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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tom Cringle's Log, by Michael Scott
+
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+Title: Tom Cringle's Log
+
+Author: Michael Scott
+
+Release Date: January, 2005  [EBook #7281]
+[This file was first posted on April 6, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TOM CRINGLE'S LOG ***
+
+
+
+
+Scanned by John Edward Heaton in Guatemala.
+
+
+Tom Cringle's Log.
+
+
+Michael Scott (1789--1835).
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Launching of the Log.
+
+
+Dazzled by the glories of Trafalgar, I, Thomas Cringle, one fine morning
+in the merry month of May, in the year one thousand eight hundred and so
+and so, magnanimously determined in my own mind, that the United Kingdom
+of Great Britain and Ireland should no longer languish under the want of a
+successor to the immortal Nelson, and being then of the great
+perpendicular altitude of four feet four inches, and of the mature age of
+thirteen years, I thereupon betook myself to the praiseworthy task of
+tormenting, to the full extent of my small ability, every man and woman
+who had the misfortune of being in any way connected with me, until they
+had agreed to exert all their interest, direct or indirect, and
+concentrate the same in one focus upon the head and heart of Sir Barnaby
+Blueblazes, vice--admiral of the red squadrons a Lord of the Admiralty,
+and one of the old plain K.B.'s (for he flourished before the time when a
+gallant action or two tagged half of the letters of the alphabet to a
+man's name, like the tail of a paper kite), in order that he might be
+graciously pleased to have me placed on the quarterdeck of one of his
+Majesty's ships of war without delay.
+
+The stone I had set thus recklessly a--rolling, had not been in motion
+above a fortnight, when it fell with unanticipated violence, and crushed
+the heart of my poor mother, while it terribly bruised that of me, Thomas;
+for as I sat at breakfast with the dear old woman, one fine Sunday morning,
+admiring my new blue jacket and snow white trowsers, and shining well
+soaped face, and nicely brushed hair, in the pier glass over the chimney
+piece, I therein saw the door behind me open, and Nicodemus, the waiting
+man, enter and deliver a letter to the old lady, with a formidable looking
+seal.
+
+I perceived that she first ogled the superscription, and then the seal,
+very ominously, and twice made as if she would have broken the missive
+open, but her heart seemed as often to fail her.  At length she laid it
+down--heaved a long deep sigh--took off her spectacles, which appeared
+dim--wiped them, put them on again, and making a sudden effort, tore open
+the letter, read it hastily over, but not so rapidly as to prevent her hot
+tears falling with a small tiny tap tap on the crackling paper.
+
+Presently she pinched my arm, pushed the blistered manuscript under my
+nose, and utterly unable to speak to me, rose, covered her face with her
+hands, and left the room weeping bitterly. I could hear her praying in a
+low, solemn, yet sobbing and almost inarticulate voice, as she crossed the
+passage to her own dressing--room.--"Even as thou wilt, oh Lord--not mine,
+but thy holy will be done--yet, oh! it is a bitter bitter thing for a
+widowed mother to part with her only boy."
+
+Now came my turn--as I read the following epistle three times over, with
+a most fierce countenance, before thoroughly understanding whether I was
+dreaming or awake--in truth, poor little fellow as I was, I was fairly
+stunned.
+
+"Admiralty, such a date.
+
+"DEAR MADAM,
+It gives me very great pleasure to say that your son is appointed to the
+Breeze frigate, now fitting at Portsmouth for foreign service. Captain
+Wigemwell is a most excellent officer, and a good man, and the
+schoolmaster on board is an exceedingly decent person I am informed; so I
+congratulate you on his good fortune in beginning his career, in which I
+wish him all success, under such favourable auspices.  As the boy is, I
+presume, all ready, you had better send him down on Thursday next, at
+latest, as the frigate will go to sea, wind and weather permitting,
+positively on Sunday morning."
+
+"I remain, my dear Madam,"
+
+"Yours very faithfully,"
+
+"BARNABY BLUEBLAZES, K.B."
+
+However much I had been moved by my mother's grief, my false pride came to
+my assistance, and my first impulse was to chant a verse of some old tune,
+in a most doleful manner. "All right--all right," I then exclaimed, as I
+thrust half a doubled up muffin into my gob, but it was all chew, chew,
+and no swallow--not a morsel could I force down my parched throat, which
+tightened like to throttle me.
+
+Old Nicodemus had by this time again entered the room, unseen and unheard,
+and startled me confoundedly, as he screwed his words in his sharp cracked
+voice into my larboard ear.  "Jane tells me your mamma is in a sad taking,
+Master Tom.  You ben't going to leave us, all on a heap like, be you?
+Surely your stay until your sister comes from your uncle Job's?  You know
+there are only two on ye--You won't leave the old lady all alone, Master
+Thomas, win ye?' The worthy old fellow's voice quavered here, and the
+tears hopped over his old cheeks through the flour and tallow like peas,
+as he slowly drew a line down the forehead of his well--powdered pate,
+with his fore--finger.
+
+"No--no--why, yes," exclaimed I, fairly overcome; "that is--oh Nic, Nic
+you old fool, I wish I could cry, man--I wish I could cry!" and
+straightway I hied me to my chamber, and wept until I thought my very
+heart would have burst.
+
+In my innocence and ignorance, child as I was, I had looked forward to
+several months preparation; to buying and fitting of uniforms, and dirks,
+and cocked hat, and swaggering therein, to my own great glory, and the
+envy of all my young relations; and especially I desired to parade my
+fire--new honours before the large dark eyes of my darling little creole
+cousin, Mary Palma; whereas I was now to be bundled on board, at a few
+days warning, out of a ready--made furnishing shop, with lots of illmade,
+glossy, hard mangled duck trowsers, the creases as sharp as the backs of
+knives, and--"oh, it never rains, but it pours," exclaimed I; "surely all
+this promptitude is a little de plus in Sir Barnaby."
+
+However, away I was trundled at the time appointed, with an aching heart,
+to Portsmouth, after having endured the misery of a first parting from a
+fond mother, and a host of kind friends; but, miserable as I was,
+according to my preconceived determination, I began my journal the very
+day I arrived, that nothing connected with so great a man should be lost,
+and most weighty did the matters therein related appear to me at the time;
+but seen through the long vista of, I won't say how many years, I really
+must confess that the Log, for long long after I first went to sea in the
+Breeze, and subsequently when removed to the old Kraaken line--of--battle
+ship, both of which were constantly part of blockading squadrons, could be
+compared to nothing more fitly than a dish of trifle, anciently called
+syllabub, with a stray plum here and there scattered at the bottom.  But
+when, after several weary years, I got away in the dear old Torch, on a
+separate cruise, incidents came fast enough with a vengeance--stem,
+unyielding, iron events, as I found to my heavy cost, which spoke out
+trumpet--tongued and fiercely for themselves, and whose tremendous
+simplicity required no adventitious aid in the narration to thrill through
+the hearts of others.  So, to avoid yarn--spinning, I shall evaporate my
+early Logs, and blow off as much of the froth as I can, in order to
+present the residuum free of flummery to the reader--just to give him a
+taste here and there, as it were, of the sort of animal I was at that
+time.  Thus:
+
+Thomas Cringle, his log--book.
+
+Arrived in Portsmouth  by the Defiance at ten, A.M. on such a day.
+Waited on the Commissioner, to whom I had letters, and said I was
+appointed to the Breeze.  Same day, went on board and took up my berth;
+stifling hot; mouldy biscuit; and so on.  My mother's list makes it
+fifteen shirts, whereas I only have twelve.
+
+Admiral made the signal to weigh, wind at S.W. fresh and squally.
+Stockings should be one dozen worsted, three of cotton, two of silk; find
+only half a dozen worsted, two of cotton, and one of silk.
+
+Fired a gun and weighed.
+
+Sailed for the Fleet off Vigo, deucidly sea--sick was told that fat pork
+was the best specific, if bolted half raw; did not find it much of a tonic
+passed a terrible night, and for four hours of it obliged to keep watch,
+more dead than alive.  The very second evening we were at sea, it came on
+to blow, and the night fell very dark, with heavy rain.  Towards eight
+bells in the middle watch, I was standing on a gun well forward on the
+starboard side, listening to the groaning of the main--tack, as the
+swelling sail, the foot of which stretched transversely right athwart the
+ship's deck in a black arch, struggled to tear it up, like some dark
+impalpable spirit of the air striving to burst the chains that held him,
+and escape high up into the murky clouds, or a giant labouring to uproot
+an oak, and wondering in my innocence how hempen cord could brook such
+strain when just as the long waited--for strokes of the bell sounded
+gladly in mine ear, and the shrill clear note of the whistle of the
+boatswain's mate had been followed by his gruff voice, grumbling hoarsely
+through the gale, "Larboard watch, ahoy!" The look--out at the weather
+gangway, who had been relieved, and beside whom I had been standing a
+moment before, stepped past me, and scrambled up on the booms  "Hillo,
+Howard, where away, my man?" said I.
+
+"Only to fetch my"--
+
+Crack!--the main tack parted, and up flew the sail with a thundering flap,
+loud as the report of a cannon--shot, through which, however, I could
+distinctly hear a heavy smash, as the large and ponderous blocks at the
+clew of the sail struck the doomed sailor under the ear, and whirled him
+off the booms over the fore--yard--arm into the sea, where he perished, as
+heaving--to was impossible, and useless if practicable, as his head must
+have been smashed to atoms.
+
+This is one of the stray plums of the trifle, what follows is a whisk of
+the froth, written when we looked into Corunna, about a week after the
+embarkation of the army:--
+
+MONODY ON THE DEATH OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
+
+Farewell, thou pillar of the war,
+Warm--hearted soldier, Moore, farewell,
+In honour's firmament a star,
+As bright as ere in glory fell.
+
+Deceived by weak or wicked men,
+How gallantly thou stood'st at bay,
+Like lion hunted to his den,
+Let France tell, on that bloody day.
+
+No boastful splendour round thy bier,
+No blazon'd trophies o'er thy grave;
+But thou had'st more, the soldier's tear,
+The heart--warm offering of the brave.
+
+On Lusitania's rock--girt coast,
+All coffinless thy relics lie,
+Where all but honour bright was lost,
+Yet thy example shall not die.
+
+Albeit no funeral knell was rung,
+Nor o'er thy tomb in mournful wreath
+The laurel twined with cypress hung,
+Still shall it live while Britons breathe.
+
+What though, when thou wert lowly laid,
+Instead of all the pomp of woe,
+The volley o'er thy bloody bed
+Was thunder'd by an envious foe:--
+
+Inspired by it in after time,
+A race of heroes will appear,
+The glory of Britannia's clime,
+To emulate thy bright career.
+
+And there will be, of martial fire,
+Those who all danger will endure;
+Their first, best aim, but to aspire
+To die thy death--the death of Moore.
