The Rover's Secret: A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba

Harry Collingwood

"The Rover's Secret"

Chapter One.

My Childhood.

My father—Cuthbert Lascelles—was the great painter who, under a pseudonym which I need not mention here, was a few years ago well known in the world of art, and whose works are now to be found enshrined in some of the noblest public and private collections both at home and abroad.

He was a tall and singularly handsome man; with clear grey eyes, and a stern resolute-looking mouth shadowed by a heavy moustache which, like his short curly hair and carefully trimmed beard, was of a pale golden tint.

My mother died in giving me birth; and this, together with the fact that she was a native of Italy, was all I, for some years, knew concerning her.

One of the earliest impressions made upon my infant mind—for I cannot recall the time when I was free from it—was that my parents suffered great unhappiness during the latter part of their short married life; unhappiness resulting from some terrible mistake on the part of one or the other of them; which mistake was never explained and rectified—if explanation and rectification were indeed possible—during my mother’s lifetime.

Having received this impression at so very early an age, I cannot, of course, say with certainty whence I derived it; but I am inclined to attribute it chiefly to the singularity of my father’s conduct toward myself.

I was his only child.

He was a man to whom solitude and retirement appeared to be the chief essentials of existence. Though living in London, he very rarely mingled in society, yet I have since heard that he always met with a most cordial welcome when he did so—and it was seldom indeed that his studio doors unfolded to admit anyone but their master. If he went into the country, as of course was often the case, in search of subjects, he never by any chance happened to be going in the same direction as any of his brethren of the brush; his destination was invariably some wild spot, unfrequented—possibly even unknown—alike by painter and tourist. And there—if undisturbed—he would remain, diligently working all day in the open air during favourable weather; and, when the elements were unpropitious for work, taking long walks over solitary heaths and desolate mountain sides, or along the lonely shore. And when the first snows of winter came, reminding him that it was time to turn his face homeward once more, he would pack up his paraphernalia and return to town, laden with studies of skies and seas, of barren moorland, rocky crag, and foaming mountain torrent which provoked alike the envy and the admiration of his brother artists.

It will naturally be supposed that, to a man of such solitary habits as these, the society of his only child would be an unspeakable comfort. But, with my father, this did not appear to be by any means the case. He never took me out of town with him on his annual pilgrimage to the country; and, when he was at home, it often happened that I did not see him, face to face, for weeks together. As a consequence of this peculiar arrangement, almost the whole of the time which I spent indoors was passed in the nursery, where also my meals were served, and wherein my only companion was Mary, the nursemaid.

The only exceptions to this isolated state of existence were those rare occasions when my father, without the slightest warning, and apparently with as little reason, used to send for me to visit him in his studio. It was during these interviews that his peculiar treatment of me became most noticeable. As a general rule, when—after a vigorous cleansing of my face and hands and a change of my raiment had been effected by the nursemaid—I was introduced into the studio, my father would ensconce me in a roomy old easy-chair by the fire; provide me with a picture-book of some kind wherewith to amuse myself; and then take no further notice of me. This, however, seemed to depend to some extent upon the greeting which I received from him, and that proved to be a tolerably accurate index of the humour which happened to possess him at the moment. Sometimes the greeting would consist of a cold shake of the hand and an equally cold “I hope you are well, boy,” accompanied by a single keen glance which seemed at once to take in every detail of my person and clothing. Sometimes the shake of the hand would be somewhat warmer, the accompanying remark being, perhaps, “I am glad to see you looking so well, my boy.” And occasionally—but very rarely—I was agreeably surprised to find myself received with an affectionate embrace and kiss—which I always somewhat timidly returned—and the words, “Lionel, my son, how are you?”

When the greeting reached this stage of positive warmth, it usually happened that, instead of being consigned at once to the arm-chair and the picture-book, I was lifted to my father’s knee, when, laying aside palette and brushes, he would proceed to ask me all sorts of questions, such as, What had I been doing lately; where had I been, and what had I seen worthy of notice; did I want any new toys? and so on; enticing me out of my reserve until he had coaxed me into talking freely with him. On these especial occasions he had a curious habit of wheeling round in front of us a large mirror which constituted one of his studio “properties,” and into this, whilst talking to me, he would intently gaze at his own reflected image, and mine, laying his cheek beside mine so as to bring both our faces to the same level, and directing me also to look into the mirror. Sometimes this curious inspection terminated satisfactorily; in which case, after perhaps an hour’s chat on his knee, I was tenderly placed in the easy-chair, in such a position that my father could see me without his work being materially interfered with; our conversation was maintained with unflagging spirit on both sides; and the day was brought to a happy close by our dining together, and perhaps going to the theatre or a concert afterwards. There were occasions, however, when this pleasant state of affairs did not obtain—when the ordeal of the mirror did not terminate so satisfactorily. It occasionally happened that, whilst gazing at my father’s reflected features, I observed a stern and sombre expression settling like a heavy thunder-cloud upon them; and this always sufficed to speedily reduce me to silence, however garrulous I might before have been. The paternal gaze would gradually grow more intense and searching; the thunder-cloud would lower more threateningly; and unintelligible mutterings would escape from between the fiercely clenched firm white teeth. And, finally, I would either be placed—as in the last-mentioned instance—where my father could look at me whilst at work—and where he did frequently look at me with appalling sternness—or I was at once dismissed with a short and sharp “Run away, boy; I am busy.”

Looking back upon the first eight years of my existence, and contemplating them by the light of my now matured knowledge, I am inclined to regard them as quite an unique experience of child-life; at all events I would fain hope that but few children have suffered so keenly as I have from the lack of paternal love. And yet I cannot say that I was absolutely unhappy, except upon and for a day or two after those chilling dismissals from my father’s presence to which I have briefly referred; the suffering, although it existed, had by long usage become a thing to which I had grown accustomed, and it consisted chiefly in a yearning after those endearments and evidences of affection which I instinctively felt were my due. The conviction that my father—the one to whom my childish heart naturally turned for sympathy in all my little joys and sorrows—regarded me coldly—for his demonstrations of affection were indeed few and far between—exercised a subduing and repressive influence upon me from which, even now, I have not wholly recovered, and which will probably continue to affect me to the latest hour of my life. What made my position decidedly worse was that my father had, so far, not deemed it necessary to send me to school; and I had, therefore, no companions of my own age, none of any age, in fact, except Mary, the nursemaid aforementioned, and Mrs Wilson, the housekeeper; the latter—good motherly body—so far compassionating the state of utter ignorance in which I was growing up that, in an erratic, unmethodical sort of way, she occasionally devoted half an hour or so of her time of an evening to the task of forwarding my education. In consequence of this state of things I often found it difficult to effect a satisfactory disposal of the time left to lie somewhat heavily on my hands.

I have said that Mrs Wilson was kind enough to undertake my education; and very faithfully and to the best of her ability, poor soul, she carried on the task. But nature had evidently intended the old lady to be a housekeeper, and not an instructress of youth; for whilst she performed the duties of the former post in a manner which left absolutely nothing to be desired, it must be confessed that in her self-imposed task of schoolmistress she failed most lamentably. Not through ignorance, however, by any means. She was fairly well educated, having “seen better days,” so she was possessed of a sufficiency of knowledge for her purpose had she but known how to impart it. Unfortunately, however, for me she did not; she was entirely destitute of that tact which is the great secret of successful instruction; she had not the faintest conception of the desirability of investing my studies with the smallest particle of interest; and they were in consequence dry as the driest of dry bones and unattractive in the extreme. She never dreamed that it might be advantageous to explain or point out the ultimate purpose of my lessons to me, or to illustrate them by those apposite remarks which are often found to be of such material assistance to the youthful student; if I succeeded in repeating them perfectly “out of book” the good woman was quite satisfied; she never attempted to ascertain whether I understood them or not.

Under such circumstances it is probable that I should have derived little or no advantage from my studies had not my preceptress possessed a valuable ally in my own inclinations. Writing I was fond of; reading I had an especial desire to master, for reasons which will shortly become apparent; but arithmetic I at first found difficult, and utterly detested—until I had mastered its rules, after which I soon reached a point where the whole became clear as the noonday light; and then I fell under the magical influence of that fascination which figures for some minds is found to possess. But geography was my favourite study. There was an old terrestrial globe in the nursery, the use of which my father had taught me in one of his rare genial moments; and over this globe I used to stand for hours, with my geography in my hand and a gazetteer on a chair by my side, finding out the positions of the various places as they occurred in the books.

It sometimes happened that Mrs Wilson went out to spend the evening with a married daughter who resided somewhere within visiting distance; and, when this was the case, my studies were of course interrupted, and other means of employing my time had to be found. Thanks, chiefly, to the fact that these occasions afforded Mary, my particular attendant, an opportunity of escape from the somewhat dismal lonesomeness of the nursery, these evenings were very frequently spent in the servants’ hall, where I had an opportunity of enjoying the conversation of the housemaid Jane, the cook, and Tim, the presiding genius of the knife-board and boot-brushes. I always greatly enjoyed these visits to the lower regions, for two reasons; the first of which was that they were surreptitious, and much caution was needed, or supposed to be needed, in order that my journey down-stairs might be accomplished without “master’s” knowledge; the remaining reason for my enjoyment being that I generally heard something which interested me. Whether the interest excited was or was not of a healthy character the reader shall judge.

The cook, of course, reigned supreme in the servants’ hall, the other occupants taking their cue from her, and regulating their tastes and occupations in accordance with hers. Now this woman—an obese, red-armed, and red-visaged person of about forty years of age—was possessed by a morbid and consuming curiosity concerning all those horrors and criminal mysteries which appear from time to time in the public prints; and the more horrible they were, the greater was her interest in them. The evening, after all the work was done and there was opportunity to give her whole attention to the subject, was the time selected by her for the satisfaction of this curiosity; and it thus happened very frequently that, when I made my appearance among the servants, they were deep in the discussion of some murder, or mysterious disappearance, or kindred matter. If the item under discussion happened to be fresh, the boy Tim was delegated to search the newspaper and read therefrom every paragraph bearing upon it, the remainder of the party listening intently and open-mouthed as they sat in a semicircle before the blazing fire. And if the item happened to be so stale as to have passed out of the notice of the papers, the cook would recapitulate for our benefit its leading features, together with any similar events or singular coincidences connected with the case which might occur to her memory at the moment. From the discussion of murders to the relation of ghost stories is a natural and easy transition, and here Jane, the housemaid, shone pre-eminent. She would sit there and discourse by the hour of lonely and deserted houses, long silent galleries, down which misty shapes had been seen to glide in the pallid moonlight, gaunt and ruinous chambers, the wainscot of which rattled, and the tattered tapestry of which swayed and rustled mysteriously; gloomy passages through which unearthly sighs were audibly wafted; dismal cellars, with never-opened doors, from whose profoundest recesses came at dead of night the muffled sound of shrieks and groans and clanking chains; “of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, and airy tongues that syllable men’s names on sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses,” until not one of the party, excepting myself, dared move or look round for fear of seeing some dread presence, some shapeless dweller upon the threshold, some horrible apparition, the sight of which, Medusa-like, should blast them into stone. Not infrequently the situation was rendered additionally harrowing by the cook, who would suddenly interrupt the narrative, send an icy thrill down our spines, and cause the unhappy Tim’s scalp to bristle even more than usual, by exclaiming in a low startling whisper:

“Hark! didn’t you hear something move in the passage just then?”

Whereupon Jane and Mary would spring to their feet, and, with pallid faces, starting eyes, and blanched lips, cling convulsively to each other, convinced that at last their unspoken fears were about to be dreadfully realised.

It will naturally be supposed that these séances would have a dreadfully trying effect upon my infantile nerves; but, strangely enough, they did not. I never looked beneath my cot with the expectation of discovering a midnight assassin; for, in the first place, the outer doors of the house were always kept so carefully closed that I did not see how such an individual could well get in; and, in the second place, admitting, for argument’s sake, the possibility of his effecting an entrance, I did not for a moment believe he would give himself the wholly unnecessary trouble of murdering a little boy, or girl either, for that matter. Then, as to the ghosts, though it never occurred to me to doubt their existence, I entirely failed to understand why people should be afraid of them. I felt that, in regarding these beings as objects of dread and apprehension, the housemaid, the cook, and in fact everybody who took this view of them, entirely misunderstood them, and were doing the poor shadows a most grievous injustice. My own experience of ghosts led me to the conclusion that, so far from their being inimical to mankind, they were distinctly benign. There was one ghost in particular to whose visitations I used to look forward with the greatest delight; and I was never so happy as when I awoke in the morning with the vague remembrance that, at some time during the silent watches of the past night, I had become conscious of a sweet and gracious presence beside my cot, bending over me with eyes which looked unutterable love into mine, and with lips which mingled kisses of tenderest affection with softly-breathed blessings upon my infant head. At first I used to mention these visitations to Mary, my nurse, but I soon forbore to do so, noticing that she always looked uncomfortably startled for a moment or two afterwards, and generally dismissed the subject somewhat hurriedly by remarking:

“Ah, poor lamb! you’ve been dreaming about your mother.”

Which remark annoyed me, for I felt convinced that so realistic an experience could not possibly result from a mere dream.

It sometimes happened that there were no tragedies or other horrors in the newspapers sufficiently piquant to tempt the cook’s intellectual palate; and in the absence of these, if it happened also to be Jane’s “evening out,” Mary would occasionally produce a well-thumbed copy of the Arabian Nights, or some old volume of fairy tales, from which she read aloud.

How I enjoyed those evenings with the old Eastern romancist! How I revelled in the imaginary delights and wonders of fairydom! Of course I pictured myself the hero of every story, the truth of the most outrageous of which it never occurred to me to doubt. Sitting at Mary’s feet, on a low stool before the fire, with the old cat blinking and purring with drowsy satisfaction upon my knee, I used to gaze abstractedly at the glowing coals, now thinking myself the prince in “Cinderella,” now the happy owner of “Puss in Boots,” and now the adventurous Sindbad. There was one story, however—I quite forget its title—which, in strong contrast with the others, instead of affording me gratification, was a source of keen annoyance and vexation to me whenever I heard it. It related to a boy who on one occasion had the good fortune to meet, in the depths of the forest, a little old man in red cap and green jerkin—a gnome or fairy, of course—who with the utmost good-nature offered to gratify any single wish that boy might choose to express. Here was a glorious chance, the opportunity of a lifetime! The boy’s first thought was for ginger-bread, but before the thought had time to clothe itself in words the vision of a drum and trumpet flashed across his mind. He was about to express a wish for these martial instruments, and a real sword, when it occurred to him that the fairies were quite equal to the task of providing gifts of infinitely greater value and splendour than even these coveted articles. And then that unfortunate boy completely lost his head; his brain became muddled with the endless variety of things which he found he required; and he took so long a time to make up his mind that, when, in desperation, he finally did so, the unwelcome discovery was made that his fairy friend, disgusted at the delay and vacillation, had vanished without bestowing upon him so much as even one poor ginger-bread elephant. It was that boy’s first and last opportunity, and he lost it. He never again met a fairy, though he wandered through the forest, day after day, week after week, and year after year, until he became an old man, dying at last in a state of abject poverty.

The moral of this story was obvious even to my juvenile mind. It plainly pointed to the necessity for being prepared to take the fullest advantage of every opportunity, whenever it might present itself; and I was resolved that, if ever I encountered a fairy, he should find me fully prepared to tax his generosity to its utmost limit. And, forthwith, I began to ask myself what was the most desirable thing at all likely to be within a fairy’s power of bestowal. At this point I, for the first time, began to realise the difficulties of the situation in which the unhappy boy of the story found himself. I thought of several things; but none of them came quite up to my idea of a gift such as would do full honour and justice to a fairy’s power of giving; the utmost I could imagine was a real ship full of real sailors, wherein I might roam the seas and perform wonderful voyages like Sindbad; and, in my efforts to achieve a still higher flight of imagination, I found myself so completely at a loss that I was fain to turn to Mary for counsel. Accordingly, as I was being escorted by that damsel upstairs to bed one night, I broached the subject by saying:

“Mary, supposing you were to meet a fairy, what would you ask him to give you?”

“Lor’! Master Lionel, I dun know,” she replied. “That’s a question I shouldn’t like to answer just off-hand; I should want to think it over a good bit. I should read a lot of books, and find out what was the best thing as was to be had.”

“What sort of books?” I asked.

“Oh! any sort,” was the reply; “books such as them down-stairs in your pa’s lib’ry; them’s downright beautiful books—your pa’s—full of all sorts of wonderful things such as you never heard tell of.”

This reply afforded me food for a considerable amount of profound reflection before I went to sleep that night; the result of which was that on the following morning, as soon as I had taken my breakfast, I descended to the “lib’ry,” opened the doors of one of the book-cases, and dragged down upon my curly pate the most bulky volume I could reach. With the expenditure of a considerable amount of labour I conveyed it to the nursery, and, flinging it and myself upon the floor, opened it hap-hazard, feeling sure that, in a book of such imposing dimensions, I should find something valuable wherever I might open it. It was an English work of some kind, I remember; but, alas for my aspirations! it might almost as well have been Greek. I was equal, just then, to the mastery of words of two syllables, but no more; and the result was that, though I occasionally caught a glimpse of the meaning of a sentence here and there, the subject matter of the book, as a whole, remained a profound mystery to me. My want of knowledge was at once made most painfully apparent to myself; I discovered that I had a very great deal to learn before the treasures of wisdom by which I was surrounded could be made available; and I forthwith bent all my energies to the task of perfecting myself in the art of reading as a first and indispensable step.

Chapter Two.

My Mother’s Portrait.

Actuated by what was to me so powerful an incentive, my progress toward proficiency as a reader was rapid; and, in a comparatively short time, I felt equal to a renewed effort to sound the depths of the well of knowledge.

