We and the World: A Book for Boys. Part II

The Water-Lily was re-christened by Dennis, with many flourishes of speech and a deck tub of salt water long before we reached our journey’s end. The Slut, as we now privately called her, defied all our efforts to make her look creditable for New York harbour, but we were glad enough to get her there at all.

We made the lights of Barnegat at about six o’clock one fine morning, took a pilot on board at Sandy Hook, and the Slut being by this time as ship-shape as we could get her, we cleaned ourselves to somewhat better purpose, put on our shore-togs, and were at leisure to enjoy one of the most charming sensations in the world, that of making one’s way into a beautiful harbour on a beautiful morning. The fresh breeze that favoured us, the sunshine that—helped by the enchantment of distance—made warehouses look like public buildings, and stone houses like marble palaces, a softening hue of morning mist still dinging about the heights, of Brooklyn and over the distant stretch of the Hudson river islands, the sparkling waves and dancing craft in the bay, and all the dear familiar maze of spars and rigging in the docks; it is wonderful how such sights, and the knowledge that you are close to the haven where you would be, charm away the sore memories of the voyage past, and incline you to feel that it hasn’t been such t’ a bad cruise after all.

“Poor ole Water-Lily!” sighed Alfonso, under the influence of this feeling, “you and me’s called her a heap o’ bad names, Dennis; I ’spects we has to have our grumbles, Dennis. Dat’s ’bout whar ‘tis.”

“She’s weathered the storm and got into port, anyhow,” said Dennis, “and I suppose you think the best can do no more. Eh?”

“Jes’ so, Dennis.”

Alfonso was not far wrong on the subject of grumbling. It is one of a sailor’s few luxuries and privileges, and acts as safety-valve for heats of just and unjust indignation, which might otherwise come to dangerous explosion. We three had really learned no mean amount of rough-and-ready seamanship by this time, and we had certainly practised the art of grumbling as well. That “of all the dirty ill-found tubs,” the Slut was the worst we had ever known, our limited experience had made us safe in declaring, and we had also been voluble about the undue length of time during which we had been “humbugging about” between Halifax and New York. But these by-gones we now willingly allowed to be by-gones, especially as we had had duff-pudding the day before, though it was not Sunday—(Oh, Crayshaw’s! that I should have lived to find duff-pudding a treat—but it is a pleasant change from salt meat),—and as the captain had promised some repairs to the ship before we returned to Halifax.

We were not long in discovering that the promise was a safe one, for he did not mean to return to Halifax at all. Gradually it leaked out, that when the salt fish was disposed of we were not going to take in ballast and go back, as we had thought, but to stow away a “general cargo” of cheap manufactured articles (chiefly hardware, toys, trumpery pictures, and looking-glasses) and proceed with them on a trading voyage “down south.”—“West Indies,” said the carpenter. “Bermuda for certain,” was another opinion; but Alfonso smiled and said, “Demerara.”

“Cap’n berry poor sailor, but berry good trader,” he informed us in confidence. “Sell ‘m stinking fish and buy gimcracks cheap; sell gimcracks dear to Portugee store in Georgetown, take in sugar—berry good sugar, Demerara sugar—and come back to New York.”

Alfonso had made the voyage before on these principles, and was all the more willing to believe that this was to be the programme, because he was—at such uncertain intervals as his fate ordained—courting a young lady of colour in Georgetown, Demerara. I don’t think Dennis O’Moore could help sympathizing with people, and as a result of this good-natured weakness, he heard a great deal about that young lady of colour, and her genteel clothes, and how she played the piano, and belonged to the Baptist congregation.

“I’ve a cousin myself in Demerara, Alfonso,” said Dennis.

“Hope she’m kind to you, Dennis. Hope you can trust her, ’specially if the members walks home with her after meeting.” And Alfonso sighed.

But jokes were far too precious on board the Slut for Dennis to spoil this one by explaining that his cousin was a middle-aged gentleman in partnership with the owner of a sugar estate.

As we had sailed on the understanding that the Water-Lily was bound to New York and back again to Halifax, of course we made a fuss and protested at the change. But we had not really much practical choice in the matter, whatever our strict rights were, and on the whole we found it would be to our advantage to go through with it, especially as we did secure a better understanding about our wages, and the captain promised us more rest on Sundays. On one point we still felt anxious—our home letters; so Dennis wrote to the post-master at Halifax, and arranged for them to be forwarded to us at the post-office, Georgetown, Demerara. For Alfonso was right, we were bound for British Guiana, it being however understood that we three were not under obligation to make the return voyage in the Water-Lily.

An odd incident occurred during our brief stay in New York. It was after the interview in which we came to terms with the captain, and he had given us leave for three hours ashore. You can’t see very much of a city when you have no money to spend in it; but we had walked about till we were very hungry, and yet more thirsty, for it was hot, when we all three caught sight of a small shop (or store, as Americans would call it), and we all spoke at once.

“Cooling drinks!” exclaimed Dennis.

“There’s cakes yonder,” said Alister.

“Michael Macartney,” muttered I, for that was the name over the door.

