Old Jack

W.H.G. Kingston

"Old Jack"

Chapter One.

Donnybrook Fair.

Jack began his story thus:

Of course you’ve heard of Donnybrook Fair, close to the city of Dublin. What a strange scene it was, to be sure, of uproar and wild confusion—of quarrelling and fighting from beginning to end—of broken heads, of black eyes, and bruised shins—of shouting, of shrieking and swearing—of blasphemy and drunkenness in all its forms of brutality. Ay, and as I’ve heard say, of many a deed of darkness, not omitting murder, and other crimes not less foul and hateful to Him who made this beautiful world, and gave to man a religion of love and purity. There the rollicking, roaring, bullying, fighting, harum-scarum Irishman of olden days had full swing for all the propensities and vile passions which have ruined him at home, and gained him a name and a fame not to be envied throughout the world. Often have I wondered whether, had a North American Indian, or a South-Sea Islander, visited the place, he could have been persuaded that he had come to a land of Christian men. Certainly an angel from heaven would have looked upon the assemblage as a multitude of Satan’s imps let loose upon the world. They tell me that the fair and its bedevilments have pretty well been knocked on the head. I am glad of it, though I have never again been to the spot from the day of which I am about to speak.

I remember very little of my childish life. Indeed, my memory is nearly a blank up to the time to which I allude. That time was one of the first days of that same Donnybrook Fair; but I remember that and good reason I have so to do. I was, however, but a small chap then, young in years, and little as to size.

My father’s name was Amos Williams. He came from England and settled in Dublin, where he married my mother, who was an Irishwoman. Her name I never heard. If she had relations, they did not, at all events, own her. I suspect, from some remarks she once let drop which I did not then understand, that they had discarded her because she had become a Protestant when she married my father. She was gentle and pious, and did her utmost, during the short time she remained on earth, to teach me the truths of that glorious gospel to which, in many a trial, she held fast, as a ship to the sheet-anchor with a gale blowing on a lee-shore. She died young, carried off by a malignant fever. Her last prayers were for my welfare here and hereafter. Had I always remembered her precepts I should, I believe, have been in a very different position to what I now am in my old age. My poor father took her death very much to heart. For days after her funeral he sat on his chair in our little cottage with his hands before him, scarcely lifting up his head from his breast, forgetting entirely that he ought to go out and seek for work, as without it he had no means of finding food for himself and me. I should have starved had not a kind woman, a neighbour, brought me in some potatoes and buttermilk. Little enough I suspect she had to spare after feeding her own children.

At length my father roused himself to action. Early one morning, seizing his hat and bidding me stay quiet till his return, he rushed out of the house. He was a stonemason. He got work, I believe, but the tempter came in his way. A fellow-workman induced him to enter a whisky shop. Spirits had, in his early days, been his bane. My mother’s influence had kept him sober. He now tried to forget his sorrow in liquor. “Surely I have a right to cure my grief as best I can,” said he. Unhappily he did not wait for a reply from conscience. Little food could he buy from the remnant of his day’s wages. Thus he went on from day to day, working hard when sober, drinking while he had money to pay for liquor.

Still his affection for me did not diminish. While in his right mind he could not bear to have me out of his sight. Every morning we might have been seen leaving our cottage, I holding his hand as he went to his work; yet nearly as certainly as the evening came round I had to creep supperless to bed. All day he would keep me playing about in his sight, except when any of his fellow-workmen, or people living near where we happened to be, wanted a lad to run on an errand. Then I was always glad of the job. Whenever, by happy chance, he came home sober in an evening, he would take me between his knees, and, parting my hair, look into my face and weep till his heart seemed ready to burst. But these occasions grew less and less frequent. What I have said will show that I have reason to love the memory of both my parents, in spite of the faults my unhappy father undoubtedly possessed.

Several months had thus passed away after my mother’s death, when one afternoon my father entered our cottage where he had left me since the morning.

“Jack, my boy,” said he, taking my hand, “come along, and I will show you what life is.” Oh, had he said, “what death is,” he would have spoken the truth.

I accompanied him willingly, though I saw at a glance that he had already been drinking. Crowds of people were going in the direction we took. For some days past I had heard the neighbours talking of the fair. I now knew that we were bound there. My mother had never allowed me to go to the place, so I had no notion what it was like. I expected to see something very grand and very beautiful—I could not tell what. I pushed on into the crowd with my father as eagerly as any one, thinking that we should arrive at the fair at last. I did not know that we were already in the middle of it. I remember, however, having a confused sight of booths, and canvas theatres, and actors in fine clothes strutting about and spouting and trumpeting and drumming; of rope-dancers and tumblers with painted faces; and doctors in gilded chariots selling all sorts of wonderful remedies for every possible complaint; and the horsemanship, with men leaping through hoops and striding over six steeds or more at full gallop; and the gingerbread stalls, and toy shops, and similar wonders; but what was bought and sold at the fair of use to any one I never heard.

My father had taken me round to several of the shows I have spoken of: when he entered a drinking-booth, and set himself down with me on his knee, among a number of men who seemed to be drinking hard. Their example stimulated him to drink harder than ever, and in a short time his senses completely left him. As, however, even though the worse liquor, he was peaceable in his disposition, instead of sallying forth as many did in search of adventures, he laid himself down on the ground with his head against the canvas of the tent, and told me to call him when it was morning. Some one at the same time handed me a piece of gingerbread, so I set myself down by his side to do as he bid me.

Those were the days of faction fights; and if people happened to have no cause for a quarrel, they very soon found one. The tent we were in was patronised by Orangemen, and of course was a mark for the attacks of the opposite party. My poor father had slept an hour or so, with three or four men near him in a similar condition, when a half-drunken body of men came by, shillelah in hand, looking out for a row. Unhappily the shapes of the heads of most of the sleepers were clearly developed through the canvas. The temptation was not to be resisted—whack—whack—whack! Down came the heavy stick of a sturdy Irishman upon that of my father. “Get up out of that, and defend yourselves!” sung out their assailants. Most of his companions rushed out to avenge the insult offered them, but my father made no answer. Numbers joined from all directions—shillelahs were flourished rapidly, and the scrimmage became general. I ran to the front of the tent and clapped my hands, and shouted with sympathy. Now the mass of fighting, shrieking men swayed to one side, now to the other; now they advanced, now they retreated, till by degrees the fight had reached a considerable distance from the tent.

I then went back to my place by my father’s side, wondering that he did not get up to join the fray. I listened, he breathed, but he did not speak. Still I thought he must be awake. “Father, father,” said I, “get up, do. It’s time to go home, sure now.” I shook him gently, but he made no reply. At length I could hear no sound proceeding from his lips. I cried out in alarm. The keeper of the booth saw that something was wrong, and came and looked curiously into his face. He lifted up my father’s hand. It fell like lead by his side.

“Why won’t father speak to me?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“He’ll never speak again! Your father’s dead, lad,” answered the man in a tone of commiseration.

With what oppressive heaviness did those words strike on my young heart, though at that time I did not fully comprehend the extent of my loss,—that I should never again hear the tone of his voice—that we were for ever parted in this world—that I was an orphan, without a human being to care for me. But though bewildered and confused at that awful moment, the words he had uttered as we left home rung strangely in my ears—“Lad, I’ll show you what life is.” Too truly did he show me what death was. Often and often have I since seen the same promise fulfilled in a similar fearful way. What men call life is a certain road to death; death of the body, death of the soul. Of course I did not understand this truth in those days; not indeed till long, long afterwards, when I had gone through much pain and suffering, and had been well-nigh worn-out. I was then very ignorant and very simple, and I should probably have been vicious also had not my mother watchfully kept me out of the way of bad example; and even after she was taken from me, I was prevented from associating with bad companions.

When I found that my poor father was really dead, I stood wringing my hands and crying bitterly. The sounds of my grief attracted many of the passers-by; some stopped to inquire its cause, and when they had satisfied their curiosity they went their way. At last several seamen, with an independent air, came rolling up near the tent. The leader of the party was one of the tallest men I ever saw. Though he stooped slightly as he walked, his head towered above all the rest of the crowd.

“What’s the matter with the young squeaker there, mate?” he asked in a bantering tone, thinking probably that I had broken a toy, or lost a lump of gingerbread from my pocket.

“His daddy’s dead, and he’s no one to look after him!” shouted an urchin from the crowd of bystanders.

“He’s in a bad case then,” replied the seaman, coming up to me. “What, lad! is it true that you have no friends?” he asked, stooping down and taking me by the hand.

“No one but father, and he lies there!” I answered, giving way to a fresh burst of grief as I pointed to my parent’s corpse.

“He speaks the truth,” observed the man of the booth; “he has no mother, nor kith nor kin that I know of, and must starve if no one takes charge of him, I suspect.”

The tall sailor looked at me with an expression of countenance which at once gained my confidence. “What say you, lad, will you come with us?” he asked, pointing to his companions; “we’ll take you to sea, and make a man of you!”

“We may get him entered aboard the Rainbow, I think, mates,” he added, addressing them. “He’ll do as well as the monkey we lost overboard during the last gale; and though he may be as mischievous now, he will learn better manners, which Jocko hadn’t the sense to do.”

“Oh ay! Bear him along with us,” replied the other sea men; “he’ll be better afloat, whichever way the wind blows, than starving on shore.”

“Come along, youngster, then,” said the tall seaman; and, without waiting for my reply, he seized me by the arm, and began to move off with me through the crowd.

“But what will be done with poor father? Sure I cannot leave him now!” I exclaimed, looking back with anguish at my father’s corpse.

“Oh, we’ll see all about that,” answered my new friend; “he shall be waked in proper style, and have a decent funeral; so you may leave home with a clear conscience. Never fear!”

I need not dwell longer on the events of that sad day. Aided by some of the men who knew my father, and who returned to the tent after the fray was over, the kind-hearted seamen bore the corpse to our cottage. The promise of a supply of whisky easily induced some of the neighbours to come and howl during the livelong night. This they did with right good will, although my father was a Protestant and a foreigner; and I cried and howled in sympathy. I would fain, however, have forgotten my grief in sleep. The seamen had taken their departure, promising to return to look after me.

As there was no chance of a man with a fractured skull coming to life again, the funeral speedily took place. The small quantity of furniture remaining in the cottage was sold; but the proceeds were barely sufficient to pay the expenses.

Thus I was left, with the exception of a suit of somewhat ragged clothes on my back, as naked and poor as when I came into the world about twelve years before, with a much more expensive appetite than I then had to supply. Some boys at that age are well able to take care of themselves, but, as I have said, I was small for my years, and I had been kept by my poor mother so much by myself, that I knew nothing of the world and its ways.

Alter the funeral a compassionate neighbour, with a dozen or more children of her own to feed, took me to her house till it was settled what was to become of me. She and her husband laughed at the idea of the tall sailor coming to take me away.

“I know what sailors are,” said the husband; “they’ll just chuck a handful of silver to the first beggar who asks them for it, and then they’ll go away and forget all about it! Maybe your friend was only after joking with you, and is off to sea long ago!”

“Oh no! he meant what he said,” I replied; “I know that by the look of his face. He’s a kind man, I’m certain!”

“It may be better for us all if he comes, but it’s not very likely,” was the answer. Still I trusted that my new friend would not deceive me.

I was standing in front of the cottage which was next to that my father and I had inhabited, when my heart beat quick at seeing a tall figure turn a corner at the other end of the street. I was certain it was my sailor friend. “It’s him! It’s him! I knew he’d come!” I shouted, and ran forward to meet him.

He smiled as he saw my eagerness. “You’ve not forgotten me, I see, lad,” said he; “well, come along. It’s all arranged; and if you’re in the same mind, you’ve only to say so, and we’ll enter you aboard the Rainbow!”

I told the tall sailor that I was ready to go wherever he liked to take me. This seemed to please him. After I had wished the neighbours, who had been so kind to me, good-bye, he took me by the hand, and led me rapidly along in the direction of the docks. Before reaching them, we entered a house where some old gentlemen were sitting at a table. One of them asked me if I wished to go to sea and become an admiral. I replied, “Yes, surely,” though I did not know what being an admiral meant; and on this the other old gentlemen laughed, and the first wrote something on a paper, which he handed across the table.

On this a sunburnt fine-looking man stepped forward and wrote on the paper, and I was then told that I was bound apprentice to Captain Helfrich, of the Rainbow brig. The fine-looking man was, I found, Captain Helfrich. “Well, that matter is squared now!” exclaimed the tall sailor; “so, youngster, we’ll aboard at once, before either you or I get into mischief.”

On our way to the brig, we stopped at a slop clothes-shop. “Here, Mr Levi! I want an outfit for this youngster,” said my friend, taking me in. “Let his duds be big enough, that he may have room to grow in them. Good food and sea air will soon make him sprout like a young cabbage.”

The order was literally fulfilled, and I speedily found myself the possessor of a new suit of sailors’ clothes, of two spare shirts, and sundry other articles of dress. My friend made me put them on at once.

“Now, do the old ones up in that handkerchief,” said he; “we’ll find a use for them before long.”

The spare new things he did up into a bundle, and carried it himself.

“I did not want the Jew to get your old clothes, for which he would have allowed nothing,” said he, as we left the shop. “We shall soon fall in with a little ragged fellow, to whom they’ll be a rich prize.”

As we went along, two or three boys begged of us, and pointed to their rags as a plea for their begging. “They’ll not do,” said he; “the better clothes would ruin them.”

At last, passing along the quays, we saw a little fellow sitting on the stock of an anchor, and looking very miserable. He had no shoes on his feet; his trousers were almost legless, and fastened up over one shoulder by a piece of string, while his arms were thrust into the sleeves of an old coat, much too large for him, and patched and torn again in all directions. He did not beg, but just looked up into my tall friend’s face, as if he saw something pleasing there.

“What do you want?” said the sailor.

“Nothing,” answered the boy, not understanding him.

“You’re well off then, lad,” said the tall sailor, smiling at him. “But I think that you would be the better for some few things in this world—for a suit of clothes, for instance.”

“The very things I do want!” exclaimed the lad. “You’ve hit it, your honour. I’d a dacent suit as ever you’d wish to see, and they were run away with, just as I’d got the office of an errand-boy with a gentleman, and was in a fair way to make my fortune.”

“Well, then, here’s a suit for you, my lad,” said the sailor; “just get your mother to give them a darning up, and they’ll serve your purpose, I daresay. Give him your bundle.”

“Sure your honour isn’t joking with me!” exclaimed the lad, his countenance beaming with pleasure as he undid the bundle of clothes, which were certainly very far better than those he had on. “I’m a made man—that I am! Blessings on your honour, and the young master there!”

“You’re welcome, lad, with all my heart,” answered my friend.

“Oh, it’s Terence McSwiney will have to thank you to the end of his days, and ever after!” exclaimed the boy, as we were walking on.

“Well, Terence, I hope you’ll get the post, and do your duty in it,” said the tall sailor, moving off to avoid listening to the expressions of gratitude which the lad poured forth.

The incident made a deep impression on me. I learned by it that others might be worse off than I was, and also that a gift at the right time might be of the greatest service. Of this I had the proof many years afterwards. If the rich and the well-to-do did but know of what use their own or their children’s cast-off clothes would be to many not only among the labouring classes, but to people of education and refinement, struggling with poverty, they would not carelessly throw them away, or let them get into the hands of Jews, sold by their servants for a sixth of their value. I must observe that, in the course of my narrative I shall often make remarks on various ideas which, at the time I speak of, could not possibly have occurred to me.

The tall sailor and I walked along the quay. All of a sudden it occurred to me that I did not know his name. I looked up in his face and asked him.

“I’m called Peter Poplar,” he answered, with one of his kind smiles. “The name suits me, and I suit the name; so I do not quarrel with it. You’ll have to learn the names, pretty quickly too, of all the people on board. There are a good many of us, and each and every one of them will consider himself your master, and you’ll have to look out to please them all.”

“I’ll do my best to please them, Mr Poplar,” said I.

“That’s right! But I say, lad, don’t address me so. Call me plain Peter, or Peter Poplar; we don’t deal in misters aboard the Rainbow. It is all very well for shore-going people to call each other mister; or when you speak to an officer, just to show that he is an officer; but sharp’s the word with us forward—we haven’t time for compliments.”

“But I thought you were an officer, Peter,” said I. “You look like one.”

“Do I?” he answered, with his pleasant smile. “Well, Jack, perhaps I ought to have been one, and it’s my own fault that I am not. But the truth is, I haven’t got the learning necessary for it. I never have learned to read, and so I haven’t been able to master navigation. Without it, you know, a man cannot be an officer, however good a seaman he may be; and in that point I’ll yield to no man.”

Peter, as he spoke, drew himself up to his full height, and I thought he looked fit to be a very great officer indeed; even to be an admiral, such as the old gentleman in the office had spoken of.

“I am very bad at my books too,” said I. “I can just read a little though, and if I can get the chance of falling in with a book, I’ll like to read to you, Peter.”

My friend thanked me, but said books were not often seen aboard the Rainbow; nor were they found in many other merchant-craft, for that matter, in those days.

We found the brig just ready to haul out into the outer basin, preparatory to putting to sea. She was a fine large craft, and had been built for a privateer in the war-time. Her heavy guns had been landed, but she still carried some eight six-pounders; and as she had a strong crew of fully twenty men, she was well able to defend herself from any piratical craft, or other gentry of that description.

When Peter first took me on board, some of the seamen would scarcely believe I was the same little boy they had seen at the fair, I looked so much stouter and stronger in my seaman’s dress. I did not much like the look of the forepeak, into which Peter introduced me, telling me that it was to be my house and home for the next few years of my life. I had been accustomed to the dingy obscurity of an Irish cabin, but never had I been, I thought, in a more dark and gloomy habitation than this.

“Never fear, Jack, you’ll soon find yourself at home here,” said Peter, divining my thoughts. While he was speaking, a seaman lighted a lantern which hung from a beam, and its glare showed me that the place was more roomy than I had supposed, and that every part of it was perfectly clean. I found, indeed, afterwards, that it was very superior to the places merchant-seamen are compelled often to live in. Some of the crew slept in standing bed-places ranged round the sides of the vessel, or rather inside her bows, while for others hammocks were slung from the beams which supported the deck. The chests were arranged to serve as seats, while there was a rack for the plates and mugs belonging to their mess.

The greater part of the crew was still on shore. “Now, Jack, that you know the sort of place we have to live in, I’ll show you the accommodation prepared for the captain and his passengers. It must not make you envious any more than it does me, for I think that those who have learning and education should enjoy advantages in proportion. I feel that it is my own fault that I do not live in as fine a cabin as the captain does.”

Even though Peter had thus prepared me to see something very fine, the richness of the cabin fittings and furniture surpassed anything I had in my simplicity imagined to exist. Perhaps those accustomed to such things might not have thought it so very great. I know that there were damask curtains, and coverings to the sofas, and mirrors, and pictures in gold frames, and mahogany tables and chairs, and cut-glass decanters, and china in racks, and a number of pistols and muskets and cutlasses, all burnished and shining, fixed against a bulkhead.

“Why, this is a place fit for a king,” I exclaimed; “sure he can’t have anything grander.”

Peter laughed. “The captain prides himself on being very natty, and having everything in good order,” said he; “but kings, I fancy, live in finer places than this. However, my reason for bringing you here was to show you the place, that you may know how to behave yourself should you be sent for to attend on the captain. You must obey him quickly, try and understand his wishes, and keep things clean and in their places. If you do this, you are certain to please him.”

Thus it was that my friend kindly tried to prepare me for my new career. “Now, Jack,” said he at last, “I’ve done my best to set you on your legs. You must try to walk alone. I don’t want to make a nursing baby of you, remember.” From that day forward Peter left me very much to take care of myself. Still I felt that his eye was watching over me, and this feeling gave me a considerable amount of confidence which I should not otherwise have possessed.

By the next day at noon, the rest of the crew had assembled; the captain and several passengers, mostly merchants and planters, came on board. There was a fair wind blowing down the Liffey. “Open the dock-gates, Mr Thompson, and let her go. She’ll find her own way to Jamaica and back again by herself, without a hand at the helm, she knows it so well,” the captain, as he stood on the poop, sung out to the dock-master. I found that this was a standing joke of his.

The Rainbow was a regular West India trader, and had had many successful voyages there. Captain Helfrich was chief owner as well as master, and was a great favourite with the merchants and planters at the different islands at which he was in the habit of touching, and consequently had always plenty of passengers, and never had to wait long for freight. He was very proud of his brig, and of everything connected with her. He himself also was a person not a little worthy of note. He was, as I have said, a tall, fine man, robust and upright in figure, with large, handsome features, and teeth of pearly whiteness. He was probably at this time rather more than forty years old, but not a particle of his crisp, curly, brown hair had a silvery tint. He had a fine beaming smile, though he was very firm and determined, and could look very fierce when angry. I had an unbounded respect for him. Thus commanded, and with as good a crew as ever manned a ship, the Rainbow dropped down the Liffey, and made sail to the southward; and under these propitious circumstances I found myself fairly launched in my career as a sailor.

Chapter Two.

The Bitters and Sweets of a Sea-Life.

“And so, Jack, you like a sea-life, do you?” said Peter Poplar to me one day after we had been about two weeks from port. We had had very fine weather all the time, with a north or easterly wind, and I expected to find the ocean always as smooth and pleasant as it then was. One good result was, that I had been able to pick up a good many of the details of my duty, which I should not have done had I been sea-sick, and knocked about in a gale.

“Yes, thanks to you, Peter, I like it much better than running errands on shore,” I answered. “I don’t wish for a pleasanter life.”

Peter laughed. “You’ve had only the sweets as yet, boy; the bitters are to come,” he observed. “Still, if you get a fair share of the first, you’ll have no reason to complain.”

I did not quite understand him. I then only thought of the sweets, as he called them. The truth was, I had generally been very kindly treated on board. To be sure, I got a kick, or the taste of a rope’s end, now and then, from some of the men if they happened to be out of humour; but those were trifles, as I never was much hurt, and Peter told me I was fortunate to get nothing worse. There was one ill-conditioned fellow, Barney Bogle by name, who lost no opportunity of giving me a cuff for the merest trifle, if he could do so without being seen by Peter, of whom he was mortally afraid. In his presence, the bully always kept his hands off me. Of course it would not have been wise in me to complain of Barney to Peter, as it might have caused a quarrel; so I contented myself with doing my best to keep out of my enemy’s way, just as a cat does out of the way of a dog which has taken a fancy to worry her. Captain Helfrich had hitherto taken no notice whatever of me, and he seemed to me so awful a person, that I never expected to be spoken to by him. Now and then the mates ordered me to do some little job or other, to fetch a swab or a marlinespike, or to hold a paint-pot, but they in no other way noticed me.

I remember how blue the sky was, and how sparkling the sea, and how hot the sun at noon shone down on our heads, and how brightly the moon floated above us at night, and formed a long, long stream of silvery light across the waters; and I used to fancy, as I stood looking at it, that I could hear voices calling to me from far, far-off, and telling me of my sweet, calm-eyed mother, still remembered fondly, and of my poor father, snatched from me so suddenly. I won’t talk much about that sort of thing. It seems now like a long-forgotten dream—I believe that, even then, I was dreaming.

Well, as I said, the fine weather continued for a long time, till I was awoken one morning by a loud, roaring, dashing, creaking sound, or rather, I might say, of a mixture of such sounds; and as I began to rub my eyes, I thought that I should have been hove out of the narrow crib in which I was stowed away in the very bows of the vessel. Sometimes I felt the head of the brig lifted up, and then down it came like a sledge-hammer into the water; now I felt myself rolled on one side, now on the other. I fully thought that the vessel must be on the rocks. Not a gleam of light reached me, nor could I hear the sound of a human voice. I wanted to be out of the place; but when I tried to get up, I felt so sick and wretched, that I lay down again with an idea that it would be more comfortable to die where I was. At last, however, Barney Bogle came below and discovered me.

“Turn out, you young skulker; turn out!” he exclaimed, belabouring me with a rope’s end. “Didn’t you hear all hands called to shorten sail an hour ago?”

I had no help for it, so on deck I crawled, where the grey light of morning was streaming from beneath a dark mass of clouds which hung overhead, and a gale was blowing which sent the foam flying from the tops of the seas, deluging us fore and aft. Now the brig was lifted up to the summit of a wave, and now down she sank into the trough of the sea, with a liquid wall on one side which, as it came curling on, looked as if it must inevitably overwhelm her. She was under close-reefed topsails and storm-jib, and two of the best hands were at the helm. Peter was one of them. I managed to climb up to windward, and to hold on by the weather-fore-rigging, where the rest of the crew were collected.

I shall never forget the dark, dreary, and terrific scene which the ocean presented to my unaccustomed sight. At first, too, I felt very sick and miserable, and I thought that I would far rather have been starving on shore than going to be drowned, as I fancied, and being tossed about by the rough ocean. Barney, who was on deck before me, abused me as I crawled up near him, and contrived to give me a kick, which, had I let go my hold, as it was calculated to make me do, would probably have been the cause of my immediate destruction. At that moment a huge sea came rolling up towards the brig, topping high above our deck. I saw Peter Poplar and the other man at the helm looking out anxiously at it. They grasped tighter hold of the spokes of the wheel, and planted their feet firmer on the deck. Captain Helfrich and his mates were standing by the main-rigging.

“Hold on, hold on for your lives, my men!” he sung out. The crew did not neglect to obey him, and I clung to a rope like a monkey. Most of the passengers were below, sick in their berths. Down came the huge sea upon us like the wall of a city overwhelming its inhabitants. Over our deck it rushed with terrific force. I thought to a certainty that we were sinking. What a horrible noise there was!—wrenching and tearing, and the roar and dashing sound of the waves, and the howling of the wind! All contributed to confuse my senses, so that I forgot altogether where I was. I had an idea, I believe, that the end of the world was come. Still my shipmates did not shriek out, and I was very much surprised to find the brig rise again out of the water, and to see them standing where they were before, employed in shaking the wet off their jackets. The deck of the brig, however, presented a scene of no little confusion and havoc. Part of her weather-bulwarks forward had been stove in, the long-boat on the booms had been almost knocked to pieces, and a considerable portion of the after-part of the lee-bulwarks had been washed away, showing the course the sea had taken over us.

“We must not allow that trick to be played us again,” said the captain to the mates. I had crept as far aft as I dared go, for I did not like the look of the sea through the broken bulwark, so I could hear him. “Stand by to heave the ship to!” he shouted, and his voice was easily heard above the sounds of the tempest. “Down with the helm!—In with the jib!—Hand the maintopsail!” The officers and men, who were at their stations, flew to obey their orders. I trembled as I saw the third mate, with several other men, taking in the jib. Having let go the halliards, and eased off the sheets, hauling away on the down-hauler; and having got it down on the bowsprit-cap, though nearly blown out of the bolt-ropes, stowing it away in the foretopmast staysail-netting. As the bows of the brig now rose and now plunged into the trough of the sea, I thought they must have been, to a certainty, washed away. The maintopsail was, in the meantime, taken in, and I felt that I was very glad I was not obliged to lay-out on the yard with the other men. It seemed a wonder how they were not shaken off into the sea, or carried away by the bulging sail. The great thing in taking in a sail in a gale, as I now learned from Peter, is not to allow the sail to shake, or it is very likely to split to pieces. Keep it steadily full, and it will bear a great strain. Accordingly, the clew-lines, down-haul-tackle, and weather-brace being manned, the halliards were let go, the weather-brace hauled in, the weather-sheet started and clewed up; then the bowline and lee-sheets being let go, the sail caught aback, and the men springing on the yard, grasped it in their arms as they hung over it. Folding it in inch by inch, they at length mastered the seeming resistless monster, and passing the gaskets round it, secured it to the yard. Those who for the first time see a topsail furled in a heavy gale may well deem it a terrific operation, and perilous in the extreme to those employed in it. I know that I breathed more freely when all the men came down safely from the yard, Barney Bogle among the number; and the helm being lashed a-lee, the brig rode like a duck over the seas.

There was no time, however, to be idle, and all hands set to work to repair damages. I now saw that the captain, who appeared so fine a gentleman in harbour, or when there was nothing to do, could work as well, if not rather better, than any one. With his coat off, and saw, axe, or hammer in hand, he worked away with the carpenter in fitting a new rail, and planking up the bulwarks; and the steward had twice to call him to breakfast before he obeyed the summons. His example inspired the rest; and in a very short time the bulwarks were made sufficiently secure to serve till the return of fine weather.

“I told you, Jack, that you would have a taste of the bitters of a sea-life before long,” said Peter, as soon as he had time to have a word with me. “Let me tell you, however, that this is just nothing, and that we shall be very fortunate if we do not fall in with something much worse before long.”

I knew that Peter would not unnecessarily alarm me, and so I looked up at the dark clouds driving across the sky, and saw the hissing, foaming waves dancing up wildly around us, looking as if every moment they were ready to swallow up the brig, I asked myself what worse could occur, without our going to the bottom. I had never then been in a regular hurricane or a typhoon, or on a lee-shore on a dark night, surrounded by rocks, or among rapid currents, hurrying the ship within their power to destruction; nor had I been on board a craft when all hands at the pumps could scarcely keep her afloat; nor had I seen a fire raging. Indeed, I happily knew nothing of the numberless dangers and hardships to which a seaman in his career is exposed. I must not say that I was in any way frightened. I resolved to keep a bold heart in my body. “Never mind,” I answered to Peter’s remark; “while I’ve got you and the captain on board, I don’t fear anything.”

Peter laughed. “We may be very well in our way,” said he; “but, Jack, my advice is: Trust in God, and hold on by the weather-rigging. Should the ship go down, look out for spar or a plank if there’s no boat afloat; and if you can find nothing, swim as long as you can; but whatever you do, trust in God.”

I have never forgotten Peter’s advice. Never have I found that trust deceive me; and often and often have I been mercifully preserved when I had every reason to believe that my last hour had come. I should remark also that, badly off as I have often fancied myself, I have soon had reason to be thankful that I was not in the condition of others around me.

While Peter was speaking, one of the crew sung out, “a sail on the weather-bow!” Sure enough, as we rose on the summit of a sea, a ship could be seen with all her topsails set running before the wind. Peter remarked that she was standing directly for us. “She is a large ship, by the squareness of her yards; probably either from the West Indies or South America, or maybe China, or from some port in the Pacific, and she has come round the Horn.”

We watched her for some time. “She has a signal of distress flying, sir,” said the first mate, who had been looking at her through a glass.

“She is in a bad way, then,” remarked the captain. “I fear that unless the sea goes down, and she in the meantime can heave-to near us, we can render her no assistance.”

On came the ship right for us. I thought that she would run us down; so, indeed, I found did others on board. The mates, indeed, went to the wheel to put the helm up to let the brig fall off, that we might get out of her way; but as she approached, she altered her course a little, so that she might pass clear under our stem. Never shall I forget the look of that strange ship; for, as she came near us, rolling in the trough of the sea, we could see clearly everything going forward on her decks.

She was a Spaniard, so Peter told me, as he knew from the ensign which flew out, hoisted half-way to her peak. She was a high-pooped ship, with a deep waist and a lofty forecastle, her upper works narrowing as they rose, with large lanterns, and much rich carved work all gilt and painted. Such a craft is never seen now-a-days.

She was crowded with people. Some were soldiers, worn-out men, with their wives and families returning home from the colonies; others were cabin passengers. There were rich Hidalgos, attended on by their slaves—old men, who had spent their lives abroad in the pursuit of wealth; and there were fair girls, too, probably their daughters, some young and lovely; and there were young men, with life before them, and thinking that life was to be very sweet; and there were children, and infants in arms, and their fond mothers or nurses anxious to shelter them from harm. Then there were the officers of the ship and the crew; fierce, dark-bearded men—a mongrel set of various ranks and many nations. She was evidently a rich galleon, returning to old Spain from one of her ill-governed dependencies in South America. But it was the way in which all these people were employed that made so deep an impression on me. Then the scene looked only like a strange picture. It was not till long afterwards, when I reasoned on what I had observed, that I understood what I now describe.

The greater number of the men were at the pumps, labouring in a way which showed that they fancied their lives depended on their exertions; but the clear streams of water which came out of the scuppers, and the heavy way in which the ship plunged into the trough of the sea, showed that their labour would too probably be in vain. Others seemed paralysed or pitied, and sat down with their heads on their breasts waiting their fate. Many, as they passed us, came to the side of their ship, and held out their hands imploringly towards us, as if we could help them. But what seemed most dreadful—some of the sailors and soldiers had got hold of a quantity of wine and spirits, and were reeling about the decks, offering liquor to every one they encountered, and holding out bottles and cans of wine mockingly at us, or as if inviting us to join them. Several, although they must have given up all hope of assistance from man, might have looked for it from Heaven, for they were on their knees imploring help—was it from Him who alone can give it, or was it from their various saints? I don’t know.

Two groups of figures on the poop especially struck me. In the centre of one stood a tall man in rich vestments of gold, and white, and purple. He had a shorn crown. He was a priest. He was holding aloft a golden crucifix, which I thought the wind would have blown out of his hand, but he must have been a powerful man, and he grasped it fast. Assisting to support him and it were two monks in dark dresses, kneeling on the deck on either side of him. Around them knelt and clung, holding on to each other, a number of men and women, and among them were some little children, holding up their tiny hands in supplication towards the crucifix. Of course, no sound could reach us, but there seemed to be much wailing, and crying, and groaning. Some were stretching out their arms, others were beating their breasts and tearing their hair. The priest stood unmoved, with head erect, uttering prayers, or pronouncing absolution. At some distance from them were a couple, not to be overlooked either. One was a fine handsome young man, in the uniform of a military officer; the other a young and beautiful girl, who lay nearly fainting in his arms. He looked towards us eagerly, hopefully, as if he fancied that he would plunge with his precious charge into the water. I thought that at that moment he was going to make the daring leap. Some of the officers of the ship were gathered round the wheel. Just then the helm was put down, and we saw some of them with blows and threats urging the drunken crew to take in the headsails, leaving the maintopsail only to steady the ship. In the operation, however, carelessly performed, the sails were blown to ribbons, and the ship drifted away to leeward of us. She had before this evidently suffered severely. Her boats were gone; her bulwarks in many places stove in; and her bowsprit and foretopmast had been carried away, while, of course, still more serious damage had been sustained in her hull.

“Shall we be able to do anything for all those poor people?” I asked of Peter, who stood near me.

“No, Jack, we shall not,” he answered; “man can’t help them. This ship, by the look of her, will not keep above water another half-hour; and then Heaven have mercy on their souls! I doubt if the captain will venture to lower a boat in this sea to attempt to save them, or if a boat could lift if he did.”

“It’s very dreadful,” said I.

“Yes, Jack; but it’s the lot all sailors must be prepared for,” answered Peter. “Remember, it may be my fate or yours one of these days. We should not be afraid; but I repeat it, Jack, we should be prepared.” I did not quite understand Peter then.

“Then, Peter, you would not go in the boat if one was lowered?” I observed.

“Wait till the captain says what he wants done,” he answered calmly. “If he thinks a boat can live, and wants volunteers, it’s my duty to go, you know. Remember, Jack, obey first, and calculate risk afterwards.”

Peter’s predictions as to the fate of the Spanish ship were fulfilled sooner even than he had expected. That moment, while we were looking at her, she settled lower and lower in the water; she rolled still more heavily; her bow looked as if about to rise, but instead her stem lifted high—up it went. There seemed a chasm yawning for her. Into it she plunged, and down, down she went—the waves wildly rushing over her decks, and scattering the shrieking multitude assembled on them far and wide over the foaming ocean; mothers, children, husbands, wives, lovers, and friends, the priests and their disciples, were rudely torn asunder, and sent hither and thither. Numbers went down in the vortex of the huge ship—the men at the pumps, the drunken seamen, some who had clung madly to the rigging. Others supported themselves on anything which could float; and brave swimmers struck out for dear life.

“I can’t stand this,” cried our captain, unconscious that he was speaking aloud; “we must try at all risks to save the poor wretches.”

“I’ll go,” cried the second mate, Harry Gale, a fine, quiet, gentleman-reared young man as ever I met.

“I’m one with you, Mr Gale,” cried Peter Poplar, springing aft to the falls of the lee-quarter-boat, the only one which could be lowered. “Bear a hand here, mates; there’ll no time to be lost!”

“Hold fast!” shouted the captain. “No hurry, my men; those who go clear the boat. The mates will stand by the falls with Jackson and Farr. All ready now!—Lower away!”

The captain gave the word, so that the boat touched the water just at the best time. Peter Poplar stood in the bows, boat-hook in hand, and moved off; Mr Gale steered; the three other men were the strongest of the ship’s company; and truly it required all the care and seamanship mortal man could possess to keep a boat alive in such a boiling caldron as the wide Atlantic then was. I was very anxious for Peter’s safety, for he was indeed my friend. I feared also for the rest. I was fully alive to the danger of the expedition they were on.

The boat, keeping under the lee of the brig, dropped down towards the scene of the catastrophe. So fiercely boiling, however, were the waves, that with awful rapidity the greater number of those who had lately peopled the deck of that big ship were now engulfed beneath them. Some, however, still struggled for existence.

Had the sea been less violent many might have been saved; for as we stood on the deck we could see the poor wretches struggling among the foam, but by the time the boat reached the spot they had sunk for ever.

The captain had gone into the main-rigging, and with his outstretched arm was indicating to the second mate the direction in which to steer; but of course she could venture to go very little out of one particular direction without a certainty of being swamped. It was very dreadful to watch one human being after another engulfed in the hungry ocean. We have just to picture to ourselves how we should be feeling if we were in their places, to make us eager to save those under like circumstances.

The most conspicuous object was the tall priest, and towards him the boat was accordingly making her way. Two other figures were at the same time seen. One floated only a short distance to leeward of the brig; it was that, I felt certain, of the beautiful girl I had seen supported by the young officer. She was unconscious of all around, and I believe that even then life had left her frame. She was supported by a piece of plank, to which probably she had been secured with the last fond effort of affection by him who had thus been unable to provide any means of escape for himself. He, however, must have struggled bravely for existence, for I made him out at a short distance beyond, now rising on the crest of a wave, now sinking into the trough of the sea, but still swimming on with his eye gazing steadily in the direction of that floating form.

Meantime the boat was making towards the priest. “Give way, lads!” shouted several of our people in their eagerness, forgetting that they could not possibly be heard. No time was to be lost, for already the priest’s rich dress was saturated with water, and he was sinking lower and lower, and what at first had supported him was now dragging him down. Still he did not give in, but, cross in hand, waved the boat on. The distance he was from the boat must have been greater than we supposed. Suddenly he threw up his arms, and a white-crested top of a sea breaking over him, he disappeared for ever amidst a mass of foam.

Mr Gale saw what had occurred, and instantly turned the boat’s head towards the young officer, who was still swimming on with wonderful strength. In this instance the men were more successful; the boat’s head dropped down close to him, and Peter, stretching out his arm, grasped the young man by the shoulder, and hauled him in over the bows, and passed him on into the stern-sheets. Though faint at first, the Spaniard instantly recovered himself, and stood upright in the boat, gazing eagerly around. As the boat rose on a sea, he caught sight of the object of his search. He pointed towards the floating form of the young lady. Even when first seen, the line by which she had been hurriedly and imperfectly secured to the plank I observed was loosened. The wash of the sea now parted her from it entirely. The young man saw what had occurred. With a cry of anguish, before our people could seize him, he sprang from the gunwale towards the object of his love, as her dress carried her down beneath the foaming waters. I think he reached her. They disappeared at the same moment, and never rose again!

Still a few people kept above water, holding on to planks, or swimming, chiefly seamen or soldiers; but most of them had been carried to too great a distance from the brig for a boat to save them. It was only by keeping under our lee, our hull preventing the sea from breaking so much, that the boat avoided being swamped. Thus we could expect that only a very few of those who floated to the last could be saved. No one could have ventured further than did our brave mate and his crew;—they would in all probability have thrown away their own lives had not Captain Helfrich recalled them. He signalled with his hand, but Mr Gale did not observe him. “Fire a gun there,” he shouted; “quick, for your lives!” A gun had been ready loaded for the purpose. Its report served as the funeral knell of many a despairing wretch.

The boat put about. The returning alongside was as perilous an operation almost as the lowering the boat had been. All hands not required at the falls stood ready with ropes to heave to our shipmates should she be swamped alongside; but the oars being thrown in, Mr Gale and Peter seizing the fall-tackles at the right moment, hooked on, and the rest of the people handing themselves up by the ropes hanging ready for them, the boat was hoisted up before the sea again rose under her bottom. It was sad to think: that all their gallant efforts had been unavailing. In two or three minutes more not a human being of all the Spaniard’s crew was to be seen alive; and except a few planks and spars, and here and there a bale or a chest, mere dots in the ocean, we might have fancied, as we looked out on those foaming waters, that all that had passed was some hideous dream. Often, indeed, have I since had the same dreadful drama acted over before my eyes while I slept; so deep was the impression made on me by the reality. Very many things which long after that time occurred have entirely faded from my memory.

Had it been possible, (as Peter told me he thought it would have been, had all the crew done their duty), to keep the galleon afloat a few hours longer, in all probability we should have been the means of saving the people. In the course of the day the wind fell, and the sea went down sufficiently to have allowed our boats to have passed between the two vessels without any great risk. Captain Helfrich was certainly not a man to have deserted her while a chance remained of saving a human being. While she floated he would have stuck to her. “Remember, Jack,” said Peter, “the first duty of a ship’s company is to stick by each other—to keep sober, and to obey their officers. Without a head, men can do nothing. They are like a flock of sheep running here and there, and never getting on. What is a man’s duty is best; and you see here, for instance, that the lives of all depend on their doing their duty.”

Sail was again made on the brig, and she was able to lay her course. At night, however, it came on to blow again, and by next morning we were once more hove-to with more sea, and the wind chopping about and making it break in a far more dangerous way than it had done on the previous day. I found, when I came on deck after my watch below, all hands looking out at an object which had just been discovered a little abaft the lee-bow. Some said it was a dead whale; one or two declared that it was a rock; but the officers, after examining it with their glasses, pronounced it to be a vessel bottom uppermost! The question was, whether the wreck was deserted, or whether any people still clung to it. Hove-to as we were, we made of course considerable lee-way; and keeping in the direction we were then driving, we should before long get near enough to examine her condition. Had not the brig already received some damage, Captain Helfrich would, I believe, have run down at once to the wreck; but this, a right care for the safety of his own vessel would not allow him to do. Every instant, too, the gale was increasing, till it blew a perfect hurricane; and not for a moment could a boat have lived had one been lowered. The wreck drove before the wind, but of course we moved much faster; it was some hours, however, before we got near enough to the wreck to discover if anyone was upon it.

“There are three or four people at least upon it,” exclaimed Mr Gale. “Poor fellows! can we do nothing for them, sir?”

“I cannot allow you to throw away your life, as you would if you had your own way,” answered the captain, to whom he spoke. “All we can do is to hope that the wind will go down before we drift out of sight of each other.”

Unhappily our course took us some way from the wreck, though near enough to see clearly the poor fellows on it. How intense must have been their feelings of anxiety as they saw us approaching them! and how bitter their disappointment when they discovered how impossible it was for us to render them any assistance till the weather moderated!

The wreck appeared to be that of a schooner, or brig of a hundred and fifty tons or so. The people were holding on to her keel. There were three white men and two blacks. They waved their handkerchiefs and caps, and held out their hands imploringly towards us. Some were sitting astride on the keel; one was lying down, held on by his shipmates; and another lay right over it looking almost dead. We made out this through the glasses. Peter got me a look through a telescope which one of the men had. It brought the countenances of the poor fellows fearfully near—their expressions of horror and despair could be seen. We longed more than ever for the gale to abate that we might help them. Still it blew on as fiercely as ever all day. The wreck remained during this time in sight, but of course we were increasing our distance from her.

“What would have happened,” said I to Peter, “if it had been night instead of day; and if, instead of passing by the wreck, we had struck against her?”

“Why, we should have given her a finishing-stroke, and very likely have stove in our bottom and followed her,” he answered. “I like to hear you ask such questions; they show that you think. The event you have spoken of occurs very frequently, I suspect. Numbers of vessels leave port, and are never again heard of. They are either run down, or they run their bows against a wreck, or the butt-end of a tree or log of timber; some are burned; some run against icebergs, or fields of ice; and some are ill put together, or rotten, and spring leaks, and so go down: but to my mind the greater number are lost from the first cause I have spoken of. You’ll find out in time, Jack, all the perils to which a seaman is exposed, as well as the hardships I once before spoke to you about.” I did not think at the time how true Peter’s words would come.

We were nearly a mile from the wreck, I suppose, when night came on; but the captain took her bearings by the compass, that he might know in what direction to look for her should he be able to make sail before the morning. I had got pretty well accustomed to the tumbling about by this time, but I could scarcely sleep for thinking of the poor fellows on the wreck. The night passed away without any change in the weather. When morning came all hands were looking out for the wreck; but we all looked in vain. There was the leaden sky, the dark-green foaming sea, but not a spot on it to be observed far as the eye could reach. Before noon the wind once more moderated, and making all sail we stood over the place where, by our captain’s calculations, the wreck would be found. Not a sign of her was to be seen. It was too certain that she must have gone down during the night.