On this momentous occasion—momentous to me, at least, for I am convinced that it exercised a very material influence on my eventual choice of a career—I chanced upon an illustrated volume of Travels by Land and Sea. I opened it at the title-page, down which I patiently and conscientiously waded; then on to the preface—which, luckily, was a short one—and so into the body of the book. I of course encountered a great deal that I could only imperfectly understand; and I detected within myself a rapidly-growing disposition to skip all the hard words; but, notwithstanding these drawbacks, I contrived to catch a glimmering, if not something more, of the author’s meaning. It was hard work, but I struggled on, down page after page, fascinated, my imagination vividly depicting the various scenes of which I read. I saw the deep blue tropic sea heaving and sparkling in the joyous sunshine, and the stout ship, with her gleaming wide-spread canvas, sweeping bravely over its bosom. I stood upon the deck of that ship, among the seamen, peering eagerly ahead, and saw a faint grey cloud gradually shape itself in the midst of the haze on the far western horizon. I heard the joyous shout of “Land ho!” break from the lips of the lookout at the mast-head; and watched the cloud gradually hardening its outlines and changing its tints until it assumed the unmistakable aspect of land; saw the distant mountains steal into view, and the trees emerge into distinct and prominent detail along the shore; saw, at length, the strip of sandy beach, dazzlingly white in the blazing sunlight; heard the deep hoarse roar of the breakers, and saw the flashing of the snow-white foam as the rollers swept grandly on and dashed themselves into surf and diamond spray upon the strand. Then I saw the natives launching their light canoes and paddling off through the surf to the ship; or leapt eagerly into the boat alongside; reached the strip of dazzling beach—strewn now with beautiful shells; plunged into the grateful shade of enticing groves rich with the prodigal luxuriance and fantastic beauty of tropical growth, ablaze with flowers of gorgeous hues, alive with birds whose plumage flashed like living gems, and breathed an atmosphere oppressive with perfume.

From that hour forward the entertainments of the servants’ hall paled their ineffectual fires before the superior effulgence of those delightful visions which I now possessed the power of summoning at will; books or stories of travel and adventure alone had now any charm for me; and these I devoured with an appetite which grew by what it fed on. The natural consequence of all this will readily be foreseen: a desire sprang up, which steadily ripened into a resolve, that, when I should become a man, I too would be a traveller, and—like those of whom I was never tired of reading—would make my home upon the pathless sea.

Thus matters went on until the arrival of the eighth anniversary of my birthday, on the morning of which, soon after I had finished my breakfast, I was summoned to my father’s studio. I was received somewhat coldly; and, after indicating to me the chair which he had placed for my occupation, my father resumed his work and continued it for some time without taking the slightest further notice of me.

A silence of perhaps half an hour ensued; when, laying down his brush, he said:

“I am glad to learn from Mrs Wilson that you are making very satisfactory progress with your studies; that, in fact, you are exhibiting a marked disposition to acquire knowledge. This is well; this is as it should be; and, to mark my appreciation of your conduct, I have resolved to further your desires and give you increased facilities for study, by sending you to school, where you will have the advantage of such guidance and assistance as only trained masters can give; and where you will also enjoy the companionship and association of lads of your own age. I hope the prospect is a pleasant one to you.”

As this last remark seemed to partake somewhat of the form of a question, I replied that the prospect was pleasant, and that I felt very much obliged to him for his kind and thoughtful intentions. I wanted to say a great deal more by way of thanks; I wished him to understand how delightful to me would be the change which this arrangement involved; how I had longed for some one to take me by the hand, to guide my erratic footsteps and lead me by the shortest way to that fountain of knowledge for the waters of which I was just beginning to thirst; and I wished him to understand, too, how welcome would be the companionship of the other boys, after so lonely a life as mine had been. But to make all this clear to him through my imperfect method of expressing myself would have involved quite a long speech on my part; and, as my eager glance fell on his unsympathetic face, the words failed me, and I held my peace.

“The school I have selected is a large one,” my father continued. “I am informed that the pupils at present number over two hundred; and it is quite in the country. The principal encourages every kind of innocent pastime, such as cricket, football, swimming, skating in the winter, and so on; so you will not lack amusements—the necessaries for joining in which I will take care that you shall be provided with. And I have arranged that, for the present, you shall receive from the headmaster sixpence a week as pocket-money—a sum which I consider quite sufficient for a boy of your age. With regard to your studies, I would urge you to make the most of your opportunities; as, on the completion of your education, you will have to make your own way in the world. My profession, as you will perhaps better understand later on, is somewhat a precarious one. As long as I retain my health and strength and the unimpaired use of all my faculties, matters will no doubt go well with me; but accident, disease, or the loss of sight may at any moment interrupt my labours or stop them altogether: in which case my income, which I derive solely from the use of my brush, would cease altogether. You will easily comprehend, therefore, that it would be unwise in the extreme for you to depend upon me in any way to provide for your future. Now, do you think you clearly comprehend what I have been saying?”

I replied, ‘Yes, I believed I did.’ I wanted to add that there was one thing, however, that I did not understand, which was, how a father could communicate to his only child so lengthy an explanation on a subject of so much importance without giving one word or sign of affection to that child, and that I was most earnestly anxious to know the reason, if any, for so marked an omission; but, whilst I was hesitating how to frame my remark in such a manner as to avoid the giving of offence, my father rose from before his easel, and, unlocking a cabinet which stood in the room, said:

“One word more. You will probably be asked by your companions all manner of questions about your home and your parents. Now, with regard to your mother, you know nothing about her beyond, possibly, the fact that she died when you were born; and that is quite as much as I consider it needful for you to know. But you may perhaps be glad to be made acquainted with her personal appearance; you may, possibly, at some future day—if you have not already experienced such a desire—be anxious to possess the means of bringing her before you as something more than a mere name. I will therefore give you this miniature, which is a correct and striking likeness of what your mother was when I painted it.”

And, as he finished speaking, my father placed in my hand a small velvet case, to which was attached a thin gold chain by which it might be suspended from the neck.

I was about to open the case; but my father somewhat hastily prevented the action by throwing the chain round my neck, thrusting the miniature into the bosom of my dress, and dismissing me with the words:

“There! run away now and make your preparations. We shall set out for your school to-morrow, immediately after breakfast.”

I hastened away to my play-room, and, once fairly within the bounds of my own domain, drew forth the miniature case and opened it. As the lid flew back at the pressure of my finger upon the spring a thrill of half joy, half terror, shot through me; for I instantly recognised in the features of the portrait a vivid presentment of that sweet dream-face whose visits to me during the silent and lonely night-watches had flooded my infant soul with such an ecstasy of rapture and delight. The portrait, which is before me as I write, was that of a young and beautiful girl. The complexion was clearest, faintest, most transparent olive; the face a perfect oval, crowned with luxuriant masses of wavy, deep chestnut hair, the colour almost merging into black; indeed it would have been difficult to decide that it was not black but for the lights in it, which were of a deep dusky golden tone. The eyebrows were beautifully arched, and the lashes of the eyes were represented as unusually long. The eyes themselves were very deep hazel, or black—it was impossible to say which; the nose perfectly straight; the lips, of a clear, rich, cherry hue, were full and slightly pouting; the mouth perhaps the merest shade larger than it ought to have been for perfect beauty; the chin round, with a well-defined dimple in its centre. Altogether, it was the loveliest face I had ever seen; and I stood for some time gazing in a trance of admiration on it, the feeling being mingled with one of deep regret that fate had, in snatching away the living original, deprived me of such rich possibilities of mutual love. I felt keenly that, had she continued to live, my life would, in all probability, have been widely different and very much happier than it ever had been. Musing thus, I turned the case over in my hand, and found that there was a contrivance for opening it at the back. I soon discovered the spring, upon pressing which the back flew open, disclosing a circlet of glossy chestnut hair reposing upon an oval of pale yellow silk, in the centre of which were painted the words “Maria Lascelles; aet. 18. C.L.”

Closing the case again and placing it carefully in my bosom, I turned my thoughts to my new prospects; and whilst collecting together a few of my more treasured valuables to take with me, and packing the remainder away in a place of safety, I suffered myself to indulge in much pleasant speculation upon my immediate future.

On the following morning, about ten o’clock, my father and I left town in a post-chaise, and, stopping only for an hour about mid-day to dine at a pleasant little road-side country inn, arrived, at about seven o’clock in the evening, at our destination. This was a large brick-built edifice evidently constructed especially to serve the purposes of a scholastic establishment, standing in its own somewhat extensive grounds, and situated in a lonely spot about half a mile from the sea, and—though actually in Hampshire—some four miles only from the port of Poole in Dorsetshire. I was speedily presented to the principal, who at once made a favourable impression upon me, afterwards abundantly confirmed; and, after perhaps half an hour’s conversation with him, my father formally delivered me over to his care and left me—his leave-taking, though somewhat hurried, being decidedly warmer than his abstracted manner during the journey had led me to expect.

At this school, let it suffice to say, I remained for the following seven years; enjoying, during that period of my life, such happiness as, up to then, my imagination had never been able to conceive; and devoting myself to my studies with a zest and enthusiasm which won the warmest encomiums from the several masters who had charge of my education. French, geography, mathematics, and navigation were my favourite subjects; and I also developed a very fair amount of talent with my pencil. Athletics I especially excelled in; and by the time I had been three years at the school I had become almost amphibious. It affords me particular pleasure to reflect that, notwithstanding my previous total want of training, I was, from the very outset of my school career, an especial favourite with my fellow-pupils, never having had more than one quarrel serious enough to result in a fight, on which occasion I succeeded in giving my antagonist—a great bully who had been cruelly tyrannising over a smaller boy—so severe a trouncing that a resort to this rough-and-ready mode of settling a dispute never again became necessary, so far as I was concerned. During this period there was only one thing that troubled me, which was, that I never saw my father. Owing to what at the time seemed to me an uninterrupted series of unfortunate coincidences, it invariably happened that when holiday-time came round my father had urgent business calling him away from home; and arrangements had accordingly to be made for my spending my holidays at the school. This, in itself, constituted no very great hardship; there were several other lads—Anglo-Indians and others whose friends resided at too great a distance to admit of the holidays being spent with them—who always remained behind to bear me company; and, as we were allowed to do pretty much what we liked so long as we did not misconduct ourselves or get into mischief, the time was passed pleasantly enough; but, notwithstanding his singular treatment of me, I loved my father, and regarded it as a positive hardship that so long a time should be permitted to elapse without my seeing him. I was continually in hopes that, as we were unable to meet at holiday-time, he would run down into the country and pay me a visit, but he never did, and this was another disappointment.

At length, however, an end came to my disappointment and to my school-days together; for, on the morning of my fifteenth birthday, I was sent for by the principal of the school, who, after complimenting me upon my diligence and the progress I had made whilst under his care, informed me that the day had arrived when my school-boy life was to cease, and when I must go out into the world and commence that great battle of life, which all of us have to fight in one shape or another. He added to his communication some most excellent advice, the value of which I have since had abundant opportunity of proving; and concluded with the announcement that my father would make his appearance that same evening and take me away with him.

Within a quarter of an hour of the time specified, the grinding sound of wheels upon the gravel drive in front of the building suggested the probability that the moment of my departure was at hand; and, a few minutes later, I was summoned to the library to meet my father. With my heart throbbing high with mingled feelings of joy and trepidation, I hastened to the spot, and, before I well knew where I was, found myself in the presence of the parent who had allowed seven full years to elapse without an attempt to see his only child. For an instant—which sufficed me to note that those seven years had left abundant traces of their passage on the once almost unwrinkled brow—we stood gazing with equal intentness in each others’ faces; then my father grasped the outstretched hand which I offered, and said, somewhat constrainedly:

“So this is the once quiet dreamy little Leo, is it? I am glad to see you once more, my boy; glad to see you looking so strong and well—so wonderfully improved in appearance in every way, in fact; and glad, too, to hear that Dr Tomlinson is able to confirm so thoroughly the good reports of your conduct which he has sent me from time to time.” He paused, and I was about to make a suitable answer to his greeting, when he continued—half unconsciously, it seemed to me, but with a quite perceptible ring of harshness in his voice:

“You are wonderfully like your mother, boy; no one who knew her would ever mistake you for anyone else than her son.”

The words were simple, but were accompanied by such a regretful look, deepening into a baleful frown as he regarded me fixedly, that I was completely startled, and in fact so overwhelmed with astonishment that, for the moment, I was quite unable to make any reply; and before I could recover myself my father appeared to have become conscious of his singularity of manner, which he evidently overcame by a very powerful effort. Laying his hand somewhat heavily upon my shoulder, he said:

“Do not be frightened, Leo; I have been far from well lately, and my illness seems to have slightly affected my brain; sometimes I detect myself saying things which I had not the remotest intention of saying a moment before. If you should observe any little peculiarity of that kind in me, take no notice of it, let it pass. And now, if your boxes are all ready—as I suppose they are—let them be brought down and put on the chaise; we shall sleep in Poole to-night, and we can converse at the hotel, over a good dinner, as well as here.”

An hour later we were discussing that same good dinner, and maintaining a tolerably animated conversation over it, too. My father put a few adroit questions to me relative to my school experiences, which had the effect of “drawing me out,” and he listened to all I had to say with just that appearance of friendly interest which is so flattering and encouraging to a youthful talker. His treatment of me was everything that could be desired—except that he seemed to be rather taking the ground of an elder friend than of a parent. I should have preferred a shade less of the polite suavity of his manner and a more distinct manifestation of fatherly affection. He seemed anxious to efface the memory of the singularity which marked our first meeting; and yet I thought that, later on in the evening, when our conversation assumed a more general character, I could detect a disposition on his part to again approach the subject, these approaches being accompanied by a very perceptible nervousness and constraint of manner. But, though my father certainly led the conversation once or twice in that direction, he as often changed the subject again, and nothing more was said about it until our bed-room candles were brought to us and we were about to retire for the night. Then, as we vacated the chairs we had been occupying during the evening, and rose to our feet, he grasped me by the arm and planted me square in front of the chimney-piece, which was surmounted by a pier-glass, and, placing himself beside me, remarked, looking at our reflected images:

“You have grown tremendously, Leo, during the seven years you have been at school. I really believe you will develop into as tall a man as I am. But,” (taking a candlestick in his hand and holding it so as to throw the light full upon our faces) “you are so like your mother, so painfully like your mother;” and again the frown darkened his face and for a moment he seemed almost to shrink from me.

“Well, sir,” said I, “it seems to me that I have your forehead, your mouth, and your chin; we both possess considerable width between the eyes; and my hair, though dark, is curly, like your own.”

“Ah, yes!” he answered, somewhat impatiently; “the latter, however, is a mere accident; and, as to the other points you have mentioned, I really cannot see any positive resemblance; I wish I could—I earnestly wish that my son resembled me rather than—Ah! there I go again, saying words which positively have no meaning. I really must take rest and medical advice; I have executed several very important commissions during the past year, and the strain upon my imagination and upon my nerves has been almost too much for me. Now, I’ll be bound, Leo, that you have noticed more than once this evening that there are moments when I am not—well, not exactly my natural self.”

“Well, sir,” I hesitatingly replied, “I must confess that—that—”

“That you have,” my father interrupted. “Very well; take no notice of it; forget it; it means nothing. Good night, boy; good night.”

“Good night, sir,” I replied. “I hope you will sleep soundly, and rise in the morning refreshed. And, oh father! I wish I could do anything to help you—”

“So you can, my son; so you can. Thank you, Leo, for your kind wish. You can help me very greatly, by taking no notice whatever of any little eccentricities you may observe in my behaviour, and by remembering that they are entirely due to overwork. Now, good night, once more; and remember that we must be stirring early in the morning, as we have a long journey before us.”

And, with this very peculiar mode of dismissal, my father gently forced me out of the room, and closed the door upon me.

Chapter Three.

I Join the “Hermione.”

On the following morning, after an early breakfast, we set out for London; where we safely arrived on the evening of the same day. At the outset of the journey my father appeared to be in tolerably good spirits, conversing with much animation upon the subject—which he had introduced—of my future career. I explained to him that my great desire was, and had been for some time, to become a sailor; and that I hoped he would be able to see his way to forward my views. Contrary, I must confess, to my expectations, my father raised no objections, stipulating only that I should enter the naval service; and he promised me that he would use his best efforts to secure my nomination as a midshipman; but he cautioned me that, as he scarcely knew to whom to apply for this service, I might have to wait some time for the gratification of my wishes. The conversation which settled this, to me, important matter took place in the forenoon, the subject being finally disposed of and dismissed just as we alighted for luncheon. On the resumption of our journey the conversation was by no means so lively, and it distressed me much to observe that my father was gradually sinking back into the same strange moody state of mind which had possessed him on the previous day. I made several efforts to win him back to a more cheerful condition, but they were quite ineffectual; and, after receiving two or three increasingly impatient replies, I was compelled to abandon the attempt. For several days the same unsatisfactory state of affairs continued, my father and I only meeting at breakfast and dinner, and then exchanging scarcely half a dozen words beyond the ordinary courtesies; I was therefore not only considerably surprised but much gratified when he one morning informed me that he had succeeded in securing my appointment as midshipman on board the frigate Hermione, then about to sail for the West Indies. He added that there was no time to lose if I wished to go out in her; and that it would consequently be necessary for us to set out for Portsmouth on the following morning. This promptitude was rather more than I had bargained for; notwithstanding my father’s very peculiar behaviour I was much attached to him, and had hoped to have enjoyed at least a month or two of his society; moreover, I felt very anxious as to his peculiar condition, and would fain have remained with him until I could have seen some improvement in his mental state; but, on my mentioning this, he seemed so singularly averse to any delay of my departure that I saw nothing for it but to acquiesce.