We went in as a customer came out, followed by Michael Macartney’s parting words in a rich brogue that might have been old Biddy’s own. I took a good look at him, which he returned with a civil comment on the heat, and an inquiry as to what I would take, which Dennis, in the thirstiness of his throat, answered for me, leaving me a few moments more of observation. I made a mental calculation, and decided that the man’s age would fit Micky, and in the indescribableness of the colour of his clothes and his complexion he was undoubtedly like Biddy, but if they had been born in different worlds the expression of his eyes could not have been more different. I had the clearest remembrance of hers. One does not so often look into the eyes of a stranger and see genuine feeling that one should forget it. For the rest of him, I was glad that Biddy had allowed that there was no similarity “betwixt us.” He had a low forehead, a broad nose, a very wide mouth, full of very large teeth, and the humorous twinkle in his eye did not atone for the complete absence of that steady light of honest tenderness which shone from Biddy’s as freely and fearlessly as the sun shines. He served Dennis and Alister and turned to me.

“Have you a mother in Liverpool?” I asked, before he had time to ask me which “pop” I wanted.

As I have said, his mouth was big, but I was almost aghast at the size to which it opened, before he was able to say, “Murther and ages! Was ye there lately? Did ye know her?”

“Yes; I know her.”

“And why would ye be standing there with the cold pop, when there’s something better within? Come in, me boy. So you’re acquainted with my mother? And how was she?”

“No, thank you, I don’t drink spirits. Yes; your mother was well when I saw her.”

“God be praised! It’s a mighty long time since I seen the ould craythur.”

“Fifteen years,” said I.

I looked at Mr. Macartney as I said it, but he had evasive eyes, and they wandered to the doorway. No customers appeared, however, and he looked back to Dennis and Alister, but they had both folded their arms, and were watching us in silence.

“Murther and ages!” he repeated, “it doesn’t feel the half of it.”

“I fancy it seems longer, if anything, to her. But she has been on the look-out for you every day, you see. You’ve a good business, Mr. Macartney, so I dare say you’re a ready reckoner. Fifteen times three hundred and sixty-five? Five thousand four hundred and seventy-five, isn’t it?”

“It’s a fine scholar for a sailor-boy that ye are!” said Micky; and there was a touch of mischief in his eye and voice which showed that he was losing his temper. I suppose Dennis heard it, too, for he took one bound to my side in a way that almost made me laugh to feel how ready he was for a row. But I knew that, after all, I had no right over the man’s private affairs, warm as was my zeal for old Biddy.

“And you think I might mind my business and leave you to yours, Mr. Macartney?” I said. “But you see your mother was very kind to me, very kind indeed; and when I left Liverpool I promised her if ever I came across you, you should hear of her, and she should hear of you.”

“And why not?” he answered in mollified tones. “It’s mighty good-natured in ye too. But come in, all the three of ye, and have somethin’ to eat and drink for the sake of the old country.”

We followed him into a back parlour, where there were several wooden rocking-chairs, and a strong smell of stale tobacco. Here he busied himself in producing cold meat, a squash pie, and a bottle of whisky, and was as voluble as civil about every subject except the one I wished to talk of. But the memory of his mother was strong upon me, and I had no intention of letting it slide.

“I’m so glad to have found you,” I said. “I am sure you can’t have known what a trouble it has been to your mother never to have heard from you all these years.”

“Arrah! And why should she bother herself over me?” he answered impatiently. “Sure I never was anything but a trouble to her, worse luck!” And before I could speak again, he went on. “But make your mind aisy, I’ll be writing to her. Many’s the time that I’ve all but indited the letter, but I’ll do it now. Upon me conscience, ye may dipind upon me.”

Could I depend upon his shambling conscience? Every instinct of an honest man about me answered, No. As he had done for fifteen years past, so he would do for fifteen years to come. As long as he was comfortable himself, his mother would never get a line out of him. Perhaps his voice recalled hers, but I almost fancied I could hear her as I sat there.—“I ax your pardon, darlin’. It was my own Micky that was on my mind.”

“Look here, Mr. Macartney,” said I; “I want you to do me a favour. I owe your mother a good turn, and it’ll ease my mind to repay it. Sit down whilst we’re enjoying your hospitality, and just write her a line, and let me have the pleasure of finding a stamp and putting it in the post with my own hands.”

We argued the point for some time, but Micky found the writing materials at last, and sat down to write. As he proceeded he seemed to become more reconciled to the task; though he was obviously no great scribe, and followed the sentiments he was expressing with curious contortions of his countenance which it was most funny to behold. By and by I was glad to see a tear or two drop on to the paper, though I was sorry that he wiped them up with his third finger, and wrote over the place before it had time to dry.

“Murther and ages! But it’s mighty pleased that she’ll be,” said Mr. Macartney when he had finished. He looked mighty pleased with himself, and he held the letter out to me.

“Do you mean me to read it?” I asked.

“I did. And ye can let your friends hear too.”

