane, which he stuck into Bang’s mouth, through a hole in the poultice-cloth, and set a negro servant to watch that it did not sink into his gullet, as he fell asleep, and with instructions to take the poultice off whenever the pain abated; and there he lay on his back, whistling through this artificial beak, like a sick snipe.

At length, however, all hands of us seemed to have fallen asleep, but towards the dawning I was awakened by repeated bursts of suppressed laughter, and upon looking in the direction from whence the sounds proceeded, I was surprised beyond all measure to observe Transom in a corner of the room in his trowsers 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.