A week later I had joined my ship, and on November 18th, 1796, we were bowling down channel under double-reefed topsails.

We duly arrived at our destination—Port Royal, Jamaica—after a tedious passage of over two months’ duration; and, having landed our despatches, were ordered to cruise between Cape Tiburon and the Virgin Islands.

By this time I had pretty well settled down into my proper place, had ceased to be the butt of the other midshipmen; and, having a real liking for my duties, had learned to perform them pretty satisfactorily. Mr Reid, the first lieutenant, had expressed the opinion that I “shaped well.” But, even before our arrival at Jamaica, I had made the unwelcome discovery that the Hermione was by no means likely to prove a comfortable ship. The vessel herself there was no fault whatever to find with; she was a noble frigate of thirty-two guns, very fast, and a splendid sea-boat. But the skipper—Captain Pigot—was a regular tartar. He was a tall, powerful man, and would have been handsome but for his somewhat bloated features. Even to his officers he was arrogant, overbearing, and discourteous to an almost unbearable degree; to the men he was simply an unmitigated tyrant. There was certainly some excuse for severity of discipline and occasional loss of temper, had it gone no further than that, for our crew was, as a whole, the worst I have ever had the misfortune to be associated with, several of them being foreigners, and of the remainder a good sprinkling were men who had been sentenced by the magistrates to serve the King. Possibly in other and more patient hands they might have developed into a good smart body of men, and such it was doubtless the skipper’s hope and intention to make them. But he most unfortunately went the wrong way to work. Punishment was his doctrine; the “cat” was his sovereign remedy for all evils. He flogged almost daily, even for the most trivial offences, and our “black list” was probably the longest in the navy for a ship of our size. As might be expected, with a captain of this kind, we poor unfortunate mids were constantly in trouble, and the greater part of our time was spent at the mast-heads.

One afternoon—it was on the 22nd of March, 1797—being off Zaccheo, the lookout aloft reported that a brig and several smaller vessels were at anchor inshore between that island and the larger one of Porto Rico. The first lieutenant thereupon at once went aloft with his telescope, where he made a thorough examination of the strangers and their position; having completed which to his satisfaction, he returned to the deck and made his report to Captain Pigot. The ship’s head was immediately directed inshore; and the pinnace, first and second cutters, and gig were ordered away, under lieutenants Reid and Douglas, to go in, as soon as the ship had anchored, and cut out the vessels. Mr Reid, with whom, I think, I was somewhat of a favourite, kindly selected me to take charge of the gig; and young Courtenay, my especial chum, was fortunate enough to be chosen by Mr Douglas to command the second cutter. By Courtenay’s advice, I procured from the armourer a ship’s cutlass, to replace my almost useless dirk; and having carefully loaded and primed a very excellent pair of pistols with which my father had presented me, I thrust those useful articles into my belt and hastened on deck, just as the frigate was rounding to preparatory to anchoring. A couple of minutes later the anchor was let go abreast of and scarcely half a mile distant from a small battery, the guns of which commanded the vessels we were about to attack, and the canvas was very smartly clewed up and furled.

The men were still aloft when the battery, which had hoisted Spanish colours, opened fire upon us, the first shot severing our larboard main-topgallant back-stay. This damage, slight as it was, sufficed to effectually rouse Captain Pigot’s hasty, irritable temper; and, hurrying the men down from aloft, he ordered the larboard broadside to be manned, and the guns to be directed upon the audacious battery. A couple of well-directed broadsides sufficed to silence its fire, and the boats were then immediately piped away.

“Mark my words, Lascelles,” said Courtenay, as we trundled down the ship’s side together, “we are going to have a tough time of it with those craft in there; three of them have boarding nettings triced up, and are evidently preparing to give us a warm reception. They look like privateers, and if so, I daresay they are full of men, who will have ample opportunity to bowl us over at their leisure whilst we are pulling in upon them. And we shall have no help from the frigate’s guns, for the rascals are beyond their reach.”

“Now then, Courtenay, no croaking, young gentleman, if you please, or I shall be under the painful necessity of sending you back on board, and taking Mr Maxwell in your place,” said Mr Douglas, who was following us down the side, and who happened to overhear Courtenay’s encouraging remarks.

“Oh, no, sir, you can’t be so heartless as to do that; have some consideration for my feelings,” laughed Courtenay; and flinging himself down in the stern-sheets of the boat, he drew his cutlass, and affected to be very cautiously feeling its edge, to the covert amusement of the men who happened to see him.

“It’s a’most sharp enough for you to shave with, ain’t it, sir?” demurely inquired the smart fore-topman, who was stroke-oar in Courtenay’s boat, at which there was another grin; Courtenay’s chin being as guiltless of hair as the back of a lady’s hand, notwithstanding which it was whispered that he assiduously shaved every morning with his penknife.

“Now, are we all ready, Douglas?” asked Mr Reid, as he stood in the stern-sheets of the pinnace, and ran his eye critically over the boats. “Then, shove off; let fall and give way, lads. Lascelles and I will tackle the brig, Mr Douglas, whilst I must leave you and Mr Courtenay to give a good account of those two schooners which have hoisted their colours. We will take matters quietly, so as to spare the men as much as possible, until the shot begins to drop round us, when we must make a dash and get on board as quickly as we can.”

Courtenay’s assumption that the three vessels we had marked out for attack were privateers was speedily strengthened by the circumstance that boats were seen to put off from the smaller craft—doubtless prizes of the others—conveying what were probably the prize-crews back to their own ships, to assist in their defence. As we neared the land we made out that the people in the battery were still standing to their guns, and we momentarily expected them to open fire upon us; but they were wise enough to refrain, evidently having already had a sufficient experience of the frigate’s broadsides, the destructive effects of which became distinctly visible as we pulled past.

Upon our arriving abreast the battery, the brig and the two schooners, for which we were heading, having got springs upon their cables and hoisted French colours, brought their broadsides to bear upon us, and commenced firing, whereupon we separated, taking “open order,” as the marines say, so as to offer as small a mark as possible. It was the first time I had “smelt powder,” and as the shot began to hum past us, I must plead guilty to having at the outset experienced a certain amount of nervous trepidation. I had an idea that every shot would find its mark, that “every bullet has its billet,” and I momentarily expected to feel the crushing blow which would tell me that I had been hit. But on we swept, the shot flying close over our heads, or just past us on either side, occasionally striking the water within such near proximity as to dash a little shower of spray right over the boat, and presently the musketry bullets came whistling about our ears, yet we remained unscathed. This opened my eyes, and gave me a juster appreciation than I had had before of the perils of warfare. I saw that it was by no means the necessarily deadly thing I had hitherto imagined it to be, and my courage came back to me, my spirits rising momentarily higher in response to the increasing excitement of the occasion. For we were now dashing forward upon our several quarries at racing speed, the men straining at the oars until the stout ashen staves bent like willow wands, and the water buzzed and foamed and bubbled, hissing past us in a regular series of miniature whirlpools, whilst the boats seemed every now and then as though they were about to be lifted clear out of the water by the herculean efforts of their panting crews.

Once within musket-shot of the vessels, a very few minutes at this pace sufficed us to cover the remaining distance, when we dashed alongside—the first lieutenant ranging up on the brig’s starboard quarter, whilst we in the gig took her in the larboard fore-chains—and a stubborn hand-to-hand fight immediately commenced. The craft we had attacked proved to be full of people; and upon our attempting to board, we found that they had been divided into two distinct parties, one of which was successfully opposing Mr Reid, whilst the other seemed determined at all costs to prevent my own little party from gaining a footing upon the deck. Twice were we forced back into the boat, and I saw that two or three of the men were bleeding from pike or bullet wounds. A third time we made the attempt, and as I was scrambling up into the brig’s channels a Frenchman thrust his pike through a port at me. I grasped the weapon, and partly through my antagonist’s efforts to wrench it away again, and partly with the aid of a friendly push behind from one of our own lads, I suddenly found myself shot in through the port, and safely landed on the brig’s deck. Springing to my feet in an instant, I laid fiercely about me with my cutlass, and thus cleared a way for the gig’s crew to follow me. In less than a minute the gigs were in possession of the fore part of the deck, and so quickly was the thing done, and with such good-will did our lads lay about them, that the party opposed to us recoiled in a sudden panic. Taking instant advantage of this, we charged them with a wild hurrah, whereupon they fairly turned tail and fled before us, rushing helter-skelter in among the other party. The whole body of defenders being thus thrown into disorder, the first lieutenant’s party managed to make good their footing on deck; and then, after one desperate but ineffectual charge on the part of the Frenchmen, we had no further trouble, the defenders throwing down their weapons and calling for quarter. This was, of course, at once accorded them, and they were ordered below, the hatches being clapped over them, whilst the ship was subjected to an overhaul. She proved to be both empty and old, besides being apparently a particularly leaky tub; she was consequently valueless, and except for the purpose of destroying her, and thus putting a stop to her depredations, not worth the trouble of taking. This fact definitely ascertained, Mr Reid ordered the crew on deck again; and, giving them five minutes in which to collect their personal belongings, directed them to take the brig’s boats and make the best of their way ashore. The crew thus got rid of, the vessel herself was effectually set on fire in three places, and as soon as the flames had taken such a hold as to prevent all possibility of their extinction we left her.

Meanwhile, the second lieutenant and Courtenay had been equally successful with ourselves, each having captured one of the schooners without very much difficulty. They proved, however, to be, like the brig, very old and weak, having evidently been strained all to pieces in the effort to make them perform services for which they were never built. They, therefore, were also set on fire. And as for their prizes, they consisted of half a dozen wretched little dirty coasters, the largest of which could not have measured over sixty tons. Their crews, we were informed, had been landed on various parts of the coast, so, their lawful owners not being there to take possession of them, these craft were likewise devoted to the flames. By the time that the Frenchmen had all been got rid of, and the little fleet effectually set on fire, it had fallen dark, and all hands being pretty well tired out, we made the best of our way back to the frigate. We had eight hands wounded in this skirmish, all the wounds proving fortunately of a very trifling character, so much so indeed that not one of the wounded was put on the sick list for even a single day.

The Hermione remained at anchor all night; and on the following morning Mr Douglas, with a boat’s crew, went on shore, drove the small garrison out of the fort, and spiked and dismounted the guns.

Thus, harmlessly, so far at least as I was concerned, ended my first brush with the enemy; and though I never heard anything further of the affair, I received the gratifying information that the first lieutenant had spoken very highly of my conduct on the occasion when making his report to Captain Pigot.

Chapter Four.

An Unsuccessful Chase.

A fortnight later we fell in with and were ordered to join the squadron of Vice-admiral Parker.

This arrangement was, to the Hermione’s officers at least, a source of intense gratification. For whereas, whilst we were cruising alone, our opportunities for social intercourse were limited to an occasional invitation to dine with the captain—and that, Heaven knows, was poor entertainment enough!—we now had frequent invitations to dine with the officers of the other ships, or entertained them in return in our own ward-room. But, though matters were thus made more pleasant for the officers of the Hermione, I cannot say that the change wrought any improvement in the condition of the ship’s company—quite the reverse, indeed. For, so anxious was Captain Pigot that his ship should be the smartest in the fleet, that when reefing topsails at night, if any other ship happened to finish before us, the last man of the yard of the dilatory topsail was infallibly booked for a flogging next day. And so with all other evolutions. The result of which was, that while our crew became noted for their smartness, they daily grew more sullen, sulky, and discontented in their dispositions, shirking their work whenever there was a possibility of doing so undetected, and performing their duties with an ill-will which they took little pains to conceal. This, of course, only tended to make matters still worse. The skipper could not fail to notice his increasing unpopularity, and this wounded his self-love; added to which he soon got the idea into his head—and certainly not altogether without reason—that the men were combining together to thwart and annoy him. And this only made him still more irritable and severe. It seemed at length as though matters were steadily approaching the point when it would become an open and recognised struggle between the captain and the crew for supremacy in respect of dogged obstinacy and determination. What made it all the worse was that the officers, in the maintenance of proper order and discipline in the ship, were compelled—very much against their will—to support and countenance the skipper in his arbitrary mode of dealing with the crew; thus dividing the inmates of the frigate into two well-defined parties—namely, those on the quarter-deck and those on the forecastle. We were all unpopular in varying degrees, from the captain down to the midshipmen. I have good reason to believe that the first lieutenant on more than one occasion remonstrated with Captain Pigot upon his excessive harshness to the men, and strongly urged him to try the effect of more lenient measures with them; but, if such was the case, the remonstrances proved wholly unavailing. Added to all this there was, especially after we joined the squadron, incessant sail, gun, musketry, and cutlass drill, in addition to the daily combined evolutions of the ships; all of which made our poor lads pray for a change of some sort—they cared not what—it could scarcely be for the worse, and might very reasonably be hoped to be somewhat for the better.

Under such circumstances the joy of the men may be imagined when, one morning at daylight, the signal was made by the admiral to chase to the eastward. Nevertheless, our unfortunate lookout aloft was promptly booked for two dozen at the gangway that day because he had failed to be the first to discover the stranger.

We were cruising at this time in the Windward Channel, the squadron being at the moment of the discovery about midway between Points Malano and Perle. We were working to windward under double-reefed topsails on the starboard tack, the trade-wind blowing fresh at about east-nor’-east.

The strange sail was about ten miles dead to windward of us; and that she had sharp eyes on board her was manifest from the fact that, before we had time to acknowledge the admiral’s signal, she had shaken the reefs out of her topsails and had set topgallant-sails. Every ship in the squadron of course at once did the same, and forthwith a most animated chase commenced. The Hermione happened to be the weathermost British ship, and, consequently, nearest the chase; and most anxiously did Captain Pigot struggle to maintain this enviable position; albeit we were closely pressed by the frigates Mermaid and Quebec, which were thrashing along, the one on our lee bow and the other on our lee beam, a distance of a bare cable’s length separating the three ships from each other. It was an interesting and exhilarating spectacle to watch these two graceful craft leaping and plunging over the swift-rushing foam-capped emerald surges, spurning them aside with their swelling bows and shivering them into cloud-like showers of snowy spray which they dashed as high as their fore-yards; now rolling heavily to windward as they slid down into a liquid valley, and anon careering to leeward under the influence of wind and wave, as they mounted to the succeeding crest, until their wet gleaming sides and glistening copper flashed in the sun almost down to their garboard strakes. Nor did our own ship present a less gallant spectacle as she careered madly forward through the hissing brine, now burying her bows deep in a fringe of yeasty foam, and next moment soaring aloft as though she meant to forsake the ocean altogether; her steeply-inclined deck knee-deep with the rushing cataracts of water which poured over her to windward, her canvas tugging at the stout spars until they bent and sprang like fishing-rods, and the wind singing through her tautly-strained rigging as through the strings of a gigantic Aeolian harp. The bearings of the chase were promptly taken by Mr Southcott, the master; and a single hour sufficed to show that we were not only fore-reaching, but also weathering upon her. By that time we had brought her a couple of points abaft our weather-beam, and the Hermione was then hove about, this manoeuvre temporarily bringing the chase fair in line with our jib-boom end; whilst the Mermaid lay broad away on our lee quarter fully a mile distant, with the Quebec half a mile astern of her. With the rising of the sun the breeze freshened still more; and it soon became evident, from the first lieutenant’s manner, that he was beginning to feel anxious about his spars. Captain Pigot, however, who was on deck, would not allow the canvas to be reduced by so much as a single thread; so Mr Reid was at length compelled (at considerable risk to the men who executed the duty) to get up preventer back-stays fore and aft; and to this precaution was doubtless due the ultimate success which crowned our efforts. Another hour brought us fairly astern of the chase; and, the moment that her three masts were in line, we again tacked and stood after her, being now directly in her wake and about nine miles astern. Meanwhile the rest of the squadron had also tacked, and were now to be seen tailing out in a long straggling line on our lee quarter—the Mermaid leading, the Quebec next, and the rest—nowhere, as the racing men say.

Breakfast was now served, and by the time that I again went on deck we had so far gained upon the chase that the foot of her courses could be now and then seen as we rose upon the crest of a sea. She was evidently a very smart as well as a very fine ship; yet we were overhauling her, hand over hand, as our ships pretty generally did those of the French. It was freely admitted on all hands that the French were better shipbuilders than ourselves, yet our ships generally proved the faster in a chase like the present; and I had often wondered how it was. Now I saw and could understand the reason. It was because the British ships were better sailed and better steered than those of our enemies. Even at our then distance it was painfully apparent that the yards of the chase were trimmed in the most slovenly manner, and in the matter of steering she was sheering and yawing all over the place; whilst for ourselves, our canvas was trimmed with the utmost nicety; and we had a man at the wheel who never for a single instant removed his glance from the weather-leach of our main-topgallant—sail, which was kept the merest trifle a-lift—just sufficiently so, and no more, to show that the frigate was looking up as high as it was possible for her to go, whilst the remainder of her canvas was clean full and dragging her along at race-horse speed. The result was that, though our ship was possibly the slower of the two, her wake was as straight as though it had been ruled upon the heaving water; whilst that of the chase was so crooked that she must have travelled over nearly half as much ground again as ourselves, thus losing through faulty steering more than she gained through superiority in speed.

At 10 a.m., by which time we had neared the chase to within a distance of six miles, the stranger hove about for the first time and stood to the southward and eastward, close-hauled on the larboard tack. At 10:30 we followed suit, and half an hour later the high land behind Jean Rabel, Saint Domingo, was sighted from aloft Captain Pigot now came to the conclusion that the stranger was aiming to take refuge in Port au Paix; and, should she succeed in effecting her design, it might prove difficult if not impossible to capture her. His anxiety to speedily get alongside her and force her to action accordingly grew almost momentarily more intense, as also did his acerbity of temper, until at length he became so nearly unbearable that, had he just then happened to have been washed overboard, I believe not a single man in the ship—apart from the officers, that is, of course—would have raised a hand or joined in any effort to save him.