I read it aloud, wondering as I read. If pen and ink spoke the truth, Biddy’s own Micky’s heart was broke entirely with the parting from his mother. Sorra a bit of taste had there been in his food, or a drop of natural rest had he enjoyed for the last fifteen years. “Five thousand four hundred and seventy-five days—no less.” (When I reached this skilful adoption of my calculations, I involuntarily looked up. There sat Mr. Macartney in his rocking-chair. He was just lighting a short pipe, but he paused in the operation to acknowledge what he evidently believed to be my look of admiration with a nod and a wink. I read on.) Times were cruel bad out there for a poor boy that lived by his industry, but thank God he’d been spared the worst pangs of starvation (I glanced round the pop-shop, but, as Micky himself would have said, No matther!); and didn’t it lighten his heart to hear of his dear mother sitting content and comfortable at her own coffee-stall. It was murderously hot in these parts, and New York—bad luck to it—was a mighty different place from the dear old Ballywhack where he was born. Would they ever see old Ireland again? (Here a big blot betrayed how much Mr. Macartney had been moved by his own eloquence.) The rest of the letter was rich with phrases both of piety and affection. How much of the whole composition was conscious humbug, and whether any of it was genuine feeling, I have as little idea now as I had then. The shallows of the human heart are at least as difficult to sound as its depths, and Micky Macartney’s was quite beyond me. One thing about the letter was true enough. As he said, it would “plaze the ould craythur intirely.”

By the time I had addressed it, “Mrs. Biddy Macartney, coffee-seller,” to the care of, the Dockgate-keeper, we had not much spare time left in which to stamp and post it, so we took leave of the owner of the pop-shop. He was now very unwilling to let us go. He did not ask another question about his mother, but he was consumed with trivial curiosity about us. Once again he alluded to Biddy. We were standing outside, and his eye fell upon the row of shining pop-taps—

“Wouldn’t she be the proud woman now, av she could see me!” he cried.

“Why don’t you get her out to live with you?” I asked.

He shook his head, “I’m a married man, Mr. —— bad luck to me, I’ve forgotten your name now!”

“I didn’t trouble you with it. Well, I hope you’ll go and see her before she dies.”

But when I came to think of it, I did not feel sure if that was what I wished. Not being a woman, how could I balance the choice of pain? How could I tell if it were better for her to be disappointed with every ship and every tide, still having faith in her own Micky, and hope of his coming, or for the tide and the ship to bring him with all his meanness upon the head she loved, a huge disappointment, once for all!

CHAPTER XI.

“Roose the fair day at e’en.”
Scotch Proverb.

After leaving New York, we no longer hugged the coast. We stood right off, and to my great delight, I found we were going to put in at Bermuda for repairs. I never knew, but I always fancy that these were done cheaper there than at New York. Or it may merely have been because when we had been at sea two days the wretched Slut leaked so that, though we were pumping day and night, till we were nearly worn out, we couldn’t keep the wet from the gimcrack cargo.

Fortunately for us the weather was absolutely lovely, and though it was hot by day, we wore uncommonly little clothing, and “carried our change of air with us,” as Dennis said.

As to the nights, I never can forget the ideal beauty of the last three before we reached Bermuda. I had had no conception of what starlight can be and what stars can look like. These hanging lamps of the vast heavens seemed so strangely different from the stars that “twinkle, twinkle,” as the nursery book has it, through our misty skies at home. We were, in short, approaching the tropics. Very beautiful were the strange constellations of the midnight sky, the magic loveliness of the moonlight, and the phosphorescence of the warm waves, whilst the last exquisite touch of delight was given by the balmy air. By day the heat (especially as we had to work so hard in it) made one’s enjoyment less luxurious, but if my love for the sea had known no touch of disappointment on the cold swell of the northern Atlantic, it would have needed very dire discomfort to spoil the pleasure of living on these ever-varying blue waters, flecked with white foam and foam-like birds, through the clearness of which we now and then got a peep of a peacock-green dolphin, changing his colour with every leap and gambol, as if he were himself a wave.

Of living things (and, for that matter, of ships) we saw far less than I expected, though it was more than a fortnight from the time of our leaving Sandy Hook to the night we lay off to the east of the Bermudas—the warm lights from human habitations twinkling among the islands, and the cold light of the moon making the surf and coral reefs doubly clear against the dark waters—waiting, but scarcely wishing, for the day.

As I have said, Alfonso was very black, and Alfonso was very dignified. But his blackness, compared with the blackness of the pilot who came off at St. George’s Island, and piloted us through the Narrows, was as that of a kid shoe to a boot that has been polished by blacking. As to dignity, no comparison can be made. The dignity of that nigger pilot exceeded anything, regal, municipal, or even parochial, that I have ever seen. As he came up the ship’s side, Dennis was looking over it, and when the pilot stood on deck Dennis fled abruptly, and Alister declares it took two buckets of water to recover him from the fit of hysterics in which he found him rolling in the forecastle.