+
+To return. On the evening of the second day, we were off Falmouth, and
+then got a slant of wind that enabled us to lie our course.
+
+Next morning, at daybreak, saw a frigate in the northeast quarter, making
+signals;--soon after we bore up.  Bay of Biscay--tremendous swell--Cape
+Finisterre--blockading squadron off Cadiz--in--shore squadron--and so on,
+all trifle and no plums.
+
+At length the Kraaken, in which I had now served for some time, was
+ordered home, and sick of knocking about in a fleet, I got appointed to a
+fine eighteen--gun sloop, the Torch, in which we sailed on such a day for
+the North Sea--wind foul--weather thick and squally; but towards evening
+on the third day, being then off Harwich, it moderated, when we made more
+sail, and stood on, and next morning, in the cold, miserable, drenching
+haze of an October daybreak, we passed through a fleet of fishing--boats
+at anchor. "At anchor," thought I, "and in the middle of the sea,"--but so
+it was--all with their tiny cabooses, smoking cheerily, and a solitary
+figure, as broad as it was long, stiffly walking to and fro on the
+confined decks of the little vessels.  It was now that I knew the value of
+the saying, "a fisherman's walk, two steps and overboard." With regard to
+these same fishermen, I cannot convey a better notion of them, than by
+describing one of the two North Sea pilots whom we had on board.  This
+pilot was a tall, raw--boned subject, about six feet or so, with a blue
+face--I could not call it red--and a hawk's--bill nose of the colour of
+bronze.  His head was defended from the weather by what is technically
+called a south--west, pronounced sow--west,--cap, which is in shape like
+the thatch of a dustman, composed of canvass, well tarred, with no snout,
+but having a long flap hanging down the back to carry the rain over the
+cape of the jacket.  His chin was embedded in a red comforter that rose to
+his ears.  His trunk was first of all cased in a shirt of worsted
+stocking--net; over this he had a coarse linen shirt, then a thick cloth
+waistcoat; a shag jacket was the next layer, and over that was rigged the
+large cumbrous pea jacket, reaching to his knees.  As for his lower spars,
+the rig was still more peculiar;--first of all, he had on a pair of most
+comfortable woollen stockings, what we call fleecy hosiery--and the
+beauties are peculiarly nice in this respect--then a pair of strong
+fearnaught trowsers; over these again are drawn up another pair of
+stockings, thick, coarse, rig--and--furrowed as we call them in Scotland,
+and above all this were drawn a pair of long, well--greased, and liquored
+boots, reaching half--way up the thigh, and altogether impervious to wet.
+However comfortable this costume may be in bad weather in board, it is
+clear enough that any culprit so swathed, would stand a poor chance of
+being saved, were he to fall overboard.  The wind now veered round and
+round, and baffled, and checked us off, so that it was the sixth night
+after we had taken our departure from Harwich before we saw Heligoland
+light. We then bore away for Cuxhaven, and I now knew for the first time
+that we had a government emissary of some kind or another on board,
+although he had hitherto confined himself strictly to the captain's
+cabin.
+
+
+All at once it came on to blow frorn the north--east, and we were again
+driven back among the English fishing boats.  The weather was thick as
+buttermilk, so we had to keep the bell constantly ringing, as we could not
+see the jib--boom end from the forecastle.  Every now and then we heard a
+small, hard, clanking tinkle, from the fishing--boats, as if an old pot
+had been struck instead of a bell, and a faint hollo, "Fishing--smack," as
+we shot past them in the fog, while we could scarcely see the vessels at
+all. The morning after this particular time to which I allude, was darker
+than any which had gone before it; absolutely you could not see the
+breadth of the ship from you; and as we had not taken the sun for five
+days, we had to grope our way ahnost entirely by the lead. I had the
+forenoon watch, during the whole of which we were amongst a little fleet
+of fishing--boats, although we could scarcely see them, but being
+unwilling to lose ground by lying to, we fired a gun every half hour, to
+give the small craft notice of our vicinity, that they might keep their
+bells agoing.  Every three or four minutes, the marine drum--boy, or some
+amateur performer,--for most sailors would give a glass of grog any day to
+be allowed to beat a drum for five minutes on endi--beat a short roll, and
+often as we drove along, under a reefed foresail, and close reefed
+topsails, we could hear the answering tinkle before we saw the craft from
+which it proceeded; and when we did perceive her as we flew across her
+stern, we could only see it, and her mast, and one or two well--swathed,
+hardy fishermen, the whole of the little vessel forward being hid in a
+cloud.
+
+I had been invited this day to dine with the Captain, Mr Splinter, the
+first lieutenant being also of the party; the cloth had been withdrawn,
+and we had all had a glass or two of wine a--piece, when the fog settled
+down so thickly, although it was not more than five o'clock in the
+afternoon, that the captain desired that the lamp might be lit.  It was
+done, and I was remarking the contrast between the dull, dusky, brown
+light, or rather the palpable London fog that came through the skylight,
+and the bright yellow sparkle of the lamp, when the second lieutenant, Mr
+Treenail, came down the ladder.
+
+"We have shoaled our water to five fathoms, sir--shells and stones.--Here,
+Wilson, bring in the lead."
+
+The leadsman, in his pea--jacket and shag trowsers, with the raindrop
+hanging to his nose, and a large knot in his cheek from a junk of tobacco
+therein stowed, with pale, wet visage, and whiskers sparkling with
+moisture, while his long black hair hung damp and lank over his fine
+forehead and the stand--up cape of his coat, immediately presented himself
+at the door, with the lead in his claws, an octagonal--shaped cone, like
+the weight of a window--sash, about eighteen inches long, and two inches
+diameter at the bottom, tapering away nearly to a point at top, where it
+was flattened, and a hole pierced for the line to be fastened to.  At the
+lower end--the but--end, as I would say there was a hollow scooped out,
+and filled with grease, so that when the lead was cast, the quality of the
+soil, sand, or shells, or mud, that came up adhering to this lard,
+indicated, along with the depth of water, our situation in the North Sea;
+and by this, indeed, we guided our course, in the absence of all
+opportunity of ascertaining our position by observations of the sun.
+
+The Captain consulted the chart--"Sand and shells; why, you should have
+deeper water, Mr Treenail.  Any of the fishing--boats near you?"
+
+"Not at present, sir; but we cannot be far off some of them."
+
+"Well, let me know when you come near any of them."
+
+A little after this, as became my situation, I rose and made my bow, and
+went on deck.
+
+By this time the night had fallen, and it was thicker than ever, so that,
+standing beside the man at the wheel, you could not see farther forward
+than the booms; yet it was not dark, either,--that is, it was moonlight,
+so that the haze, thick as it was, had that silver gauze--like appearance,
+as if it had been luminous in itself, that cannot be described to any one
+who has not seen it.  The gun had been fired just as I came on deck, but
+no responding tinkle gave notice of any vessel being in the neighbourhood.
+Ten minutes, it may have been a quarter of an hour, when a short roll of
+the drum was beaten from the forecastle, where I was standing.  At the
+moment I thought I heard a holla, but I could not be sure.  Presently I
+saw a small light, with a misty halo surrounding it, just under the
+bowsprit.
+
+"Port your helm," sung out the boatswain,--"port your helm, or we shall be
+over a fishing--boat!"
+
+A cry arose from beneath a black object was for an instant distinguishable
+and the next moment a crash was heard.  The spritsailyard rattled, and
+broke off sharp'at the point where it crossed the bowsprit; and a heavy
+smashing thump against our bows told, in fearful language, that we had run
+her down.  Three of the men and a boy hung on by the rigging of the
+bowsprit, and were brought safely on board; but two poor fellows perished
+with their boat.  It appeared, that they had broken their bell; and
+although they saw us coming, they had no better means than shouting, and
+showing a light, to advertise us of their vicinity.
+
+Next morning the wind once more chopped round, and the weather cleared,
+and in four--and--twenty hours thereafter we were off the mouth of the
+Elbe, with three miles of white foaming shoals between us and the land at
+Cuxhaven, roaring and hissing, as if ready to swallow us up.  It was low
+water, and, as our object was to land the emissary at Cuxhaven, we had to
+wait, having no pilot for the port, although we had the signal flying for
+one all morning, until noon, when we ran in close to the green mound which
+constituted the rampart of the fort at the entrance.  To our great
+surprise, when we hoisted our colours and pennant, and fired a gun to
+leeward, there was no flag hoisted in answer at the flag--staff, nor was
+there any indication of a single living soul on shore to welcome us.  Mr
+Splinter and the Captain were standing together at the gangway--"Why,
+sir," said the former, "this silence somewhat surprises me: what say you,
+Cheragoux?" to the government emissary or messenger already mentioned, who
+was peering through the glass close by.
+
+"Why, mi Lieutenant, I don't certain dat all ish right on sore dere.'
+
+"No?" said Captain Deadeye; "why, what do you see?"
+
+"It ish not so mosh vat I shee, as vat I no shee, sir, dat trembles me. It
+cannot surely be possib dat de Prussian an' Hanoverian troop have left de
+place, and dat dese dem Franceman ave advance so far as de Elbe autrefois,
+dat ish, once more?'
+
+"French!" said Deadeye: 'poo, nonsense; no French hereabouts; none nearer
+than those cooped up in Hamburgh with Davoust, take my word for it."
+
+"I sall take your vord for any ting else in de large vorld, mi Capitain;
+but I see someting glance behind dat rampart, parapet you call, dat look
+dem like de shako of de infanterie legere of dat willain de Emperor
+Napoleon.  Ah! I see de red worsted epaulet of de grenadier also; sacre!
+vat is dat pof of vite smoke?"
+
+What it was we soon ascertained to our heavy cost, for the shot that had
+been fired at us from a long 32--pound gun, took effect right abaft the
+foremast, and killed three men outright, and wounded two.  Several other
+shots followed, but with less sure aim.  Returning the fire was of no use,
+as our carronades could not have pitched their metal much more than
+halfway; or, even if they had been long guns, they would merely have
+plumped the balls into the turf rampart, without hurting any one.  So we
+wisely hauled off, and ran up the river with the young flood for about an
+hour, until we anchored close to the Hanoverian bank, near a gap in the
+dike, where we waited till the evening.
+
+As soon as the night fell, a boat with muffled oars was manned, to carry
+the messenger on shore.  I was in it; Mr Treenail, the second lieutenant,
+steering.  We pulled in right for a breach in the dike, lately cut by the
+French, in order to inundate the neighbourhood; and as the Elbe at high
+water is hereabouts much higher than the surrounding country, we were soon
+sucked into the current, and had only to keep our oars in the water,
+pulling a stroke now and then to give the boat steerage way.  As we shot
+through the gap into the smooth water beyond, we once more gave way, the
+boat's head being kept in the direction of lights that we saw twinkling I
+in the distance, apparently in some village beyond the inner embankment,
+when all at once we dashed in amongst thousands of wild--geese, which rose
+with a clang, and a concert of quacking, screaming, and hissing, that was
+startling enough.  We skimmed steadily on in the same direction "Oars,
+men!" We were by this time close to a small cluster of houses, perched on
+the forced ground or embankment, and the messenger hailed in German.
