We were now in the latitudes of burning days, of starry nights, and bright blue seas. The winds were light, and, as usual near the line, there was a tremendous swell upon the ocean, which rose in long and slowly-heaving hills, without foam or ripple—smooth, glassy, and without sound.
On a lovely night, when the ocean seemed to sleep in the moonshine, we crossed the equator.
The Eugenie was running with the lee clews eased off—i.e., with a flowing sheet—when Father Neptune came on board, and the usual unpleasant pranks were played on those who had never passed the girdle of the world before.
Great preparations had been in progress all day in the forecastle, and these were perfected under cloud of night. All the crew were on deck save Antonio, who turned in, having probably a dread of what was about to ensue, and knowing that he was any thing but a favorite.
Accompanied by the shouts of the crew, and preceded by Will White, playing "Rule Britannia" on a violin, old Father Neptune was drawn on a species of hurdle aft to the quarter-deck, where Weston stood ready to receive him, with his hat in one hand, and a case-bottle of brandy in the other.
Under an old swab, which had been well dried and curled to make a wig for the son of Saturn and Vesta, I recognized the grotesquely-tattooed visage of my friend Tom Lambourne. A cutlass was stuck in his girdle, and he wore a huge paunch of canvas stuffed with oakum.
In a gown made by the sailmaker, Ned Carlton officiated as Amphitrite; and both deities were armed with harpoons, as emblems of their dominion over the sea.
The attendant Tritons were got up in the same fashion, and all wore false noses of singular size and great brilliance, with tow wigs, and long tails.
On Neptune and his goddess receiving a dram, and questioning the captain about his crew, it was discovered that Antonio and I were the only two on board who had never crossed the line before; whereupon the Tritons whooped and danced as they laid violent hands on me. I submitted to the usual shaving and so forth with a good grace, and compounded, to avoid other annoyances, for two bottles of brandy, and ascending to the main-cross-trees, without going through the lubber's hole. But for the Cubano there was neither ransom, escape, or outlet; and the poor wretch, in consequence of his mysterious antecedents, was very roughly handled, the more so that he had threatened to use his knife if molested.
It was soon trundled out of his hand by one body of Tritons, while another soused him well with salt water, as he was conveyed past the long boat, which was lashed amidships, and in which they were stationed with buckets ready filled.
Held fast on every side, he was brought before the "goddess-born" and inexorable monarch of the main, who ordered "the Lord Chief Barber at once to shave him."
Now, as Antonio had rather a luxuriant beard and moustache, the plentiful application thereto of a compound of tar and slush, such as we used for greasing the masts, was the reverse of agreeable; but the stern orders of Neptune, which were bellowed hoarsely through a tin trumpet, were faithfully and elaborately obeyed, and the contents of a dirty iron-pot were smeared over the cheeks, beard, and mouth of the Cubano, by Billy, a mischievous shipboy, with an unsparing hand.
"Demonio! Maldita!" were heard at intervals, and greeted with laughter; but when he attempted to storm, or swear, the brush—a reeking tuft of oil, tar, and every horrid grease—was thrust into his mouth.
The Lord Chief Barber was now commanded to remove this noisome mess with his razor, and he scraped it off with a piece of hoop, which had been carefully notched for the purpose—a process which, as it uprooted sundry thick portions of Antonio's coal-black bristles, caused him to yell and sputter out hoarse Spanish oaths alternately.
He was again deluged with salt water; and greater severities were about to be practised upon him, as some of the Tritons cried for "the ghost of Roberts to come out of the sea;" others, to "smoke him, by putting his head in the hood of the cook's funnel," when Weston ransomed him for two bottles of brandy, and he was permitted to slink away to his bunk, breathing vengeance against all his tormentors.
Grog was again served round, the deck was cleared for a dance, and the crew footed the hours away in a succession of hornpipes, while the grim Cubano lay growling in the forecastle. Three cheers for the Captain, and three more for Marc Hislop, terminated the fun, and all but the watch retired below.
"They have gone too far with that fellow, as some of us may discover before the voyage comes to a close," said Hislop, when we were having a parting glass in the cabin.
"Yes," replied Weston; "he is a dark dog, and though I am not very rich, I would give a hundred pounds to fathom the mystery of old Robert's disappearance. Well, here's to our wives and sweethearts at home."
"I have neither sweetheart nor wife," said Hislop, as he tossed off his glass; "but I have a poor old mother who loves me as well as either could do."
Weston's eye wandered to the portraits of his wife and child, to whom he was tenderly attached, and for whom all his savings, by salary, tonnage, and hat-money,* were carefully hoarded; for whom, poor fellow, he tempted the dangers of the great deep, the war of the elements, and endured the hardships of a sailor's life—his wife, his little one, and their home—"his all; his sheet-anchor in this world, and his guide to the next," as I once heard him say, forcibly and strangely.
* Primage, or "hat-money," is a small allowance paid to the master of a vessel for the care he takes of the goods with which she is laden.
As we kept the coast of South America well aboard, a few days after we saw Cape San Roque, or, as it is sometimes named, Point Pelinga, the north-eastern extremity of Brazil, rising from the blue water like a purple cloud. But it diminished to a low black streak on our weather quarter when the sun set, and we found ourselves ploughing the waves of the Southern Atlantic.
There fell a calm for a whole day after this, and while the Eugenie rolled lazily on the long glassy swells, with her topsails flapping, and her courses hauled up, the sole amusement of the crew consisted in catching albatrosses, or in killing them, undeterred by the old superstition that it was a bird of "good omen," or by the story of the "Ancient Mariner," of which they were probably ignorant.
A flock of these gigantic sea-birds congregated under our stern, where they gobbled up every thing that was thrown over to them; so Hislop and I proceeded methodically to fish them on board.
We procured strong lines, baited the hooks with pieces of pork, lashing thereto a buoy formed of a common cork, and lowered four of these over the stern.
They had scarcely touched the water, when amid a furious flapping of heavy pinions, they were eagerly swallowed; the hooks and lines began to bear tautly, and we soon had four gigantic albatrosses splashing the water into froth in their ineffectual efforts to escape.
We towed them in, hand over hand, and after measurement found the smallest to be eleven feet from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other. Though rank and fishy in flavor, the flesh of these birds was made into sea-pies, on which the crew were regaled for two days after, and they partook of it with great apparent relish. But Jack is not very particular, especially when at sea.
Though none of the crew shared the superstition connected with the destruction of an albatross, and probably none, save Hislop and myself, knew the splendid ballad written by Coleridge, it would seem as if our misfortunes commenced with that day's wanton sport!
The huge sea-birds became shy and left us. The sun set amid saffron-colored waves, and the western sky was all aflame, when the sails began to fill and collapse as the wind came in heavy puffs, causing the masts to sway from side to side, and the bellying courses to crack and flap with a sound like thunder.