Every day seemed to have its event. We were again on our proper course, though the sea was still running high, when towards evening an object was seen floating ahead of us, just on the lee-bow. We were at no great distance, little more than half a mile or so, when first seen, so that we were not left long in doubt as to what it was. “A raft!” said one; “A piece of a wreck,” said another; “Some casks,” said a third.

“Whatever it is, there is a man upon it,” exclaimed Peter; “and, messmates, he’s alive! Steady you,” he added, looking at the man at the wheel. “Keep her away a little,” he said, addressing Mr Gale, who had charge of the deck.

The news of what was seen at once spread below, and all hands were soon on deck on the look-out. The man was alive, and saw us coming, for he waved a handkerchief to attract our notice, lest he might not have been observed. We waved to him in return, to keep up his spirits. As we approached, we saw that the man was dressed as a sailor. He was seated on a grating, made more buoyant by several pieces of spars and planks. He was leaning against another plank, which he had secured in an upright position by means of stays on the grating. Had not the sea been still very high, we could have run alongside his raft and picked him off without difficulty; but as it was impossible to steer with the necessary nicety, there was a risk of running him down by so doing. We therefore hove-to to windward of him; and Mr Gale, with the boat’s crew who had before volunteered, being lowered, they pulled carefully towards him. The man stood up as he saw them approach; and scarcely had the bow of the boat touched the grating, than he sprung on board, and without help stepped over the shoulders of the men into the stern-sheets. When there, however, his strength seemed to give way, and he sank down into the bottom of the boat in what appeared to be a fainting fit. A few drops from a flask, which Mr Gale had thoughtfully carried in his pocket, partially revived the man, though he was unable to help himself up the side. He was therefore slung on deck, and the boat being hoisted in without damage, we again made sail.

The man, who was placed on deck with his back against the companion-hatch, remained some time in an almost unconscious state; but at length, after much care had been bestowed on him, he recovered sufficiently to speak. He was a fine, good-looking young man; and his well-browned countenance and hands showed that he had been long in a tropical climate. A little food, taken slowly, still further revived him; and he was soon able to lift himself up and look about him.

“How was it you came to be where we found you?” asked Captain Helfrich, who was seated near him on the companion-hatch, while I was employed in polishing up the brass rail of the companion-ladder.

“Why, I belonged to a ship, the Oak Tree, bound from Honduras to Bristol with mahogany and logwood,” answered the stranger. “We had made a fair run of it, three days ago, when we were caught in a heavy squall, which carried away our maintop-mast, and did us much damage. Fortunately, I was at supper when all hands were called to shorten sail; and not thinking what I was about, I clapped a whole handful of biscuit and junk into my pocket before I sprang on deck. A few hours after dark, a heavy sea struck the ship, and carried away our boats and bulwarks, washing me with one or two other poor fellows overboard. I was without my shoes, and had only a thin cotton jacket on; so, being a good swimmer, I was able to regain the surface, and to look about me. Away flew the ship before the wind, without a prospect of my being able to regain her; so I did not trouble myself upon that point. The other men who had been washed overboard with me had sunk: I could do them no good. I therefore had only to look after myself. I first cast my eyes about me, to see what I could get hold of to keep me afloat. The wreck of the bulwarks and boats, with the spars which had been washed overboard, had sent me some materials; and I got a couple of pieces under my arms to support me while I looked for more. In the heavy sea that was running, I could not have made much of a raft, when fortunately my eye caught a grating; which I managed, after much exertion, to reach. By degrees I fished up other pieces of plank and broken spars, till I had formed the raft you found me on. Fortunately, I had started on my cruise just after supper, so that I was able to hold out for some time without eating. But when morning came, and there was not a sail in sight, I began to feel somewhat down-hearted. However, I soon plucked up again. Said I to myself, ‘Though the ocean is wide, there are a good many craft afloat, and it will be hard if someone doesn’t make me out before very long.’ I tried to think of all the wonderful escapes people had made who had been in a similar condition; and I prayed that God would deliver me in the same way. One thing weighed on my mind, and still weighs there: I left a wife and a small child at home, near Bristol; and when the ship arrives there, the poor girl will hear that I was was washed overboard, and will believe me dead. When you got near me, I saw that you were outward-bound; and the thought that she might have to go many a month and not hear of me, served more than anything else to upset me. My strength gave way, and I went off in a faint, as you saw, in the bottom of the boat.” He then told the captain that his name was Walter Stenning. The captain, who was a kind-hearted man, did his best to raise his spirits; and promised him that if we fell in with a homeward-bound ship he would endeavour to put him on board.

As it happened, we did not speak any vessel till we reached the West Indies; so we had to carry Walter Stenning with us.

Chapter Three.

The West Indies.

“Land! land on the starboard-bow!” was shouted from the foretopmast cross-trees, where several of our men had been, in spite of a pretty hot scorching sun, since dawn, on the look-out for it.

“Who saw it first?” asked the captain, who was always more anxious when nearing the coast than at any other time.

“Tom Tillson,” was the answer from aloft.

“A glass of grog for you, Tom, if it proves to be the land, and you have kept your eyes open to good purpose!” said the captain, preparing himself to go to the mast-head, where the mates followed him.

They were satisfied that Tom had fairly won his glass of grog, I suppose; for, after some time, when I went aloft, I saw a high blue-pointed mountain rising out of the sparkling sea with ranges of lower hills beneath it.

As we drew in with the shore, we could distinguish the fields of sugar-cane surrounded by lime-trees, and the white houses of the planters, and the huts of the negroes; and I thought that I should very much like to take a run among the lofty palmetto and the wild cotton-trees and the fig-trees, and to chase the frolicsome monkeys I had heard spoken of among their branches. A light silvery mist hung over the whole scene, and made it look doubly beautiful. I asked Peter what land it was, for I thought that we had arrived at America itself. He laughed, and said that it was only a little island called Saint Christopher’s; and that he’d heard say that it was first discovered by the great admiral who had found out America, and that he had called it after his own name. Peter, though he could not read, had a great store of information, which he had picked up from various people. He was not always quite correct; and that was from not being able to read, as he was less able to judge of the truth of what people told him; but altogether, I learned a great deal from his conversation.

We came to an anchor before the town of Basseterre, the capital of the island. It was a clean handsome-looking place, and a number of ships lay before it; while behind it, rising from the wide valley, richly cultivated and beautiful in the extreme, rose the lofty and precipitous crags of Mount Misery, 3700 feet high. It may well be so-called, for it would be pain and misery to have to climb up it, and still greater not to be able to come down again!

After the events I have before described, we had come south till we fell in with the trade-winds, which had brought us on a due westerly course to this place. I did not go on shore; but I heard the captain say that the merchants and planters were very civil and polite to him. They had, however, suffered very much in the late war with France. It was in the year 1782 that a French general, the Marquis de Bouille, having eight thousand men with him, besides a fleet of twenty-nine sail of the line, commanded by the Admiral Count de Grasse, captured the island from the English. It was, however, restored to Great Britain when the war ended the following year.

We had a quantity of fruit brought off to us, which did most of us a great deal of good, after living so long on salt provisions. I remember how delicious I thought the shaddock—which is a fruit something like a very large orange. Its outer coat is pale, like a lemon, but very thick. It is divided into quarters by a thin skin, like an orange; and the taste—which is very refreshing—is between a sweet and an acid. The colour of the inside of some is a pale red—these are the best; others are white inside. Peter told me that he had heard that the tree was brought from the coast of Guinea by a Captain Shaddock, and that the fruit has ever since borne his name.

We spent three or four days at anchor before this beautiful place; and then, having landed two or three of our passengers, and put Walter Stenning on board a vessel returning to England, once more made sail for our destination. The trade-wind still favoured us, though it was much lighter than it had been before we entered the Caribbean Sea.

“Jack,” said Peter to me the afternoon we left Basseterre, “I’ve good news for you. The captain wants a lad in the place of Sam Dermot, whom he has left on board a homeward-bound ship, for he found that he was not fit for a sea-life, and Mr Gale has been speaking a word in your favour. I don’t say it’s likely to prove as pleasant a life as you lead forward, but if you do your duty and please him, the captain has the power to advance your interests—and I think he is the man to do it.”

This was good news, I thought; and soon afterwards Mr Gale told me to go into the cabin. The captain, who was looking over some papers, scarcely raised his head as I entered. “Oh, Jack Williams—is that your name, boy?” said he. “You are to help Roach, the steward. Go to him; he’ll show you what you are to do.” The steward soon gave me plenty of work cleaning up things; for the captain was a very particular man, and would always have everything in the best possible order.

The next morning at daybreak, Mr Gale—whose watch it was at the time—roused me up, and sent me to tell the captain that there was a strange sail on the starboard-bow, which seemed inclined to cross our fore-foot. The captain was soon on deck and examining the stranger with his glass.

“Well, what do you make of her, Mr Gale?” he asked. She was a low, little vessel, with considerable beam, and a large lateen mainsail, and a jib on a little cock-up bowsprit—something like a ’Mudian rig.

“She’s a suspicious-looking craft; and if it were not that we are well-armed, and could sink her with a broadside, I should not much like her neighbourhood, sir,” answered the second mate. As he spoke, a gun was fired by the stranger, but not at us.

“He wants to speak us, at all events,” observed Captain Helfrich. “If he had intended us mischief he would have fired at us, I should think.”

“Not quite so certain of that, sir,” answered Mr Jones, the first mate. “Those pirating fellows are up to all sorts of tricks; and if he’s honest he belies himself, for a more roguish craft I never saw. He doesn’t show any colours, at all events.”

“We’ll not be taken by surprise, then,” answered the captain. “Arm the people, and see the guns all ready to run out. Boy, get my pistols and cutlass from the steward. Tell him to show himself on deck; and let the gentlemen in the cabin know that if they get up, they may find something to amuse them.”

I dived speedily below to deliver my message. While the steward was getting ready the captain’s arms, I ran round to the berths of the passengers. One had heard me ask for the pistols; thus the report at once went round among them that there was fighting in prospect. In a few minutes, therefore, several gentlemen in straw-hats, with yellow nankeen trousers and gay dressing-gowns, appeared on deck.

“What!—is that little hooker the craft we are going to fight, captain?” exclaimed one of them. “We shouldn’t have much difficulty in trouncing her, I should think.”

“Not the slightest, sir, if we have the chance,” he answered. “But her crew would have no difficulty either in cutting all our throats, if we once let them get on board! The chances are that she has a hundred desperadoes or more under hatches, and as she can sail round us like a witch, they may choose their own time for coming alongside. I tell you, gentlemen, I would rather she were a hundred miles away than where she is!”

These remarks of the captain very much altered the manner of some of the gentlemen. They were all ready enough to fight, but they put on much more serious countenances than they had at first worn, and kept eyeing the stranger curiously through their telescopes. Still the stranger kept bowling away before us on our starboard-bow, yawing about so as not greatly to increase his distance from us. If he could thus outsail us before the wind, he would be very certain to beat us hollow on a wind. We had, therefore, not the slightest prospect of being able to get away from him so long as he chose to keep us company. Suddenly he luffed up with his head to the northward.

“He thinks that he had better not play us any tricks; he has found out that we are too strong for him,” observed Mr Jones. Scarcely had the mate spoken, when a dozen men or so appeared on the deck of the felucca, and launched a boat from it into the water. As soon as she was afloat, two people stepped into her. One seized the oars, and the other seated himself in the stern-sheets.

“Well, that is a rum-looking little figure!” I heard one of our passengers exclaim, bursting into a fit of laughter. “I wonder if he is skipper of that craft?”

“She’s not a craft that will stand much joking,” observed the first mate. “See, sir; she has begun to show that she is not lightly armed.”

He pointed to the deck of the felucca, on which there now appeared at least full thirty men. They looked like a fierce set of desperadoes. They were of all colours, from the fair skin of the Saxon to the ebony hue of some of the people of Africa. The captain saw, I suppose, that there was no use in trying to prevent the boat from coming alongside; for had he done so, the felucca would very quickly have been after us again, and might not another time have treated us so civilly. He therefore, as soon as the boat shoved off from the side of the felucca, ordered the sails to be clewed up, to allow her more easily to approach.

As she pulled towards us, we were able to examine the people in her. He who sat in the stern-sheets was a little old man, with a little three-cornered hat on his head, and a blue long-skirted coat and waistcoat, richly laced. He had on also, I afterwards saw, knee-breeches, and huge silver buckles to his shoes. His countenance seemed wizened and dried up like a piece of parchment. Some of the younger passengers especially seemed to think him, by their remarks, a fair subject for their ridicule. The person who pulled was a huge negro. He must have been as tall as Peter Poplar, but considerably stouter and stronger of limb. He was clothed in a striped cotton dress and straw-hat. It would have been difficult to find two people associated together more unlike each other. The old man took the helm, and by the way he managed the boat it was clear that he was no novice in nautical affairs. “What can he want with us!” exclaimed the captain. “We’ll treat him with politeness, at all events!” Side-ropes and a ladder were therefore prepared; but scarcely had the bowman’s boat-hook struck the side, than the old gentleman had handed himself up by the main-chains on deck with the agility of a monkey, followed by the big negro. I then saw that he had a brace of silver-mounted pistols stuck in his belt, and that he wore a short sword by his side; but the latter was apparently more for ornament than use. The negro also had a large brace of pistols and a cutlass. In the boat were two iron-clamped chests, one of them being very large, the other small.

The old gentleman singled out the captain as soon as he reached the deck, and walked up to him. “Ah, Captain Helfrich, I am glad to have fallen in with you!” he exclaimed, in a singularly firm and full voice, with nothing of the tremulousness of age in it. “I’ve come to ask you for a passage to Jamaica, as I prefer entering Port-Royal harbour in a respectable steady-going craft like yours, rather than in such a small cockle-shell as is my little pet there!” As he spoke he pointed with a smile—and such a smile! how wrinkled and crinkled did his face become—to the wicked-looking little felucca.

“Impossible, sir,” answered the captain; “my cabins are already so crowded that I could not accommodate another person!”

“Oh! how are the places of Mr Wilmot and Mr Noel occupied then?” asked the stranger with a peculiar look. They were the gentlemen who landed at Saint Kitt’s!

The captain started, and looked at his visitor with a scrutinising glance; but he remained unabashed.

“How did you learn that?” asked the captain quickly.

“Oh, there are very few things which happen in these parts the which I don’t know,” answered the stranger quietly. “However, captain, even if all your cabins are full, that excuse will not serve you. I can stow myself away anywhere. I’ve been accustomed to rough it, and Cudjoe here won’t object to prick for a soft plank!” The black, hearing his name pronounced, grinned from ear to ear, though he said nothing.

Still the captain, who evidently could not make out who his visitor was, and much mistrusted him, was about to refuse the request, when the old gentleman took him by the button of his coat, as a man does a familiar friend, and led him aside. What was said I do not know, nor could I judge from his countenance how the captain took the communication made to him—I saw him start, and examine the old man attentively from head to foot. The result, I know, was that the boat and the chests were hoisted on board—the sails were let fall and sheeted home. The stranger went to the taffrail and waved his hat. On his doing this, the felucca hauled her wind and stood to the northward.

Just under the companion-stair was a small cabin, which had been filled with stores. This was cleared out, and our strange passenger took possession of it with his chests, while Cudjoe slept at the door. He at once made himself at home, and entered into conversation with every one. No one seemed, however, inclined to quiz him. When he was on deck, I heard the gentlemen in the cabin wondering who he was, for none of them had the slightest notion about the matter; and if the captain knew, he certainly would not tell them. The negro never spoke to any of the passengers or crew. Some said he was dumb; but I knew that was not the case, for I often heard him and the old gentleman talking, but in a language I could not understand. His only care appeared to be to watch over the old gentleman’s chests, which had been placed in his cabin, and to keep an eye on the little skiff which had brought them on board.

Those of the passengers who had lived in the West Indies could do nothing for themselves, and were constantly wanting me to perform some little job or other for them. I was thus oftener in the cabin than out of it. While I was attending on them, my great amusement was listening to the yarns which the old gentleman used to spin. They took in all he said for fact; but there used to be often a twinkle in his eye which made me doubt the truth of all he said.

“A man who can look back the larger part of a century, as I have done, must have heard a number of strange things, and seen a number of strange people and strange sights, unless he has gone through the world with his eyes and ears closed, which I have not,” he remarked one day when several of the passengers were collected in the cabin. “Gentlemen, I have served both on shore and afloat, and have seen as many shots fired as most people. I cannot quite recollect Admiral Benbow’s action in these seas, but I was afloat when that pretty man Edward Teach was the terror of all quiet-going merchantmen. His parents lived at Spanish Town, Jamaica, and were very respectable people. Some of his brothers turned out very well; and one of them was in the king’s service, in command of a company of artillery. He, however, at an early age showed himself to be of a somewhat wildish disposition, and rather than submit to control, ran away to sea. For many years he knocked about, among not the best of characters perhaps, in different parts of the world, till he became as daring a fellow as ever stepped a plank. In a short time, while still very young, he got together a band of youths much of his own way of thinking; and they commenced, after the old fashion, the life of gentlemen rovers. Their mode of proceeding was to run alongside any merchantman they fell in with, which they thought would prove a prize worth having. Having taken possession of everything they wanted, they then made every landsman walk the plank, as they did likewise every seaman who would not join them. Those only who would take their oaths, and sign their articles, were allowed to live. Mr Teach used to dress himself out in a wild fashion, and as he wore a great black beard, he certainly did look very ferocious. From this circumstance he got the name of Blackbeard. I don’t fancy that he committed all the acts imputed to him, but he did enough to gain himself a very bad name. The governors of the West India Islands, in those days, and the American settlements, were rather fonder of their ease than anything else, so they allowed him to range those seas with impunity. At last, however, a naval officer, feeling indignant that one man should hold a whole community in awe, undertook to destroy the pirate. He got a ship fitted out, well-armed and well-manned, and larger than any Teach was likely to have with him. After a long search, he fell in with the pirate. Teach had never given quarter, and it was not expected that he would take it. More than half drunk, the pirates went to their quarters, and fought more like demons than men. The crew of the king’s ship had to fight desperately also. For a long time it was doubtful which would come off the conqueror. At length, however, a large number of the pirates being killed or wounded. Teach was about to blow up his ship. Before, however, he could get below, his ship was boarded by his enemies, and he had to defend himself from the attack of the gallant English officer. For a long time he fought most desperately, but at last he was brought on his knees; and as he would not surrender, he was cut down, and died on the spot. Scarcely a third of his men were taken alive, and they were mostly wounded. His head was cut off and carried to Virginia, where it was stuck on a pole; and where the greater number of the pirates taken were hung in chains, to show to others what very likely would be their fate if they should design to follow the same course.”

“Why, you seem to know so much about the matter, I suppose you were there, sir,” said one of the passengers, intending his remark to be jocose.

“That is possible, young ’un,” answered the old gentleman, fixing his eyes on the speaker. “Perhaps I formed part of the pirate crew; but you don’t fancy I was hung, do you?”

The young man did not venture a reply.

“I’ll tell you where I saw some service,” continued the old gentleman. “The Spaniards had for a long time ruled it insultingly over the English in these seas, fancying that, because we didn’t bark, we could not bite. At last a fleet was fitted out in England, and despatched to the West Indies, under the command of Admiral Vernon, in 1739. He first touched at Jamaica, where he refreshed his men, and took on board a body of troops and some pilots, as well as provisions; and, on the 5th of November, sailed for the Spanish town of Porto Bello, which lies on the north side of the Isthmus of Darien. Its harbour and strong forts afforded protection to the Guarda Costas, or Spanish cruisers, which attempted to put a stop to the commerce of other nations in these seas; and it was, likewise, the great rendezvous of the Spanish merchants from various quarters. The town consisted of five or six hundred houses, and some public buildings. The inhabitants depended almost entirely on the fair, which was held there every two or three years, and which lasted about six weeks. The fair took place according to the time when the galleons arrived from Carthagena, where they first touched to dispose of part of their goods. At Porto Bello they were met by the merchants from Lima and Panama, who came, with millions of dollars, to purchase their merchandise. So crowded was the place during the fair, that there was scarcely room to stow the chests of money! The entrance of the harbour is narrow, but widens within; and at the bottom lies the town, in the form of a half moon. At the east end of the town is a huge stable for the mules employed in the traffic between it and Panama. It is very unhealthy, as on the east side there is a swamp; and in the harbour, at low tide, a wide extent of black slimy mud is exposed, exhaling noisome vapours. The town was defended by three forts. The Iron Fort was on the north side of the harbour’s mouth, and had a hundred guns. The Gloria Castle was a mile from the first, on the south side of the harbour, and had a hundred and twenty guns. And lastly, there was the fort called Hieronymo, with twenty guns. The Spaniards having been warned of the approach of the English squadron by a fast-sailing vessel which escaped from them, were prepared to receive them, and hoped to send them to the bottom at once. The fleet consisted only of the Burford, commanded by the Admiral; the Hampton Court, Commodore Brown; the Norwich, Captain Herbert; the Worcester, Captain Main; the Princess Louisa, Captain Waterhouse; and the Stafford, Captain Trevor. On the 21st they came up with the harbour. The Hampton Court first entered, and came to action not a cable’s length from the Iron Fort; and in twenty-five minutes’ time fired away about four hundred shot; so that nothing was to be seen but fire and smoke. The Norwich came next, the Worcester next, and then the Admiral, who anchored within half a cable’s length of the castle: and though he was warmly received, the Spaniards were soon driven from their guns. Then, although no breach was made, the troops were landed, and the boats’ crews, climbing up through the embrasures, struck the Spanish flag and hoisted the English colours! The other two forts capitulated next day, and all three were completely demolished; the Spanish troops being allowed to march out with their arms. The work was done by four ships, for the other two had not come up; and its history serves to show what men can do, if they are not afraid of the consequences. The same spirit, in a juster cause, animated Vernon which had animated Morgan and the Buccaneers of old, and enabled them to succeed in their desperate enterprises. If a thing must be done, or should be done, never calculate consequences. If a thing is not urgent, then balance the probable consequences against the value of the desired result. That has been my way through life, gentlemen. I have never undertaken anything unless I wished to succeed and had secured the necessary means; and then I have guarded as best I could against unforeseen circumstances.”

This was the sort of way the old gentleman talked. He told the gentlemen one day that he was not born when the earthquake occurred during which Port-Royal was swallowed up; but that he had often heard people speak of it who had witnessed it. It began about noon on the 7th of June 1692. Nine-tenths of the city and all the wharves sunk at once; and in two minutes from the commencement of the earthquake several fathoms of water lay over the spot where the streets had just stood. Two thousand persons perished. Some, it was said, who were swallowed up in one place, rose again in another still alive; but that I do not think possible. Very likely they were washed from one place to another, clinging to beams or rafters; and not knowing, in their horror and confusion, where they had been, were picked up and saved. A mountain toppled over into a river, and, by blocking up the course, a vast number of fish were taken, which afforded food to many of the nearly starving inhabitants. Nearly all the vessels in the harbour were lost; but one ship of war, the Swan frigate, was driven over the tops of the houses without capsizing. She received but slight damage, and was the means of saving many lives. Scarcely had the earthquake ceased than a fever broke out, which carried off numbers of people. What with hurricanes, plagues, insurrections of the blacks, and attacks from foreign foes, Jamaica had an uneasy time of it; and it proves her unbounded resources that, in spite of all drawbacks, she has continued wealthy and flourishing.

The old gentleman said a great deal more about Jamaica, but this was the substance, I know, of his remarks. That there was something mysterious about the old man was very evident. The captain, I thought, stood somewhat in awe of him, and in his absence never even alluded to him. The rest of the passengers, however, indulged in all sorts of suspicions about him, though they never expressed them, except among themselves. They spoke freely enough before me, for they fancied, I believe, that I did not understand them. I was one day beginning to tell Peter what I had been hearing. “Jack,” said he, “I have a piece of advice to give you, which you’ll find useful through life. Never go and repeat what you hear about anybody. It’s done by people through idleness sometimes, and often through ill-nature, or with a downright evil intention; but whatever is the cause, it’s a contemptible propensity, and is certain to lead to harm.” I promised that I would follow this advice, and I did so.

Though we had light winds, the strong current which set in from east to west across the Caribbean Sea helped us along, and enabled us to reach Jamaica about seven days after we left Saint Kitt’s. After coasting along some way, we cast anchor in Port-Royal Harbour, about five miles from Kingston. There were from two to three hundred sail of craft of all sizes brought up in the harbour.

Scarcely had we dropped our anchor, when the wind, which had before been very light, fell completely. I saw the old gentleman come on deck, and look round earnestly on every side, and then up at the sky. He then went to the captain, and took him aside.

“I tell you it will be down upon us before very long,” I heard him say. “House your topmasts, and range your cables, and have every anchor you’ve got ready for letting go.”

The captain seemed to expostulate: “Not another craft seems to be expecting danger.”

“Never mind what other crafts are doing,” was the answer. “Take the warning of a man who has known these seas from his earliest days, and do you be prepared. If they are lost, it is no reason that you should be lost with them.”

The captain at last yielded to the advice of the old gentleman. The topmasts were struck and every particle of top hamper was got down on deck. The cables were all ranged, and two other anchors were carried out ahead, while full scope was given to the best bower which we had down. The old gentleman went about the deck seeing that everything was done properly. Had we not, indeed, been well-manned the work could not have been accomplished at all. Oh, how hot and sultry it was! I had never before felt anything like it. The pitch bubbled and boiled out of the seams on the deck, and the very birds sought shelter far away in some secluded spot.

“Why has the ship been gut into this condition?” I asked of Peter.

“Because they think a hurricane is coming, Jack. If there is, we have just got into harbour in time. I don’t see any signs of it myself, except the wind dropping so suddenly; but I suppose the officers know best.”

I told him that the old gentleman had persuaded the captain to prepare for whatever was coming.

“Ah! he knows, depend on’t, Jack,” said Peter. “I can’t tell what it is, but there is something curious about that old man. He knows a great deal about these parts.” Such was the opinion all forward had formed of the stranger.

When the wind fell the sea became like a sheet of glass. A feather could not have moved over it. It became hotter and closer than ever, and we were glad to get anywhere out of the sun, stifling even as the heat was below. Even the old hands, who were inclined to laugh at the newcomers’ complaints of the heat, confessed that they would rather have it cooler. The rest of the vessels in the harbour, with few exceptions, had not hitherto been prepared to meet any unusual tempest but lay as if their crews were totally regardless of any signs of a change. A few, however, had followed our example by striking their topmasts and getting out fresh anchors.

Some of the passengers, meantime, were very anxious to go on shore; but the stranger urged them to remain on board, and assured them that before they could be half-way there the hurricane would be upon them. Two of them, however, were incredulous. The boat of a merchantman lying not far from us, was just then passing with her master in her.

“Ah! I know Captain Williams well. If he is bound for Kingston, he will give us a passage!” exclaimed one of the gentlemen; and he hailed the boat. She came alongside, and refusing all warning, they, taking their portmanteaus, got into her.

“We’ll take any message for anyone,” they sung out jokingly as they shoved off. “The storm you are afraid of will blow over, depend on it.”

“Fools are wise in their own conceit,” muttered the old gentleman, as he turned on his heel. I remember, even now, the sound of their laughter as they pulled away up the harbour.

The heat continued to increase, though a thick reddish haze overspread the sky; but as yet not a vapour floated in it. Suddenly, as if by magic, from all quarters came hurrying up dark lowering clouds, covering the whole concave of heaven, a lurid light only gleaming out from near the horizon. Then, amidst the most terrific roars of thunder, the brightest flashes of lightning, and the rushing, rattling, crashing sound of the tempest, there burst upon us a wind, which made the ship reel like a drunken man, and sent the white foam, torn off the surface of the harbour, flying over the deck in sheets, which drenched us through and through. In an instant, the surrounding waters were lashed into the wildest foaming billows. The vessels pitched fearfully into the seas, and began, one after the other, to drag their anchors. Some broke adrift altogether, and were hurled along till they were cast helplessly on the shore; and fortunate were any of the crew who could scramble clear of the hungry waves which rolled after them up the beach. Some of the smaller craft pitched heavily a few times, and then apparently the sea rushed over them, and down they went to rise no more. I was holding on all the time to the fore-rigging with hands and feet, fearing lest I should be blown away, and expecting every moment to see our turn come next to be driven on shore. We were, however, exposed to a danger on which I had not calculated: the vessels breaking adrift, or dragging their anchors, might be driven against us, when we and they would probably have been cast on shore or sunk together. On land, wherever we could see, a terrific scene of confusion and destruction was taking place; tall trees bent and broke like willow wands, some were torn up by their roots, and huge boughs were lifted high in the air and carried along like autumn leaves; houses as well as huts were cast down, and their roofs were carried bodily off through the air. I doubted whether I would rather be afloat or on shore, unless I could have got into a deep cave, out of the way of the falling walls, and trees, and roofs. All this time every one was on deck,—the officers and crew at their stations, ready to try and avert any danger which might threaten us. With a steady gale we might have cut or slipped and run out to sea; but in a hurricane the wind might have shifted round before we were clear of the land, and sent the ship bodily on shore.

While all hands were thus on the look-out, a boat, bottom uppermost, was seen drifting down near us amidst the foaming waters. One man was clinging to the keel. He looked imploringly towards us, and seemed to be shrieking for aid. No assistance could we give him. I could distinguish his countenance: it was that of one of the passengers who had just before persisted in leaving the ship! His companion, and the master and crew, where were they? He, poor wretch, was borne by us, and must have perished among the breakers at the mouth of the harbour. We had not much time to think of him, for we soon had to look to our own safety. A large ship, some way inside of us, was seen to break adrift, and soon after came driving down towards us. Being twice our size, she might speedily have sunk us. Mr Gale and Peter were at the helm to try and sheer the brig clear of her as she approached us. This, however, was not easily effected when there was but a slight current. Down came the ship! “Stand by with your axes, my lads, to cut her clear if she touches us!” shouted the captain. The ship was still some way off, and before she reached us, a schooner broke from her anchorage just ahead of us and drove towards us.

The poor fellows on board stood ready to leap on our deck had she touched us; but she just grazed by, her main-rigging for an instant catching in ours. A few strokes of an axe cut her clear, and before any of her crew could reach us she was driven onward. In another instant the wind catching her side, she turned completely over. There was a wild shriek of despair from her hapless crew. For a few moments they struggled desperately for life; but the wind and the waves quickly drove those off who had clung to the driving hulk, and soon not a trace of them or her could we perceive.

While this was occurring the old man stood unmoved near the helm, watching the approaching ship. “Arm your people with axes, Captain Helfrich, you’ll want them,” said he quietly. His advice was followed. The ship came driving down on us on the starboard bow. It appeared that if she struck us she must sink us at the moment. Our helm was put to starboard, and by sheering a little to the other side, we escaped the dreaded blow. At that instant she turned round, and her main-yard got foul of our after-rigging. This brought our sides together, and she hung dragging on us. Instantly all hands flew to cut her adrift, for already we had begun to drag our anchors. If we escaped sinking at once, there was certain prospect of both of us being cast on shore. Some of her crew endeavoured to get on board the Rainbow; but at the moment they were making the attempt, down came our mainmast, crushing several of our people beneath it. I saw the captain fall, and I thought he was killed. The first mate was much hurt. Still the ship hung to us, grinding away at our side and quarter, and destroying our bulwark and boats. The foremast, it was evident, would soon follow the mainmast, when the stranger wielding a glittering axe, sprung, with the agility of a young man, towards the stays and other ropes which held them, and one after the other severed them. His example was followed by Mr Gale and the crew, and in a shorter time than it has taken to describe the scene, we were freed from our huge destroyer. She went away to leeward, and very soon met her fate.

Still the hurricane raged on. We were not safe, for other vessels might drive against us. However, our next work was to clear the wreck. No one was more active in this than the stranger. At first we thought that the captain was dead; but the news spread that, though much injured, he was still alive. Almost blinded by the spray and rain and vivid lightning, the crew worked on. At length the storm ceased almost as suddenly as it had begun; but words cannot describe the scenes of destruction which were presented to our eyes on every side, wrecks strewed the shore, and the plantations inland seemed but masses of ruin. Night at last came, and the ship was made snug. When I went on deck early in the morning, I looked about for the stranger. Neither he nor his black attendant, nor his chests and boat were to be found. Yet it was declared that no one had seen them leave the ship! This unaccountable disappearance made all hands wonder still more who the mysterious stranger could be. Such was my first introduction to the West Indies.

Chapter Four.

The Return Home.

“Hurrah! hurrah! Erin-go-bragh!” Such were the cries which the Irish part of our crew uttered, and in which I through sympathy joined, as once more the capstan was manned, and the anchor being hove up, and the topsails sheeted home, we made sail for Dublin. We had been longer than usual at Kingston; for the damage the brig had received in the hurricane, and the illness of the captain, which impeded the collection of freight, had much delayed us. In reality our return home brought very little satisfaction to me. I had no friends to see, no one to care for me. I therefore remained on board to assist the ship-keeper; and the whole time we were in the Dublin dock I scarcely ever set my foot on shore.

The same thing occurred after my second voyage. I did not attempt to form a friendship with anyone. Not that I was of a sulky disposition; but I was not inclined to make advances, and no one offered me his friendship. The ship-keeper, old Pat Hagan, had seen a great deal of the world, and picked up a good deal of information in his time, and I was never tired of listening to his yarns; and thus, though I had no books, I learned more of things in general than if I had bad; for I was but a bad reader at any time. Pat trusted to a good memory, for he had never looked into a book in his life. Thus, with a pretty fair second-hand knowledge of the world, I sailed on my third voyage to the West Indies in the Rainbow. We had the same officers, and several of the crew had rejoined her, who were in her when I first went to sea. I had now become strong and active, and though still little and young-looking, I had all my wits wide-awake, and knew well what I was about. The captain had taken another boy in the cabin instead of me, and I was sent forward to learn seamanship; which was, in reality, an advantage to me, though I had thus a rougher life of it than aft. Still I believe that I never lost the captain’s good-will, though he was not a man to talk to me about it.

Once more, then, the stout old brig was following her accustomed track across the Atlantic. Peter Poplar was also on board. We had been about a fortnight at sea, when, the ship lying almost becalmed with a blue sky overhead, a large white cloud was seen slowly approaching us. The lower part hung down and grew darker and darker, till it formed almost a point. Below the point was a wild bubbling and boiling of the water, although the surrounding sea was as smooth as glass.

“What can that be?” said I to Peter. “Are there any fish there?”

“No—fish! certainly not; but you’ll soon see,” he answered. “I wish it were further off; I don’t like it so near.”

“Why, what harm can it do?” I asked.

“Send as stout a ship as we are to the bottom with scant warning!” he answered. “That’s a water-spout. I’ve seen one rise directly ahead of a ship, and before there was time to attempt to escape it, down it came bodily on her deck like a heavy sea falling over a vessel. She never rose again, but went down like a shot.”

“I hope that won’t be our fate,” said I.

At that moment the captain came on deck. “Get ready a gun there, forward!” he sung out. “Quick now!” While I had been talking to Peter, a pillar of water had risen out of the sea, so it seemed; and, having joined the point hanging from the cloud, came whirling towards us. Had there been sufficient wind to send the ship through the water, we might have avoided it; but there was scarcely steerage-way on her. I thought of what Peter had just told me, and I thought if it does break over us, it will certainly send us to the bottom. The captain ordered the slow match to be brought to him, and went forward to the gun, which had been loaded and run out. On came the water-spout. I could not conceive what he was going to do. He stooped down, and, running his eye along the gun, fired a shot right through the watery pillar. Down came the liquid mass with a thundering sound into the sea, but clear of the ship, though even our deck got a little sprinkling; and when I looked up at the sky, not a sign of a cloud was there. Peter told me that we ought to be thankful that we had escaped the danger so well, for that he had never been in greater risk from a water-spout in his life.

We used frequently to catch dolphins during the passage, by striking them with a small harpoon as they played under the bow of the brig. They are not at all like the creatures I remember carved in stone at the entrance of some gentleman’s park near Dublin. They measure about four feet in length; are thick in the middle, with a green back and a yellow belly, and have a sinking between the tip of the snout and the top of the head; indeed, they are something like a large salmon. We used to eat them, and they were considered like a fat turbot.

Frequently flying-fish fell on our deck in attempting to escape from their two enemies—the dolphin and the bonito: but they fell, if not from the frying-pan into the fire, from the water into the frying-pan; for we used to eat them also. Indeed nothing comes amiss to a sailor’s mess. The flying-fish, which is about the size of a herring, has two long fins which serve it as wings; but it can only keep in the air so long as its fins remain wet. These fish, like herrings, also swim together in large shoals, which, as their pursuers come among them, scatter themselves far and wide. Nothing very particular occurred on the passage, till once more we made the land.

I went aloft when I heard the ever-welcome cry from the foretopmast-head: “Land! land on the starboard bow!” Then I saw it rising in a succession of faint blue hills out of the sparkling sea. Peter told me that it was the large island of Hispaniola, or Saint Domingo, and that it belonged partly to Spain and partly to France; but that there were a great number of blacks and coloured people there, many of whom were free and possessed considerable wealth. Not long after this, in the year 1791, these coloured people rose on the whites, who had long tyrannised over them, and having murdered vast numbers, declared their island an independent kingdom.

We were entering, I found, the Caribbean Sea by the Porto Rico passage; and were to coast along the southern shore on our course to Jamaica. Now and then we were sufficiently close in with the land to make out objects distinctly; but, in general, we kept well out at sea, as it is not a coast seamen are fond of hugging. The silvery mist of the early morning still lay over the land, when, right ahead of us, the white canvas of a vessel appeared shining brightly in the rays of the rising sun. The officer of the watch called the attention of the captain to her. Peter and I were also looking out forward. “Why, Jack!” he exclaimed, “she’s the very craft which put that old gentleman aboard the time we came away from Saint Kitt’s, you remember?”

“Of course I do,” said I. “She is like her, at all events; and as for that old gentleman, I shall not forget him and his ways in a hurry.”

“He was a strange man, certainly,” observed Peter. “The captain seems to have a suspicion about the craft out there. See, he and the mates are talking together. They don’t like her looks.”

Still we stood on with all sails set. Much the same scene occurred which had happened before, when we saw the felucca off Saint Kitt’s. Ammunition was got up—the guns were all ready to run out—the small-arms were served out—and the passengers brought out their pistols and fowling-pieces. Everybody, indeed, became very warlike and heroic. Still the little craft which called forth these demonstrations, as she lay dipping her bows into the swell, with her canvas of whiteness so snowy, the emblem of purity, looked so innocent and pretty, that a landsman would scarcely have expected any harm to come out of her. Yet those accustomed to the West Indies had cause to dread that style of craft, capable of carrying a numerous crew, of pulling a large number of oars, and of running up a narrow river, or shallow lagoon, to escape pursuit.

At last we came up with the felucca. She lay hove-to with her head towards us. There was, certainly, a very suspicious look about her, from the very apathy with which the few people on deck regarded us. However, as we looked down on her deck, we saw six guns lashed along her bulwarks, and amidship there was something covered with a tarpaulin, which might be a heavier gun than the rest. We stood on till her broadside was brought to bear on our counter. At that moment, up sprung from each hatchway some sixty as ugly-looking cut-throats as I ever wish to see; and they were busily engaged in rapidly casting loose their guns; and we were on the point of firing, when, who should we see on their deck, but the old man who had been our passenger! He instantly recognised Captain Helfrich, who was standing near the taffrail, and making a sign to the crew of the felucca, they dived below as quickly as they had appeared. He took off his three-cornered hat and waved it to our captain, who waved his in return; and then he made a sign that he would come on board us.

Instantly the captain ordered the sails to be clewed up. Had the old gentleman been an admiral, he could not have been obeyed more promptly. A boat shoved off from the felucca with four hands in her, and he came on board us. The big negro was not with him, nor did I see him on the deck of the felucca. The captain and the stranger were closeted together for a quarter of an hour or more; and the latter then coming on deck, bowed, with somewhat mock politeness to the passengers, who were assembled staring at him, and stepped into his boat.

No sooner had he gone, than we again made sail. The felucca lay hove-to some little time. She then wore round, and stood after us. So rapidly did she come up with us, that it was very clear we had not the slightest chance of getting away from her, however much we might wish to do so. She kept us company all the day, and at night, in the first watch, I could see her shadowy form gliding over the sea astern of us.

Peter and I talked the matter over together in a whisper. “I’ll tell you what I think is something like the truth,” said he. “To my mind it’s this:— When the captain was a young man out in these parts, he fell in with that old gentleman,—who isn’t so old though as he pretends to be. Well, the captain went and did something to put himself in his power; and that’s the reason the captain is so afraid of him. And then, from what I see, I suspect that the captain saved him from drowning, or maybe from hanging; or in some way or other preserved his life; and that makes him grateful, and ready to do the captain a good turn; or, at all events, prevents him from doing him a bad one. If it was not for that, we should have had all our throats cut by those gentry, if we hadn’t managed to beat them off; and that would have been no easy job. I may be wrong altogether, but this is what I think,” continued Peter. “There’s one thing, particularly, I want to say to you, Jack: never go and do anything wrong, and fancy that it will end with the thing done. There’s many a man who has done a wrong thing in his youth, and has gone through life as if he had a rope round his neck, and he has found it turning up here and there, and staring him in the face when he has least expected it. When once a bad thing is done, you can’t get rid of it—you can’t undo it—you can’t get away from it, any more than you can call the dead to life. You may try to forget it; but something or other will always remind you of it, as long as you live. Then, remember there is another life we’ve got to look to, when every single thing we’ve done on earth must be remembered—must be acknowledged—must be made known. You and I, and every sailor, should know that any moment we may be sent into another world to begin that new life, and to stand before God’s judgment-seat. I think of this myself sometimes; but I wish that I could think of it always; and that I ever had remembered it. Had I always thought of that awful truth, there are many things I could not possibly have ventured to do which I have done; and many things which I have left undone, which I should have done. Jack, my boy, I say I have done you some little good, but there’s no good I could ever possibly do you greater than teaching you to remember that truth always. But I must not knock off this matter without warning you, that I may be thinking unjustly of the captain: and I certainly would not speak to anyone else aboard as I have done to you.”

I thanked Peter for the advice he had given me, and promised that I would not repeat what he had said.

“Can you see the felucca, Tillson?” I heard Mr Gale say to Tom, who was reputed to have the sharpest eyes aboard.

“No, sir; she’s nowhere where she was,” he answered, after peering for some time into the darkness astern.

We all kept looking out for some time, but she did not reappear. The mate seemed to breathe more freely, and I must say that I was glad to be rid of the near neighbourhood of the mysterious stranger. When morning broke, she was nowhere to be seen. Whenever, during that and the following days, a sail appeared anywhere abaft the beam, till her rig was ascertained, it was instantly surmised that she was the felucca coming back to overhaul us. Even the mates did not seem quite comfortable about the matter; and the captain was a changed man. His usual buoyant spirits had deserted him, and he was silent and thoughtful. I could not help thinking that Peter’s surmises were correct.

At last we brought up once more in Port-Royal Harbour. Having landed our passengers, and discharged our cargo, we sailed again for Morant Bay, Saint Thomas’s, and other places along the coast, to take in a freight of sugar, which was sent down in hogsheads from the plantations in the neighbourhood.

We were rather earlier than usual, and we had some time to wait till the casks were ready for us. On one of these occasions the captain was invited by a planter, Mr Johnstone by name, to pay him a visit at his farm, which was some way up the country. In that climate every gentleman has a servant to attend on him; and all the planters, and others who live there, always have negroes to help them to wash and dress in the morning, to put on their stockings, and all that sort of thing. As the captain had no black fellow to wait on him, he told me that he should want me to accompany him, and I was too glad to have a chance of seeing something of the country. Meantime, to collect our freight faster, he had chartered a schooner which was lying idle in the harbour, and sent her round to the various smaller ports to pick it up, and to bring it to the brig. He had put her under charge of Mr Gale, who had with him Peter Poplar and several other of our men, and also a few blacks, who were hired as seamen.

I thought it very good fun when I found myself once more on a horse; I had not got on the back of one since I was a little boy in Dublin, and then, of course, there was no saddle nor stirrups, and only an old rope for a bridle. They are generally razor-backed beasts, with one or two raws, and blind, at least, of one eye. The captain was mounted on a strong Spanish horse well able to bear him, and I followed on a frisky little animal with his valise and carpet-bags.

I wish that I could describe the wonderful trees we passed. I remember the wild plantains, with huge leaves split into slips, and their red seed-pods hanging down at the end of twisted ropes; the tall palms, with their feathery tops; the monster aloes, with their long flashy thorny leaves; and the ferns as large as trees, and yet as beautifully cut as those in our own country, which clothed every hillside where a fountain flowed forth; and then the countless variety of creepers, whose beautiful tracery crowned every rock, and hung down in graceful festoons from the lofty trees. Now and then, as passing through a valley and mounting a hill, we stopped and looked back, we caught sight of the blue sparkling sea, with the brig and other vessels in the harbour; a few white sails glancing in the sun, between it and the horizon; and nearer to us, valleys with rich fields and streams of water, and orchards of oranges, limes, and shaddocks; and planters’ houses with gardens full of beautiful flowers, and negro huts under the shade of the plantain-trees. Then there were those forest-giants, the silk-cotton-trees, and various kinds of fig-trees and pines, such as in the old world are never seen. But the creepers I have spoken of make the woods still more curious, and unlike anything at home. First, a creeper drops down from a branch 150 feet high, and then another falls close to it, and the wind blows and twists them together; others grow round it till it takes root, and form a lofty pillar which supports the immense mass of twisting and twining stems above. As we rode along, I saw from many a lofty branch the net-like nests of the corn-bird hanging at the end of long creepers. Those mischievous rascals, the monkeys, are fond of eggs, and will take great pains to get them; so the corn-bird, to outwit them, thus secures her nest. It has an entrance at the bottom, and is shaped like a net-bag full of balls. There the wise bird sits free from danger, swinging backwards and forwards in the breeze.

