For two hours—they seemed an eternity to me—it would appear, the four Spanish officers lingered over their wine-flasks and cigars in the wooded ravine, their movements being duly reported from time to time by one of the outlaws, who stole to the cavern mouth and peeped out.
At last, they mounted and rode off, when a fresh cause for wrath and delay was produced by the announcement that a wagon, drawn by mules and attended by several laborers and negroes, had broken down on the road about a mile distant.
The irritation of our Spaniards—some of whom spoke of having a ship to join—was now so great, that I feared they might end the whole affair by disposing of us in a summary manner.
This wagon being heavily laden caused a delay for several hours. The sun's rays ceased to shine through the fissure above us; the grotto grew dark by the increase of imperceptible shadows; the dingy faces of our olive-skinned detainers grew darker still; and their impatience was only surpassed by ours, for we, too, had a ship to rejoin.
Every minute of these hours—every second of every minute—passed slowly, like a pang of agony in my heart; and every feature of that natural vault, through which the dying daylight stole—with the faces and voices of the men whose victims we were, and more than all, the ceaseless and eternal buzz in the dark chasm that yawned close by—the ventana, or nostril of the Piton—are yet vividly impressed upon my memory.
At last the darkness was so great, that a lantern was lighted, and its wavering gleams, as they fell on the crystals, the spar, quartz, and glassy blocks of black obsidian and ruddy lava which formed the walls and arch of the cavern, on the dark ferocious visages, the gaudy sashes, the naked arms and feet, the scrubby black beards, and brass-mounted knives, and muskets of the taciturn Spaniards, who sat in a sullen group smoking paper cigaritos,—all added to the gloomy but picturesque horror of the place and of the incident.
"Antonio, que hora es?" I heard one say, inquiring the time.
"Las neuve y media, companero mio" (half-past nine), replied the possessor of my gold watch, which he consulted with considerable complacency.
"Maldita!" growled the others, knitting their brows, for the dusk was rapidly becoming darkness, and they had no desire for killing us, if we could be made profitable. I have often thought since, that had Tom actually procured and returned with the required ransom of five hundred dollars, they would have pocketed it and then killed us both—me most certainly, as they seemed to have other views for poor Tom in the Southern States.
"We have had a long spell of this," said he, in a low voice. "I am going to escape, if I can."
"Escape! but how?"
"I don't know exactly how, yet; but we must first have our lashings cast off."
"Would to Heaven they were, Tom. My hands are so swollen, and my wrists so cut and benumbed, that my arms are wellnigh powerless," I whispered in a low voice, like a groan.
"Sit with me here, in the shadow of this angle of rock; and now, as the darkness is fairly set in, I shall soon make you free."
By a rapid and skilful application of his strong teeth to the cord which bound my wrists, he untwisted the knot and freed my hands; and then in the suddenly-given luxury of being able to stretch my arms, I almost forgot the necessity for concealing the fact that I was now unbound.
I soon found an opportunity for untying Tom's fetters. Then we kept our hands clasped before us, as if still manacled, and watched, waited, and hoped—we scarcely knew for what—while in the further end of this inner cave, our detainers sat sullenly smoking, and, by the dim lantern light, making up cigaritos from their tobacco-pouches, and those little rice-paper books which are now procurable nearly everywhere.
From the conversation of our captors, I could gather that our brig, the Eugenie, was visible at anchor in the roadstead of Santa Cruz, a mile or so distant.
Three of these Spaniards had placed their muskets against the wall of rock, and seemed disposed to doze off asleep.
Close by us lay the plank which crossed that dread ventana, like the infernal bridge of Poulsherro, which the Mahommedans believe crosses the sea of fire that on the day of doom shall separate Good from Evil. Tom and I looked at it, and exchanged glances of intelligence from time to time, but the attempt to rush across might prove doubly fatal to one or both. A slip of the foot would hurl us into eternity; and if the passage were achieved, we would be exposed to the fire of those we fled from, and met by that of the armed man at the mouth of the grotto.
Thus our position and its perils were somewhat complicated.
Suddenly the distant report of a piece of ordnance, coming from the seaward, made us all look up and listen.
"El ruido que hace el canon!" (the crack of a gun), exclaimed a Spaniard, scrambling up to the lower end of the fissure in the arch of the grotto, and looking out.
"We all know that well enough; but what does it mean?" asked the other.
"The English brig at the anchorage has fired it. I see a light glittering on her deck; and now away it goes up to the foremast head."
"It is the Eugenie, Master Rodney," whispered Tom.
"Can the captain be about to sail to-night,—and without us?" said I, with growing dismay.
"No; but he is impatient for us to come off. He knows well what a 'tarnal slippery set of imps these Jack Spaniards are, and has shown a light, and fired a gun as a hint for us to look sharp."
"Companero," said one of the Spaniards to the other who was looking out, "are you sure that it is the English brig, and not ours?"
"Yes; but by St. Paul! there is a light burning now on the Castello de Santa Cruz; so our craft had better get her sweeps out, and put to sea, even without us. Can the Senor Gobernador have smelt a rat?"
This announcement, though we knew not what it referred to, had an evident effect on our captors, who were probably part of a slaver's crew; for they all scrambled up to the opening in the rocks to look out.
"Now, now is the time to slip our cables and run. Follow me!" said Tom Lambourne, in a hoarse but determined whisper, as he sprang forward—snatched up two of the muskets, and rushed across the plank, tripping as lightly as he would have done along a boom or yard, though it crossed a gulf so terrible.
Less steadily, but not less rapidly, you may be assured—yet with a frozen heart—I followed him, and his hard tarry hand was ready to grasp mine and drag me forward into safety, while with a violent kick he tossed the plank away, and surging down it went, into the black gulf we had crossed.
It vanished in a moment, and no sound ever ascended, for it seemed to have fallen into a pit that was dark as it was bottomless!
"Take this musket, and see that you can use it, sir," said Tom, as an emotion of bravado seized him. "And so, you Spanish greenhorns," he shouted, "you thought to sell me for a nigger to the Yankees, did you? Whoop—hurrah!"
A volley of Spanish oaths followed this rash outburst, which drew their attention at once upon us. Some rushed to the dark brink and paused, I suppose, for neither Tom nor I could see distinctly, as there was a double explosion which filled the cavern with echoes like those of rolling thunder, and a momentary glare of smoky light, while two musket-balls whistled past us; and I felt one like a hot cinder, as it grazed my left ear. Then came an Albacete knife, which was hurled by no erring hand, for it wounded Tom's right knee.
"Give them a shot, Mr. Rodney," said he, furiously; "I'll reserve my fire for the sentry,—and here he is already!"
And just as the eighth fellow, who was on the watch, alarmed by the firing, came rushing in with his piece at full cock, Tom fired at him.