At last there came a steady breeze; the courses were let fall, and with both sheets aft, for the wind was fair, the Eugenie once more walked through the shining water.
Full, round, and silvery the moon arose, and tipped with liquid light every wave, that seemed to dance onward with the brig, which in half an hour had the snow-white foam flying in sheets over her catheads.
It was about the hour of one in the morning that the horrible events which I am about to relate occurred.
I was in the middle watch, relieving Weston, who, as the tropical dews were heavy, always ordered Billy the cabin boy to give me a glass of brandy-and-water before going on deck, for fear of ague, and then he turned in.
The sullen Spaniard Antonio was at the wheel. Tom Lambourne, Ned Carlton, and I, were walking to and fro, loitering at times, and looking at the compass to see how she headed,—now aloft to observe how the sails drew,—anon over the side, where the water bubbled merrily past, or ahead at the patch of blue and star-studded sky which was visible under the leach of the forecourse, as the brig's bow lifted every now and then, and she rolled heavily from side to side, as all vessels do when running before the wind.
All was very still, for save the bubble of the water in the wake astern, or a gurgle as it surged up in the rudder-case, the creaking of a block, or the iron slings of the lower yards, not a sound stole upon the first hour of the silent morning.
Two of the albatrosses we had caught, were hanging by the legs from the gallows-top abaft the foremast, where their great extended wings swung somewhat mournfully to and fro in the wind and by the motion of the ship.
"Hallo!" said Tom Lambourne, suddenly looking aloft, as the topsails flapped and shivered; "she's yawing or steering wild; what is that Spaniard about?"
"But where is he?" added Carlton, as we now missed Antonio from the wheel; "Antonio, where are you?"
"Gone overboard, I hope," exclaimed the second mate, with something more that need not be repeated, as he rushed to the wheel, and after making it revolve a few turns rapidly, he filled the sails and steadied the brig. This was done just in time, for the Eugenie had a press of canvas on her, and had she been taken aback, the consequences might have been most serious.
"Look about for the skulking lubber," said Lambourne, in great wrath, "and souse him well with a slush-bucket; another moment and the craft would have broached to!"
"He must have crept behind the longboat, and got into the forecastle," suggested Carlton.
"I'll bring him up with a round turn for playing this trick!" grumbled Lambourne.
"Hush," said I, as a strange sound fell upon my ear.
"What is it?" asked the others, listening.
"A cry!—did you not hear it?"
"No,—nonsense!" said they, together.
"It was a cry that came from somewhere."
"I did hear something," said Will White; "but it was a sheave creaking in a block aloft, I think."
"No, no," said I, pausing just by the capstan, as a terrible foreboding seized me; "it came from the cabin."
"There is no one there but the Captain, Hislop, and the boy Bill, who sleeps in the steerage, and they are all three sound enough by this time," said Lambourne.
"But the sound was from the cabin," I persisted, hastening aft.
At that moment another cry, loud and piteous,—a cry that sank into a hoarse moan, echoed through the brig, "piercing the night's dull ear," and ringing high above the welter of the sea alongside, the bubble at the stem and stern, or the hum of the wind through the taut rigging.
We all rushed aft to the companion, and at that instant Antonio sprang up the cabin stair. By the clear splendor of the tropical moonlight, we could see that his usually swarthy visage was pale as death, while his black eyes blazed like two burning coals. He grasped his unsheathed knife, the blade of which, as well as his hands and clothes, were covered with blood!
My heart grew sick with vague apprehension, and my first thought was for a weapon; but none was near.
"What have you been about, you rascally picaroon,—and why did you leave the wheel?" shouted Lambourne, becoming greatly excited; "the masts might have gone by the board,—what devil's work have you been after below?"
Then the dark Spanish Creole grinned, as the blood dripped from his hands on the white and moonlit deck.
"Knock him down with a handspike, Carlton," added Lambourne, who could not leave the wheel; "knock him down,—the shark-faced swab!"
On hearing this, Antonio drew from his breast a revolver pistol, one of a pair which we knew always hung loaded in Weston's cabin, and fired straight at the head of Carlton, who dodged the shot, which killed the seaman, named Will White, who stood behind him.
The ball pierced the brain of the poor fellow, who bounded convulsively, nearly three feet from the deck; he fell heavily on his face, and never moved again, for he was dead,—dead as a stone!
In its suddenness, this terrible deed paralyzed us with horror, not unmixed with fear, as we were all unarmed and completely in the power of this Spanish demon, the report of whose pistol brought all the startled crew, tumbling over each other, out of the forecastle.
"Aha, maldita! Santos y Angeles!" said the Spaniard, waving the pistol, the muzzle of which yet smoked, toward us in a half circle, as a warning for all to stand back; "did you think to run your rigs upon me? I am Antonio el Cubano, and don't value you all a rope's-end or a rotten castano, as you shall find. I am now the captain of this ship, and shall force you all to obey me, or else"—here he swore one of those sonorous and blasphemous oaths which run so glibly from a Spanish tongue—"I will shoot you all in succession, till I am the last man left on board; and when I am tired of the ship I can burn or scuttle her. Do you understand all this?"
Dead silence followed this strange address, the half of which was scarcely understood by our men, as it was said in Spanish.
"Basta!" (avast) "I see that you do understand," he resumed; "and now begin by obedience. Throw this carrion—this bestia muerta—overboard."
But perceiving how we all shrunk back,—
"Overboard with him," he added, brutally kicking the inanimate body of poor Will White; "or demonio, I shall send the first who disobeys me to keep him company!"
He grasped me by the arm, his hateful clutch was firm as a smith's vice; and then he levelled his pistol at the head of Ned Carlton.
For a moment the latter stood irresolute, and then seeing the black muzzle of the revolver within a foot of his head, he muttered a deep malediction, stamped his foot with rage on the deck, and said,—
"Mr. Rodney, bear a hand with me to launch this murdered man,—this poor fellow overboard!"
"Obey!" thundered Antonio.
Like one in a dream I bent over the dead man, on whose pale face, glazed eyes, and relaxed jaw, the bright moonlight was shining, and in my excitement and bewilderment, I nearly slipped and fell in the pool of blood which flowed from his death wound.
I had never touched a corpse before, and an irrepressible shudder ran through all my veins. But that emotion once over, I could have handled a dozen, with perhaps indifference; and there are few who, after touching the dead, have not experienced this change of feeling.
Ned Carlton, with a sound like a sob in his honest breast—a sob of mingled rage and commiseration—raised the yet warm body; I took the feet, and through one of the quarter-boards, which was open, we launched it into the great deep, and as the brig flew on, rolling before the early morning wind, there remained no trace of poor Will White but his blood, a dark pool upon the deck; and the crew stood staring at it and at each other with blank irresolution, horror, and dismay expressed in all their faces.
Empty-handed and defenceless as we all were, each was afraid to speak or act, lest he might be the next victim whom the merciless Cubano would shoot down.