We slept that night at the house of a friend of the captain’s, who had come out with him in the brig. It was a low building of one storey, with steps leading up to it, and built chiefly of wood. A veranda ran all the way round it. The rooms were very large, but not so handsomely furnished, I thought, as the captain’s cabin. People do eat curious food in the West Indies. Among other things, there was a monkey on the table; but if it had not been for the name of the thing, I cannot say there was any harm in it. I got a bit of it after it was taken from the table, and it was very like chicken. There were lizards and snakes, which were very delicate. There was a cabbage cut from the very top of a lofty tree, the palmetto; but that tree is too valuable to be cut down often for the purpose. Then there were all sorts of sweetmeats and dishes made with them. I recollect a mass of guava-jelly swimming in a bowl full of cream, and wine, and sugar, and citron. There were plenty of substantials also; and wines and liquids of all sorts. I know that I thought I should very much like to live on shore, and turn planter. I had reason afterwards to think that they had bitters as well as sweets to taste, so I remained contented, as I have ever been, with my lot.

At night, the captain had a sofa given him to sleep on in the dining-room, and I had a rug in another corner. It was many a long night since I had slept on shore, and I was constantly startled by the strange noises I heard. Often it was only the wind rustling in the palm-trees; but when I opened my eyes, I saw one whole side of the room sparkling with flashes of light; then it would burst forth on the other side; and then here and there single bright stars would gleam and vanish; and lastly, the entire roof would be lighted up. I dared not wake the captain to ask what was the matter, and it was not till afterwards that I discovered that the light was produced by fireflies, which are far more brilliant than the glow-worms of more northern climes. I had gone to sleep, when, just before daybreak, I was again awoke by a most terrific yelling, and screeching, and laughing, and roaring. I thought that the savages were down upon us, or that all the wild beasts in the country were coming to devour us. I could stand it no longer, but shrieked out, “O captain, captain! what’s going to happen us?” The captain started up, and listened, and then burst into a fit of laughter. “Why, you young jackanapes, they are only some of your brothers, the monkeys, holding a morning concert,” said he. “Go to sleep again; don’t rouse me up for such nonsense as that.”

I found afterwards that the noise did proceed only from monkeys, though I did not suppose that such small animals could have made such hideous sounds. To go to sleep again, however, I found was impossible, as I had already enjoyed much more than I usually got on a stretch. The captain, on the contrary, went off again directly; but his sleep was much disturbed, for he tumbled about and spoke so loudly, that at times I thought he was awake and calling me. “You’ll make me, will you?” I heard him say. “I don’t fear you, Captain Ralph. I—a pirate—so I might have been called—I was but a lad—I consented to no deed of blood—It cannot be brought against me—Well, I know—I know—I acknowledge my debt to you.—You exact it to the uttermost—I’ll obey you—The merchants deem me an honest trader—What would they say if they heard me called pirate?—Ha, ha, ha?” He laughed long and bitterly.

I was very glad that no one else was in the room to hear what the captain was saying. A stranger would certainly have thought much worse of him than he deserved. I had now been so long with him that I was confident, whatever he might have done in his youth, that he was now an honest and well-intentioned man. At the same time I could no longer have any doubts that Peter’s surmises about him were correct, “That old gentleman aboard the felucca is Captain Ralph, then,” I thought to myself, “If I ever fall in with him, I shall know how to address him, at all events.” At length the captain awoke; and after an early breakfast, the owner took him round the plantation, and I was allowed to follow them.

The sugar-cane grows about six feet high, and has several stalks on one root. It is full of joints, three or four inches apart. The leaves are light green; the stalk yellow when ripe. The mode of cultivation is interesting. A trench is dug from one end of the field to the other, and in it longways are laid two rows of cane. From each joint of these canes spring a root and several sprouts. They come up soon after they are planted, and in twelve weeks are two feet high. If they come up irregularly, the field is set on fire from the outside, which drives the rats, the great destroyers of the cane, to the centre, where they are killed. The ashes of the stalks and weeds serve to manure the field, which often produces a better crop than before. The canes are cut with a billhook, one at a time; and being fastened together in faggots, are sent off to the crushing-mill on mules’ backs or in carts. Windmills are much in use. The canes are crushed by rollers and as the juice is pressed out, it runs into a cistern near the boiling-house. There it remains a day, and is then drawn off into a succession of boilers, where all the refuse is skimmed off. To turn it into grains, lime-water is poured into it; and when this makes it ferment, a small piece of tallow, the size of a nut, is thrown in. It is next drawn into pots to cool, with holes in the bottom through which the molasses drain off. Rum is made from the molasses, which being mixed with about five times as much water, is put into a still.

There are three sorts of cotton-trees. One creeps on the earth like a vine; another is a bushy dwarf tree; and the third is as high as an oak. The second-named, after it has produced very beautiful flowers about the size of a rose, is loaded with a fruit as large as a walnut, the outward coat of which is black. This fruit, when it is fully ripe, opens, and a down is discovered of extreme whiteness, which is the cotton. The seeds are separated from it by a mill.

The stem of the cacao-tree is about four inches in diameter. In height it is about twelve feet from the ground. The cacao grows in pods shaped like cucumbers. Each pod contains from three to five nuts, the size of small chestnuts, which are separated from each other by a white substance like the pulp of a roasted apple. The pods are found only on the larger boughs, and at the same time the tree bears blossoms and young fruit. The pods are cut down when ripe, and allowed to remain three or four days in a heap to ferment. The nuts are then cut out, and put into a trough covered with plantain-leaves, where they remain nearly twenty days; and, lastly, dried three or four weeks in: the sun. Indigo is made from an herb not unlike hemp. This is cut, and put into pits with water; and being continually stirred up, forms a sort of mud, which, when dry, is broken into bits for exportation.

I will mention one plant more of general use—coffee. It is a shrub, with leaves of a dark-green colour. The berries grow in large clusters. The bean is enclosed in a scarlet pulp, often eaten, but very luscious. One bush produces several pounds. When the fruit is ripe, it turns black, and is then gathered; and the berries, being separated from the husk, are exposed to the sun till quite dry, when they are fit for the market.

However, I might go on all day describing the curious plants, and trees, and animals, and birds I saw. I must speak of the ginger. The blade is not unlike that of wheat. The roots, which are used, are dug up and scraped free from the outward skin by the negroes. This is the best way of preparing it, and it is then soft and white; but often, from want of hands, it is boiled, when the root becomes hard and tough, and is of much less value.

I shall never forget the beautiful humming-birds, with magnificent plumage gleaming in the sun, and tongues fine as needles, yet hollow, with which they suck the juices from flowers.

We did not, on account of the heat, recommence our journey till the afternoon. The planter accompanied us. I heard him and the captain talking about the outbreaks of the fugitive negroes in former days. “They are a little inclined to be saucy just now,” I heard him remark. “But we taught them a lesson which they will not easily forget. Those we caught we punished in every way we could think of. Hanging was too mild for them. Some we burned before slow fires; others were tied up by the heels; and others were lashed to stakes, their bodies covered over with molasses to attract the flies, and then allowed to starve to death. Oh, we know how to punish rebels in this country.”

I listened to what the planter was saying. I could scarcely believe the testimony of my ears. Was it really a man professing to be a Christian thus talking, thus boasting of the most horrible cruelties which even the fiercest savages could not surpass?

The captain replied, that he supposed they deserved what they got, though, for his part, he thought if a man was deserving of death, he should be hung or shot outright, but that he did not approve of killing people by inches.

From what I heard I was not surprised to find that there were large numbers of these revolted negroes, under the name of Maroons, living among the mountain-fastnesses in the interior of the island, where they could not be reached; that their numbers were continually augmented by runaway slaves; and that they declined to submit to the clemency of the whites. It was quite dark before we reached the house of the planter, where the captain proposed to spend a few days. It stood on the side of a hill covered with trees, and had a considerable slope below it. It was a rough wooden edifice, of one storey, though of considerable size, and had a veranda running round it. Besides the owner, there were the overseer, and two or three white assistants; and an attorney, a gentleman who manages the law business of an estate; and two English friends. Altogether, there was a large party in the house. During dinner the company began to talk about pirates, and I saw the captain’s colour change. The attorney said that several piracies had been committed lately in the very neighbourhood of Jamaica; and that unarmed vessels, in different parts of the West Indies, were constantly attacked and plundered. They remarked that it was difficult to find out these piratical craft. Sometimes the pirates appeared in one guise and sometimes in another; at one time in a schooner, at others in a felucca, or in a brig; and often even in open boats. “Yes,” observed the attorney, “they seem to have excellent information of all that goes on in Kingston. I suspect that they have confederates on shore, who tell them all they want to know.” I thought the captain would have fallen off his chair, but he quickly recovered himself, and no one appeared to have remarked his agitation. They did carry on, to be sure! What quantities of wine and rum-punch they drank! How their heads could stand it I don’t know. Two or three of them did roll under the table, when their black slaves came and dragged them off to bed; which must have raised them in the negroes’ opinion. Even the captain, who was generally a very sober man, got up and sang songs and made speeches for half an hour when no one was listening. At last the slaves cleared the dining-room, and beds were made up there for several of the party. I was afraid that the captain might begin to talk again in his sleep of his early days, and accuse himself of being a pirate; and I was anxious to warn him, lest anyone might be listening; but then, I thought to myself, they are all so drunk no one will understand him, and he won’t like to be reminded by me of such things as that.

The night seemed to be passing quietly away. As I lay on a rug in the corner of the room, I could hear the sound of some night-birds, or frogs, or crickets, and the rustling of the wind among the plantain-leaves, till I fell asleep. Before long, however, I started up, and thought that the monkeys had begun their concert at an earlier hour than usual. There were the most unearthly cries and shrieks imaginable, which seemed to come from all sides of the house, both from a distance and close at hand. For a moment all was silent, and then they were repeated louder than before. Had not the company been heavy with drink, they must have been awoke at once. As it was, the second discharge of shrieks and cries roused them up, and in another minute people came rushing into the dining-hall from different parts of the house, their pale countenances showing the terror they felt. “What’s the matter? what’s all this?” they exclaimed.

“That the negroes have come down from the hills, and that we shall all be murdered!” exclaimed the master of the house, who had just hurried in with a rifle in his hand. “Gentlemen, we may defend ourselves, and sell our lives dearly, but that is all I can hope for.”

“Let us see what can be done,” said Captain Helfrich coolly. “This house may not stand a long siege, perhaps, though we’ll do our best to prepare it. We’ll block up the windows and all outlets as fast as we can. See, get all the rice and coffee bags to be found, and fill them with earth; we may soon build up a tolerably strong fortification.”

The captain’s confidence and coolness encouraged others, and every one set to work with a will to make the proposed preparations. All the household slaves, and several blacks residing in the neighbouring huts had come into the house to share their master’s fortunes but the greater number had run away and hid themselves. There was no lack of muskets and ammunition; indeed, there were among us weapons sufficient to arm twice as many men as were assembled. The white gentlemen were generally full of fight, and began to talk hopefully of quickly driving back the Maroons: but the blacks were in a great state of excitement, and ran about the house chattering like so many monkeys, tumbling over each other, and rather impeding than forwarding the work to be done.

Though matters were serious enough, I, with a youngster’s thoughtlessness, enjoyed a fit of laughter while we were in the middle and hottest hurry of our preparations. It happened that two stout blackies rushed into the hall from different quarters, one bearing on his back a sack of earth, the other a bundle of canes or battens. Tilt they went with heads stooping down right against each other. Their skulls met with a clap like thunder, and both went sprawling over on their backs, with their legs up in the air. The sack burst, and out tumbled the earth; and the bundle of canes separating, lay in a confused heap.

“For what you do dat, Jupiter?” exclaimed he of the canes, as he jumped up ready to make another butt at his opponent.

“Oh, ki! you stupid Caesar, you ’spose I got eyes all round,” replied Jupiter, leaping on his legs with the empty sack hanging round his nook, and stooping down his head ready to receive the expected assault.

The black knights were on the point of meeting, and would probably each have had another fall, when one of the overseers passing bestowed a few kicks upon Caesar. Off ran the hero, and Jupiter expecting the same treatment, took himself off to bring in a fresh bag of earth.

Ten minutes or a quarter of an hour passed away, but still the rebels did not commence their attack. The overseer said that they had uttered the shrieks to frighten us, and also to get the slaves to desert us, that they might murder us alone. I should have supposed that, like other savages, they would have crept silently on us, so as to have taken us unawares; but negroes, I have remarked, seldom act like other races of people.

During the short time which had passed since the alarm was given, we had made very tolerable preparations to receive the rebels. I had been running about, trying to make myself as useful as I could, when the captain called me up to him.

“I’m glad to see you wide-awake, Jack,” said he. “Remember, when the fight begins, as it will before long, stick close to me. I may want to send you here and there for something or other; and if the worst comes, and we are overpowered, we must try to cut our way out through the rascals. Now set to work, and load those muskets; you know how, I think. Ay, that will do; keep loading them as fast as I discharge them. We may teach the Niggers a lesson they don’t expect.”

I was very proud of being thus spoken to by the captain, for it was the first time that he had ever condescended to address me in so familiar a way. It was generally—“Boy, bring me my shoes;” “Jump forward there, and call the carpenter.” I resolved to do my best not to disappoint him.

I placed the powder-flask and bullets on one side of me, and the muskets on the other, so that I could load one after the other without altering my position. It never occurred to me all the time that there was the slightest degree of danger. I thought that we had only to blaze away at the Niggers, and that they would run off as fast as their legs could carry them.

Never was I more mistaken. Soon after the captain had spoken to me we were startled by another thunder-clap of shouts, and shrieks, and unearthly cries, followed by several shot, the ringing taps which succeeded each showing that the bullets had struck the house. Presently a negro, who had been sent to keep a look-out on the roof, came tumbling through a skylight, exclaiming, “Dey is coming, dey is coming, oh ki!” Directly after this announcement, the shrieks and cries were heard like a chorus of demons, and it was evident that our enemies were closely surrounding us. Whichever way we turned, looking up the hill or down the valley, the terrific noises seemed to come loudest and most continuous from that quarter.

Captain Helfrich, as if by the direct appointment of all, took the command. “Now, my lads, be steady,” he exclaimed; “don’t throw your shots away. You’ll want all you’ve got, and a bullet is worth the life of a foe.”

Each man on this grasped his musket; but the negroes held theirs as if they were very much more afraid of the weapons doing them harm than of hurting their enemies. The greater number of the lights in the house had been put out, a few lanterns only remaining here and there, carefully shaded, to show us our way about. Not a word or a sound was uttered by any of us, and thus in darkness and silence we awaited the onslaught of our enemies.

Chapter Five.

The Planter’s House Besieged.

The Maroons did not leave us long in suspense. Once more uttering the most fearful and bewildering shrieks, they advanced from every quarter, completely surrounding, as we judged, the house. For a minute they halted, and must have fired every musket they had among them. Loopholes had been left in all the windows, and every now and then I peeped through one of them, to try and discover what was taking place. There was just sufficient light to enable me to see the dusky forms of the rebels breaking through the fences and shrubberies which surrounded the house. As they arrived, they formed in front, dancing, and shrieking, and firing off their muskets and blunderbusses in the most irregular fashion, expending a great deal of gunpowder, but doing us no harm.

Captain Helfrich was watching them. When some hundreds had been thus collected, he suddenly exclaimed, “Now, my lads, give it them! Don’t throw your shots away on the bushes!”

Obedient to the order, every man in the house fired, and continued firing as fast as he could load his musket. I dropped on my knee alongside the arms the captain had appropriated, and as I handed a loaded musket to him he gave me back the one he had fired, which I reloaded as rapidly as I could.

This continued for some minutes, the constant shrieks and groans of our black assailants showing us that the shot frequently took effect. I believe, indeed, that very few of the captain’s missed. Though he fired rapidly, it was always with coolness and steadiness, and it appeared to me that he had singled out his victim before he turned round to take the musket from me.

As yet none of our people had been killed, though some of the enemy’s shot had found their way through the loopholes in the windows and doors. Growing, however, more desperate at the loss of their companions, and burning for revenge, they rushed up closer to the house, pouring in their fire, which searched out every hole and cranny. Some of the slaves who incautiously exposed themselves were the first to suffer. A poor fellow was standing at the window next to me. A bullet struck him on the breast. It was fired from a tree, I suspect. Down he fell, crying out piteously, and writhing in his agony. It was very dreadful. Then the blood rushed out of his mouth in torrents, and he was quiet. I sprang forward, intending to help him. The pale light of the lantern fell on his countenance. He looked perfectly calm. I thought he was resting, and would get up soon and fire away again. My glance was but momentary, for the captain called me back to my post.

The fire on this became hotter and hotter. Two more negroes were struck. They did not fall, but cried out most piteously. One of the English gentlemen was next shot. He fell without a groan. The captain told me to run and see where he was hurt. I tried to lift him up, but his limbs fell down motionless. There was a deep hole in his forehead, through which blood was bubbling. I suspected the truth that he was dead. I told the captain that he was hit on the head. “Leave him, then, Jack,” said he; “you can do him no good.”

On my return, I looked at the negro who had been first hit. He, too, was motionless. I tried to place him in a sitting posture, but he fell back again.

“Let him alone, Jack,” cried the captain; “his work is done; he’s no longer a slave.”

I thus found that the negro also was dead. It seemed very dreadful to me; I burst into tears.

I cried heartily as I knelt loading the muskets, forgetting that in a short time the captain, and I, and every one in the house, might be in the same state. Had not the whites shown great determination, all must before this have fallen victims to the rage of the Maroons. Numbers of our enemies were shot, but still they rushed on, resolved to destroy the house and all in it.

While the uproar they made was at its height, a loud battering was heard at one of the doors. The enemy had cut down the trunk of a young tree, and were endeavouring to break in the door with it. The captain and the other gentlemen shot down several who were thus engaged, but still they persevered; and, as some fell, fresh assailants rushing up, seized the battering-ram, and continued the work. The door was stout, but we saw that it was giving way. It began to crack in every direction. Pieces of furniture and sand-bags were piled up against it, but with little avail. Each blow shattered a part of it, and soon, with a loud crash, it was driven in, and the fierce, excited faces of our dark foes were seen above the barricade formed by the bags, and furniture, and broken door. Several who attempted to pass over it were shot down, but our people being now much more than ever exposed to the fire of the enemy, proportionably suffered. The shot came in thick among us, and one after the other was wounded.

While the captain and others were defending the breach, the battering-ram was withdrawn; why, we were not long left in doubt. To our great horror, the battering, cracking sound was heard in the rear of the house. Still we were not at once to be defeated, and some of our party hurried to defend the spot. The attack on the front-door had cost the negroes so many lives that they were more cautious in approaching the second; and, when our party began to fire, they retreated under shelter, leaving the trunk of the tree on the ground. At the same time, they began apparently to weary of their ill success in front of the house; for of course they could not be aware that they had killed any of its defenders. We were thus hoping that they would at length withdraw, when the whole country in front of us seemed to burst into flame.

“They have set the fields on fire!” exclaimed the planter.

“No, no,” said Captain Helfrich; “worse than that—see there? Our watch is out, depend on that. Not one of us will see another sun arise. So, my men, let us sally out, and sell our lives dearly.”

I looked through one of the loopholes to see what he meant. Emerging from among the trees came hundreds of dusky forms, each man bearing in his hand a torch which he flourished wildly above his head, dancing and shrieking furiously.

I thought the captain’s advice would be followed, but it was not. The rest of the party were either too badly wounded or wanted nerve for the exploit, and the slaves could not be depended on. All we did was to guard the battered-in door, and to fire away as before.

On came the Maroons with their frantic gestures, and, to our horror, as soon as they reached the door, they began to throw their torches in among us. At first we tried to trample out the fire under foot, but they soon outmastered our powers, and the furniture which composed our barricade ignited, so did the walls of the house, and the negroes shrieking and cheering, encouraged each other in throwing in fresh torches to overwhelm us. Still, induced to fight on by my gallant captain, we continued our exertions, when the attack on the back-door was renewed. It gave way! Loud shouts burst from the Maroons. Their revenge was about to be satiated.

“Now, my lads, follow me,” shouted the captain; “we’ll cut our way through them. Stick to me, Jack, whatever you do!”

As he said this, he seized a cutlass which lay on the ground, and, before the negroes had time to bring the torches round to that side, he rushed through the back-door which they had just battered down. I clung to his skirts as he told me, springing along so as not to impede him; and so heartily did he lay about him with his weapon, cutting off by a blow a head of one and an arm of another, that he speedily cleared himself a wide passage. Several of our party endeavoured to follow him with such weapons as they could seize, but, unable to make the progress he did, they were either knocked down and captured or killed on the spot. On we went towards the wood behind the house, but we had still numberless enemies on every side of us,—enemies who seemed resolved not to allow any of their intended victims to escape them. I did not think it possible that any man could keep so many foes at bay as did the captain. Just as I thought we should escape, his foot caught in a snake-like creeping root which ran along the ground. Over he went almost flat on his face; but he did not lose a grasp of his sword. He tried to rise, and I endeavoured to pull him up. He was almost once more on his feet, when another creeper caught his foot. Again he fell, and this time our enemies were too quick for him. Rushing on him by hundreds, they threw themselves on his body, almost suffocating him as they held him down by main force. I was treated much in the same way, when a huge negro caught me up by the back of the neck, and made as if he was about to cut off my head. He did not do so, but held me tightly by the collar while the rest secured the captain.

Flames were now bursting forth from every part of the planter’s house, and lighted up the surrounding landscape,—the tall plantains and cotton and fig-trees, the tangled mass of creepers and their delicate tracery as they hung from their lofty boughs, the fields of sugar-cane, the cactus-bushes, and numberless other shrubs, and the grey sombre mountain-tops beyond. From the way the blacks were running here and there in dense masses, and the excited shouts I heard, I discovered that they were in pursuit of some of the late defenders of the house, who, when too late, were endeavouring to make their escape. Had they closely followed the captain, they might all, perhaps, have cut their way through the enemy.

The blacks seemed to consider the captain a perfect Samson, for they lashed his arms and legs in every way they could think of; and then making a sort of litter, they put him on it, and carried him along towards the mountains. They treated me with less ceremony. My first captors handed me over to four of them, who contented themselves with merely binding my arms, and driving me before them at the points of their weapons. Now and then one of them, more vicious than the rest, would dig the point of his spear into me, to expedite my movement. I could not help turning round each time with a face expressive, I daresay, of no little anger or pain, at which his companions all laughed, as if it were a very good joke. They seemed to do this to recompense themselves for the loss of the booty they might have supposed the rest were collecting from the burning house.

We had not proceeded far before we were joined by a large band, carrying along, bound hand and foot, the survivors among the defenders of the house. The planter himself, and four or five of his guests, were there, and seven or eight slaves. From the disappearance of the rest of the Maroons, I concluded that they had gone off to attack some other residences.

On we went hour after hour, and when the sun rose, exposed to its broiling heat, without stopping. The negroes ate as they went along, but gave us nothing. It would have been a painful journey, at all events; but when we expected to be tortured and put to death at the end of it, I found it doubly grievous to be endured. I longed for a dagger, and that I might find my arms free, to fight my way out from among them. At last I thought that it would be the best way to appear totally unconcerned when they hurt me, so that I became no longer a subject for their merriment.

At length, about noon, we stopped to rest; and most of our guards, after eating their meal of plantains, went to sleep. I thought that it would be a good opportunity to try and get near the captain, to learn if he thought that there was any chance of our escaping. Some few of the Maroons, with arms in their hands, sat up watching us narrowly; I therefore put on as unconcerned a manner as possible, and lay down on the ground, pretending to go to sleep likewise. I in return watched our guards, and one by one I saw sleep exerting its influence over them. Their eyes rolled round in their heads like those of owls; their heads nodded; then they looked up, trying to appear prodigiously wise; but it would not do, and at length the whole camp was asleep. I considered that now or never was my time for communicating with the captain. Though I saw that no one near was likely to observe me, I thought that some one at a distance might, and therefore that it would be necessary to be cautious. Instead of getting up and walking, I rolled myself gently over and over till I got close up to him.

“Captain,” said I, very softly—“Captain Helfrich, sir. I am here. What can I do?”

He was drowsy, and at first did not hear me; but soon rousing himself, he turned his eyes towards me, for he could not move his head. “Ah, Jack! is that you?” said he; “we are in a bad plight, lad.”

“Do you think the savages are going to kill us, sir?” said I.

“No doubt about it, Jack, if we are not rescued, or don’t manage to escape,” he answered. “I see little prospect of either event.”

“But what can I do, sir?” I asked.

“Little enough, I am afraid, lad,” he replied, in a subdued, calm tone. “But stay, if you can manage to get your hands near my teeth, I will try and bite the bands off them, and then you can loosen the lashings round my limbs. We must wait for the night before we try to escape. We should now be seen, and pursued immediately.”

I did as he bid me, and by means of his strong teeth he was soon able to free my hands from the ropes which had confined them. I also at length, with much more difficulty, so far slackened all his bands and the lashings which secured him to the litter, that he might with ease slip his limbs completely out of them. Having accomplished this important undertaking, I crawled back to the spot I had before occupied. Scarcely had I got there, when a black lifted up his head and looked around. I thought he had fixed his malignant eyes on me, and had probably been a witness of what I had done. I lay trembling, expecting every moment to have the wretch pounce upon me and bind my hands tighter than before. However, after a little, he lay down again, and grunted away as before.

Soon after this another Maroon sat up and looked round, and then another, and another; so that I was very glad I had not lost the opportunity of which I had taken advantage. In another quarter of an hour, the whole force was on the move. I looked anxiously to ascertain whether they had discovered that the captain’s bands had been loosened; but without examining him, they lifted up the litter, and bore him on as before. In consequence of this I walked on much more cheerily than I had previously done, though I still got an occasional prick to hasten my steps.

As we advanced, we got into still more hilly and wild country. All signs of cultivation had ceased, and vegetation revelled in the most extravagant profusion. Our chief difficulty was to avoid the prickly pears, and the cacti, and the noose-forming creepers, which extended across our path. We were in the advance party; the rest of the white men followed at a distance from us, so that we had no prospect of communicating with them.

The encouragement the captain had given me helped to raise my spirits, and I endeavoured further to keep them up by whistling and singing occasionally, but it was with a heavy heart that I did so. My great consolation was all the time that my friend Peter Poplar was not in the same predicament. He would have felt it more than any of us. He had long been prepared for any misfortune which could happen to him at sea, but he had not made up his mind to undergo hardships on shore as well.

At last I began to grow very weary of walking so far over such rough and uneven ground, and I was glad to find that the blacks were approaching their encampment or village. It consisted of a number of rude huts, built on the summit of a high rock, with steep precipices on every side. A narrow causeway led to it from another rock, which jutted out from the side of the hill. It was a very strong place, for it extended too far into the valley to be reached by musketry from the hill; and the hill itself was too rugged to allow cannon to be dragged up it. The rock appeared to have rude palisades and embankments, to serve as fortifications, over a large portion of its upper surface. As I examined it, I saw that our chance of escape from such a place, by any method I could imagine, was small indeed. I do not know what the captain thought about the matter, but he was not a man to be defeated by difficulties, or to abandon hope while a spark of life remained.

As we went along the causeway, a number of women, and children, and dogs came out to meet us, our welcome consisting in a most horrible screaming, and crying, and barking, which, I suspect, as far as the prisoners were concerned, was far from complimentary. Among them were some dreadful old crones, who came stretching out their withered, black, parchment arms, shrieking terrifically, and abusing the white men as the cause of all the misery and hardships it had been their lot to endure. Their accusations were, I believe, in most respects, too just. Certainly white men had torn them or their ancestors from their native land—white men had brought them across the sea in the crowded slave-ship—white men had made them slaves, treated them with severity and cruelty, and driven them to seek for freedom from tyranny among the wild rocks and fastnesses where they were now collected. The other prisoners seemed to feel, by their downcast, miserable looks, that they were in the power of enemies whom they had justly made relentless, and that they had no hope of escape. The old crones went up to them, pointed their long bony fingers in their eyes, and hissed and shrieked in their ears. What was said I could not understand, but they were evidently using every insulting epithet they could imagine to exasperate or terrify their victims.

I have often thought of that dreadful scene since. How must the acts of those white men have risen up before them in their true colours—the wrong they had inflicted on young and innocent girls—the lashes bestowed on men of free and independent natures—the abuse showered on their heads—the total neglect of the cultivation of all their moral attributes! Oh, you Christian gentlemen, did it ever occur to you that those slaves of yours were men of like passions as yourselves; that they had minds capable of cultivation in a high degree, if not as high as your own; that they had souls like your souls to be saved—souls which must be summoned before the judgment-seat of Heaven, to be judged with yours; and that you and they must there stand together before an all-righteous and pure and just God, to receive the reward of the things you have done in this life? Did it occur to you that, had you made those people true Christians; that, had you taught them the holy religion you profess—a religion of love and forgiveness—that they would not now be taking pleasure in tormenting you, in exhibiting the bitter vengeance which rankled in their souls!

I could not help thinking that some such accusing thoughts as these rose to the consciences of the planter and his companions. I know that I would not for worlds have changed places with him, though he was the owner of rich fields and wealth long hoarded up, which he was on the point of returning to England to enjoy.

Either on account of my youth, or because, as they saw, I was a sailor, the rebels must have known that I could not have treated them cruelly, and I was allowed to remain quiet. After the whole population had given vent to their feelings by abusing the prisoners in every possible way, they were thrust into a hut together, and a guard placed over them. The captain and I were then put into another hut, and ordered not to stir on pain of being shot.

“Not bery good chance of dat!” observed one of our captors, a grey-headed old negro with a facetious countenance, looking at the numerous lashings which confined our limbs.

“Better chance than you suppose, old fellow!” thought I to myself; but I kept as melancholy and unconcerned a look as I could assume.

I concluded, that as the other prisoners were guarded so were we, and that we should have very little chance of effecting our escape, unless our guards fell asleep. The difficulties were, at all events, very great. We should, in the first place, have either to scramble down the sides of the rock, or to cross the narrow causeway, where one man as a guard could instantly stop us. There was every probability that the Maroons would place one there.

For some hours there was a great deal of noise in the village. The blacks were rejoicing over their victory, and there was no chance of our guards outside the hut being asleep. I waited, therefore, without moving, till the sounds of revelry subsided, the tom-toms were no longer beaten, the trumpets ceased braying, and the cymbals clashing. Then I could hear the guards talking to each other outside. The few words I could comprehend out of this jargon were not very consolatory. I made out clearly that they proposed to shoot all their prisoners the next day, and that, besides those already in camp, they expected a number more from other estates which were to be attacked. There appeared only a possibility that our lives might be prolonged another day, till all their forces out on various expeditions were assembled. Little did those at home, looking at the map of Jamaica, fancy that, in the very centre of that beautiful island, there existed so numerous a band of savages in open revolt against the authority of the king.

At first our guards were animated enough in their conversation; then their voices grew thicker and thicker, and their tones more drowsy and droning, till they could scarcely have understood what each other said. At last one began to snore, then another, and the last speaker found himself without auditors. I longed for him to hold his tongue, and to go to sleep, but talk on he would, though he had no listeners. This, I thought, was a good opportunity to allow me to speak to the captain, so I crawled up to him. He was awake, waiting for me.

“What’s to be done now, captain?” said I.

“We must wait the course of events, Jack,” he answered. “I have been turning over every plan in my mind which affords a chance of escape. If we were to start off now, we should certainly be caught by some of these black gentlemen; and if brought back, we should be put under stricter watch and ward than hitherto. Something may occur during the night, or perhaps to-morrow. At all events, I do not intend to die without a fight for it. Try and go to sleep now, and get some rest; you’ll want it for what you may have to go through. Go, lie down, lad; my advice is good. Don’t fear.”

I followed the captain’s advice, though it was difficult to go to sleep, and still more so not to fear. I did go to sleep, however, and never slept more soundly in my life. I was awoke by feeling a hand placed on my shoulder. It was that of the captain.

“Jack,” he whispered, “be prepared to follow me if I summon you, but not otherwise. If we can manage to get down the rock, or to cross the causeway without being seen, we will go; but if not, we must wait another opportunity. I do not feel as if either of us had come to the end of the cable yet, but how we are to get free I don’t know.”

Saying this the captain gently lifted up some of the leaves which formed the side of the hut, and crept out. His words and tone gave me great encouragement. I wished that I could have gone with him, but I knew that I must obey him.

O how anxiously I waited his return! Minute after minute passed away, and still he did not come back. I began to fear that some harm had happened to him—that he might have fallen over the precipice in the dark, or have been captured. It never for a moment occurred to me that he would desert me. An hour or more must have passed. Still he did not appear. I began to consider whether I could not creep out to search for him. I could have loosened from off me the ropes which bound my arms in an instant; but I did not want to do so unless I was prepared to run away altogether. I have heard of people’s hair turning grey in a night; mine would, I think, have done so with anxiety had I been older.

At last the side of the hut was lifted up, and the captain crawled in, and placed himself on the litter on which he had been brought to the place. “Quick, Jack,” he whispered, “put the ropes round me as they were before! Those blacks are more wide-awake rascals than I fancied. I have been most of the time lying down not twenty yards from the hut, afraid to move. I was creeping along when I saw a black fellow, with musket on shoulder, emerge from behind a hut. He stood for some time looking directly at me, as if he had seen me. He had not though; but directly afterwards he began pacing up and down with the steadiness of an old soldier. I crept on when his back was turned, but never could move far enough before he was about again, and scrutinising all the ground before him. The only direction in which I could move without the certainty of being seen was towards this spot, so back again I have come, with the hope still strong that we might find some other way of escaping. Once or twice I thought of springing up and killing the man; but in so doing I should very likely have roused others, and we should have lost any future chance of escaping.”

This result of the captain’s expedition put me into low spirits again, for I fully expected that the blacks would kill us all in the morning, and my only surprise was that they had not so done already. I did not say so to the captain, but he, having with his teeth secured the bands round my arms again, I went and sat down where the blacks had first placed me. I did not sleep soundly again, nor did he. I sat silent, anxiously waiting for the morning.

I think I must have gone off into a doze, when, before daybreak, I was roused up by a chorus of loud cries and shouts, which was soon answered by every man, woman, and child in the village, who came rushing out of their huts. It was to welcome, I found, a party of their comrades from an attack on one of the neighbouring estates, in which they had come off the victors, with numerous prisoners and much spoil. There began, as before, a horrible din of tom-toms and other musical instruments, mixed with the very far from musical voices of the old women who had been tormenting us. This continued till the sun rose, and then there was a comparative silence for an hour or so. I suppose the savages were breakfasting. An this time we were left in suspense as to what was to be our fate. We did not talk much, and, of course, did not allude to any plan for escaping, lest we should be overheard.

At last several stout negroes entered the hut, and while some of them lifted up the captain and carried him out, two seized me by the collar, and dragged me after him. I thought that they were about to throw us over the cliffs, or to hang us or shoot us forthwith. I could only think of one way by which we had the slightest prospect of escaping. It was that the government authorities might have heard of the outbreak, and sent troops to attack the rebels. I did not know in those days that those sort of gentlemen considered the art of tying up packages neatly with red tape to be the most important of their official duties, and that they were not apt to do anything in a hurry of so trifling importance as attempting to save the lives of a few people!

We very soon reached a large concourse of people in an open space. On one side of the ground there was a steep bank, on the top of which a chair or throne was placed, whereon sat a tall fine-looking negro, dressed somewhat in military style, while a number of other men sat round him. On the level ground, on one side, was a group of some twenty white men, among whom I recognised our companions in the defence of the house. They had their hands bound, and were strongly guarded by armed negroes. We were carried up and placed among them. Two or three other prisoners arrived after us, and served to increase our unhappy group.

A sort of trial was then commenced, and several Maroons stepped forward, accusing the whites of unheard-of cruelties, and especially of being taken with arms in our hands against the authority of the true and proper chief of the island. It is impossible to describe the absurd language used, and the ceremonies gone through. It would have been a complete burlesque had not the matter been somewhat too serious. As it was, when one of the counsellors kicked another for interrupting him, and the judge threw a calabash at their heads to call them to order, I could not help bursting into a fit of laughter, which was soon quelled when one of my guards gave me a progue with the tip of his spear, to remind me where I was. I very nearly broke out again when the one who was hit looked up and exclaimed, “What dat for, Pompey, you scoundrel you?—What you tink me made of, hey?”

The judge took no notice of this address, but coolly went on summing up the evidence placed before him. It was, I must own, clearly condemnatory of most of the prisoners. On the oaths of the negro witnesses, they were proved to have committed the most atrocious acts. Some had hung blacks for no sufficient cause, or had shot them, or had beaten them to death, or even burned them, or had tortured them with every refinement of cruelty. Scarcely one present who had not given way to passion, and barbarously ill-treated their slaves, or caused them to submit to the greatest indignity. At length the judge rose from his seat. He was a remarkably fine, tall man, and as he stretched out one arm towards the prisoners, I could not help acknowledging that there was much grace and dignity in his whole air and manner. To what had been adduced by others, he added the weight of his own testimony.

“Me prince not long ago in me own country,—me would be king now,—me carried off—beaten—kicked—wife torn away—me piccaninnis killed—me made to work with whip—beat, beat, beat on shoulders—me run away—nearly starve and die. Dose men do all dat, and much worse! Day deserve to die! Shoot dem all—quick! De earth hate dem—no stay on it longer!” I cannot pretend to say that these were the exact words used by the chief, but they had a similar signification.

Immediately we were all seized, each prisoner being held by four blacks, and marched along to an open space near the edge of the precipice. A firing-party of twenty blacks, which had been told off, followed us, their horrible grins showing the intense satisfaction they felt at being our executioners. The judge or chief and all the rest of the people accompanied us as spectators. The captain was carried along on his litter, for the negroes had conceived a very just idea of his prowess, and kept him, as they fancied, more strongly secured than was necessary with regard to the rest. I stood near him waiting the result.

Things were now, indeed, looking very serious, and I could not see by what possible means we should escape. Still, there was so much buoyancy in my disposition, that, even then, I did not give up all hope. I am afraid that I cannot say I was sustained by any higher principle. The thought of what death was, did, however, come over me; and I tried to pray, to prepare myself for the world into which I saw every probability that I was about to enter. Still, though I wanted to pray, and wished to go to heaven, I made but a very feeble attempt to do so. I had been so long unaccustomed to pray, that I could not now find the thoughts or the words required. My heart was not in a praying state. I had not sought reconciliation with God. I did not know in what to trust, through whom I could alone go into the presence of my Maker cleansed from my sins, relieved from the weight of the sinful nature in which I was born. Of all this I remained perfectly ignorant. I felt very wretched, like a drowning wretch without a spar or a plank of which I might catch hold.

I learned, however, an important lesson. Oh! do you, who read this notice of my life, learn it from me. Do not suppose that the time is coming when you may begin to prepare for another world. The time is come now with all of you. From the period you entered this world, from the moment the power of thought and speech was given you, the time had arrived for you prepare for the world to come—that eternal world of glory and joy unspeakable, or of misery, regret, and anguish. Remember this—note it well—don’t ever let it be out of your thoughts. You were sent into this transient, fleeting world, for one sole object—that you might prepare yourselves in it for the everlasting future. Not that you might amuse yourselves—not that you might gain wealth, and honours, and reputation—not that you might study hard, and obtain prizes at school or college—that you might be the leader in all manly—exercises—that you might speak well, or sing well, or draw well, or attain excellence in science—or that you might become rich merchants, or judges, or generals, or admirals, or ambassadors, or, indeed, attain the head of any professions you may choose. These things are all lawful; it may be your duty thus to rise, but it should not be your aim, it should not alone be in your thoughts; you should have a far higher motive for labouring hard, for employing your talents: that motive should be to please God, to obey the laws and precepts of our Lord and Master. All should be done from love to him. If you have not got that love for him, pray for it, strive for it, look for guidance from above that you may obtain it.

But, as I was saying, in those days I could not have comprehended what I have now been speaking about. Finding my efforts to pray almost unavailing, I did pray for deliverance, though I waited my fate in sullen indifference, or rather, indeed, somewhat as if I was an unconcerned spectator of what was taking place.

The chief lifted his arm on high as a sign that the execution was to commence. The first person led forward was the planter whose house we had attempted to defend. Oh! what scorn, and loathing, and defiance there was depicted in his countenance! What triumph and hatred in that of his executioners! Should such feelings find room in the bosom of a dying Christian? I wot not. Again the fatal sign was given. The firing-party discharged their muskets, and the planter fell a lifeless corpse. I tried to turn my eyes away from the scene, but they were rivetted on the spot.

Chapter Six.

A Terrible Execution, and a Narrow Escape.

One after the other my white companions were led out for execution. Every moment I expected that my turn would come. Very few showed any great signs of fear, with the exception of the overseers, who had been often and often the actual instruments of cruelty towards those who now had them in their power. I am surprised that the ignorant savage blacks did not torture them as they had themselves been tortured, before putting an end to their existence. Perhaps they wished to set an example of leniency to the civilised whites. They went about the execution, however, with deliberation, sufficient to make it a very terrible affair.

They shot the planter dressed as he was taken. When he had fallen, numbers of the blacks rushed up, and having stripped him, they threw his body, after inflicting numberless wounds on it, over the precipice. As his clothes had been injured by the bullets, they proceeded to strip the next person of his garments, with the exception of his trousers and shoes, which they allowed him to retain—the latter, at all events, being of very little use to them. He was one of the overseers, a fierce, dark, stern man. He looked as if he was incapable of experiencing any of the softer sympathies of our nature. He was standing close to me while the planter was being shot, and not one of us knew who would next be selected for execution. When the men who had taken out the overseer seized hold of him, he turned deadly pale, and shrieked out for mercy.

“Don’t kill me! don’t kill me!” he exclaimed. “I am not fit to die. I cannot go as I am into another world. Oh, let me live! let me live! I will toil for you; I will build your cottages; I will till your fields. Kind Africans! hear me: if I have injured anyone, I will repay him an hundred-fold. I’ll do anything you require of me; but don’t, oh, don’t kill me!”

The negro chief smiled at him scornfully, and the others who surrounded him grinned horribly in his face. “Hi! hi! you mark my back with hot iron,” said one, gripping him by the shoulder; “you take out de mark?”

“You kill my piccaninni!” cried another in a hissing tone in his ear. “You gib him back, eh? You make him smile in me face ’gain, eh?”

“You take away me young wife!” exclaimed another, in a hoarse voice, looking him in the face. “Where she gone to now, eh? You give her back good and fond as she once was—no! You repay a hundred-fold!—you undo the harm you have done!”

“Wretched man! go meet the Judge whose laws you have outraged; go encounter the reproachful spirits of those who, in life, you have irretrievably injured! You are a blot on the world; you must be put out of it. You must stand before your Almighty Judge, your God. He is a God of mercy to those who have shown mercy. But have you shown it? No! Still you must die!”

The latter expressions were, of course, not uttered by the negroes, but something very similar was said; and amid the shouts and execrations of the multitude, the wretched man was dragged out, and being shot down, a hundred weapons were plunged in his yet warm and writhing body ere he was thrown over the cliff to be food for the fowls of the air, which, in spite of the firing, had already settled on the body of the planter, once his superior, now his wretched equal.

The same scene was enacted with several others. In vain they pleaded for life, in vain they offered rewards—large bribes, freedom to some, the means of returning to Africa to others who had been brought over. The negroes laughed all offers to scorn. No promises were believed: too often had they been made and broken; too exquisitely cruel and barbarous had been the punishments inflicted on prisoners taken in former outbreaks, to allow them to lose the gratification of their present revenge.