At noon, however, matters grew a little more tolerable; for it had by that time become apparent that, unless favoured by some unforeseen accident, the chase could not possibly escape us. At Jean Rabel the land begins to trend to the southward and westward, extending in that direction a distance of some four or five miles, when it bends somewhat more to the westward, thus forming a shallow bay. It was towards the bottom of this bay that the chase was now heading; and it speedily became apparent that, if she would avoid going ashore, there would soon be only two alternatives open to her; one of which was to go round upon the starboard tack and make a stretch off the land sufficient to allow of her fetching Port au Paix on her next board—in which event she would have to pass us within gun-shot; and the other was to bear up and run to the southward and westward, when she would have to run the gauntlet of the whole remaining portion of the squadron; in which case her fate could only be certain capture. We hoped and believed she would choose the first of these two alternatives.

We were both nearing the land very rapidly—the chase now only some three miles ahead of us—and at length Captain Pigot, feeling certain that the stranger must now very soon heave in stays, ordered our own people to their stations, resolved to tack simultaneously with the chase, and thus, by remaining some three miles further in the offing, retain the advantage of a stronger and truer breeze. Minute after minute lagged slowly by, however, and still the French ship kept steadily on, with her bows pointing straight toward the land. Suddenly, without warning or premonition, her three masts, with all their spread of canvas, were seen to sway violently over to leeward; and, before any of us fully realised what was happening, they lay prone in the water alongside, snapped short off by the deck. The next moment the ship swung round, broadside on to the land, and the sea began to break over her. Her captain had actually run her on shore to escape us.

Sail was at once shortened on board the Hermione, and the ship hove to, with her head off-shore. Captain Pigot then sent for his telescope, and, with its aid, made a thorough inspection of the stranded frigate; most of the officers following his example. Yes, there could be no possible mistake about it, she was hard and fast on shore, bumping heavily to all appearance, and with the sea breaking over her from stem to stern. Not satisfied, however, with this distant inspection, the skipper caused his gig to be lowered, and in her proceeded as near to the scene of the wreck as prudence would allow. He was absent two full hours, and on his return we learnt that the French ship was hopelessly lost; that the crew were with the utmost difficulty effecting a landing on the beach; and that the craft herself was already breaking up. He was highly exasperated, as indeed were we all, at this noble prize thus slipping through our fingers, at a moment, too, when escape seemed absolutely impossible; and in the heat of temper he denounced the French captain as a dastardly poltroon, a disgrace to his uniform; and swore that, could he but have got hold of him, he would have seized him to a grating and given him five dozen at the gangway. And I firmly believe he fully meant what he said. As for me, though I—youngster that I was—felt, perhaps, as keenly disappointed as the skipper himself, I yet thought that the French captain had more thoroughly performed his duty to his country than he would have done had he remained afloat and fought us. For, with the vastly superior force of an entire squadron on our side, escape would then have been for him impossible; his ship must inevitably have been captured; with the sequence that, in the hands of a British crew, she would have become a formidable foe to the country which had recently owned her. Whereas, now, though that country had lost her, her guns could at least never be turned against it.

Captain Pigot’s inspection over, and the gig hoisted in, the Hermione’s main-topsail was filled and we made sail for the offing, where the remainder of the squadron was now hove to awaiting the progress of events.

On the following day the hands were mustered to witness punishment, and, to the unspeakable surprise and indignation of everybody, officers as well as men, the whole of the poor fellows who had steered the ship during the unlucky chase of the preceding day were ordered to receive three dozen apiece, “for culpable negligence in the performance of their duty,” Captain Pigot choosing to assert that, had the ship been properly steered, we should have overtaken and brought the French frigate to action. Now the manner in which the Hermione’s helm had been manipulated on the occasion in question had excited the admiration of, and extorted frequent favourable comments from the officers; there was a stiff breeze blowing at the time; and the frigate, when heavily pressed upon a taut bowline, had a most unhandy knack of griping; notwithstanding which, as I have before stated, her wake had been as straight as though ruled upon the water. But Captain Pigot was bitterly chagrined at his want of success—quite unreasonably, for he and everybody else had done all that was possible to secure it—and he could not rest until he had vented his ill-humour upon some of the unfortunates placed in his power. Hence the cruel and unjust order; the issuing of which very nearly ended in results most disastrous, so far as I was personally concerned.

For, when the first man of the unfortunate batch had stripped and was seized up, seeing that the skipper actually intended to carry out his monstrous resolve—a fact which, until that moment, I had doubted—forgetting for the time everything but the cruelty and injustice of the action, I sprang forward and placing myself immediately in front of our frowning chief, exclaimed:

“No, no; do not do it, sir! I assure you that you are mistaken. The men do not deserve it, sir; they did their utmost, I am sure; indeed I heard Mr Reid remark to Mr Douglas that he had never seen the ship so beautifully steered before. Didn’t you, sir?” I continued, appealing to the first lieutenant.

“Young gentleman, you have placed me in a very awkward position,” replied poor old David, turning to me, very red in the face; “but I’ll not deny it; I did say so, and I meant it, too.”

Captain Pigot turned absolutely livid with fury; he was white even to the lips; his eyes literally blazed like those of a savage animal about to spring upon its prey; his hands were tightly clenched; and, for a moment, I felt that he would strike me. He did not, however; possibly even at that moment some instinct may have warned him that he was on the verge of committing a very grave imprudence; and, instead of striking the blow I had expected, he turned short on his heel and walked into his cabin. Then, and not until then—when I glanced about me and noted the universal consternation with which I was regarded—did I fully realise the enormity of the offence of which I had been guilty.

Captain Pigot was absent from the deck for perhaps ten minutes. When he returned the low hum of conversation which had set in on his disappearance abruptly ceased, and every eye was turned upon him in anticipation of the next act in this little drama.

He had evidently made a successful effort to subdue his excitement, for he was now, to all outward appearance, perfectly calm; this somewhat abrupt calmness seeming to me, I must confess, even more portentous than his recent exhibition of passion had been. Halting before me, he pointed sternly to the hatchway, and said:

“Go below, sir; and regard yourself as under arrest. I will consider your case by and by. So grave a dereliction of duty as that of which you have been guilty is not to be dealt with hurriedly.”

I bowed, and turned to go below; and, as I did so, I heard him say to the first lieutenant:

“Since you, Mr Reid, appear to have taken a different view of these men’s conduct from that which I had entertained, and have, moreover, seen fit to publicly express that view, I have no alternative but to give the fellows the benefit of our difference of opinion, and withhold that punishment which I still think they richly deserve. But I will take this opportunity of explaining to you, and to every other officer and man in this ship, that I reserve to myself the exclusive right of expressing an opinion as to the behaviour, individually and collectively, of those under my command; and, whatever any of you may choose to think upon such a matter, I shall expect that you will henceforward keep your opinion strictly to yourselves. Now, let the hands be piped down.”

I had paused just below and under cover of the coamings long enough to hear this speech to its conclusion; now, as the boatswain’s pipe sent forth its shrill sounds, I scurried off and made the best of my way to the midshipmen’s berth. I felt that I had allowed my sympathy to get the better of my discretion, and in so doing had plunged myself into a very awkward predicament, out of which I did not at all clearly see how I was to extricate myself; but, whatever might be the result to myself of my imprudence, it had at least been the means of saving several men from an undeserved flogging, and this reflection served somewhat to comfort me. I was speedily joined by those of the midshipmen whose watch below it then happened to be; and with them came a master’s mate named Farmer—a man of some thirty-five years of age, whose obscure parentage and want of influential friends had kept him back from promotion, and who in consequence of countless disappointments had grown chronically morose and discontented. My fellow-mids were very enthusiastic in their expressions of admiration for what they were pleased to term “the pluck with which I had tackled the skipper;” and equally profuse in the expression of their hopes and belief of a successful issue of the adventure. Farmer, however, speedily put a stopper upon their tongues by growling impatiently:

“Belay there with that jabbering, you youngsters; you don’t know what you are talking about. The fact is that Lascelles there has made a fool of himself and an enemy of the skipper; and to do the latter, let me tell you, is no joke, as he will probably discover to his cost. He has, however, done a kindly thing; and perhaps, in the long run, he may have no reason to regret it.”

I was suspended from duty for the remainder of that day, until late in the evening, when a marine made his appearance at the door of the berth, with an intimation that he had orders to conduct me to the captain’s cabin; and in the custody of this man—who was armed with a drawn bayonet—I was accordingly marched into the presence of the skipper. On entering the cabin, I found Captain Pigot sitting over his wine, with the first lieutenant seated on the opposite side of the table. When I entered the apartment Mr Reid was leaning across the table, talking to his superior in a low earnest tone of voice, but upon my entrance the conversation abruptly ceased. The marine saluted, announced me as “The prisoner, sir!” and then, facing automatically to the right, took up a position just outside the cabin door. I approached until within a respectful distance of the table, and then halted; the first lieutenant rising as I did so and closing the door.

“Well, young gentleman,” said the skipper when old David had resumed his seat, “have you anything to say by way of excuse for or explanation of your extraordinary and—and—insubordinate conduct this morning?”

“Nothing, sir,” I replied, “except that I felt you were about—under the influence of a grave misapprehension—to inflict punishment upon men who had not deserved it; and that if you did so you would certainly regret the act most deeply. It was from no motive of disrespect that I acted as I did, I assure you, sir; it was done on the impulse of the moment, and because I felt that if the evil was to be prevented it must be done instantly. I acted as I should have wished another to act had I been in your place, sir.”

This I felt was but a lame explanation, and not likely to help me to any great extent out of my difficulty; but there was really nothing else I could say without directly charging the skipper with wanton tyranny, which it was certainly not the place of a reefer on his first cruise to do; if Mr Reid and the rest of the officers were content with the position of affairs it was not for me to gainsay them.

“Very well, young gentleman,” answered the skipper, after a somewhat lengthy pause, “I am willing to accept your explanation, and to believe that you acted upon a good motive the more readily that Mr Reid here has been most eloquent pleading your cause, and giving you the best of characters. But, hark ye, Mr Lascelles, never, for the future, presume to form any opinion—good or bad—upon your captain’s conduct; nor, under any circumstances, attempt to put him right. You are too young and too inexperienced to be capable of forming a just judgment of the actions of your superiors; moreover, a midshipman’s duty is to obey, not to judge or advise his superior officers. You may return to your duty, sir; and let the unpleasant incident of to-day be a warning to you throughout the remainder of your career.”

Highly delighted, and, I must confess, equally surprised in so easy an escape from what threatened at the outset to be an exceedingly awkward scrape, I stammered out a few confused words of thanks and assurances of good behaviour for the future, bowed, and executed a somewhat hasty retreat.

Chapter Five.

A “Cutting-Out” Expedition.

On going on deck to stand my watch that night shortly after my dismissal by Captain Pigot, found the squadron heading to the northward on an easy bowline, under reefed topsails, with the island of Tortuga bearing south-east, about ten miles distant. We continued on the starboard tack during the whole of that night, tacking at eight o’clock on the following morning, and heading in toward the land once more, at the same time shaking the reefs out of our topsails. An hour later the lookout aloft reported a sail to leeward; and, on signalling the fact to the admiral, the Hermione received permission to chase.

We managed to approach within ten miles of the stranger without exciting his suspicions; but shortly afterwards a doubt appeared to enter his mind as to the honesty of our intentions, and he tacked, no doubt with the object of ascertaining whether our business had anything to do with him or not. He soon found that it had; for before he was fairly round our course had been altered so as to intercept him. This sufficed to thoroughly alarm him, and, wearing short round, he went square off before the wind, setting every stitch of canvas his little vessel—a schooner of some seventy tons—could spread to the breeze. The chase now showed herself to be a very smart little craft, staggering along under her cloud of canvas in a really surprising manner; indeed, had the pursuit lasted an hour longer we should probably have lost her, for she was within five miles of the harbour of Jean Rabel when we succeeded in bringing her to.

The obstinate craft having at length consented to back her topsail, Courtenay was sent away in the gig, with the crew fully armed, to give her an overhaul.

He remained on board nearly half an hour, and when he returned he brought the skipper of the schooner, a negro, with him. The little vessel, it now appeared, was a coaster, sailing under French colours, and was bound from Jean Rabel to Porto Caballo. She was consequently a prize, though utterly valueless to us; and Courtenay’s instructions had been that, if such proved to be the case, he was to take her crew out of her and set her on fire. She, however, belonged to the negro who commanded her, and he had begged so earnestly that his property might be spared, and had backed up his petition by representations of so important a nature, that Courtenay had deemed it best, before carrying out his instructions, to bring the man on board the Hermione, and give him an interview with Captain Pigot. The skipper was in his cabin when the gig returned alongside, so Courtenay went in and made his report, the result being that the negro was speedily admitted to Captain Pigot’s presence. The next thing that happened was the summoning of the first lieutenant to the cabin, Courtenay being at the same time dismissed. A conference of some twenty minutes’ duration now ensued, at the termination of which Courtenay, with half a dozen men as a prize-crew, was sent away to take charge of the schooner; and on the return of the boat, both vessels filled away and stood off the land on a taut bowline, the negro owner of the schooner being detained on board the frigate.

Early the next morning the remainder of the squadron was sighted, and immediately after breakfast Captain Pigot boarded the commodore, taking the negro with him. He was absent for the greater part of the morning, and that something of moment was on the tapis soon became apparent, from the fact that the captains of the Quebec, Mermaid, Drake, and Penelope were signalled for. Everybody was now on the qui vive, a pleasant excitement taking the place of that stolid sullen indifference and apathy on the part of our crew which had gradually resulted from the skipper’s ill-advised harshness to them. At length the boats were seen to push off on their way back to their respective ships; and, a few minutes later, Captain Pigot passed up the gangway and came in on deck. Everybody now waited in breathless expectation for the anticipated order which should convey to us an inkling of the nature of the work in hand; but, to our general disappointment, no such order was given. The skipper’s face, however, wore a look of exultant satisfaction, and his demeanour was so much less unpleasant than usual that we felt convinced there was something in the wind; and all hands settled down accordingly to await, with what patience we could muster, the development of events.

It was not, however, until two days later, the 20th of April, that our curiosity was satisfied. A signal from the commodore requesting the captains of the Hermione, Quebec, Mermaid, Drake, and Penelope to repair on board him, was the first incident of the day; and this was followed by a conference so protracted that the gigs’ crews only got back to their ships barely in time for dinner. A most careful and scrupulous inspection of the arm-chest consumed nearly the whole of the afternoon watch; and finally, at eight bells, or four o’clock p.m., after a considerable amount of signalling, the ships already named detached themselves from the rest of the squadron, and, under Captain Pigot’s orders, made sail to the westward; the negro captain being at the same time restored to his command and allowed to proceed on his way.

Urged forward by a brisk trade-wind, to which we exposed every possible stitch of canvas, the little squadron made short miles of it, arriving, at three o’clock in the morning, off Port à l’Écu; where, at a distance of about a mile off the shore and some two miles from the harbour of Jean Rabel on the one hand, and Port au Paix on the other, the trade-wind encountering the land-breeze, we ran into a calm. A carefully-masked lantern was now exhibited on board the Hermione, the utmost caution being observed to prevent its light being seen from the shore, and at the same moment our launch, pinnace, and first and second cutters, the two former each carrying a boat’s gun in the bows, were ordered away.

To Mr Reid, who, in conjunction with Lieutenant Burdwood of the Penelope, had been closeted with the skipper for at least two hours previously, was intrusted the command of one division of the boats which was about to be sent away, Lieutenant Burdwood being placed at the head of the other division. Mr Reid went, of course, in our launch; Mr Douglas commanded the pinnace; Farmer, a master’s mate, was put in charge of the first cutter; and, to my supreme surprise and gratification, I was instructed to take charge of the second.

In less than five minutes, so well planned had been Captain Pigot’s arrangements, our boats were joined by the rest of the flotilla; and, the whole having been quietly but rapidly marshalled by Mr Reid into two divisions, our muffled oars dropped simultaneously into the water, and we departed on our several ways.

Mr Burdwood, with his division, consisting of four boats from the Mermaid, two from the Drake, and two from his own vessel, pulled briskly away to the eastward, his destination being, as I shortly afterwards learned, Port au Paix, whilst the division to which I belonged headed west for Jean Rabel.

The night was fine, but very dark; a broad belt of dappled cloud overspreading almost the entire heavens, and permitting only an isolated star or two to twinkle feebly through it here and there. A couple of miles in the offing the trade-wind was blowing briskly, and inshore of us, at a distance of less than a quarter of a mile, the land-breeze was roaring down off the hills with the strength of half a gale. Where the two met there occurred a narrow belt of calm, broken into momentarily by an eddying puff of wind, now warm, as the trade-wind got slightly the better of the land-breeze, and anon cool, refreshing, and odoriferous with the perfume of a thousand flowers, as the land-breeze regained the ascendency and pushed forward in its turn on the domain of the trade-wind. Mr Reid availed himself of the opportunity afforded by our passage across this narrow belt of calm to rally the rest of the boats round the launch for a moment, in order to explain the object of the expedition, and to give a few brief directions respecting the movements of each boat. From this explanation we now learned that we were about to make an attack upon two privateer brigs, together with a ship and brig which had been captured by them, all of which were lying in Jean Rabel harbour, and were believed to be well protected and very strongly manned. The ship—a very fine vessel, which had recently been armed with eighteen 9-pounder brass guns, and manned by a crew of over one hundred men—our gallant “first” proposed to attack in person, the launch being supported by the first and second cutters. Mr Douglas, our second lieutenant, aided by the Quebec’s launch, was to tackle the heaviest of the privateer brigs; the Quebec’s first and second cutters were to attack the other; whilst the Mermaid’s second cutter and the Quebec’s gig were to make a dash at the remaining brig, a prize, and, having secured her, hold themselves in readiness to lend a hand wherever their presence might seem to be most required. Our work having thus been explicitly set out for us, Mr Reid gave the word for us to renew our advance, and we once more pushed ahead.