With a growl of defiance Antonio now turned away, and brandishing the revolver in token of the obedience he meant to exact, he descended slowly into the cabin, where we soon heard him smashing open the lockers, and busy with the case-bottles in the steward's locker, or Billy the cabin-boy's pantry.
His departure seemed a relief to all, but in half a minute after he was gone below, little Billy, or "boy Bill," as he was usually termed, whose sleeping place was the steerage, rushed up the cabin stair in his shirt, and ran among us, sobbing with fear and dismay.
Some time elapsed before the poor boy became sufficiently coherent to be understood, but it would seem that on hearing the first cry, which had alarmed me, he sprang out of his berth, which was at the foot of the companionway, and on looking into the cabin, he saw by the night lamp which swung in the skylight, the Cubano armed with a bloody knife, rush from the captain's state-room into that of the mate, which was opposite.
Another choking cry acquainted him that Antonio had stabbed Hislop in his sleep; and fearing that his own turn would come next, he had crept into an empty cask which lay below the companion-ladder, and remained there, trembling with dread, until he took an opportunity of rushing on deck and joining us.
This terrible revelation added to our dismay.
We were now in a desperate predicament, without a captain or mate to navigate the brig, and at the mercy of a well-armed desperado, to whom homicide was a pastime; thus, all who had handled him so severely on the night we crossed the line began to feel no small degree of alarm for their own safety, being certain that more blood would be shed the moment he came on deck.
All dressed themselves with the utmost expedition, and it was resolved to hold a council of war. Lambourne was still at the wheel; and to be prepared for any emergency, he resolved to reduce the canvas on the brig. So the royals were sent down, all studding-sails taken in, and the topsails were handed: all this was done as quietly as possible, lest any sound might rouse the fiend who seemed now to possess the Eugenie.
Lambourne ventured to peep down the skylight, when he saw Antonio drinking brandy from a case-bottle, without troubling himself with a glass. Then the Spaniard proceeded to attire himself in the best clothes of Captain Weston; he forced open several lockfast places, and took from them money and jewelry, which he concealed about his person. What his ultimate object could be in performing these acts of plunder on the open sea, we could neither conceive nor divine, but on chancing to glance upward, he caught a glimpse of Tom's eyes peering down.
There was an explosion, a crashing of glass, and a ball from a revolver, fired upward, grazed Tom's left ear and pierced the rim of his sou'-wester as a hint that our Cubano had no intention of being overlooked in his operations below.
We heard him close the cabin door with a bang, and after locking it, throw himself on the floor behind it, with the intention of sleeping probably, but with the full resolution that no one should enter without disturbing him; and in this way, after examining his pistols, he reposed every night afterwards while on board.
"By jingo! I thought the killing o' them birds would lead to bad luck somehow," said Henry Warren, an old foremast man, with a reproachful glance at me, as he threw the two albatrosses overboard.
We now held a solemn conference to meet the emergency which was certain to come anon, and to consider the best means of subduing and disarming the culprit.
"Whoever goes nigh him in the cabin, either by the door or the skylight, risks being stabbed or shot," said Tattooed Tom; "so we must go to work some other way, shipmates, and that other way must be considered."
"We might close and batten the skylight and companion, and then starve or smoke him out," suggested one of the crew, Francis Probart, our carpenter.
"Smoke him out?" echoed Tom.
"Yes, as we do rats."
"By what?"
"Fill a bucket with spun-yarn, and greased flax, with sulphur and bilge-water—ain't that the medical compound for rats——"
"Nonsense," said Tom; "you would burn the ship——"
"As he has often threatened to do," said Carlton, "and may do yet."
A most extraordinary scheme was proposed by one man, that we should launch the longboat, throw into her some bags of bread and gang-casks of water, unship the compass, double-bank the oars, and shove off for the coast of South America, after scuttling the brig and leaving Antonio to his fate.
We were in a horrible state of perplexity, and I seemed to see constantly before me the gashed bodies of my two kind, brave, and hospitable friends—Captain Weston and Marc Hislop—lying in their berths dead and unavenged, with their destroyer beside them!
We had the capstan-bars, and with these it was proposed to assail him when next he came on deck. Then we had the carpenter's tools, among which a hand-saw, an auger, an adze, and a hatchet, made very available weapons, and these, with the old cutlass and harpoons which figured on the night we crossed the line, were speedily appropriated. I was armed with a heavy claw-hammer, and, vowing firmly to stand by each other, we resolved to lynch Antonio the moment he came out of his den.
While we were thus employed in devising the means of punishment, the dark shadows of night passed away; the morning sun came up in his tropical splendor, and the blue waves of the southern sea rolled around us in light, but not a sail was visible on their vast expanse.
The crew seemed pale and excited, as they might well be, and by buckets of water we cleansed the deck from the blood that stained it.
The morning advanced into noon, and the vessel was steered her due course, for the wind was still fair. Ned Carlton was at the wheel, and the men were all grouped forward, when suddenly Antonio appeared on deck with a knife in his sash and a revolver in each hand.
He was so pale that his olive face seemed almost a pea-green, and a black crust upon his cruel lips showed the extent of his potations in the cabin. He glanced into the binnacle, and perceiving that the brig was still being steered her old course, he cried, in a hoarse voice,—
"Hombres, allegarse a la cuesta!" (men, bear toward the land), and pointing to the direction in which he knew the vast continent of South America—from which we were probably four or five hundred miles distant—must be, he added orders in English to shape the brig's course due west, and stamped his right foot on the deck to give his words additional force.
He took us so suddenly by surprise, that, although we had been waiting and watching for him since dawn, his resolute aspect and the arms he wielded controlled us all, and we stared at each other with irresolution in our purpose and in our faces. No man, apparently, cared to act as leader.
"Presto!" roared the Cubano; "obey and keep quiet, or, demonio! as there are so many, I have a great mind to shoot one half, that I may be able to control the rest. Cast loose those topsails, and up with the royals again—set the flying-gib, and main trysail—quick, perros, or I'll make shark's meat of some more of you!"
The crew seemed to lack either resolution or the power of combination, and no man appeared anxious to incur the sure penalty of instant death by acting in opposition to his peremptory orders in setting an example to the rest. So, sullenly and silently the sail trimmers stood by the tacks and braces; the wheel revolved in the unwilling hands of Ned Carlton, who was compelled to obey, for the cold muzzle of a six-barrelled revolver, capped and cocked, was held close to his left temple.
The head of the Eugenie payed off in obedience to her helm, the yards swung round and were braced sharp up; and with the starboard tacks on board, in three minutes we were steering as due westward as her head would lie for the coast of South America.
This alteration of our course furnished the crew with a new source of speculation. It was evidently the intention of Antonio, if he could reach the coast of Seguro, or that of Bahia, to escape with all his valuables and his vengeance; and to this end, if ships passed without succoring or overhauling us, and if we did not destroy him, he might certainly destroy us, by scuttling the brig, or setting her on fire.