Often, as this scene has occurred to my mind, have I thought of what would be the fate of the planters, and overseers, and other white residents in the Slave States of the American Union, should the negroes ever find an opportunity of revolting. What sanguinary massacres would take place! what havoc and destruction would be the result! Few men have a better right to speak on the subject than I have. I was born before that great country called the United States was a nation. When I could walk, they were part and parcel of England. I have talked with men who were engaged in active life before the great Washington saw the light; who fought against the French on the heights of Abraham, under the hero Wolfe, and aided to win one of the brightest of her jewels for the British crown. I, therefore, cannot help looking on the Americans in the light of children—dear relatives; and when I address them, I speak to them with love and affection. I say to them, take warning from the scene I have been describing; do not submit to the incubus of slavery a moment longer than you can avoid it. No sensible man expects you to throw it off at once; but every right-feeling, right-thinking man, does expect you to take every means and make every preparation for its abolition, as soon as that important work can be accomplished. The only means you have of effecting this object with safety to yourselves, and with justice to those beings with immortal souls now intrusted by an inscrutable decree of Providence to your care, is by educating them, by making them Christians, by preparing them for liberty, by setting them an example which they may hereafter follow. Teach them to depend on their own exertions for support—to govern themselves—raise them in the scale of humanity: treat them as men should men, and not as Christians so-called treat the hapless sons of Africa. Remember that the British West India Islands were brought to the verge of ruin, and numberless families depending on them were ruined, not because the slaves were made free, but because they were not properly prepared for freedom. Whose fault was that? Not that of the British Government, not that of the nation; but of the planters themselves, of the white inhabitants of the island. They refused to the last to take any steps to Christianise, to educate, to raise the moral character of the negroes; and of course the negroes, when no longer under restraint, revelled in the barbarism in which they had been allowed to remain, with all the vices consequent on slavery superadded.

Should these remarks be read by any citizens of the American Slave States, I trust that they will remember what Old Jack says to them. He has reason to wish them well, to love them, for he has received much kindness at the hands of many of their fellow-countrymen; and he repeats that they have the power in their own hands to remove for ever from off them the stigma which now attaches to their name. He does not urge them to do it in consequence of any pressure from without—not at the beck and call of foreigners, but from their own sense of justice; because they are convinced that they are doing their duty to God and man; and lastly, that they will be much better served by educated, responsible freemen, than by slaves groaning in bondage, and working only from compulsion. (See Note.)

But avast! I cry. I have been driving a long way from the scene I was describing. The negroes I have been mentioning were men who had been slaves, and had made themselves free, and we see the way they treated the whites whom they had got into their power. They were, it must be granted, savages, barbarians, heathens. Their people, who had been captured as rebels, had been treated by their white Christian conquerors with every refinement of cruelty which the malice of man could invent: they had been slain with the most agonising tortures; and yet these savages, disdaining such an example, merely shot their prisoners, killing them without inflicting an unnecessary pang. I cannot say that at the time, however, I thought that they were otherwise than a most barbarous set.

One after the other my companions were led out and shot, and treated as their predecessors. One, a sturdy Englishman, who had not been long in the country, it seemed, broke loose, and knocked down several of his guards. He fought long and bravely with them. Had he been able to get hold of a weapon, he would, I believe, have cut his way out from among them. As it was, his fists served him in good stead; and he had already very nearly cleared himself a path, when a shot from pistol struck him on the knee, and brought him to the ground. Still he struggled bravely; but the negroes, throwing themselves on him, completely overpowered him, and he was at once dragged up to the place of execution. Before he had time to look around, or to offer up a prayer to Heaven, a dozen bullets had pierced his body, and he who was but lately so full of life and strength was a pallid corpse! I scarcely like to describe the dreadful scene. Even now I often shudder as I think of it. I have seen men shot down in battle—I have beheld numbers struggling in the raging sea, which was about to prove their grave; but I never saw men in full health and strength waiting for their coming death without the means of struggling for life—I have never seen men deprived of life in so cool and deliberate a way—I have never so surely expected to be deprived myself of life.

Our numbers had now been dreadfully thinned; the captain, and I, and three others only remained alive. One of those had become a raving maniac, his mind had given way under the horror of death; but now he feared nothing; he laughed the murderers to scorn; with shouts of derision on his lips he was shot down. The next man was seized: calmly he walked to the spot, and he likewise fell. Will it be the captain next, or I, or the only other remaining prisoner? The latter was seized: he looked up to the bright blue sky; to the green woods, waving with rich tropical luxuriance of foliage; to the dark faces of the surrounding multitude; and then at us two, his companions in misfortune; and I shall never forget the look of anguish and terror I saw there depicted. He saw no help, no chance of escape; in another instant he also was numbered with the dead. Then, indeed, my heart sank within me, for I expected to be like those who were to mortal eyes mere clods of earth. But instead of seizing me, they approached the captain. Before, however, they could lay their hands on him, his bonds seemed as if by superhuman strength to be torn asunder, and up he sprung to do battle for life! The negroes literally sprung back as they saw him with amazement, and on he bounded towards their chief. No one tried to stop him, and in another instant he had thrown his powerful well-knit limbs so completely around him, that the negro, tall and strong as he was, was entirely unable to help himself.

While this scene was enacting I remember seeing another tall negro with a few followers coming along the causeway. When I saw what the captain had done, remembering also that my bonds could be easily slackened, I cast them off, and sprang after him; and so sudden were my movements, that before any of the astonished blacks could stop me, I had clung to the legs of the black chief as tightly as I ever clung to a top-gallant-yard in a gale of wind. The chief and his followers were so much taken by surprise, that no one knew what to say or how to act. The awe with which the captain had inspired them, and the supernatural mode, as it seemed, by which he had freed himself from his bonds, and freed me also, made them afraid of approaching lest he should destroy them or the chief.

The captain saw his advantage, and was not a man to lose it. His life depended on his resolution. The horror he must have felt at the scene just enacted made him resolve not to throw a chance away. As he held the chief in his vice-like grasp, with his arms pinioned down, he looked him fully in the face and laughed long and loudly.

“You thought to kill me, did you?” he exclaimed—“you thought that you could deprive me of life as easily as you did those miserable men you have just destroyed—me, a man who never injured you or yours; who has never wronged one of the sons of Africa. Ay, I can say that with a clear conscience. Often have I benefited them, often have I saved them from injury; and perhaps even here there are some who know me, and know that I speak the truth.”

“One is here who can prove all he says to be true,” exclaimed a tall negro, stepping forward from among the crowd. He was the very man I had remarked approaching the spot along the causeway.

“My friends, hear me,” he exclaimed. “We have already satisfied our just vengeance, and do not let us destroy the innocent with the guilty. Some years ago a ship from Africa, laden with the children of her fruitful soil torn cruelly from their homes, struck on a coral-reef. A heavy sea dashed over the devoted vessel. Land was in sight, but yet far-off, blue and indistinct. The white crew had many boats. They launched them and pulled away with heartless indifference, leaving three hundred human beings, men, women, and helpless children, to almost certain destruction. Night came on. Oh, what a night of horrors! Many died, some from terror; many were drowned, manacled as they lay in the noisome hold. When the morning broke a sail appeared in sight. She approached the spot. Some of the negroes who had broken loose made signs to notify that human beings were still alive on board. The storm had much abated; a boat was lowered and came close to the wreck. When they saw that no white men were on board, did they pull away and leave us to our fate? No; they hailed us as fellow-creatures, and told us to calm our alarms, and that they would do their best to save us. I was there—a slave—I who had been a chief in my own country! I asked how many the boat would hold, and as many, about a dozen, I allowed to enter her at a time. Another boat from the ship soon came to our assistance, and one remained uninjured on board the wreck. We launched her, and many of the Africans being able to paddle, helped to carry her people to the ship. Thus all who remained alive on board the wreck were saved. The ship sailed from the spot and approached the land. I asked the brave captain how he would dispose of us. Some of the people believed that he would carry us into a port, and there sell us as slaves. He looked at me hard. ‘I am no slave-dealer,’ he exclaimed. ‘Men have called me what they deem worse, but that matters not. I should obtain a large price for you all, and steep my soul in as black a sin as ever stained our human nature. No; I will land you on yonder coast, far from the habitations of men. There fruit, and roots, and numberless productions of kind Nature will amply supply you with food. There you may be free. I cannot take you back to your own country. I have no other means of helping you.’ The generous captain was as good as his word—we were landed in safety ere the sun set; and more than that, he supplied us with such food as he could spare to strengthen us for our journey inland to the spot he advised us to seek, where we might remain in safety. Yes, my friends; there is the man who did this noble deed—there is the man whom you were, in your blindness, about so cruelly to slay!”

While the stranger was speaking, I recognised in him the tall negro who had come on board the brig, on my first voyage, with the mysterious old man, whom I supposed to be Captain Ralph. As soon as he stepped forward I felt almost certain that our lives would be spared; but still I did not let go the chief’s legs. He did not often get them so thoroughly pinched, I suspect.

“I have yet more to tell you,” continued the tall negro. “The noble deed which that brave man had done was discovered by some of his white countrymen, and he was persecuted by them, and compelled to fly for his life, and for long to become a wanderer over the face of the ocean. They drove him to take to a course of life which they themselves condemned; and had they captured him, they would have made it plea for his destruction.”

The harangue which the negro made was even longer than I have given, and the language was perhaps somewhat more suited to the comprehension of his hearers. The effect, at all events, was most satisfactory. Enthusiastic shouts of applause burst from every side; and the chief, in words and by looks not to be mistaken, assured the captain that both his and my life would be preserved, and only begged that he would have the goodness not to squeeze him so tightly.

On this the captain released him, and the negroes rushing forward, lifted him up on their shoulders, and bore him in triumph round their village. The boys, not to be outdone by their elders, got hold of me as soon as I had let go the chief’s legs, and lifting me up in the same way, followed the captain. Tom-toms were beat, and horns sounded, and cymbals were clashed, and men, and women, and children shrieked and shouted at the top of their voices, and never was heard a wilder outcry and hubbub than that with which we were welcomed as we passed through the rebel village. It was far pleasanter than being shot, I thought. The truth is, that so great and sudden was the change in our position, that I could scarcely collect my ideas and convince myself of its reality. Everything seemed like a dream, both past and present. Still I felt that my life was spared. I tried to be serious, and to be thankful for the mercy shown me; but I am conscious that I succeeded very ill, and allowed my mind to be entirely occupied with the scene going forward before my eyes.

While we were being thus paraded about the village, the women were engaged in preparing a feast, of which we were invited to partake; and I know that, however excited had been my feelings, I had not lost my appetite.

“Captain,” said I, holding the leg of a roasted monkey in my fist, while he was munching away at a stewed snake, or lizard, or some creeping thing or other, “this is pleasanter than feeding the crows down below there. I want, sir, to beg the chief’s pardon for pinching his legs so tight. I hope that he was not offended.” I spoke in a very different tone to that in which I had ever before addressed my captain. The truth was, I felt and acted almost as if I were tipsy.

The captain looked at me somewhat sternly. “Be more serious, Jack,” he answered; “we should be thankful to Heaven that we are not as those unhappy men are. We have both been mercifully preserved. Restrain your feelings, lad; you’ll have much to go through before you are out of the fire.”

I do not remember much more about the feast. The negroes ate, and drank, and laughed, and then got up and danced and sang as merrily as if they had not just been the principal actors in a terrific tragedy. Before the feast was over, our old acquaintance the tall negro came up to the captain, and sat himself down by his side.

“Prepare to leave this at a moment’s notice,” said he in a low tone of voice. “These people’s tempers may change again as rapidly against you as they have lately turned in your favour. They believed what I told them of your generosity; but as there is no one here to corroborate the account, they might as easily be taught to discredit it.”

“Thanks, my friend,” answered the captain, grasping the negro’s hand. “Thanks, Michael; you have indeed repaid any debt you might have thought you owed me. I’ll follow your advice, and shall be ready to start whenever you give the sign.”

“Directly it is dark, then, we must away, you and your young follower there,” answered the tall negro, whom the captain addressed as Michael. “I have another reason for wishing to be off. This work they have been about will certainly bring the military up here; and though they might hold the place against an army if they knew how, none of them can be depended on. Now, if you remain here, our friends would expect you to fight for them; and if you were captured by the white men, you would to a certainty be treated as a rebel.”

“Your arguments are quite strong enough, Michael, to make me wish to be off,” answered the captain, laughing. I did not hear the remainder of the conversation.

The young negroes who had carried me about on their shoulders continued to treat me very kindly, and brought me all sorts of things to eat, till really I could not stuff in a mouthful more. They were much amused by examining my hands, and face, and clothes, for many of them till that day had never seen a white boy. They had been born up in the mountainous district, where we then were, and where no white person had ever ventured to come.

At last the negro Michael called the captain and me, and in the hearing of the people, pointing to a hut, told us that it was to be our home. The whole population having had plenty of work for the last few days, retired to their huts, and left us in quiet. As may be supposed, neither the captain nor I ventured to sleep, though, for my part, I would very gladly have done so. We waited for some time with no little anxiety. It was at last relieved by the appearance of Michael.

“Come,” he whispered, “follow me. I could only ask seamen to take the path by which I must lead you.” He glided out, and we stepped after him.

There was no moon, but the stars shone forth brightly, and gave us sufficient light to see what was near at hand. Michael led the way close to the spot where our companions had been murdered in the morning. On a sudden he disappeared, and I thought that he had fallen over the precipice. A pang shot through me. But no, he had merely begun to descend by a narrow path cut in the rock. It was indeed both narrow and steep. Sometimes we had to drop down several feet to a ledge below. There were probably holes in the rock by which people might ascend, but it was too dark to see them. Often we had to press along with our breasts to the precipice, holding on to its rugged sides, and with our backs over a yawning gulf. I would rather, however, have been on the topsail-yard-arm in the heaviest gale that ever blew: with a good honest rope in my hand, than where I then was. But darkness prevented our seeing half its terrors. More than once I thought that I should have gone over; but the captain, whose steps I closely followed, supported me with his powerful arm, and brought me along in safety. He did not utter a word, and his breath often came fast, as if he was undergoing great physical exertion, and was well aware of our perilous position. I know that my knees trembled beneath me when Michael told us that we had reached the bottom.

“We have gained some miles by this path towards the sea,” said he, “and escaped the risk of being observed. Few even of the people up there know the path, and fewer still would venture to descend by it. Now, let us on; we have many miles to go before morning.”

I need not describe our night’s journey. For several hours we walked, and often ran on, without stopping even a moment to rest. It is extraordinary what people can do when they are pressed by circumstances.

We had not accomplished many miles when the moon arose, and shed her light over the strangely wild and beautiful scene, her beams glancing through the tall trees and the numberless creepers which decked their branches. Suddenly Michael stopped, and then pressing us back without speaking, conducted us into a thicket composed of prickly pear, cacti, and other strangely-shaped shrubs. Scarcely had he done so when the tramp of men and the sound of horses’ feet were heard coming through a rocky defile ahead of us, and soon afterwards a body of cavalry passed along, their helmets and shining arms playing in the moonbeams. They were immediately followed by a regiment of infantry, less showy but more useful in the style of warfare in which they were likely to engage. It would scarcely be believed, at the present day, that several troops of dragoons were stationed at that time at Kingston, to do what it would be difficult to say, as they were totally unfit for mountain warfare, and would scarcely have been of much use to repel invasion. We remained silent and concealed as they passed. I concluded that Michael or the captain had good reasons not to wish to encounter them. They were going, of course, to attack the rebels; but I understood afterwards that they obtained but a very slight success, and had to return without in any way contributing to put a stop to the outbreak. That was not done till some time afterwards, when, by a general amnesty, and a guarantee being given for their safety, the Maroons were induced to break up their confederacy, and return within the pale of civilisation.

When daylight came we concealed ourselves in a thick wood, where I could not help feeling terribly alarmed lest some snake or other noxious reptile should injure us while we slept; but Michael assured me that I need not fear, and that he would watch that no harm should happen to us. Thus for three nights and a portion of one day we travelled on, till once more the bright blue waters of the ocean gladdened our sight. From a hill we climbed we looked down into a sheltered bay, and there lay calmly at anchor a schooner, which we recognised as the one which had been sent away from the brig under command of Mr Gale.

We were not long in descending the hill, and hailing her from the shore. Here Michael parted from us, under the plea that he had business which would detain him longer in that part of the island. The schooner’s boat took us off, and we were soon on board. Mr Gale had heard rumours of the attack on the planter’s house, and that every one had been murdered, and he was truly glad to see his captain safe; while my kind friend Peter assured me that he was not a little pleased to find that I had not lost the number of my mess.

Note. The above was written before the late American Civil War, which emancipated the slaves of the Southern States.

Chapter Seven.

A Pirate Stronghold.

The little schooner very soon got her cargo on board, and we then put to sea, to return to the brig. We had to make a long reach off-shore to weather a headland, which ran out towards the north, and we were just about to tack when the wind, which had been very light, failed us altogether. There we lay, with our sides lazily lapping up the burnished water, and throwing it off again in showers of sparkling drops, as we rolled away helplessly in the swell. At the same time a strong current was running, which was setting us imperceptibly off-shore. However, after having been exposed to it for three or four hours, I found, on looking up, that we had very much increased our distance from the land. The day passed away and the night came, and there we lay like a log in the water, drifting further and further from the land.

It was truly a solemn night. Every star which floated in the vast expanse above us was reflected on the surface of the deep; and as I looked over the side, I fancied that I could see numberless bright orbs floating far, far down in the limpid water. Strange sounds reached my ears. Suppressed shrieks, and groans, and cries—loud hisses, and murmuring voices, and strange monsters came up from their rocky weed-covered homes, their fins sparkling, and their eyes flashing as they clove through the sea. Some would now and again spring into the air and fall back with a loud splash. Others, of huge bulk, I thought, would come and float silently, looking at the little schooner, an intruder on their domain, seemingly devising means how they might drive her from it. I ought to have been below resting, as the captain had ordered me, but I was hot and feverish, and could not remain in the close atmosphere of the forepeak. As I stood gazing at the sea, I thought I saw the forms of all the unhappy men murdered by the Maroons pass before me. Each countenance bore the agonised look which I had beheld before the fatal signal was given to the firing-party to perform the work of death. They stretched out their hands to me to help them, and moaned piteously, as I stood spell-bound, unable to move. One after the other they came gliding by, and then sank down into the water ahead of the schooner. I could stand the dreadful sight no longer, and shrieked out in an attempt to go and help them.

“What’s the matter, lad?” said the voice of Peter Poplar close to my ear. “You are overtired—no wonder. Here—I have put a mattress and a blanket for you under shelter. Lie down and take a little rest. You’ll want to use your strength perhaps before long. A sailor should always eat when he can, and take his sleep when he can. He is never certain when he may have to go without either food or rest.”

I took Peter’s advice, and very soon the feelings which oppressed me wore off, and I fell soundly asleep.

I did not awake till the bright sun was just rising out of the mirror-like sea. The calm was as perfect as before; and when I looked for the land, I could only just make out its blue and hazy mountains rising out of the ocean. Hot enough the weather was; but as the sun glided upwards in the sky, a thick mist was drawn over the whole face of nature. The captain and Mr Gale were on deck, and I saw them scanning the horizon anxiously on every side. They seemed far from satisfied with the look of the weather. Still for some time they could not make up their minds how to act.

“What’s going to happen now?” said I to Peter some time after this.

“Do you remember the breeze we had in Kingston Harbour on your first voyage?” he asked.

“What? the hurricane do you mean? Indeed I do,” I replied. “I hope we are not going to have such another in this little craft out here.”

“I’m not so sure of that, Jack,” he replied. “The captain begins to think so likewise. He’ll be for making everything snug, if I mistake not.”

Peter was right. The order was soon given to strike topmasts, to furl sails, to set up the rigging, to fasten down the hatches, to secure everything below, and to lash the boats and all spare spars on deck. Everything that could be accomplished was done to prepare the little craft for the expected tempest.

Still everything around us was so calm and quiet that it required no little faith in the judgment of our officers to believe that all this preparation was necessary. Much in the same way do men feel it difficult to believe in the importance of preparing for another world, when the tide of prosperity carries them along, without care or anxiety, over the sea of life. I have often thought that a gale of wind, a lee-shore on a dark night, and the risk of shipwreck, are of use to seamen, to make them prepare for the dangers which sooner or later must come upon them. So are all misfortunes—pain, sorrow, loss of friends, deprivation of worldly honours or position—sent to remind people that this world is not their abiding-place; that they are sent into it only that they may have the opportunity of preparing in it for another and a better world, which will last for eternity.

Hour after hour passed away. Still the calm continued. I suspect the officers themselves began to doubt whether the looked-for hurricane would ever come. I asked Peter what he thought about it.

“Come! ay, that it will,” he replied. “More reason that it will come with all its strength and fury because it is delayed. Look out there! do you see that?”

He pointed towards the now distant land. A dark cloud seemed to be rushing out from that direction, and extending rapidly on either side, while below the cloud a long line of white foam came hissing and rolling on towards us. As it reached the spot where we lay, the little vessel heeled over till I thought she would never rise again, and then she was turned round and round as if she had been a piece of straw. Loudly roared and howled the fierce blast, and on she drove helplessly before it. Every instant the sea rose higher and higher, and the schooner began to pitch, and toss, and tumble about, till I thought she would have been shaken to pieces.

“Peter,” said I, “we are in a bad way, I am afraid.”

“We should have been in a very much worse way had the wind come from another quarter, and driven us towards the land,” he replied, gravely. “Some of the people had begun to grumble because we had been drifted so far off-shore. We may now be thankful that we were not caught nearer to it, and have already made so much offing. We shall very likely have it round again, and then we shall require all the distance we have come to drive in, and none to spare.”

“I was thinking of the chance we have of going to the bottom,” said I, looking at the huge seas which kept tumbling tumultuously around us.

“Not much fear of that,” he answered. “We are in a strongly-built and tight little craft; and as long as she keeps off-shore, she’ll swim, I hope.”

Peter’s prognostications as to a shift of the wind were speedily fulfilled, and we found the vessel driving as rapidly towards the dreaded shore as she had before been carried from it. To struggle against it was hopeless; our only prospect of safety, should she be blown on it, was to find some creek or river into which we might run; but the probabilities of our finding such a shelter were so very remote, that all we could do was to pray that we might once more be driven away from the treacherous land. Happily such was our fate. Another eddy, as it were, of the whirlwind caught us, and once more we went flying away towards the coast of Cuba. That was, however, so far distant that there was but little fear but that the tempest would have spent its fury long before we could reach it. No sail could be set; but the vessel being in good trim, answered her helm, and kept before the wind.

Away! away we flew! surrounded with sheets of hissing foam, the wild waters dancing up madly on every side, threatening, should we stop but for a moment in our course, to sweep over our decks! Even careless as I then was, I could not help feeling grateful that we were not driving on towards a shore which must speedily stop us in our career; and I thought of the many poor fellows who would that day meet a watery grave, their vessels cast helplessly on the sea-beat rocks. As the wind took us along with it, we got more than our fair share of the hurricane; and the night came on while we were still scudding on, exposed to its fury.

If the scene was wild in the day-time, much more so was it when we were surrounded by darkness, and a thousand unseen horrors presented themselves to our imagination. Though I was not very easily overcome, I had suffered so much lately that I felt that I could not endure much longer the continuance of this sort of work. At last I fell into a sort of stupor, and I believe that I should have been washed overboard had not Peter secured me to the rigging, close to himself. I knew nothing more till I awoke and found myself lying on the deck, with the sun glancing brightly over the sparkling waters; the schooner, with all sail set, close-hauled, and a gentle breeze blowing. On one side was seen a range of blue hills rising out of the ocean. Peter was kneeling by my side.

“Get up, Jack,” said he; “you’ve had a long snooze, but you wanted it, lad, I’m sure. There’s some breakfast for you; it will do you good after all you have gone through.”

I thanked my kind friend, and swallowed the cocoa and biscuit which he brought me with no little relish.

“What! have we so soon got back to Jamaica?” said I, looking over the side, and seeing the blue ranges of hills I have spoken of.

“Jamaica! no, lad—I wish it was,” he replied. “That’s the island of Cuba; and from what I know of it, I wish that we were further off than we are. Some ugly customers inhabit it! There has been a suspicious-looking craft for the last hour or so standing out from the land towards us, and as she has long sweeps, she is making good way. I suspect the captain don’t admire her looks, for I have never seen him in such a way before from the moment he came on deck and caught sight of her. If we were in the brig we need not have been afraid of her, but in this little cockle-shell we cannot do much to help ourselves.”

“We can fight, surely!” said I. “We have arms, have we not?”

“What can eight or ten men do against forty or fifty cut-throats, which probably that craft out there has on board?” answered Peter. “We’ll do our best, however.”

The approaching vessel was lateen-rigged, with two masts, and of great beam; and though low in the water, and at a distance looking small, capable of carrying a considerable number of men. Certainly she had a very dishonest appearance. I saw the captain often anxiously looking out on the weather-side, as if for a sign of more wind; but the gentle breeze just filled our sails, and gave the craft little more than steerage-way. All hands kept whistling away most energetically for a stronger wind, but it would not come. The felucca, however, sailed very fast. As we could not get out of her way, the captain hailed, and very politely asked her to get out of ours, or rather to steer clear of us. Instead of replying, or acting according to his request, some forty ugly fellows or more, of every hue, from jet-black to white, and in every style of costume, sprung up on her decks from below, and directly afterwards she ranged up alongside of us. The captain, on this, ordered her to sheer off; but instead of so doing, grappling-irons were thrown aboard us, and her fierce-looking crew made a rush to leap on our deck. They were met, however, by our captain, Mr Gale, Peter, and the rest of our people, who, with pistol and cutlass in hand, were prepared to dispute their passage.

The pirates, for such there could be no doubt our visitors were, had four or more guns mounted on their deck; but they seemed resolved to depend rather on their overwhelming numbers than on them for victory. They had not calculated, apparently, what a few determined men could do. “Stand back, ye scoundrels!” shouted our brave captain, in a voice which made the ruffians look up with amazement, though I do not think they understood his words. He gave them further force by a sweep of his cutlass, with which he cut off the head of the nearest of his assailants. Peter, whose arm was almost as powerful, treated another in the same way; and Mr Gale knocked a third over with his pistol before any of them had time to get hold of our rigging. This determined resistance caused them to draw back for an instant, which enabled Peter, with one of the other men, to cast loose the grappling-irons forward. At the same time two of the pirates, who were attempting to leap on board, were dealt such heavy blows on the head that they were knocked overboard before any of their companions could help them. “Well done, my lads!” cried the captain. “Keep up the game in this way, and we may yet beat off the villains!” Saying this he sprang aft to drive back a gang of the pirates, who were attempting to board on our quarter. Two of the first paid dearly for their temerity, and were cut down by either the captain or Mr Gale. I got a long pike, and kept poking away over the bulwarks at every fellow I could reach. Several pistols were fired at me, but missed their aim; but at last the pike was dragged out of my hands, and thrown overboard. Unfortunately there was so little wind that the pirates, by getting out a sweep on the opposite side of their vessel, brought her head aboard, and at the same time made a rush to get on our deck. Peter, with two of our men, hurried to repel them; but a bullet at that moment struck one of them on the breast, and knocked him over. Poor fellow! I tried to save him as he fell; but the heavy way in which he came to the deck showed me that his fighting days were over. I ran to help Peter and my other shipmates, but the pirates pressed us so hard that we had little hope of keeping them out. In the meantime also a stout active little Spaniard, followed by two or three blacks and another white man, made a spring at our bulwarks about midships; and though one of our men, Tom Hardy, most bravely threw himself before them, they gained the deck, and cut him down before any further opposition could be offered. Others followed them, and gaining the whole centre part of the vessel, our crew were completely divided. We had lost two men. Thus the captain, Mr Gale, and one man held the deck aft; while Peter, another man, and I still stood at our post forward. But what could we hope to do against the crowd of ruffians who swarmed on board? At the same moment they pressed towards us and the captain, and would have carried us overboard had we not sung out, and asked for quarter. The bravery which the captain and the rest had displayed seemed to have won their admiration and respect; for instead of cutting us down and throwing us into the sea, they instantly granted us the quarter we asked. Our arms were taken from us, and we were ordered to go on board the felucca, while the pirates proceeded to rifle the schooner. Except the hogsheads of sugar, which would not have been of much use to them, they found very little, I suspect, to repay them for the heavy cost of our capture. The vessel, however, would probably have been of some value to them, as she was a fine little craft.

The schooner having a crew put on board her, the two vessels stood away to the westward. Peter told me that he suspected we were bound to one of the numerous small islands—keys they are called—which are found in great numbers off the south coast of Cuba. We were allowed to walk about the deck without molestation; but our position was far from a pleasant one, for any moment our captors might take it into their heads to make us walk the plank, or to get rid of us by some other means. I had never seen a person made to walk the plank, but I had heard it described as a favourite method employed by pirates to get rid of their prisoners. A long plank is run out over the side, and the victim, blindfolded, is made to walk along it. When he gets to the outer end, the inner part is tilted up, and he is slid into the sea. I earnestly prayed that such might not be our fate, and yet I could not see what better we could expect. We had evidently fallen into the hands of desperate outlaws, not likely to be influenced by any of the dictates of humanity. At all events, we were likely to be kept prisoners, and probably made to work as slaves for these villains, without a chance of escaping. The captain seemed most cast down. He would, of course, most certainly be thought to be lost. His vessel would sail without him, and report his death at home. As he was a married man, with several children, the trial was indeed great to him.

I tried to make out who was the captain of the pirates, but they appeared at first to me to be all equal. A fat, sturdy mulatto, was, I after a time suspected, the chief mate, or one of the principal officers; and the Spaniard, who had first succeeded in boarding us, was another. Not one of them spoke a word of English, though from the first I suspected that two or more of the white men understood it, if they were not Englishmen or people from the American colonies. At all events, I followed Peter’s advice—not to say anything about which it might be well not to have heard. I have often seen people get into great scrapes, and bring most disagreeable consequences on themselves, from disregarding that rule. Never say anything among foreigners, in your own or any other language, which you do not wish them to understand; or even give expression to your feelings in looks, which even savages, you should remember, can frequently comprehend.

Our two poor shipmates who had been wounded died, I hope, before we left the schooner. At all events, the pirates threw them overboard. Including Peter and me, there were thus only three foremast-men, besides the blacks, and a mulatto who had been shipped as pilot for the trip round the coast. We all kept together sitting on and about one of the guns; but very little conversation passed between us. The captain and Mr Gale walked the deck near us, but they said very little to each other. A negro brought us, towards the evening, a large dish of farina, with some sort of meat stewed in it. Though not over pleasant to the look, it was acceptable enough to hungry men, for we had had nothing to eat since the morning. A more palatable-looking dish was placed before the captain and Mr Gale. This care of us showed that they did not, at all events, intend to starve us to death, as they would scarcely have fed people whom they intended to kill.

I observed the Spaniard and the mulatto mate occasionally going down an after-hatchway, which I supposed led into the chief cabin, but for what reason they went I could not tell; and I observed that whenever the captain and Mr Gale approached the spot, a guard stationed there turned them back. When night came on, a sail was handed to us, which we spread over the gun, and crept under it; and I observed that a couple of mattresses were sent on deck, and that a sail was secured over the bulwarks, to make a somewhat better tent for our officers.

We passed the whole of the next day much as we had done the first. The black, and white, and coloured crew did not regard us with very friendly looks; but they did not molest us. A dark-skinned lad would, however, occasionally come up to me when neither of the mates were looking, and touching a formidable-looking knife he wore in his sheath, signify that he should enjoy running the point into me. Some relation of his had been among the men killed, and this made him feel bitter towards us. Peter, who saw the action, advised me to remain quiet, and to take no notice of it. “He only wants an excuse for a quarrel, and therefore, unless you wish to please him, do not give it,” observed my friend. I followed his advice, not only at the present, but on many future occasions, and thus avoided many of the quarrels and disputes into which I saw others plunged. The men who brought us our food growled a little at us, as if they would much rather have been making us food for the fish; but as we made them no answer, they went away and left us to ourselves. As the wind was generally light, we did not make much progress. Thus another night passed away.

When the morning of the next day broke, I saw that we were running in among reefs, which I could tell by the ripple of the otherwise calm water breaking over them. Ahead was a low sandy shore, mangrove-bushes lining some portion of it, with palms and plantains, and a few other tropical trees, rising beyond them. As we sailed on, threading the glass-like channels, the sun rose higher and higher, and shone down with intense heat on our heads, drawing forth, at the same time, a thin gauze-like mist over the whole scene. “This is a regular trap,” observed Peter. “If a man once gets in here, I defy him to find his way out again, unless he was born and bred on the spot.” The captain and Mr Gale were watching the progress of the vessel, and tried to look as unconcerned as possible; but they were evidently considering if it were possible to take a vessel out by the way they had come in.

At length we entered the mouth of a narrow creek, lined with the mangrove-bushes I have spoken of on either side; some growing in the bright pure water, others with their branches just dipping into the clear liquid, and so distinctly reflected that I could not tell where the real bough ended and its phantom-likeness began. After running on for half a mile, and making frequent turns, we found ourselves in a wide lagoon, several other craft of different sizes and rigs being at anchor in it. On shore, there was a collection of large wooden sheds looking like stores, and some huts, and a few buildings of more pretensions, apparently dwelling-houses. There was nothing like order or regularity in the arrangement of the village; but each store or cottage seemed to have been placed as suited the fancy of the owner, the whole wearing a very nautical, shipwreck appearance. Many of the roofs were formed of the bottoms of boats; sails, with a coating of paint or tar, were nailed over others; and the planks and ribs of vessels had entered largely into the construction of all the edifices. I made these observations as we were shortening sail and coming to an anchor. It was very clearly a pirate stronghold, and had been probably so for some years. The pirates had allowed us to remain on deck and see the approach to it, evidently trusting to the difficulties of the navigation to prevent any of us finding our way out of it, or in again, should we obtain our liberty. Though art had done nothing, nature had done everything to make the place impregnable, unless a pilot could be found to show an enemy the way. Against such a result they had several safeguards: each man of this fraternity had bound himself by an oath not to betray any of their secrets. The Spanish authorities took very little cognisance of them, as their own vessels were not attacked; while at that time the governors of the West India Islands did not trouble themselves much about rooting out piracy; and it was only when some act of especial atrocity had been committed, that, if a man-of-war was in the way, she was sent in chase of the pirate.

As soon as we had dropped our anchor, several boats came off from the shore with people eager to learn the news we brought. They looked suspiciously at us, and seemed not very well satisfied at the result of their inquiries. It was far from pleasant to see a number of cut-throat-looking fellows parading up and down before us with their hands on the hilts of their long knives, with which they kept playing as if anxious to try their temper in our bodies. Captain Helfrich stood all the time with folded arms leaning against the bulwarks, and all we could do was to imitate his example. I was not sorry, however, when the mulatto mate intimated to us that we were to get into the boat and go on shore, as I thought that we should then probably be more out of the way of our irascible-looking friends. We were ordered into one boat with Mr Gale, while the captain was carried away in another. This seriously excited our apprehension, as we could not tell what evil might be intended him. He, however, though very grave, seemed to be under no apprehension, but stepped into the boat as if he was going on shore on his own business.

As soon as we landed, we were marched up to one of the store-like buildings; and a ladder being shown us, up which we went through a trap which closed behind us, we found ourselves in a large airy loft. The furniture consisted of some heaps of the straw or leaves of Indian corn. It looked clean, and was, therefore, more suited to our wants than would have been any number of pieces of the handsomest furniture—such as marble tables, mahogany sideboards, satin-wood wardrobes, or gold and china vases. As Peter observed, when he threw himself on one of the heaps: “Never mind, my lads, we’re rich if we’ve got what we want. If our friends below would send us up a dish of turtle and rice, or some of their ollas, we, at any rate, shall have no reason to complain of our lot. We shall get out of this one of these days; so, in the meantime, let us make ourselves comfortable.” Peter’s good temper kept up the spirits of the rest of our party. I have often found the advantage of having a person like Peter among a number of people placed in circumstances like ours, either in prison, or cast away, or detained in some disagreeable place; and I have, therefore, always endeavoured to imitate him in that respect, as well as in others, by keeping up my own spirits, and by cheering my companions in misfortune. Mr Gale, under most circumstances, would have contributed to support us; but on the present occasion he was evidently too much weighed down with grave apprehensions as to what was likely to befall us all, to act as he would otherwise have done. Not having anything else to do, and being very tired, we all went to sleep.

After some hours, for the sun was low by that time, we were awoke. Hearing a bolt being withdrawn, and looking up, I saw the trap lifted, and a negro appeared. On his head he carried a large bowl, with some wooden spoons in it. He placed the bowl before us, and signified that we might eat its contents. Curiously enough, it contained the very thing Peter had been wishing for—a stew of turtle and rice, a thing not to be despised by hungry men. It was very good, I know. After eating it, we went to sleep again, and for my own part I did not awake till daylight. After some time, a bowl of a sort of porridge was brought us, and some plantains, which, with pork, forms the common food of the people of Cuba. Twice in the day food was brought us. It was both abundant and good, so that we had no reason to complain of the way the pirates treated us. The great puzzle was to discover why it was that they were so civil. Had they kept us on bread and water, and spared our lives, we should have had reason to be grateful; as the usual mode of proceeding of such gentry, we understood, always was to shoot all who would not take the oaths and join them.

We were not allowed to go out of the place, or to hold intercourse with anybody. The only light which was let into the place came from a hole in the roof above our heads. It was so placed that we could not manage to climb up to it. I managed, however, to find a chink in the floor, near the trap; and whenever I looked through it, I saw a man with a musket standing there as a guard.

Three or four days thus passed away. We could hear nothing of the captain, for the only person we saw was the negro, and when we asked him, he only shook his head, and intimated that he did not understand what we said. Mr Gale, after a time, aroused himself, and gave us instructions in various matters; and Peter and one of the other men told some capital stories, and we all took it by turns to sing songs. I was not a bad hand at that, by-the-by; I had learned several as a child, and had picked up others since then, and as my voice was a good one, my songs were generally favourites.

The time, however, began to hang rather heavily on our hands, when one evening a stranger made his appearance, and looking at me, said in English, “Youngster, you are wanted.” I was startled at hearing the sound of an English voice; but I, of course, thought the captain wanted me, so I went, very willing to accompany him. The trap was bolted behind me. He took me to one of the largest cottages I had observed, and entering it, pointed to a door, and told me to go in. I did so, and there I saw seated at a table the identical old gentleman whom I believed to be called Captain Ralph. He did not look a day older than when he came on board the Rainbow off Saint Kitt’s, and he wore the same old-fashioned three-cornered hat and laced-coat.

“You have seen me before, lad,” said he, eyeing me closely.

“Yes, sir,” said I, resolving to be frank with him; “on board the Rainbow.”

“You are attached to your captain, and would wish to do him a service?” he added.

“Yes, sir,” said I. “What do you want me to do?”

“Tell him that all his people have taken the oaths and joined the confederacy,” he answered, looking at me hard.

“I don’t know what oaths, or what else you mean, sir,” I answered. “I cannot tell him anything that is not true.”

“What? a ship-boy with a conscience?” he exclaimed, bursting into a fit of laughter. “I tell you, lad, you must do as you are bid.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do what my captain tells me,” I replied, simply. “But for the matter of saying anything to deceive him, I won’t do it. I’ll tell him the truth, and then he’ll know how to act.”

He looked at me very hard for a moment or so, and then rang a bell by his side. From what he had said, I hoped that the captain was safe and well. The same man who had brought me in appeared.

“Send Diego here to take care of this youngster, and bring in one of the other men, the tall one—I will try what I can make of him,” he said; and the white man disappeared.

Directly afterwards, a sturdy black man came in. Captain Ralph pointed to me. He seized me by the collar, and held me a prisoner on one side of the room. In a short time Peter was brought in.

“You find life and liberty sweet, my man?” said the old gentleman, addressing him.

“I’ve no objection to either,” answered Peter sturdily.

“You’ve been well-treated since you’ve been here?” said Captain Ralph.

“I’ve no reason to complain,” was Peter’s laconic reply.

“Very well; you may judge that I do not wish you ill,” observed Captain Ralph. “Now, I won’t conceal it from you, we have a body of people on this island who don’t own any laws except those of our own making. A large number of them are Spaniards, and I want a few honest Englishmen, who will stick by one another, to join us. What do you say? Are you inclined to join us? Your captain will, I have no doubt, and so will this lad and the rest of your shipmates.”

I shook my head. Captain Ralph did not see me, but the negro did, and gave me a cuff on the head in consequence. I had not fancied that the negro understood English, but from this circumstance I have no doubt he did.

Peter gave a hitch to his trousers when the question was put to him, and then vehemently scratched his head. “Look ye here, sir,” he answered in a firm voice, which showed that he had made up his mind how to act, “I am much obliged for the treatment I and my shipmates have received since we came to this place, barring the being kept inside a sort of prison, so to speak; but you must just understand, sir, that I’ve been brought up to be an honest man, and an honest man I hope to remain to the end of my days; and so, as to taking any oath to turn pirate, or in any way to associate with those who do, I’ll not do it. So now you’ve my answer.”

The pirate chief—for so I may as well at once call him—seemed to be somewhat taken aback at this answer; but he laughed as I had before heard him. “You Rainbow lads have odd notions of your own about honesty! We’ll see what the rest of you have to say on the subject.”

Mr Gale was next sent for. He, as may be supposed, at once refused to join the pirates. The other men, fancying that we had joined them, promised to do so; but it struck me that Captain Ralph did not look particularly well satisfied at hearing their reply.

What his intentions were we could not tell, for he ordered us all at once to be taken back to our place of confinement, under a guard of five or six men, who stood outside ready for that purpose. What had become of the captain puzzled us most to discover. We said nothing, however, as we went along, for we were pretty certain that the people who had charge of us perfectly understood English, if they were not mostly Englishmen.

We remained two or three days longer shut up, in a state of great doubt and uncertainty. Sometimes we fancied that we should be taken out and shot; at others, that we might be set at liberty. However, I could not help hoping that Captain Ralph was well-disposed towards us. What the pirates were about all this time we could not tell; but we supposed that they could scarcely remain idle, and if we were to make our escape at all, we looked forward to the time when the greater portion were gone away on some expedition.

We very soon got tired of not being able to see what was going forward in the outer world. We accordingly hunted about the roof, to find a spot where we could remove the shingles, or split planks of wood which formed it, without leaving any marks which might be observed. This, after a little time, we succeeded in doing with our knives; and thus we formed a look-out hole on each side of the building. On one side, we could see all over the harbour; on another, we looked down towards the mouth; a third looked over a very uninviting country inland, with the mountains of Cuba seen in the far distance, blue and indistinct; while, by looking through the fourth, we discovered that we were separated from the open sea by a piece of land little more than a mile in width. We could not, of course, see what was going forward close under the buildings, but we could observe the movements of people on shore at a little distance off. Our ears, however, helped us when our eyesight failed. One of us was always on the look-out at each hole, while the fifth kept watch at the chink, to give timely notice of anybody’s approach to the ladder.

For some days we had observed the people busily employed in fitting, rigging, and in shaping and altering spars. At length there was an unusual bustle, and boats were continually going backwards and forwards between the vessels, carrying stores of various sorts. It was clear that there was at length an expedition on foot. We naturally fancied that it would produce some change in our position, but whether for better or worse remained to be seen.

The next morning the harbour was covered with boats carrying people on board the vessels; and directly afterwards six of them got under way, and stood out towards the sea. Whether or not Captain Ralph went with them we could not discover. We could not perceive our own schooner in the harbour, but there was a vessel which we thought might be her lying out towards the mouth of the creek. There were still, we remarked, a good number of people left on the island. We saw them moving about in all directions for some hours after the fleet had sailed, and then they retired into the huts and sheds which served as their homes. Such was the state of things when we lay down to rest that night.

About midnight, we were startled by hearing the trap-door lifted. At the same time a man appeared with a lantern in his hand. I recognised him as the person who had conducted me to the presence of Captain Ralph.

“I have come here as a friend, my men,” he said in a low voice, putting down the lantern. “You have shown that you can be faithful to your own captain, and mine, therefore, believes that he can trust you to do him a service. Is he right?”

“Yes,” answered Mr Gale, speaking for the rest of us; “anything which, as honest men, we can do to help him we will gladly undertake.”

“That’s right,” said the stranger. “You must know, then, that we have here men of various nations. Many of them are Spaniards. They and other foreigners have lately been growing more and more jealous of our captain. He has done two or three things lately to offend their prejudices, certainly. The consequence is, that they have hatched a conspiracy, which has just been discovered, to murder him and all the English in the place; you all will be among the first victims. In asking you to fight for us, I invite you to fight for your own lives. To show that I trust you, I have brought you some pistols and ammunition, and a bundle of swords done up in this sail. The villains have fixed on an hour before daybreak to begin the attack on us. Arm yourselves, and be ready to sally forth at a moment’s notice. They will sound a trumpet as a signal to their party to begin the work of slaughter. I will try to be here before then. If I am not, make your way to Captain Ralph’s quarters. He will have, before that, released your captain, who will put himself at your head. You will also be joined by four or five men, who, like me, will be glad to get away from this den, and regain our liberty at any cost. I must stay no longer, or I may be missed. Be prompt and firm, and we may come off conquerors. Remember, however, it is victory or death for all of us!”

These words came like a thunder-clap among us. We could scarcely believe our ears. Mr Gale, however, at once replied, that we would undertake exactly to follow the stranger’s directions, as we clearly understood the dangerous predicament in which we all stood. The instant he received our reply, he hurried from the loft, and we could see his figure from our loophole proceeding to the upper part of the settlement.

Our first care was to examine the package, which we found contained the arms he had promised. We immediately loaded the pistols, and buckled on the cutlasses, and then stood ready to descend at the expected signal. To men long shut up as we had been, any excitement is acceptable; so that, far from feeling any alarm at what we had heard, scarcely anything could have contributed so much to raise our spirits. I truly believe that we valued the prospect of obtaining our liberty much more from the chance of having to fight for it. We were only eager for the fray to begin. We could not tell exactly how we were to find out our enemies; but Mr Gale charged us not to attack anyone till we were attacked, unless we received directions from Captain Helfrich, or the stranger who had just visited us.