+
+"Qui vive!" sung out a gruff voice; and we heard the clank of a musket, as
+if some one had cast it from his shoulder, and caught it in his hands, as
+he brought it down to the charge. Our passenger seemed a little taken
+aback; but he hailed again, still in German. "Parole," replied the man.
+A pause.  "The watchword, or I fire." We had none to give.
+
+"Pull round, men," said the lieutenant, with great quickness; "pull the
+starboard oars; we are in the wrong box; back water the larboard.  That's
+it! give way, men."
+
+A flash--crack went the sentry's piece, and ping sung the ball over our
+heads.  Another pause.  Then a volley from a whole platoon.  Again all was
+dark and silent.  Presently a field--piece was fired, and several rockets
+were let off in our direction, by whose light we could see a whole company
+of French soldiers standing to their arms, with several cannon, but we
+were speedily out of the reach of their musketry.  Several round shots
+were now fired, that hissed, recochetting along the water close by us.
+Not a word was spoken in the boat all this time; we continued to pull for
+the opening in the dike, although, the current being strong against us, we
+made but little way; while the chance of being cut off by the Johnny
+Crapeau, getting round the top of the embankment, so as to command the gap
+before we could reach it, became every moment more alarming.
+
+The messenger was in great tribulation, and made several barefaced
+attempts to stow himself away under the stem sheets.
+
+The gallant fellows who composed the crew strained at their oars until
+every thing cracked again; but as the flood made, the current against us
+increased, and we barely held our own.  "Steer her, out of the current,
+man," said the lieutenant to the coxswain; the man put the tiller to port
+as he was ordered.
+
+"Vat you do soch a ting for, Mr Capitain Lieutenant?" said the emissary.
+'Oh! you not pershave you are rone in order de igh bank!  How you sall
+satisfy me no France infanterie legere dere, too, more as in de fort, eh?
+How you sall satisfy me, Mister Capitain Lieutenant, eh?"
+
+"Hold your blasted tongue, will you," said Treenail, "and the infantry
+legere be damned simply.  Mind your eye, my fine fellow, or I shall be
+much inclined to see whether you will be Legere in the Elbe or no. Hark!"
+
+We all pricked up our ears, and strained our eyes, while a bright,
+spitting sparkling fire of musketry opened at the gap, but there was no
+ping pinging of the shot overhead.
+
+"They cannot be firing at us, sir," said the coxswain; "none of them
+bullets are telling hereaway."
+
+Presently a smart fire was returned in three distinct clusters from the
+water, and whereas the firing at first had only lit up the dark figures of
+the French soldiery, and the black outline of the bank on which they were
+posted, the flashes that answered them shewed us three armed boats
+attempting to force the passage.  In a minute the firing ceased; the
+measured splash of oars was heard, as boats approached us.
+
+"Who's there?" sung out the lieutenant.
+
+"Torches," was the answer.
+
+"All's well, Torches," rejoined Mr Treenail; and presently the jollyboat,
+and launch, and cutter of the Torch, with twenty marines, and thirtysix
+seamen, all armed, were alongside.
+
+"What cheer, Treenail, my boy?" quoth Mr Splinter.
+
+"Why, not much; the French, who we were told had left the Elbe entirely,
+are still here, as well as at Cuxhaven, not in force certainly, just
+sufficiently strong to pepper us very decently in the outgoing?"
+
+"What, are any of the people hurt?"
+
+"No," said the garrulous emissary.  "No, not hurt, but some of us
+frightened leetle piece--ah, very mosh, je vous assure."
+
+"Speak for yourself, Master Plenippo," said Treenail.  "But, Splinter, my
+man, now since the enemy have occupied the dike in front, how the deuce
+shall we get back into the river, tell me that?"
+
+"Why," said the senior lieutenant, "we must go as we came."
+
+And here the groans from two poor fellows who had been hit were heard from
+the bottom of the launch.  The cutter was by this time close to us, on the
+larboard side, commanded by Mr Julius Caesar Tip, the senior midshipman,
+vulgarly called in the ship Bathos, from his rather unromantic name.  Here
+also a low moaning evinced the precision of the Frenchmen's fire.
+
+"Lord, Mr Treenail, a sharp brush that was."
+
+"Hush!" quoth Treenail.  At this moment three rockets hissed up into the
+dark sky, and for an instant the hull and rigging of the sloop of war at
+anchor in the river glanced in the blue--white glare, and vanished again,
+like a spectre, leaving us in more thick darkness than before.
+
+"Gemini! what is that now?" quoth Tip again, as we distinctly heard the
+commixed rumbling and rattling sound of artillery scampering along the
+dike.
+
+"The ship has sent up these rockets to warn us of our danger," said Mr
+Treenail. "What is to be done?  Ah, Splinter, we are in a scrape--there
+they have brought up field--pieces, don't you hear?"
+
+Splinter had heard it as well as his junior officer.  "True enough,
+Treenail; so the sooner we make a dash through the opening the better."
+
+"Agreed."
+
+By some impulse peculiar to British sailors, the men were just about
+cheering, when their commanding officer's voice controlled them.  "Hark,
+my brave fellows, silence, as you value your lives."
+
+So away we pulled, the tide being now nearly on the turn, and presently we
+were so near the opening that we could see the signal lights in the
+rigging of the sloop of war.  All was quiet on the dike.
+
+"Thank God, they have retreated after all," said Mr Treenail.
+
+"Whoo--o, whoo--o," shouted a gruff voice from the shore.
+
+"There they are still," said Splinter.  "Marines, stand by, don't throw
+away a shot; men, pull like fury.  So--give way, my lads, a minute of that
+strain will shoot us alongside of the old brig--that's it--hurrah!"
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted the men in answer, but his and their exclamations were
+cut short by a volley of musketry.  The fierce mustaches, pale faces,
+glazed shakoes, blue uniforms, and red epaulets, of the French infantry,
+glanced for a moment, and then all was dark again.
+
+"Fire!" The marines in the three boats returned the salute, and by the
+flashes we saw three pieces of field. Artillery in the very act of being
+unlimbered.  We could distinctly hear the clash of the mounted
+artillerymen's sabres against their horses' flanks as they rode to the
+rear, their burnished accoutrements glancing at every sparkle of the
+musketry.
+
+We pulled like fiends, and being the fastest boat, soon headed the launch
+and cutter, who were returning the enemy's fire brilliantly, when crack--a
+six--pound shot drove our boat into staves, and all hands were the next
+moment squattering in the water. I sank a good bit, I suppose, for when I
+rose to the surface, half drowned and giddy and confused, and striking out
+at random, the first thing I recollected was a hard hand being wrung into
+my neckerchief, while a gruff voice shouted in my ear.
+
+"Rendez vous, mon cher"
+
+Resistance was useless.  I was forcibly dragged up the bank, where both
+musketry and cannon were still playing on the boats, which had, however,
+by this time got a good offing. I soon knew they were safe by the Torch
+opening a fire of round and grape on the head of the dike, a contain proof
+that the boats had been accounted for.  The French party now ceased firing,
+and retreated by the edge of the inundation, keeping the dike between them
+and the brig, all except the artillery, who had to scamper off, running
+the gauntlet on the crest of the embankment until they got beyond the
+range of the carronades.  I was conveyed between two grenadiers along the
+water's edge so long as the ship was firing; but when that ceased, I was
+clapped on one of the limbers of the field--guns, and strapped down to it
+between two of the artillerymen.
+
+We rattled along, until we came up to the French bivouac, where, round a
+large fire, kindled in what seemed to have been a farmyard, were assembled
+about fifty or sixty French soldiers.  Their arms were piled under the low
+projecting roof of an outhouse, while the fire flickered upon their dark
+figures, and glanced on their bright accoutrements, and lit up the wall of
+the house that composed one side of the square. I was immediately marched
+between a file of men into a small room, where the commanding officer of
+the detachment was seated at a table, a blazing wood fire roaring in the
+He was a genteel, slender, dark man, with very large black mustaches, and
+fine sparkling black eyes, and had apparently just dismounted, for the mud
+was fresh on his boots and trowsers.  The latter were blue, with a broad
+gold lace down the seam, and fastened by a strap under his boot, from
+which projected a long fixed spur, which to me was remarkable as an
+unusual dress for a Dire, the British army being, at the time I write of,
+still in the age of breeches and gaiters, or tall boots, long cues and
+pipeclay--that is, those troops which I had seen at home, although I
+believe the great Duke had already relaxed a number of these absurdities
+in Spain.
+
+His single--breasted coat was buttoned up to his throat, and without an
+inch of lace except on his crimson collar, which fitted close round his
+neck, and was richly embroidered with gold acorns and oak leaves, as were
+the crimson cuffs to his sleeves.  He wore two immense and very handsome
+gold epaulets.
+
+"My good boy," said he, after the officer who had captured me had told his
+story--"so your Government thinks the Emperor is retreating from the
+Elbe?"
+
+I was a tolerable French scholar as times went, and answered him as well
+as I could.
+
+"I have said nothing about that, sir; but, from your question, I presume
+you command the rear--guard, Colonel?"
+
+"How strong is your squadron on the river?" said he, parrying the
+question.
+
+"There is only one sloop of war, sir"--and I spoke the truth.
+
+He looked at me, and smiled incredulously; and then continued "I don't
+command the rear--guard, sir--but I waste time--are the boats ready?"
+
+He was answered in the affirmative.
+
+"Then set fire to the houses, and let off the rockets; they will see them
+at Cuxhaven--men," fall in--march--and off we all trundled towards the
+river again.
+
+When we arrived there, we found ten Blankanese boats, two of them very
+large, and fitted with sliding platforms.  The four fieldpieces were run
+on board, two into each; one hundred and fifty men embarked in them and
+the other craft, which I found partly loaded with sacks of corn. I was in
+one of the smallest boats with the colonel.  When we were all ready to
+shove off, "Lafont," he said, "are the men ready with their couteaux?"
+
+"They are, sir," replied the sergeant.
+
+"Then cut the horses' throats--but no firing." A few bubbling groans, and
+some heavy falls, and a struggling splash or two in the water, showed that
+the poor artillery horses had been destroyed.
+
+The wind was fair up the river, and away we bowled before it.  It was
+clear to me that the colonel commanding the post had overrated our
+strength, and, under the belief that we had cut him off from Cuxhaven, he
+had determined on falling back on Hamburgh.
+
+When the morning broke, we were close to the beautiful bank below Altona.
+The trees were beginning to assume the russet hue of autumn, and the sun
+shone gaily on the pretty villas and bloomin Gartens on the hill side,
+while here and there a Chinese pagoda, or other fanciful pleasure--house,
+with its gilded trellised work, and little bells depending from the eaves
+of its many roofs, glancing like small golden balls, rose from out the
+fast thinning recesses of the woods.