The noon passed over without an "observation," for there was no one to work it, to estimate the latitude or longitude, to keep a reckoning, or take note of our variation and leeway; and lest we should signal any passing ship, Antonio, who was a most thoughtful scoundrel, threw every color we had overboard. He did not come on deck again for some time, as he had plenty of spirits and provisions below, and the tell-tale compass in the skylight afforded him constant information as to whether the brig was steered in the direction he wished.
He was constantly drinking, but never became so intoxicated as to be unwary.
And so the fated brig glided over the hot sea, under the blazing sun. The albatrosses came round us again, with tripping feet, flapping wings, and open bills; but no one molested them now—we had other things to think of; and as I sat on the anchor stock in the weather bow, watching them floating in the water, or skimming over it with their vast wings outspread, I thought of the "Ancient Mariner," and all that he had suffered for killing "the bird of good omen."
I felt a strange dread creeping over me while these verses seemed on my tongue—they were so descriptive of the atmosphere and of our situation:
"All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.
* * * *
"I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat,
For the sea and sky, and the sea and sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet."
From the wild thoughts and fancies which the horrors of that early morning, our strange situation, and my own rather active imagination, were suggesting, I was roused by Ned Carlton, who, on being relieved from the wheel, came forward to the bows, where most of the crew were seated on the windlass, or were lounging against the bitts, speculating on what might turn up next.
In an excited and impressive manner, he reported that he had heard, from time to time, the sound of moans, as from some one in great pain in the cabin; that he believed that either the captain or mate yet survived; and if we could get down by any means we might be in time to save one or other. If he was bleeding to death, the victim could not last long,—a little time, and we should be too late!
This information increased our anxiety, and greatly excited us.
Remembering the manner in which Antonio first came on board—the mystery of his being alone in the blood-stained boat—his dreams—the disappearance of Roberts—the occurrences of the morning—and though last not least, the rough treatment to which the crew had subjected him on the night we passed the line,—none were very willing to enter the cabin where this savage Cubano, flushed with brandy, bloodshed, and ferocity, sat with loaded pistols in his hands. But all felt that something must be done; that, while a doubt remained, it should be solved, and a life so important to us saved, even though others be risked for it.
I volunteered to become the envoy of the crew.
"No, no, Master Rodney," said Tattooed Tom; "this will never do! What, do you think we will let you venture into that murderer's den while so many able-bodied fellows hang astern?"
"But I know his language, which none of you do."
"He speaks the Queen's English now as well as any of us," said Carlton; "and if I had only a pistol or a musket to give me but one chance for my life, I would have made it speak to him long ago, in the lingo such pirates know best."
"Moreover, as I did not molest him on the night we crossed the line, he has no particular grudge at me?" I urged.
"There is some sense and truth in that," muttered several of the crew.
"I'll go—it is settled," said I, anxious to solve the mystery of the groans, while feeling a glow of triumph at the applause I should gain for the risk I ran, which assuredly was not a small one.
"It is a shame for us lubberly fellows to stand by here and see that lad risk his life," said Probart, one of the crew; "and if so be that Creole picaroon falls foul of him——"
"If he does," exclaimed Tom Lambourne through his firmly set teeth, while striking his clenched right hand on the hard palm of the left, "may I never see England again if we don't attack him both at stem and stern at once! I'll drop down the skylight, with as many as will follow me, while you, Ned, will dash down the companionway with the rest, and then at him with hatchet, handsaw, and capstan-bar. He can't kill us all, shipmates, that's one comfort—he can't kill us all!"
The prospect of an early demise was neither soothed nor encouraged by this promise of the bloody scene that was to follow.
The carpenter gave me a small but very sharp tomahawk. I concealed it in my breast, and resolved to use it to some purpose if molested in the cabin. The idea flashed upon me that by one determined blow I might disable him forever, and perhaps do an act of justice by dispatching him outright.
With a vague sense that I was about to face a terrible danger, and that the sooner it was faced and past, the better, I walked hastily aft, and on descending the companion-ladder, paused when half-way down, and after knocking on the bulkhead called out distinctly and boldly,—
"Antonio! Hallo, Cubano!"
"Well, what do you want?" asked he, sulkily.
"To speak with you; may I come down?"
"Enter companero; you have not yet harmed me, thus I bear you no malice."
Putting a hand in my breast to ascertain that my little hatchet was secure, I entered the cabin, where the Cubano, with his broad back placed against the rudder-case, was seated on the stern-locker at the table, which he had covered with bottles, biscuits, cheese, and polonies, while papers, dockets, broken desks and boxes, lay scattered about him. He was clad, as I have stated, in the poor skipper's best shore-going suit of clothes, which he wore open and loose, for the atmosphere of the cabin, notwithstanding the shattered skylight, was oppressively hot, as the sun was now almost vertical; the flies were in noisy swarms, and the cockroaches were crawling over all the beams and bulkhead panels.
On first hearing a foot on the companion-ladder, he had evidently snatched up a revolver, and cocked it; but on finding that his visitor was only me, he put it down, threw away the fag-end of a cigarito, and said, with a ferocious grin and ironical politeness,—
"Buenos dias (a good day), senor; to what am I indebted for this visit?"
It was the first time I had ever looked in the face of a man who had coolly destroyed a fellow-being as he had done, and my flesh seemed to creep with an indescribable loathing; but I had a purpose to achieve, and determined to do it.
I was about to enter Weston's state-room, when the Cubano cocked his revolver and cried, in a voice of thunder,—
"Come back, or I will shoot you as dead as he is! Ha, ha! por grados" (by degrees) "I shall get rid of you all."
I paused and looked at him; my young heart beat wildly; I felt that I was facing death, and what would I not have given had my hatchet been a pistol, even with one barrel, though my opponent was master of twelve charges.
"He is dead then?" said I, in a husky voice.
"Who—which?" asked the Cubano, with a fresh cigarito between his strong white teeth.
"Captain Weston."
"Aye, dead as Judas!" said he, laughing hoarsely.
"But I understand that Hislop—" I stammered.
"El contra-maestre—well?"
At that moment, a low moan which went through my heart, came from the state-room or little side cabin of Marc Hislop.
"Well, hombre, what of him?" growled Antonio.
"He is bleeding to death, and I wish to remove him."
"Do as you please, he will be food for the fish before the sun sets."
"You will allow me to take him on deck?" said I, earnestly, almost imploringly.
"Yes; you have done me no harm;" (he repeated this very often) "woe to those who have done so!"
A gleam of suspicion flashed in the eyes of Antonio as he said—
"True; but not a man shall enter here, and leave alive. The ship-boys may assist you; but I will shoot the whole crew down like dogs, if they venture to approach me; so I give you five minutes to carry the contra-maestre to the forecastle bunks, or to pitch him overboard, whichever you please, though the last would please me."