The state of things which existed, it appeared, among this community of sea-robbers, showed me a truth which I have since found frequently confirmed, that oaths are of little or no value among men who are continually breaking God’s laws. They are kept as a rule only as long as it is convenient or necessary to each individual to keep them; but the moment he thinks it to his advantage to break them, he does so without the slightest compunction. The terrific oaths which were supposed to bind together the ruffians of the Blackbeard school, were over and over again broken, and would never have been kept unless interest, or the lowest superstition, had held the ruffians faithful to them. The value of an oath, as a pledge taken in the sight of the Almighty God, they could not comprehend. Much the same was evidently the case in the present instance; and here there was every prospect of a long existing community of outlaws breaking up from internal dissensions. We could only earnestly hope that such might be their fate. “Depend on it, Jack, my boy,” said Peter to me, when talking on the subject, “there’s only one thing can bind men truly together, and that is honesty of purpose. Real friendship cannot exist among knaves.” In my long life I have invariably found his remarks verified.

Hour after hour passed away while we waited for the signal. Of course we were very anxious, but our spirits rather rose than fell as we talked over the various plans which it might be necessary for us to adopt to effect our escape. We had an advantage the pirate who visited us did not suspect: we had surveyed the ground from our look-out, and knew that our own schooner, or one like her, was at the mouth of the harbour. We agreed, as soon as we had driven back the Spaniards and their party, to set fire to their stores; and while they were endeavouring to put them out, to make a rush for the boats, and thus to effect our escape down the lagoon.

The night had become very silent—not a sound was heard, either on shore or on the water. There was a gentle land-breeze blowing, which would be all in our favour if once we could get to the vessel. Suddenly the shrill blast of a trumpet was heard. Peter gave one glance through the loophole, and said he saw torches flaming in the upper part of the village; and presently loud shouts and cries burst forth from the same direction. We slid down the ladder as fast as one could follow the other, Mr Gale leading. If a guard had been there, he had run off at the first sound of the trumpet. We hurried on in the direction we had been desired to take. We had not gone far when we were met by the stranger. “No time to lose; on, my lads!” he exclaimed, leading the way. Before us torches were waving, and there were the flashes of fire-arms. Their reports were heard, as was the clash of steel. We advanced together rapidly. Suddenly flames burst out of one of the large stores. The building itself and its contents, probably being of inflammable materials, blazed up fiercely, and its light fell on the figures of a number of men fighting desperately. One person was conspicuous above those of all the others. It was that of our own captain. As we saw him we raised a cheer, which must have reached his ears. He answered it with a shout such as few but he could give. Again we cheered, and dashed on with redoubled speed. We were but just in time to help him. He stood with his back against a wall, almost surrounded with enemies, bestriding the body of Captain Ralph; while his right hand wielded a huge sword, such as few but he could use to advantage. “On, my lads! Charge the villains!” he shouted. We needed not the command, but rushed against the mass of Spaniards, mulattoes, and blacks, who were besetting him, with such hearty good-will, and our attack being, at the same time, so unexpected, that we drove them back, helter-skelter, some hundred yards, killing and wounding a number of them in the way. We should have gone further, but we were recalled by the captain’s voice. We found him lifting Captain Ralph’s body in his arms. “To the boats! to the boats!” shouted some of the Englishmen, each of whom bore, I perceived, a considerable bundle on his shoulders. We, supporting our captain, followed the way they led. Five or six boats, with their oars and sails in them, were in the water at a rough wooden quay. We jumped into them, and shoved off.

Several English had been killed, and some had been wounded, whom their comrades had assisted to the water-side. The scene was lighted up by the blaze of several wooden stores and other buildings. Among them was Captain Ralph’s cottage. The lights from the flaming mass fell on a large body of Spaniards, who had rallied, and were advancing rapidly towards us. “It matters not,” shouted some of our new companions, with a laugh of derision; “they’ll find no boats to pursue us; and when they get back to their homes, they’ll discover that not a few of their gold ingots are gone. Hurrah! hurrah! Give way, my lads, though! They’ll bring their guns to bear upon us if we do not make good way down the creek.” We had all jumped into the nearest boats at hand, without any respect to order, and the stoutest hands had seized the oars. I found myself in the boat with my captain and Captain Ralph. The old man lay in the stern-sheets supported in my captain’s arms. He still lived, but he appeared to be badly wounded. Neither spoke for some time. The captain told me to take the yoke-lines, and to steer according to his directions. Peter pulled one of the oars, and our boat took the lead; but, to my surprise, my captain seemed to know all the turnings of the creek as well as any of the pirates.

We had got but a short distance when our opponents reached the side of the water, when, finding no boats, they began rapidly firing away at us. Though the light from the blazing buildings fell on us, it did not enable them to judge accurately of the distance we were from them, and most of their shot went over our heads. Though we had plenty of arms in the boat, we did not attempt to return their fire; but some of our lawless companions gave vent to their anger in shouts and execrations.

Wild as the scene had hitherto been, it was yet further heightened by a loud explosion, which sent fragments of burning embers falling even around the boats. At the sound, Captain Ralph raised his head and looked towards the village. “They have lost their expected prize, and many of them have received what they little expected!” he exclaimed, with that peculiar low laugh in which I had before heard him indulge. He had for the moment forgotten his condition. He was, I saw clearly, desperately wounded. The exertion of moving and speaking was greater than he could bear, and he sunk back into the captain’s arms.

The bullets were all this time flying thickly about the boats, though we were rapidly increasing our distance from the shore. Several of them had whistled by my ear. Then I heard one strike close to me with a peculiar dead sound. At the same moment a sharp, unearthly cry rung in my ear. It was uttered by Captain Ralph. “Helfrich!” he exclaimed, “they have done for me. I thought that I had secured all I required, and might live henceforth in peace. I die with unnumbered sins on my conscience, without one good act performed, with every advantage neglected, with a thousand opportunities of reformation thrown away. I have lived a life of imposture, outraging all laws, human and divine, and I die miserably without hope—without hope—without hope! Oh, save me! save me! save me!” The last words the miserable man gasped out with difficulty. Scarcely had he spoken them, when his head fell down over his breast, a convulsive shudder passed through his frame, and the once dreaded pirate was dead!

Chapter Eight.

Pirates in both Hemispheres.

The balls from the pirates’ muskets not a little increased the rapidity of our movements. Two or three men in the other boats were hit, and one was killed. When Captain Helfrich discovered what had occurred, he carefully closed the old pirate’s eyes, and placed the body on the seat by his side. His men, however, evinced very little sorrow at his death. Who he was, and what he had done during his life, I was never able clearly to learn. He was a man of education, and a first-rate seaman, as I had had an opportunity of observing; and I should think that he would have succeeded in any line of life he might have chosen to adopt. He selected, unhappily, a very bad one, for I believe that his whole career had been lawless; but that, rather from the peculiarity of his temper than from any fear of committing evil, he had usually abstained, when he had the power in his own hands, from shedding blood.

The grey dawn broke as we were pulling down the creek, and just as the headmost boat touched the side of a schooner which lay at its mouth, the sun rose in a blaze of glory out of the smooth dark blue ocean. Peter, looking over his shoulder, recognised her as our little sugar vessel. We were soon alongside. Friends to our lawless companions were on board. The cable was hove short, the mainsail was set, and all was ready to weigh in a moment. As many boats as the schooner could stow on deck: were hoisted on board; the rest went ahead to tow her out. The plan of escape had been well arranged by Captain Ralph and his followers. When they found that their long-trusted leader was dead, their dismay was great. No time, however, was to be lost. A man who had gone to the mast-head, whence he could look over the mangrove-bushes into the lagoon, reported that some of the vessels there were making sail in pursuit. We, however, had a good start of them. Still, without a leader, there was some confusion, and the energies of the people were not applied to their full advantage.

Suddenly there arose a cry among them that a captain must be chosen. “The English captain! the English captain!—Captain Helfrich is our man!” was shouted by all the pirates; and it was very evident that, whether he would or not, they would compel him to take the post.

“My men, I am obliged to you for your good opinion of me,” said Captain Helfrich, standing up among them; “still I cannot be your captain. I will be your pilot to take you out of this harbour, and to enable you to gain a place of safety, on one condition, that you disperse at the time I point out to you. I make this agreement for your own advantage. If you keep together, you are certain before long to get into trouble. Will you trust me?”

“We agree! we agree!” was replied on all sides. “We trust you, sir, for we know you mean us well.”

“Then heave up the anchor, sheet home the headsails, up with the helm, and let her cast to starboard,” cried the captain, almost in the same breath.

A man was stationed at the bowsprit-end, and another at the mast-head, to give notice of any rocks beneath the water which might lie in our course; but Captain Helfrich seemed scarcely to require such information. The little schooner threaded the narrow and intricate passage with unerring accuracy, every instant the rapidity of her progress being increased by the freshening wind. It was well, indeed, for our safety that we had a steady breeze, for while we were still within the labyrinth of reefs, several vessels were seen emerging from among the mangrove-bushes. As they advanced, they fired their guns at us; but we were still far beyond their range. Had it not been, indeed, for the many turns in the passage, we should have been so far away that they could not have hoped to reach us. We had only our heels to depend on, for, with so overpowering a force, the Spaniards must easily have overcome us. Our great danger consisted in the possibility of striking on a rock before we could get clear of the reefs. On this probability our enemies calculated when they came in pursuit.

We had several reaches to pass through, which in no way increased our distance from them through the air, and at last several of their shot came whistling over our mast-heads. One went through our mainsail. We could only stand still and look at our enemies, while our little vessel made the best of her way from them.

“Hurrah, my lads! we are in the last reach,” shouted our captain; “in five minutes we shall be in clear water!”

The men shouted in return. Stronger blew the breeze, making the blue sea sparkle and leap outside. On either hand it broke in masses of foam, which leaped high into the air. On we flew! A narrow channel of smooth water was before us. We glided through it. “Hurrah—hurrah! we are free—we are free!”

I remember how fresh and pure I thought the sea air smelt. With what freedom I breathed, after being shut up so long in a hot loft! The breeze was easterly—a wind which would carry us on a bowline to Jamaica. Every sail the little schooner could carry was set on her. Our pursuers were not, however, yet willing to give up the chase. Once clear, with the open sea before us, we distanced them fast, and the sailing qualities of the little schooner being very fair, we had little fear of being overtaken.

From what I saw of our present companions, I certainly should not have liked to have associated much with them. While danger threatened, they were quiet enough; but as the prospect of being overtaken decreased, they grew more reckless and overbearing in their manner, and showed with how little provocation they would be ready to break into a quarrel with us, or among themselves. Thanks to Mr Gale’s and Peter’s example, we were not likely to give them cause for that. As they had been prepared for flight, they had not only put on a considerable quantity of additional clothing, but each man carried round his waist a belt filled with gold and silver coins, while his pockets were filled with jewels and such silver ornaments and other articles of value which he could manage to stow away in them. This much impeded their activity, though, of course, it was but natural that they should wish to carry away with them as much as they could of those spoils, to gain which they had hazarded the loss both of life and soul!

“It will be as well, for their own sakes, that none of those fellows fall overboard,” observed Peter to me when none of them were near to listen; “they’ll go down like a shot, and then what will be the use to them of all the dollars and the gold they have collected? What’s the use of it to them now? just to spend in the grossest folly and debauchery; and for the sake of collecting it, they have been living a life of murder and rapine! All I can say is that I don’t want to change places with them, though their pockets are full and mine are empty!” I agreed with Peter that neither would I, and we had good reason before long to think the same.

We were still not clear of danger from our pursuers. The breeze freshened so much that it was with difficulty we could stagger along under the press of canvas we carried; and as the Spaniards’ vessels were much larger, had we been compelled to shorten sail, they might easily have come up with us. If they did, we well knew that we could expect no mercy from them. Still the chase was very exciting. However, I would rather be the pursuer than the pursued; and I suppose that a hare, or a fox, or a stag would, if it could express its opinion, agree with me in the latter remark. Fortunately for us the breeze kept very steady; and as, after a time, the Spaniards found that they lost ground rather than gained on us, they tacked and stood back towards the Cuban coast. This event was noticed with loud cheers by all our people, nor was I slack in joining them.

Our passage, till we sighted the coast of Jamaica, was very rapid. Captain Helfrich had made some arrangement with the pirates as to their future course. I do not know what it was. Some were to go away in their boats in different directions; some wished to land, and others to be put on board homeward-bound vessels. They wanted to take the schooner, but, of course, he could not willingly let them have her, as she was not his property. I suspect that they had formed a plan to take her; but their designs, if such existed, were defeated.

Among the cargo were some small casks of rum. A knowledge of this fact the captain wished to keep concealed from everybody on board. Unhappily, however, the pirates discovered them, and, in spite of Captain Helfrich’s remonstrances and warnings, they very soon had them up and broached on deck. Every minute they became more and more riotous and inclined to quarrel among themselves. Again the captain warned them that they would betray themselves; but laughingly they answered that they knew him well, and that he would take care that they got into no mischief.

The wind heading us, we had to stand in-shore, so as to beat up towards Kingston. There was a little sea on, but not enough to prevent our observing objects some way below the surface. Peter and I were looking over the side—one of the other men being at the helm—when we noticed a dark pointed object floating alongside; another came up near it. Looking down, we with a shudder discovered the long tapering bodies of two sharks swimming just on our quarter. Nothing is so hateful to a sailor, even when he has a sound plank under his feet, as a sight of those tigers of the deep. Happening shortly after to go over to the other side, and glancing my eye over the bulwarks, with almost a thrill of horror I saw two others precisely in the same relative position. At first I thought they must be the same, but going back to the other side, there were those first seen just as they had been before.

“I don’t like the look of those brutes,” said Peter. “I am not superstitious, but I never have seen sharks swimming along as those are but what some mischief or other has happened—a man has fallen overboard, or something of that sort!”

I, as may be supposed, shared fully in Peter’s feelings, and set to work wondering what the harm would be.

I had not long to wait. The schooner had tacked, and was laying pretty well along-shore, with her head off it, and about a mile distant. One of the pirates, with drunken gravity, had insisted that he was not going to be idle, and that he would tend the fore-sheet. The state of things on board had made the captain doubly anxious to get in before night, and we were, therefore, carrying on perhaps even more sail than the little craft could well bear. We were taking the water in well over our bows; but that seemed in no way to inconvenience the hardy pirates, as they sat on the deck at their levels. I will not attempt to paint the picture presented by the pirates. The horrid oaths and blasphemy, the obscene songs, the shouts of maniac laughter, may be better imagined than described.

Peter and I and the other men had gone aft, where was also the captain, while Mr Gale stood at the helm. The sun was perhaps an hour above the horizon. Frequently the captain had turned his eyes in the direction of Kingston Harbour. A sail was seen standing out of the harbour, steering towards us, for the purpose, evidently, of getting a good offing before nightfall. As her topsails appeared above the horizon, we could make out very clearly that she was a brig.

“Hand me up my glass, Jack,” said the captain with animation. He took a long, steady look at her, and then handed the glass to Mr Gale, whose place Peter took at the helm.

While they were all looking eagerly at the approaching brig, I felt the schooner heel over even more than she had been doing. The captain likewise became sensible of the movement. He looked round—

“Let go the fore-sheet!” he shouted loudly. Mr Gale at the same moment sprang forward to execute the order; but the pirate who was tending it held it on tight with drunken stupidity. Mr Gale tried to drag him away from it; but the man, instead of letting go, gave a turn, and jammed the sheet. Down came the squall on us with redoubled strength. The little vessel heeled over till her gunwale was buried in the sea. The water rose higher and higher up her deck. It was too late to cut the sheet. No skill could save her.

Down, down went the vessel! Shrieks and cries arose, but they were no longer the sounds of revelry. They were those of horror and hopeless dismay, uttered by the pirates as they found the vessel sinking under their feet and they were thrown struggling into the water. So suddenly did she go over, and so rapidly did she fill, that even the most sober had no time to consider how they could save themselves, much less had those wretched drunken men. Overloaded as they were with clothes and booty, they could neither swim nor struggle towards the spars, and planks, and oars, and boats, which were floating about on every side.

When Mr Gale found that it was too late to save the schooner, he sprung back towards one of the boats which had been stowed right aft on the weather-side; the captain, Peter, and I, with our men, had been cutting the lashings which had secured it with our knives; and giving it a shove as the deck of the vessel touched the water, we were able to get clear just as she went down. The mate had not quite reached the boat, but Peter, leaning forward, hauled him in before he was drawn into the vortex made by the schooner as she sunk. To clear her, we had of necessity to shove astern, and this drove us still further from the spot where the rest of the people were still struggling in the waves. Some of the soberest had managed to disencumber themselves of their clothing, and to clutch hold of spars to support themselves; but they had another danger, from the seaman’s remorseless enemy, to contend with. We now guessed why the sharks had been accompanying us; or could they have scented the dead body of the pirate chief, which we had still on board? Why the captain had not buried him I do not know.

Scarcely had we leaped into the boat, when the terrific shrieks of the struggling pirates reminded us of what we had seen. In an instant the monsters were at them, and one after the other, with fearful rapidity, they were dragged from the supports to which they clung, their bodies mangled, and limbs torn asunder. We got out our oars as quickly as possible, and pulled back, endeavouring to save some; but before we could reach the nearest man a shark had seized him, and we could see his arms helplessly stretched out, as he was dragged down through the clear waters. On we pulled towards another, but he likewise was carried off after he had already seized the boatswain’s oar, and thought himself safe. A third cried out to us piteously to come and save him. We pulled towards him with all our might; but fast as we flew through the water, two huge sharks went faster, and before we could reach him he was their prey, literally torn in sunder between them. He was the last who yet floated; the others had gone down at once, or had been torn to pieces with all their wealth about them. While we were looking round, an object rose to the surface.

“What means that?” exclaimed our captain with an expression of horror and alarm such as I did not believe his countenance capable of wearing.

It was the body of the old pirate: his face was turned towards us, and one of his arms moved as if beckoning us to follow him!

“No, no—you do not want me! I have visited you once at your summons! I’ll no longer obey you!” shouted our captain with a hoarse voice, staring wildly; then he sank down into the stern-sheets overcome with his emotions.

For a minute, fancying that the old pirate was alive, we pulled towards him; then we remembered that he had been placed in a rough coffin of thick light wood, the lid of which had not been secured. Some nails, probably, had caught the clothes and kept the body in. When the vessel sunk the coffin had floated through the hatchway, the lid being knocked off; and thus the old man was once more presented to our view.

The monsters who had so speedily disposed of his wretched followers now darted forward to attack the coffin. Round and round they turned it; one arm was seized, then another, and we saw the body dragged down with a dozen sharks surrounding it, tearing it limb from limb!

Our captain very quickly recovered himself, and passing his hand over his brow, as if to shut out some dreadful vision, ordered us in a calm tone to pull towards the approaching brig. As we pulled from the spot, the water appeared here and there tinged with a crimson tint; but scarcely a vestige of the unfortunate little schooner remained. The brig approached.

“She is the Rainbow, sir; there can be no doubt of it!” exclaimed Peter, who had been eyeing her narrowly over his right shoulder.

He was right. On her people seeing a boat she was hove-to, and we were very quickly on board. I need not describe the surprise of Mr Jones, the first mate, who had now command of her as captain, or of the officer who had been shipped instead of Mr Gale. Of course, we had all long been given over as lost.

Mr Jones very willingly gave up his command to Captain Helfrich, and re-occupied his post as first mate; but the new officer who had been shipped, in a most foolish way nourished a peculiar dislike not only for Mr Gale for superseding him, but towards all of us, and took every opportunity of showing it. The vessel had got a full cargo in, and was on her way back to Dublin. At first, however, he pretended that he wished to be very kind to me, in consequence of the hardships I had gone through, and the narrow escape I had of death from the Maroons. Of course, there was no reason for keeping that part of our adventures secret, so I gave him a full account of all that had occurred; but then he led me on to describe the hurricane, and our capture by the pirates; and from the interest he took in the questions he asked me, I felt that he had some sinister motive for his inquiries. This made me hold my tongue for the time; and when I told Peter all the mate had asked me, he told me that I was perfectly right not to give him any further information, as he was sure that he would make a bad use of it. We neither of us liked the expression of the man’s countenance, or his manner to his superiors, or us his inferiors. Time was to show us that we were right in our conjectures.

When the extra mate found that he could get nothing out of Peter or me he attacked the other men; and from what they confessed to us they had told him, we feared that he had obtained from them all the information he required. He left the brig directly we entered port, and immediately returned to Jamaica.

Captain Helfrich was received in Dublin as one who had returned from the dead; for the account of his supposed death had preceded us, and his wife had actually assumed widow’s mourning for him. His sudden appearance very nearly cost her her life.

We took the usual time to refit the brig, and then sailed once more for the same destination. We had the usual number of passengers, and all went well till we reached Kingston.

After we had lain a little time there, we saw from the captain’s manner that all was not going well with him; and Peter told me that from what he heard on shore, that he was accused of having been leagued with pirates; and that all sorts of things were said about him. This, to a man of the captain’s temperament, was very trying. Those who knew him best, must have been perfectly convinced that, for many years past, he could not possibly have been guilty of any act of piracy; although I could have little doubt that, in his early days, he must, in some way or other, have been connected with the person whom I knew alone by the name of Captain Ralph. It was a practical evidence of the truth of that saying of Holy Writ, that the sins of his youth rise up in judgment against a man in his old age.

We had little difficulty in tracing the reports to the malignity of the man who had acted as mate during the last passage home. In consequence of these reports, Captain Helfrich had considerable difficulty in obtaining a cargo for the brig; and so disgusted was he with all the annoyance he had received, that he resolved not to return again to the West Indies.

At last, however, we were ready to sail. The evening before we were to go to sea, a boat came alongside, pulled by black men, with one man only in the stern-sheets. He asked to see Captain Helfrich. I looked over the side, and recognised him as Michael, the tall negro who had been the means of rescuing us from the Maroons. Mr Gale sent me to let the captain know that a person wanted to see him, and of course I told him who he was. The captain accordingly directed me to invite him below at once. I did so, and remained in the cabin.

“I’ve come, captain,” said he, “to ask a favour of you.”

“Anything you ask I am bound to grant,” answered the captain.

“All I have to beg is a passage to England,” replied the negro. “I go to seek in your country that liberty which I can find nowhere else. For years have I been striving to instil into my unhappy countrymen a knowledge of their true position; but they are too ignorant, too gross-minded to understand me. I have had no wish to set them against their masters. In most instances, both parties have been born to the position they occupy, and cannot help themselves. All I want is, that the masters should do them justice, and should treat them as men—as human beings with souls, with like passions, with like thoughts as themselves—that they should do their best to improve their minds, to educate them, to prepare them for that liberty they must sooner or later obtain. The question is, how will it be obtained? By fair and gentle means, granted—not taken by force as a right, or by violence and bloodshed. I have tried all means. I have leagued with all classes of men to commence, in some way or other, the work. Thus, for a time, I associated with Captain Ralph; but he grossly deceived me, as he did everybody else. I joined the Maroon bands, in the idea that force might avail; but in that respect I found that I was totally wrong in my calculations. I have tried to influence the planters, to show them their true interests: that with a well-instructed peasantry they would get far more work done, and at a smaller cost, than they do now with their gangs of ignorant slaves; but they laugh my notions to scorn. They fancy, because they find the negro ignorant, brutal, and stupid, that he can never be anything else. They forget that they made him so when they made him or his ancestors slaves; and that it must take more than one generation of gentle, watchful, judicious education to raise him out of the wretched state in which he now grovels. No philanthropist would wish them to emancipate their slaves now without long previous training, to fit them for liberty. If they ever free them without that training, they will ruin their properties. I find fault with them for not commencing that training at once, for not teaching them the religion they themselves profess, for not in any way attempting to enlighten their ignorance. Perhaps I may induce people in England to advocate the negro’s cause; but yet if Christian men here, on the scene of their sufferings, do not care for them, how can I expect people at a distance to listen to their cries, to labour that they may obtain justice?”

Michael said much more on the same subject. Our captain listened, but did not clearly understand him; nor did I at the time. He, however, willingly granted him a passage, and treated him with the attention he deserved at our hands during it.

Michael was a man far beyond his time. Not many blacks are like him; but I have met some with comprehensive minds equal to those of any white men. The vicious system to which the generality are subject, stunts or destroys all mental development; but had they the advantages of the whites, I believe as many buds in the one case as in the other would bear rich fruit. Michael left us in Dublin, and it was not till long afterwards that I heard his subsequent fate.

We had a prosperous passage to Dublin, and nothing occurred during it worthy of being mentioned. The captain very slowly recovered his usual spirits, but was completely himself again before we reached home.

The Rainbow remained longer in dock than usual, and during the time I had charge of her, Peter took the opportunity of visiting his friends, who lived some miles from Liverpool.

My life was almost like that of a hermit’s though surrounded by multitudes. I scarcely spoke to anyone. I amused myself, however, in my own way. I cut out all sorts of things in wood and bone, and practised every variety of knot-and-splice. At last it occurred to me that I would try to make a model of the brig. I bought at a timber-yard a soft piece of white American pine, without a knot in it; and as I had charge of the carpenter’s tools, I got some of the chisels and gouges sharpened up, and set to work. With rule and compass I drew two lines for her keel on one side, and then pencilled out the shape of her deck on the other. I first, by-the-by, made a scale of so many parts of an inch to a foot, and measured every part of the brig I could reach. Having got the shape of her deck exact, and her depth, I used to go ahead and astern and look at her shape, and then come aboard again, and chisel away at my model. I shaved off very little of the wood at a time, and my eye being correct, I made one side exactly equal to the other. Then fixing the wood in a vice, I scooped out the whole of the interior with an even thickness on every side. At length the hull was completed very much to my satisfaction. Then I got a piece of thin plank for her deck, and built on her bulwarks, with the windlass, the binnacle, caboose, and combings of her hatchway complete. Next I commenced rigging her. I formed all the blocks, and expended many a penny in purchasing whipcord and twine of different thickness, as well as linen for her sails. Having often carefully watched the sailmakers at work, and helped them when they would allow me, I was able not only to cut out the sails properly, but to fasten on the bolt-ropes, and to mark exactly the divisions of the cloths. I had also to bring the painter’s art into play; and to fashion with a file various stancheons, and belaying-pins, and such like things, out of bits of iron and copper; indeed, I am vain to say that I made a very complete model. When she was perfectly completed, I walked round and round her with no little satisfaction, surveying her from every quarter, and placing her in every possible position—indeed, I was never tired of trimming sails. I had had a purpose in building her, for I wanted to present her to my kind captain for one of his little boys, whom I had seen occasionally on board.

Old Pat Hagan, though too advanced in years to be intrusted entirely with the charge of the ship, occasionally came down to enable me to take a run on shore. The first day, therefore, that he made his appearance, I started with my model on my head to the captain’s residence.

“Who has sent you here, Jack, with that pretty little craft?” asked Captain Helfrich, as I was shown into his parlour, where he with his wife and children were sitting.

“Why, sir, as I hoped that you would not think me taking too much on myself in offering it to Master James, I made bold to bring it myself,” I replied, looking down and feeling somewhat bashful at the praise my model was receiving.

“I cannot refuse your pretty gift, Jack, which, I am sure is given with a good heart. But where did you pick her up my man?” answered the captain. “But just let me look at her nearer. Why, she is the very model of the Rainbow!”

When I told him that I had built her myself, he still further praised me, as did his lady; and Master James was delighted with his present, and jumped about round her, and thanked me over and over again.

“I am very much pleased, my lad, with this little craft, and from the way you have built her, and, still more, from your general conduct, I tell you that you would be fitted to become an officer if you had but the necessary education. You must try and obtain that, and I will have my eye on you. The next time you come home, you shall go to school; and see if you cannot pick up some knowledge of reading during the voyage.”

I constantly think of the saying, “Man proposes, but Heaven disposes.” So I found it in this instance. My kind captain would have done all he intended, but his plans for my benefit were frustrated by circumstances then unforeseen by either of us.

A few days after this, we sailed for the Mediterranean. We had shipped a couple more guns, and four additional hands. In those days it was necessary for merchantmen frequenting that sea to be strongly armed, for it was sadly infested by pirates. There were Moorish pirates, Salee rovers, and others, who went to sea in large vessels as well as in boats, and robbed indiscriminately all vessels they could overpower; then there were Algerine pirates, who had still larger vessels, and were superior to them in numbers; and, lastly, there were Greek pirates, every island and rock in the Aegean Sea harbouring some of them. Long years of Turkish misrule and tyranny had thoroughly enslaved and debased the great mass of the people; and the more daring and adventurous spirits, finding all lawful exercise of their energies denied them on shore, sought instead for such excitement and profit as piracy could afford them afloat. Some of them darted out in small boats from the sheltered coves and bays when any unarmed merchantman was becalmed near them; while others, in well-formed and well-manned vessels of large size, cruised about in all directions in search of prizes. Sometimes their strongholds, when discovered by the Turks, were attacked and destroyed, but generally they carried on their system of rapine with perfect impunity; and though the people of other governments complained, they had no legal power to punish the subjects of a friendly nation. So the Greeks, rejoicing in impunity, grew more and more audacious, till they levied contributions on all the civilised nations of Europe whose traders ventured into the Levant. Such was the state of things when the Rainbow sailed on her first voyage to Smyrna. Captain Helfrich had been there before, and he knew the character of the people he had to deal with.

We met with bad weather soon after leaving the Channel, and had already been driven some way to the westward, when, as we were in about the latitude of Lisbon, it came on to blow harder than ever from the eastward. Had we been close in with the land, this would not have signified; but before we could beat up again, a continuance of northerly and easterly gales drove us to the southward of the Gut of Gibraltar. When there, they left us in a dead calm, with our sails idly flapping against the masts, and rolling bulwarks under in the heavy swell they had caused on Old Ocean’s bosom.

The sun arose over the distant Morocco coast—not then in sight, however—and sent his rays down on our decks with an ardour which made the pitch bubble and hiss up out of the seams. Not a ripple disturbed the rounded smoothness of the heaving swells, while even the bubbles thrown off from our sides refused to float to any distance from us. We were not the only occupants of our own horizon. Some eight miles off, or so, there was another brig rolling away much in the same fashion that we were. All hands were anxious for a breeze, as we in no way liked the heat after the cold of a northern clime, though it mattered nothing to us whether we made a quick or a slow passage. We whistled, as sailors always whistle when they want a breeze; but the breeze did not come the faster for all our whistling. I never knew it do so, with all my experience. What folly, indeed, in man to suppose that He who rules the winds and waves should alter his laws in consequence of their puny efforts to make a wind with their mouths! In those days, of course, I did not think about the matter. I whistled because others whistled; but if any of us had been asked on what ground we founded our hope that the wind would come in consequence, I suspect that we should have been very much puzzled to return a satisfactory answer.

“What countryman do you make that craft out there to be, Mr Gale?” said the captain, handing the mate the glass through which he had been looking.

“Not an Englishman, certainly,” was the reply, after the usual steady glance. “I should say, from the whiteness of her canvas, and her light upper-rigging, that she belongs to some of those turban-wearing people along the African coast in there, or up the Straits. They are seldom pleasant customers for an unarmed craft to come across.”

“I had formed the same idea of her,” observed Captain Helfrich. “We know pretty well, however, how to deal with such gentry: and if she come across us, she’ll find that she has caught a Tartar.”

I told Peter what I had heard; and he, I found, after looking through the telescope, formed much the same opinion of the stranger.

The day wore on, and still the calm continued, so that we in no way decreased our distance from her. Night also overtook us, while we lay rolling away helplessly as before. The swell, however, was going down gradually; as it did so, the brig became more steady in the water.

It was about the first hour of the morning-watch, which Peter and I were keeping, when he asked me suddenly if I did not hear oars. I listened: there could be no doubt about it. There was more than one boat, and the oars were pulled pretty rapidly too. The night was not dark, though there was no moon; but a mist floated on the surface of the water, and served to veil it from our sight, though right overhead the stars could still be seen glimmering faintly in the sky.

Peter instantly went and reported what he had heard to Mr Gale, who was officer of the watch. After listening for some time he could hear no sound, and seemed to doubt the correctness of our assertion. The boats had probably ceased pulling, for a purpose at which we could only then conjecture. At last the sound of the oars reached Mr Gale’s ears also.

“There’s something in this,” he exclaimed. “Jack, go and call the captain.”

Captain Helfrich was on deck in an instant.

“The crew of some vessel which has foundered, and taken to their boats,” suggested the mate.

“From what quarter does the sound come?” asked the captain, listening attentively. “Visitors from the brig we saw last night,” he cried out. “Depend on it, they come to us with no good intention.”

His experience in the West Indies and elsewhere had taught him to be prepared for any such emergency as the present. He was not above being prepared, and he knew that the greatest folly is to despise an enemy.

“Turn the hands up, Mr Gale. Get the arm-chest open, and the guns loaded and run out. We must be ready. No noise, though: if anyone intends to surprise us, it is as well that we should surprise them instead.”

The watch below were instantly on deck, and in a few minutes every preparation was made for the reception of an enemy. Still we could not see any boats, but the louder sound of oars in the rowlocks convinced us that they were approaching. Again the sound ceased.

“They are not quite certain of our position,” observed Mr Gale. “If they were people escaping from a wreck, and not aware that a vessel is near, they would have pulled steadily on.”

“You are right,” said the captain. “Have a torch ready to heave in among them, that I may make certain who they are before I give the word to fire. It won’t do to run the risk of hurting friends; but when once you hear the word, my men, blaze away with all your might. If they are enemies, they will not be such as will give us quarter, however loudly we may cry for it.”

A murmur ran round among the people, to signify that we would obey the captain’s orders. The atrocities committed of late years by the Algerines, and the subjects of the Emperor of Morocco, had made those people the dread of all sea-going people, and gained them a proportionate amount of hatred.

Once more the sound of oars was heard, and in a short time even their splash in the water could be distinguished. There are few things more trying to a man’s nerves than to know that an enemy is approaching, and not to be able to discover his strength or form, or the quarter from whence he is coming. Our cutlasses were buckled on, our muskets were ready to be seized, and the slow matches were in our hands, but concealed, so that the enemy might not perceive them. Mr Gale stood with a torch ready to light at a moment’s notice. Slowly the boats approached. Apparently they seemed to think some caution necessary, or perhaps they could not see how we lay, and wished to attack us according to some preconcerted plan. There was a pause. I know that my heart beat pretty quick to learn what would follow. Then there was a dash towards us, and we could hear the sound even from the rowers’ chests as they strained at their oars. Dark forms were seen gliding out of the darkness. Suddenly the bright light of a torch burst forth on our deck. Mr Gale waved it above his head, and threw it towards the boats, its glare showing us swarthy features, and turbaned heads, and coloured vests, and jewelled arms. There could be no doubt as to the character of our midnight visitors.

“Fire!” shouted the captain; “fire! and aim low.”

Our guns, loaded with langrage, sent forth a deadly shower among the pirate crew. Shrieks and groans arose in return. We followed it up with a discharge of musketry. The enemy were completely taken by surprise. Many, abandoning their oars, ceased pulling towards us. This gave us time to reload our guns and small-arms. Their leaders, it seemed, were attempting to rally them. Once more we could distinguish their dark forms amid the gloom of night.

“Fire!” again shouted our captain.

The shrieks and groans were redoubled, and the boats again disappeared in the darkness. We remained at our quarters expecting their return. They did not come. A light breeze from the southward and westward at length sprung up, and we were able to shape our course towards the Rock of Gibraltar, and when the morning broke no sail was in sight.

Chapter Nine.

A Ship without a Crew.

We touched at Gibraltar, that the captain might obtain information as to the ports he was to call at. Smyrna, we found, was to be our ultimate destination. He gave notice of the attack made on us by the pirate, and a brig of war was sent to look out for her. I shall have a good deal more to say about our turbaned friends by-and-by. Gibraltar I thought a wonderful place, with the face of its high rock, which stands out into the sea, cut full of galleries, and ports with heavy guns grinning from them in every direction. Of course, the seamen very often do not know at what port the ship is to touch, or whereabouts they are. Such was my case: I had never seen a chart of the Mediterranean. The first definite notion I got of it was from Peter, who afterwards drew one for me with a piece of chalk on the lid of his chest. I only knew that we were steering towards the east, and that we were likely to see several strange places and many strange people.

Some time after leaving Gibraltar, I had just come on deck one night to keep my watch, when out of the dark ocean, as it seemed, I saw a bright light burst forth and blaze up into the sky. I thought some ship must have blown up; but the light continued, and grew stronger and stronger, and reached higher and higher. The fire seemed to spout out, and then to fall in a shower on every side, something like the branches of a weeping ash, or some wide-spreading tree. The ship was standing towards it, and I thought we should certainly be burned.

“Oh, Peter, Peter,” I exclaimed, “what is the matter? Surely the world has caught fire, and we shall all be destroyed!”

“No fear of that just yet, lad,” he answered, laughing. “That’s only a burning island, which is called Stromboli. There are some mountains in these parts, as I have heard say, which send out such a quantity of hot stones, and ashes, and boiling earth, that whole towns, and villages, and fields are overwhelmed and buried. In those countries you may buy for a penny as much fruit as you can carry, and get as much wine as you can drink for twopence, while all sorts of other good things are very cheap; and the weather is almost always like summer. But, for my part, I would rather live in Old England, with the foul weather and the fair we get there, and a piece of beef, often somewhat hard to come at, than in a country where your house may any moment be knocked down by an earthquake or covered up with hot ashes. To my mind, all countries have their advantages and their drawbacks; and the great thing is, to be grateful for the one, and to learn how to guard against the other.”

We touched at several places on our passage. Malta was one of them. The English had not at that time taken possession of it.

At length we reached Smyrna, which is partly situated on level ground, the harbour backed by a lofty hill. There is more trade here than in any other place in the East. The climate, though hot, is very fine; but the place is often shaken by earthquakes, which have at times caused great destruction to lives and property. That dreadful scourge, also, the plague, is a frequent visitor. The former may truly be said to be beyond man’s control; but the latter is, I am certain, brought about very much by the dirty habits of the people, and their ill-ventilated and ill-drained habitations.

In the neighbourhood of Smyrna grow great quantities of figs, which are dried and packed in boxes and baskets. They formed part of our cargo home. We had likewise raisins and other dried fruits, and preserves, and rich silks and embroideries. None of the seamen were allowed to go on shore, for Christians were very likely to get insulted, if not ill-treated, by the Turks. In those days they used to look upon all Christians as dogs, and to behave towards them as such. Besides Turks, there were a great number of Jews and Greeks, and people from every part of the East, living at Smyrna; but all had to submit to the caprices and ignorance of the first.

I was not sorry when we once more made sail, with the ship’s head to the westward. We had a somewhat tedious passage down the Mediterranean, having frequent baffling or light winds. At times of the year gales, however, blow with great fury in that sea, though they seldom last long. Most to be dreaded are the sudden gales which, under the name of “white squalls,” have sent many a vessel, caught unprepared, to the bottom.

At last we reached Gibraltar again. The Captain inquired if anything had been seen of the pirate which had attempted to surprise us with her boats; but the brig of war had returned without hearing anything of her. We remained but a day at the Rock. We took on board there the crew of a ship which had foundered at sea, and had been brought in by a Greek brig which had picked them up, and, for a wonder, had not murdered them. However, as they were nearly naked, and had promised the Greeks a reward if they arrived in safety, more was to be got by keeping them alive than by killing them. We were thus very strongly manned.

Foul winds and a heavy gale made us stand a good way to the westward on our passage home, after getting clear of the Gut. Soon after sunrise one morning a sail was reported away to windward, running down towards us, the wind being about on her quarter. As she approached with all sail set, she appeared to be sailing very wildly; that is to say, instead of keeping a steady, straight course, her head went now on one side, now on the other, as if a drunken man was at the helm. The captain and mates were looking at her through their glasses.

“She looks like an English craft, by the cut of her canvas,” observed Mr Gale.

“I can make out the ensign at her peak, and there’s no doubt she is English,” answered the captain. “There is something wrong aboard her, however, depend on that. I suspect that they have had a fever among them, or the plague, and that all her people are sick, and they have not strength to shorten sail.”

“Perhaps there is a mutiny aboard, or the people are all quarrelling among each other,” observed Mr Gale. “I have known of such things: when the master and officers have ill-treated the men, the crew have risen against them, and either hove them overboard or confined them below, and carried the ship into an enemy’s port.”

I was surprised at the expression of the captain’s countenance while the mate was speaking. The words seemed to remind him, I thought, of some occurrence of his youth.

“Depend on it, Gale, no good ever came of such a deed,” he remarked. “Either the actors in such work have gone on all their lives afraid of detection, or have very speedily paid the penalty of it. Unless a man has become a hardened wretch, the recollection of such an act will throw a gloom over the whole of his after-life, and blight all his earthly prospects.”

“Not if he feels that he is forgiven, surely, sir,” said the mate, looking at him steadfastly. “Sincere repentance and firm trust in the merits of One who died for us will gain us that boon, I am certain. I am not learned in divinity, but this much I know and feel; and I believe that it is the sum and substance of what a Christian should know and feel.”

I had never heard Mr Gale speak in that way before. I did not know even that he was what is called a religious man. I certainly never heard him swear or abuse any of the men, or accuse them wrongfully, as too many officers do; but I just thought him a quiet, brave, amiable young man, who was content to do his duty and let other people follow their own ways. I afterwards had reason to know that he was even more than that. He was eminently judicious, and he now felt that the time had arrived when he might speak a word in season to good effect. The captain listened, and after some time I saw him put out his hand and grasp that of Mr Gale; but he said nothing in reply. Meantime the brig was drawing near to us.

“Have a boat ready to board her,” cried the captain, after he had again examined her through his glasses. “It is strange, indeed; I can see no one on her deck.”

The Rainbow was now hove-to, and a boat was lowered. I went in her; so did Peter. Mr Gale had charge of her. We all were, by the captain’s orders, strongly armed, and he directed the mate to approach cautiously, so as not to be taken by surprise. I never met a braver man than the captain, or one who, at the same time, was more cautious and careful of the lives of his people. During my apprenticeship with him, on several occasions, had it not been for this constant caution and care not to be taken by surprise, both he and all his people would have been destroyed.

While the boat pulled towards the stranger, the brig, with her guns run out, and the people at their quarters ready to fire, stood so as to cross her bows, and to punish her should any treachery be intended. We had to be careful in going alongside, lest she should run us down; for as her head now went in one direction, now in another, it was difficult to determine on which side she would come. She was a fine large brig, fully as large as the Rainbow, and it did look strange to see her sailing along over the wide Atlantic without apparently a human being to guide her course. Still, from what I had heard the captain say, I could not help fancying that there was some trick, and fully expected to see a number of men start up the moment we touched her side, and either send our boat to the bottom with a cold shot, or seize us and carry us as prisoners below. It was a satisfaction, however, to feel that, with the shipwrecked crew, we had plenty of men on board to carry the ship home, and to punish those who might injure us.

I must say that I felt rather curious as, giving way, we dashed alongside the stranger, and Peter with his boat-hook catching hold of the fore-chains, we, with our cutlasses in our mouths, scrambled on board. No one appeared. A perfect silence reigned over the deck. Our first business was to shorten sail, and round-to the ship. Mr Gale flew to the helm, and put it down, while we flattened in the topsail-braces, and clewed up top-gallant-sails, and brailed up the courses, throwing the foretop-sail aback. As this work occupied all our attention, we had no time to make any remarks as to the state of affairs on deck. As I was running forward, my foot slipped in a wet mass and I came to the deck. Jumping up again, I seized the rope at which I had been ordered to haul. When the work was done, and the ship hove-to, I looked at my hands. A cold shudder came over me: they were covered with blood!

I gave a cry of horror and disgust. It attracted the attention of my shipmates. We now looked along the deck. In several places were other dark clotted marks scarcely yet dry. Other signs there were which showed that plunder had been the object of the deadly attack, which, it was evident, had been made on the crew of the brig. Articles of dress were strewed about, and cases of provisions, nautical instruments, books and charts, and opened bales of merchandise; but there were no signs of a struggle—nothing to show that the hapless crew had even been enabled to fight for their lives.

“What has been the matter aboard?” shouted Captain Helfrich, as the Rainbow passed close to us.

“Murder, sir! foul murder!—there can be no doubt of it,” answered Mr Gale, who was about to descend the companion-hatch. I with others followed him.

What a scene of havoc, confusion, and wanton destruction the cabin presented, as seen in the dim light which came down the companion-hatch, for the covering of the skylight was on. There had evidently been a fierce strife there. A mirror over the stove was broken to atoms—the chairs were overturned—china-plates and cut-glasses lay scattered about in fragments amid clothing, and books, and boxes; the cabin lamp and a cabin compass, and stores of every sort, of which the lockers had been rifled—chests and trunks lay open, despoiled of their contents, but no human form, either alive or dead, was to be seen.