The pilot’s costume bore even more reference to his dignity than to the weather. He wore a pea-coat, a tall and very shiny black hat, white trousers, and neither shoes nor socks. His feet were like flat-irons turned the wrong way, and his legs seemed to be slipped into the middle of them, like the handles of two queer-shaped hoes. His intense, magnificent importance, and the bombastic way he swaggered about the deck, were so perfectly absurd, that we three youngsters should probably have never had any feeling towards him but that of contempt, if it had not been that we were now quite enough of seamen to appreciate the skill with which he took us safely on our dangerous and intricate passage into harbour. How we ever got through the Narrows, how he picked our way amongst the reefs and islands, was a marvel. We came in so close to shore that I thought we must strike every instant, and so we should have done had there been any blundering on his part.

We went very slowly that day, as became the atmosphere and the scene, the dangers of our way, and the dignity of our guide.

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” said Dennis, as we hung over the side. “If it’s for repairs we’ve put into Paradise, long life to the old tub and her rotten timbers! I wouldn’t have missed this for a lady’s berth in the West Indian Mail, and my passage paid!”

“Nor I.”

“Nor I.”

This was indeed worth having gone through a good deal to see. The channel through which we picked our way was marked out by little buoys, half white and half black, and on either side the coral was just awash. Close at hand the water was emerald green or rosy purple, according to its depth and the growths below; half-a-mile away it was deep blue against lines of dazzling surf and coral sand; and the reefs and rocks amongst whose deadly edges our hideous pilot steered for our lives, were like beds of flowers blooming under water. Red, purple, yellow, orange, pale green, dark green, in patches quite milky, and in patches a mass of all sorts of sea-weed, a gay garden on a white ground, shimmering through crystal! And down below the crabs crawled about, and the fishes shot hither and thither; and over the surface of the water, from reef to reef and island to island, the tern and sea-gulls skimmed and swooped about.

We anchored that evening, and the pilot went ashore. Lovely as the day had been, we were (for some mysterious reason) more tired at the end of it than on days when we had been working three times as hard. This, with Dennis, invariably led to mischief, and with Alister to intolerance. The phase was quite familiar to me now, and I knew it was coming on when they would talk about the pilot. That the pilot was admirably skilful in his trade, and that he was a most comical-looking specimen of humanity, were obvious facts. I quite agreed with both Alister and Dennis, but that, unfortunately, did not make them agree with each other. Not that Dennis contradicted Alister (he pretended to be afraid to do so), but he made comments that were highly aggravating. He did not attempt to deny that it was “a gran’ sight to see ony man do his wark weel,” or that the African negro shared with us “our common humanity and our immortal hopes,” but he introduced the quite irrelevant question of whether it was not a loss to the Presbyterian Ministry that Alister had gone to sea. He warmly allowed that the pilot probably had his feelings, and added that even he had his; that the Hat tried them, but that the Feet were “altogether too many for them intirely.” He received the information that the pilot’s feet were “as his Creator made them,” in respectful silence, and a few minutes afterwards asked me if I was aware of the “curious fact in physiology,” that it took a surgical operation to get a joke through a Scotchman’s brain-pan.

I was feeling all-overish and rather cross myself towards evening, and found Alister’s cantankerousness and Dennis O’Moore’s chaff almost equally tiresome. To make matters worse, I perceived that Dennis was now so on edge, that to catch sight of the black pilot made him really hysterical, and the distracting thing was, that either because I was done up, or because such folly is far more contagious than any amount of wisdom, I began to get quite as bad, and Alister’s disgust only made me worse. I unfeignedly dreaded the approach of that black hat and those triangular feet, for they made me giggle in spite of myself, and I knew a ship’s rules far too well not to know how fearful would be the result of any public exhibition of disrespect.

However, we three were not always together, and we had been apart a good bit when we met (as ill-luck would have it) at the moment when the pilot’s boat was just alongside, ready for his departure.

“What’s the boat for?” asked Alister, who had been below.

“And who would it be for,” replied Dennis, “but the gentleman in the black hat? Alister, dear! what’s the reason I can’t tread on a nigger’s heels without treading on your toes?”

“Hush!” cried I, in torment, “he’s coming.”

We stood at attention, but never can I forget the agony of the next few minutes. That hat, that face, those flat black feet, that strut, that smile. I felt a sob of laughter beginning somewhere about my waist-belt, and yet my heart ached with fear for Dennis. Oh, if only His Magnificence would move a little quicker, and let us have it over!

There’s a fish at Bermuda that is known as the toad-fish (so Alfonso told me), and when you tickle it it blows itself out after the manner of the frog who tried to be as big as an ox. It becomes as round as a football, and if you throw it on the water it floats. If you touch it it sounds (according to Alfonso) “all same as a banjo.” It will live some time out of water; and if it shows any signs of subsiding, another tickle will blow it out again. “Too muchee tickle him burst,” said Alfonso. I had heard this decidedly nasty story just before the pilot’s departure, and it was now the culmination of all the foolish thoughts that gibbered in my head. I couldn’t help thinking of it as I held my breath to suppress my laughter, and quaked for the yet more volatile Dennis. Oh, dear! Why wouldn’t that mass of absurdity walk quicker? His feet were big enough. Meanwhile we stood like mutes—eyes front! To have looked at each other would have been fatal. “Too muchee tickle him burst.” I hope we looked grave (I have little doubt now that we looked as if we were having our photographs taken). The sob had mounted from my waist to my throat. My teeth were set, my eyes watered, but the pilot was here now. In a moment he would be down the side. With an excess of zeal I found strength to raise my hand for a salute.