"Saints and angels!" yelled the Spaniard, as he bounded into the air, and then fell flat on his face, where he lay beating the earth with his feet and hands.
"Fire! fire! Master Rodney, and then run for it, before they can reload," cried Tom, who saw that I was irresolute; "give 'em a stern chaser!"
My blood was now fairly up. Wheeling round, I levelled full at the group, one of whom was in the act of taking aim at me; while I saw the steel ram-rod of the other, who had a musket, glitter in the lantern light as he reloaded.
I fired! I know not whether the ball hit; but one of the ruffians sprang wildly forward, and fell headlong into the ventana!
"That will do!" cried Tom; "away now, as fast as we can—stretch out—bear away for the harbor and the brig!"
Grasping our newly-acquired weapons, which we never thought of relinquishing, we rushed out, and descending the ravine, favored by the starlight, instinctively took the path which led directly to the harbor.
With a heart that beat wildly, a head in a whirl of thoughts, and every pulse quickened by the whole affair—by the ferocious treatment to which we had been subjected for so many hours; by the perils which had menaced us; by the narrow escapes we had made from bullets, and when twice crossing that awful chasm; by the wild and disastrous tragedy which closed the adventures of a long and exciting day,—I ran beside Tom Lambourne; on, on, without a breath to spare or a word to utter.
Headlong we stumbled over piles of old lava, now we sank ankle deep among soft pumice dust; anon we rolled, fell, or scrambled through wild vines and creepers; then through fields of growing maize and wheat, or plantations of coffee and apple trees; but never paused until we reached the base of the mighty Piton, where, breathless, gasping, panting, and bathed in perspiration, we lay down in a little thicket of cinnamon bushes by the wayside, to rest for a short space.
During this flight I had never spoken, but Tom from time to time indulged in disjointed remarks expressive of an exultation in which I could not share, being only thankful to heaven for my escape. But poor Tom had seen more of a rough life, and of many a violent death, than it could possibly have been my lot to witness.
"Ha, ha! you Spanish swabs! We've slung two of your hammocks in a hot place—before the time, perhaps!" said he. "What a row they made, like so many niggers clearing a cargo, when we sheered off! Lucky it was that I eased off our tow-lines in time! I have a good mind to put about, stand for the cave, and pot another of those Spanish gorillas!"
Whether he meant guerillas I did not inquire, but was happy when we reached the harbor, and I felt the cool breeze of the ocean fan my throbbing temples and my hands, which, from being so long and so tightly tied with rough cords, and having the blood afterwards driven through them by rapid exertion, felt literally burning hot.
All was dark and still when we ran along the stone mole of Santa Cruz. Fortunately, at that late hour, there were no officials to question or molest us; and we could see the brig anchored about half a mile distant, with the lantern still burning at the foremasthead. The light on the Castle had disappeared.
We soon found a small punt at the landing stairs, and taking possession of it without leave, cast loose the painter and shoved off.
Silently and steadily, with all our remaining strength we pulled for the brig, and were soon alongside.
"Well, this spree is over, Master Rodney," said Tattooed Tom, wiping his brow with his sleeve when we stood on the deck, where the wondering crew gathered round us; "but catch me having another in this deuced Tenny Reef,—that's all!"
Alarmed by the foregoing narrative, which was fully corroborated by our excitement, by the two muskets we had brought on board as trophies, by the state of our hands and wrists, and the numerous cuts and bruises we had upon us; and fearing the consequent detention of the brig for some legal inquiry, Captain Weston prepared at once for putting to sea.
I was happy when finding myself on the deck of the Eugenie, but still more supremely happy on hearing Weston's resolution to get under way, as I possessed very vague but decidedly unpleasant ideas of Spanish justice, and had visions of alcaldes, alguazils, wheels, garottes, and even the masked familiars of the Inquisition itself, floating before me.
My heart beat responsive to the clank of the windlass pawls, as the Eugenie was hove short on her anchor, and the hands started aloft to cast loose the topsails.
Weston threw our two muskets into the sea, lest their discovery on board might cause suspicion or annoyance.
The morning was clear, cool, and starry; and yet no vestige of dawn was visible, and all was still and quiet on shore; but I was in momentary expectation of seeing a boat dash off toward us, though those from whom we had escaped could have no just cause of complaint.
Suddenly I heard the sound of oars, and saw a long, low boat shoot out from the obscurity of the harbor. My heart stood still for a moment as this craft was steered in our direction, but to my infinite relief it boarded a Costa Rican that lay near us.
As yet the shadows of night were on land and sea,—on every thing save the cone of the Peak that towered above the clouds, and there shone the light of the yet unrisen sun, yellow deepening into saffron, purple, blue, and then indigo, blending with the blackness of night as the eye descended to the shore.
So Weston gave the order to brace the foreyards aback and the mainyards full; another wrench at the windlass and the anchor was tripped.
"Heave and a-wash!" cried Tom Lambourne, cheerily, giving the usual call of encouragement, when the dripping anchor-ring is just out of the water, and the stock is seen to stir the surface.
The courses were let fall and the gib was hoisted; her head fell rapidly round and she payed off bravely. Then the fiery cone of the Piton and the lights of Santa Cruz which had glittered in tremulous lines along the water on our beam were shining upon our lee quarter.
"Fill away the headyards—handsomely now!" cried Weston, and just as the first streak of day, coming on with tropical rapidity, began to brighten the horizon, and shed long shiny ripples on the sea, the canvas swelled out, the reef points began to patter on the taut bosom of every snow-white sail, and the loose rigging was blown out in graceful bends.
There was a fine breeze rising; the white water rippled under the forefoot of the Eugenie, and soon it boiled in foam as we sheeted home the topsails and ran along the western shore of the mountain isle.
About the same time the Costa Rican brig which was at anchor nearer the shore (a smart craft she was, straight in the bends and all black, save a yellow streak), also got ready for sea with great expedition and worked out of the harbor; and when the hot sun, which erewhile had lit up the vast continent of Africa to the eastward of us rose from the ocean, we saw her black hull and white canvas shining in his morning rays about a mile astern.
"You say, Marc, that craft is a Costa Rican?" said Weston, doubtfully.
"Yes, sir," replied Hislop.
"She may be, but she is also a Spanish dealer in black cattle," said Weston, who was looking at her through a powerful double-barrelled glass. "I am certain if you could only see her deck when she careens a bit, you would make out the ring-bolts for lashing the slaves to in fine weather."
"Aye, and perhaps those for the carronades too," added Hislop; "she looks rather rakish."
"You are just of my mind, sir," added Tom Lambourne, who was at the wheel. "She'll see the Shark's Nose and the Congo river before she sees the Mosquito creeks or the hills of Costa Rica; and I have a shrewd notion that the pirates we escaped from last night are part of her crew, if one may judge from what Master Rodney, who knows their lingo, overheard them say."