Mr Gale ordered the hands on deck to lift off the skylight. As the bright sunshine came down into the cabin, the full horror of the scene was exhibited. Among a mass of articles, such as I have enumerated, which lay on the cabin table, were six human heads with ghastly grins, holding pieces of meat in their mouths! They were placed at each side of the table, and knives, and forks, and plates with food, were placed before them! They had evidently thus been arranged in savage mockery by their ruthless murderers, as they were about to leave the scene of their atrocity. We searched about: no bodies were found. On one side of the cabin there was a complete pool of blood, though part of it had been lapped up by the bedclothes, which had been dragged from one of the berths. The beds in the other state-rooms had been undisturbed.

Everything in the cabin showed us that the vessel was English; and this was confirmed by opening the books, which were all in English. So, as far as we could judge, were the countenances of the murdered people—I will not say men; for on examining one of the heads, our horror was increased by discovering that one of them was that of a woman—young and beautiful she had been. Oh, what a scene of horror must her eyes last have beheld; with what anguish must her heart last have beat! Even in death the features of the murdered men wore various expressions. Horror on one was clearly portrayed—desperate determination on that of another—fierce rage showed itself on the face of another. So I fancied; but, at all events, had I known any of the people, I think that I should have recognised them. There were the same Anglo-Saxon features common to all. The complexions of some were fair, and of others sunburnt. There was one with a weather-beaten countenance, and large bushy whiskers, whom we took to be one of the officers of the ship, while most of the others had the smooth complexions of shore-going people, and were probably those of passengers.

What we had already discovered plainly told the story of the catastrophe. The brig had been surprised in the evening by some piratical miscreants, while the captain and passengers, and some of the officers probably, were below at supper. The watch on deck must have instantly been overpowered before those below had time to come to their assistance. Some, probably hearing a scuffle, and coming on deck, were instantly slaughtered, or, it might have been, secured and carried off all prisoners. The people in the cabin could not even have been aware of what was going forward, and the first announcement of the misfortune which had befallen them, was the appearance of the pirates rushing into the cabin. Rising from the table, they had seized whatever weapons came nearest to hand to defend themselves. Desperately they might have fought, but all in vain. One clearly had been dragged from bed, holding fast to the clothes. Most likely the unfortunate lady had been so treated, and deprived of life on the body of her husband.

Mr Gale’s opinion was, that the captain’s head was not among those in the cabin; but that, on first hearing the scuffle, he had sprung on deck, as being nearest the door, to ascertain its cause. This opinion was afterwards confirmed by the discoveries we made. As soon as they had been overpowered, their heads must have been cut off, perhaps to make the rest show where any valuables they might possess were concealed. However performed, at all events the butchery was complete. Never, indeed, have my eyes beheld a scene of greater horror. Death alone, we know, may bring peace and joy; but death under such outrageous aspects as those I have described, affrights the soul.

While some of the men went forward to ascertain the state of matters in the forepeak, Mr Gale kept Peter and me to look after the ship’s papers. We hunted about in a number of places for some time without avail. At last I went into what I concluded to be the master’s cabin, and in a tin case, under his pillow, I found them. I took them to Mr Gale, who glanced over them.

“The Dolphin, the vessel is called,” he observed. “Ah, and here’s a name I think I remember,—Walter Stenning, master. Why, Poplar, is not that the name of the young man we picked up at sea a few voyages back to the West Indies?”

“Yes, sir; the very same,” answered Peter. “I’ve had notice of him since then, and I heard say that he had become master and owner of a fine craft, and gone with his wife and family to live out in one of the colonies; I don’t know which.”

“Halifax, Nova Scotia, the brig hails from, I see. She was bound from Bristol to Demerara,” continued Mr Gale, reading on from the papers. “I suppose, though, we shall have to send her to Halifax, where, as far as I can make out, her owners reside, as well as the merchants who have shipped most of her freight.”

While the mate was still looking over the papers, Captain Helfrich, who had come on board in another boat, entered the cabin. He was more affected than any of us by the horrid sight which met his eyes.

“Who can have done this?” he exclaimed, casting his eyes round in every direction. “Ah, what is that I see in the corner there?” He pointed to what proved to be a Moorish turban; while near it lay a piece of a sabre, which, from its curved form, evidently belonged to the same people.

“This work was done, I doubt not, by the very villains who attempted to surprise us,” he observed, as I handed him the articles to examine. “We may truly be thankful that they did not find us unprepared, as they did the unfortunate people of this vessel, or their lot might have been ours.”

“Indeed we have cause of gratitude to God, who, in His mercy, preserved us,” responded Mr Gale. “I wish that we could find the people who did this work, to stop their committing further mischief.”

“The miscreants cannot be far-off,” exclaimed the captain. “If we could fall in with them, we might punish them in a way they little expect.”

“I suspect, sir, when the Moors let the brig go free, they must have hauled their wind, and kept away to the eastward,” observed Mr Gale. “They are not fond, in general, of keeping so far away from their own shores.”

“You are right, Gale,” said the captain. “However, though I think we might find them, I should not be justified in going out of our course to look for them. We must, therefore, consider how we are to dispose of the brig. As far as I can judge, without thinking more of the matter, I am bound to send her to Halifax at once to her owners, from whom we shall obtain the proper salvage. Now, as I shall be glad to do what I think will be of service to you, I will give you the command of her, with a few hands whom I can spare; while with the seamen whom we have as passengers on board, the Rainbow will still be sufficiently manned to reach home in safety.”

Mr Gale did not refuse the captain’s offer, and I was far from sorry when I found that he had selected Peter Poplar and me among the people who were to accompany him. Besides us, as the shipwrecked seamen were all anxious to reach England, and would not volunteer, we had only three other men; so that, considering the size of the Dolphin, we were somewhat short-handed.

Before committing the heads to the deep, we examined their features, and it was the opinion of all on board, who had known Walter Stenning, that none of them bore any resemblance to him; so that if the young man, who had for so long been on board the Rainbow, was the same person who lately commanded this unfortunate vessel, his fate was still uncertain. Too probably, however, he had been murdered by the miscreants on deck. Scarcely less melancholy would be his lot if he still survived, for he would have been carried away to Morocco, and there sold as a slave, to labour in the fields or gardens.

One or two other bits of arms and ornaments were found about the deck; and the captain, on examining them, gave it as his opinion that the pirate was one of those craft which had long been known under the name of Salee Rovers. At one time the greater number of vessels fitted out by the Moors to plunder on the high seas hailed from that port. Before the captain left the vessel, every part of her was examined, but not a trace of a living being could be found. Still, too clearly to be mistaken did she tell her own dreadful tale. The log-book showed that, three days before, she had been in a dead calm since sunrise, and that a strange sail was in sight. Little did her crew dream of the woe that stranger was to work them!

We were allowed to go on board the Rainbow to get our chests, and to wish our shipmates good-bye; and then I bade farewell to my old captain, and the craft I had learned to love as a seaman only can,—the vessel within whose wide timbers I had spent many a happy day, and which had carried me in safety across many a wide sea.

We found nearly everything we required on board the Dolphin. It took some time, however, to get her to rights, to wash out the stains of blood, and to put the cabin in order, and to remove all remnants of the horrid deed which had been enacted there. It was some time, however, before Mr Gale could prevail on himself to take possession of the cabin. At last all the necessary arrangements on board the Dolphin were made, and Captain Helfrich ordering Mr Gale to proceed on his voyage, bore away to the north-east, while we kept to the westward of north. I felt very strange as I found myself on board a new vessel, and saw the old one, in which I had served for so many years, sailing away from us. I should have felt very forlorn and melancholy if Peter had not been with me. I was also very much attached to Mr Gale, and was very glad that he was now my captain.

The Irish, I have observed, generally possess a considerable amount of imagination, and I conclude that I inherited no small share of that quality from my poor mother. I remember that the first night I passed on board the Dolphin, I fancied in my sleep that I saw again the whole of the scene of horror which had so short a time before been enacted there. Several times I jumped up, thinking that the rovers were coming on board, and that I had to fight for my life. Then I fancied that I heard the cries and the groans of the poor fellows who had slept where I was sleeping, and had met their death close to where I lay; and I looked out and saw them writhing and struggling in the hands of their barbarous murderers.

Peter, instead of laughing at me when I told him of my dreams, answered me that the surest way to banish all such thoughts, was to say my prayers earnestly at night whenever I turned in, and to pray that I might be preserved from all dangers, and especially from the fate which had overtaken these poor men. I was very fortunate in falling in, at this time of my life, with two such men as Mr Gale and Peter Poplar. The latter was uneducated, certainly, but had learned his religion from the Bible, and therefore he possessed the true principles, the essentials of a saving faith; and he was the instrument of gradually opening my mind and heart to them.

Captain Gale, for so I shall now call him, had a very sharp look-out kept lest we should again fall in with the Salee Rover, or any of his consorts, which, it was very probable, might still be hovering about in that part of the ocean. The first day after parting company with the Rainbow passed by without a single sail heaving in sight. The breeze had got round to the southward, so that we had a fair wind; and as it was light, we were able to carry all the canvas we could set. At night, however, as we were somewhat short-handed, the captain ordered us to furl top-gallant-sails, and to take a reef in the topsails, that we might be better prepared should it come on to blow. The second night, however, passed away, and the same fine weather continued.

The next morning, soon after daybreak, Captain Gale came on deck, and ordered us to loose top-gallant-sails. On going aloft to obey the order, as I cast my eyes round the horizon, I saw, right away on our weather-beam, just rising out of the water, the top-gallant-sails of a brig, close-hauled, standing, I judged, across our course. I hailed the deck to say what I had observed; and after the reefs were shaken out of the topsails, the captain told me to keep aloft to watch the movements of the stranger. She stood steadily on till she rose her topsails out of the water, and then, as I judged, on seeing us, kept more away, so as to cut us off. On hearing this, the captain himself went aloft to have a look at the stranger. He remained some time, examining her narrowly through his glass. The breeze had freshened up a good deal, and it was not a time, I should have supposed, to have made more sail; but the moment he came down, he ordered us to set studden-sails and royals.

“We must make the craft put her best leg foremost,” said he to Peter. “I do not altogether like the look of that ship out there. She is certainly not English; and by her movements she seems very much inclined to overhaul us. Just tell us what you think about the matter.”

Peter took the glass, and went aloft. He also was some time there. When he came down, he handed the glass to the captain without speaking.

“Well, Peter, what do you think of her?” asked the latter. Peter took off his hat, and passed his hand over his brow. “Why, to say the truth, Captain Gale, I don’t like her looks at all. If ever one craft was like another, she’s like that strange brig which lay becalmed near us the time when we were attacked before going up the Mediterranean. It’s difficult to tell one vessel from another, but I very much suspect that she’s the very same piratical rascal we before fell in with, and that this brig is no stranger to her either.”

The captain replied, that he was afraid his apprehensions were too well-founded.

The next question was, how we were to escape from the corsair, should the stranger really be her. A couple of hours passed away, and although we were going at a good rate through the water, there could be no doubt that she was coming up with us. It was now blowing a stiffish breeze, and I saw the captain and Peter often casting an anxious glance aloft, to see whether the masts and spars would bear the heavy strain put on them. Happily there was not much sea; and though the studden-sail-booms bent and cracked again, they held on bravely. Our great hope was, that we might be able to keep well ahead of the stranger till night came on; and then that, by hauling our wind, he might pass us in the dark. We had already got as much wind as the brig could stagger under, and thus one of the greatest dangers we had to apprehend was from carrying away any of our spars. Over and over again the captain looked up at the mast-head, and exclaimed, “Hold on, good sticks, hold on, and serve us a good turn!”

A stern chase is a long chase; and though this was not quite a stern chase, by-the-by, it was nearly one, and we hoped it might prove so long as to have no end. Still our pursuer kept after us. As he drew nearer, we had less and less doubt that he was the very Salee Rover we had before so much to do with. At the same time, our hopes of escaping him decreased. Peter had set himself down on the heel of the bowsprit to rest. I brought him his dinner there, for he had not left the deck for a moment since the morning. He did not look up for some time till I begged him to eat. Still he did not answer. At last I asked him what he was thinking about.

“Why, Jack, how we may manage to escape from the pirate,” he answered after some time. “A very curious idea has struck me, and if the captain will listen to me, we’ll put it into execution. It can do no harm, and if our pursuer comes up with us, I think it will make him haul his wind in a pretty considerable hurry.”

I asked Peter to tell me his plan, wondering what it could possibly be.

“I take it, you see, that the brig out there is the very same which attacked this vessel, and her crew, of course, know that there was not a living soul left on board, but that there were six heads in the cabin,” he answered, speaking very slow. “Now, in my wild young days, I was once for some time behind the scenes of a theatre, and if I had been a scholar I might have become a play-actor. When there, I saw what wonders a little paint, and canvas, and pasteboard could work. As there are six of us, I propose to put a false neck over each of our heads, and I’ll manage to paint in a quarter less than no time, six as ugly faces as you ever saw, on as many balls of canvas, which I’ll stuff with oakum. So each of us will have a head to hold in his hand. Unless some accident happens, we certainly can manage to keep ahead of the rover till nightfall. Then we’ll just mix up a number of lumps of gunpowder and sulphur, and place them about the deck before each of us. As soon as the rover ranges up alongside, we’ll fire them all at the same moment, and I shall be very much mistaken if the cut-throats don’t think that there’s a company on board they would rather not have anything to do with.”

I could not help laughing at Peter’s quaint notion—still, however little effect it might have on civilised people, I thought it was very likely to scare away the sort of men who composed the Moorish crew, and I advised him instantly to propose it to the captain. Peter, accordingly, bolting his dinner with a haste which showed that he was thinking more about his idea than it, went aft, and opened up the case. Captain Gale listened more attentively than I expected, and, after a little consideration, said that he thought it was very likely to succeed. The plan once adopted, all hands set energetically to work to make the required preparations.

There was, fortunately, an abundance of materials. I got out the paint-pots, and mixed the colours according to Peter’s directions. He himself, with canvas and palm needles, fitted the necks, cutting holes for us to see through them; the other men were employed in making six prodigious round balls for heads, and covering one part with shakings, to serve as hair. He undertook to stand at the helm, and to have his head at the end of the boat-hook by his side, that he might lift it up at the proper moment. All the frying-pans and shallow pots which could be found were collected, and the captain made with damp gunpowder a number of what schoolboys call “Vesuviuses.” These, however, were very much larger than the contents of a schoolboy’s purse would allow him to make. He tried one of them, and found it sent forth a lurid glare, which even in the day-time showed what effect it would produce at night.

Before sunset all our preparations were completed; and when dressed up, a very curious and horrid crew we most certainly did look. Had there been more of us, the effect might perhaps have been increased. We now waited almost with boyish impatience for the coming up of the rover to put our trick into execution. Captain Gale was, however, too wise to trust to it till all other means of escape had failed. The wind had rather fallen than increased, and this was an advantage to us in two ways: it enabled us to shorten sail with less difficulty than we should otherwise have done; and we found that, with less wind, we went faster in proportion through the water than did our pursuer.

It was with feelings such as I had very seldom before experienced, that I saw the sun sinking towards the ocean, surrounded with a blaze of glory; its bright rays falling on the loftier sails of the rover, while they still reached our courses. Down it went beneath its watery home, and I questioned very much with myself whether I should ever again see it rise. I had no great confidence in Peter’s trick, nor do I suppose that he had much himself, when he came seriously to think about the matter; but still, if overtaken, we had no other means of escaping—we could not fight, and still less could we have any hope from the mercy of our foes. I did not, however, mention my doubts to Peter, and far less would I have done so to any of the other men. Young as I was, I had seen enough of the world to have learned the value of discretion.

As the daylight disappeared, a grey canopy of clouds was spread over the sky, sufficiently thick to obscure the stars. Thus the night was more than usually dark. Still, as the atmosphere was free from mist, seamen’s eyes could distinguish objects at a considerable distance off. With much anxiety we watched the rover, in the hope that the growing darkness would hide her from our view; but still we could see her following closely in our wake, and thus, of course, there was every probability that she could see us. We could not expect that the darkness would increase; consequently there would have been no use in altering our course, as it would have been perceived on board; so all we could do was to stand boldly on as before. At the rate she was overhauling us, as the captain calculated, she would be up with us by midnight. I should have liked to have shortened sail, and brought the matter to an issue, but Captain Gale was not a man to act thus unwisely. He knew that we might fall in with some friendly vessel, or that the pirate might give up the chase, or that some sudden change in the weather might enable us to escape at the last moment. Everything, however, was prepared; and thus standing at our posts, we waited the result.

Nearer and nearer drew the pirate. We were within range of her guns, still she did not fire. On she came. She was close upon our quarter.

“Wait till I give the word,” said the captain, in a low voice. She was ranging up on our beam.

“Ready!” exclaimed the captain. “Now!”

In a moment a terrifically lurid glare was cast over our decks. Up went the helmsman’s gory head at the end of a boarding-pike, though he steered as steadily as before, while we all shook ours in our hands, and at the same moment gave vent to the most unearthly shrieks, and groans, and cries, our headless helmsman shrieking and shouting louder than any of us. At this we all again shook our ghastly heads. Peter had given the necks the appearance of dropping blood, and again we shrieked and groaned louder than ever.

The effect on board the rover was instantaneous. The crew must have fully thought that they had got hold of some demon-craft as a punishment for their crimes. Down went their helm; the tacks and sheets seemed all to be flying away together; and the topsails came down on their caps. Ropes were let go, but no one thought of hauling on others, or belaying them; no one seemed to know what they were about; and many even shrieked and cried out with terror and dismay. Nothing could have been more complete than the success of our trick.

We were all eagerly watching its effect, when, just as the vessels were parting, a figure was seen to spring into the main-rigging of the rover. We all saw him, and all recognised the person as no other than Walter Stenning, the late master of the Dolphin. On we sailed. The dark outline of the rover grew less and less distinct, till it was totally lost in the gloom of night.

Chapter Ten.

The Water-Logged Ship.

For the remainder of the night we kept anxiously looking over the taffrail, lest our enemy should have again made sail in chase. More than once I thought I saw the rover’s shadowy form stealing up towards us through the darkness; but just as I expected to make it out clearly, to my great relief it dissipated into mist. Voices, also, I thought, seemed to be shouting after us from out of the gloom; but neither did they ever assume any distinctness, and fancy, I found, had caused the creation of them both. Slowly the night passed away, and as soon as the first bright streaks of dawn appeared in the grey sky, the captain went himself aloft to take a survey of the horizon.

“There is not a sail in sight in any quarter,” he exclaimed to Peter, as he returned on deck. “To your clever suggestion we owe our own lives and the safety of the ship; but clever as it was, I would not advise others to try a similar one. They might not meet with enemies so easily deceived.”

“No, sir,” answered Peter, “certainly not; and, for my part, I would much rather have beat off the scoundrels in a fair stand-up fight than with such a play-acting trick as that; but then, you see, air, it was Hobson’s choice—neck or nothing with us!”

Peter’s curious contrivances were kept, that they might be shown as an evidence of the way in which we had escaped from the rover. The appearance of Walter Stenning on board the rover was a subject of constant conversation among us. There could be no doubt, then, that he had been carried on board the rover, and that his life had been preserved. This would be a satisfaction to his friends, though a melancholy one, as his ultimate fate must still be uncertain.

We had still a long passage before us to Halifax, and might meet with many adventures. At all events, we could scarcely expect to escape some bad weather, though it was not likely we should encounter the rover, or any of her consorts, as gentry of that class were not fond of venturing into northern latitudes. For more than a couple of weeks the fine weather continued, and we met with no event worthy of note. We had, however, to learn somewhat more of the sufferings which people meet with on the wide ocean.

One morning the sky became overcast; the water was of that dull leaden hue, striped with white foam, which gives so gloomy an aspect to the ocean; and heavy squalls compelled us to shorten sail as fast as all hands could get through the task. For the greater part of the day the squalls continued; but in the afternoon, though it was hazy, the weather again improved.

I was looking out, when I saw through the mist what I took to be a sail. There was something strange about her rig—I could not make it out. Accordingly, I reported it to the captain, who came on deck. He called Peter to him.

“She looks to me like a vessel in distress, with most of her spars and upper-rigging carried away,” he observed. She was about six miles off, on the lee-bow. Accordingly, the brig was kept away towards her.

Heavy squalls of rain occasionally blew over us, and for a time completely hid the wreck from view. When it cleared for an instant, we made out that she had an English ensign reversed secured to the main-rigging. Her mainmast alone was standing entire, her foremast had gone by the board, her mizzen-mast was carried away at the top, and part only of her bowsprit remained. Her maintop-mast-yard was still crossed; but the sail, torn to ribbons, now fluttered in the wind, and not another inch of canvas had she set.

“She looks dreadfully knocked about,” observed the captain. “And from the way she rolls in the trough of the sea, there can be no doubt that she is water-logged. If it were not for the signal flying, I should scarcely expect to find anyone on board.”

We had as much sail set as we could venture to carry, so that we could not make greater speed towards her; but the squalls increased in number, and night was coming on, so that we began to fear that we should be unable to get up to her before darkness hid her from our sight. Even when we had got up to her, unless she had her own boats, short-handed as we were, with a heavy sea running, we could scarcely hope to render her much assistance. Still Captain Gale was not the man to neglect making the attempt. Some, I am sorry to say, would have sailed on their way, and allowed any poor wretches who might have been on the wreck to perish miserably. As we approached the wreck, we could just distinguish through the driving mists and thickening gloom of night, several human beings leaning against the stumps of her masts, or sitting on her deck eagerly waving to us. The captain on seeing them exclaimed—

“Peter, we must do something to save those poor fellows.”

“I should think: so, sir,” was the answer. “If you let me have a boat, with Jack there, and one hand besides, I’ll undertake to get on board and bring them off. I know that it would leave you terribly short-handed if we were lost; but I don’t think that there’s any chance of that, and I’m sure that we shall be protected in doing what’s right.”

“You shall have your way, Peter; I cannot refuse you,” exclaimed the captain, warmly. “We’ll heave the brig to to leeward of the wreck, so that if you can manage to get the poor fellows into the boat, you can with less difficulty drop aboard of us again.”

According to this plan, we ran under the stern of the ship and rounded to. I never saw a more complete wreck yet floating on the surface. Her entire bulwarks, her boats, caboose, booms—indeed everything on deck—had been completely carried away, and the sea even now occasionally washed entirely over her. It was not an easy matter to lower our boat, but it was done without an accident; and Peter, Andrew Blair, a fine young fellow, and I, pulled away in her for the wreck. The unfortunate wretches on board waved us on. Several more made their appearance, as we approached, from behind a sail which had been triced up round the mainmast, which appeared to be the only shelter they had from the inclemency of the weather. They were all holding on to ropes secured to the masts or rigging, for without them they would certainly at once have been washed off the deck into the sea.

On getting nearer, we saw one or two heads looking at us from above the companion-hatch, which had escaped, and seemed to have afforded some shelter to others. We pulled as close to her as we could venture to go.

“Remember if we come alongside only four of you at a time must get into the boat, or we shall all lose our lives together!” shouted Peter. “Do you hear me there?”

They signified that they did hear; but Peter’s caution was very unnecessary, for few of them could do more than crawl, and none of them, without assistance, could have got into the boat.

“I see what must be done,” said Peter to us. “You two remain in the boat. There’s a rope towing overboard from the main-rigging; I’ll get hold of it, and haul myself on her deck, and then, as best I can, I’ll drop the poor fellows into the boat!”

To propose was with him to act. As the boat with the send of the sea approached the wreck, while we fended her off he seized the rope, which he found secure, and though the water, as it came pouring down to leeward, washed over him, he hauled himself up in a moment on her deck, and stood among the miserable wretches who peopled it. They crawled round him, and grasped his legs, to show their gratitude to him as their deliverer. I saw by his action that he was telling them that there was not a moment to be lost. Beckoning to us to approach, he seized one of them up in his arms as if he had been an infant, and grasping the rope with one hand, swung himself off from the side of the ship, and deposited his burden in the boat, or rather in our arms, as we stood ready to receive him. In a moment he was on the deck, and lifting up another human being, sprung as before into the boat.

“How many of you are there?” he asked of one who seemed to be the strongest of the crew, and looked by his dress like an officer. Once he had evidently been a stout, broad-shouldered, muscular young man, now he was a mere skeleton like the rest.

“Twelve or fourteen there were this morning, but I know not how many may since have died,” was the answer, given in a hollow tone scarcely audible.

“Then we’ll take four at a time to the brig, and we shall have to make three trips,” answered Peter. “We must not venture with more, though as to weight the boat would carry the whole of you. Now, my lad,” he continued, addressing the mate, for so the man who had spoken proved to be, “just do you come with us this trip. I’ll lend you a hand into the boat.”

“No, no!” answered the fine fellow; “take some of the others who are worse off than I am. There were a couple of women. They will be found aft under the companion-hatch.”

As no persuasion would make the mate alter his determination, Peter hurried aft, and diving under the hatch, returned with what looked like a long bundle of clothes in his arms. “Gently, now,” he sung out; “she has life in her, but very little of it.”

The clothes enveloped a female form, but so emaciated that she seemed to be of no weight whatever. Before placing her in the boat, Peter poured a few drops of liquid down her throat from a flask the captain had given him.

“There’s no use to bring the other poor thing; her sufferings are over,” he observed, as he lifted in another man. “And now, my lads, we’ll put these on board.”

We soon dropped down to the brig, and with less difficulty got the poor wretches up the side. The captain proposed sending the two other hands instead of Blair and me, but we begged that we might be allowed to return to the wreck.

Once more we pulled away from the brig, the boat, it must be remembered, tumbling and tossing about, now sunk in the trough of the sea, now rising to the top of a foam-crested wave; the sky overhead threatening and cloudy; a dense mist driving in our faces; and darkness rapidly coming on. We had the lives of fellow-creatures to save, and we persevered. Again the undaunted Peter sprung on board the wreck.

“Take care of that man!” exclaimed the mate, as an extraordinary-looking figure, in a long dressing-gown, with strips of canvas fastened about his head, ran up from behind the woman; “he is not altogether right in his mind, I fear.”

“Avaunt, ye pirates! ye plunderers! ye marauders!” shrieked out the person spoken of. “How dare ye venture on board my noble ship? Away with ye! away! away!” and flourishing a piece of timber which he had wrenched, it seemed, from the side of the ship, he advanced towards Peter.

My shipmate would have been struck down by the maniac’s blow, had he not sprung nimbly aside, and then, rushing in, he closed with the wretched being, and wrenched the weapon out of his grasp. The madman’s strength was exhausted.

“I yield! I yield me!” he cried; and though he was a tall man, Peter lifted him up as he had done the others, and handed him to us. He lay quiet enough in the bottom of the boat, regarding the wreck he was leaving with a stare of wonder.

Three other men were lifted in, but still the mate refused to leave while any remained alive on board. As we were leaving the wreck a second time, a man lifted himself up from the deck, and stood for a moment gazing at us.

“What! again deserted!” he exclaimed, shrieking frantically. “Oh, take me! take me!” and staggering forward, before the mate could prevent him he cast himself headlong into the sea. We endeavoured to put back, but he floated scarcely a moment, and then the foaming waters closed over his head. It was another of the numberless instances I have witnessed of the crime and folly of not waiting with calmness and resignation for what the Almighty has in his providence prepared for us. I trust that the poor man’s mind had given way in this instance; but even that result is often produced by a want of reliance on God’s mercy.

We put our hapless freight on board the brig, and a third time returned to the wreck. Besides the brave mate, Peter found only two more people alive on board. Several were dead. At the earnest solicitation of the mate, Peter helped him to commit them to the deep. It was a melancholy and loathsome task, for some had been long dead.

The delay also was of serious consequence. More than once I summoned Peter, for another thick squall of rain had come on, and when I glanced round for an instant to look for the brig, she was nowhere to be seen! A pang of dread ran through my heart, and all sorts of horrid ideas rushed into my head. I thought that the squall might have struck her, and that she might have capsized, or that she might have drifted so far to leeward that we might not be able to find her. I said nothing, however, but helped Peter to take the mate and the other two survivors off the wreck. Then, indeed, the question pressed on us, What has become of the brig?

“Cheer up, my lads!” cried Peter; “hold on yet a while; we’ll see her presently.”

We waited with intense anxiety, and the darkness seemed every instant increasing. It was, however, only the result of the tail of the squall passing by. Suddenly a bright light burst forth, which we knew must proceed from the deck of the brig.

“The captain has not forgotten the trick we played the pirates!” exclaimed Peter. “Shove off, my lads!”

With lightened hearts we pulled away to leeward, and were soon once more on the deck of the brig, with our boat hoisted up and secured. Every care and attention which we could possibly bestow was paid to the poor starving wretches. Captain Gale was enlightened as well as brave and generous, so that he knew well how to treat them. First he gave them only a little liquid—tea and cocoa; and then after a time a little simple arrowroot; afterwards he gave them some with broth; and, lastly, he mixed a few drops of wine with the arrowroot.

Scarcely, however, had we got them down below, than the gale which had been threatening came on; and while the captain went to the helm, all hands had to spring aloft to shorten sail. Happily the gale was in our favour, so that we were able to run before it, and keep our course. There can be little doubt that had we not providentially appeared that very night, everybody on board the wreck would have perished. We had hard work enough to do the duty of the ship and to attend to our passengers, who could for some days do nothing to help themselves. They were all too weak to speak without fatigue, so we forbore to question them as to the particulars of the events which had brought them into the condition in which we had found them.

For some days all we knew was, that the ship was the Eagle, from Quebec, laden with timber, and that she had been six weeks very nearly in the condition we found her—water-logged, with spars and sails carried away. The captain had died, and the lady we had rescued was his wife. Poor thing! at first she was almost insensible to everything; but when she recovered her health and strength, it was pitiable to see her grief.

The tall, gaunt man, whom we found deranged, had been a merchant’s clerk, and had gone out to Canada in the vain hope of finding employment. Disappointed in his expectations, he was returning home. At first he appeared to recover strength, but a relapse took place, and he rapidly seemed to grow weaker and weaker. I was sent to watch him. Suddenly he sat up in his berth, and glared wildly around.

“Where am I?—where am I going?—what has occurred?” he exclaimed. “Tell me, young man. I have had a horrid dream. For worlds I would not dream it again!” Then his voice lowered, and, rubbing his hand across his brow, he added, in a low, calm tone—

“I know all about it. I am going to a land where I have only one account to render; but my Judge will be great and just; and there is One in whom I trust who has taken all my sins on Himself. Young man, thank all those who have been kind to me. I am grateful. Good-night!” He fell back on his pillow, and was dead.

Among those saved was one other passenger. The rest consisted of the first mate, and the crew of the ship. With one of the crew, a young Canadian, who was making his second trip to sea, I formed a strong friendship; Adam De Lisle was his name. From him I learned the particulars of the disaster.

“You must know,” he observed, “that the timber which is sent from Canada to England is cut down from forests many hundreds of miles up the country. Numerous large and rapid rivers run into the great river Saint Lawrence. At the fall of the year gangs of woodcutters, under regular leaders, proceed up these rivers in canoes, with a supply of food, and every requisite, to enable them to spend the winter far from the haunts, of civilisation. Arrived at the forest they have selected for their operations, they build their habitations, and then set to work to cut down the trees they require. These, when shaped into square logs, as soon as snow has fallen, and ice covers the water, are dragged to the nearest stream. When spring returns, they are bound together in small rafts, and floated down towards the main river. Sometimes, when rapids occur, they are separated, and a few trees are allowed to glide down together. Slides have, of late years, been formed by the sides of the rapids, through which the timber descends without injury. At the foot of the rapids the rafts are re-formed, and ultimately, when they reach the Saint Lawrence, they are made so large that huts are built on them, in which their conductors live till they reach Quebec. This they frequently do not do till the end of the summer, when all the ships have sailed. The timber, therefore, remains in shallow docks at the mouth of the Charles River, which runs into the Saint Lawrence on one side of Quebec, till the following spring. The timber is often shipped through a large port in the bow of a ship, but a quantity is also piled upon deck, and lashed there to ring-bolts, making a ship with so great a weight above board very uneasy in a sea. Thus, I think, more accidents happen to the spars and rigging of timber-ships than to any other, though they have an advantage in floating longer than other craft.

“The Eagle was one of the first ships which left Quebec this year, with a crew of eighteen, all told fore-and-aft, with the captain’s wife and several passengers. Scarcely had we got clear of the Gulf when we fell in with bad weather; and about ten days afterwards, a heavy gale sprung up from the westward. It was night. The sea soon ran very high, and the ship being deep, and steering ill, before she could be got before the wind, it made a clear breach over her. There she lay helplessly in the trough of the sea, most of her bulwarks carried away, and the water pouring down her companion-hatch, and deluging the cabin. It soon found its way forward, and every instant we thought she would capsize. The captain ordered the main and mizzen topsail-sheets to be cut away, for there was no time to let them go, or clew-up the sails; but still the ship lay helpless and unable to answer her helm. Two men went to the helm, while others rigged relieving-tackles, and at length all the after-sail being taken off her, the headsail filled, and once more she ran before the wind. This was a great relief, but still the water was gaining on us. The seas continued rolling up after us high above the poop, and at length one broke on board, carrying the taffrail clean away, and sweeping the after-part of the deck. Had we not had safety-lines passed across the deck, the greater number of us would at once have been washed overboard. Our sufferings had now become intense, both from cold and hunger. All the provisions we could get at were spoiled with salt water, and the few clothes we had on were drenched also with water, and the wind pierced through them to our very bones. We still managed to keep a close-reefed foretop-sail on the ship, with a mainstay-sail and trysail, or we could not have avoided being constantly pooped. The gale, in a short time, increased in fury as the sea did in height. Again it made a clean breach over the ship. All the bulwarks were carried away; and the ring-bolts being torn from the decks, the deck timber, which consisted of large logs, was washed overboard, as were all our boats. At the same moment the foresail blew clean out of the bolt-ropes; and all those we could muster fit for duty had not strength sufficient to go aloft to set another. We knew well that our safety much depended on our being able to keep sail on the ship; but each man felt that his death would be the consequence if he attempted to go aloft, with that raging sea tumbling the ship about in every direction, the wind howling round him, and the torn sail flapping fiercely in his face. Still we managed to keep the ship before the wind, and thus, by easing the strain on her, she was prevented from going to pieces, which she would otherwise inevitably have done.

“Our first mate, James Carr, was a fine fellow. To look at him, you would not have supposed that he had so much endurance in his body. His spirit kept him up. When very few besides he and I could bear up, he went about the decks as if nothing unusual had occurred. He was a slight, fair man, and far from strongly-built; but he was a thoughtful, reading, and more than that, a religious man. Those who had led the wildest and most careless lives, and had no faith or hope to sustain them, were the first to succumb. I held out—first, because I believed that God would sustain me; and because I had a good constitution, which I had never injured by vice and debauchery, as too many of the rest had done. The captain was a good, kind man, and he did his best for us as long as his strength lasted. The little food we could get at was carefully husbanded, and all hands were put on short allowance. Many days thus passed away, the ship running before the wind, and still keeping together. At length the wind lulled, and we began to look forward with hope to the future. The caboose had hitherto stood, and the cook managed to light a fire in it, and to dress several meals, which we ate with comparative comfort. As long as there was a moderate breeze the ship ran steadily before it, but what many people would have thought an advantage, proved our greatest bane. Too much wind had injured us—too little almost destroyed us. It fell a dead calm; and this, far from bettering our condition, made the ship roll still more than ever, and soon reduced us to the condition in which you found us. The greater part of the bowsprit had already gone, the foremast was next rolled out of her, and then the mizzen-mast went—the mainmast must have been an unusually good stick, or that would have gone likewise. We had scarcely strength left to cut away the wreck. Hitherto, though all hands were growing daily weaker, no deaths had occurred, nor had anyone any particular sickness. However, anxiety of mind now helped to make our poor captain ill, and he took to his cot. The daily provision for each of us consisted also of but three ounces of bread, and half a pint of water. We agreed to this, because we felt that it was enough to sustain life for some time, and that it was better to have a little each day than have to go many days without any food at all. The officers proposed, however, before long, to diminish even this small allowance—though, by mixing a little spirits with the water, our food sustained us more than it would otherwise have done. Starvation, after a time, began to tell sadly on our tempers; and we, who had generally lived in good-fellowship with each other, spent the day in wrangling and peevishness. A breeze, however, had again sprung up, which seemed to steady the ship, though we could not keep her on her proper course. Such was the state of things, when one morning Mr Carr going on deck, as was his custom, to take a look-out, and to hoist our signal of distress, he shouted out, ‘Sail, ho!’

“How did our hearts leap with joy as we heard those words! We all crawled up as best we could to take a look at the stranger, which we hoped would save us. She saw us, and drew nearer. The captain got the mate and me to help him up on deck, and then, as he saw the approaching vessel, his heart bursting forth with gratitude, he called on us all to return thanks to God for the deliverance he hoped was at hand. His poor wife, who had held out bravely, and scarcely ever left his side, wept with joy at the thought that his life might yet be spared.

“‘Now, my lads, let’s see if we cannot get the ship somewhat clear of water,’ exclaimed Mr Carr, going to the pumps; ‘It will never do to have it said that we did nothing to help ourselves.’

“I believe he did this to employ the men’s minds till assistance could reach us. He set the example, which we all followed; and, weak as we were, we pumped away with such good-will that she rose perceptibly in the water, showing us that there was no leak to injure her.

“At last the stranger, a large brig, reached us, and heaving-to just to leeward, Mr Carr gave him an account of all that had happened to us.

“The master of the brig said that he was himself somewhat short of provisions, but would send us what he could venture to give in his own boat. We thanked him with grateful hearts. Still the boat did not come. There was some consultation on board; we could not tell what. A breeze from the westward again sprung up. It was a fair wind for the stranger.

“‘What’s he about now?’ exclaimed several voices, trembling with agitation.

“He put up his helm and filled his headsails.

“‘He’ll go about directly, and heave-to on the other tack,’ said Mr Carr.

“Still the stranger stood on.

“‘Where can he be going to?’ again exclaimed several of us.

“On, on he stood, steadily, with all sail set! Oh, how bitter were the words which followed him! Could that heartless stranger have heard them, would he have ventured to brave the fate to which he had left so many of his fellow-creatures? How completely had he forgotten that golden rule, ‘Do unto others as you would wish others to do unto you!’ What will be his thoughts some day when he is suffering from all the miseries to which we were exposed, when he remembers the wreck he deserted on the wild ocean! Hour after hour we watched him anxiously, scarcely believing, till his topsails dipped beneath the horizon, that so heartless a wretch existed in the creation.”

“Ay, it’s another proof of the depth of man’s vileness, and wickedness, and contempt of the laws of a God of mercy,” observed Peter Poplar. “I have known many such instances almost as bad; so I am not surprised.”

“When we found that we really were deserted, the spirits of all of us and the minds of some gave way. Several of the crew broke into the spirit-room, which they could now reach, and, broaching a cask of liquor, endeavoured to forget their miseries by getting drunk. The mate and I, and most of the passengers, abstained from the temptation. Those who indulged in it were the first to pay the penalty by a miserable death.

“Still discipline had been maintained. Mr Carr called on me to accompany him round the ship in search of anything which might serve as food to stay the cravings of hunger. We discovered a few pounds of candles, some bits of old leather, leather shoes, a rug, a couple of hides; but our greatest prize was about a gallon of lamp-oil, and some oil intended to mix with paint. These we brought into the cabin, to be kept in safety. While we were there, Mr Carr’s eyes fell on old Trojan, the captain’s favourite Newfoundland dog, as he lay almost dying under his master’s cot. The captain very naturally had not brought himself to order its death.

“‘I am sorry, sir,’ said Mr Carr, ‘to propose what I do; but that dog may be the means of preserving the lives of all of us. We must kill him.’

“‘You’ll be proposing to kill and eat each other before long,’ exclaimed the poor master, in a querulous tone.

“‘Heaven forbid!’ answered the mate. ‘But to take the life of a brute beast is a different matter. I don’t see how we can spare him. Even if we do, he will not live long, and now his blood alone will be of great importance.’

“At last the captain consented to the death of his favourite, and poor Trojan was led up on deck to be put to death. Before he was killed, we all of us took an anxious look round the horizon, to ascertain that no sail was near. We would gladly, even then, have saved the poor dog’s life. The cravings of hunger soon, however, drove all feelings of remorse from our bosoms. The faithful brute looked up into our faces, and his eyes said as clearly as if he had spoken the words, ‘I know that it is necessary—be quick about it.’ How carefully we husbanded every drop of the blood! The mate got a teaspoon, and served it out with that measure full to each of us at a time, while the flesh was reserved for another day.

“I cannot describe how those wretched days passed away. Except the mate and three others of us, no one could even stand. The captain lay in his cot growing worse and worse. I was on deck one afternoon with Mr Carr, steering and keeping the ship’s head to the eastward, when we were startled by a faint shriek from the cabin. Presently afterwards the captain rushed on deck.

“‘Mutiny! mutiny!’ he exclaimed, frantically flourishing his arms about. ‘But I’ll take care that no one takes the ship from me. I’ll shoot the first man who approaches me, be he whom he may. See here here!’

“He drew a brace of pistols from his bosom, and presented them at us. Happily, one missed fire; the ball from the other passed close to Mr Carr’s head.

“‘That’s right, sir,’ said Mr Carr, quite coolly. ‘Now you’ve quelled the mutiny, let’s go below.’

“He signed to one of the other men, who crawled aft to help me to steer, while he took the captain below. This outbreak was the last flaring up of the poor man’s almost exhausted strength. His wife watched him as the flame of life sank lower and lower in the socket; and two days after that, when I went into the cabin, I found her fainting beside him, and he was dead. She entreated that the body might be allowed to remain in the cabin another day; but the next she allowed the mate and me to remove it, and to commit it to the sea.

“Oh, how sad and melancholy were those long, dreary nights, as we stood at the helm, the gale howling over our heads, the ship groaning and creaking, and the seas roaring up astern and threatening every moment to wash us from our uncertain support—darkness above us, darkness on every side!

“At last not a particle of food remained. Mr Carr made another search into every cranny of the ship. Some grease was found; it served to keep life in us another day. Then the dreadful information spread among us that there was nothing else. Relief must come, or we must die.

“‘Others have lived under like circumstances,’ said one, looking up under his scowling brow.

“‘Ay, if it’s necessary, it must be done,’ hissed another.

“‘There is no need why we should all die,’ growled a third.

“They clearly understood what each other meant. I was listening, but could: not believe the horrid truth. Those who were but able to move crawled aft to Mr Carr, to tell him of their determination. For long he would not listen to them, but drove them forward, calling them cannibals, and telling them to wait God’s providence. For my own part, I felt that I would rather have died than have agreed to their proposals. What they wanted was that lots should be drawn, and that he who drew the shortest should be put to death, and the one next should be the executioner. The captain’s wife was to be free. At last their importunity became so great that Mr Carr agreed that, should no sail appear at the end of another twenty-four hours, he would no longer oppose their wishes. Before that time, two of those who were most eager for the dreadful mode of sustaining life, or most fearful of death, were summoned away. The crime was prevented; no one had to become a murderer. I will not describe how my wretched shipmates sustained life. Mr Carr abstained from the dreadful repast. So did I and one or two others; and though we lost in strength, our sufferings were much less acute, and our minds more tranquil, and our judgment far clearer than was the case with those who thus indulged their appetites. What we might have done I know not, had not God in his mercy sent your brig to our aid, with men on board with hearts to feel for us, and courage, in spite of all dangers, to rescue us. Some time before this the ship had become completely water-logged; and we, being driven from all shelter below, were reduced to the state in which you found us.”

The account De Lisle gave of Mr Carr raised him very much in my opinion, and I thought at the time that he was just the man I should like to sail with. We more than once spoke on the subject of the condition to which the crew of the Eagle had been reduced.

“To my mind,” observed De Lisle, “I cannot believe that people are justified in taking away the life of a fellow-creature even to preserve their own. I thought so at the time, and I think so now, that our duty is to resign ourselves implicitly to God’s will—to do our very utmost to preserve our lives, and to leave the rest in his hands.”

Peter agreed with him. He told him that he wondered Mr Carr did not mix up the grease on which they had fed with very fine saw-dust, as it would have made it go much further. De Lisle replied, that had they even supposed such a thing would have been beneficial, they had no means of making fine saw-dust, as they could get at no saw, and every particle of wood, as well as everything else, was soaked with wet.

After all the dangers and adventures we had gone through, it was with no little satisfaction that, as I was stationed on the look-out aloft, I espied land on the starboard-bow, which Captain Gale pronounced to be that of Nova Scotia, a little to the westward of Cape Spry. We were in sight of Sambro Head just at nightfall, but had to lay off till the morning before we could run in among the numerous islets which exist between that point and Devil’s Island.

Thus another night had to be passed on board by our weary shipwrecked visitors. Dark and dreary it proved. The wind came off cold and cheerless, in fitful gusts, from the shore, and moaned and howled through the rigging; the rain beat on our decks; and broken cross-seas tumbled and danced round us like imps of evil, eager to prevent our escaping from their malign influence. Thus wore on the night.

Chapter Eleven.

Adventures in Morocco—Search for the Lost Captain.