+
+But there was no life in the scene--'twas "Greece, but living Greece no
+more,"--not a fishing--boat was near, scarcely a solitary figure crawled
+along the beach.
+
+"What is that?" after we had passed Blankanese, said the colonel quickly.
+"Who are those?" as a group of three of four men presented themselves at a
+sharp turning of the road, that wound along the foot of the hill close to
+the shore.
+
+"The uniform of the Prussians," said one.
+
+"Of the Russians," said another.
+
+
+"Poo," said a third, "it is a picket of the Prince's;" and so it was, but
+the very fact of his having advanced his outposts so far, showed how he
+trembled for his position.
+
+After answering their hail, we pushed on, and as the clocks were striking
+twelve, we were abreast of the strong beams, that were clamped together
+with iron, and constituted the boom or chief water defence of Hamburgh.
+We passed through, and found an entire regiment under arms, close by the
+Custom--house.  Somehow or other, I had drank deep of that John Bull
+prejudice, which delights to disparage the physical conformation of our
+Gallic neighbours, and hugs itself with the absurd notion, "that on one
+pair of English legs doth march three Frenchmen." But when I saw the
+weather--beaten soldierlike veterans, who formed this compact battalion,
+part of the elite of the first corps, more commanding in its, aspect from
+severe service having worn all the gilding and lace away--"there was not a
+piece of feather in the host" I felt the reality before me fast overcoming
+my preconceived opinion. I had seldom or ever seen so fine a body of men,
+tall, square, and muscular, the spread of their shoulders set off from
+their large red worsted epaulets, and the solidity of the mass increased
+by their wide trowsers, which in my mind contrasted advantageously with
+the long gaiters and tight integuments of our own brave fellows.
+
+We approached a group of three mounted officers, and in a few words the
+officer, whose prisoner I was, explained the affair to the chef de baton,
+whereupon I was immediately placed under the care of' a sergeant and six
+rank and file, and marched along the chief canal for a mile, where I could
+not help remarking the numberless large rafts--you could not call them
+boats--of unpainted pine timber, which had arrived from the upper Elbe,
+loaded with grain: with gardens, absolute gardens, and cowhouses, and
+piggeries on board; while their crews of Fierlanders, men, women, and
+children, cut a most extraordinary appearance,--the men in their jackets,
+with buttons like pot--lids, and trowsers fit to carry a month's provender
+and a couple of children in; and the women with bearings about the
+quarters, as if they had cut holes in large cheeses, three feet in
+diameter at least, and stuck themselves through them--such sterns--and as
+to their costumes, all very fine in a Flemish painting, but the devils
+appeared to be awfully nasty in real life.
+
+But we carried on until we came to a large open space fronting a beautiful
+piece of water, which I was told was the Alster.  As I walked through the
+narrow streets, I was struck with the peculiarity of the gables of the
+tall houses being all turned towards the thoroughfare, and with the
+stupendous size of the churches.  We halted for a moment, in the porch of
+one of the latter, and my notions of decency were not a little outraged,
+by seeing it filled with a squadron of dragoons, the men being in the very
+act of cleaning their horses.
+
+At length we came to the open space on the Alster, a large parade, faced
+by a street of splendid houses on the left hand, with a row of trees
+between them, and the water on the right.
+
+There were two regiments of foot bivouacking here, with their arms piled
+under the trees, while, the men were variously employed, some on duty
+before the houses, others cleaning their accoutrements, and others again
+playing at all kinds of games.  Presently we came to a crowd of soldiers
+clustered round a particular spot, some laughing, others cracking coarse
+jests, but none at all in the least serious.  We could not get near enough
+to see distinctly what was going on; but we afterwards saw, when the crowd
+had dispersed, three men in the dress of respectable burghers, hanging
+from a low gibbet,--so low in fact, that although their heads were not six
+inches from the beam, their feet were scarcely three from the ground. I
+was here placed in a guard--house, and kept there until the evening, when
+I was again marched off under my former escort, and we soon arrived at the
+door of a large mansion, fronting this parade, where two sentries were
+walking backwards and forwards before the door, while five dragoon horses,
+linked together, stood in the middle of the street, with one soldier
+attending them, but there was no other particular bustle, to mark the
+headquarters of the General commanding.  We advanced to the entrance--the
+sentries carrying arms--and were immediately ushered into a large saloon,
+the massive stair winding up along the walls, with the usual heavy wooden
+balustrade.  We ascended to the first floor, where we were encountered by
+three aides--de--camp, in full dress, leaning with their backs against the
+hardwood railing, laughing and joking with each other, while two walllamps
+right opposite cast a bright flashing light on their splendid uniforms.
+They were all decore with one order or another.
+
+We approached.
+
+"Whence, and who have we here?" said one of them, a handsome young man,
+apparently not above twenty--two, as I judged, with small tiny black,
+jet--black, mustaches, and a noble countenance; fine dark eyes, and curls
+dark and clustering.
+
+The officer of my escort answered, "A young Englishman, enseigne de
+vaisseau."
+
+I was no such thing, as a poor middy has no commission, but only his
+rating, which even his captain, without a court--martial, can take away at
+any time, and turn him before the mast.
+
+At this moment, I heard the clang of a sabre, and the jingle of spurs on
+the stairs, and the group was joined by my captor, Colonel-----.
+
+"Ah, Colonel!" exclaimed the aides, in a volley, "where the devil have you
+come from?  We thought you were in Bruxelles at the nearest."
+
+The colonel put his hand on his lips and smiled, and then slapped the
+young officer who spoke first with his glove.  "Never mind, boys, I have
+come to help you here--you will need help before long;--but how is--?"
+Here he made a comical contortion of his face, and drew his ungloved hand
+across his throat.  The young officers laughed, and pointed to the door.
+
+He moved towards it, preceded by the youngest of them, who led the way
+into a very lofty and handsome room, elegantly furnished, with some fine
+pictures on the walls, a handsome sideboard of plate, a rich Turkey carpet
+an unusual thing in Germany--on the floor, and a richly gilt pillar, at
+the end of the room farthest from us, the base of which contained a stove,
+which, through the joints of the door of it, appeared to be burning
+cheerily.
+
+There were some very handsome sofas and ottomans scattered through the
+room, and a grand piano in one corner, the furniture being covered with
+yellow, or amber--coloured velvet, with broad heavy draperies of gold
+fringe, like the bullion of an epaulet.  There was a small round table
+near the stove, on which stood a silver candlestick, with four branches
+filled with wax tapers; and bottles of wine, and glasses.  At this table
+sat an officer, apparently about forty five years of age.  There was n
+othing very peculiar in his appearance; he Was a middle--sized man, well
+made apparently.  He sat on one chair, with his legs supported on another.
+
+His white--topped boots had been taken off, and replaced by a pair of
+slipshod slippers; his splashed white kerseymere pantaloons, seamed with
+gold, resting on the unfrayed velvet cushion; his blue coat, covered with
+rich embroidery at the bosom and collar, was open, and the lappels thrown
+back, displaying a crimson--velvet facing, also richly embroidered, and an
+embroidered scarlet waistcoat; a large solitary star glittered on his
+breast, and the grand cross of the Legion of Honour sparkled at his
+buttonhole; his black neckerchief had been taken off; and his cocked hat
+lay beside him on a sofa, massively laced, the edges richly ornamented
+with ostrich down; his head was covered with a red velvet cap, with a
+thick gold cord twisted two or three turns round it, and ending in two
+large tassels of heavy bullion; he wore very large epaulets, and his sword
+had been inadvertently, as I conjectured, placed on the table, so that the
+steel hilt rested on the ornamental part of the metal stove.
+
+His face was good, his hair dark, forehead without a wrinkle, high and
+massive, eyes bright and sparkling, nose neither fine nor dumpy--a fair
+enough proboscis as noses go.  There was an expression about the upper lip
+and mouth that I did not like--a constant nervous sort of lifting of the
+lip as it were; and as the mustache appeared to have been recently shaven
+off, there was a white blueness on the upper lip, that contrasted
+unpleasantly with the dark tinge which he had gallantly wrought for on the
+glowing sands of Egypt, and the bronzing of his general features from
+fierce suns and parching winds.  His bare neck and hands were delicately
+fair, the former firm and muscular, the latter slender and tapering, like
+a woman's.  He was reading a gazette, or some printed paper, when we
+entered; and although there was a tolerable clatter of muskets, sabres,
+and spurs, he never once lifted his eye in the direction where we stood.
+Opposite this personage, on a low chair, with his legs crossed, and eyes
+fixed on the ashes that were dropping from the stove, with his brown cloak
+hanging from his shoulders, sat a short stout personage, a man about
+thirty years of age, with fair flaxen hair, a florid complexion, a very
+fair skin, and massive German features.  The expression of his face, so
+far as such a countenance could be said to have any characteristic
+expression, was that of fixed sorrow.
+
+But before I could make any other observation, the aide--de--camp
+approached with a good spice of fear and trembling, as I could see.
+
+"Colonel-----to wait on your Highness."
+
+"Ah!"--said the officer to whom he spoke,--"ah, colonel, what do you here?
+Has the Emperor advanced again?"
+
+"No," said the officer, "he has not advanced; but the rear--guard were cut
+off by the Prussians, and the light, with the grenadiers, are now in
+Cuxhaven."
+
+"Well," replied the general, "but how come you here?"
+
+"Why, Marshal, we were detached to seize a depot of provisions in a
+neighbouring village, and had made preparations to carry them off, when we
+were attacked through a gap in the dike, by some armed boats from an
+English squadron, and hearing a distant firing at the very moment, which I
+concluded to be the Prussian advance, I conceived all chance of rejoining
+the main army at an end, and therefore I shoved off in the grain--boats,
+and here I am."
+
+"Glad to see you, however," said the general, "but sorry for the cause why
+you have returned.--Who have we got here--what boy is that?"
+
+"Why," responded the colonel, "that lad is one of the British officers of
+the force that attacked us."
+
+"Ha," said the general again, "how did you capture him?"
+
+"The boat (one of four) in which he was, was blown to pieces by a
+six--pound shot.  He was the only one of the enemy who swam ashore.  The
+rest, I am inclined to think, were picked up by the other boats."
+
+"So," grumbled the general, "British ships in the Elbe!"
+
+The colonel continued. "I hope, Marshal, you will allow him his parole? he
+is, as you see, quite a child."
+
+"Parole!" replied the Marshall,--"parole! such a mere lad cannot know the
+value of his promise."
+
+A sudden fit of rashness came over me.
+
+"He is a mere boy," reiterated the Marshall. "No, no--send him to prison;"
+and he resumed the study of the printed paper he had been reading.