Except across the Peak of Teneriffe, where a cloud of white vapor floated in mid-air like a permanent cymar or girdle, and above which some thousand feet of the mighty cone towered into the blue immensity of space, mellowing from green and purple to a faint-gray tint, the sky was without a cloud.
The waves danced and sparkled in the morning sunshine, the fresh breeze swept pleasantly over their whitening tops and whistled through our rigging, as we ran along the shore with considerable speed; and now our hearts beat lightly, for the broad free ocean was around us, and on clearing the dangerous rocks at Punta de Anaga by giving them a wide berth, we felt the heavier swell of the Atlantic as we brought the larboard tacks on board, and ran, close-hauled, on a taut bowline between the Isles of Teneriffe and Palma, keeping the weathergage of the Costa Rican, and leaving her at the same time fast and far astern.
We had a delightful run through the fertile Archipelago of the Fortunate Isles, and after clearing San Josef, found the wind come more aft. Long after night had closed in, and darkness had enveloped all the sea and the isle of Teneriffe, the cone of the Peak shone redly in mid-air, with the light of the sun that had set in the western waters of the Atlantic.
For the whole of that day we had run fast through the water, making at least seven knots an hour off the log-line, but midnight came before we saw the last of the mighty Peak of Adam.
By that time the wind was fair, and we bore merrily away for the Isles of the West.
By the time we had been a month at sea, having applied myself assiduously to work, I picked up a little knowledge of seamanship. I took my turn of watch with the rest; I learned to go aloft and to lay out upon a yard in a stiff topgallant breeze. I acquired all the mysteries of knotting and splicing, of serving a rope with spun-yarn, and to know the technical difference between the rope itself and a line. I could heave the log, box the compass, and take my "trick" at the helm with the best man on board, and thus gained the golden opinions of those among whom a rough turn of the wheel of fortune had so strangely and so suddenly cast me.
Some days after leaving the Canaries, we found ourselves passing through what seemed to be immense meadows of green stuff adrift. By moonlight the branches, leaves, and fibres of this uprooted marine forest,—for such it was, being wrack and seaweeds of wondrous length springing from the lowest depths of the ocean—sparkled, flashed, and whirled in the foaming eddies astern of the brig as she cleft or brushed down the yielding masses with her rushing keel.
I was never weary of surveying this scene, which was so marvellous in its beauty, when the moon was shining on the sea.
These vast broad leaves and long snaky tendrils that danced upon the surface of the sea were the Florida gulf-weed.
"The tropical grape of the sailors," said Hislop, as we leaned over the lee-quarter one evening. "These plants grow upon the two great banks of the Atlantic, and were known to the Phoenicians, who named them the Weedy Sea."
"I remember," said I; "and that the seamen of Columbus thought they were sent by heaven to stay their course."
"You are right," replied the mate, with an approving smile. "It is pleasant to meet one like you, Rodney, who has read that which is worth reading and remembers it."
"The Gulf Stream," said Weston, joining in the conversation, "is a great current about sixty miles broad, caused by the trade winds, which always blow from east to west. It issues from the Gulf between Cape Florida and Cuba, and runs at the rate of three knots an hour along the shores of South and North America, till the Newfoundland bank turns it to the south-east; so everywhere its track is known by that gulf-weed which you now see floating past."
It is by this mysterious current—this mighty river that traverses the ocean—that the timber logs of the St. Lawrence, the wrecks of the old plate argosies, and the carved idols of older Mexico and the Caribbean Isles, all covered with the weeds and barnacles of long immersion, have been cast upon the western shores of Scotland and the Hebrides.
Every morning the weather became warmer—the sea and sky more clear—the atmosphere more rarefied. The wind was so steady that scarcely a sheet or tack were altered. Thus for several days we bore on with both sheets aft, as the phrase is, when running right before the wind.
Shoals of porpoises plunged across the bows of the brig in the sapphire-colored sea, and when it was smooth a whole fleet of the little nautilus passed us with purple sails up; nor were the dark and gliding shark and the silvery flying-fish wanting at times to keep my attention excited; and the tiny petrels, as they came tripping along, half in water and half in air; kept pace with the Eugenie, as she cracked on under a press of sail, dashing the waves around her, ploughing so freely and so fearlessly the deep waters that hide a finny world, and wash the dark and unknown basements of the earth.
One glorious morning, when we were within a few days' sail of Hispaniola, there occurred a circumstance which was afterwards a source of the deepest regret to us all; how and why, will be shown during the progress of my story.
The day was fine, even for that region of fine days. The Eugenie was running smoothly before the wind, and Hislop, with considerable animation, was detailing to the captain and me the appearance of that rare phenomenon, a lunar rainbow, which by singular good fortune he had once seen in these latitudes, and which Aristotle declares is never seen but at the time of the full moon,—a declaration which our learned Scotch mate treated with contempt; for he was a strange fellow, this Marc Hislop, and could with equal facility dilate on the Apology of Plato, and the method of club-hauling a square-rigged vessel, or sheering her to her anchor in a gale of wind; on the Prometheus of Æschylus, or the proper mode of lying too in a hurricane, with every thing struck aloft, and topsail yards on the cap; and now, on the subject of the lunar rainbow, he was proceeding to quote from the Portuguese Pilot of Ramusio, when Weston interrupted him by hailing aloft.
"Fore-top—there!"
"Aye, aye, sir," was the usual response from Ned Carlton, a seaman who was perched in the top.
"What are you about?" asked Weston, angrily.
"Greasing the sling of the fore-yard, sir."
"Oh—I thought you were making hay, you are so slow about it. You have been staring ahead for the last twenty minutes at least."
"Because I think I see something," said the seaman, annoyed by the nautical taunt.
"Something," reiterated Weston, "what is it? a church, or a windmill going before the wind?"
"Neither, sir,—but a boat adrift."
"How does it bear, Ned?" asked Hislop, starting into the rigging.
"On the starboard bow, about two miles off."
On hearing this the telescope was resorted to, and we could plainly enough see a white object, which the intervening waves, as they rose and fell, hid from us at times; and there was a great diversity of opinion, for one of the crew maintained it was a harbor buoy adrift.
"It must have drifted a long way to have come here," retorted Carlton; "and if you have your grandmother's spectacles about you, wipe them clean, put them on, and look again,—for I can see plainly enough that it is a boat."
"Then we shall overhaul it," said Weston; "Hislop, prepare to lower ours, and to lay the fore-yard aback."
The Eugenie's course was shaped toward it, and when within a quarter of a mile, the foresail was laid to the mast, the brig hove in the wind, and the stern boat lowered; Hislop, Tom Lambourne, two other hands, and I, manned her, and put off to inspect and report upon what we could discover. And so, with many surmises as to wrecks, boats getting adrift or being washed away from their davits, and so forth, we pulled swiftly toward her, all stripped to our shirtsleeves, for a hot West Indian sun was blazing in a cloudless sky, and the air seemed still and breathless.