"Five minutes?"
"Yes, five by this watch," he added, pulling out of his fob a gold repeater, which, even in the excitement of the moment, I recognized to be mine, the same which my mother gave me, when I first left home for Eton, and of which I had been robbed at Teneriffe. There was no doubting the little rings and charms which my sisters Dot, Sybil, and one of their female friends had appended to it; and thus I discovered another black link in the life of Antonio.
I dared not appear to recognize it when his strong, brown, hairy hand, the bloody spots on which made me shudder, held it toward me, lest he might shoot me down, but summoned Billy Wilkins, the cabin boy, by desiring the man at the wheel, "to pass word forward for him and another apprentice."
The boys came, but not without great fear and reluctance; and while Antonio proceeded leisurely to make another paper cigar, keeping his ears open for every sound, and his black eyes fixed keenly on us the while, we entered the little state-room of Marc Hislop, and beheld a sight which filled us with the deepest commiseration and dismay.
Pale as marble, with his lower jaw relaxed and his eyes almost closed, motionless as if dead, but, nevertheless, still breathing slowly and heavily, poor Marc Hislop lay in his bed, the clothes and pillows of which were saturated with blood; for he seemed to be covered by wounds, and the crimson current had flowed over the piles of his favorite books, which were scattered upon the cabin floor, where they had been trod under foot by Antonio while overhauling the repositories of the unfortunate proprietor.
Shuddering, and in haste, we lifted him from the bed, muffled him in a blanket, and conveyed him, passive as a child, in our hands, from the cabin.
As we passed out, for a moment it seemed as if the ruffianly Spaniard repented of his temporary clemency; for when he saw the pale, bloody, and insensible form of the poor fellow trailed past, he made an ominous stride toward us, and threateningly clutched the haft of the Albacete knife in his sash. Then waving his hand, almost contemptuously, he said,—
"Basta—go, go—it matters little now, either to him or to me. Demonio! I always strike deep."
Alarm and pity endowed us with unusual strength, and we bore the speechless victim of Antonio up the steep stair to the deck, where our crew, with muttered oaths of vengeance, and expressions of commiseration, bore him into the forepart of the vessel. There a bed was made up for him on deck; for coolness, an awning was rigged over it, and we had his wounds examined.
We found a deep stab in the neck, most dangerously near the jugular vein; a second in the breast, a third between the bones of the right forearm, and a fourth in the left thigh; all had evidently been dealt through the bedclothes, and with a savage energy of purpose.
"The poor lad is dying for lack of a doctor," said old Tom, who knelt beside Hislop, handling his wounds with the tenderness of a woman; "and if the whole British navy hove in sight, we haven't a rag of bunting to shake out as a signal, since that rascally picaroon, the Cubano, has cast every color and signal overboard.
"Well, Tom, he shan't die this bout," said Ned Carlton, hopefully; "let us tie up his wounds as best we can, to belay the bleeding, and give him something as a reviver."
"It's a blessing his old mother in Scotland don't see all this," added rough Tom Lambourne, with a tear in his eye; "poor Marc Hislop is her only support, and a sister's too."
I thought now with compunction, how often his theories and pedantry had bored me, and I resolved to be unremitting in my care of him.
The united medical skill of those honest souls, our crew, was very small; however, the wounds were carefully washed in clean water; their best shirts were torn into bandages, or folded into pads to stop the bleeding; and in this they were quite successful.
A breaker of New England rum was hoisted out of the forehold, and its head was instantly started. The liquor was very redolent of treacle; but a glass of it mixed with water—the readiest stimulant that occurred to the minds of the seamen—was poured between the parched lips of the sufferer, who at last slept, in the pleasant atmosphere formed by the awning which shaded him from the fierce sun, and in the breeze that whistled past the bows as the Eugenie still bore on her new course, close hauled, with all her fore-and-aft canvas set, and the white glittering spray flying over her cat-heads and dolphin striker.
The terrible Cubano still kept possession of the cabin. His two six-barrelled revolvers gave him twelve shots, and we were but nine in all, as the captain, Roberts, and Will White had already perished by his hand, and Hislop to all appearance was dying; thus Antonio kept us all in subjection by his weapons, just as half a dozen well-armed soldiers may control a mob of thousands.
So passed the night; the crew grouped forward, full of schemes for vengeance, and he aft, full of triumph, ferocity, and cognac.
Next morning, I was on the quarter-deck, and when day broke, I became aware, by a plashing sound astern, that we were towing something in the dead water of the brig's wake. On looking over the taffrail, what were my emotions on beholding the body of my kind friend Weston—our good and hospitable captain—towed by the neck at the end of a line!
Around the poor corpse, which was in its night-dress, the green waves danced merrily in the golden light of the morning sun that was now beaming over the sea, "refreshing the distant shores and reviving all but him." Antonio in the night had cast it from one of the cabin windows on the port side of the rudder-case, and through that aperture the line to which it was attached was now run.
By the smoke of a cigar which ascended to the taffrail at times, I discovered that the atrocious Cubano was sitting at the open cabin window below me, watching and waiting to see the body devoured by sharks; and I knew that he would shoot all who attempted to cross his purpose, or who came within reach of his pistol. This prevented any man from lowering himself over the stem, either to haul in the line or cut it adrift.
"Demonio!" we heard him exclaim, when, by a sudden lurch of the ship, the line parted, and the poor corpse went rolling and surging to leeward.
"There he goes, and God bless him, although he's cut adrift without a prayer or a sailor's winding-sheet," said Tom Lambourne, taking off his hat, as the body bobbed like a fisherman's float on the waves for a little space, and then disappeared in the long white track made by the Eugenie, through the dark apple-green of the morning sea.
All the stories I had heard or read of Spanish revenge seemed eclipsed by the atrocities of this fiendish Cubano.
Three days and nights passed after this without finding us able to surprise or dislodge the demon who was in possession of the cabin; without our knowing where the ship was driving or drifting to, and without a sail appearing. A man-of-war belonging to any country we should have hailed as a protector; but on the wide waters of the Southern Atlantic ships are few and far between.
Hislop rallied a little, and was removed into one of the forecastle berths. He could tell us only that he had been surprised when asleep, and been stabbed again and again—that he became insensible, and remembered nothing more. His distress was great when we related the story of the captain's fate, the death of Will White, and that their destroyer was still in possession of the ship, and the arbiter of all our lives.
He writhed on his bed of pain, and sighed bitterly on finding how stiff and sore, how weak and almost blind he had become by loss of blood; but a crisis was now at hand with our Cubano.
The evening of the fourth day after we had saved Hislop found the brig still lying a westerly course; but whether in the latitude of Cape San Roque or of the Rio Grande, we knew not; and, I suppose, it was all the same to Antonio.