No night could well have been more favourable for such an attack as ours—which was meant to be a surprise, if possible—than the one selected; so dark, indeed, was it that, by a piece of the rarest good fortune, we had actually entered the harbour before we were able to completely identify our whereabouts.

It now became necessary for us to pause for a moment and look about us, in order to ascertain the locality of our game; and the word was accordingly quietly passed from boat to boat for the men to lay on their oars. At first it was simply impossible for us to distinguish anything—except the land, which loomed vague and dark, like a broad shadow, above the water. At length, however, one of the men in the launch announced, in a low cautious whisper, that he could make out the spars of a vessel directly ahead; and immediately afterwards, the clouds overhead breaking slightly away for a moment, we were able to distinguish the craft herself.

Feeling sure that this must be one of the vessels of which we were in quest, Mr Reid at once gave the order for the flotilla to again move cautiously forward; and the boats’ oars immediately dipped into the phosphorescent water, causing it to gleam and flash brilliantly. There is no doubt that this vivid phosphorescence of the water—which must have been visible at a long distance in the intense darkness of the night—occasioned the premature discovery of our presence which now took place; for the men had not pulled half a dozen strokes before a startled hail came pealing out across the water; to which we of course paid not the slightest attention. Failing to get a reply, the hail was hurriedly repeated, a musket was fired, and a port-fire was burned on board the craft first sighted, which now proved to be the brig which our pinnace and the Quebec’s launch were destined to attack. For the burning of this port-fire, though it rendered further concealment on our part impossible, we were very much obliged, as by its unearthly glare we were enabled to discern the whereabouts of the remaining vessels, at which, with a wild cheer, the crews of the boats at once dashed with the most commendable promptitude.

The ship happened to be moored in the innermost berth, or that which was farthest up the harbour; our contingent, therefore—consisting of the Hermione’s launch, first, and second cutters—was the last to get alongside; and by the time that we reached the craft her crew were quite ready to receive us. She was, fortunately for us, riding head to wind, with her bows pointing up the harbour, and her stern directly towards us; consequently the only guns which she could bring to bear upon us were her two stern-chasers, each of which she fired twice, without effect. We were within twenty yards of her when the guns were fired for the second time; and immediately afterwards a most formidable volley of musketry was poured into us. Strange to say, though the bullets sent a perfect shower of splinters flying about our ears, not a man in either boat was hit; and before the Frenchmen had time to load again we were alongside—the launch on the port quarter, the first cutter under the main chains on the starboard side, and my boat under the bows. Luckily for us, they had not had time to trice up the boarding nettings, so that, with the aid of a volley from our pistols, we had not much difficulty in making our way in over the craft’s low bulwarks. But when we gained the deck we found it literally crowded with Frenchmen, who met us with a most stubborn resistance; and had there been light enough for them to see what they were doing, we should probably have been driven back to our boats in less than three minutes. But the port-fire had by this time burnt itself out, or been extinguished, and the darkness, save for the intermittent flash of the pistols, was profound; so that, although there was a great deal of firing, of hacking, and hewing, and shouting, there was very little harm being done, at least to our side, so far as I could see. And if the French had the advantage of us in point of numbers, we had the advantage of them in an equally important matter; for whilst our men were dressed in their ordinary rig of blue-jackets and trousers, rendering them almost invisible in the darkness, the suddenness of our attack had compelled our enemies to turn out on deck in their shirts only, by which we were able to distinguish them pretty clearly.

The fight had been progressing in this unsatisfactory manner for about ten minutes, when suddenly the dash and rattle of oars was heard alongside, immediately followed by a ringing British cheer. In another instant a ghastly blue glare of light illumined the decks; and we saw Douglas, at the head of the pinnace’s crew, fling himself in over the bulwarks, with a lighted port-fire held aloft in one hand, whilst he brandished his sword with the other. This timely reinforcement at once brought the fight to a conclusion, the Frenchmen forthwith flinging down their weapons and crying for quarter. The help came not a moment too soon, so far as Farmer was concerned; for the very first act of Mr Douglas, on reaching the deck, was to cleave to the chin a Frenchman whom he saw with both knees on Farmer’s chest and with his sword shortened in his hand about to pin the unfortunate master’s mate to the deck.

The Frenchmen were at once driven below and the hatches clapped over them; after which our lads were sent aloft to loose the topsails; and, the cable being cut, the ship was got under weigh. Whilst this was doing, I had time to question our gallant “second” as to the cause of his opportune appearance; and I then learned that so complete had been the surprise that the other craft had been taken almost without an effort; and that as soon as this was accomplished and the crews secured Mr Douglas had hastened to our assistance, rightly surmising that, from the longer warning given to the ship’s crew and their great strength, we should have our hands pretty full with them. The moon, in her last quarter, and dwindled to the merest crescent, was just rising over the hills to the eastward of us as we swept before the land-breeze out of Jean Rabel harbour; and by her feeble light I was enabled with some difficulty to discern that, by my watch, it was just four o’clock in the morning. Thus satisfactorily terminated this cutting-out expedition; the most surprising circumstance connected with which was, perhaps, the fact that, when the hands were mustered, not one was found to have received a hurt worthy of being termed a wound.

We had scarcely got clear of the land with our prizes—consisting of one ship and three brigs—when we discovered three schooners and two sloops standing out from Port au Paix; and as they, like ourselves, were heading directly for the squadron in the offing, we conjectured—and rightly, as it afterwards proved—that they were the vessels which Lieutenant Burdwood had been sent in to attack.

Late in the evening of the following day we rejoined the remainder of the squadron, and Captain Pigot at once proceeded on board the admiral to report the complete success of the expedition. Nothing was settled that night as to the disposal of the prizes, but on the following forenoon it was arranged that, as both the Quebec and ourselves were getting short of provisions and water, we should escort the prizes into Port Royal, and at the same time avail ourselves of the opportunity to revictual.

We reached our destination in due time without adventure, and as it then seemed likely that there would be some delay in the matter of revictualling, Mr Reid improved the occasion to give the spars and rigging a thorough overhaul. This, with such repairs and renewals as were found necessary, kept all hands busy for four full days, at the end of which time the ship was once more all ataunto. Meanwhile, from some unexplained cause or other, the provisions were coming on board very slowly, much, it must be confessed, to the delight of the crew, who, having worked hard at the overhauling and repairs of the rigging—to say nothing of their behaviour at Jean Rabel—now confidently expected at least a day’s liberty with its accompanying jollification ashore. But when the request for it was made Captain Pigot point-blank refused in language of the most intemperate and abusive character, stigmatising the whole crew as, without exception, a pack of skulking, cowardly ruffians. He added a pretty broad hint that in his opinion the officers were nearly, if not quite as bad as the men, and finished up by swearing roundly that not a man or boy, forward or aft, should set foot on shore, even though the ship should remain in harbour until she grounded upon her own beef-bones.

This was exasperating enough in all conscience, even for the hands forward, who, though there were certainly some rough characters among them, were by no means all bad—indeed a full half of the entire crew were really as smart willing fellows as one need wish to see; but it was even worse for the officers, for we had all been looking eagerly forward to a certain ball which was about to be given by the governor, to which every one of us had received an invitation. The disappointment was so keen and so general that good-natured “old David”—as our genial “first” was dubbed by all hands—took it upon himself to respectfully remonstrate with the skipper upon so arbitrary and high-handed a treatment of the ship’s company, with no result, however, except that the first lieutenant received an unmitigated snubbing for his pains.

The revictualling of the ship was completed about five o’clock in the evening upon which the ball was to take place; there was plenty of time, therefore, for us aft to have availed ourselves of the governor’s invitation had the skipper seen fit, but he remained obdurate, and we consequently had to content ourselves with watching the departure of the officers from the other ships, and framing such excuses as came uppermost at the moment in reply to the inquiries of such of them as passed near us as to why we were not going. This was made all the more difficult from the fact that, though we were under orders to sail at daybreak next morning, there were no less than three other ships in harbour similarly circumstanced, the officers of which were nevertheless going to be present at the ball. The only consolation we could find was in the reflection that, whereas the others would commence the duties of the next day fagged out with a long night’s dancing, we should rise to them refreshed, with a more or less sound night’s rest; and with this small crumb of comfort we were fain to go below and turn in.

When the hands were called next morning it was found that Captain Pigot was still absent from the ship, but as he was expected to turn up at any moment the messenger was passed and the cable hove short. A slight stir was occasioned by the crews of the other three ships making preparations to get under way; and as these craft one after the other let fall and sheeted home their topsails, finally tripping their anchors and making their way to sea with the last of the land-breeze, it became evident that something out of the ordinary course must have occurred to delay our skipper. It was close upon eight bells when the gig was sighted pulling down from the direction of Kingston, and when a few minutes later Captain Pigot came up over the side, it was noticed that he was ghastly pale and that his right arm was in a sling. He seemed to be suffering considerably, and it was in a somewhat wavering voice that he said to the first-lieutenant:

“Are you all ready, Mr Reid? Then get your anchor, sir, and let us be off at once. And, Mr Courtenay, be good enough to tell the surgeon I wish to see him in my cabin.”

With which he turned short round and walked somewhat unsteadily away, not making his appearance on deck again for nearly a week.

It afterwards transpired that his awkward temper had led to a quarrel, during the progress of the ball, between himself and one of the soldier officers from Up-park Camp, which quarrel had terminated in a meeting on the Palisades, the soldier escaping unscathed, whilst Captain Pigot had emerged from the encounter with his arm broken by a bullet from his adversary’s pistol.

Noon that day found us off Morant Point thrashing to windward under single-reefed topsails, with a sea running which every now and then made the frigate careen gunwale-to.

Chapter Six.

A Remonstrance—and its Sequel.

Our instructions, it seemed, were that we should cruise to the southward of Saint Domingo, from Cape Tiburon as far eastward as the Mona Passage, giving an occasional look into Port-au-Prince. We accordingly carried on all that day, taking a second reef in the topsails at sunset, and heaving the ship round on the starboard tack at midnight, which brought us well in under the lee of Cape Tiburon by daybreak next morning. We were then on our cruising ground; sail was shortened, and the frigate, being hove about, was allowed to jog along under easy canvas. Thenceforward, until Captain Pigot reappeared on deck, we had a pleasant and comfortable time of it; for although the discipline of the ship was never for one moment relaxed, there was an utter absence of all that worry and petty tyranny, and, above all, those daily floggings which the skipper seemed to consider essential to the maintenance of a proper degree of subordination and smartness on the part of the crew.

With the reappearance of Captain Pigot on deck, however, this brief period of rest and quietness came to an end. The pain and irritation of his wound, together, perhaps, with the reflection that he had been worsted in an encounter brought about by his own arrogant and overbearing demeanour, seemed to have chafed his temper almost to the point of madness. The floggings were resumed with greater severity than ever; and every time the hands were turned up a boatswain’s-mate, armed with a colt, was stationed at each hatchway, with instructions to “freshen the way” of the last man on the ladder. And the same with shortening or making sail, the last man out of the rigging on each mast received a liberal application of the execrable colt to his shoulders. It certainly had the effect of making the men smart in a double sense, but it also made them, perhaps, the most discontented crew in the service.

Thus matters went on, steadily growing from bad to worse, until the month of September set in. We had been dodging off and on, carefully beating over every inch of our cruising ground and looking into every likely and unlikely spot, in the hope of picking up a prize or two, and our non-success had been simply phenomenal. It really seemed as though every craft worth the trouble of capture had deserted our part of the world altogether. This of course resulted, as was perhaps only natural, in a further accession of acerbity fore and aft, the brunt of which of course fell upon the hands forward, who—what with drill of one sort and another, perpetual making and shortening of sail, shifting of spars and canvas, overhauling and setting-up of the rigging, lengthy, tedious, and wholly unnecessary boat expeditions, in addition to the incessant floggings and coltings already referred to—at length found their lives a positive burden to them. This kind of treatment could, of course, produce but one result, and, by the period before-named, the crew had been wrought up to such a pitch of exasperation and revengeful fury, that I am convinced they would have refused to go to the guns had we encountered an enemy. It may easily be imagined how difficult and anxious a task it was for the officers to carry on the duty of the ship under such circumstances as these.

It had by this time become clear to everybody—excepting, apparently, Captain Pigot himself—that the existing state of affairs could not possibly last much longer; and at length the first lieutenant, recognising the gravity of the situation, took it upon himself to invite the second and third lieutenants and the master to a consultation in his own cabin, the result of which consultation was a resolve to adopt the extreme measure of making a collective representation and appeal to the skipper. This being decided, it was determined to carry out the resolve on that same evening, the time to be during the first dog-watch, it being Captain Pigot’s habit to retire to his cabin after eight bells had been struck, and to devote an hour or so to reading before dinner.

Accordingly, no sooner had the skipper left the deck than I was despatched by Mr Reid to apprise Mr Douglas, Mr Maxwell, and Mr Southcott of the fact, and to state that the first lieutenant awaited them on the quarter-deck. We midshipmen had of course been left in the dark as to the proposed interview; but the message of which I was the bearer was of so very unusual a character that I at once suspected there must be something out of the common in prospect; and when, a few minutes later, I saw the four principal officers of the ship march with portentously solemn faces into the cabin, I determined that, right or wrong, I would know what was in the wind.

Fortunately for my purpose it was my watch below, and my absence from the deck would consequently not be noticed. It took me but a moment to form my plans, and not much more to execute them. The ship had a full poop, under which the captain’s cabin was situated; the weather was warm, and all the ports were open. Slipping off my shoes and thrusting them beneath a gun, where they were not likely to be discovered, I made my way in my stockings up on to the poop, which was entirely deserted, and at once slipped over the side into the mizzen channels. The lid of one of the ports was then immediately beneath me, and I knew beforehand that there was just room for me to squeeze in upon it, where, though my attitude must be somewhat constrained, I should be perfectly concealed from every eye, whilst I should also be able to hear with tolerable distinctness every word which might be spoken in the cabin in an ordinary conversational tone of voice.

Now, I am not going to defend my conduct. I know, and I knew at the time, that I was doing what I had no business to do, but I was quite free from any feeling of absolute wrong-doing; I had an instinctive perception that the interview in which I was about to play the part of eaves-dropper was in some way connected with the critical state of affairs then prevailing on board, and I felt that whilst my cognisance of what was about to pass could be hurtful to nobody, the knowledge might be advantageous to myself, and possibly to others also. If I acted wrongly I must be content to bear the blame; the fact remains that I posted myself safely and undetected in the position I had fixed upon, and overheard almost every word which passed in the brief interview between the skipper and his visitors.

As I swung myself out over the channels and settled myself into my somewhat cramped quarters I heard Captain Pigot’s strident voice speaking in a tone of surprised inquiry; but I was too busy just then to catch what he said. By the time he had finished, however, I was all ready to listen; and I presently heard Mr Reid reply:

“We have taken the unusual step, sir, of waiting upon you thus in a body, to direct your attention, in the most respectful manner, to the present condition and temper of the ship’s company, the which we conceive to have resulted wholly from your excessive severity toward them. They are, almost to a man, in such an excited and dangerous frame of mind that we have the greatest difficulty in maintaining discipline, and keeping them under proper control. Indeed, to adequately carry on the duty of the ship has become almost an impossibility; and—to speak the truth frankly, sir—on comparing notes with my brother officers we have come to the conclusion that the men are no longer to be depended upon in case of an emergency. Matters cannot possibly remain much longer in their present state, a change of some sort is inevitable; and we would most respectfully suggest, sir, to your earnest and immediate consideration the desirability of adopting a more lenient and generous line of policy—”

“Great Heaven! man, do you know what you are saying?” gasped the skipper. And the crash of a falling chair together with the quiver in his voice seemed to indicate that he had started to his feet in a paroxysm of fury which he was ineffectually struggling to suppress. “How dare you,” he continued—“how dare anyone or all of you presume to call in question my conduct, or dictate to me the line of policy which I shall pursue with regard to my crew—a lazy, skulking, cowardly set of vagabonds, three-fourths of whom are foreigners? Why, man, if it had not been for the severe discipline of which you complain they would have had the ship away from us ere now. I know the class of men I have to deal with, aboard here, and I also know how to deal with them; and you may take my word for it that I will never rest satisfied until I have made them the smartest crew in the service. As to the difficulty you profess to experience in carrying on the duty of the ship, I must confess I have not observed it, the rascals have always appeared active and willing enough whenever I have been on deck—thanks to that wholesome fear of the cat with which I have imbued them; and if the difficulty really exists, I cannot but think, gentlemen, the fault must be with yourselves, and it can easily be cured by a somewhat firmer maintenance, rather than a relaxation, of that rigid discipline which you deprecate. And I will take this opportunity of mentioning, whilst we are upon the subject, my very strong disapproval of the manifest tendency which I have observed in the officers of this ship to overlook and condone what I suppose they would term trifling infractions of duty. In so doing, gentlemen, you have made a most grievous mistake, which, however, I will do my best to remedy in the immediate future. There is nothing like plenty of flogging if you wish to keep such curs in proper order.”