+
+I struck in, impelled by despair, for, young as I was, I knew the
+character of the man before whom I stood, and I remembered that even a
+tiger might be checked by a bold front--"I am an Englishman, sir, and
+incapable of breaking my plighted word."
+
+He laid down the paper he was reading, and slowly lifted his eyes, and
+fastened them on me,--"Ha," said he, "ha--so young--so reckless!"
+
+"Never mind him, Marshal," said the colonel.  "If you will grant him his
+parole, I."--"Take it, colonel--take it--take his parole, not to go beyond
+the ditch."
+
+"But I decline to give any such promise," said I, with a hardihood which at
+the time surprised me, and has always done so.
+
+"Why, my good youth," said the Marshal in great surprise, "why will you
+not take advantage of the offer--a kinder one, let me tell you, than I am
+in the habit of making to an enemy?"
+
+"Simply, sir, because I will endeavour to escape on the very first
+opportunity."
+
+"Ha!" said the Marshal once more, "this to my face? Lafontaine,"--; to the
+aide--de--camp,--"a file of soldiers." The handsome young officer
+hesitated hung in the wind, as we say, for a moment--moved, as I imagined,
+by my extreme youth.
+
+This irritated the Marshal rose, and stamped on the floor.  The colonel
+essayed to interfere.  "Sentry--sentry--a file of grenadiers--take him
+forth," and--here he energetically clutched the steel hilt of his sword,
+and instantly dashed it from him--"Sacre!--the devil--what is that?" and
+straightway he began to pirouette on one leg round the room, shaking his
+right hand, and blowing his fingers.
+
+The officers in waiting could not stand it any longer, and burst into a
+fit of laughter, in which their commanding officer, after an unavailing
+attempt to look serious--I should rather write fierce joined, and there he
+was, the bloody Davoust--Duke of Auerstad Prince of Eckmuhl--the Hamburgh
+Robespierre--the terrible Davoust--dancing all around the room, in a
+regular guffaw, like to split his sides.  The heated stove had made his
+sword, which rested on it, nearly red--hot.
+
+All this while the quiet, plain--looking little man sat still.  He now
+rose; but I noticed that he had been fixing his eyes intently on me. I
+thought I could perceive a tear glistening in them as he spoke.
+
+"Marshal, will you intrust that boy to me?"
+
+"Poo," said the Prince, still laughing, "take him--do what you will with
+him;"--then, as if suddenly recollecting himself, "But, Mr----, you must
+be answerable for him--he must be at hand if I want him."
+
+The gentleman who had so unexpectedly patronized me rose, and said,
+"Marshal, I promise."
+
+"Very well," said Davoust. "Lafontaine, desire supper to be sent up."
+
+It was brought in, and my new ally and I were shown out.
+
+As we went down stairs, we looked into a room on the ground floor, at the
+door of which were four soldiers with fixed bayonets.  We there saw, for
+it was well lit up, about twenty or five--and--twenty respectable--looking
+men, very English in appearance, all to their long cloaks, an unusual sort
+of garment to my eye at that time.  The night was very wet, and the
+aforesaid garments were hung on pegs in the wall all around the room,
+which being strongly heated by a stove, the moisture rose up in a thick
+mist and made the faces of the burghers indistinct.
+
+They were all busily engaged talking to each other, some to his neighbour,
+the others across the table, but all with an expression of the most
+intense anxiety.
+
+"Who are these?" said I to my guide.
+
+"Ask no questions here" said he, and we passed on.
+
+I afterwards learned that they were the hostages seized on for the
+contribution of fifty millions of francs, which had been imposed on the
+doomed city, and that this very night they had been tom from their
+families, and cooped up in the way I had seen them, where, they were
+advertised, they must remain until the money should be forthcoming.
+
+As we walked along the streets, and crossed the numerous bridges over the
+canals and branches of the river, we found all the houses lit up, by order,
+as I learned, of the French marshal.  The rain descended in torrents,
+sparkling past the lights, while the city was a desert, with one dreadful
+exception; for we were waylaid at almost every turn by groups of starving
+lunatics, their half--naked figures and pale visages glimmering in the
+glancing lights, under the dripping rain; and, had it not been for the
+numerous sentries scattered along the thoroughfares, I believe we should
+have been tom to pieces by bands of moping idiots, now rendered ferocious
+from their sufferings, in consequence of the madhouses having been cleared
+of their miserable, helpless inmates, in order to be converted into
+barracks for the troops.  At all of these bridges sentries were posted,
+past which my conductor and myself were franked by the sergeant who
+accompanied us giving the countersign.  At length, civilly touching his
+cap, although he did not refuse the piece of money tendered by my friend,
+he left us, wishing us good--night, and saying the coast was clear.
+
+We proceeded, without farther challenge, until we came to a very
+magnificent house, with some fine trees before it.  We approached the door,
+and rung the doorbell.  It was immediately opened, and we entered a large
+desolate, looking vestibule, about thirty feet square, filled in the centre
+with a number of bales of goods, and a variety of merchandise, while a
+heavy wooden stair, with clumsy oak balustrades, wound round the sides of
+it. We ascended, and, turning to the right, entered a large well furnished
+room, with a table laid out for supper, with lights, and a comfortable
+stove at one end. Three young officers of cuirassiers, in their superb
+uniforms, whose breast and back pieces were glittering on a neighbouring
+sofa, and a colonel of artillery, were standing round the stove.  The
+colonel, the moment we entered, addressed my conductor:
+
+"Ah,-----, we are devilish hungry--Ich bin dem Verhungern nahe and were
+just on the point of ordering in the provender had you not appeared."
+
+"A little more than that," thought I; for the food was already smoking on
+the table.
+
+Mine host acknowledged the speech with a slight smile.
+
+"But who have we here?" said one of the young dragoons.  He waited a
+moment "Etes--vous Francais?" I gave him no answer.  He then addressed me
+in German--"Sprechen sie geldufig Deutsch?"
+
+"Why," chimed in my conductor, "he does speak a little French
+indifferently enough; but still"
+
+Here I was introduced to the young officers, and we all sat down at table;
+the colonel, civility itself, pressing my host to drink his own wine, and
+eat his own food and even rating the servants for not being sufficiently
+alert in their attendance on their own master.
+
+"Well, my dear-----, how have you sped with the Prince?"
+
+"Why, colonel," said my protector, in his calm way, "as well as I expected.
+I was of some service to him when he was here before, at the time he was
+taken so very ill, and he has not forgotten it; so I am not included
+amongst the unfortunate detenus for the payment of the fine.  But that is
+not all; for I am allowed to go tomorrow to my father's, and here is my
+passport."
+
+"Wonders will never cease," said the colonel; "but who is that boy?"
+
+"He is one of the crew of the English boats which tried to cut off
+Colonel-----the other evening, near Cuxhaven.  His life was saved by a
+very laughable circumstance certainly; merely, by the marshal's sword,
+from resting on the stove, having become almost red--hot." And here he
+detailed the whole transaction as it took place, which set the party
+a--laughing most heartily.
+
+I will always bear witness to the extreme amenity with which I was now
+treated by the French officers.  The evening passed over quickly.  About
+eleven we retired to rest, my friend furnishing me with clothes, and
+warning me, that next morning he would call me at daylight, to proceed to
+his father's country--seat, where he intimated that I must remain in the
+meantime.
+
+Next morning I was roused accordingly, and a long, low, open carriage
+rattled up to the door, just before day--dawn.  Presently the reveille was
+beaten, and answered by the different posts in the city, and on the
+ramparts.
+
+We drove on, merely showing our passport to the sentries at the different
+bridges, until we reached the gate, where we had to pun up until the
+officer on duty appeared, and had scrupulously compared our personal
+appearance with the written description.  All was found correct, and we
+drove on.
+
+It surprised me very much, after having repeatedly heard of the great
+strength of Hamburgh, to look out on the large mound of green turf that
+constituted its chief defence.
+
+It is all true that there was a deep ditch and glacis beyond; but there
+was no covered way, and both the scarp and counterscarp were simple
+earthen embankments; so that, had the ditch been filled up with fascines,
+there was no wall to face the attacking force after crossing it,--nothing
+but a green mound, precipitous enough, certainly, and crowned with a low
+parapet of masonry, and bristling with batteries about half way down, so
+that the muzzles of the guns were flush with the neighbouring country
+beyond the ditch.  Still there was wanting, to my imagination, the
+strength of the high perpendicular wall, with its gaping embrasures, and
+frowning cannon.  All this time it never occurred to me, that to breach
+such a defence as that we looked upon was impossible.  You might have
+plumped your shot into it until you had converted it into an iron mine,
+but no chasm could have been forced in it by all the artillery in Europe;
+so battering in a breach was entirely out of the question, and this, in
+truth, constituted the great strength of the place.
+
+We arrived, after an hour's drive, at the villa belonging to my
+protector's family, and walked into a large room, with a comfortable
+stove, and extensive preparations made for a comfortable breakfast.
+
+Presently three young ladies appeared. They were his sisters,--blue--eyed,
+fair--haired, white--skinned, round--sterned, plump little partridges.
+
+"Haben sie gefruhstucht?" said the eldest.
+
+"Pas encore," said he in French, with a smile. "But, sisters, I have
+brought a stranger here, a young English officer, who was recently
+captured in the river."
+
+"An English officer!" exclaimed the three ladies, looking at me, a poor,
+little, dirty midshipman, in my soiled linen, unbrushed shoes, dirty
+trowsers and jacket, with my little square of white cloth on the collar;
+and I began to find the eloquent blood mangling in my cheeks, and tingling
+in my ears; but their kindly feelings got the better of a gentle
+propensity to laugh, and the youngest said--"Sie sind gerade zu rechter
+zeit gekommen:" when, finding that her German was Hebrew to me, she tried
+the other tack "Vous arrivez a propos, le dejeuner est pret."
+
+However I soon found, that the moment they were assured that I was in
+reality an Englishman, they all spoke English, and exceedingly well too.
+Our meal was finished, and I was standing at the window looking out on a
+small lawn, where evergreens of the most beautiful kinds were checkered
+with little round clumps of most luxuriant hollyhocks, and the fruit trees
+in the neighborhood were absolutely bending to the earth under their loads
+of apples and pears.  Presently my friend came up to me; my curiosity
+could no longer be restrained.
+
+"Pray, my good sir, what peculiar cause, may I ask, have you for showing
+me, an entire stranger to you, all this unexpected kindness?  I am fully
+aware that I have no claim on you."
+
+"My good boy, you say true; but I have spent the greatest part of my life
+in London, although a Hamburgher born, and I consider you, therefore, in
+the light of a countryman.  Besides, I will not conceal that your gallant
+bearing before Davoust riveted my attention, and engaged my good wishes."
+
+"But how come you to have so much influence with the general, I mean?"