I was at the wheel. The sunset was gorgeously beautiful. The Eugenie was running with both tacks aft; and under the arched leech of her courses I could see the blood-red disk of the sun right ahead setting in the waves, which shone in all the colors of the dying dolphin; while against the flaming orb, the black outline of the masts, the figure-head, and the taper end of the jibboom, with its cap, guys, and gear, were clearly and distinctly defined.
The waves ahead rose and fell between me and the sun, as slowly and imperceptibly he sank at the flaming horizon, from a quarter circle to a segment; then the last vestige of that also disappeared, but the lingering rays of his glory played upward on the light clouds that floated above. Even they paled away and died out, and twilight stole over the silent sea, which changed from gold to a transparent blue.
With the increasing twilight came a change of wind, and before it a great bank of cloud rolled from the horizon on our starboard bow. Under its shadow the sea was darkened, and its broken water flecked with white. The new breeze came first upon our quarter, then rapidly it was abeam, and three great albatrosses were seen to whip the sea with their wings, while a whole shoal of brown porpoises surged past our bows, plunging joyously from wave to wave.
Tacks and braces were instantly manned, and the sails were trimmed anew for our desultory course.
"Sail ho—to windward!" said one of the crew, in a low but excited voice, lest the sound might reach the cabin; and as the dense bank of purple cloud opened, a large bark came out of it, and her form became more and more defined as she left the vapor astern. She was going free—that is, with her head further off the wind than close-hauled—and had a press of snow-white canvas, which shone in the last light of the west.
"She is four miles off," said Carlton.
"We must signal her," added Lambourne.
"With what?" asked Carlton, in the same sharp but low voice; "every color is overboard."
"Any thing will do—a blue shirt at the foremast head; quick!—the sky will be quite dark in ten minutes. Run it up in a ball with a slipping loop, man-o'-war fashion," said Lambourne in a loud whisper; "get ready a ship's lantern some of you, for the night darkens so fast that we shall scarcely be visible when she is abeam of us. Ned, get into the fore-channel, and wave the light as a signal that we want a boat."
These orders were rapidly obeyed, and preparations made to throw the brig in the wind. While one man hastily got the lantern from a little round house, in which certain stores and tools were kept on deck, Ned Carlton pulled off his shirt, and was in the act of binding it to the signal halyards, when the Spaniard, whose quick ears detected some commotion, sprang on deck, armed as usual.
On seeing Carlton busy with the halyards, he looked round, caught sight of the ship, which was running with the white foam boiling under her forefoot, and thus in a moment divined what we were about.
Muttering a terrible imprecation in Spanish, he fired at Carlton, but missed him as before, and shot dead a poor apprentice who was close by.
"'Tarnal thunder, flesh and blood can't bear this!" shouted Tom Lambourne, whose fury was boundless, and who snatched up a capstan-bar. "Bear down on him all hands: there is neither sea law nor land law can help us here!"
Snatching whatever came nearest to hand, we all rushed upon the Cubano, who stood boldly at bay, and keeping the binnacle between us and him, fired over it five or six shots from his revolver with terrible rapidity; but so unsteady had his hand become in consequence of his free potations below, that every bullet missed, though one cut the knuckles of Tom Lambourne's right hand, and another tore away the rim of my straw hat.
He drew a second revolver from his sash, but Lambourne, by one lucky blow with the capstan-bar, knocked it out of his hand. It went twenty feet into the air, and fell overboard.
Quick as lightning, Antonio placed the other in his breast, drew his knife, stooped his head, and darting through us like an eel, gave Carlton a gash in the thigh as he passed.
He then made for the main-rigging, and sprang on the bulwark, no doubt with the intention of running up aloft to some secure perch, where he might reload his remaining pistol, and shoot us all down at leisure; but he missed his hold of the rattlins, and fell overboard!
There was a shout of furious joy.
"The sea will rob the gallows of its due!" said Carlton; "but he'll be shark's meat, any way."
But Antonio was not gone yet, for in falling he caught one of the lower studding-sail booms, and clutched it with deadly tenacity, for he knew that if once he was fairly launched into the ocean his fate would be sealed.
His face was pale with combined fear and fury; his black eyes blazed with the fire of hatred; the perspiration oozed in drops upon his temples. Tom Lambourne sprang forward to beat off his fingers; but at that moment, the boom, a slender spar, broke from its lashings alongside and swung out at a right angle from the brig, with the wretch at the extreme end of it, dangling over the waves, like a herring at the point of a ramrod.
Again and again he writhed his body upward in wild struggles to get astride the boom, or to reach it with his knees, but in vain!
Instead of exciting pity, his terrible situation drew forth a shout of derision, mingled with expressions of hatred and satisfaction, from the line of avenging faces that surveyed him over the bulwark. He hung thus for fully five minutes, for he was a powerful man, of great strength, muscle, and bulk.
I have no doubt this man was as brave as it is possible for a ruffian to be; but the prospect of an immediate death—a death, too, from which there was no escape—terrified him.
His glance of hate toward us turned to one of wild and earnest entreaty.
"Mercy!—pardon!—in the name and for the love of the Almighty!" he exclaimed in Spanish, in a tone of intense earnestness; but he was heard by us with fierce derision in that moment of just triumph and too long delayed vengeance.
Twice the Eugenie gave a lee lurch, and each time the feet and knees of the wretched Cubano were immersed in the waves.
Beneath him was the abyss of water that rushed past the side of the brig. He panted rather than breathed; and through the dusk we could see how his aching hands turned white as his face; and that the points of his fingers were blood-red. His eyes grew wild and haggard as terror chilled his coward heart and agonized his soul; and yet through the surge the fleet craft flew on!
Every moment increased the weight of his body and the weakness of his hands and wrists.
At last it was evident that his powers of endurance could be no longer taxed; he uttered a half-smothered shriek, and closed his eyes as he clung to that slender spar, and it swayed to and fro while the close-hauled brig flew on!
There was a crash!
The iron hook in the bulwark on which the studding-sail boom was hung, gave way under the double weight of the spar and of his body. There was a shrill cry of despair, like the parting shriek of an evil spirit, on the skirt of the gusty blast, as the boom, and the wretch who clung to it in blind desperation, vanished into the black trough of the sea, and, like a cork or a reed, were swept amid the salt foam to leeward.
The Eugenie rose like a duck upon the water, and, as if freed at that moment from a load of crime, seemed to fly forward with increased speed.
'Twas night now, and the ship which we had first seen upon our weather bow, was a mile astern and to leeward of us.
An emotion of mingled freedom and satisfaction possessed the whole crew on being rid of our tormentor, and Lambourne now took charge of the brig, which he was perfectly able to handle and work, though ignorant of navigation as a science, and having but a vague idea of the course to steer for the Cape of Good Hope.