As the strange boat pitched about on the waves some of our men asserted that, at times, they could see a man's head above the gunwale. Others expressed their doubts of this, and in the midst of such discussions we sheered alongside. Hislop caught its bow by the boat-hook, and while retaining his hold, fended off, to prevent her being dashed against ours.
In the bottom of this boat, which was evidently the clinker-built skiff of a merchant vessel, and was all painted yellow, as a preservation from the sun in a warm climate, there lay under the thwarts a man, either asleep, in a stupor, or dead,—at first we knew not which; but he was pale enough to have passed for the last.
By his tawny visage and coal-black beard, his long scarlet cap and sash, in which a sheathed knife was stuck, and also by the rings in his ears, we recognized him to be a Spanish seaman. He was a man naturally of a tall and powerful frame, but of forbidding aspect,—of great personal strength, but wasted apparently by toil, by exposure and famine.
A dark and coagulated crust of something like blood appeared on his baked lips and thick moustaches, on the blackness of which, the saline particles of the sea foam, dried by the tropical sun, glittered white as hoar frost on a bush in winter.
As we roused him, he grasped his knife instinctively and repulsively, but relinquished it, and then stared wildly at us, muttering in imploring tones,
"Aqua, aqua, por amor de Dios!"—(water, for the love of God). "Misericordia! O senores,—O Ave Maria, misericordia!"
"Here, Jack Spaniard, ship a drop o' this; it is the real Jamaiky," said Tattooed Tom, pouring between the parched lips of the Spaniard some rum from a bottle, which most likely had been put in the boat by the foresight of Hislop.
The black eyes of the castaway dilated and flashed as the spirit revived him, restoring his wasted energies, and bringing a hectic color to his cheek.
"Belay now," said Tom; "you must get some Thames water from the brig before you take more of this."
"Muchos gracias—many, many thanks," said the Spaniard, in tones of thankfulness.
"Enough o' that;—stow your slack, and come on board if you can," said Tom, testily, as he had sulky recollections of our adventures at the Grand Canary.
Restored by the mouthful of alcohol, the Spaniard staggered up, but with difficulty; and then we perceived that gouts of blood, dried and encrusted by the sun, were on his person, and on the inside of the boat, especially on one of the thwarts.
"What is this—blood?" asked Hislop, with an imperceptible shudder.
The Spaniard started, and became, if possible, paler at the question, as he nervously clutched the gunwale of his boat with both hands, and said, in broken accents,—
"My dog, senores; I killed a dog that was with me, because—because it went mad in the hot sunshine, and being without water."
"Why did you not throw it into the sea?"
"It would have bitten me, senor, and might perhaps have come into the boat again."
"Likely enough," muttered one of our men.
"You could have knocked it over with an oar," said Hislop; "but did your dog wear this!" he added, fishing up with the boat-hook a cap that lay in the bilge water under the stern sheets of the skiff.
"That cap is mine," said the Spaniard, in a husky voice, while closing his eyes, as if wearied or appalled.
"Have you two heads?" asked Hislop, sternly
"No, senor; but—but—"
"What then?"
"A man may have two caps for all that."
Perceiving that he was on the point of sinking again, Tom Lambourne poured some more of the rum into his mouth, and we dragged him into our boat, setting the skiff, which was quite useless to us, adrift once more.
"What was your ship?" asked Hislop, who spoke Spanish fluently.
"The Marshal Serrano—a Spanish brig from Cadiz."
"From the Canaries last?" I inquired hastily.
"Yes; bound to Costa Rica."
Tom Lambourne gave me a rapid glance, as he spat on his hands and pushed his oar through the rowlock.
"She foundered and went down with all hands on board," continued the famished Spaniard, in a broken voice and with quivering hips.
"All?" reiterated Hislop, sternly and dubiously.
"All, save myself, senor," replied the other, hesitatingly, and lowering his hollow eyes; "I escaped in the skiff."
"With your dog?"
"Si, Senor."
"In what latitude did this take place?"
Without a moment's hesitation, the Spaniard gave us the latitude and longitude.
"I can't make out this fellow's story in any way," said Hislop, in English. "By the theory and law of storms, we should have had a touch of the same gale which foundered his brig—if such a gale existed. He has deserted, or been marooned. I don't believe a word he says. What is your name?" he asked in Spanish.
"Antonio."
I started on hearing it, for my suspicions were becoming more and more confirmed.
"Antonio. What more?"
"El Cubano, or the Cuban; for so my shipmates termed me, and I have no other name."
"Quick, my lads," said Hislop; "lay out on your oars."
We were soon alongside the Eugenie, and had our castaway hoisted on board, when, for a time, an end was put to our queries, but not to our surmises, by his becoming insensible. We had questioned him already perhaps too much, considering the weakness of his condition.
He adhered to his original story in every particular when examined by Weston and Hislop a day or two after; that he belonged to the Spanish merchant brig, Marshal Serrano, the same craft which had worked with us out of the road stead of Santa Cruz; that she had foundered in a storm, being overmasted and overladen, and that he alone had escaped of all the crew; that when his dog became mad, he had slain the animal and cast the carcase into the sea; and that he had been a week floating about in an open boat, without food and without aught to cool his parched tongue, save the heavy tropical dew of heaven, when we found him; and to the truth of all this, he was ready to swear over two crossed knives, in the fashion of his country.
In short, we were obliged to content ourselves with his narrative, which Hislop duly engrossed in the ship's log, while expressing great disbelief as to its authenticity.
In the first place, our mate denied that any such storm as that in which the Cuban alleged his brig perished had ever existed; and he deduced from his favorite theory that we were, and had been, in the direct track of such a storm, and must have felt its influence long ere this.
Hence he thought it more probable that the man had deserted in the night, perhaps in consequence of committing some crime, or for the same reason had been marooned and set adrift.
The crew were divided in opinion, and Tom Lambourne openly expressed his disbelief that the blood which covered the clothes of the Cuban and the thwart of the boat ever came from the veins of a dog; and others asserted that he must have quarrelled with an unfortunate shipmate, and killed him; or had perhaps assassinated him in sleep for the horrible purpose of prolonging his own existence.
Amid these unpleasant surmises as to his character and position, in a few days the Spaniard joined the crew in working the ship, and proves himself to be a steady, industrious, and able seaman; and as three of our hands were on the sick list, his services were the more valuable.
On remarking this to Tom Lambourne,
"It is all very true, sir," he replied; "but I don't like a seaman who cannot look his shipmate right in the face."
"You are a physiognomist," I suggested.
"Don't know what kind of a mist that may be, Master Rodney; but this I know—there is always something cunning and dangerous in a fellow who looks over your shoulder, as that Spaniard does, when he should look at your eyes."