I fear it was this that pleased him, and made him stop; and we couldn’t help looking at him. His hat was a little set back for the heat, his black triangular feet were in the third position of dancing. He smiled.

There was an explosive sound to my right. I knew what it meant. Dennis had “burst.”

And then I never felt less like laughing in my life. Visions of insubordination, disrespect, mutiny, flogging, and black-hole, rushed through my head, and I had serious thoughts of falling on my knees before the insulted pilot. With unfeigned gratitude I record that he was as magnanimous as he was magnificent. He took no revenge, except in words. What he said was,

“Me one coloured gentleman. You one dam mean white trash ob common sailor. YAH!”

And with unimpaired dignity he descended the ladder and was rowed away over the prismatic waters. And Alister and I turned round to look for Dennis, and found him sitting in the scuppers, wiping the laughter-tears out of his thick eyelashes.

There was something fateful about that evening, which was perhaps what made the air so heavy. If I had been keeping the log, I should have made the following entry: “Captain got drunk. A ring round the moon. Alister and Dennis quarrelsome.”

I saw the ring round the moon when I was rowing the captain and the mate back from one of the islands, where they had been ashore. Alfonso afterwards pointed it out to me and said, “Tell you, Jack, I’m glad dis ole tub in harbour now!” from which I concluded that it was an omen of bad weather.

Alister and Dennis were still sparring. I began to think we’d better stretch a rope and let them have it out with their fists, but I could not make out that there was anything to fight about except that Alister had accused Dennis of playing the fool, and Dennis had said that Alister was about as good company as a grave-digger. I felt very feverish and said so, on which they both began to apologize, and we all turned in for some sleep.

Next day we were the best of friends, and we got leave to go ashore for a few hours. We were anchored in Grassy Bay, off Ireland Island—that is, off the island where the hulks are, and where the school-master spent those ten long years. Alister and Dennis wanted to take a boat and make for Harrington Sound, a very beautiful land-locked sheet of water, with one narrow entrance through which the tide rushes like a mill-race, but when they heard my reason for wanting to have a look at my friend’s old place of labour and imprisonment, they decided to stay with me, which, as it happened, was very lucky for us all.

We were all three so languid, that though there was much to see and little time in which to see it, when we found three firm and comfortable resting-places among the blocks of white stone in the dockyard, we sat down on them, and contented ourselves with enjoying the beautiful prospect before us. And it so happened that as Dennis said, “if we’d taken a box for the Opera” we could not have placed ourselves better for the marvellous spectacle that it was our good luck to witness. I must try and tell it in order.

The first thing we noticed was a change among the sea-birds. They left their careless, graceful skimming and swooping, and got into groups, wheeling about like starlings, and uttering curious cries. And scarcely had we become conscious of this change among the birds, than a simultaneous flutter ran through the Bermudian “rig-boats” which had been skimming with equal carelessness about the bay. Now they were hurriedly thrown up into the wind, their wide mainsails lowered and reefed, whilst the impulse spread as if by magic to the men-of-war and ships in the anchorage. Down came the sails like falling leaves, the rigging swarmed with men bracing yards, lowering top-gallant masts, and preparing—we could not conceive for what.

“What, in the name of fortune ——” said Dennis.

But at this moment Alister cried, “Look behind ye, man!”

We turned round, and this was what we saw:—

The sky out to seaward was one great half-circle of blue-black, but in what sailors call the eye of the storm was another very regular patch, with true curved outlines of the arc and the horizon. Under this the sea was dazzlingly white, and then in front of that it was a curious green-black, and it was tossing and flopping about as if it did not know what to be at. The wind was scarcely to be felt as wind, but we could hear it moaning in a dull way that was indescribably terrifying. Gradually the blackness seemed to come down over us as if it would swallow us up, and when I looked back to the bay not a bird was to be seen, and every boat was flying into shelter.

And as they fled, there arose from the empty sea and sky a strange hissing sound, which gradually grew so intense that it became almost a roar; and, as the noise increased, the white line on the horizon widened and widened.

Suddenly there came a lull. It quite startled us. But about half-a-mile away, I could see over Alister’s shoulders that the clouds were blacker, and the sea took up the colour and seemed to heave and rock more sulkily than before. There was no white water here, only a greenish ink. And at the same moment Dennis and Alister each laid a hand upon my arm, but none of us spoke. We lost ourselves in intense watching.

For by degrees the black water, leaving its natural motion, seemed to pile up under the black cloud, and then, very suddenly, before one could see how it happened, either the cloud stretched out a trunk to the sea, or the sea to the cloud, and two funnel-shaped masses were joined together by a long, twisting, whirling column of water that neither sea nor sky seemed able to break away from. It was a weird sight to see this dark shape writhe and spin before the storm, and at last the base of it struck a coral reef, and it disappeared, leaving nothing but a blinding squall of rain and a tumult of white waves breaking on the reef. And then the water whirled and tossed, and flung its white arms about, till the whole sea, which had been ink a few minutes before, had lashed itself into a vast sheet of foam.