She was hove in the wind, while in the moonlight, about two hours after the exciting scene which closes the last chapter, we committed to the deep the body of Antonio's last victim, the poor apprentice, whom the sailmaker sewed up in his hammock, to which, being without shot or other suitable weights, we tied a sack of coals to sink the corpse.
The head-yards were filled again, and as if anxious to leave that portion of the sea as far as possible astern, we hauled up for the Cape. Tom Lambourne ordered every stitch of canvas that the spars would hold, to be spread upon the Eugenie, that she might, as he said, "walk through the water in her own style."
All he could do, at first, was to keep her in the course we had been steering on the night these disasters began, for as yet we knew not to what degree of latitude, south or north, we might have been drifting; however, we calculated that Hislop, weak as he was, might be able to take a solar observation, and prick off our place on the chart, in the course of six or seven days.
We had the usually snug little cabin cleansed and cleared from the débris created by the outrageous proceedings of Antonio, who must have gone to the bottom with all Weston's valuables and money about him, as we could find neither; and the sweet expression of the poor widow's face, as it seemed to smile on us from the miniature on the after-bulkhead, contrasted strangely with all the wild work that had so lately taken place on board.
Hislop and I were restored to our former berths, and then more than once in my dreams the pale olive-green visage and glaring eyes of the Cubano came before me, and again I seemed to see him clinging unpitied, and in desperation, to the slender boom which swung above the seething sea,—for his death and all its concomitant horrors haunted me and made me unhappy.
The intensity of the heat in that season suggested the idea that we could not have drifted far south of the line.
So great was it, that the upper spars of the Eugenie appeared to wriggle or vibrate like serpents aloft in the sunshine; while so hot, so clear, and so rarefied was the atmosphere between decks, that it was suffocating, especially in the lullings of the faint breeze. A white heat seemed to make sea and sky grow pale, and the former cast upward a reflection from its glassy surface and long smooth swells, that was hot,—hot beyond all description.
Though ever and anon the upper deck was drenched with salt water, it dried immediately, emitting a strong odor of wet wood, while the skids over the side failed to keep the paint, tar, and rosin from rising in large burnt blisters.
About the time when we hoped that Hislop would have been well enough to make an observation, even by being placed in a chair on deck, the weather became so rough that he was unable to leave his berth, and during all that day the brig drove before a heavy gale, with her courses hauled close up, the fore and main-topsail yards lowered on the caps, and their canvas close reefed.
After the heat we had endured, the reader may imagine this gale would be refreshing and a relief. Not so. The atmosphere, as it became dark with gathering clouds, increased in density, closeness, and heat; thus about the time we should have had clear twilight, the hour was gloomy as a northern midnight,—so dark that the men in the tops, or those lying out along the foot-ropes at the yard-arms, when under close-reefed topsails, could not be seen from the deck, while the breeze that swept over the ocean was breathless,—hot as the simoom of the desert; and our men knew not whether they were most drenched by perspiration or the spoondrift torn from the warm wave tops by the increasing blast.
The peculiar appearance of this black gale alarmed and bewildered Tattooed Tom, who could make nothing of it, while poor Marc Hislop, whose skill would have been invaluable to us, when he heard the singing out on deck, the thunder of the bellying courses struggling with their brails, the roar of the wind through the half-bared masts and rigging, the clatter of blocks and feet overhead, writhed in his bed, and mourned his own inactivity, or rather incapacity; but he sent me to tell Lambourne to cover up the anchors with wetted canvas, as it was not improbable, by the state of the atmosphere, that it was full of electricity, and thus we might be in a dangerous way.
"Tell Tom," he whispered, "it is a trade-wind gale,—I know it to be so."
"How?" I asked, "when you are lying here below."
"By the barometer, which remains high, while the wind is steady," replied Hislop in a low voice, for he was still very weak; "if the barometer fall, be sure it will become a typhoon, and then, with a short-handed craft, heaven help us! But assure Tom it is only as yet a trade-wind gale,—to take as much canvas off her as he can, and to make all snug aloft. We'll have thunder directly, Dick,—such thunder as you can only hear in the tropics."
He sank back, exhausted even by these few words, while I hurried on deck with his orders.
I had scarcely conveyed them to Lambourne, who was keeping a look-out forward, when, amid the dusky obscurity of sea and sky, there burst a sudden gleam of wondrous light.
The men, who were spreading some old wetted sails over the sheet and working anchors; the steersman at the wheel; the watch, and all hands who were crouching to leeward, or holding on by ropes and belaying-pins to windward, seemed for a moment to become white-visaged spectres, amid a sea of pale-blue flame,—a sea whereon the flying brig with her brailed courses and reefed topsails, her half naked masts and black cordage, were all distinctly visible as at noonday, while the polished brass on funnel, binnacle, and skylight, all flashed and shone, as ship and crew, with all their details of form and feature,
"Were instant seen and instant lost."
For a broad and blinding sheet of electric flame burst upon the darkness of the night, and passed away as rapidly, when the livid brand burst in the welkin or in the wave, we knew not which.
Then came the roar of thunder—the stunning and appalling thunder of the tropics, every explosion of which seemed to rend earth, sea, and sky, as they rolled like a palpable thing, or like the united salvo of a thousand cannon overhead, to die away in rumbling echoes at the far horizon.
After a sound so mighty and bewildering, the bellowing of the wind through the rigging, the hiss and roar of the sea as wave broke against wave, the flapping of the brailed courses, the creaking and straining of the timbers, seemed as nothing—the very silence of death—while the Eugenie tore on, through mist and spray, through darkness and obscurity, with the foam flying white as winter drift over her bows and martingale.
Again there was a pale-green gleam overhead, right above the truck of the mainmast, where the chambers of the sky seemed to open. The clouds divided in the darkness of heaven, and out of that opening came the forked lightning, zigzag, green, and ghastly.
There was a dreadful shock, which knocked every man down, except Carlton, who was at the wheel, and an exclamation of terror escaped us all.
A thunderbolt had struck the Eugenie!
With all its wondrous speed—instantaneous as electric light could be—it glided down the maintop gallant mast, rending the topmast-cap and the framed grating of the top to pieces; thence it ran down the mainmast, burst through the deck, and spent its fury in the hold.
At that moment the main-topmast, with all its yards, gear, and canvas, fell about the deck in burning brands, and the brig was hove right in the wind's eye, while the sea twitched the helm out of the hands of Ned Carlton, who became bewildered on finding the compasses lose all their polarity, by the influence of the electric fluid, the north point of one heading south-east, and of the other south-west.
Almost immediately after this there was a cry of "Fire!"—that cry so terrible, so appalling on board ship; and then thick white smoke was seen to issue from the crevices of the battened main-hatchway.
All hands rushed to this point. The long-boat was unshipped from its chocks and dragged aft; some stood by with buckets of water, while others struck off the padlocks and iron bars; the tarpaulin was torn away—the hatch lifted—and lo!