Antonio had an excessive dislike for deck duty by night. He exhibited a strange dread of being left alone, and could scarcely be prevailed upon to look over the vessel's side, always shrinking back, as if he expected to see something hideous rise out of the sea. Weston suggested that perhaps his recent suffering had unmanned and rendered him nervous; but the crew thought otherwise.
In his sleep, Antonio frequently disturbed the men in the forecastle bunks by his mutterings, his wild dreams, outcries, and sonorous Spanish maledictions.
I was at the wheel on a calm and lovely night (it was the 13th of January), when we were off the beautiful shore of Hispaniola. I remember well that Cape Samanna bore west by south, and Cape Cabron west by north; for my task of steering was new to me, and Weston's orders were "to keep her full and by,"—that is, as close to the wind as possible without making the canvas shiver.
I could see the lights that glittered in the distant villages that studded the low but fertile peninsula of Samanna. All was still and quiet in the ship and around it. Soothed by the solemnity of the hour and the vast solitude of the sea, my heart was full, and busy memory brought before me loved faces and voices, places and scenes, that were far, far away in dear Old England.
The brig was gliding through the water rapidly but imperceptibly, and almost without a sound; the men of the watch were leaning over the bulwark to leeward; and the air, the sea, and all aloft and below, seemed to sleep in the moonlight; not a reef point pattered on the taut canvas, and scarcely a wavelet rippled, save in the dead-water astern that marked the white wake of the Eugenie.
Suddenly a shrill and piercing cry rang out upon the night, and Antonio the Cubano rushed from the forecastle with the wildest terror expressed in his black eyes; his visage was pale and ghastly, and the perspiration glittered like bead drops on his clammy brow. With his bare feet, he stumbled over the chain cable, which lay coiled on the deck, for on that afternoon we had hauled it up, and bent it to the working anchor.
He came running aft in his shirt, brandishing a knife in his hand, and exclaiming, in fierce and then imploring accents—
"Who says I did it?—who dares to say so?"
Then letting his arms drop as he slunk back to his bunk, we heard him groan out—
"El cuchillo—el cuchillo!" (the knife—the knife).
Hence, under such circumstances, it may easily be supposed that among the crew there floated strange and dark surmises as to the past life of Antonio el Cubano.
As the sun increased in heat, notwithstanding the season of the year, I was soon sensible of the comfort of white clothing, when contrasted with dark woollen or broadcloth, as the latter absorbs, and the former repels the rays of the sun.
Marc Hislop illustrated this to me by igniting paper with a burning-glass; whenever the focus was brought to bear upon dark places, such as the printed letters, they were instantly consumed.
We ran along the coast of Hispaniola, and saw the wavy ridges of its mountains that tower into the clouds; we sighted Tortuga, a rocky island covered with palm-trees and sandal-wood, but surrounded by reefs and shoals; and rounding Cape St. Nicholas, stood to the southward between the great islands of Jamaica and Cuba, but without seeing either of them at that time.
For three days we had dark and cloudy weather.
About three P.M. on the 24th of January, a small speck, which appeared to the westward on our weather beam, grew rapidly into a gloomy cloud, and swiftly, as if on the wings of a destroying angel, it traversed the thickening air and the agitated sea, which darkened beneath its shadow; and so this speck came on, until it grew an awful thunder-cloud.
"Bear a hand fore and aft! Hurrah, my lads!—make all snug before the tempest breaks!" were the cheering orders of Weston, Hislop, and Lambourne, as the brig was prepared to encounter a heavy squall.
The rain soon fell in torrents, impeding the men at their work of close reefing, furling, and stowing some of the heavier canvas, and in tightly belaying the running rigging; for when loose ropes are flying about in a tempest, and cracking in men's faces like coach-whips, they become sufficiently bewildering to impede the working of the ship.
Under the lower edge of the approaching cloud, when about twelve miles distant, we beheld an object which filled us with wonder and awe.
It was a tremendous spout, or column of water, connected with the cloud above, and the sea below (the sea, from which a circular wind had sucked it upward), that was now visible.
This column was like a solid mass of white breakers, approaching with incredible speed over waves that began to rise in short and pyramidal peaks.
Hislop was too busy clewing up canvas, sending yards down from aloft, belaying and ordering, and so lost a famous opportunity for expatiating—as no doubt he would have done—on the theory of these spouts; for this phenomenon filled us with the greatest alarm, lest it might swoop down upon the Eugenie, dismast and destroy her like a child's toy-ship.
Antonio el Cubano, being the most powerful and muscular man on board, was ordered to the wheel.
Across the sea this column seemed to pass with the cloud, boiling, foaming, and with the sound of a mighty cascade pouring into a deep valley, but yet maintaining a position quite perpendicular. Around its base the waves seemed in dreadful commotion, rising and falling, seething and glittering in the lightning which shot at times from the gloomy bosom of the cloud that floated over them.
As this terrible phenomenon approached from the westward, Captain Weston conceived that we might escape its influence by altering the brig's course, and so passing it. I have heard of water-spouts being dissipated by the effect of heavily-shotted guns; but we had no such appliances—at least we had no shot on board.
The breeze which was blowing fresh, and had not as yet become a gale (to us at least), veered north-westerly; so we shook the reefs out of our topsails and trimmed sharp by the wind.
"Luff, luff—keep your luff—keep her to," were the incessant orders of Weston; and the Eugenie flew through the water like a race-horse; held by the powerful hands of Antonio, she never yawed an inch; and by especial Providence she got to windward of that dreadful phenomenon, which passed us, cloud and all, about six miles astern, when as it changed color, from grayish green to white, it presented a scene so sublime and terrible, that "the boldest held his breath for a time;" and Antonio, who was blanched white with terror, though he had frequently seen such spouts in these, his native seas, assured me, with chattering teeth, that he had never beheld one of such magnitude; and it was long before he could be certain of our safety, and ceased to mutter,—
"O mala ventura—mala ventura!" (literally, bad luck.)
From white, the water-spout became dusky purple, when a gleam of the setting sun fell on it, and the waves at its base glittered in all the colors of the rainbow.
"Thank heaven! that is past," said Weston.
"Ay, sir," said old Roberts, the man-o'-war's man, "it is enough to make one's hair stand on end for a week."
"Had we been twenty minutes' sail astern, we could not have escaped it!" said Hislop; "but we have handled the brig beautifully. That ugly Spaniard at the wheel was worth his weight in gold just now!"
For nearly an hour the sea was greatly agitated; but as the Eugenie, still braced sharp to the wind, flew from one long roller to another, we rapidly got into smooth water. The barometer rose quickly; the vapors dispersed; and when the setting sun gave us a parting smile from the far horizon, the storm-cloud and its water-spout had disappeared together, or melted away in the distant sea.