+
+"For several reasons," he replied. "For those, amongst others, you heard
+the colonel--who has taken the small liberty of turning me out of my own
+house in Hamburgh--mention last night at supper.  But a man like Davoust
+cannot be judged of by common rules.  He has, in short, taken a fancy to
+me, for which you may thank your stars although your life has been
+actually saved by the Prince having burned his fingers,--But here comes
+my father."
+
+A venerable old man entered the room, leaning on his stick.  I was
+introduced in due form.
+
+"He had breakfasted in his own room," he said, "having been ailing; but he
+could not rest quietly, after he had heard there was an Englishman in the
+house, until he had himself welcomed him."
+
+I shall never forget the kindness I experienced from these worthy people.
+For three days I was fed and clothed by them as if I had been a member of
+the family.
+
+Like a boy as I was, I had risen on the fourth morning at grey dawn, to be
+aiding in dragging the fish--pond, so that it might be cleaned out.
+
+This was an annual amusement, in which the young men and women in the
+family, under happier circumstances, had been in the invariable custom of
+joining; and, changed as these were, they still preserved the fashion.
+The seine was cast in at one end, loaded at the bottom with heavy sinks,
+and buoyant at the top with cork floats.  We hauled it along the whole
+length of the pond, thereby driving the fish into an enclosure, about
+twenty feet square, with a sluice towards the pond, and another fronting
+the dull ditch that flowed past beyond it.  Whenever we had hunted the
+whole of the finny tribes--(barring those slippery youths the eels, who,
+with all their cleverness, were left to dry in the mud)--into the toils,
+we filled all the tubs, and pots, and pans, and vessels of all kinds and
+descriptions, with the fat, honest looking Dutchmen, the carp and tench,
+who really submitted to their captivity with all the resignation of most
+ancient and quiet fish, scarcely indicating any sense of its irksomeness,
+except by a lumbering sluggish flap of their broad heavy tails.
+
+A transaction of this kind could not take place amongst a group of young
+folk without shouts of laughter, and it was not until we had caught the
+whole of the fish in the pond, and placed them in safety, that I had
+leisure to look about me.  The city lay about four miles distant from us.
+The whole country about Hamburgh is level, except the right bank below it
+of the noble river on which it stands, the Elbe.  The house where I was
+domiciled stood on nearly the highest point of this bank, which gradually
+sloped down into a swampy hollow, nearly level with the river.  It then
+rose again gently until the swell was crowned with the beautiful town of
+Altona, and immediately beyond appeared the ramparts and tall spires of
+the noble city itself.
+
+The morning had been thick and foggy, but as the sun rose, the white mist
+that had floated over the whole country, gradually concentrated and
+settled down into the hollow between us and Hamburgh, covering it with an
+impervious veil, which even extended into the city itself, filling the
+lower part of it with a dense white bank of fog, which rose so high that
+the spires alone, with one or two of the most lofty buildings, appeared a
+bove the rolling sea of white fleece--like vapour, as if it had been a
+model of the stronghold, in place of the reality, packed in white wool, so
+distinct did it appear, diminished as it was in the distance.  On the
+tallest spire of the place, which was now sparkling in the early sunbeams,
+the French flag, the pestilent tricolor, that waved sluggishly in the
+faint morning breeze.
+
+It attracted my attention, and I pointed it out to my patron.  Presently
+it was hauled down, and a series of signals was made at the yard--arm of a
+spar, that had been slung across it.  Who can they be telegraphing to?
+thought I, while I could notice my host assume a most anxious and startled
+look, while he peered down into the hollow. But he could see nothing, as
+the fog bank still filled the whole of the space between the city and the
+acclivity where we stood.
+
+"What is that?" said I; for I heard, or thought I heard, a low rumbling
+rushing noise in the ravine.  Mr-----heard it as well as I apparently,
+for he put his finger to his lips--as much as to say, "Hold your tongue,
+my good boy nous verrons."
+
+It increased--the clattering of horses hoofs, and the clang of scabbards
+were heard, and, in a twinkling, the hussar caps of a squadron of light
+dragoons emerged from out the fog bank, as, charging up the road, they
+passed the small gate of green basket--work at a hand gallop. I ought to
+have mentioned before, that my friend's house was situated about half way
+up the ascent, so that the rising ground behind it in the opposite
+direction from the city shut out all view towards the country.  After the
+dragoons passed, there was an interval of two minutes, when a troop of
+flying artillery, with three six--pound field--pieces, rattled after the
+leading squadron, the horses all in a lather, at full speed, with the guns
+bounding and jumping behind them as if they had been playthings, followed
+by their caissons.  Presently we could see the leading squadron file to
+the right--clear the low hedge--and then disappear over the crest of the
+hill.  Twenty or thirty pioneers, who had been carried forward behind as
+many of the cavalry, were now seen busily employed in filling up the
+ditch, and cutting down the short scrubby hedge; and presently, the
+artillery coming up also, filed off sharply to the right, and formed on
+the very summit of the hill, distinctly visible between us and the grey
+cold streaks of morning.  By the time we had noticed, this, the clatter in
+our immediate neighbourhood was renewed, and a group of mounted officers
+dashed past us, up the path, like a whirlwind, followed at a distance of
+twenty yards, by a single cavalier, apparently a general officer.  These
+did not stop, as they rode at speed past the spot where the artillery were
+in position, but, dipping over the summit, disappeared down the road, from
+which they did not appear to diverge, until they were lost to our view
+beyond the crest of the hill.  The hum and buzz, and, anon, the "measured
+tread of marching men," in the valley between us and Hamburgh, still
+continued.  The leading files of a light infantry regiment, now appeared,
+swinging along at a round trot, with their muskets poised in their right
+hands--no knapsacks on their backs. They appeared to follow the route of
+the group of mounted officers, until we could see a puff of white smoke,
+then another and a third from the field--pieces, followed by thudding
+reports, there being no high ground nor precipitous bank nor water in the
+neighborhood to reflect the sound, and make it emulate Jove's thunder.  At
+this, they struck across the fields, and forming behind the guns, lay down
+flat on their faces, where they were soon hid from our view by the wreaths
+of white smoke, as the sluggish morning breeze rolled it down the
+hill--side towards us.
+
+"What the deuce can all this mean--is it a review?" said I, in my
+innocence.
+
+"A reconnoissance in force," groaned my friend.  "The Allied troops must
+be at hand--now, God help us!"
+
+The women, like frightened hares, paused to look up in their brother's
+face, as he kept his eye steadily turned towards the ridge of the hill,
+and, when he involuntarily wrung his hands, they gave a loud scream, a
+fearful concerto, and ran off into the house.
+
+The breeze at this moment "aside the shroud of battle cast" and we heard a
+faint bugle--call, like an echo, wail in the distance, from beyond the
+hill. It was instantly answered by the loud, startling blare of a dozen of
+the light infantry bugles above us on the hill--side, and we could see
+them suddenly start from their lair, and form; while between us and the
+clearing morning sky, the cavalry, magnified into giants in the strong
+relief on the outline of the hill, were driven in straggling patrols, like
+chaff, over the summit--their sabres sparkling in the level sunbeams, and
+the reports of the red flashes of their pistols crackling down upon us.
+
+"They are driven in on the infantry," said Mr----- He was right but the
+light battalion immediately charged over the hill, with a loud hurrah,
+after admitting the beaten horse through their intervals, who, however, to
+give the devils their due, formed again in a instant, under the shelter of
+the high ground.  The artillery again opened their fire the cavalry once
+more advanced, and presently we could see nothing but the field--pieces,
+with their three separate groups of soldiers standing quietly by them,--a
+sure proof that the enemy's pickets were now out of cannon--shot, and had
+been driven back on the main body, and that the reconnoissance was still
+advancing.
+
+What will not an habitual exposure to danger do, even with tender women?
+
+"The French have advanced, so let us have our breakfast, Julia, my dear,"
+said Mr-----as we entered the house. "The Allied Forces would have been
+welcome, however; and surely, if they do come, they will respect our
+sufferings and helplessness."
+
+The eldest sister, to whom he spoke, shook her head mournfully; but,
+nevertheless, betook herself to her task of making coffee.
+
+"What rumbling and rattling is that?" said to an old servant who had just
+entered the room.
+
+"Two wagons with wounded men, sir, have passed onwards towards the town."
+
+"Ah!" said mine host, in great bitterness of spirit.
+
+But allons, we proceeded to make the best use of our time--ham, good--fish,
+excellent eggs, fresh--coffee, superb--when we again heard the fieldpieces
+above us open their fire, and in the intervals we could distinguish the
+distant rattle of musketry.  Presently this rolling fire slackened, and,
+after a few scattering shots here and there, ceased altogether; but the
+cannon on the hill still continued to play.
+
+We were by this time all standing in a cluster in the porch of the villa,
+before which stood the tubs with the finny spoil of the fish--pond, on a
+small paddock of velvet grass, about forty yards square, separated from
+the high--road by a low ornamental fence of green basket--work, as already
+mentioned.  The firing from the great guns increased, and every now and
+then I thought I heard a distant sound, as if the reports of the guns
+above us had been reflected from some precipitous bank."
+
+"I did not know that there was any echo here," said the youngest girl.
+
+"Alas, Janette!" said her brother, "I fear that is no echo;" and he put up
+his hand to his ear, and listened in breathless suspense.  The sound was
+repeated.
+
+"The Russian cannon replying to those on the hill!" said Mr with startling
+energy.  "God help us! it can no longer be an affair of posts; the heads
+of the Allied columns must be in sight, for the French skirmishers are
+unquestionably driven in."
+
+A French officer at this moment rattled past us down the road at speed,
+and vanished in the hollow, taking the direction of the town.
+
+His hat fell off, as his horse swerved a little at the open gate as he
+passed.  He never stopped to pick it up.  Presently a round shot, with a
+loud ringing and hissing sound, pitched over the hill, and knocked one of
+the fish--tubs close to us to pieces, scattering the poor fish all about
+the lawn.  With the recklessness of a mere boy I dashed out, and was busy
+picking them up, when Mr-----called to me to come back.
+
+"Let us go in and await what may befall; I dread what the ty"--here he
+prudently checked himself, remembering, no doubt, "that a bird of the air
+might carry the matter,"--"I dread what he may do, if they are really
+investing the place.  At any rate, here, in the very arena where the
+struggle will doubtless be fiercest, we cannot abide.  So go, my dear
+sisters, and pack up whatever you may have most valuable, or most
+necessary.  Nay, no tears; and I will attend to our poor old father, and
+get the carriage ready, if, God help me, I dare use it."
+
+"But where, in the name of all that is fearful, shall we go?" said his
+second sister. "Not back to Hamburgh--not to endure another season of such
+deep degradation--not to be exposed to the Oh brother, you saw we all
+submitted to our fate without a murmur, and laboured cheerfully on the
+fortifications, when compelled to do so, by that inhuman monster Davoust,
+amidst the ribaldry of a licentious soldiery, merely because poor Janette
+had helped to embroider a standard for the brave Hanseatic Legion you know
+how we bore this"--here the sweet girl held out her delicate hands, galled
+by actual and unwonted labour and many other indignities, until that awful
+night, when--No, brother, we shall await the arrival of the Russians, even
+should we see our once happy home converted into a field of battle; but
+into the city we shall not go."