As the morning sun arose, lighting up Sambro Head in the distance, the clouds of night dispersed from off the sky, and with a fair breeze we ran in under the forts which guard McNab’s Island, at the entrance of the fine harbour of Halifax. The capital of Nova Scotia stands on the side of a hill facing the east, which rises gradually from the water’s edge. Its streets are wide, well laid out, and handsome, mostly crossing each other at right angles, and extending along the shores of the harbour for a distance of two miles, and running inland about half a mile. Fine wharfs, at which ships of any burden can discharge their cargoes, extend along the water’s edge; above them are the warehouses and merchants’ stores; and then come the public buildings; and, lastly, the houses of the more wealthy inhabitants. The harbour is very fine, and would hold as large a fleet as ever put to sea. The naval dockyard is also a handsome establishment, and it is the chief naval station in British North America. As it is completely open to the influence of the sea air, its anchorage is very seldom blocked up by ice. It is altogether an important place, and would become still more important in war-time.

As soon as we had dropped our anchor, Captain Gale, taking me with him to carry his papers and other articles, went on shore to find out the owners of the Dolphin. Davidson and Stenning were their names, the latter being the brother of the master, who was also part owner. He was dreadfully overcome when Captain Gale announced his errand.

“What do you mean, sir? My brave brother Walter dead! murdered by rascally pirates!” he exclaimed. “Oh, impossible!—it’s too horrid! What will his poor wife do?”

“I have my hopes that he may still be numbered among the living,” replied Captain Gale. And he then recounted all that had occurred connected with the Salee rover.

Both the gentlemen complimented the captain on the way he had behaved, and then begged him to wait to see Mrs Walter Stenning, who was residing there. After some time, during which her brother-in-law was preparing her for the captain’s communication, we were called in to see the lady. She begged that I might come too, that she might question me about having seen her husband in the rigging of the rover. She was not very young, but she was handsome, and very modest-looking; and as she was dressed in mourning, she appeared very interesting, and I for one thought that I should be ready to do anything to please her. She listened attentively to all the captain had to say; and after talking to him some time, cross-questioned me very narrowly as to how I knew that he was the man I had seen on board the rover.

“It was him—it was him, I am certain!” she exclaimed. “My good and noble husband cannot be killed. His life has been spared. I feel it—I know it. I’ll go and find him out. I’ll search for him everywhere. I’ll rescue him even if he is in the very heart of Morocco.”

“I fear, madam, that’s more than you or any other woman can accomplish,” answered Captain Gale. “But if any human being is able to rescue your husband, even though the risk may be very great, I for one shall be more than glad to engage in the work. If he’s above the water and above the earth, we’ll find him.”

There spoke the warm-hearted impetuous sailor. He did not stop to consider difficulties, but at once undertook to do what his heart prompted. It was not quite at the spur of the moment either, because he had, from the moment he thought Stenning dead, been feeling a sentiment of pity for his widow; and now he saw her sweet, amiable face, he was still more anxious to relieve her grief.

Mrs Stenning, as may be supposed, could scarcely find words to thank Captain Gale for his offer; and when he repeated it the following day, the owners replied that they would most thankfully accept it, and would put him in charge of the Dolphin, that he might go out in her to commence his search.

In the meantime, the people we had picked up at sea were landed, and taken care of by the inhabitants of the place. Mrs Stenning insisted on taking charge of poor Mrs Ellis, the widow of the captain of the Eagle; and Mr Carr volunteered to join the Dolphin, to go in search of Walter Stenning, with whom, curiously enough, he was well acquainted. Captain Gale at once offered to take me instead of sending me home, as had been arranged he should do; and, of course, I was delighted to join him. Peter Poplar at once volunteered to accompany him; as indeed did all the crew of the brig, and some of the seamen we saved from the wreck: the greater number were, however, too ill to serve again at sea.

The articles, as it happened, which composed the cargo, being much in demand at the time, sold well; and the owners were the better able, therefore, to fit out the brig in as liberal a way as could be desired. She was, accordingly, strongly armed, and well able to contend with any rover or other vessel we might meet on the African coast. After the lessons we had received, also, we were not likely to be taken by surprise,—the mode in which the pirates of those days usually attempted to capture their prey.

Mrs Stenning used frequently to come on board, to superintend the outfit of the ship, and to hasten the workmen; and thus everybody working with a will, and with an important object in view, she was soon ready for sea. Often and often, on the contrary, have I seen work which might and should have been rapidly performed, most vexatiously delayed through the laziness, or ignorance, or carelessness of those employed on it. One man has not taken a correct measure; another has forgotten to give a simple order; a third has put off a small piece of work to do something else which was not so much required; a fourth has ill-fitted a portion of the machine, or has broken what he calls some trifle which he has not replaced; and so forth. How much better would it be if they, and all whose eyes read my story, would but remember that saying of Holy Writ—“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”

Yes, in that Book, if men would but search earnestly, they would find with an overflowing abundance all that they can require to guide them aright, both in everything in regard to this life, as well as to make them wise unto salvation. But, then, they must not hope to be guided partly by the rules and maxims of the world, and partly by those of the Bible. They must study the Bible by the light which the Bible affords—not by man’s light or man’s wisdom. They must not suppose that a mere cursory or occasional reading will suffice. They must read it diligently with all their heart, with an earnest prayer for enlightenment, and with an honest wish to comprehend it fully, and a resolution to be guided by its precepts. Let the worldly-minded understand that those who do so succeed best, and are at the same time the happiest men in the world in the long-run. However, Old Jack does not want to preach just now. If his readers will not believe him, deeply does he mourn the inevitable consequences to them.

The brig, as I said, was soon ready for sea. It might have appeared that the shortest way to proceed about our expedition would have been to sail at once for Morocco; but as the productions of Nova Scotia are chiefly food and timber, and such articles were in no request in that part of Africa, it was necessary to go first to England with a cargo, and then to take in what was required, such as cotton and woollen manufactures, hardware, arms, and ammunition. Accordingly, we took on board some quintals of dry fish, and barrels of flour, and beef, and pork, and pickled fish, and staves, and shingles, and lath-wood, and hoops, and such like productions of the forest. At that time, however, the country did not produce any large quantity of those articles for exportation.

The owners directed us first to proceed to Bristol, where we were to discharge our cargo, and to take on board another suited to the Morocco markets. Our departure excited great interest in Halifax, where Walter Stenning and his family were well-known; and his poor wife was one of the last people to leave the brig before she sailed.

Once more, then, we were at sea. Several occurrences took place during the voyage which would be worth narrating, had not I other subjects of more interest to describe. People talk a great deal of the monotony of this or that existence, and especially of a long sea voyage. For my part, I have learned to believe that no day is altogether barren of incident, if people would but learn to look inwardly as well as outwardly. Something of interest is always taking place in nature, but men must keep their senses awake to observe it; so some process is always going forward in a man’s moral being, but his conscience must be alive to take note of it.

We reached Bristol in six weeks—not a bad passage in those days, when navigation had not made the strides it since has. We brought the first account of all the events I have described, and as the passengers and most of the crew of the Dolphin had belonged to Bristol, several families of the place were plunged in deep grief, and a universal desire prevailed to recover any of those who might have been carried into captivity, and to ascertain further particulars of the tragedy. No time, therefore, was lost in shipping a fresh cargo, and in furnishing us with such supplies as might be required.

Our directions were to proceed first to the port of Alarache, where resided a merchant who corresponded occasionally with our Bristol consignees. From him we were to obtain an interpreter, and to proceed to such other ports as might be judged advantageous according to the information he might furnish. We had a fair run to Cape Spartel, the north-western point of Africa. It then fell calm for a day or so. After this we had very light and baffling winds, and we sighted more than one suspicious-looking craft; but they did not, apparently, like our appearance, and made sail away from us. At length we came off Alarache. A bar runs across the mouth of the harbour, which even at spring-tides prevents large ships from entering, though there were sufficient water on it to allow us to get over. No pilot came out, so Captain Gale resolved to make a bold stroke, and to carry the brig in by himself.

It was nearly high-water, and the breeze was favourable as we stood towards the land. The sky and sea were blue and bright, with a line of foam where the water ran over the shallower part of the bar. Dark rocks and yellow sands were before us, with white-washed, flat-roofed houses, and here and there a minaret or cupola of a mosque, and tall, slender, wide-spreading topped date-trees scattered over the landscape; while lower down, protecting the town, was a frowning castle or fort, with a few vessels at anchor before it. A boat-load of officials, with very brown faces, white dresses, and red caps, came off to inquire our business, and get bucksheesh, as the Turks call such gratuities as they can collect from travellers and voyagers. The captain could only reply by showing a document in Moorish with which he had been furnished, and repeating the name of Mynheer Von Donk, the Dutch merchant at the place, to whom we were consigned. This, in the course of a couple of hours, produced Mynheer Von Donk himself, to ascertain what was required of him. I cannot pretend to say that all Dutch merchants are like him, for if so, they must be a very funny set of people. He was very short and very fat, with queer little sparkling eyes, and a biggish snub-nose, and thick lips, and hair so long and stiff that his three-cornered hat could scarcely keep it from starting out all round his bullet-shaped head. He had on very very wide brown breeches; and very very large silver buckles to his shoes; and a waistcoat of yellow silk, embroidered all over with strange designs, and so ample that it almost superseded the necessity of breeches; and his brown coat looked as if made with a due preparation for the still further enlargement of its respectable owner. Mynheer informed the captain that he could speak every language under the sun like a native; but, as Peter remarked, then it must have been like a native who had lived away from home all his life, and forgotten his mother-tongue. We, however, made out that it was very necessary to be cautious in our dealings with the Moors, as they were the greatest thieves and rogues in the world, and that they would only desire an opportunity of seizing the brig, and making slaves of us all; but that while we remained in Alarache, we should be safe under his protection.

When Captain Gale explained to him the real object of the voyage, he brightened up considerably, as he saw that he might have an opportunity of making even more out of the ship than he at first expected. I do not say that Mynheer Von Donk was destitute of human sympathies; but he had gone out to that far from agreeable place to make money, and money he was resolved to make by every means in his power. He was ready enough even to promise to assist in finding poor Captain Stenning, provided he could be paid for it—he preferred labouring in a laudable object with pay, to labouring in an object which was not laudable, if no more money was to be made in one way than in another; but he had no desire to labour in anything without pay.

We saw very little of the shore in this place, for he asked that we should not be allowed to land, except in company with one of our officers and his interpreter. We had, however, a pretty brisk traffic for the goods we had brought, we taking chiefly hard dollars in return; however, the captain did not refuse some articles, such as bees-wax, hides, copper; dates, and almonds, and other fruits not likely to spoil by keeping. It was, at the same time, important that we should not fill up entirely with merchandise, that we might have an excuse for visiting other ports. As far as we could judge, the dangers we had heard of had been very much exaggerated, and arose chiefly from the careless and often violent conduct of those who visited the country. Captain Gale, aided by Mr Carr, kept the strictest discipline on board; and we must have gained the character of being very quiet well-disposed traders, without a thought beyond disposing of our merchandise. Our guns merely showed that we were able to defend what had been placed under our care.

Meantime Mynheer Von Donk was making every inquiry in his power for Captain Stenning, or any of the survivors from the massacre on board the Dolphin. He ascertained that no such vessel as we described had come into Alarache, but that one exactly answering her description belonged to the port of Salee, some leagues to the southward, and that she had been on a long cruise, and had returned about the time the captain calculated she might, with some booty and some captives on board. What had become of them he could not learn, but concluded that, as they had not been sent to the northward, they were still in the neighbourhood.

One day, the interpreter having come on board, we got under way, and without let or hindrance stood over the bar. We lay up well along-shore, which is in some places very mountainous and rocky, and the following day we were off Salee. This is also a bar harbour, but, waiting for high-tide, we ran over it, and came to an anchor opposite the town, and near an old fort, the guns of which did not look very formidable. As we ran up the harbour we looked anxiously around to ascertain if our friend the rover was there; but no vessel exactly like her could we see, though there were several suspicious-looking craft, which, no doubt, were engaged in the same calling. Salee itself is composed chiefly of mean houses, with very narrow dirty steep streets; but some of the dwellings in the higher part of the town are of greater pretensions as to size and architectural beauty.

Our consignee in this place was an Armenian merchant, who presented a great contrast in outward appearance to Mynheer Von Donk. Keon y Kyat was tall, and thin, and sallow and grave, dressed in long dark robes, and a high-pointed cap of Astrakan fur,—he looked more like a learned monk than a merchant; but in one point he was exactly like his respected correspondent,—he came to the country to make money, and money he was resolved to make, at all events! This circumstance, however, was an advantage to our enterprise, as he was willing for money to afford us that assistance which he would, probably, otherwise have refused.

Our interpreter, Sidy Yeusiff, was a character in his way, though certainly not one to be imitated. His mother was a Christian slave, an Irish Roman Catholic, married to a Mohammedan Moor. She had brought him up in her own faith, in which he continued till her death, when, to obtain his liberty, he professed that of his stepfather. He had all the vices consequent on slavery. He was cringing, cowardly, false, and utterly destitute of all principle; but, at the same time, so plausible, that it was difficult not to believe that he was speaking the truth. He was a young, pleasant-looking man; and as he used to come forward and talk freely with the seamen, he became a favourite on board. Poor fellow! had he been brought up under more favourable circumstances, how different might have been his character! His professed object was, of course, to interpret for the captain in all matters connected with the sale of the cargo; but he used to take every opportunity of going on shore to try and gain information about Captain Stenning or any of his companions.

I had few opportunities of making remarks about the people of this place, but Sidy corrected some of the notions I had first formed. The boys all go bare-headed; the men wear red caps. They have their hair shaved off their heads, with the exception of a tuft on the top, by which they expect Mohammed will draw them up to paradise. I have seen it remarked that Mohammed, who had very erroneous notions on scientific subjects, fixed the articles for the religious belief of his followers according to them, thereby entirely disproving their divine origin; whereas the writers of the Bible, guided by inspiration, made numerous statements which, with the knowledge then possessed by mankind, would have been impossible for them to understand clearly unless explained to them by the Holy Spirit, but which subsequent discoveries in science have shown to be beautifully and exactly correct.

Mohammed thought that the world was flat, and so placed his paradise in an atmosphere above it.

To return to the dress of the Moors. They wear long beards and large whiskers, but shave their upper lip and directly under the chin. A gentleman of the upper class wears a long shirt without a collar, and over it a sort of spencer or waistcoat, joined before and behind. Again, over this he puts a very large coat, ornamented with numberless buttons, and with sleeves reaching only to his elbows. His coat, which he folds round him, is secured by a thick coloured sash or girdle, into which he sticks a very long knife or dagger, and where he carries his money, supposing he has any. He wears only a pair of linen drawers reaching to the ankle. His shoes are of goat-skin, very well-dressed, the sole being but of one thickness. He wears over his dress a fine white blanket, with which he can completely shroud himself, leaving only his right arm exposed. It is called a haik. Some of these haiks are very fine and transparent, while others are thicker and more fit for general use. In cold weather he puts on a bournous or capote, with a hood such as the Greek fishermen and sailors wear. A labouring man does not wear a shirt, and his drawers come only as far as his knee, leaving the rest of his leg exposed.

The women’s clothes are cut something like those of the men. Round the head they wear a coloured sash, which hangs down to the waist; their hair is plaited; and they have the usual gold and silver ornaments in their ears and on their fingers, and red shoes. The poorer classes wear necklaces, and silver or copper rings on their fingers and thumbs. Their shirts are beautifully ornamented in front, to look like lace. When they leave the house they put on drawers of great length, which they turn up into numerous folds over their legs, giving them a very awkward appearance. Besides the haik, which is like that of a man’s, a lady wears a linen cloth over her face, to conceal it from the profane vulgar when abroad. Such were the people we saw moving about on shore.

Day after day passed by, and no account could we gain of poor Captain Stenning. It was very clear, also, that if we did, we should not be able to obtain his liberation by force. At last one day the captain sent for me.

“Williams,” said he, “I have had news of one of the Dolphin’s people, if not of Captain Stenning himself. I must myself go and see him, and I want a companion in whom I have perfect confidence. As you are a steady, sensible man, with good nerve, I shall be glad to take you with me, if you are willing to accompany me. I should probably have taken Poplar, but his figure is so conspicuous that he would have been remarked.”

I was much pleased with the way in which he spoke of me, and I told him that I was ready to follow wherever he chose to lead the way.

“That is the spirit I expected to find in you,” he replied.

“It is, however, right that you should understand that there is considerable danger in the expedition; for if our errand was to be discovered, we should certainly be sacrificed to the fury of the Moors.”

“I’ve no fear about that, sir,” said I. “A man cannot expect to be always able to do what is right without running some risk and taking some trouble.”

Sidy that evening brought us off some Moorish clothes, in which the captain and I rigged ourselves out. We certainly did look two funny figures, I thought, as we turned ourselves round and round in them. Sidy had not forgotten a couple of long knives, to which the captain added a brace of pistols a piece. I was very glad it was dusk when we left the ship, for I should not have liked my shipmates to have seen me with my bare legs and slippers, and a dirty blanket over my head just like an old Irishwoman.

A shore-boat was alongside—a sort of canoe turned up at both ends, and flat-bottomed. An old Moor sat in her. Sidy had bribed him to put us on shore, and to ask no questions. He told him that we were Moors, who had had business on board the brig, and that we desired to land without notice. He accordingly pulled to an unfrequented part of the harbour, and we stepped on shore, as we believed, unnoticed. The captain and Sidy led the way, I following in the character of a servant. Of course, if spoken to, I was to be dumb. We passed along a narrow sandy road, with low stone walls on either side skirting the town, till we arrived at the entrance of a house of somewhat larger dimensions than those of the neighbouring edifices. This, I found, was the residence of a German renegade and a merchant, who had, by Sidy’s means, been bribed to assist us.

We were ushered into his presence as Moorish guests come to visit him. He was seated cross-legged on a cushion at one end of a room, with a large pipe by his side. The apartment was not very finely furnished, seeing that it had little else in it besides a few other cushions like the one he sat on. Certainly he looked exactly like an old Moor, and I could not persuade myself that he was not one. He invited us to sit down; which the captain and Sidy did near him, while I tucked my legs under me at a distance. After he had bowed and talked a little through the interpreter, he clapped his hands, and some slaves brought each of us a pipe—not an unpleasant thing just then to my taste. Again he clapped his hands, and the slaves brought in some low, odd, little tables, one of which was placed before each of us. There was a bowl of porridge, and some plates with little lumps of fried meat, and rice, and dates, but not a drop of grog or liquor of any sort. Afterwards, however, coffee was brought to us in cups scarcely bigger than thimbles; but it did little more than just warm up my tongue. As soon as the slaves had withdrawn, I was not a little surprised to hear the seeming Moor address the captain in tolerable English.

“So you want to find one of your captured countrymen?” said he. “Well, to-morrow morning I start on a journey to visit a friend who has one as a slave. His description answers that of him whom you seek. I will obtain for you a short conversation with him. You must contrive the means of rescuing him. I can do no more.”

After some further talk on the subject our host got up, and, having carefully examined all the outlets to the room to ascertain that no one was looking in, produced a stout black bottle from a chest, and some glasses. I found that the bottle contained most veritable Schiedam.

“Now, as I don’t think this good stuff was known to Master Mohammed when he played his pranks on earth, he cannot object to any of his faithful followers tasting a drop of it now and then.”

Thereon he poured out a glass for each of us, and winked at Sidy, as much as to say, “We understand each other—we are both of us rogues.” The captain took but little; so did I: but Muly Hassan the merchant, and the interpreter, did not stop their potations till they had finished the bottle, and both were very drunk. The merchant had sense enough left to hide his bottle, and then his slaves came and made him up a couch in one corner of the room. They also prepared beds for us in the other corners.

The next morning we were up before break of day, and mounted on some small horses, almost hid by their gaily-coloured saddle-cloths and trappings. And such saddles! Rising up in peaks ahead and astern, a drunken tailor could not have tumbled off one of them had he tried. I do not remember much about the appearance of the country. A large portion was lying waste; but there were fields of various sorts of corn, and even vineyards, though the grapes produced from them were not, I suppose, used for the manufacture of wine: indeed, I know that they are eaten both fresh and dried. Date-trees were, however, in great abundance, the fruit being one of the principal articles of food among the people. The roads were very bad; and altogether there was an air of misery and neglect which will always be seen where the ruler is a tyrant and the people are slaves. We rested in some sheds put up for the accommodation of passengers during the heat of the day, and in the afternoon proceeded on to our destination.

“Now, my friends, look out for your countryman,” said the renegade. “You will probably see him tending cattle or labouring in the fields among other slaves. He is probably in his own dress, and you will easily recognise him.”

Curiously enough, we had not ridden on for ten minutes further, when, not far from the road, we saw a man seated on a bank a short distance from the road, and looking very sorrowful and dispirited. His dress was that of a seaman. I looked round, and seeing no one near except our own party, I slipped off my horse, and ran up to him. Of course, he thought I was a Moor, and he looked as if he would have fainted with surprise when he heard me hail him in English.

“Who are you? What do you come here for?” he exclaimed, panting for breath.

“I belong to the Dolphin brig, and I came here to try and find Captain Stenning and any of his companions.”

“Heaven be praised, then?” he exclaimed, bursting into tears. “He and I are the only survivors of that demon-possessed craft which he commanded. But how came your vessel to be called by the name of one which proved so unfortunate?”

“I cannot tell you all about that just now,” I answered, seeing that much time would be lost if I entered into particulars. I therefore merely explained the steps we had taken to discover them, and asked him what had become of Captain Stenning.

“The captain! He has been in this very place till within the last three or four weeks, when the Moors carried him away to serve on board one of their ships—the very ship which captured us. They found out that he was the captain and understood navigation, so they took him to navigate one of their piratical craft. I was sick and unfit for work, or they would have taken me likewise; but they saw that I was only a man before the mast, and guessed that I did not understand navigation. What has since become of the captain I don’t know. There is no one here I can talk to. They set me to work by signs, which, if I do not understand, they sharpen my wits with a lash; and they take care that I shall not run away, by securing me at night with a chain round my leg. There are several other slaves employed by the same master, but not one of them understands a word of English.”

The young man’s name was Jacob Lyal, he told me; and he said that he was just out of his apprenticeship when he joined the Dolphin.

“I have a father and mother, and brothers and sisters, at home, in Somersetshire, and it would make their hearts sorrowful if they heard that I was left a slave in this barbarous country; so you’ll do all you can to help me,” he exclaimed, as I was about to leave him, for I was afraid of remaining longer lest we should be observed.

Just as I was going, however, I told him to try and arrange some plan by which we might have a talk with him, and let him know how things stood before we left the place, should we be unable to take him with us. He also described very accurately the sort of place in which he was locked up at night; and I promised, if I could, to go and have some more conversation with him. As we did not lose time in talking of anything except the matter in hand, I was speedily able to rejoin the captain and his companions. The captain approved of the arrangements I had made, though he was very sorry that there was no immediate prospect of meeting with Captain Stenning.

We were received with all the usual marks of respect by the old Moor who owned the property. He had been a pirate in his youth, and cut-throats and robbed without compunction; but he was now a dignified old gentleman, who looked as if he had been engaged in rural affairs all his life. I came in for almost as much of the attention and good fare as the captain; for in that country a beggar may eat off the same table, or rather the same floor, and sit under the same roof as a prince. The excuse for the visit was to sell to the old Moor some of the goods aboard the Dolphin, specimens of which the captain had brought with him.

As soon after our arrival as we had shaken the dust out of our clothes, and washed our faces and our hands and feet, we were ushered by slaves into a hall, at one end of which sat the old Moor, and the captain and the renegade and the interpreter were placed on each side of him, and I sat a little further off, tucking up my legs as I had done before; and then some black slaves in white dresses brought in a little table for each of us, with all sorts of curious things to eat, which I need not describe, for in that country one feast is very much like another. The renegade had also brought a case; but that it contained something besides merchandise he proved by producing, one after the other, several of his favourite bottles of Schiedam, which apparently were no less acceptable to the old Moor than to him. I am not, however, fond of describing such scenes, or of picturing such gross hypocrites as the renegade and the old Moor.

I gained an advantage, however, from their drunken habits; for as soon as it was dark I stole out of the house, and tried to find my way to the shed where Lyal told me he was chained at night. I had taken good note of the bearings of the place as we rode along. I knew that if I was found prying about, I should run a great chance of being killed; but still I was resolved to run every risk to try and rescue the poor fellow from captivity. Of course, as the captain afterwards told me, we might have gone home to England, and laid the state of the case before the Government; and after a year or so spent in diplomatising, the poor fellow, if he was still alive, might have been released, or the Emperor of Morocco might have declared that he could not find him, or that he was dead; and thus he would have remained on, like many others, in captivity.

There was a little light from the moon, which enabled me to mark the outlines of the house I was leaving, as well as to find my way. Two servants were stationed in the entrance passage, but they had wrapped themselves up in their haiks and gone soundly to sleep, so I stepped over their bodies without waking them. Every person about the house, indeed, seemed to have gone to sleep, but the dogs were more faithful than the human beings, and some of them barked furiously as I walked along. They were either chained or locked up, and finding my footsteps going from them, they were soon silent. At length I reached the shed I was in search of. It was near a cottage, with several other similar sheds in the neighbourhood. As I came to the entrance, a voice said—

“Come in; but speak low.”

At first I could see no one, but on going further in, I discovered the object of my search sitting in a corner on a heap of straw. He was chained there, and could not move.

“It gives me new life to see a countryman here, and one who wants to help me,” said the poor fellow. “I thought all the world had deserted me, and that I should be left to die in this strange land, among worse than heathens, who treat me as a dog; or that I should be tempted to give up my faith and turn Mohammedan, as others have done.”

I cannot repeat all our conversation. At last an idea struck me.

“I’ll tell you what,” said I; “just do you pretend to be mad, and play all sorts of strange pranks, and do all the mischief you can; and then the captain will propose to buy you, and perhaps the old Moor will sell you a bargain, and be glad to be rid of you.”

“A very good idea,” he answered. “But here am I chained up like a dog, and how am I to get free?”

“No fear,” said I, producing a knife which Peter had given me, containing all sorts of implements, and among them a file. “You shall soon be at liberty, at all events.”

Accordingly I set to work, and in less than an hour I had filed the chain from off his legs. While we were filing away, we arranged what he was to do. He was to make a huge cap, with a high peak of straw, and he was to cut his jacket into shreds, and a red handkerchief I had into strips, and to fasten them about him in long streamers, and he was to take a thick pole in his hand, covered much in the same way, and then he was to rush into the house, shrieking and crying out as if a pack of hounds were after him.

“They will not wonder at seeing me mad, for I have done already many strange things, and very little work, since I came here,” he remarked. “But what it to become of the chain?”

“You had better carry that with you, and clank it in their faces,” said I. “Make as if you had bitten it through. That will astonish them, and they will, at all events, be afraid to come near your teeth.”

To make a long story short, we worked away with a will, and in half an hour or so he was rigged out in a sufficiently strange fashion. I have no doubt, had Peter been with us, he would have improved on our arrangement. I then, advising Lyal to follow me in a short time, stole back, and took my place unobserved in the old Moor’s dining-hall. The captain guessed what I had been doing, but the rest of the party had been too much engaged in their potations to miss me. After a little time I stole over to the captain and told him the arrangements I had made, that he might be ready to act accordingly.

In a short time the silence which had hitherto prevailed was broken by a terrible uproar of dogs barking, and men hallooing and crying out at the top of their voices; while, above all, arose as unearthly shrieks as I had ever heard. Presently in rushed a crowd of black and brown servants, followed by a figure which I recognised as that of Lyal, though he had much improved his appearance by fastening a haik over his shoulders and another round his waist, while he waved above his head a torch, at the risk of setting his high straw-cap on fire. The people all separated before him, as he dashed on, right up to the old Moor, who, with a drunken gaze of terror and astonishment, stared at him without speaking.

“Ho! ho!” shouted the sailor, seizing him by the nose; “old fellow, I have you now!”

Thereon he kicked over the jar of Schiedam, the contents of which he set on fire with his torch; and keeping fast hold of the old Moor’s nose, who in his fright knew not how to resist, dragged him round and round the room, shouting and shrieking all the time like a very demoniac.

The place would have been meantime set on fire had not the captain and I quenched the flames, while the renegade and the interpreter, in their drunken humours, could only lean back on their cushions, and laugh as if they would split their sides at the extraordinary predicament of our host.

“I say, countrymen, if you had but your horses ready, we might gallop away before all these people knew where they are,” shouted Lyal. “Who’ll just take a spell at the old fellow’s nose, for I am tired of holding on?”

On this Captain Gale thought that it was time to interfere, and he and I going up to the old Moor, pretended to use great exertion in dragging away the sailor from him. The captain then led him back to his seat, while I held Lyal.

“Here, Sidy,” said the captain to the interpreter; “tell the old man that if he will give me fifty dollars, I will take that madman off his hands.”

When the old Moor had somewhat recovered his composure, Sidy explained the offer. “He says that he can kill him, and so get him out of his way!” was the answer. “He dare not do that,” put in the renegade; “all the people here will own him as inspired. Abate your price, and stick to it.”

Finally, the captain consented to carry away the madman on having twenty dollars added to the price he was to receive for his goods.

“Take him! take him!” exclaimed the old Moor. “The man who can eat through iron, drive all my slaves before him, set fire to my house, and pull me by the nose, is better away from me than near! Take care, though, that he does not come back again!”

The captain promised that he would take very good care of that; and the next day, with joyful hearts at our unexpected success, we set forward on our return-journey to Salee. As the renegade and Sidy were both to be rewarded according to our success, they were well content; and by their aid, the same night we got on board the brig with our recovered countryman without being observed. We had now to turn the whole of our attention to the recovery of Captain Stenning; and every excuse which Captain Gale could think of was made for our stay in the harbour. Still, we had very little of our cargo left, and every day saw it decrease. The spring-tides were also coming on, when there was the greatest depth of water on the bar, and we could the most easily make our escape without a pilot.

Chapter Twelve.

The Salee Rover and the British Corvette.

As we lay at our anchors off Salee, we had a view from the mast-head of the open sea, over a point of land which ran out below the town. Snug as we were, it was one day blowing a heavy gale outside from the northward. Dark clouds chased each other across the sky, and the ocean—black and gloomy—was sprinkled over with white-topped seas. I was engaged aloft about the rigging, when I observed a sail to the north-west staggering along with as much canvas as she could carry. So rapidly did she make her way through the water, that I soon perceived that she was a brig, and that she was standing towards the harbour. The reason of her carrying so much sail, with so heavy a gale blowing, was soon explained. Two or three miles astern of her came a large ship, with all her topsails set, evidently in chase. The latter, better able from her size to bear a heavy press of sail, was coming up with her rapidly. On seeing this I hailed the deck, and the captain, and Mr Carr, and Peter, and others, soon came aloft to watch the progress of the chase.

“I make it all out clearly,” exclaimed the captain, after watching the state of affairs through his glass. “That craft is the very rover which plundered this vessel, or exactly like her; and the ship is a British man-of-war corvette, which is in chase of her. I can make out the English ensign clearly. The rover hopes to get into port before the guns of the corvette can be brought to bear on her; and that’s just what I hope the rascal won’t be able to do.”

“But that’s the very craft Stenning is said to be on board,” observed Mr Carr. “Poor fellow, it will go hard with him when the corvette’s guns begin to play on the brig.”

“I wish that we could run out and bring her to action, so as to give the corvette time to come up and take possession,” said I to Peter, who was near me.

“If the weather were moderate we might do it; but, with this gale blowing, I doubt if even our captain would run the risk,” he answered. “Besides you see, Jack, all the people we have had anything to do with here would get into a great scrape if we played such a trick to one of their vessels. Yet I tell you, lad, I would like the fun amazingly. The villains don’t deserve any mercy at our hands.”

While Peter and I were discussing the subject, so were the captain and Mr Carr. They gave up the idea of running out to meet the rover, as thereby they would have but little chance of saving the life of Walter Stenning, if he was still on board. By this time, both the brig and ship had drawn close in-shore, and every movement could clearly be observed with the naked eye. Poor Jacob Lyal had come aloft; and as soon as he recognised the brig, he was nearly falling on deck, overpowered with all the dreadful recollections her appearance conjured up.

No vessel, unless one well acquainted with the coast, could have ventured to stand in as close as the brig had done. She was now about a mile from the entrance of the harbour; and the corvette, outside of her, had just begun to fire a bow-gun now and then, to try its range. At last a shot went through one of the brig’s topsails. She, in return, fired, endeavouring to cripple her pursuer, thus to have time to run under the shelter which was so near. Never have I witnessed a more exciting scene. Our mast-heads were soon crowded with spectators. Even the sluggish Moors rushed out of their houses, and went to the neighbouring heights to watch what was going forward. Their interest was, however, on the other side of the question. Many of them must have had relatives and friends on board the rover, and they were as anxious for her escape as we were to see her captured. The action now became warm—both corvette and brig were firing away as fast as they could load.

“Hurrah! the pirate seems to be getting the worst of it,” said I to Peter. “The rovers will meet with their deserts before long, I hope.”

“So do I,” he answered. “But do you know, Jack, I’m more anxious about the corvette. If she were to receive any damage, and not be able to haul off-shore, she is, do you see, on an enemy’s coast, and all her people would be made prisoners, if not murdered; while the brig has a port under her lee, and can run in even if she gets a good deal of knocking about.”

While we were thus talking, the corvette had drawn still nearer to the brig, and her shot began to tell with considerable effect. Down came the brig’s maintop-gallant-mast, the spars hanging by the rigging. We next saw several hands going aloft to clear it away, when another shot struck the maintop-mast. The Moors attempted in haste to slide down the stays and shrouds, but scarcely had they begun their descent when the mast bent over to leeward, and down it came with a crash, jerking off many of them into the sea. There in vain they struggled for life; the combatants flew on, leaving them to their fate. Still the brig had her mainsail set, and with the gale there was blowing, that was sufficient after-canvas for her to carry with advantage. She ceased firing. “Hurrah! she is going to strike,” we exclaimed; but the wreck of the maintop-mast was quickly cleared away, and she commenced again with greater briskness than ever. In return, the corvette plied her fast and furiously with shot, which must have told pretty severely among her people on deck, though, of course, we could not see the damage which was done. The brig was within a quarter of a mile of the mouth of the harbour. It was high-tide, but we well knew that there was not water sufficient on the bar to allow the corvette to enter. Still, on she boldly came in hot chase.

“She cannot surely fancy that she can venture in,” exclaimed Captain Gale. “She’ll be lost to a certainty if she does. Poor fellows! not one will escape with their lives should she strike. Carr, we must run out, and try and pick some of them up, at all hazards. The wind is sufficiently to the northward to carry us clear, and the people on shore are so engaged in watching the chase, that they will not observe us getting under way till we are clear from the guns of the castle.”

“Ay, ay, sir, with all my heart,” answered the mate. “I’m not quite certain that the brig will get scot-free either.”

As he spoke, I saw a thick smoke ascending from the deck of the rover.

“She’s on fire! she’s on fire!” shouted several of us. But then we thought of poor Stenning, and what would become of him.

“All hands make sail,” cried the captain, descending on deck. “We must slip, Mr Carr. There’s no time for heaving up the anchor.”

The crew could scarcely refrain from giving vent to their feelings of excitement in a shout.

“Silence, my lads; we must not let the Moors know what we are about.”

Never did a crew let fall the topsails with greater good-will than we did. We had kept two reefs in them for an emergency. I now saw the wisdom of the captain’s forethought when he gave the order, as some time before we had loosed sails.

We were riding with the ship’s head towards the mouth of the river, the tide still running in. Thus, being strongly manned with willing hearts, we were soon under way. No one from the shore observed us, or, at all events, came off to stop us. Sidy, the interpreter, was fortunately on shore, so that we had no trouble about him, and the captain knew that he could easily pay him through the consignee of the ship. Captain Gale’s intention was, I learned, to run down to the mouth of the harbour, and to anchor if necessary. We got a cable ranged accordingly, with an anchor ready to let go. The brig quickly felt the force of the wind, and, happily canting the right way, and her sails filling, away she flew, heeling over to the gale towards the open sea. The captain, or one of the mates, or Peter, had been constantly sailing about the harbour, as if to amuse themselves, or to catch fish, but in reality to sound the depth of the water, and to make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the harbour. We thus required no pilot to carry us out.

As we rounded the point I have described, the mouth of the river lay before us—a long line of surf, with heavy breakers rolling and roaring in from the sea, apparently barring our exit. Outside of it was the corvette, close-hauled with three reefs in her topsail, standing off-shore, and, as far as we could see, uninjured. But the pirate brig, where was she?

A dark mass of rocks lay at the northern part of the entrance to the harbour. Over them the sea broke furiously; and amid the masses of foam which flew high into the air was the black hull of a vessel, with shattered masts and spars heaving up amid the breakers; while from the centre of it, as if striving with the waves which should most speedily destroy it, bright flames were bursting forth and raging furiously. As we gazed with horror at the dreadful spectacle, feeling our compassion excited rather for our hapless countryman, whom we believed to be on board, than for the ruthless wretches who formed her crew, there was a loud explosion, and fragments of wreck, and what had once been human beings, were thrown up into the air; and by the time they had again fallen into the foaming water, no portion of the rover remained to show where she just had been.

We were now about a quarter of a mile from the bar, and not a moment was to be lost in deciding what was to be done, whether we were to bring-up or to attempt to cross. In the line of breakers which rolled over the bar, a spot was observed where the water was smoother, and which the captain knew to be the deepest channel.

“We may run out there without fear, light as we are; and if we remain, these Mohammedan fanatics will certainly revenge themselves on us for the destruction of their friends,” he observed to Mr Carr, who agreed with him that the attempt should be made, though far from free of risk. And most people, indeed, would have agreed that the passage was hazardous in the extreme, but yet no one on board doubted that it was the right thing to do.

The second mate, who was at the helm with another steady hand, was ordered to steer towards the opening. The tide was still running in strong, which gave us greater command over the vessel than would have otherwise been the case. All hands were at their stations, and every one of us knew the position we were in. A shift of wind, the least carelessness, the carrying away a spar or rope, might bring upon us the same fate which had destroyed the rover. Scarcely had the determination I have mentioned been arrived at, when, as I was looking out ahead, I saw on the starboard-bow a spar floating in the water. I looked again; a man was holding on to it, and drifting up towards us. I was certain I saw him lift up his hand and wave it. I immediately reported the circumstance to the captain.

“Although he is probably one of those wretched Moors, he is a fellow-creature, and it is our duty to try and save him,” he observed. “About-ship! helm a-lee!” he sung out.

The brig, under her topsails, worked like a top, and we had ample room to put her about and heave her to. Just as we had done so, the spar came drifting up close to us. Again the man clinging to it waved his hand. His unshorn head of light curling hair showed that he was no Moor.

“Here, mates, just pay out this line as I want it!” sung out Peter, passing the bight of a rope under his arms and leaping overboard. “I’ll tackle him to, I warrant.”

In an instant he was in the water, and a few strokes bringing him up to the spar as it floated by, he grasped hold of the person hanging to it, and then sung out, “Haul away, my lads; it’s all right!”

The whole incident took place, it seemed, in a few seconds. Once more he was on the deck, and there could be no doubt of it, with no other than Walter Stenning in his arms! The poor fellow breathed, but the dangers he had gone through, and the sudden restoration to safety, had overcome him, and he lay almost unconscious on the deck.

“Now, sir, the sooner we fill and stand out of this the better,” said Peter, turning to the captain, after he had placed Stenning on the deck. “I did not speak of it before, but just now I saw another of those piratical fellows getting under way just from opposite where we lay, doubtless to be after us.”

Peter’s remark was found to be true; and up the harbour another brig was seen making sail, of course with the hope of overtaking us. I, with another man, received orders to carry Captain Stenning below, which we did, placing him on a mattress on the floor of the cabin, and then hurried up again to attend to our duty.

Once more the brig was put about, and head up towards the passage. On we rushed, the foam flying over us as we approached the spot. She lifted to the first rolling sea, and then down she came, as if she must strike the sand below; but another roller came tumbling in, and mounting like a sea-bird on its summit, she descended on the other side amid clouds of spray, again to mount another huge wave, and then to rush on with impetuous force as she felt the blast which laid her over almost on her beam-ends towards the open ocean. Still, on either hand, wild foaming water broke in mountain masses around us; but on we sped. “Hold on! hold on for your lives!” shouted the captain, as yet another mountain sea came thundering on towards us, close upon a previous one over which we had ridden in safety. The brig seemed to spring at it, as if able to dash it aside; but vain indeed was the attempt. High above us it rose. Right into it we went, and for a moment I thought all was over. Along our decks it found its way, and fell in torrents below, sweeping everything before it; but still buoyantly our brave vessel flew on, and wave after wave being surmounted, a loud shout burst from all hands as once more we found ourselves in the open sea, following in the wake of the British corvette.

As soon as we were in safety, the captain called me below to attend to Captain Stenning. We found him sitting up on the mattress, and, as he held on by the leg of the table, looking somewhat wildly around him.

“Where am I? what is all this that has happened?” he exclaimed, as we appeared.

“That you are safe aboard the Dolphin, my friend, and that you have escaped from the wreck of a Moorish pirate,” answered the captain. “But before I answer more questions, we’ll just get off your wet clothes, and clap you into bed with a glass of hot grog.”

This we accordingly did, and the result was that the poor fellow very soon fell fast asleep—the best thing he could do under the circumstances.

When I went on deck, I found that the Moorish brig which had pursued us, seeing the fate which had befallen her companion, and that we had got safe over the bar, had put about, and stood back again to her anchorage.

“I should have begrudged the rascals our anchor and cable,” said Peter. “But as we have got Mr Stenning back safe, they are welcome to them, though I would rather see the honest hemp used to hang some of the knaves.”

The gale, which truly seemed to have effected its purpose in the destruction of the miscreant rovers, now began to abate its fury, and before dark we came up with the corvette, which had hove-to in order to speak us. We found that she was His Britannic Majesty’s sloop-of-war Syren, of eighteen guns; and the captain directed us to lay by him till the morning, when he would send on board to hear all the particulars of what had occurred.

Meantime I had been sent to sit by Captain Stenning, to be ready to attend to him when he awoke. When he did so, I called Captain Gale to him. The account I then heard of his adventures was very short. We had, indeed, guessed very nearly the truth. The Dolphin had been surprised by the pirates, and while he, with some of his crew, were in vain attempting to defend her deck, he had been struck down. When he returned to consciousness, he found himself on board the pirate, with two or three others, of whom Lyal alone survived. The pirates had been driven from their prey by the appearance of a large ship, which they took to be a man-of-war; and in revenge, he concluded, they murdered all who then remained on board. He and Lyal would have been killed also; but their lives were saved by a Moor, whom he once saved at Gibraltar from ill-treatment by some English seamen, with whom he had quarrelled. Though the Moor had saved his life, he had not interest to do more for him at that time.

When the pirates again fell in with the Dolphin, and were frightened from attacking her by the trick Peter invented, thinking some evil spirits possessed the vessel, they made all sail to return to port. He confessed that he was himself very much astonished, and could in no way account for what he had witnessed. Had he not received the explanation we gave him, he should all his life have believed that the appearance he had beheld was produced by supernatural agency.

When carried into port, he, with Lyal, was sold to the old Moor, as we knew; but his friend had not forgotten him. The rover much wanted a skilful navigator, and thinking that he would prefer a life of comparative freedom at sea to slavery on shore, he repurchased him, and carried him on board the brig. He was rather disappointed, however, to find that, without a quadrant or nautical almanac, the captain could be of very little use to them in that way. He told us, indeed, that the pirates were very nearly killing him for his supposed obstinacy, because he could not tell them one day whereabouts they were, when they put their own rough instruments into his hands. He had great difficulty in explaining that, without his own books and charts, he could be of little help to them. However, they promised to attack an English vessel before long, that they might supply him.

With this object in view, they made sail towards the corvette, which they took for a merchantman, and thus very nearly caught a Tartar. They discovered their mistake only when within six miles or so of her; and by then suddenly altering their course, and standing away from her under all sail, her suspicions were excited, and she made chase after them. In such terror were the pirates, when they found themselves so hard pressed, that they seemed to forget him, or his life would probably have been sacrificed; but as he was left himself, he was allowed to consider the best means of preserving it. When, therefore, he saw that the brig must inevitably strike the rocks, he seized a loose spar on the deck and sprang overboard, trusting that the current would carry him through the breakers into smooth water. He had seen us coming out, and guessing that the brig was an English trader, hoped to be picked up by her. His surprise and pleasure at meeting with Lyal was very great.

“It would have been a great to damper my own satisfaction, if I thought that you had still been left in slavery,” he remarked, as he wrung the seaman’s hand.

“Well, sir, I can only say that I would go back and be chained up like a dog, as I was before, for the sake of seeing you free, and sent safe home to your wife and family,” returned the honest fellow, passing the cuff of his jacket across his eyes, to brush away a tear which his feelings had brought them.

Yes; the rough sailor has got just the same sort of feelings inside his bosom which dwells within the silken vest of any young lady or gentleman who can weep over a novel, or better, sometimes, a deed of heroism; and right honest, genuine feelings, they are too—which is more than can be said for those hackneyed sentiments possessed by people who have lived all their lives in what they choose to call the great world.