The little eddies of wind, which on a fine summer morning may be seen whirling up the dust and dry leaves in circles on a road, are exactly on the same principle as those mighty phenomena which become tornadoes, cyclones, and water-spouts, when they reach the ocean, where they may easily dismast and perhaps sink the largest line-of-battle ship.
Those spouts rise from the sea exactly like the moving pillars of sand, which the whirlwinds sweep from the hot and arid deserts of Africa and Arabia.
About six bells (i.e., seven P.M.), this escape was followed by a dead calm, which lasted till midnight, and during that time we talked of nothing but the skill with which we had got the weathergage of that column of foam. As the sun set, with a rapidity peculiar to these latitudes, the brilliant tints he shed on sea and sky changed with equal speed from gold to saffron, from these to vivid purple, and from thence to the hue of sapphire.
The sensation of loneliness which the departure of the sun excites in the breast of a landsman at sea is peculiar; but this was soon chased from mine by the splendor of the rising moon, which changed the sapphire tints of sea and sky to liquid silver and the clearest blue.
Above, no cloud, nor even the tiniest shred of vapor was visible. Sea blended with sky at the horizon, and seemed to melt into each other, so that no line was traceable. Save a planet or two, twinkling with less light than usual, there seemed to be no stars in heaven, for the glory of the full-orbed moon eclipsed them all; her light fell brightly on the white sails of the Eugenie, and in it the features of our faces were distinct as at noon-day, and now it was the noon of night.
About twelve o'clock a fresh breeze sprung up, and the ship's course was resumed.
"By keeping the weathergage, and beyond the circle of the spout's attraction, we escaped without shipping a drop of water!" said Weston, for the twentieth time. "Let me see how you enter all this in the log, Hislop."
"It is no uncommon thing for a craft at sea to be deluged by a spout of fresh water, which the whirlwind has torn up from an inland lake," said Hislop; "and houses, far in-shore, have in the same fashion been deluged by salt water absorbed from the sea;—and hence the showers of dried herrings, of which we have heard so much at times. Now, Rodney, you will perhaps be surprised when I tell you, that it is the winds which produce a calm like that we have had tonight."
"The winds!" I reiterated, surprised at such a paradox from our theorist.
"Yes. The opposition of winds will at times produce a perfect calm, and then when rain falls it is always gentle and equable; but when clouds seem to move against the lower winds, or when streams of air denote a variety of the aerial current, and consequently the approach of rain——"
"What strange sound is that ahead, or at least, forward?" said Weston, interrupting Hislop, who would perhaps have theorized for an hour.
"It is Antonio, groaning in his sleep in the forecastle," said Ned Carleton, who was at the wheel.
"I wish the ship were rid of him and his dreams," added Hislop, testily. "Well, as I was saying, when the adverse movements of the clouds seem to denote——"
"Light a-head!" cried a voice from the bow.
"Is that you, Roberts?" asked Weston, while Hislop stamped with vexation at the second interruption.
"Yes, sir."
"How does it bear?"
"East-north-east."
"Then it is Cape St. Antonio Light, the most western point of Cuba," said Weston, with confidence and pleasure in his tone. "I thought I could smell the land with the first cat's paw, before the breeze freshened."
The light, dim and distant like a star, was now seen to twinkle among the waves at the horizon.
For more than an hour I remained on deck with my eyes fixed upon that feeble but increasing beacon, which indicated a foreign shore; then I went below and turned in, with a sigh of pleasure that the voyage was nearly over, and a hope that when I traversed those waves again, I should be on my return home—home to my father and mother, to Sybil and Dot,—to the old Rectory, with its shady oak-grove, its green lawn, and the masses of ivy, woodbine, and honeysuckle that shaded its time-worn walls.
When day dawned we had rounded Caybo San Antonio, and were running along the northern shore of Cuba.
I was up early, by eight bells—or a little after four A.M.—for I had the morning watch; and with deep interest I surveyed the coast of that beautiful island, which lay about ten miles distant,—the first and now the last portion of that vast empire beyond the seas which Columbus bequeathed to Castile and Leon.
"Dat is mi country, senor," said Antonio, who was at the wheel; and this remark, with the repulsive aspect of the Spaniard and his mysterious character, served to dissipate my momentary enthusiasm.
"That is Caybo Bueno Vista,—and the breakers on the weather-bow," he continued, "mark the Collorados, a long reef of rocks. The blue sharks are as thick there as the stars in the sky."
We were now in the Gulf of Florida.
The sky was cloudless and blue; and now it seemed as if the welkin above and the almost waveless sea below were endeavoring to outvie each other in calmness, in beauty, and in the glory of their azure depths. The wind was off the land and rather a-head; but the sails were trimmed to perfection, and we ran through the Gulf on a taut bowline.
I have so much more to narrate than my limited space permits me to give in full detail, that I must compress into one chapter all that relates to my visit to Matanzas.
Our run through the Gulf was delightful; and on the 29th of January, just as a rosy tint was stealing over all the sea and the rocky shore of Cuba, after the sun had set beyond the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, we saw Havana light, bearing south by west, and distant about fourteen miles. So we passed in the night the wealthy capital of Cuba, so famed in the annals of our victories—La Habana, or the harbor—of which, from our being so far to seaward, we could see nothing but the great revolving light, which burns so brightly on the high rock of the Morro, or Castello de los Santos Reyes; and before dawn we descried the light of Santa Cruz on our weather-bow.
Weston drew my attention to it, adding "that is the beacon which so scared me when it shone through the stern windows of the empty polacca brig."
Next day, the 29th, after encountering a head wind, against which we tacked frequently between the Pan de Matanzas and the wooded point of Sumberella, at ten in the morning, a Spanish mulatto pilot came on board and took the brig in charge.
We ran safely into the harbor, and by eleven o'clock came to anchor at a place recommended by Antonio, half a cable's length from the castle of St. Severino. In half an hour after, the sails were all unbent and stowed below, and preparations were made for "breaking bulk,"—to unload the vessel, whose cargo, I have stated, consisted of steam machinery and coals for the sugar and coffee mills.
Gangs of Spanish mulattoes, negro porters, and lumpers, in red shirts and white drawers, with broad straw hats, and nearly all with rings in their ears, came on board in quest of employment; and then all was confusion, garlic, dirt, jabbering in Spanish and Congo, singing, swearing, and smoking cigaritos.
I was now at liberty to go ashore, and after the first bustle was over, Weston left Hislop in charge of the brig and accompanied me. Matanzas presented nothing new to him, but I surveyed with interest, not unmixed with wonder, the New World in which I found myself.
The city of Don Carlos de Matanzas occupies a gentle eminence between the rivers San Juan and Yumuri, which roll into the bay from the mountainous ridge that traverses all Cuba. Its name, Matanzas, signifies the place of murder, because in that bay some of the Spaniards of Columbus were slain by the native Indians.