We relaxed our grip of each other, and drew breath, and Alister, stretching his arms seawards after a fashion peculiar to him in moments of extreme excitement, gave vent to his feelings in the following words—

“Sirs! yon’s a water-spout.”

But before we had time to reply, a convict warder, whom we had not noticed, called sharply to us, “Lie down, or you’ll be blown down!” and the gale was upon us. We had quite enough to do to hold on to the ground, and keep the stone-dust out of our eyes by shutting them. Further observations were impossible, though it felt as if everything in the world was breaking up, and tumbling about one’s ears.

Luckily nothing did strike us, though not more than a hundred yards away a row of fine trees went down like a pack of cards, each one parallel with its neighbour. House-tiles flew in every direction, shutters were whipped off and whirled away; palm-trees snapped like fishing-rods, and when the wind-squall had passed, and we sat up, and tried to get the sand out of our ears, we found the whole place a mass of débris.

But when we looked seaward we saw the black arch going as fast as it came. All sense of fever and lassitude had left us. The air was fresh, and calm, and bright, and within half-an-hour the tern and sea-gulls were fishing over the reef and skimming and swooping above the prismatic waters as before.

CHAPTER XII.

“Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
. . . . so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviours from the great,
Grow great by your example, and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.”
King John, V. i.

“Creaky doors” are said to “hang long,” and leaky ships may enjoy a similar longevity. It certainly was a curious fact that the Water-Lily hardly suffered in that storm, though the damage done to shipping was very great. Big and little, men-of-war and merchantmen, very few escaped scot-free, and some dragged their anchors and were either on the reef in the harbour, or ran foul of one another.

Repairs were the order of the day, but we managed to get ours done and to proceed on our voyage, with very little extra delay.

I cannot say it was a pleasant cruise, though it brought unexpected promotion to one of the Shamrock three. In this wise:

The mate was a wicked brute, neither more nor less. I do not want to get into the sailor fashion of using strong terms about trifles, but to call him less than wicked would be to insult goodness, and if brutality makes a brute, he was brute enough in all conscience! Being short-handed at Bermuda, we had shipped a wretched little cabin-boy of Portuguese extraction, who was a native of Demerara, and glad to work his passage there, and the mate’s systematic ill-treatment of this poor lad was not less of a torture to us than to Pedro himself, so agonizing was it to see, and not dare to interfere; all we could do was to aid him to the best of our power on the sly.

The captain, though a sneaking, unprincipled kind of man, was neither so brutal nor, unfortunately, so good a seaman as the mate; and the consequence of this was, that the mate was practically the master, and indulged his Snuffy-like passion for cruelty with impunity, and with a double edge. For, as he was well aware, in ill-treating Pedro he made us suffer, and we were all helpless alike.

His hold over the captain was not from superior seamanship alone. The Water-Lily was nominally a “temperance” vessel, but in our case this only meant that no rum was issued to the crew. In the captain’s cabin there was plenty of “liquor,” and the captain occasionally got drunk, and each time that he did so, the influence of the mate seemed riveted firmer than before. Crews are often divided in their allegiance, but the crew of the Water-Lily were of one mind. From the oldest to the youngest we all detested the mate, and a natural manliness of feeling made us like the captain better than we ought otherwise have done, because (especially as regards the drinking) we considered his relations with the mate to be characterized by anything but “fair play.” No love was really lost between them, and if the captain came on deck and took the lead, they were almost certain to quarrel (and none the less so, that we rushed with alacrity to obey the captain’s orders, whereas with the mate’s it was all “dragging work,” as nearly as we dare show unwillingness).

What led to the extraordinary scene I am about to relate, I do not quite know. I suppose a mixture of things. Alister’s minute, unbroken study of what was now his profession, the “almost monotonous” (so Dennis said) perseverance with which he improved every opportunity, and absorbed all experience and information on the subject of seamanship, could hardly escape the notice of any intelligent captain. Our captain was not much of a seaman, but he was a cute trader, and knew “a good article” in any line. The Scotch boy was soon a better sailor than the mate, which will be the less surprising, when one remembers how few men in any trade give more than about a third of their real powers to their work—and Alister gave all his. This, and the knowledge that he was supported by the public opinion of a small but able-bodied crew, may have screwed the captain’s courage to the sticking-point, or the mate may have pushed matters just too far; what happened was this:

The captain and the mate had a worse quarrel than usual, after which the mate rope’s-ended poor Pedro till the lad lost consciousness, and whilst I was comforting him below, the brute fumed up and down deck like a hyena (“sight o’ blood all same as drink to the likes of him,” said Alfonso, “make he drunk for more”)—and vented some of his rage in abuse of the captain, such as we had often heard, but which no one had ever ventured to report. On this occasion Alfonso did report it. As I have said, I only knew results.

At eight o’clock next morning all hands were called aft.