Altogether, never was an enterprise more successful than ours had hitherto been. We had not only succeeded in recovering both the survivors of the Dolphin’s crew at small cost, but, from the high prices we had obtained for our merchandise, we had paid all the probable expenses of the voyage, and left a handsome profit for our owners.

The next morning we were close up with the corvette, when a lieutenant from her boarded us to learn all the particulars we had to describe. The two masters, with Lyal and I, were then requested by the lieutenant to accompany him aboard the ship-of-war, to give a further account to the captain himself of what had occurred. Captain Hudson received us very kindly; and while our two captains sat down, we stood with our hats in our hands behind their chairs. I remember that he laughed very heartily at my idea of rigging up Lyal as a madman, and at the way he put my advice in practice, by pulling the old Moor’s nose.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Captain Hudson, “from the account you have given me, I think we have ample grounds to enable the British Government to make a demand on that of Morocco for compensation; so that if you will accompany me to England, I hope to obtain ample satisfaction for you.”

Neither Lyal nor I exactly understood what all this meant; but Captain Gale had an inkling that very little satisfaction would result either to him or Captain Stenning.

“Thank you, sir,” he answered; “but I can’t accept your offer, for my brother-master wants to return to his wife and family, and my owners directed me to make the best of my way back to Halifax.”

“Of course these are strong arguments against the execution of my wishes,” returned Captain Hudson. “You will, I conclude, therefore proceed on your voyage, and give your evidence when you return to England. But I find, Captain Gale, that you are more strongly manned than is necessary for a merchantman. These two young men will remain on board the Syren, and one of my lieutenants will accompany you to your brig, and select a few more. However, we will not leave you short-handed; but His Majesty’s ships must be manned, do you see?”

“It is very hard, sir. All my people are volunteers on what appeared a somewhat hazardous expedition, and are anxious to return to their families,” replied Captain Gale. “You will allow me, without offence, to observe, that one of these young men has only just been released from slavery, and that the other is an apprentice.”

“The first does not belong to your crew, so it is my duty to take care of him; and if the other is still an apprentice, I cannot keep him, but I shall like to see his papers. Mistakes in these matters sometimes occur. We do everything according to law, do you see, Mr Gale.” Captain Hudson spoke very mildly and blandly, but there was something in his eye which showed that he was not to be trifled with.

“You will understand, sir,” he continued, turning to Captain Stenning, “I have the power to press you. Under the circumstances of the case, I will not, unless I am forced to do it; but your friend will throw no impediment in the way of my getting any of the hands I may require. I will not detain you, gentlemen, and I wish you a prosperous voyage and a happy termination to your enterprise.”

This, then, was the object for which the naval captain wished to communicate with the Dolphin. It was not with the best possible grace that the two masters got up to take their leave; and yet Captain Stenning well knew that he was completely in the power of the commander of the sloop-of-war, and that there was no law to prevent him from being sent to do duty before the mast on board of her.

They both shook hands warmly and kindly with Lyal, and promised to send him a spare chest, with such things as could be collected; for of course he had but a scanty outfit. As they were going, I put out my hand also.

“You’ll let me shake hands, sir, won’t you?” said I. “There’s many a kind act you’ve done me, Captain Gale, from the time I was a little helpless lad till now; and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and may Heaven bless you, sir.”

“Why, what’s all this about?” exclaimed my kind captain, “You have your papers, Jack, and you cannot, as an apprentice, be touched.”

“But the papers won’t protect me, sir; I am no longer an apprentice,” I answered. “Not long ago, I got a mate to look over them for me, and I was, I find, out of my apprenticeship a month ago.”

“There is no use giving in without an attempt to escape; I’ll see what can be done,” he answered. “May I not take this man with me, sir?” he asked, turning to Captain Hudson, who stood on the quarter-deck, and of course had not heard this part of our conversation.

“Send his papers and his chest likewise,” was the only answer the captain of the Syren deigned to give.

Before the brig’s boat shoved off, I went over the side, and sent many a message to Peter Poplar and the rest of my shipmates. I regretted leaving the brig, but I was more sorry at the thought of parting from Peter than for any other reason.

As I looked at the Dolphin with the eye of that affection which a seaman soon gains for a vessel in which he is tolerably happy, I observed that the man-of-war’s boat was already alongside. In a short time she shoved off, and pulled back to the corvette. There were several chests, and five people besides her crew in her. I rubbed my eyes. Could I believe them? Among the people sat Peter Poplar! He sprung up the side, and was soon engaged in shaking hands with several of the Syren’s crew.

“What! are you pressed, Peter?” said I to him; and in my heart I could not be very sorry to have him with me.

“Not exactly that either,” he answered. “You see, Jack, I found that you were pressed, or would be to a certainty, and I did not like to have one whom I had nursed up almost from a baby on the salt waters, so to speak, altogether out of my sight, though you are big enough now to take care of yourself; so, says I to myself, Well, if they take me, I’ll go with a free will—I don’t mind. However, when the lieutenant picked out the men he would like to have, and who have no protection, he passed me over, thinking that, on account of my age, he could not touch me. But among the men he chose was poor Bill Jackson, who has a wife and small family at Halifax, and who only came the voyage from his love for Captain Stenning, and was going to give up the sea and live on shore with his wife’s relations up the country. I never saw a poor fellow so cut up and broken-hearted when he saw all his hopes blown to the winds, and knew that, for many a long year, he might not see his wife or little ones. He knows well the ups and downs of a sailor’s life, and that very likely he might never see them again. I know that I could not stand his grief. Captain Gale did all he could to get the lieutenant to let him off, but nothing would do. The only answer was, ‘His Majesty wants seamen, and seamen he must have.’

“‘So he shall!’ said I, walking up to the officer. ‘Now, sir, if you will let that man go, you may have me in his stead; and I’ll make bold to say, that there isn’t a man aboard this brig but will acknowledge that, blow high or blow low, I’m his equal, either aloft or at the helm, or in handling the lead. What say you, mates? Who’ll speak for me? It isn’t because I want to boast, you know; but I do want to save poor Bill Jackson from being pressed aboard a man-of-war!’

“‘He speaks the truth, that he does!’ exclaimed all the crew, who were mustered on deck. ‘There are few of us can come up to him.’

“‘I tell you, sir,’ said Captain Gale, ‘I should be very sorry to lose either Jackson or Poplar; but if you ask me which is the best seaman of the two, I am bound to say that Poplar is; and besides, in him you get a willing hand, who loves the sea, which I am sure poor Jackson does not.’

“‘Then Poplar let us have, by all means,’ answered the lieutenant, telling Jackson that he was free, and ordering us all to be smart in getting our traps ready to take with us.

“The captain, meantime, told me to bring him your papers, which I did, though I well knew that they were no protection to you, and so he discovered, and so I got your chest ready with the rest: and so you see, Jack, you and I are man-of-war’s men, and so, lad, let’s do our duty like men, and stand up boldly for our king and country.”

Peter’s hearty way of talking gave me spirits which I should not otherwise have felt. I never had before stood on the deck of a man-of-war, but I had heard a good deal about the cruelty and injustice practised on board them, from some of my shipmates; and I had, with the great mass of merchant-seamen in those days, and for many years afterwards, formed a strong prejudice against them. From the system which was practised in some ships, I naturally, with others, formed an opinion of the whole navy; and when I first found myself a pressed-man on board the Syren, I looked forward to a life of ill-treatment and wretchedness till I could again obtain my freedom. I truly believe, indeed, that had I not had Peter again as my counsellor, I should have yielded to the force of my impression, and have been guilty of the very conduct which would have brought me into trouble. I found a number of pressed-men and discontented men, and not a few bad characters in the ship, who were always ready to grumble at what was done, and whose great aim seemed to be how they could oftenest shirk duty, most speedily get drunk, and most readily break the rules and regulations of the service. At first I was inclined to think them somewhat fine fellows, lads of spirit, whose example was worthy of imitation; but Peter observing my tendency, very soon put their conduct in its true light.

“You see, Jack,” said he, “those fellows are, in the first place, acting a sneaking, unfair part, to their shipmates. The duty has to be got through, and so the willing, good men, have to do the work which those knaves neglect. Then they benefit by the laws of the country; and the country would go to ruin if it was without a navy, and the navy could not be kept up without the rules and regulations which they are always trying to break through. As to their drunkenness, it unfits them for duty. No man knows what he may do when he is drunk; and besides making him ill at the time, he who drinks to excess is guilty of suicide, as so doing will most certainly shorten his life. Just think what excuse will a man have to offer when he has thus hurried himself into the presence of his Maker! How awful will be the doom he cannot fail to receive! Then, again, those idle fellows who try to avoid work, are always getting into trouble, for no officer will find any excuse for them, or attempt to shield them; and they thus spend a much longer time than they idle away in the black list, or with the tingling of the cat on their backs. But, Jack, I don’t want any of these to be your motives for acting rightly. One motive should be sufficient for us all—and that is, the wish to do our duty to our God.”

I repeat here my kind friend’s advice, but it was long, very long, before it seemed to sink into the sandy soil of my heart, and to bring forth fruit. I am very glad that the press-gang system no longer exists. No man can any longer be forced to serve on board a man-of-war. The case, such as I have described, may appear hard when the master of a merchantman was deprived of a considerable portion of his crew—hard to him, and hard to the pressed-men, and harder in a pecuniary point of view to the underwriters, the property they had insured being thereby made much more liable to shipwreck; but still it was not one-tenth part as hard as numberless cases which I have known during my career afloat.

Little did I think when, from the mast-head of the Dolphin, I first saw the Syren heave in sight, that before that time on the following day I should form one of her crew. Such is the ever-changing scene of a sailor’s life!

Chapter Thirteen.

Jack a Man-of-War’s-Man.

There is a time of life when a person feels that he has left for ever his boyish days and stepped into manhood. I felt that I had passed that boundary when I found myself rated as an able seaman on board the Syren sloop of war. I was now under a far stricter system of discipline than I had been accustomed to. At first I felt it somewhat galling; but I soon saw that without the greatest regularity it would be impossible to keep order among the crew of a ship even of the size of the Syren.

My early days I had spent on board a merchantman, and had met with many adventures somewhat strange and exciting. I did not expect to meet with fewer in my new career, though they would probably be of a different character. The result of my last, in which I had aided in rescuing two of my countrymen from captivity, had proved most satisfactory. Jacob Lyal, one of them, was now with me, and I knew he would speak well of me among my new shipmates. The other, Captain Stenning, late master of the Dolphin, was on board that vessel, and, I hoped, would soon be enabled to rejoin his wife and family in Halifax. Captain Gale, her present master, would also, I knew, speak favourably of me to my first commander in the Rainbow, Captain Helfrich, whenever he should fall in with him. I pity the man who does not desire to be thought well of by those who know him, and who does not feel that he deserves their good wishes. I certainly had not made many friends, but those I had found were true and fast ones; and a great source of satisfaction to me was the having with me Peter Poplar, my first and best friend—that true-hearted seaman who had saved me from starvation—who had tended me as a father in my boyhood and youth—who had given me a profession which would enable me to support myself while health and strength remained—and who had ever endeavoured to instil into me those true principles which would enable me to steer clear of the rocks and quicksands to be found in my course through life.

The wind had fallen and become fair; the helm of the corvette was put down, the sails were trimmed, and, under a crowd of canvas such as few merchantmen can attempt to set, we quickly ran the coast of Africa out of sight—the last we saw of its sandy shores being over our starboard quarter. The commander of the Syren, Captain Hudson, was, I found, very much liked by the crew, as, although he was a strict officer, he was a just one, and known to be a thorough seaman. He was a gentleman also in all respects, a brave man, and kind-hearted; and these are the qualities which sailors with good reason respect. Without possessing them, no man is fit to be placed in command over his fellow-men. My old ship, the Dolphin, continued in our company for several days, during which we made the best of our way to the northward, the wind, though scant, enabling us, close-hauled, to keep a course in that direction. When somewhere about the latitude of Lisbon, a ship hove in eight, standing towards us under all sail. As her courses rose above the water, she was pronounced to be a frigate; and as her hull appeared, such was found to be the case. Then commenced such a hauling up and down of flags as I had never before seen. What it all meant I could not tell, but it seemed to produce a great commotion among the officers; and soon the news ran along the deck that war was declared—war with France. It was the beginning of a long and bloody struggle.

Meantime, we hove-to, as the frigate had done, and Captain Hudson went on board her. When he returned, we found that we were ordered into the British Channel. The frigate, a new ship, just fitted out, with her officers in glittering uniforms, and her white wide-spread of canvas, and her fresh paint, and her brightly burnished sides looked, I thought, the very picture of a gay and gallant craft, as, passing close to us, she glided by through the sparkling sea. I could not help comparing her with the weather-beaten, wall-sided, ill-formed, slow-sailing merchantmen I had been accustomed to see, and I began to feel a pride in belonging to a man-of-war which I had not hitherto experienced.

Before proceeding on our course, Captain Hudson signalled the Dolphin, which had been hove-to, and informed Captain Gale that war had broken out, advising him to make the best of his way to Halifax. It was not till some years afterwards that I heard she reached that place in safety, and that Captain Stenning had had the happiness of being re-united to his wife and family.

No sooner was the news of war received on board the Syren, than everybody seemed to wake up into activity. No one had time for a moment to be idle fore or aft. The armourer’s crew were employed in polishing up muskets, and pistols, and sharpening cutlasses. For hours together we were practised at the small-arms and great-guns, which had never before been thought of. The gunners were busy making cartridges; the carpenters, plugs for shot-holes; indeed, we all felt that people should always feel that there was work to do. We had good reason to rejoice before the cruise was up that we had not been idle.

We reached Plymouth without meeting with an enemy or taking a prize. What a state of bustle and excitement the place was in! Carriages-and-four dashing through the streets at all hours of the day; troops marching here and there, with drums and fifes playing—some coming in, others embarking for foreign lands; artisans of all sorts hurrying in, certain to get work at high wages; men-of-war, and merchantmen, and store-ships, and troop-ships sailing in and out every day; boats laden with men and chests pulling across the harbour; seamen crowding every quay; pressgangs at work catching men to fight England’s battles; and then such hurrying to and fro, and shrieking of women, and shouting of men, and crying of children, and revelling, and laughter, and scenes of extravagance, and debauchery, and vice I had never before beheld, and did not think could exist in a civilised part of the globe.

Having refitted with as little delay as possible, and again put to sea, we found ourselves off the north coast of Spain, far into the Bay of Biscay. For some time we were employed in looking along the coast of France, and picking up all the small coasters we could lay eyes on. We did a great deal of damage to a number of poor people, and taught them that war was a very disagreeable thing, so that they must heartily have wished it over, or rather, that it never had begun; but I doubt if we did ourselves any good in the way of collecting prize-money; at all events, I know that I never got any. At length, one morning, when we could just make out the French coast like a thin wavy blue line on the horizon, beyond which a rich yellow glow was bursting forth, the forerunner of the glorious sun, a sail was seen, hull down, to the northward, and apparently standing in on a bowline for the land. The ship, as was usual when cruising, had been quietly jogging on under her topsails during the night. “All hands, make sail in chase!” was the cheerful sound which made us spring on deck to our stations; and in a few minutes the corvette, with royals and studding-sails alow and aloft, was kept away after the stranger. The latter, which was pronounced to be a large topsail schooner, was soon seen to bear up, and to set all the canvas she could carry, in an endeavour to escape. The chase was a large and fast vessel of her class, for it was not till some time after breakfast that we could see half-way down her mainsail from the deck. Still, we were gaining on her. She, meantime, was edging away in for the land, so that there was little doubt that she was an enemy’s vessel—probably, from the way she made sail, a privateer with a number of hands on board, if not a man-of-war. Hour after hour we continued the chase, till the French coast rose clear and distinct on our starboard-bow.

Jacob Lyal and I were at this time stationed in the foretop, of which Peter Poplar was captain, though he was shortly afterwards made a quarter-master. We thus saw every movement of the chase. She, by degrees, edged away again more to the northward, as if wishing to avoid the coast thereabout. We had begun the chase soon after daylight, and the evening was now drawing on, when, close in with the land, we made out a large ship standing along-shore, the rays of the sinking sun shining brilliantly on her snowy canvas. The schooner hauled up towards her, and then kept away again, as if she did not like her appearance.

“What do you make her out to be?” said I to Peter, pointing to the ship.

“Why, Jack, from the squareness of her yards and the whiteness of her canvas, I should say she is a man-of-war—probably a frigate, and a thundering big frigate, too, if I am not much mistaken.”

“I suppose, from the French schooner keeping away from her, she is an English frigate,” said I.

“Not so sure of that either, Jack,” he answered. “We don’t know that the schooner is French, in the first place; and even if she is, she may be mistaken as to the character of the frigate, or she may have altered her course just to deceive us, so as to let the frigate come up with us without our taking alarm about her. Never fancy that you have made a right guess and neglect to take precautions, in case you should be wrong.”

“Why, if she is an enemy’s frigate, she’ll sink us,” said Lyal. “We shall have to up stick and run for it!”

“Never do you fear that, lad,” answered Peter, somewhat sternly, I thought. “Run?—no! If that is a French frigate it will just give us an opportunity of showing what British pluck can do. Our lads know how to handle their guns and small-arms—thanks to the practice some of the grumblers complained of—and if we don’t give a good account of that ship out there, my name is not Peter Poplar.”

The spirit with which Peter spoke soon animated both Lyal and me, and when we were relieved from our watch, and repeated his words, they were responded to by all the crew, and their great wish was that the frigate in sight should prove an enemy, that they might show how they would treat her.

What the officers thought about the matter we could not tell, but as it grew dark the chase of the schooner was abandoned, studding-sails were taken in, and the ship was hauled on a wind and stood off-shore. As may be supposed, no one turned in that night; the hammocks remained in the nettings, and the ship was got ready for action.

From the way the frigate was steering at nightfall, there could be little doubt that she was following in our track. Anxiously we looked out for her lights astern. Hour after hour passed away, and no sign of her appeared, and we began to fear that she had missed us altogether.

At last a small glimmer was soon twinkling away in the darkness, and by degrees it grew larger and larger; and then out of the dense obscurity—for no moon nor stars were visible—there glided a dark towering mass, like some phantom giant talking over the deep. The drum beat to quarters, and the crew sprung eagerly to their guns. Every man was stripped to the waist, round which he had fastened a handkerchief, with another round his head, and had his cutlass ready to board or to repel boarders.

In spite of the wish for battle we had all expressed, I could not help feeling a sensation of awe, if not of dread, creep over me, as we stood—thus in silence and darkness at our guns, expecting the attack of an enemy of vastly superior force. The muscular forms of our sturdy crew could just be distinguished grouped round their guns, the pale light of the ship’s lanterns falling here and there upon them in fitful flashes, as the officers went their rounds to see that every one was at his station, or as the boys handed up shot and powder from below. We were prepared, I say, but still, I believe, the general impression aft was, that the stranger would prove a friend.

As she drew nearer, the order was given to make the private night-signal. Up went the lanterns to the mast-head. It was a moment of breathless suspense. No answering signal of friendship was made in return. In another instant, however, that unmistakable one of hatred and defiance—a shot—came whistling over our heads. It was replied to by one of our stern-chasers; and we then went about, that we might keep the weather-gauge—a most important point under present circumstances.

The enemy, to avoid being raked, had to do the same. “Give it them now, my lads!” shouted the captain. “Let every shot tell, and show the big one what a little craft can do when her crew have the will to make her speak!” Loud cheers were the reply to the address, and instantly every gun sent forth its flame of fire; and I believe that not a shot failed to take some effect on the hull or rigging of our opponent. Now hotly broadside to broadside, at the distance of half-gun-shot from each other, we stood in towards the land. As fast as they could be run in loaded, our guns discharged their deadly showers. All the time we were edging closer towards each other, and as we got within hail we could see that considerable damage had already been suffered by the frigate. This gave fresh encouragement to us, and we blazed away with more hearty good-will than before. The enemy’s shot had, however, been telling not a little on us. Several of our men had lost the number of their mess, and more had been wounded; but no damage of consequence had been received aloft, and any the hull had received had been quickly repaired by our carpenter and his active crew.

Amid the roar of the guns a loud shout burst from our people. I looked up. The frigate’s mizzen-topmast had been shot away, and came tumbling down on deck. Our fore-topgallant-topmast, however, soon followed, cut through by a round-shot; but that was of little consequence, as our topsail-yard was uninjured, and the topsail still stood. We were not long in clearing the wreck, but for a moment there was a cessation of firing. Just then a hail came across the dark waters from the Frenchman’s deck.

“Do you strike, Sare? Do you strike?” was asked through a speaking-trumpet. Our captain seized his trumpet in return.

“Certainly, monsieur, certainly. We have been and intend to go on striking, just in the way Englishmen have the fashion of doing.”

A loud laugh burst from our crew at this answer. It just suited our tastes, and then such a hearty cheer was uttered as could not have failed to convince the Frenchman that our captain was likely to be backed by his people to the utmost. Our guns were not long silent, and once more the darkness of night was illuminated by the bright sheets of flame which burst forth in almost a continuous stream from their mouths.

What a contrast to the previous awful silence was there in the report of the guns, the rattle of musketry, the shouts of the officers, the cheers of the men, the crashing of spars and timber as the shot struck home, and the shrieks, and cries, and groans of the wounded! To these expressions of pain even the bravest cannot help giving way, when wounded where the nerves are most sensitive.

Several times the enemy attempted to close, when her greatly prepondering force of men would have told with fearful effect on our decks; but each time the attempt was made it was dexterously avoided by our captain. We had, however, begun to suffer considerably in spars and rigging, and the number of our killed and wounded was increasing. Our second lieutenant had been severely injured by the fall of the foretop-gallant-mast. A midshipman, a young lad who had just come to sea, was struck down close to me. I lifted him up in my arms for a moment, to get him carried below out of harm’s way; but the terrible injury he had received convinced me that no help could avail him. I put my hand on his heart: it had ceased to beat. Yet what voice sounded more full of life and spirit than his as we cheered at the captain’s answer to the Frenchman’s hail? On the other side of me a fine young fellow fell mortally wounded. He was just my own age, but not, like me, left alone in the world—he had many dear ones in his humble home. He felt that he had not many moments to live, though his mind was as active as ever.

“Williams!” he faintly cried. “Stoop down, lad! Don’t let them take me below: I want to die here! And I say—you know my poor mother, and Sally, and George: just tell them that you saw the last of me; that I thought of them, and prayed for them, and that I hope we may meet in that far, far-off port to which we are all bound! I haven’t forgot the prayers mother taught me, tell her. It will comfort her to know that! Good-bye, Jack!”

He pressed my hand as he uttered these words, but instantly afterwards his fingers relaxed. His spirit had fled, and I returned to my duty at my gun!

There were not many seamen, unhappily, in those days, like poor James Martin. Another shipmate was killed not far from me, and he died uttering fearful curses on our enemies, utterly ignorant of the future world into which he was entering.

Thus we fought on. Although we were severely punishing our big opponent, we could not feel that we were getting the best of the fight.

“Do you think we shall take her?” said I to Peter, during another short cessation of firing.

“I scarcely expect that,” he answered. “But I am pretty certain that he won’t take us. See, hurrah! He’s been hit again pretty hard!”

As he spoke, the frigate’s mizzen-mast, which must have been before badly wounded, went by the board, and at the same time her main-yard came down by the run on deck, no doubt doing further damage by the fall.

To show the enemy that our spirits were as high as ever, we cheered again; but, as if in retaliation, several shots, in quick succession, struck our foretopmast, and it, and the yard, and all our headsail, came thundering down on deck, in a confused mass of wreck, disabling several of our people, and rendering our foremost gun useless for a time. I was thankful that I had been stationed at a gun instead of being aloft. Some of the officers hurried forward to get the wreck cleared away, while others encouraged the men to persevere in the strife—not that any encouragement was necessary, for we were all eager to continue it, still hoping to make prize of our antagonist.

What had become of the schooner meantime we could not tell. We could only suppose that she was an unarmed vessel. Had she been armed, she might have proved a very disagreeable addition to the force with which we had to contend.

While we were clearing the wreck of the foretopmast, another broadside was poured into us, which we returned with our after-guns. It appeared to me, as I looked up again at her after loading, that the frigate was increasing her distance from us. There could be no mistake about it. Her helm had been put up, and she was running off before the wind. Didn’t we cheer heartily! but then we remembered that, deprived of our headsail, we could not follow—so we cheered again, and sent a few shots flying after her, like a dog’s farewell bark, just to show her that we claimed the victory, and would be ready for her if she chose to come back; and then we set to work with a will to repair damages.

Our couple of hours’ night work had produced not a few, and sadly changed the appearance of our trim little sloop. Still, as our foremast was standing, we were able to make headsail on the ship, and we hoped by the following morning to get matters sufficiently to rights to be able to renew the engagement should our opponent again venture to attack us. I, in common with many of the younger men, was very much disappointed at not having captured the frigate; but Peter and others who had fought in the last war, told us that we were very fortunate in not having ourselves been obliged to strike, as our opponent could not have mounted less than six-and-thirty, if not forty guns—more than twice as many as we carried. Notwithstanding this, we only hoped to see her again in the morning; and as soon as daylight appeared several eager pairs of eyes were aloft looking out for her. There, hull down to the northward, appeared a sail, which was most probably our opponent; but she was running directly before the wind.

At first we supposed that our captain would follow her; but though as brave a man as need be, as he had proved himself, he saw that the probability of capturing the frigate was too small to justify him in making the attempt—in doing which he was much more likely to lose his own ship. Shattered, indeed, did we look when the sun shone down on our blood-stained decks; and still more sad were the scenes which the wounded and dying presented below. I will not, however, now dwell on them. Several shot had gone through the ship’s sides, some between wind and water; but the holes had been quickly plugged by the carpenter’s crew. Altogether, so shattered was the sloop, that, unwilling as our captain was to give up the cruise, he had no resource but to make the best of his way to Plymouth. We arrived there ten days after the engagement; but the pumps had to be kept going all the time, and the ship was ordered into dock to undergo a thorough repair.

It is impossible for me to describe all the scenes of which I was witness during that interesting period of England’s naval history; but there was one I must not omit, as it shows what presence of mind and courage can do, in rescuing people even from the greatest difficulties.

At that time the French revolutionary party, so well named Red Republicans, were inflicting, with unsparing barbarity, the most dreadful atrocities on any of their unhappy countrymen who were even suspected of entertaining monarchical principles. The inhabitants of Toulon, as well as of several other places, were known to be favourable to the cause of their sovereign; and to afford them support, Lord Hood—then commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean—landed a body of English and Spanish troops, and took possession of the town and forts while his own fleet, with one sent by Spain to join him, entered the harbour.

At this time a number of supernumeraries, of whom I was one, sailed from Plymouth to join various ships in the Mediterranean, and, in course of time, I found myself on board the Juno, a fine 32-gun frigate, commanded by Captain Samuel Hood. We sailed from Malta early in the year 1794, with some officers and a few troops, to reinforce the scanty garrison at Toulon, then besieged, as was reported, by a formidable army of the Republicans, amounting to thirty-three thousand men, under Generals Kellerman and Carteaux.

The Juno was just the sort of dashing frigate a young fellow of spirit would wish to belong to, and her Captain was just the man he would wish to serve under. Strict discipline was kept up on board, and all hands were made to know their duty, and to do it. Her officers, too, were as smart a set as ever stepped. I was very fortunate in this, because for the first time since I came to sea I was among strangers, with the exception of Jacob Lyal, who had joined her with me. Peter Poplar was far away in another ship, and I own I missed him sorely. Still. I had learned my duty, and I hoped to continue to do it.

We had a quick passage from Malta, and made the French coast just before nightfall. We had carried on all sail, in the hope of getting in while daylight lasted, as the captain was anxious to deliver his despatches and land his passengers, and be out again in search of any stray cruisers of the enemy. The wind, however, fell so light that we were unable to do as he hoped. But he was not a man to be turned from his purpose. Accordingly, rather than lose a day, he stood boldly in for the harbour-mouth, which is not a difficult one to make. We expected that a pilot would have come out to us, but none appeared; and as no signal was made for one, it was then known that the captain intended to find his way in in the dark.

Trusty men were placed in the chains with the lead; all hands were at their stations; those with the sharpest eyes were placed as look-outs; the captain stood, trumpet in hand, on the quarter-deck, ready to issue his orders. Not a word was spoken fore or aft. The wind was light, and nearly abeam. Thus, with a dead silence reigning on board, the gallant frigate entered the harbour of Toulon. The officers, with their night-glasses in hand, were anxiously looking out for the British fleet, that they might ascertain where the frigate was to bring-up. In vain they swept them round in every direction; no fleet was to be seen. The circumstance was reported to the captain.

“The easterly winds we have had have sent a heavy sea rolling in here. They must have run into the inner harbour to avoid it. We must follow them there,” was his answer. “Shorten sail! Let the ship stand in under her topsails.”

The courses were accordingly brailed up, and the top-gallant-sails furled, and under easy sail we stood up the inner harbour. Still nothing could we see of the fleet—not a light did any of the ships show.

On we glided through the calm water. “A brig ahead, sir!” shouted the third lieutenant from forward.

“Shall we weather her?” asked the captain.

The answer was in the negative. “Set the foresail and spanker! Ready, about-ship!”

Scarcely had the boatswain’s shrill pipe uttered the appropriate call, than the sails were let fall and sheeted home; and as soon as the frigate felt the effect they produced, the helm was put a-lee, and she went about close under the stern of the brig, which lay in her course. A loud hail came from the brig, but I for one could not make out what was said.

“That’s not an English brig,” observed one of the officers near me. She lay off what is called the Grand Tour Point.

“He is inquiring our name,” said another officer.

“His Britannic Majesty’s frigate Juno,” shouted the first lieutenant.

“Wah—wah—wah!” or sounds something like that, came from the brig. Some one also shouted, “Viva!”

“Whereabouts is the English fleet?” asked the captain. “Have they sailed? Is the admiral still here?”

“Wah—wah—wah!” was the only answer we got. The questions were repeated in French.

“Yes—yes; oui—oui; wah—wah—wah!” was again the reply.

“That’s a French merchant-brig. They cannot make out what we say. The fleet must have gone over to the other side of the harbour.”

Directly afterwards, the words, “Luff—luff!” reached our ears.

“They are afraid we shall be ashore, sir,” said the first lieutenant.

“Then down with the helm!” shouted the captain. The order was promptly obeyed, and the frigate came up almost head to wind; but scarcely a minute had passed when we felt that she had run stem on to the ground; but so light was the wind, and so slight was the way on her, that no damage of any sort was done.

Of course the order was immediately given to clew-up and hand the sails; and in another minute or so the Juno lay with all sails furled right up in the centre of the harbour of Toulon, with a line of heavy batteries between her and the sea. While we were handing sails, a boat was seen to put off from the brig; but instead of coming aboard us, she pulled away rapidly in the direction of the town.

Before, however, we were even off the yards, a flaw of wind took the ship’s head, and happily drove it off the bank, when the anchor was let go, and she lay with her head up the harbour. Still, however, she hung on the bank by the stern, while her rudder remained immovable and useless. Seeing this, the captain ordered a kedge to be carried out to warp her off; which, as she hung very lightly, could easily be done. To perform this operation the launch was lowered; but being a heavy boat, it took some time to get her into the water. Warps and the kedge-anchor were then placed in her, and her crew pulled away with the kedge in the proper direction to haul her off. While we were thus engaged, a boat was seen coming down the harbour.

“What boat’s that?” hailed the sentry from forward.

“Ay, ay,” was the answer.

“Officers coming alongside!” cried the sentry—such being the answer given by naval officers when hailed by a ship-of-war. A captain repeats the name of his ship.

The gangway was manned to receive the visitors. Every one was puzzled to know the meaning of a visit at so unusual an hour, and anxious to know what it meant. A well-manned boat came alongside, and two French officers, with several other people, scrambled up on deck.

“Be smart, then, my lads, with the kedge,” sung out Mr Webley, third lieutenant, from forward. “We must get the ship afloat before the wind drives her further on.”

The French officers looked about the decks for an instant, and then, followed by their people, went aft to the captain, who was standing on the quarter-deck ready to receive them.

“Monsieur le Capitaine,” said one of them, taking off his hat and bowing politely, “I am sent by the chief of the port to compliment you on the way you have brought your ship into this loyal port, but to express regret that the regulations he has been compelled to issue make it necessary for you to go over to the southern side of the harbour, there to perform a quarantine for a short ten days or so, as you come from Alexandria, an infected place.”

“But we don’t come from Alexandria; we come from Malta, which is not an infected place,” answered the captain.

“Then, monsieur, Malta is an infected place,” returned the officer, quickly.

“I cannot understand that,” answered Captain Hood. “I have to deliver my despatches, and some supernumeraries for the army here, and then to be away again as fast as possible. I beg, gentlemen, you will inform me where the Victory, Lord Hood’s ship, is. I must be guided by his orders.”

“Certainly, monsieur, certainly,” said the Frenchman, bowing with a bland smile. “We will pilot you to him.”

I remember thinking, as the Frenchmen walked along the deck, that there was a good deal of swagger in their manner, but I only set it down to Gallic impudence. While this conversation was going on, one of our midshipmen, a smart youngster—Mowbray, I think, was his name—had been inquisitively examining the Frenchmen, and he now hurried up to the captain, and drew him aside.

“Just look, sir—those are Republican cockades!” he whispered. “As the light of a lantern fell on their hats, I observed it. There’s some trick put upon us.”

“In truth you are right, my lad, I greatly fear,” answered the captain, in an agitated voice. “Where do you say Lord Hood is?” he asked, turning abruptly to the Frenchman.

“My Lord Hood! He is not here. He has long ago departed. We have no lords here,” answered the French officer in a sneering tone. “You have made a great mistake, and are like a rat in a hole. The truth is, Monsieur le Capitaine, you and your ship’s company are prisoners! But make yourself easy—the English are good people—we will treat them kindly.”

“Prisoners!” exclaimed Captain Hood and the officers standing near, in tones of dismay. “Prisoners! impossible!” But the assertion was too true.

Lord Hood had been compelled to evacuate Toulon some time before, with all the forces under his command, after blowing up, by the aid of Sir Sidney Smith, several of the forts, and destroying or carrying away every ship in the harbour; while the unfortunate inhabitants were exposed to all the cruelties which their sanguinary opponents could inflict on them.

As may be supposed, the Republican Frenchmen exulted in the idea of having so easily captured an English frigate, and a large number of Englishmen on whom they might retaliate for some of the losses their party had sustained. As ill news travels quickly, so in an instant the words in everybody’s mouth were, “We are prisoners! we are prisoners!” Some would scarcely believe it, and the officers and many of the men hurried aft in a body to ascertain the fact. Mr Webley had remained forward, and before we had been able to haul on the warp she had laid out, he promptly recalled the launch, and ordered the people out of her up the side. The boatswain was standing near him.

“See,” he exclaimed, “there’s a flaw of wind just come down the harbour. If it holds, the Frenchmen, even should this report be true, need not be quite so sure as they think that they have caught us.”

Saying this, he hurried aft to the captain, while the boatswain, not to lose time, made all the necessary preparations for making sail and cutting the cable.

“I believe, sir, that we shall be able to fetch out, if we can get her under sail,” said the lieutenant in the captain’s ear. The words made him start, and restored vigour to his heart.

“Thank you, Webley, thank you,” exclaimed the captain, when the third lieutenant told him that the wind had come ahead. “We’ll make the attempt, and may Heaven prosper it!”

Without a moment’s delay, the first lieutenant issued the order to make sail, while Mr Webley hurried forward to see the cable cut, as she tended the right way. Like larks we sprang aloft to loose the topsails, and all was done so silently and so rapidly, that the Frenchmen could not make out what was occurring.

“Gentlemen,” said the captain, politely addressing the officers, “I must trouble you to step below. We have duty in this ship to carry on which will not require your presence.”

“But,” exclaimed the Frenchmen, uttering all the oaths in their ample vocabulary, “you are our prisoners. We do not choose to obey your orders.”

“You mistake; you are ours! Englishmen do not yield unless to greatly superior force,” exclaimed our captain. “Gentlemen, you must go below.”

The Frenchmen laughed scornfully. “Treason! mutiny!” they exclaimed, drawing their sabres, and attempting to make a rush to the gangway; but as they turned, they found themselves confronted by a file of marines, with fixed bayonets presented at them!

Rage, and fury, and disappointed revenge were in the tones of their voices, as they gave vent to their feelings in oaths and execrations while they were being handed below. Not a man of their boat’s crew escaped, for all had come on board to witness the capture, as they supposed, of a British frigate.

During this time the topsails had been let fall, and in less than three minutes were sheeted home. The headsails filled. At the very moment they did so, a stronger puff of wind came right down the harbour. “Cut, cut!” was the word. Round swung her head towards the open sea. Almost with a bound it seemed her stern lifted off the ground. “Hurrah! hurrah! We are free! we are free!” was the joyful cry. Now, come shot or shell, or whatever our foemen choose to send. We have our brave ship under command, and if our stout sticks do but stand, we may yet escape the trap into which we have so unwarily fallen.

Such were the sentiments which were felt, if not expressed, by all on board the frigate. Plenty of sharp eyes were on shore, watching through the gloom of night, as far as they were able, the movements of the English frigate, expecting to see her every moment glide up the harbour, where, of course, troops had been rapidly collected to take possession of the prize, and conduct us within the precincts of a French prison.

The Republicans must soon have discovered that their plan to capture us had not been altogether successful. As we sailed down the harbour, instead of up, as they had expected, lights began to gleam from the various strong forts which lined each side of the harbour below us, and also from the deck of our friend the brig, off Great Tower Point. Then, as we glided on, every moment gathering fresh way, from all directions a hot fire was opened on us. As with the light wind there was blowing it was necessary to be rid of every obstruction, both our barge and the Frenchmen’s boat were cut adrift, though we would gladly have prevented even them from falling into their hands.

There was now no longer any necessity for concealment. The drums beat to quarters, the guns were cast loose, and as we passed down the harbour we began to return the compliments our enemies were so liberally bestowing on us. We had our guns ready in time to give our friend the brig a good dose, but what mischief we inflicted we could not tell; and, to do her justice, she was not slack in her attempts to cripple us. Thus in an instant the harbour, so lately sleeping in silence, and, as it were, shrouded in the solemn gloom of night, was rudely awaked and lighted up with the roar and bright flashes of a hundred guns, which, fast as they could be discharged, sent forth a continuous fire at our seemingly devoted ship. Thus far all had proceeded well; but we were far from free of danger. Shot after shot struck us, several times we were hulled, but not a man had yet been hit, when, to our dismay, the wind grew very scant, and seemed about to head us.

“If it shifts a couple of points more to the southward, we shall have to beat out of this place!” exclaimed the captain of the gun at which I was stationed. “Never mind, lads; we’ll teach these Frenchmen what a British frigate can do in spite of all that.”

Still the Juno steadily held on her course. The wind backed once more and came down the harbour, and on she glided. The enemy’s guns were, however, telling on us with fearful effect—our topsails were riddled with shot, and our rigging much cut up; but as the damage occurred, our active crew flew here and there to repair it, as well as time and the darkness would allow. Now the harbour opened out broadly before us, and the line of open sea could be perceived ahead. Our masts and spars stood unharmed, the firing from the forts grew fainter and fainter. Scarcely a shot reached us. On we stood. The shot began to drop astern. For several minutes not one had struck us. The Frenchmen tried in their rage, but all in vain.

“We are free! we are free indeed! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” burst with one voice from all our crew, and the gallant Juno bounded forward on the wide ocean, to show what British daring, judgment, and promptitude will effect, even although the most fearful odds are ranged against success.

I trust that some on board that ship felt also that a merciful Providence had preserved us from a galling and painful lot, which would have endured for many a long year, to do our duty to Heaven and our country. I trust that the example set by the crew of the Juno will serve as an example to all British seamen—never to yield while there is a possibility of escape.

Well, it was amusing to see how the Frenchmen did stamp and rage when they found that, instead of capturing us, they had been taken prisoners; but we treated them very civilly, and after a few shrugs and grimaces, like people having to take physic, we soon had the men singing and jigging away as merry as crickets.

I remained for some time on board the Juno, and left her on a very short notice, and very much also against my own will.

One dark night, as, with a convoy of merchantmen under our charge, we were standing for Gibraltar, the watch below were roused up with the cry of, “All hands shorten sail!” I and others, tossing on our clothes, sprang aloft through the darkness, with a fierce wind blowing in our faces, to reef topsails. Scarcely had I reached the lee foretop-sail yard-arm, and had, as I believed, the earing in my hand, when, how I cannot tell, I found myself jerked off the yard; and ere I could secure a firm grasp of the rope I held, I found myself hurled through the midnight air, clutching emptiness, till I reached the foam-covered water, through which the ship was hurriedly ploughing her way. I heard the cry, “A man overboard! a man overboard!” but the ship had been carrying too much sail, and without shortening it, it was impossible to round-to in order to pick me up. From the frigate, therefore, I knew that I could expect no help. I do not believe that for a moment after I fell I lost my consciousness, though I suspect that before I fell I was more asleep than awake. I had on only my shirt and light duck-trousers, so I threw myself on my back, to consider what was best to be done. There were plenty of vessels, I knew, astern of the frigate, but there was little chance of being seen by any of them, or of their being able to pick me up if they did see me.

How long I could have remained floating on my back I don’t know—some hours, I suppose, in smooth water; but as it was, the squall had blown up a sea, and the spray kept dashing over my head and half drowned me. On a sudden I found my head strike against something with so much force as almost to stun me, and, turning round, I found myself in contact with a large object. I caught hold of it. Ropes were hanging down from it into the water; I climbed up by them, and found that it was the top and parts of the topmast of a ship of large size. I felt thankful that I was not likely to die for some time, unless the weather grew worse; and I did not allow myself to reflect that even a worse death might be in store for me—that of starvation. I had my knife secured by a lanyard round my neck, so I began to haul up the ropes, and endeavoured to form as secure a resting-place for myself as circumstances would allow. When I had done all I could, I looked round through the darkness for the chance of discovering a sail; but none could I see, so I sat down, and, strange to say, fell asleep.

Chapter Fourteen.

Tyranny—War and Mutiny, with a Glimpse of Home Comforts between.

As I said, I went to sleep hanging on to a piece of wreck in the middle of the Mediterranean. It was not an agreeable position to be in, certainly, but it might have been worse. I might have been in the middle of the Atlantic, or the Bay of Biscay, or near a country inhabited by cannibals, or with nothing to float on, as was the case till I got hold of the shattered mast. I did not feel it a very serious matter, I suppose, for I slept soundly. I knew that the sea at that time was swarming with vessels—men-of-war, transports, store-ships, and merchantmen, sailing in every direction, and I hoped one or the other would pick me up.

At last the sun shining in my eyes awoke me, and looking around, I saw, about two miles or so to the eastward, a brig with her foretopmast gone and maintopsail-yard carried away. The damage had been done, I had no doubt, by the squall which had sent me out of my warm hammock into the cold water. The squall had passed over, and the sea was almost as smooth as glass. I had a handkerchief round my waist. I took it off, and, standing as high as I could on the wreck, I waved it above my head. I waited anxiously to see if my signal had produced any effect; but the brig’s crew were all so busily engaged in repairing the damage she had received, that they did not see me. So I sat down again, hoping that by-and-by they might knock off work, and find a moment to look about them. One comfort was, that while the calm lasted the brig was not likely to go far away from me.

The time seemed very long, and I was beginning to get hungry too as the hour of breakfast drew on. So I got up again and waved my handkerchief, and could not help shouting, though I well knew that no one at such a distance could hear me. I waved till my arm ached, and still I was unobserved; so I sat down a second time, and began to consider what means existed of attracting the attention of the people aboard the brig. I thought of swimming to her; but I reflected that it would be better to let well alone, and that, as there was a long distance to traverse before I could reach her, I might lose my strength, and sink without being observed. The sun, however, rose higher and higher in the sky, and I grew still more hungry; so for a third time I stood up and waved, and shouted, and played all sorts of curious antics, in my eagerness to attract notice. At length there was a stir aboard, and I thought I saw some one waving in return. I was right. A quarter-boat was lowered, and a fast galley pulled towards me. I was not a little pleased when I saw them coming. They were soon up to me, and though I had not been long floating on the broken mast, I can only say that I left it with very considerable satisfaction. The brig, I found, belonged, as I had suspected, to the Juno’s convoy. As we approached her, I looked with a scrutinising eye at her hull. I thought I knew her build.

“What brig’s that?” I asked, with no little interest.

“Why, the old Rainbow, lad,” answered one of the boat’s crew. “A good craft she is still, though she’s seen plenty of work in her day.”

So I was indebted for my preservation to my old ship—my sea-cradle, I might call her. I hauled myself up her side, and there on her quarter-deck stood Captain Gale, working away as usual with his people, encouraging them by word and action. He seemed very glad to see me, as I am sure I was to see him.

“I see, sir,” said I, after having had a little talk with him, “you have plenty of work to do aboard, so, if I may just have some food to put life into me, I’ll turn to and lend a hand.”

“Ready as ever for work, Jack, I see!” said he, smiling. “I am glad the men-of-war haven’t knocked that out of you.”