Most of the houses are built of good stone, but have all their windows iron-barred without and barricaded within, for the population (of which our shipmate Antonio was a striking specimen) consists of about thirty thousand olive-skinned Spaniards, and double that number of slaves and free mulattoes, all loose, reckless, fiery, and apt to use their knives on trivial occasions.
There was not a ship lying there for England, or any other craft by which Weston could have sent me home. A Spanish steam-packet was on the eve of departing for Cadiz; but being wearied by the monotony of my long voyage, I was scarcely in a mood for the sea again, and wished to spend a little time on shore instead of leaving with her.
However, I wrote to my family by the Spanish mail, acquainting them of my safety—with the strange accident which had so suddenly torn me from them, and adding that I would return by the first ship bound for any part of England; if possible, with the Eugenie, which would probably be freighted for London.
After the packet sailed with my letter in her capacious bags, I experienced an emotion of greater happiness and contentment than I had ever done since leaving home; for the sorrow which I knew all there must have suffered, and would still be suffering, hung heavily on my heart.
As we were returning to the brig, which had now been warped alongside the mole, when passing through the street which contains the great hospital, we heard the sound of trumpets, and saw the glittering of lances with long streamers above the heads of a dense crowd of people of all shades of color, black, yellow, and brown; and we had to doff our hats with due respect as they passed, for in the midst, surrounded by a staff of officers, epauletted and aiguletted, their breasts sparkling with medals and crosses, and each of them riding with a cocked hat under his right arm, came the present Captain-General of Cuba, a marshal of the Spanish army, Don Francisco Serrano de Dominguez, attended by an escort of mulatto lancers, all mounted on Spanish horses.
He was a fine-looking man, and though aged, had all the bearing of what he was, or I should say is—a grandee of Old Castile.
On returning to the Eugenie we found Antonio, the Cuban, working among the crew as lustily and actively as any man on board. Weston now offered him remuneration for the time he had been with us, with a hint that he might find a berth elsewhere; but our castaway evinced the greatest reluctance to leave the brig, and begged that he might be permitted to remain on board, as three of our best hands had been sent ashore sick to the hospital.
So short-sighted is man, that Captain Weston, despite the dislike of the crew, and the advice of Marc Hislop, ordered that the name of Antonio be entered on the ship's books as a foremast-man.
Three weeks after our arrival, the brig was careened to starboard, when clear of all the cargo, and had her copper scraped and cleaned, an operation which the constant rains of the season greatly retarded.
There was much in Cuba to feed an imaginative mind, and mine was full of the voyages, the daring adventures, and the vast discoveries of Columbus, with the exploits of the buccaneers, whose haunts were amid these wild, and, in those days, savage shores.
I thought of the gaily plumed and barbarously armed caciques whom Columbus had met in their fleet piroguas, or had encountered in the dense forests which clothe the Cuban mountains—forests, old, perhaps, as the days of the deluge—of the yellow-skinned women with their long, flowing black hair, and with plates of polished gold hanging at their ears and noses, of the fierce warriors streaked with sable war-paint, and armed with cane arrows shod with teeth or poisoned fish-bones, that fell harmless from the Spanish coats of mail; of the wild Caribs who devoured their prisoners—with whom a battle was but a precursor of a feast; and of the famous fighting women—the terrible Amazons of Guadaloupe.
I thought of the story of Columbus writing the narrative of his wonderful discoveries, his perils and adventures, on a roll of parchment, which he wrapped in oil-cloth covered over with wax, inclosed in a little cask, and then cast into the sea, with a prayer, and the hope that if he and his crew perished, this record of their achievements might be cast by the ocean on the shore of some Christian land.
As I sat by the sounding sea that rolled into the bay of Matanzas, what would I not have given to have seen the waves cast that old cask, covered with weeds and barnacles, at my feet!
But now the plodding steam-tug and the rusty merchant trader ploughed the waters of the bay, instead of the gilded Spanish caravels, or the long war-piroguas of the Indian warriors; and where they fought their bloodiest battles on the wooded shore, or in the green savanna, where the painted cacique and the mailed Castilian met hand to hand in mortal strife, the smoke of the steam-mill, grinding coffee, or boiling sugar, darkened the sky, and the songs of the negroes were heard as they hoed in the plantations, or in gangs of forty trucked mahogany logs, each drawn by eight sturdy oxen, to the sea.
And so, in a creek of the bay—the same place where the Dutch Admiral Heyn sunk the Spanish plate fleet—I was wont to sit dreamily for hours, with the murmur of the waves in my ears, with the buzz of insects, and the voice of the mocking-birds among the palmettoes, while watching the sails that glided past the headlands of the bay, on their way to the Bahama Channel, or the great Gulf of Florida.
This was my favorite resort. A wood of cocoa-nut and other trees shaded the place, and made it so dark that I have seen the fire-flies glance about at noon. The cocoas are about the height of Dutch poplars, and are covered with oblong leaves, which, when young, are of a pale red. As spring drew on, the branches became covered with scarlet and yellow flowers.
Over these, the vast coral-tree spread its protecting foliage, whence the Spaniards, in their beautiful language, name it La Madre del Cocoa, the smallest of which has at times a thousand lovely scarlet blossoms.
We sailed from the bay of Matanzas at two A.M., on the 3d of April, bound for the Cape of Good Hope, which we were fated never to reach.
The Eugenie had been freighted for that colony with a rich cargo of molasses, sugar, coffee, and tobacco; and arrangements had been made that from Cape Town she would be chartered for London; thus I had a fair prospect of seeing nearly a half of this terrestrial globe before I repassed my good old father's threshold at Erlesmere.
I earnestly hoped that we might encounter no more water-spouts or tornadoes, as they were not at all to my taste; but from other causes than phenomena or the war of the elements, it was my fortune, or rather misfortune, to undergo such peril and suffering as were far beyond my conception or anticipation.
By eight o'clock on the morning of our departure, the light on Piedras Key was bearing south by east, sinking into the waves astern, and going out as we bade a long farewell to the lovely shores of Cuba.
Three of our men had died of yellow fever in hospital, so we sailed from Matanzas with ten able-bodied hands, exclusive of three ship-boys, the captain, first and second mates.
In these waters, after the rainy season, the sky is so cloudless in the forenoon that the heat of the sun becomes almost insupportable; thus we were soon glad to resort to the use of windsails rigged down the open skylight to an awning over the quarter-deck for coolness, and to skids for the prevention of blisters on the sides of the brig; but in the starry night the land-wind which comes off these fertile isles, laden with the rich aroma of their spice-growing savannas, is beyond description grateful and delicious.
Without any incident worth recording we ran through the sea of the Windward Isles, thence along the coast of South America; and when we approached the calm latitudes, as that tract of ocean near the Equator is named, we became sensible of the overpowering increase of heat, while the breezes were but "fanning ones," as the sailors term those which, under the double influence of the air and motion of the hull, are just sufficient to make the lighter canvas collapse and swell again.