+
+"Be it so, then, my dearest, sister.--Wilhehn, put up the stuhl wagen."
+
+He had scarcely returned into the breakfast--room, when the door opened,
+and the very handsome young officer, the aide--de--camp of the Prince,
+whom I had seen the night I was carried before Davoust, entered, splashed
+up to the eyes, and much heated and excited. I noticed blood on the hilt
+of his sword.  His orderly sat on his foaming steed, right opposite where
+I stood, wiping his bloody sabre on his horse's mane.  The women grew
+pale; but still they had presence of mind enough to do the honours with
+self--possession.
+
+The stranger wished us a good morning; and on being asked to sit down to
+breakfast, he unbuckled his sword, threw it from him with a clash on the
+floor, and then, with all the grace in the world, addressed himself to
+discuss the comestibles.  He tried a slight approach to jesting now and
+then; but seeing the heaviness of heart which prevailed amongst the women,
+he, with the good breeding of a man of the world, forbore to press his
+attentions.
+
+Breakfast being finished, and the ladies having retired, he rose, buckled
+on his sword again, drew on his gloves, and taking his hat in his hand, he
+advanced to the window, and desired his men to "fall in."
+
+"Men--what men?" said poor Mr-----.
+
+"Why, the Marshal has had a company of sapeurs for these three days back
+in the adjoining village--they are now here."
+
+"Here!" exclaimed-----; "what do the sappers here?" Two of the soldiers
+carried slow matches in their hands, while their muskets were slung at
+their backs. "There is no mine to be sprung here?"
+
+The young officer heard him with great politeness, but declined giving any
+answer.  The next moment he turned towards the ladies, and was making
+himself as agreeable as time and circumstances would admit; when a shot
+came crashing through the roof, broke down the ceiling, and knocking the
+flue of the stove to pieces, rebounded from the wall, and rolled
+harmlessly beneath the table.  He was the only person who did not start,
+or evince any dread. He merely cast his eyes upward and smiled.  He then
+turned to poor-----, who stood quite collected, but very pale, near where
+the stove had stood, and held out his hand to him.
+
+"On my honour," said the young soldier, "it grieves me to the very heart;
+but I must obey my orders.  It is no longer an affair of posts; the enemy
+is pressing on us in force.  The Allied columns are in sight; their
+cannon shot have but now penetrated your roof; we have but driven in their
+pickets; very soon they will be here; and in the event of their advance,
+my orders are to burn down this house and the neighbouring village."
+
+A sudden flush rushed into Mr-----'s face.
+
+"Indeed! does the Prince really--"
+
+The young officer bowed, and with something more of sternness in his
+manner than he had yet used, he said, "Mr-----, I duly appreciate your
+situation, and respect your feelings; but the Prince of Eckmuhl is my
+superior officer, and under other circumstances"--Here he slightly touched
+the hilt of his sword.
+
+"For myself I don't care," said-----, "but what is to become of my
+sisters?"
+
+"They must proceed to Hamburgh."
+
+"Very well--let me order the stuhl wagen, and give us, at all events, half
+an hour to move our valuables."
+
+Here Mr-----exchanged looks with his sisters.
+
+"Certainly," said the young officer; "and I will myself see you safe into
+the city."
+
+Who says that eels cannot be made used to skinning?  The poor girls
+continued their little preparations with an alacrity and presence of mind
+that truly surprised me.  There was neither screaming nor fainting, and by
+the time the carriage was at the door, they, with two female domestics,
+were ready to mount. I cannot better describe their vehicle, than by
+comparing it to a canoe mounted on four wheels, connected by a long perch,
+with a coachbox at the bow, and three gig bodies hung athwart ships, or
+slung inside of the canoe, by leather thongs.  At the moment we were
+starting, Mr-----came close to me and whispered, "Do you think your ship
+will still be in the river?"
+
+I answered that I made no doubt she was.
+
+"But even if she be not," said he, "the Holstein bank is open to us.
+Anywhere but Hamburgh now." And the scalding tears ran down his cheeks.
+
+At this moment there was a bustle on the hill top, and presently the
+artillery began once more to play, while the musketry breezed up again in
+the distance.  A mounted bugler rode half way down the hill, and sounded
+the recall.  The young officer hesitated.  He man waved his hand, and blew
+the advance.
+
+"It must be for us--answer it." His bugle did so.  "Bring the pitch, men
+the flax--so now--break the windows, and let the air in--set the house on
+fire; and, Sergeant Guido, remain to prevent it being extinguished I shall
+fire the village as we pass through."
+
+He gave the word to face about; and, desiring the men to follow at the
+same swinging run with which the whole of the infantry had originally
+advanced, he spurred his horse against the hill, and soon disappeared.
+
+My host's resolution seemed now taken.  Turning to the sergeant, "My good
+fellow, the reconnoissance will soon be returning; I shall precede it into
+the town."
+
+The man, a fine vieux moustache, hesitated.
+
+My friend saw it, and hit him in a Frenchman's most assailable quarter.
+
+"The ladies, my good man--the ladies!--You would not have them drive in
+pell--mell with the troops, exposed most likely to the fire of the
+Prussian advanced--guard, would you?"
+
+The man grounded his musket, and touched his cap--"Pass on." Away we
+trundled, until, coming to a cross--road, we turned down towards the
+river; and at the angle we could see thick wreaths of smoke curling up
+into theair, showing that the barbarous order had been but too effectually
+fulfilled.
+
+"What is that?" said-----.
+
+A horse, with his rider entangled and dragged by the stirrup, passed us at
+full speed, leaving a long track of blood on the road.
+
+"Who is that?"
+
+The coachman drove on, and gave no answer; until, at a sharp turn, we came
+upon the bruised and now breathless body of the young officer, who had so
+recently obeyed the savage behests of his brutal commander.  There was a
+musket--shot right in the middle of his fine forehead, like a small blue
+point, with one or two heavy black drops of blood oozing from it. His pale
+features wore a mild and placid expression, evincing that the numberless
+lacerations and bruises, which were evident through his tom uniform, had
+been inflicted on a breathless corpse.
+
+The stuhl wagen had carried on for a mile farther or so, but the firing
+seemed to approximate, whereupon our host sung out, "Fahrt Zu,
+Schwager--Wir Kommen nicht weiter."
+
+The driver of the stuhl wagen skulled along until we arrived at the
+beautiful, at a mile off, but the beastly, when close to, village of
+Blankanese.
+
+When the voiture stopped in the village, there seemed to be a
+nonplusation, to coin a word for the nonce, between my friend and his
+sisters.  They said something very sharply, and with a degree of
+determination that startled me. He gave no answer.  Presently the
+Amazonian attack was renewed.
+
+"We shall go onboard," said they. "Very well," said he; "but have
+patience, have patience!"
+
+"No, no.  Wann wird man sich einschiffen mussen?"
+
+By this time we were in the heart of the village, and surrounded with a
+whole lot, forty at the least, of Blankanese boatinen.  We were not long
+in selecting one of the fleetest--looking of those very fleet boats, when
+we all trundled on board; and I now witnessed what struck me as being an
+awful sign of the times.  The very coachman of the stuhl wagen, after
+conversing a moment with his master, returned to his team, tied the legs
+of the poor creatures as they stood, and then with a sharp knife cut their
+jugular veins through and through on the right side, having previously
+reined them up sharp to the left, so that, before starting, we could see
+three of the team, which consisted of four superb bays, level with the
+soil and dead; the near wheeler only holding out on his fore--legs.
+
+We shoved off at eleven o'clock in the forenoon; and after having twice
+been driven into creeks on the Holstein shore by bad weather, we arrived
+about two next morning safely on board the Torch, which immediately got
+under weigh for England.  After my story had been told to the Captain, I
+left my preserver, his father, and his sisters in his hands, and I need
+scarcely say that they had as hearty a welcome as the worthy old soul
+could give them, and dived into the midshipmen's berth for a morsel of
+comfort, where, in a twinkling, I was far into the secrets of a pork pie.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+
+The Cruise of the Torch.
+
+Sleep, gentle sleep--
+Wilt thou, upon the high and giddy mast,
+Seal up the shipboy's eyes, and rock his brains,
+In cradle of the rude imperious surge;
+And in the visitation of the winds,
+Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
+Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
+With deafning clamour in the slippery clouds,
+That, with the hurry, death itself awakes--
+Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
+To the wet sea--boy in an hour so rude?
+
+2 HENRY IV, Ill. 1. 5, 18--27.
+
+
+Heligoland light--north and by west--so many leagues--wind baffling
+weather hazy--Lady Passengers on deck for the first time.
+
+Arrived in the Downs--ordered by signal from the guard--ship to proceed to
+Portsmouth.  Arrived at Spithead--ordered to fit to receive a general
+officer, and six pieces of field artillery, and a Spanish Ecclesiastic,
+the Canon of-----. Plenty of great guns, at any rate--a regular park of
+artillery.
+
+Received General-----and his wife, and aide--de--camp, and two poodle
+dogs, one white man--servant, one black ditto, and the Canon of-----, and
+the six nine--pound field--pieces, and sailed for the Cove of Cork.
+
+It was blowing hard as we stood in for the Old Head of Kinsale pilot boat
+breasting the foaming surge like a sea gull--"Carrol Cove" in her tiny
+mainsail--pilot jumped into the main channel a bottle of rum swung by the
+lead line into the boat--all very clever.
+
+Ran in, and anchored under Spike Island.  A line--of--battle ship, three
+frigates, and a number of merchantmen at anchor--men of war lovely craft,
+bands playing--a good deal of the pomp and circumstance of war.  Next
+forenoon, Mr Treenail, the second lieutenant, sent for me.
+
+"Mr Cringle," said he, "you have an uncle in Cork, I believe?"
+
+I said I had.
+
+"I am going there on duty to--night; I daresay, if you asked the Captain to
+let you accompany me, he would do so." This was too good an offer not to be
+taken advantage of.  I plucked up courage, made my bow, asked leave, and
+got it; and the evening found my friend the lieutenant, and myself, after a
+ride of three hours, during which I, for one, had my bottom sheathing
+grievously rubbed, and a considerable botheration at crossing the Ferry at
+Passage, safe in our inn at Cork. I soon found out that the object of my
+superior officer was to gain information amongst the crimp shops, where ten
+men, who had run from one of the West Indiamen, waiting at Cove for convoy,
+were stowed away, but I was not let farther into the secret; so I set out
+to pay my visit, and after passing a pleasant evening with my friends, Mr
+and Mrs Job Cringle, the lieutenant dropped in upon us about nine o'clock.