The captain was quite sober, and he made very short work of it. He told us briefly and plainly that the mate was mate no longer, and asked if we had any wish as to his successor, who would be chosen from the crew. We left the matter in his hands, as he probably expected, on which, beckoning to Alister, he said, “Then I select Alister Auchterlay. He has proved himself a good and careful seaman, and I believe you all like and trust him. I beg you to show this now by obeying him. And for the rest of the voyage remember that he is Mister Auchterlay.”

“Mr. Auchterlay” more than justified the captain’s choice. His elevation made no change in our friendship, though the etiquette of the vessel kept us a good deal apart, and Dennis and I were all the “thicker” in consequence. Alister was not only absolutely loyal to his trust, but his gratitude never wearied of displaying itself in zeal. I often wondered how much of this the captain had foreseen. As Alfonso said, he was “good trader.”

The latter part of the voyage was, in these altered circumstances, a holiday to what had gone before. The captain was never actually drunk again, and the Water-Lily got to look clean, thanks largely to the way Pedro slaved at scraping, sweeping, swabbing, rubbing, and polishing, to please his new master. She was really in something like respectable harbour trim when we approached the coast of British Guiana.

Georgetown, so Alfonso told me, looks very odd from the sea. The first thing that strikes you being the tops of the trees, which seem to be growing out of the water; but as you get nearer you discover that this effect is produced by the low level of the land, which is protected from the sea by a sea-wall and embankment, I have no doubt Alfonso was right, but when the time came I forgot all about it, for it was not in ordinary circumstances that I first saw Georgetown.

It was one of those balmy, moonlit tropical nights of which I have spoken; but when we were within about an hour’s sail of the mouth of the Demerara river, the sky ahead of us began to redden, as if the evening had forgotten itself and was going back to sunset. We made numberless suggestions, including that of a display of fireworks in our honour; but as the crimson spread and palpitated like an Aurora Borealis, and then shot up higher and flooded a large area of sky, Alister sang out “Fire!” and we all crowded forward in anxious curiosity.

As might be expected, Alfonso and Pedro were in a state of the wildest excitement. Alfonso, of course, thought of his lady-love, and would probably have collapsed into complete despair, but for the necessity of keeping up his spirits sufficiently to snub every suggestion made by the cabin-boy, whose rival familiarity with the topography of Georgetown he could by no means tolerate; whilst Pedro, though docile as a spaniel to us, despised Alfonso as only a half-caste can despise a negro somewhat blacker than himself, and burned for safe opportunities of displaying his superiority. But when Pedro expressed a somewhat contemptuous conviction that this glowing sky was the result of rubbish burning on plantations up the country, and skilfully introduced an allusion to relatives of his own who had some property in canefields, Alfonso’s wrath became sublime.

“You no listen to dat trash ob cabin-boy,” said he. “Wait a bit, and I’se find him dirty work below dat’s fit for he. Keep him from troubling gentlemen like us wid him lies. Plantation? Yah! He make me sick. Tell you, me know Demerary well ’nuff. De town is in flames. Oh, my Georgiana!”

So much, indeed, was beyond doubt before long, and as the fire seemed perilously close to the wharves and shipping, the captain decided to lie off for the night. The thermometer in his cabin stood at ninety degrees, which perhaps accounted for his having no anxiety to go ashore; but, in spite of the heat, Dennis and I were wild to see what was going on, and when Alister called to us to help to lower the jolly-boat, and we found we were to accompany him, we were not dilatory with the necessary preparations, and were soon rapidly approaching the burning town.

It was a strange sight as we drew nearer and hearer. Before us, on the sea, there was a line where the cold silver of the moonshine met the lurid reflections of the fiery sky, and the same cool light and hot glow changed places over our cheeks as we turned our heads, and contrasted on the two sides of the sail of the jolly-boat. And then we got within ear-shot. A great fire is terrible to see, but it is almost more terrible to hear, and it is curious how like it is to the sound of great waters or a great wind. The roar, the hiss, the crackle, the pitiless approach—as Dennis said,

“I’ll tell ye what it is, Jack. These elemental giants, when they do break loose from our service, have one note of defiance amongst them; and it’s that awe-ful roar!”

When we stood in the street where the fire was, it was deafening, and it kept its own distinctness above all other noises; and with the fire-bells, the saving and losing of household goods, and the trampling and talking of the crowd, there were noises not a few. Dennis and I were together, for Alister had business to do, but he had given us leave to gratify our curiosity, adding a kindly warning to me to take care of myself, and keep “that feather-brained laddie,” Dennis, out of danger’s way. We had no difficulty in reaching the point of interest, for, ludicrous to say, the fire was in Water Street; that is, it was in the street running parallel with the river and the wharves, the main business street of Georgetown. We were soon in the thick of the crowd, protecting our eyes from the falling fragments of burning wood, and acquiring information. That heap of smoking embers—so we were told—was the big store where it first broke out; the house yonder, where the engines were squirting away, and the fire putting tongues of flame out of the windows at them, as if in derision, cost two thousand dollars—“Ah! there goes the roof!”