A column of fire ascended in a straight line from the body of the hold, lurid, red, and scorching, as the casks of molasses and bales of cotton burned and blazed together. A column that rose up between the masts, scorched through the main-stay, all the braces of the fore yards, and filled the whole vessel with light, announced that all was over!
"It is a doomed ship!" cried Tom Lambourne; "we must leave her at last. Clear away the longboat. Be cool, lads; be cool and steady! Your lives depend upon your conduct now, and your obedience to orders!"
Not a moment was lost in getting the longboat over the side, and with a heavy splash, by which it was nearly swamped, we got it afloat.
Ned Carlton and Probart the carpenter sprang in, to fend off and keep it from being stove or dashed to pieces by the sea, against the brig's side.
By the wild weird glare that rose in frightful columns from the main and fore hatchways, we had plenty of light, as it shone far over the huge billows of that dark and tempestuous sea, to which we were about to commit our fortunes; and now a pale and half-dressed figure approached us.
It was Marc Hislop, whom the terrible odor had roused from his berth in the cabin; and he now came forward, supporting his feeble steps by clutching the shrouds and belaying-pins.
I rushed below and brought up a blanket and great coat to wrap him in, and he was promptly swung over into the boat, where Carlton received and supported him.
Three bags of bread, with a tarpaulin to cover them, two kegs of rum, four casks of water, with oars, sails, and blankets, were thrown pell-mell into the boat. A hatchet and a bundle of spun-yarn completed our stores.
The compasses were considered now to be useless, or were omitted, I forget which.
The wind still amounted to a gale, though less violent, and it fanned the growing flames, so that the fated brig burned fast. The lightning still flashed, but at the horizon, and the thunder was heard to grumble above the hiss of the sea; yet we heeded them not, though they added to the terror and the grandeur of the scene; and, most providentially for us, the fury of the storm was past.
Tattooed Tom was the last man who left the brig, and the moment he was in the boat, he exclaimed, with a loud voice, that rang above the roaring of the flames, which now gushed through every hatchway and aperture, above the howling of the wind and the breaking of the frothy sea,—
"Shove off!—out oars, there, to starboard—pull round her stern—pull with a will to windward—keep the boat's bow to the break of the sea!"
We pulled silently and vigorously, and soon got clear of the brig, through the four stern windows of which four lines of light glared redly on the ocean.
All our strength was required to achieve this, for the brig, being the larger body, attracted the boat toward her. However, we got safely to windward, which was absolutely necessary, for to leeward there fell hissing into the sea a torrent of sparks and burning brands from the rigging, which was all in flames now.
Resting upon our oars, or only using them to keep the boat's head to the break of the sea, and to prevent her being swamped—an operation during which they were as often flourished in the air as in the ocean, when we rose on the crest of one vast heaving wave, or sank into the dark vale of water between two—resting thus, we gazed in silence and with aching hearts at the destruction of our home upon the sea.
We could feel the heat of the conflagration even to windward. In a quarter of an hour she was enveloped from stem to stern in a sheet of fire, that rose skyward in the form of a pyramid. By this time every vestige of her spars, sails, and rigging had disappeared.
The entire deck had been consumed; the bulwarks and moulded plank-sheer rapidly followed, and through the flames that roared fiercely from the hollow of her hull, we could see the black timberheads standing upward like a row of fangs.
Rents appeared next in her sides, as the flames burst through the inner and outer sheathing, and with a hissing sound as they met the waves of the briny sea. Then a salt steam rose, and its strange odor, with that of the burning wood, was wafted at times toward us.
At last she gave a sudden heel to starboard, and with a sound unlike any thing I ever heard before—a deluge of water extinguishing a mighty fire—the waves rushed tumultuously in on all sides. She vanished from our sight in mist and obscurity, and a heavy darkness suddenly replaced the glare that for a time had lit up the heaving sea, dazzling our eyes and sickening our hearts.
"All's over now," said Tom Lambourne, as he grasped the tiller with a firm hand, after carefully wrapping a blanket round poor Hislop, who drooped beside him in the stern-sheets.
"Which way shall we pull?" asked the bow-man, as we paused with our oars in the rowlocks.
"It matters little, mates," cried Tom, in a loud voice, with his left hand at the side of his mouth, to send what he said forward above the roar of the wind and sea. "We must be many hundred miles from Brazil, the nearest land, and we can do nothing now but keep our boat alive by baling and steering till daybreak. Now, Master Hislop," he added, lowering his voice, "how do you feel, sir?"
"I feel that I am quite in your way, my lads—a useless hand aboard, to consume your food and water, replied Hislop, faintly.
"Why, sir," said Probart, the stroke-oarsman, "you don't think we could have left you to burn in the poor old brig?"
"No, not exactly; still, I am of no use to you, and I feel——"
"What, sir, what?" asked Tom, anxiously.
"Heart sick and despairing," moaned Hislop letting his chin drop on his breast.
"Don't talk so, sir," said Lambourne, stoutly; "despair never found a place in the heart of a British sailor!"
"You are right, Tom; and perhaps I'll gather headway, and get to windward yet."
"Of course you will," replied Tom, cheerfully; "but here's a sea coming—together, lads—pull together!"
Despair might well have found a place in all our breasts at that awful crisis; but Tom's bluff and cheerful way prevented our hearts from sinking, though the hours of that awful night seemed dark and long.
Well, without compass, chart, or quadrant, there we were, ten in number, in an open boat, tossing upon a dark and stormy sea, enveloped in clouds, with the red lightning gleaming through their ragged openings, or at the far and flat horizon—ignorant of where we were, where to steer for, or what to do, and full of terrible anticipations for the future!
We were silent and sleepless.
My heart was full of horror, grief, and vague alarm, when I thought of my home—the quiet, the happy, and peaceful old Rectory, with all who loved me there, and whom I might never see again.
The hot tears that started to my eyes mingled with the cold spray that drenched my cheeks, and there seemed but one consolation for me, that my father, my affectionate and gentle mother and sisters, dear Dot and little Sybil, could never know all I had endured, or how I perished by hunger or drowning, if such were to be my fate.
All the stories I had heard or read of shipwrecked men—their sufferings, their endurance of gnawing hunger and burning thirst, their cannibalism, their mortal struggles with their dearest friends for the last morsel of food, for the last drop of water, and how the weak perished that the strong might live—crowded upon my memory to augment the real terrors of our situation.
So suddenly had this final catastrophe come upon us that we had considerable difficulty in assuring ourselves of its reality, and that it was not a dream—a dream, alas! from which there might be no awaking.
So hour after hour passed darkly, slowly, and silently on.
The turbulence of the wind and waves abated, the lightning passed away, the scud ceased to whirl, the vapors were divided in heaven, and a faint light that stole tremulously upward from the horizon served to indicate the east and the dawn of the coming day.