We were soon aware of other annoyances than mere heat; for now it seemed as if there was an evil spirit on board the Eugenie, and that nothing went right within or about her.
The crew sulked and quarrelled among themselves as if the demon of mischief lurked in the vessel, and daily something unfortunate occurred. Halyards or braces gave way, by which the yards were thrown aback; and in one instance the brig nearly lost her mainmast. Standing and running rigging were found to be mysteriously fretted, and even cut, as if by a knife; and then the crew whispered together of Antonio el Cubano,—that horrid, dark, and mysterious fellow, whose character none of us could fathom.
Twice our compasses went wrong, and remained so for days; and before the cause was discovered, the Eugenie had drifted far from her course.
This varying was inexplicable, until Hislop, who set himself to watch, and frequently saw Antonio hovering near the binnacle at night, unshipped the compass-box, and found there were concealed near it an iron marlinspike on one side, and a lump of tallow on the other, either of which was sufficient to affect the magnetic needle.
After their removal the compass worked as well as before. The crew were strictly questioned; all vowed total ignorance of the transaction, and Antonio summoned every saint in the Spanish calendar to attest his innocence, but none, however, appeared. The crew now felt convinced that, inspired by some emotion of malice or mischief, he alone was the culprit; and if not loud, their wrath was deep against him.
These variations of our compass set the busy brain of Marc Hislop to work; and in a day or two he declared that he had discovered a plan for preventing the repetition of tricks so dangerous, by insulating the needle, so as to protect the compass from attractions false or dangerous.
I am uncertain whether he perfected this experiment, but Antonio soon went to work another way; for one day, when he was supposed to be busy in the maintop, he shouted, "Stand from under!" and ere Hislop, who was just beneath, could give the usual response, "Let go," a heavy marlinspike, the same which had been found in the binnacle, slipped from the hand of Antonio, and fell through the topgrating.
The iron bar crashed into the deck at the feet of Hislop; whether this occurred by inadvertence or design we knew not, but the Scotsman thought the latter.
"That rascally Spanish picaroon will work us some serious mischief before we overhaul our ground-tackle or see the Cape," said Weston, who was enraged by this new incident, and the narrow escape of Hislop, for whom he had a great regard.
"Aye, he has a hang-dog look about him that I never liked," replied the latter. "He seems to be always down by the head, somehow. We should have left him in his skiff, just as we found him, like a bear adrift on a grating, or a pig in a washing-tub."
On another occasion he injured Will White, one of the crew, by letting the topmaul fall from the foretop, where it usually lay, for driving home the fid of the mast.
His dreams again became a source of annoyance to all in the forecastle bunks; and on being closely and severely questioned by Captain Weston and the men, as to whether he had ever killed any one, by accident or otherwise, after being long badgered, he half drew his ugly knife from its shark-skin sheath, and replied, sullenly,—
"Only a Chinaman or so, when in California."
"Well, I wish you would clap a stopper on your mouth when you go to sleep, or turn in out of ear-shot in a topgallant studding sail,—as far off as you choose, and the further off the better," said old Roberts, sulkily, after the ravings of the Cubano had kept him awake for several nights.
"You seem to dream a great deal, Antonio," said Weston, with a keen glance, beneath which the Spaniard quailed.
"Si, Senor Capitano," he stammered.
"How is this?"
"I am very fond of dreams," he replied, with a bitter smile on his lip and a scowl in his dark eye.
"Have you pleasant ones?"
"I cannot say that they are always so, but I should like to procure them."
"Shall I tell you how to do so, shipmate?"
"If you please, Senor," growled the Spaniard.
"Go to sleep, if you can, with that which is better than the formula of prayers, which at times you pay out like the line running off a log-reel."
"And what is it you mean, mio Capitano?"
"A good conscience," replied Weston, with a peculiar emphasis.
A black scowl came over the Spaniard's swarthy visage, as he touched the rim of his hat, darted a furious glance at his chief accuser, the white-haired seaman Roberts, and to end the examination, walked forward.
Soon after this, when evening came on we heard a noise in the forecastle, and the voice of Hislop, exclaiming—
"Stand clear—sheer off, Antonio! If you come athwart me, I'll knock you down with a handspike! What! you grip your knife, do you? Well, just do it again, and I'll chuck you overboard like a bit of old junk."
"What is the matter now?" said I, hastening forward.
"Oh, this rascally Spanish Creole has been swearing at the men again, and threatening old Roberts."
"He vows, sir, he will burn the ship," said Roberts, who seemed considerably excited.
"Burn the ship," reiterated Weston. "I have a great mind to put him in the bilboes for the remainder of the voyage."
"'Twere best for all concerned, sir," said Tom Lambourne, touching his forelock with his right hand, and giving the deck a scrape with his left foot; "or set him adrift with some provisions in the jolly-boat."
"Come, come, Antonio," said Weston, with greater severity than I had hitherto seen expressed in his open and honest countenance, "you must haul your wind—for some time you have been going too far. I can't spare my jolly-boat, and, thank heaven! the days of marooning are past among British sailors, but beware you, shipmate, or the bilboes it shall be, and we have a pretty heavy pair below. And as for you, Marc Hislop," he added, in a low voice, when we walked aft, "take care of yourself, for these Spanish Creoles are as slippery and treacherous as serpents."
"I'll keep my weather eye open," said Hislop.
"You will require to do so, I think."
"You do?" exclaimed the Scotsman, with growing anger. "If he proceeds thus, I'll break either his heart or his neck."
Next morning, Roberts the old man-o'-war's man, who had always been Antonio's chief accuser concerning his dreams, was nowhere to be found on board!
All the hands were turned up; the whole brig was searched, the forecastle berths, the cable-tier, and every place below from the fore to the after peak, but there was no trace of Roberts, save his old tarpaulin-hat, lying crushed and torn in the lee scuppers.
He was last seen when turned up to take the middle watch, which extends from twelve to four o'clock A.M., and Antonio was then in his hammock.
Roberts was entered in the log as "having fallen overboard in the night;" but his loss cast a terrible gloom over all in the ship. Suspicion grew apace, and seemed to become confirmed, as open war was soon declared between the crew and Antonio.
Every man was ready to take his "trick" at the wheel, rather than trust the Eugenie to his steering in the night, lest he might let her broach to, and lose her spars, or do some other mischief; and no man, if he could avoid it, would lay out on the yard beyond him. No man would walk on the same side of the deck with him, or exchange a word, or a light for a pipe, or use the same cup or plate; so he was generally to be seen, leaning moodily and alone, against the windlass-bitts, with his black eyes fixed on the horizon, as if he expected a sail or something else to heave in sight.
We shall soon see how all this ended.