It fell in accordingly; and, in the sudden blaze of its destruction, I saw a man come riding along, before whom the people made way, and then some one pulled me back and said,

“The governor.”

He stopped near us, and beckoned some one to his side.

“Is he coming?”

“He’s here, sir;” and then into the vivid glare stepped a tall, graceful, and rather fantastical-looking young gentleman in a white jacket, and with a long fair moustache, who raised his hand with a quick salute, and then stood at the governor’s stirrup.

“I know that fellow, I’m sure,” said Dennis.

“Royal Engineers officer,” said my neighbour. “Mark my words, that means gunpowder,” and the good man, who was stout and steaming with perspiration, seemed to feel like one who has asked for a remedy for toothache and been answered by the dentist—“Gunpowder is what it means! And if our governor had sent for a cobbler, he’d have said, ‘Nothing like leather,’ and mended the hose of the steam-pump. And that store of mine, sir, didn’t cost a cent less than ——”

But I was watching the engineer officer, and catching fragments of the rapid consultation.

“Quite inevitable, sir, in my opinion.”

“Very good. You have full powers—instruct—colonel—magazine—do your best.”

The engineer officer had very long white hands, which I noticed as one went rapidly to his forehead, whilst with the other he caressed the dark nose of the governor’s horse, which had been rubbing its head against his shoulder. And then the governor rode away and left him.

The word “gunpowder” seemed to have brought soldiers to the spot in a sort of natural sequence. There was more quick saluting and short orders, and then all disappeared but one bronzed-looking sergeant, who followed the engineer stripling up and down as he jerked his head, and pulled his moustache, and seemed to have some design upon the gutters of the house-eaves, which took a good deal of explaining and saluting. Then we heard wheels and running footsteps, and I became sensible of great relief from the pressure of the crowd. The soldiers had come back again, running a hand-cart with four barrels of gunpowder, and the public made way for them even more respectfully than for the governor. As they set it down and wiped their faces, the sergeant began to give orders rather more authoritatively than his superior, and he also pointed to the gutters; on which the soldiers vanished as before.

“Can’t we help, I wonder?” said I.

“That’s just what I’m thinking,” said Dennis, and he strode up to the officer. But he was busy with his subordinate.

“Well, sergeant?”

“Not a fuse in the place, sir.”

“Pretty state of things! Get a hatchet.”

“They sent one, sir.”

“All right. This is the house.”

“The roof ’as caught, you know, sir?”

“The less time to waste,” was the reply, and the young man took up a barrel in his hands and walked in with it, kicking the door open with his foot. The sergeant must almost have trodden on his officer’s heels, as he followed with the second, and before I could speak Dennis had shouldered the third.

“Here’s diversion!” said he, and away he went.

There was the fourth barrel and there was I. I confess that I felt a twinge, but I followed the rest, and my barrel behaved as well as if it had been a cask of molasses, though the burning wood fell thickly over us all. As I groped my way in, the sergeant and Dennis came out, and by the time that they and some soldiers returned, dragging pieces of house-gutters after them, the fantastic young officer was pouring the gunpowder into a heap in the middle of the floor, by the light of a corner of the ceiling which was now on fire, and I was holding up a shutter, under his orders, to protect it from premature sparks. When he set down the barrel he shook some dirt from his fingers, and then pushing back his white shirt-sleeves from his wrists; he filled his joined hands as full with gunpowder as they would hold, and separating them very slightly let a tiny stream run out on to the floor as he walked backwards; and, as fast as this train was laid, the thin line was covered from falling embers by the gutters turned over it upside down. Through the room, down along a passage between two houses, and so into the street, where the crowd had more or less assembled again. Then the officer emptied his hands, dusted them together, and said, “Clear everybody out.”

The sergeant saluted—“May I fire it, sir?”

“No, thank you, sergeant; clear everybody out.” The sergeant was evidently disappointed, and vented this on the civilian public.—“That” said he, turning a blackened thumb over his shoulder, “is a ’eap of gunpowder. It’s just a going to be hexploded.” There was no need to “clear everybody out.” They went. And we found ourselves alone with the soldiers, who were laughing, and saying that the crowd had taken a big cast-iron tank for the heap of gunpowder. We stood a little aside in obedience to a wave of the young officer’s arm. Then he crossed the street to pick up a long piece of burning wood, and came back, the moonlight and the firelight playing by turns upon him.

I honestly confess that, fierce as the heat was, I turned cold. The experiences of the next few minutes were as follows: I saw the young engineer fire the train, and I heard a puff, and then I saw him fall, face downwards, behind the tank. I gave a cry, and started forward, and was brought up short by a back-hander on my chest from the sergeant. Then came a scrambling, rushing sound, which widened into a deep roar, shaking the ground beneath our feet, and then the big building at which we were gaping seemed to breathe out a monstrous sigh, and then it fell in, and tumbled to pieces, quietly, swiftly, and utterly, like a house of cards.

And the fantastic-looking young officer got up and shook himself, and worried the bits of charred wood out of his long yellow moustaches.

CHAPTER XIII.