During the progress of this speech the skipper had gradually recovered the control of his temper; the tremulous tones of anger in his voice were succeeded by those of bitter sarcasm; and the manifest sneer with which he concluded made my blood boil.

There was a momentary pause, then I heard the first lieutenant say:

“With all submission, sir, permit me to say that I believe—nay, that I am convinced—you wholly misunderstand the character and disposition of the crew. Some of them—far too many of them, indeed—are foreigners, who have neither the strength nor the spirit to perform their duties as efficiently as Englishmen would, but I believe that, for the most part, they honestly do their best; and for honest service, faithfully performed, perpetual flogging seems to me but a poor reward. The jail-birds among our own countrymen are the most difficult subjects to deal with, and flogging only hardens them; if I had to deal with them I should be far more disposed to look for a cure from the contempt and raillery of their shipmates. Besides, the rogues are so cunning that they frequently succeed in shifting the blame on to other shoulders; and when one man gets punished for another’s offences we know that the tendency is to make him sullen and discontented. I could name at least a dozen men who, from being bright smart, active, reliable men at the commencement of the cruise, have degenerated into as many idle skulks, solely because their good qualities have received no recognition, and they have been punished over and over again for the faults of others. And as to our leniency toward the men—”

“There, that will do, Mr Reid; the less said on that head the better,” interrupted the skipper impatiently. “This discussion has gone far enough,” he continued, “and I must now request you all to withdraw. You have—relieved your consciences, let us say, by entering this formal protest and expressing your disapproval of my method of dealing with the hands forward; now let the matter drop. And hark ye, one and all, if there is any repetition of this impertinent interference with me, by the Heaven above us I will clap the presumptuous individual who attempts it in irons, and bring him to court-martial at the first convenient port we reach. Now go, and be hanged to you!”

“Very well, sir,” said old David, “we will go; but, before we leave your presence, permit me to observe that—”

I heard no more, for, perceiving that the interview was about to somewhat abruptly terminate, I judged it best to effect an escape from my place of concealment whilst escape was still possible, and I forthwith proceeded hurriedly to do so. I managed to make my way back to the quarter-deck without attracting attention, and had barely secured my shoes and replaced them on my feet when the first lieutenant and his companions emerged from the poop cabin and began to pace the quarter-deck in apparently careless conversation, though I could tell, by the gloomy expression of their countenances, that they were discussing an anything but agreeable topic.

At length the westering sun approached the horizon; and Mr Douglas and Mr Southcott retired to their cabins in anticipation of Captain Pigot’s appearance on deck to watch the nightly operation of reefing topsails, leaving Mr Reid and Mr Maxwell to slowly pace the quarter-deck side by side. It being now my watch on deck, I stationed myself in the waist on the larboard side of the deck and endeavoured to forget the gloomy forebodings which had arisen out of the conversation I had recently overheard by abandoning myself to the soothing influences of the glorious eventide.

It was indeed a glorious evening, such as is seldom or never to be met with outside the tropics. The wind had gradually fallen away during the afternoon until it had dropped stark calm; and there the ship lay, with her head to the northward, gently rolling on the long glassy swell which came creeping stealthily up out from the northward and eastward. The small islands of Mona and Monita—the latter a mere rock—lay broad on our larboard quarter about eight miles distant, two delicate purplish pink blots on the south-western horizon, whilst Desecho reared its head above the north-eastern horizon on our starboard bow, a soft grey marking in the still softer grey haze of the sky in that quarter. A great pile of delicately-tinted purple and ruby clouds with golden edges lay heaped up in detached fantastic masses along the glowing western horizon, shaped into the semblance of an aerial archipelago, with far-stretching promontories and peninsulas, and boldly jutting capes and headlands with deep gulfs and winding straits of rosy sky between. Some of these celestial islands were shaped along their edges into a series of minute gold-tipped projections and irregularities, which needed only the slightest effort of the fancy to become converted into the spires and pinnacles of a populous city or busy seaport; whilst certain minute detached flakelets of crimson and golden cloud dotted here and there about the aerial channels might easily be imagined to be fairy argosies navigating the celestial sea. Gazing, as I did, enraptured, upon that scene of magical beauty, it was not difficult to guess at the origin of that most poetical—as it is perhaps the oldest—nautical superstition, which gives credence to the idea that there exists, far away beyond the sunset, an enchanted region which poor storm-beaten sailors are sometimes permitted to reach, and wherein, during an existence which is indefinitely prolonged, they enjoy a complete immunity from all those perils and hardships with which the seaman’s life is ordinarily environed; wherein life is one long day of ineffable peace and rest and tranquillity; and from whence every disagreeable influence is permanently banished.

I was abruptly aroused from my fanciful musings by the sound of the ship’s bell, four strokes upon which proclaimed the end of the first dog-watch. The momentary bustle of calling the watch immediately followed, in the midst of which came the customary orders to reef topsails. Simultaneously with the appearance of the larboard watch, Captain Pigot issued from his cabin and, ascending the poop ladder, made his way aft to the taffrail, from which position he was able to command a view of the proceedings on each topsail-yard. The royals and topgallant-sails were very smartly clewed up and furled; and, as the topsail halyards were let run, I saw the skipper pull out his watch and, noting the time by it, hold it face upwards in his hand.

“Soho!” thought I, “that does not look very much as though the first lieutenant’s remonstrance had produced any beneficial effect; there’s trouble in store for some of those unfortunates on the yards if they are not exceptionally lively.”

The hands themselves, who had not failed to mark the skipper’s actions, seemed to think so too, and they set about their work with the activity of wild-cats. But “the more hurry the less speed” is an old adage; and so it proved in the present case, the men on the mizzen topsail-yard managing so to bungle matters that when, on the expiration of two and a half minutes—the outside limit of time allowed by the skipper for reefing a topsail—Captain Pigot closed his watch with a snap and replaced it smartly in his pocket, several of the reef-points still remained to be tied.

“Now,” thought I, “look out for squalls.” And as the thought passed through my mind the squall came, in the shape of a hail from the skipper himself.

“Mizzen topsail-yard, there!” he shouted, “what are you about, you lazy lubbers? Do you intend to spend the remainder of the watch in reefing that topsail? Wake up, and put some life into your motions, for (and here came an oath) I’ll flog the last man off the yard.”

The work was completed ere he had finished speaking, and the men began hurriedly and in some little confusion to lay in off the yard. There was a decided scramble for the topmast rigging, each man naturally striving to be off the yard before his neighbour, and thus exposing himself and those immediately about him to a very considerable amount of peril.

Mr Reid, who was also on the poop near the skipper, saw this, and hailed the men with:

“Steady, there, on the mizzen topsail-yard; steady, men, and take things quietly, or some of you will be meeting with a nasty accident.”

The men’s fear of an accident was, however, less than their dread of a flogging, and the hustling went on, much, apparently to the amusement of Captain Pigot, who smiled cynically as he silently watched the struggle. The two captains of the to were in the most disadvantageous position of all, as they, bent supposed to be the two smartest hands on the yard, had laid out, one to each yard-arm to pass and haul out the earrings and they would consequently, in the ordinary course of things be the last men off the yard. This, however, meant a flogging for at least one of them, which they were resolved to escape if possible. Instead, therefore, of laying in along the foot-rope like the rest of the men, they scrambled up on the yard, by the aid of the lifts, and standing erect on the spar, started to run in along it toward the mast. They managed very well until they reached the little struggling crowd about the topmast rigging, when, to avoid them, the two men made a spring simultaneously for the back-stays. How it happened can never be known, but, somehow or other, both overleaped themselves missed the back-stays, and came crashing down on the poop where they lay motionless upon the white planks which in another moment were crimsoned with their blood.

Captain Pigot turned ghastly pale as this sudden and terrible consequence of his tyrannical behaviour presented itself to him; but he never moved a single step to help either of the injured men. The first lieutenant, however, sprang forward and raised the head of one poor fellow, whilst I, springing up the poop ladder, went to the assistance of the other. The man to whom I went lay on his face, and, as I turned him over and raised his head, I turned sick and faint at the ghastly sight which met my horrified gaze. The features were battered out of all recognition, the lower jaw was broken, and from what appeared to be the crushed face the blood was spurting in a torrent which almost instantly drenched through my small-clothes and wetted me to the skin. Unable to endure the terrible spectacle, I turned my eyes in Mr Reid’s direction, only to see that the unfortunate man whom he supported was in quite as bad a plight. It was evident not only that the poor fellow was dead, but also that death must have been instantaneous, the neck being broken, and the crown of the skull apparently crushed in such a way that the brain could be seen protruding, and the deck also was bespattered.

“Pass the word for the surgeon, there, somebody, and tell him to look smart!” gasped poor old David in a voice so hoarse and changed with horror and grief that I should never have recognised it as his had I not seen his lips move.

In a minute or two the surgeon made his appearance on the scene, and a very brief examination sufficed to enable him to pronounce both the men dead.

The first lieutenant undertook to announce the sad intelligence to the skipper, who still remained standing in the same position, apparently as unconcerned as if nothing had happened. I must confess that I, for one, fully expected to see some very decided manifestation of emotion on the captain’s part when he learned the tragical nature of the disaster; but, instead of that, on being told the news, he—to the horror and indignation of everybody who heard him—simply said:

“Um! dead, are they? Then throw the lubbers overboard!” And this was actually done. Without the slightest pretence to ceremony or reverence of any kind, without so much as a single prayer to consecrate their dismissal to their final resting-place in the bosom of the deep, without even pausing to sew up the poor fellows in their hammocks, with a shot at their feet to ensure their safe arrival in the quiet and peaceful region of the ocean’s bed, the bodies were straightway raised from the deck and, with a “One, two, three, heave!” were flung over the side, to be instantly fought over and torn to pieces by some half a dozen sharks which had put in an unsuspected appearance on the scene. Many a curse, “not loud but deep,” was called down upon the skipper’s head that night by the shipmates of the murdered men—for murdered they undoubtedly were—and many a vow of complete and speedy vengeance was solemnly registered. Insulted, scoffed at, derided, their last spark of self-respect—if indeed any such thing still remained to them—outraged and trodden under foot, the crew were that night changed from men to devils; and if, at the conclusion of those unceremonious obsequies, a leader had but stepped forward and placed himself at their head, they would have risen upon us and, all unarmed as they were, torn us to pieces.

No such thought or fear, however, appeared to present itself to Captain Pigot, for, instead of evincing or expressing any sorrow for what had occurred, he imperiously ordered the hands to be mustered in the waist, with the evident intention of “reading them a lecture,” as he was wont to term his too frequent hectoring addresses.

The men, sullen, and with suppressed fury blazing in their eyes and revealing itself in their every gesture, swarmed aft and stood in reckless expectation of some further outrage. Nor were they disappointed.

“I have sent for you,” the skipper began, in his most sneering and contemptuous accents, “not to express any hypocritical sorrow for the occurrence which has just taken place, but to point out to you the obvious lesson which is to be learned from it—a lesson which I fear your dense ignorance, your utter destitution of discernment and common-sense, would prevent your ever discovering for yourselves. Within the last half-hour two men have come to their deaths. How? Why, by a sneaking, cowardly attempt to evade the punishment justly due to the lazy, skulking, lubberly way in which they performed their duty. It would have been better for them had they listened to the first lieutenant’s admonition and come quietly down from aloft, to receive at a proper time the punishment which they richly deserved. But they must needs attempt to shirk it, with the consequences which you have all witnessed; and, so far as I am concerned, I can only say that I think they have met with no more than their just deserts.

“But it is not of them I want to speak to you; it is of yourselves. The same shirking, idle, rebellious spirit which distinguished them is conspicuous in every one of you. It is little more than a couple of hours ago that your officers waited upon me in a body to make formal complaint of your idleness and insubordinate conduct. There was no necessity for them to do any such thing, for I am not altogether lacking in powers of observation, and I have not failed to notice that for some time past there has been a general disposition on the part of all hands to thwart and oppose me in every possible way; but I just mention the fact of this complaint to show you that I am not alone in my opinion as to your conduct. Now, my lads, you are a great many, and I am only one man; but if you suppose that on that account you will be able to get your own way, or successfully oppose me, you will discover that you never made a greater mistake in your lives. You may shirk your work, or perform it in a slovenly, unseamanlike manner as long as you please, but I warn you, one and all, that I have made up my mind to convert you from the lazy, skulking, mutinous set of tinkers and tailors you now are, into the smartest and best-disciplined crew in the service; and by Heaven I will do it too, even though it should be necessary to administer a daily flogging to every man in the ship. There are some few of you who are a shade worse—a shade more idle, and lubberly, and insubordinate—than the rest; you, Jones, are one; you, Hoskings, are another, and you, Thomson, Kirkpatrick, Davis, Morrison, I have my eye upon all of you; you are booked, every man of you, for an early taste of the cat; and I assure you that when it comes it will be a sharp one. You shall learn that, in laying yourselves out to oppose your captain, you have undertaken a task altogether beyond your strength. You shall have neither rest nor peace day or night, henceforward, until I have completely quelled your present rebellious spirit and brought you to a proper condition of subordination and smartness. So now, my lads, you know what you have to expect, and, whatever happens, you will never be able to say that I did not give you due warning. Pipe down!”

The men turned away and dispersed in perfect silence. Usually after the administration of a lecture, however severe, some irrepressible joker might be detected with his head cocked on one side and his face with a waggish grin upon it, turned toward his next neighbour, evidently giving utterance to some jocular comment upon the lately-delivered address, as he gave his breeches the true nautical hitch forward and abaft; but on this occasion there was nothing of the kind, the indignation and disgust aroused by the skipper’s arrogant and threatening speech appeared to be altogether too overpowering to allow of the escape of a humorous idea to the surface.

The silence of the men was so complete as to be, to my mind, ominous, whilst their bearing was marked by that peculiar air of defiant recklessness which is to be observed in individuals who feel that Fortune has at length done her very worst for them. How much longer, I wondered, would they thus tamely suffer themselves to be hectored and browbeaten? how much longer go quietly to the gangway and submit to be severely flogged for the most trifling offences? Then, too, I felt indignant at the unscrupulous way in which the skipper had misrepresented the nature of the officers’ recent interview with him, and had conveyed the impression that they were rather favouring than deprecating the severity of his discipline. Such conduct struck me as being not only barbarously tyrannical, but also in the highest degree impolitic; for what could any man of sense expect but that, by persistence in it, he would make good men bad, and bad men worse. And if the men were to turn restive in the presence of an enemy—which was, to my mind, not unlikely, though I never anticipated anything worse—what would be the result? The whole aspect of affairs looked unsatisfactory in the extreme, and when I turned into my hammock that night it was to indulge in sundry very gloomy forebodings before I finally dropped off to sleep; though Heaven knows how far I was from guessing at the scenes of horror of which the frigate was to be the theatre before another twenty-four hours had passed over my head.

Chapter Seven.

The Mutiny.

During the night a little air of wind sprang up from the eastward which carried us out clear of the Mona Passage, and when day dawned we found ourselves with a clear horizon all round the ship. At noon we wore round to retrace our steps, and by sunset we were within a dozen miles of the spot we had occupied at the same hour on the previous evening.

The day, for a wonder, had passed almost pleasantly; there had been no flogging; Captain Pigot had scarcely showed himself on deck, except for a few minutes after breakfast and again at noon; and the officers of the watches, glad to be freed from his obnoxious presence, had been careful not to unnecessarily hurry and badger the men whilst carrying on the duty of the ship. The only circumstance which, to my mind, seemed disquieting, was the unusual demeanour of the men, who performed their work, steadily enough indeed, but in a moody, unnatural silence, wearing, meantime, a gloomy, preoccupied air, whilst they at the same time—at least so it appeared to me—seemed to be, one and all, in a restless, anxious, watchful frame of mind, as though they were in momentary expectation of something happening. I could not at all understand this state of things, which was something quite new, for, notwithstanding the skipper’s intolerable tyranny, there were a few of the men—and those among the best and smartest hands we had in the ship—who had hitherto contrived to maintain a fairly cheerful demeanour, and who seldom let slip such an opportunity as that afforded by the captain’s absence from the deck to indulge in the exchange of a quiet bit of nautical humour or a harmless practical joke with their next neighbour. To-day, however, this sort of thing was conspicuously absent; and I was at first disposed to attribute the unwonted gloom to the men’s horror and regret at the lamentable accident of the previous evening. But that, I felt again, would scarcely account for it; for, however sincere may be Jack’s attachment to his shipmates whilst they are alive and with him, they are no sooner dead and buried than, from his quickly acquired habit of promptly casting behind him all disquieting memories, he forgets all about them and their fate.

At length, as the day wore on and drew to a peaceful close, my misgivings, such as they were—and they were, after all, so slight as scarcely to deserve mention—passed away; and at eight bells I retired to my hammock with a dawning hope that perhaps, after all, the collective remonstrance of the officers was about to bear good fruit.

My mind being thus at rest, I at once sank into a profound sleep, from which I was abruptly startled by a loud noise of some kind, though what it was I could not for the moment make out. Almost immediately afterwards, however, I heard it again—a loud furious combined shout of many voices from the fore part of the ship. Feeling instinctively that something was wrong, I leaped from my hammock—as also did Courtenay, my only companion in the berth—and began hurriedly to search for my clothes by the dim light of the smoky lamp which hung swaying from the deck-beam overhead. Before, however, I had time to do more than don my socks, a grizzled weatherbeaten main-topman named Ned Sykes made his appearance in the doorway of the berth, with a drawn cutlass in his hand and a pair of pistols in his belt. He looked intently at us both for a moment, and then said, in a gruff but kindly tone of voice:

“Muster Lascelles, and Muster Courtenay, ain’t it? Ha! that’s all right; I reckoned I should find you two young gen’lemen here, safe enough. Now, you two, just slip into your hammicks again as fast as you knows how, and stay there until I gives you leave to get out of ’em.”

“Why, what is the matter, Ned? What is all the row about?” asked Courtenay, with wide-staring, horrified eyes. For, by this time, the shouting and yelling were tremendous, and accompanied by a loud thumping, rumbling sound, produced, as we afterwards ascertained, by the shot which the men were flinging about the decks.

“The matter is just this here, young ’un,” replied Ned, entering the berth and seating himself on a chest, “The hands for’ard has made up their minds not to have no more such haccidents as them two that occurred last night; nor they ain’t a-goin’ to have no more floggin’ nor bully-raggin’, so they’ve just rose up and are takin’ possession of the ship—Aha! I’m terrible afeard that means bloodshed,” as a piercing shriek echoed through the ship. “Now,” he continued, seeing that we evinced a strong disinclination to return to our hammocks, “you just tumble into them hammicks and lie down, quick; you couldn’t do a morsel of good, e’er a one of yer, if you was out there on deck—you’d only get hurted or, mayhap, killed outright,—and I’ve been specially told off to come here and see as neither of yer gets into trouble; you’ve both been good kindly lads, you especial, Muster Lascelles—you’ve never had your eyes open to notice any little shortcomin’s or skylarkin’s on the part of the men, nor your tongues double-hung for to go and report ’em, so the lads is honestly anxious as you sha’n’t come to no harm in this here rumpus.”

“Then the men have actually mutinied,” said I—and there I stopped short, for at that moment came the sound of a rush aft of many feet, with shouts and curses, mingled with which I heard the loud harsh tones of Captain Pigot’s voice raised in anger. The mêlée, however, if such there was, quickly swept aft, and there was a lull for perhaps two or three minutes, followed by the sounds of a brief struggle on the quarter-deck, a few shrieks and groans, telling all too plainly of the bloody work going forward, and then silence, broken only now and then by the sound of Farmer’s voice, apparently issuing orders, though what he was actually saying we could not distinguish.

During all this time Courtenay and I lay huddled up in our hammocks, too terrified and horror-stricken to say a word. At length, after the lapse of about an hour of quietness on deck, Sykes—after cautioning us most earnestly not, on any account, to move from where we were until his return—set out with the expressed intention of ascertaining how the land lay. He was absent about a quarter of an hour; and on his return he informed us in horrified accents that, out of all the officers of the ship, there remained alive only Mr Southcott the master, the gunner, the carpenter, Courtenay, myself—and Farmer, the master’s mate, who, it appeared, had taken a leading part in the mutiny, and had been elected to the command of the ship. It was evident, from the scared and horrified appearance and manner of our informant, that he had never anticipated any of this awful violence and bloodshed, though he frankly admitted that he had been a consenting party to the mutiny—the general understanding being that the officers were all to be secured in the first instance, and afterwards handed over as prisoners to the enemy—and he hurriedly explained to us that, for his own safety’s sake, it would now be necessary for him to leave us and join the rest of the mutineers without delay, but that he would return to us as soon as he possibly could; and that, in the meantime, we were on no account to leave the berth, or our lives would certainly be sacrificed.

After hearing such statements as these, no further warning was needed to keep us two unhappy mids close prisoners for the rest of the night. Further sleep was of course quite out of the question; so we hastily dressed, and, closing the door of the berth, seated ourselves on a sea-chest, where we passed the remainder of the night discussing the awful tragedy which had so suddenly been enacted, comparing notes as to our mutual forebodings of some such disaster, and, lastly, wondering what would be the ultimate fate of ourselves and the few other surviving officers.

At length, after what appeared to be a very eternity of suspense and anxiety, steps were heard approaching the berth; and, upon our throwing open the door, Sykes, somewhat the worse for liquor, made his appearance, hailing us, in tones of obviously forced joviality, with:

“Well, what cheer, my fighting cocks—my bully bantams? How goes it? Hope your honours has passed a comfortable night,” with a ghastly grin at his own facetiousness. Then, with considerably more seriousness of manner, he continued:

“Well, young uns, Farmer—or Mister Farmer, I should say—has been axing arter you, and his instructions am that you may now go ’pon deck. But—hark ’e, my bullies, keep your weather eyes a-liftin’ and a stopper upon your tongues. Whatsomever you may happen to see don’t you be led away into indulgin’ in any onpleasant remarks upon it; nor don’t you go for to try and talk over any of the lads into ‘returning to their duty,’ or any rot of that sort; for so sure as either of you attempts anything like that, so surely will you get your brains blowed out. The ship’s took—what’s done is done—and neither you nor nobody else can make or mend the job; the men is in a mighty ticklish humour, I can tell ’e, and if you wants to save your precious carcasses you’ll have to walk mighty carcumspect. And that’s the advice and opinion of a friend, all free, gratis, and for nothink. Now, come along, my hearties; show a leg!”

We followed our well-meaning guide up the ladder to the quarter-deck, where we found Farmer apparently awaiting our appearance. He was standing or rather leaning in a wearied attitude against a gun on the starboard side of the deck; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes gleamed feverishly; he looked a good twenty years older than he had appeared to be on the previous day; and, like a good many of the other mutineers, he appeared to have been indulging somewhat freely in liquor. He roused himself at our approach, and, seating himself in a negligent, careless attitude on the breech of the gun, said:

“Good morning, young gentlemen. I am glad to see you both safe and sound. Sykes has of course informed you of what has taken place—he had my instructions to do so, as also to see that you were kept out of harm’s way last night. Now, what I have to say to you is this. You two lads having invariably manifested kindness and sympathy for the men, they were especially anxious that whenever the rising might take place your lives should be spared. This has been done. You are alive and unharmed this morning, whilst others have gone to render an account of their manifold misdeeds—their countless acts of oppression and cruelty—before that Judge in whose sight their lives are not one whit more valuable than the lives of those whom they have goaded and driven to death—ay, and to worse than death—to such frantic desperation as can only be allayed by the shedding of blood like water. Now, mark me well, both of you; you have had neither part nor lot in this matter—those who wished you well have so managed that, whether or no, you should be kept strictly neutral throughout the affair; all those to whom you owed obedience are either dead or prisoners; you are not asked or expected to join us—we do not want you and should not care to have you even if you were willing—you are therefore relieved from duty; and all that is asked of you is that you shall interfere in no way, either by word or deed, with the working of the ship or with our plans. If you are agreeable to abide by this proposal, well and good; you will be welcome to come and go as you like until we find it convenient to land you; you will be allowed to occupy your former quarters, and your rations will be regularly served out to you. But if on the other hand you make the slightest attempt to communicate with the prisoners, or endeavour in any way to seduce any of the men from their loyalty to the rest, I will hang you both that same hour, one from each yard-arm. That is understood and agreed to, is it not, men?” he continued, raising his voice and appealing to the crowd of mutineers who had gathered round us.

“Ay, ay, that’s agreed; that’s fair enough,” was the unanimous reply.

With that, Farmer waved his hand to us by way of dismissal; and considerably thrown off our balance by the address to which we had just listened, and by the terrible turn affairs had taken generally, we slunk off to the poop, so as to be as far away as possible from the murderous gang and from the ghastly puddles of coagulated blood about the quarter-deck, which still bore witness to heaven against them.

At this moment a man on the forecastle electrified all hands by shouting:

“Sail ho!”

I saw Farmer start from his seat on the gun as if shot, his flushed features turned ashen pale, and for a moment his palsied lips refused to give utterance to a sound.

“Sail ho!” repeated the man in a louder hail, thinking, I suppose, that his first intimation had passed unnoticed. This second hail fairly startled the men, and in a moment everything was bustle and confusion and panic. It aroused Farmer too; he pulled himself together sufficiently to respond to the hail with the usual question, “Where away?” and, on receiving the reply, “Two points on the larboard bow,” walked forward to personally inspect the stranger. We, of course, likewise directed our glances in the specified direction; and there she was, sure enough, a large ship, on the starboard tack, with every stitch of canvas set that would draw, and steering a course which would take her across our bows at a distance of about a mile.

“Bring me the spy-glass out of the cabin, somebody!” hailed Farmer from the forecastle. The glass—a very powerful one and a favourite instrument with the murdered captain—was handed him by one of the quarter-masters, and he applied it to his eye. A breathless silence now prevailed fore and aft for the stranger had all the look of a British man-of-war, and everybody was waiting to hear what Farmer’s verdict would be. The inspection was a long-sustained and evidently anxious one. At length, dropping the glass into the hollow of his arm Farmer turned and said:

“Bring Mr Southcott on deck, and let us hear his opinion of yonder hooker.”

In a few minutes the master was escorted on deck by a couple of armed seamen, and led forward to where Farmer was standing.

“Mr Southcott,” said the mutineer, turning toward the individual addressed, and perceptibly shrinking as their glance met, “be good enough to take this glass, and let me know wha’ you think of the stranger yonder.”

“Stranger!” ejaculated Southcott. “Where away? Ah, I see her!” and he took the glass from Farmer’s extended hand.

“Well, what think you of her?” asked Farmer impatiently, after the master had been silently working away with the glass for some two or three minutes.

“One moment, please,” answered Southcott with his eye still glued to the tube; “I think—but I am not quite sure—if she would only keep just the merest trifle more away—so as to permit of my catching a glimpse—”

“Sail ho!” shouted a man in the fore-top; “two of ’em, a brig and a ship on the starboard beam, away in under the land there!”

Farmer unceremoniously snatched the glass away from the master and levelled it in the direction indicated.

“Ay, ay, I see them,” said he. “That is the Drake nearest us, and the Favourite inshore of her. They are all right; we have nothing to fear from them. It is this stranger here ahead of us that bothers me. Come, Mr Southcott,” he continued, “you ought to know something about her by this time—you have been looking at her long enough; do you think you ever saw her before?”

The master took the glass, had another long squint at the ship ahead, then handed the instrument back to Farmer, with the answer:

“I decline to say whether I have or not.”

“That is enough,” said Farmer; “your answer but confirms me in my conviction as to the identity of yonder frigate. It is the Mermaid. Speak, sir, is it not so?”

“You are right, Farmer, it is the Mermaid, thank God! and you cannot escape. See! she is already hauling up to speak us; and in another twenty minutes will be alongside. Now, sir, resign to me the command which you have with so much violence and bloodshed usurped; and you, men,” he continued, turning round and in a loud voice addressing the rest of the crew, “return at once to your duty. Support and assist me in recovering the command of the ship, and I promise—”

“Silence!” roared Farmer, striking the master a heavy blow full in the mouth with his clenched fist. “Seize him, you two,” he continued to the men who had charge of the prisoner, “and if he offers to speak again to the men clap a belaying-pin between his teeth. My lads, you now know the truth; yonder frigate is our old acquaintance the Mermaid. Mr Southcott proposes that I should surrender the command of this ship to him; and if I do so we all know what will follow. Most of us will dangle at the yard-arm; and though, through the royal clemency,” (with a bitter sneer), “a few may be allowed to escape with a flogging through the fleet, with left-handed boatswains’ mates to cross the lashes—think of that, men, and compare it with the mere two or three dozen at the gangway which most of you have tasted since you joined the Hermione—where is the man among you, I ask, who can point to himself and say, ‘I shall be one of the fortunate few?’ No, no, my lads! after last night’s work there must be no talk of surrender; the ropes are already round our necks, and as surely as we ever find ourselves beneath the British flag again, so surely will those ropes be hauled taut and ourselves bowsed up to the yard-arm. And, even if our lives could be assured to us, what inducement is there to us to serve under British bunting again? I say there is none. We must choose, then, between two alternatives; we must either fight or fly. Which is it to be?”

The rest of the mutineers huddled together, evidently irresolute; each man eagerly sought his neighbour’s opinion, the pros and cons of Farmer’s question were hurriedly discussed, and I saw with inexpressible delight that a good many of the men were more than half disposed to fall in with the master’s suggestion.

Mr Southcott must have seen this too, for he wheeled round upon Farmer and exclaimed:

“Surely, Farmer, you are not mad enough to entertain the idea of fighting the Mermaid? Why, man, you could not stand up before her for five minutes with the men in their present undisciplined state and no one but yourself to direct operations. Your defeat under such circumstances is an absolute certainty; and think what would be the fate of yourself and your misguided followers if taken in arms against the flag under which they have sworn to serve. At present some at least of them may hope for mercy if they will but—”

“Away with him! Take him below!” shouted Farmer, “and if he attempts to open his mouth again put a bullet through his brains. Now, shipmates,” he continued, as the master was hurried below, “make up your minds, and quickly too; which will you have, the yard-rope or a pitched battle?”

“What occasion is there for either?” inquired a burly boatswain’s-mate. “There’s more ways of killing a cat than choking of her with cream. Let’s square dead away afore it and set stunsails alow and aloft, both sides. I’ll lay my life we run far enough away from the Mermaid afore sunset to dodge her in the dark.”

“No good,” dissented Farmer. “The Mermaid could beat us a couple of knots off the wind in this breeze.”

“Ay, ay; that’s true enough; she could so,” assented a topman. “But we have the heels of her on a taut bowline; so why not brace sharp up on the starboard tack, pass between the islands, and then make for Porto Rico?”

“What! and run the gauntlet of those two cruisers inshore there, as well as take our chance of falling in with the Magicienne and the Regulus, which we know are knocking about somewhere in that direction! Is that the best counsel you can give, Ben?”

“Well, then, let’s haul close in with the land, set fire to the ship, and take to the boats,” answered Ben.

“And what then?” sneered Farmer.

“Why, land, to be sure, and take sarvice with Jack Spaniard,” was the reply.

“Why, man, do you suppose they would welcome us if we went to them empty-handed?” asked Farmer. “No, no, that will never do. If we join the Spaniards we must take the ship with us to ensure a welcome; and I’m half inclined to think that will be the best thing we can do. But not now; that must be thought over at leisure. Meanwhile, what is to be done in the present emergency? We have no time for further argument. Will you stand by me and obey my orders?”

“Ay, ay, we will, every man Jack of us, sink or swim, fight or fly,” was the reply from a hundred throats.

“That’s well, my lads,” exclaimed Farmer exultantly; “it shall go hard but I will bring you through somehow. Starboard your helm, there,” to the man at the wheel; “let her come to on the larboard tack; to your stations, men; let go the larboard sheets and braces, and round in on the starboard. Smartly, my bullies; let’s have no bungling, now, or Captain Otway there will at once suspect that something is amiss. That’s well; ease up the lee topgallant and royal-braces a trifle; well there of all; belay! Afterguard, muster your buckets and brushes and wash down the decks. Roberts, go below with a gang and rouse the hammocks on deck; and quarter-masters, see that they are snugly stowed. Where’s the signal-man? Bend the ensign on to the peak-halliards and our number at the main; and main-top, there I stand by to hoist away the pennant. Gunner, muster your crew; go round the quarters with them; and see that everything is ship-shape in case we should have to make a fight of it.”

I was surprised to see how, as Farmer issued his orders in a tone of authority, the instinct of discipline asserted itself; the men sprang to their stations as nimbly and executed their several duties as smartly as though Captain Pigot himself had been directing their movements. The Hermione was braced sharp up on the larboard tack and heading as near as she would lay for the Mermaid, which was now about a point and a half on our weather bow, about four miles distant, and nearing us fast; whilst the Favourite and the Drake were stretching out from under the land to join her.

Presently a string of tiny balls went soaring aloft to the Mermaid’s main-royal mast-head, to break abroad as they reached it and stream out in the fresh morning breeze as so many gaily coloured signal flags.

“There goes the Mermaid’s bunting, sir!” sang out the signal-man, “she is showing her number.”

“Ay, ay, I see it,” exclaimed Farmer. “And, by Heaven,” he added, “it never struck me until this moment that Pigot was senior captain. Hoist away your ensign and pennant! up with the number! We are all right, my hearties; I know how to trick them now.”

He raised the telescope to his eye and brought it to bear upon the Mermaid.

“All right,” he exclaimed a few seconds later, “she sees our number—haul down! Now signal her to chase in the north-eastern quarter. Hurrah, my hearties, that’s your sort! There goes her answering pennant; and there she hauls to the wind on the starboard tack. That disposes of her at all events. Now signal the Favourite and Drake to chase to the nor’ard; that will send them through the Mona Passage, and leave us with a clear sea.”

A quarter of an hour later the three cruisers which had caused the mutineers so much uneasiness were thrashing to windward under every rag they could spread; when Farmer bore up and ran away to the southward and westward with studding-sails set on both sides of the ship.

Chapter Eight.

La Guayra.

After breakfast that morning the men were mustered on the quarter-deck; and Farmer, with some half a dozen of the other mutineers, discussed in their presence and hearing the question of what should be done with the ship now that they had her. There was, of course, a great deal of wild talk, especially among the foreigners—of whom, most unfortunately for the ill-fated officers of the ship, there were far too many on board—and at one period of the discussion it seemed by no means improbable that the frigate would be converted into a pirate, in which event there can be no doubt but that, for a time at least, she would have proved a terrible scourge to all honest navigators in those seas. Farmer, however, was strongly in favour of going over to the Spaniards; and in the end his counsels prevailed, though he met with a great deal of opposition.

This point settled, the ship’s head was laid to the southward; and sunrise on the fourth morning succeeding the mutiny found us off La Guayra, with a flag of truce flying. The signal was duly observed and answered from the shore; upon which the gig was lowered, and, with a white flag floating from her ensign staff, her crew in their holiday rig, and Farmer with three other ringleaders of the mutiny in her stern-sheets, she shoved off for the harbour. She was absent for the greater part of the day, it being seven bells in the afternoon watch before she was observed pulling out of the harbour again; and when she made her appearance it was at once observed that she was accompanied by several heavy launches full of men. It took the flotilla fully an hour to pull off to us, and when they reached the frigate it was seen that the occupants of the shore-boats were Spanish seamen, with a sprinkling of officers among them. On coming alongside the entire rabble at once boarded; the ship was formally handed over by Farmer to an officer in a resplendent uniform, whose first act was to direct one of his aides to strike the white flag and hoist the Spanish ensign at the peak; and the surviving officers—five of us in number—were then mustered and ordered into one of the boats alongside. We were compelled to bundle down over the side just as we were, without a single personal belonging, or article of clothing except what we stood in; and, the boat being manned by some twenty as bloodthirsty-looking desperadoes as I ever clapped eyes on, we were forthwith pulled ashore and at once marched off to prison.

It was dark by the time that we reached the harbour; we were consequently unable to see much of the place that night beyond the fact that it lay at the base of a lofty range of hills. We were received at the landing-place by a party of soldiers with fixed bayonets, who had evidently been awaiting our arrival, and, escorted by them, we arrived—after a march of about a mile—at the gates of a most forbidding-looking edifice constructed of heavy blocks of masonry, and which had all the appearance of being a fortress. Passing through the gloomy gateway—which was protected by a portcullis—we found ourselves in a large open paved courtyard, across which we marched to a door on the opposite side. Entering this door, we wheeled to the right and passed along a wide stone passage which conducted us to a sort of guard-room. We were here received by a lanky, cadaverous-looking individual with a shrivelled yellow parchment skin, hands like the claws of a vulture, piercing black eyes, and grizzled locks and moustache, who, with but scant courtesy, took down the name and rank of each of us in a huge battered volume; after which we were conducted through another long echoing passage, and finally ushered into a sort of hall, about sixty feet long by forty feet wide, with a lofty stone groined roof, and six high, narrow, lancet-shaped windows in each of the two longer walls. These windows we subsequently found were closely grated on the outside with heavy iron bars. The moment that we crossed the threshold the heavy oaken door was closed and barred upon us, and we were left to shift for ourselves as best we could.

The first thing of which I was distinctly conscious on entering the hall was the volume of sound which echoed from the walls and the groined roof. Singing, laughter, conversation, altercation were all going on at the same moment at the utmost pitch of the human voice, and apparently with the whole strength of the assembled company, which, after winking and blinking like an owl for several moments, I succeeded in dimly making out through the dense cloud of suffocating smoke which pervaded the place, and which appeared to emanate from a wood fire burning on the pavement at the far end of the hall, and from some three or four flaring oil lamps which were suspended from nails driven into the walls between the joints of the masonry.

It was a minute or two before any of the noisy company appeared to notice us. At length, however, one man, rising to his feet and shading his eyes with his hand as he looked in our direction, ejaculated:

“Who have we here? More companions in misfortune?”

Then advancing with outstretched hand he exclaimed uproariously:

“What cheer, my hearties? Welcome to Equality Hall!”

Then, as he for the first time noticed our uniforms, he muttered:

“Why, dash my old frizzly wig if they ain’t navy gents!” adding in a much more respectful tone of voice: “Beg pardon, gentlemen, I’m sure, for my familiarity. Didn’t notice at first what you was. Come forward into the range of the light and bring yourselves to an anchor. I’m afraid you’ll find these but poor quarters, gentlemen, after what you’ve been used to aboard a man-o’-war. And you’ll find us a noisy lot too; but the fact is we’re just trying to make the best of things here, trying to be as happy as we can under the circumstances, as you may say. Here, you unmannerly lubbers,” he continued, addressing a group who were sprawling at full length on a rough wooden bench, “rouse out of that and make room for your betters.”

The men scrambled to their feet and made way for us good-naturedly enough; and we seated ourselves on the vacated bench, feeling—at least I may answer for myself—forlorn enough in the great dingy, dirty, comfortless hole into which we had been so unceremoniously thrust. Our new friend seated himself alongside Mr Southcott, and, first informing that gentleman that the company in which we found ourselves were the crews of sundry British merchantmen which had been captured by the Spaniards, and that he was the ex-chief mate of a tidy little Liverpool barque called the Sparkling Foam, proceeded to inquire into the circumstances which had led to our captivity. The account of the mutiny was received by the party, most of whom had gathered round to listen to it, with expressions of the most profound abhorrence and indignation, which were only cut short by the appearance of a sergeant and a file of soldiers bearing the evening’s rations, which were served out raw, to be immediately afterwards handed over to a black cook who answered to the name of “Snowball,” and who had good-naturedly constituted himself the cook of the party. The rations, which included a portion for us newcomers, consisted of a small modicum of meat, a few vegetables, a tolerably liberal allowance of coarse black bread, and water ad libitum. The little incident of the serving out of rations having come to an end, and the sergeant having retired with his satellites, our friend of the Sparkling Foam—whose name, it transpired, was Benjamin Rogers—resumed his conversation with us by proceeding to “put us up to a thing or two.”

“I’ve no doubt, gentlemen,” he said, “but what you’ll be asked to give your parole to-morrow, if you haven’t already—you haven’t, eh? well, so much the better; you’ll be asked to-morrow. Now, if you’ll take my advice you won’t give it; if you do, you’ll simply be turned adrift into the town to shift for yourselves and find quarters where you can. If you’ve got money, and plenty of it, you might manage to rub along pretty well for a time; but when your cash is gone where are you? Why, simply nowheres. Now, this is a roughish berth for gentlemen like you, I’ll allow; but within the last few days we’ve been marched out every morning and set to work patching up an old battery away out here close to the beach, and we’ve been kept at it all day, so that we get plenty of fresh air and exercise, and merely have to ride it out here during the night. There’s only some half-a-dozen soldiers sent out to watch us; and it’s my idea that it might be no such very difficult matter to give these chaps the slip some evening, and at nightfall make our way down to the harbour, seize one of the small coasting craft which seem to be always there, and make sail for Jamaica. At least that’s my notion, gentlemen; you are welcome to it for what it’s worth, and can think it over.”

We thanked our new friend for his advice, which we followed so far as to think and talk it over before stowing ourselves away for the night upon the bundle of straw which constituted the sole apology for a bed and covering allowed us by the Spaniards.

Mr Southcott, the master, was indignant beyond measure at the scurvy treatment thus meted out to us as prisoners of war, and talked a great deal about the representations he intended to make to the authorities with regard to it; but in the meantime he decided to give his parole, in the hope of a speedy exchange, and strongly recommended us to do the same. He was possessed of a little money, it seemed, which he had taken the precaution of secreting about his person immediately on the ship making the land, in anticipation of his speedily finding a use for it; and this money he most generously offered to share with us as far as it would go. To this, however, none of us would listen; and as we were wholly without means the only alternative left to us was to refuse our parole, and put up as best we could with such board and lodging as the Spaniards might be disposed to give us, and to bend all our energies to the accomplishment of a speedy escape. As for me, I still held in vivid remembrance the statement which my father had made to me on the eve of my departure for school, and the caution he had given me against expecting any assistance from him after I had once fairly entered upon my career; and I resolved to endure the worst that could possibly befall me rather than act upon a suggestion which the master threw out, to the effect that possibly someone might be found in the town willing to cash (for a heavy premium) a draft of mine upon my father.

Rogers’ expectation that we should be asked for our parole was verified next morning; and Southcott, giving his, bade us a reluctant farewell after a further ineffectual effort to persuade us to reconsider our decision. Finding that we were not to be persuaded he bade us take heart and keep up our spirits, as his very first task should be to make such representations to the authorities as must result in a very speedy and considerable amelioration of our condition. We parted with many expressions of mutual regret; and that was the last any of us ever saw of the poor fellow, nor were our subsequent inquiries as to what had become of him in the slightest degree successful.

As for us who remained, upon our explaining, through the medium of a very inefficient interpreter, that the lack of means to support ourselves precluded the possibility of our giving our parole upon the terms offered us, we were brusquely informed that we must then be content to be classed among the common prisoners, to put up with their accommodation, and to take part in the tasks allotted to them. We were then abruptly dismissed, and, without further ceremony, marched off to the scene of our labours, which we found to be the fort mentioned by Rogers—an antiquated structure in the very last stage of dilapidation, which it was the task of the prisoners to repair.

To be obliged to work was, after all, no very great hardship. We were in the fresh open air all day, which was infinitely better than confinement between four walls, even had those walls inclosed a far greater measure of comfort than was to be found within the confines of our prison-house. The physical exertion kept us in a state of excellent health, and consequently in fairly good spirits; the labour, though of anything but an intellectual character, kept our minds sufficiently employed to prevent our brooding over our ill fortune; we were allowed to take matters pretty easily so long as we did not dawdle too much, and thus entail upon our lounging guard the unwelcome necessity of scrambling to their feet and hunting up our whereabouts; our daily labours brought with them just that amount of fatigue which ensured sound sleep and a happy oblivion of the dirt and manifold discomforts of our night quarters; and finally, there was the prospect that at any moment some lucky chance might favour our escape.

Four days from the date of our incarceration the muster-roll of the prison was increased by the addition of the names of half a dozen Spanish smugglers, who had been captured a few miles up the coast by one of the guarda-costas and brought into La Guayra. They were a rough, reckless-looking set of vagabonds; but their looks were the worst part of them, for they all turned out to be gay, jovial spirits enough, taking their reverse of fortune with the utmost nonchalance, and having a laugh and a jest for everything and everybody, the guards included, with whom they soon became upon the most amicable terms. One of these men, a fellow named Miguel—I never learned his other name—was attached to the gang of labourers to which I belonged; and though I fought rather shy of him for a time his hearty good-nature and accommodating disposition soon overcame my reserve, and I gradually grew to be on the best of terms with him. He could speak a word or two of English, and, seeming to have taken a fancy to me, he would strike up a conversation with me as often as the opportunity offered, much to his own amusement and mine, since we rarely succeeded in comprehending each other. These efforts at conversation, however, inspired me with the idea that this man’s companionship afforded me an opportunity to acquire a knowledge of Spanish, which could not fail to be of service to me; and this idea I at length with some difficulty succeeded in conveying to my smuggler friend. He pantomimically expressed himself as charmed with the suggestion, which he intimated might be improved upon by my undertaking in return to teach him English; and, a satisfactory understanding being arrived at, we commenced our studies forthwith. We were of course utterly destitute of all aid from books, and we were therefore compelled to fall back upon the primitive method of pointing out objects to each other and designating them alternately in English and Spanish, each repeating the word until the other had caught its proper pronunciation. From this we advanced to short simple sentences, the meaning of which we conveyed as well as we could by appropriate gestures; and though we sometimes made the most ridiculous mistakes through misunderstanding the meaning of those gestures, yet on the whole we managed tolerably well. The first steps were the most difficult, but every word mastered cleared the way to the comprehension of two or three others; so that by the time we had been a couple of months at our studies we found ourselves making really satisfactory progress. And when seven months had been thus spent, though neither could speak the language of the other like a native, each could converse in the other’s language with tolerable fluency and make himself perfectly understood. I had, long before this, however, after considerable hesitation and cautious feeling of my ground, broached to Miguel the question of escape, and had been considerably chagrined to learn from him that, unless aided by friends outside the prison, there was hardly the remotest chance of success. The only way in which it could be done was, in his opinion, to obtain shelter and concealment for, say a month, in some family in the immediate neighbourhood; and then, when the scent had grown cold and the zeal of the pursuers had died away, a dark night and some assistance might enable one to get safely off the coast. If he were free now, he was good enough to say, the thing might be managed, for a consideration, without any very great difficulty; but—a shrug of the shoulders and a glance at the prison dress which he was condemned to wear for more than a year longer eloquently enough closed the sentence.

About this time—or, to speak more definitely, some eight months from the date of our landing at La Guayra—a change in our fortunes occurred, which, whilst it had the immediate result of considerably ameliorating Courtenay’s and my own condition, was destined to ultimately—but avast! I must not get ahead of my story. It happened in this way. One morning after we had been out at work about a couple of hours the military engineer who was in charge of our operations rode up to the battery, accompanied by a very fine, handsome, middle-aged man, evidently also a soldier, for he was attired in an undress military uniform.

“Hillo!” exclaimed Miguel, as he noticed the new arrivals, “what is in the wind now? That is the commandant of the district with Señor Pacheco.”

The appearance of such a notability naturally created a profound sensation; but we were of course obliged to go on with our work all the same. The commandant dismounted, and, accompanied by Señor Pacheco, proceeded to make an inspection of the battery, which by this time was beginning to assume the appearance of a tolerably strong fortification. That done, the sergeant of the guard was summoned, and something in the nature of a consultation ensued, which terminated in Courtenay and myself being ordered to drop our tools and step forward to where the commandant was standing.

The great man regarded us both fixedly for a moment or two, and then said, of course in Spanish:

“I understand that you are two of the officers who were landed here from the British frigate Hermione?”

I replied that we were.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose, in that case, you know all about ships, or, at all events, sufficient to be able to construct and rig a few models?”

I answered that we certainly did.

“Very well,” said he, turning to Señor Pacheco, “in that case they will serve my purpose very well, and you may send them up to the castle at once. And, as they are, after all, merely a couple of boys, I think we shall run no very great risk of losing them if we arrange for them to stay about the place altogether; what say you?—it will be much more convenient for me; and I will find rations and quarters for them; and they can report themselves periodically at the citadel, if need be.”

Señor Pacheco expressed himself as perfectly satisfied with the proposed arrangement; and we were forthwith instructed to leave work there and then and make the best of our way to a chateau which was pointed out to us, and which lay embosomed in trees some three miles to the westward of the town and about a mile from the shore. We had no packing to do, as we possessed nothing in the world but the clothes we stood up in—and which, by the way, were now in the very last stage of “looped and windowed raggedness”—so we simply nodded a “good-bye” to such of our envious acquaintances as happened to be within saluting range, and at once set off up the road which we were informed would conduct us to our destination.

Once fairly away from the scene of our late labours, Courtenay and I gave full rein both to our tongues and to our imaginations, discussing and wondering what in the world the commandant could possibly want with ship-models; but that, after all was a question which we did not greatly trouble ourselves to solve; the dominant thought and reflection in our minds that we were likely to be, for some time at least, absentees from the prison and all the discomfort and wretchedness connected with it, and which I have not dwelt upon or attempted to describe for the one simple reason that it was wholly undescribable. We never thought of escaping, although we soon found ourselves passing through a thinly-inhabited country where our abandonment of the high-road and concealment in the neighbouring woods could have been accomplished without the slightest risk of observation; but we had learned by this time that escape was no such easy matter; it was a something which would have to be carefully planned beforehand and every possible precaution adopted to ensure success, and had we been foolishly tempted to try it then and there our non-arrival at the chateau would speedily have been reported, with the result that a search would have been instituted, followed by our speedy recapture and ignominious return to the abhorred prison. No; we were very thankful for and very well satisfied with the sudden change in our fortunes which had been so unexpectedly wrought, for, though we could of course form no very clear idea of what our lot would be in the service of the commandant, we felt pretty certain it would be much easier than what we had been obliged to put up with since our landing from the frigate; and, for the rest, we were content to wait and see what time had in store for us, whilst we were fully resolved to keep a bright lookout for and to take the utmost advantage of any opportunity for escape which might be opened out to us.

We had just arrived at a handsome pair of park gates which we conjectured gave admittance to the castle grounds when we were overtaken by the commandant, on horseback. He nodded to us; remarked, “I see you have found your way all right;” shouted for the ancient custodian to open the gates; and then, as the heavy iron barriers swung back, dismounted, threw the bridle over his arm, and walked up the long avenue with us.

We now had an opportunity to observe him a little more closely than at our first interview; and we found him to be a tall and strikingly handsome man, somewhere about fifty years of age, as we judged; with piercing black eyes which seemed to read one’s very thoughts, yet which were by no means devoid of amiable expression, and black hair and moustache thickly dashed with grey. Somewhat to our surprise, we found that he could speak English very fairly. His demeanour to us was characterised by that lofty stately courtesy peculiar to the old nobility of Castile (of which province he was a native); and we subsequently learned that he was as gallant a warrior as he was a polished gentleman, having served with much distinction in various parts of the world. His style and title, we afterwards ascertained, was El Commandant Don Luis Aguirre Martinez de Guzman; and we speedily found that he had a very strong predilection for the English, attributable to the fact—which ultimately leaked out—that his first and deepest love had been won by an English girl, whom, however,—the course of true love not running smoothly—he never married.

As we walked up the noble avenue side by side he questioned us as to our names, ages, and rank, how long we had been prisoners, and so on; and expressed his astonishment at the harsh treatment which we had received at the hands of the prison authorities. Upon this I thought it advisable to mention to him our refusal to give our parole, stating as our reason our total lack of funds.

“Oh, well,” he said laughingly, “that need no longer influence you, you know. You will have free quarters and rations at the castle, in addition to the remuneration to which you will be entitled for your services, so you can give your parole when next you report yourselves at the citadel, and that will end the matter.”

This, however, would not suit our views at all, though we did not choose to say so; we therefore changed the subject by asking him what more particularly were the services which we should be asked to perform. His answer was to the effect that his especial hobby was the study of fortification, respecting which, it seems, he had several rather novel theories, in the working out and testing of which—and also by way of amusement—he had constructed the model of a fortified town on the shores of a small lake within the castle grounds; and he had sought our assistance to enable him to place a fleet of ship-models before this town, to illustrate his method of overcoming the difficulties attendant upon a state of siege and blockade. By the time that this fancy of his had been fully explained we had reached the castle—a noble building as to size but of no very great pretensions from an architectural point of view—and, the major-domo having been summoned, we were handed over to him with the necessary instructions for our proper housing and so on.

Chapter Nine.

Inez De Guzman.