+He was heartily welcomed, and under the plea of our being obliged to return
+to the ship early next morning, we soon took leave, and returned to the
+inn. As I was turning into the public room, the door was open, and I could
+see it full of blowsy--faced monsters, glimmering and jabbering, through
+the mist of hot brandy grog and gin twist; with poodle Benjamins, and
+greatcoats, and cloaks of all sorts and sizes, steaming on their pegs, with
+Barcelonas and comforters, and damp travelling caps of seal--skin, and blue
+cloth, and tartan, arranged above the same.
+
+Nevertheless, such a society in my juvenile estimation, during my short
+escapade from the middy's berth, had its charms, and I was rolling in with
+a tolerable swagger, when Mr Treenail pinched my arm.
+
+"Mr Cringle, come here, into my room."
+
+From the way in which he spoke, I imagined, in my innocence, that his room
+was at my elbow; but no such thing--we had to ascend a long, and not
+overclean staircase, to the fourth floor, before we were shown into a
+miserable little double--bedded room.  So soon as we had entered, the
+lieutenant shut the door.
+
+"Tom," said he, "I have taken a fancy to you, and therefore I applied for
+leave to bring you with me; but I must expose you to some danger, and, I
+will allow, not altogether in a very creditable way either.  You must enact
+the spy for a short space."
+
+I did not like the notion certainly, but I had little time for
+consideration.
+
+"Here," he continued--"here is a bundle." He threw it on the floor. "You
+must rig in the clothes it, contains, and make your way into the celebrated
+crimp shop in the neighbourhood, and pick up all the information you can
+regarding the haunts of the pressable men at Cove, especially with regard
+to the ten seamen who have run from the West Indiaman we left below.  You
+know the Admiral has forbidden pressing in Cork, so you must contrive to
+frighten the blue jackets down to Cove, by representing yourself as an
+apprentice of one of the merchant vessels, who had run from his indentures,
+and that you had narrowly escaped from a press--gang this very night here."
+
+I made no scruples, but forthwith arrayed myself in the slops contained in
+the bundle; in a pair of shag trowsers, red flannel shirt, coarse blue
+cloth jacket, and no waistcoat.
+
+"Now," said Mr Treenail, "stick a quid of tobacco in your cheek, and take
+the cockade out of your hat; or stop, leave it, and ship this striped
+woollen night--cap--so--and come along with me."
+
+We left the house, and walked half a mile down the Quay.
+
+Presently we arrived before a kind of low grog--shop--a bright lamp was
+flaring in the breeze at the door, one of the panes of the glass of it
+being broken.
+
+Before I entered, Mr Treenail took me to one side--"Tom, Tom Cringle, you
+must go into this crimp shop; pass yourself off for an apprentice of the
+Guava, bound for Trinidad, the ship that arrived just as we started, and
+pick up all the knowledge you can regarding the whereabouts of the men, for
+we are, as you know, cruelly ill manned, and must replenish as we best
+may." I entered the house, after having agreed to rejoin my superior
+officer, so soon as I considered I had obtained my object. I rapped at the
+inner door, in which there was a small unglazed aperture cut, about four
+inches square; and I now, for the first time, perceived that a strong glare
+of light was cast into the lobby, where I stood, by a large argand with a
+brilliant reflector, that like a magazine lantern had been mortised into
+the bulkhead, at a height of about two feet above the door in which the
+spy--hole was cut.  My first signal was not attended to; I rapped again,
+and looking round I noticed Mr Treenail flitting backwards and forwards
+across the doorway, in the rain with his pale face and his sharp nose, with
+the sparkling drop at the end on't, glancing in the light of the lamp. I
+heard a step within, and a very pretty face now appeared at the wicket.
+
+"Who are you saking here, an' please ye?"
+
+"No one in particular, my dear; but if you don't let me in, I shall be
+lodged in jail before five minutes be over."
+
+"I can't help that, young man," said she; "but where are ye from, darling?"
+
+"Hush!--I am run from the Guava, now lying at the Cove."
+
+"Oh," said my beauty, "come in;" and she opened the door, but still kept it
+on the chain in such a way, that although, by bobbing, I creeped and slid
+in beneath it, yet a common--sized man could not possibly have squeezed
+himself through.  The instant I entered, the door was once more banged to,
+and the next moment I was ushered into the kitchen, a room about fourteen
+feet square, with a well sanded floor, a huge dresser on one side, and over
+against it a respectable show of pewter dishes in racks against the wall.
+There was a long stripe of a deal, table in the middle of the room--but no
+tablecloth--at the bottom of which sat a large, bloated, brandy, or rather
+whisky--faced savage, dressed in a shabby great--coat of the hodden grey
+worn by the Irish peasantry, dirty swan down vest, and greasy corduroy
+breeches, worsted stockings, and well--patched shoes; he was smoking a long
+pipe.  Around the table sat about a dozen seamen, from whose wet jackets
+and trowsers the heat of the blazing fire, that roared up the chimney, sent
+up a smoky steam that cast a halo round the lamp, that depended from the
+roof, and hung down within two feet of the table, stinking abominably of
+coarse whale oil.  They were, generally speaking, hardy, weather beaten
+men, and the greater proportion half, or more than half drunk.  When I
+entered, I walked up to the landlord.
+
+"Yo ho, my young un, whence and whither bound, my hearty?"
+
+"The first don't signify much to you," said I, "seeing I have wherewithal
+in the locker to pay my shot; and as to the second, of that hereafter; so,
+old boy, let's have some grog, and then say if you can ship me with one of
+them cowers that are lying alongside the quay?"
+
+"My eye, what a lot of brass that small chap has!" grumbled mine host.
+
+"Why, my lad, we shall see to--morrow morning; but you gammons so bad about
+the rhino, that we must prove you a bit; so, Kate, my dear,"--to the pretty
+girl who had let me in--"score a pint of rum against--why, what is your
+name?"
+
+
+"What's that to you?" rejoined I, "let's have the drink, and don't doubt
+but the shiners  shall be forthcoming."
+
+"Hurrah!" shouted the party, most of them now very tipsy.  So the rum was
+produced forthwith, and as I lighted a pipe and filled a glass of swizzle,
+I struck in, "Messmates, I hope you have all shipped?"
+
+"No, we haven't," said some of them.
+
+"Nor shall we be in any hurry, boy," said others.
+
+"Do as you please, but I shall, as soon as I can, I know; and I recommend
+all of you making yourselves scarce to--night, and keeping a bright
+look--out."
+
+"Why, boy, why?"
+
+"Simply because I have just escaped a press--gang, by bracing sharp up at
+the corner of the street, and shoving into this dark alley here."
+
+This called forth another volley of oaths and unsavoury exclamations, and
+all was bustle and confusion, and packing up of bundles, and settling of
+reckonings.
+
+"Where," said one of the seamen,--"where do you go to, my lad?"
+
+"Why, if I can't get shipped to--night, I shall trundles down to Cove
+immediately, so as to cross at Passage before daylight, and take my chance
+of shipping with some of the outward--bound that are to sail, if the wind
+holds, the day after to--morrow.  There is to be no pressing when blue
+Peter flies at the fore--and that was hoisted this afternoon, I know, and
+the foretopsail will be loose to--morrow."
+
+"D--n my wig, but the small chap is right," roared one.
+
+"I've a bloody great mind to go down with him," stuttered another, after
+several unavailing attempts to weigh from the bench, where he had brought
+himself to anchor.
+
+"Hurrah!" yelled a third, as he hugged me, and nearly suffocated me with
+his maudling caresses, "I trundles wid you too, my darling, boy the piper!"
+
+"Have with you, boy--have with him," shouted half--a--dozen other voices,
+while each stuck his oaken twig through the handkerchief that held his
+bundle, and shouldered it, clapping his straw or tarpaulin hat, with a slap
+on the crown, on one side of his head, and staggering and swaying about
+under the influence of the poteen, and slapping his thigh, as he bent
+double, laughing like to split himself, till the water ran over his cheeks
+from his drunken half--shut eyes, while jets of tobacco juice were
+squirting in all directions.
+
+I paid the reckoning, urging the party to proceed all the while, and
+indicating Pat Doolan's at the Cove as a good rendezvous; and promising to
+overtake them before they reached passage, I parted company at the corner
+of the street, and rejoined the lieutenant.
+
+Next morning we spent in looking about the town--Cork is a fine town,
+contains seventy thousand inhabitants, more or less--safe in that--and
+three hundred thousand pigs, driven by herdsmen, with coarse grey
+greatcoats.  The pigs are not so handsome as those in England, where the
+legs are short, and tails curly; here the legs are long, the flanks sharp
+and thin, and tails long and straight.
+
+All classes speak with a deuced brogue, and worship graven images; arrived
+at Cove to a large dinner and here follows a great deal of nonsense of the
+same kind.
+
+By the time it was half--past ten o'clock, I was preparing to turn in, when
+the master at arms called down to me,--"Mr Cringle, you are wanted in the
+gunroom."
+
+I put on my jacket again, and immediately proceeded thither, and on my way
+I noticed a group of seamen, standing on the starboard gangway, dressed in
+pea jackets, under which, by the light of a lantern, carried by one of
+them, I could see they were all armed with pistol and cutlass.  They
+appeared in great glee, and as they made way for me, I could hear one
+fellow whisper, "There goes the little beagle." When I entered the gunroom,
+the first lieutenant, master, and purser, were sitting smoking and enjoying
+themselves over a glass of cold grog--the gunner taking the watch on deck
+the doctor was piping any thing but mellifluously on the double flageolet,
+while the Spanish priest, and aide--de--camp to the general, were playing
+at chess, and wrangling in bad French.  I could hear Mr Treenail rumbling
+and stumbling in his stateroom as he accoutred himself in a jacket similar
+to those of the armed boat's crew whom I had passed, and presently he
+stepped into the gunroom, armed also with cutlass and pistol.
+
+"Mr Cringle, get ready to go in the boat with me, and bring your arms with
+you."
+
+I now knew whereabouts he was, and that my Cork friends were the quarry at
+which we aimed. I did as I was ordered, and we immediately pulled on shore,
+where, leaving two strong fellows in charge of the boat, with instructions
+to fire their pistols and shove off a couple of boat--lengths, should any
+suspicious circumstance indicating an attack take place, we separated, like
+a pulk of Cossacks coming to the charge, but without the hourah, with
+orders to meet before Pat Doolan's door, as speedily as our legs could
+carry us.  We had landed about a cable's length to the right of the high
+precipitous bank--up which we stole in straggling parties--on which that
+abominable congregation of the most filthy huts ever pig grunted in is
+situated, called the Holy Ground.  Pat Doolan's domicile was in a little
+dirty lane, about the middle of the village.  Presently ten strapping
+fellows, including the lieutenant, were before the door, each man with his
+stretcher in his hand.  It was a very tempestuous, although moonlight
+night, occasionally clear, with the moonbeams at one moment sparkling
+brightly in the small ripples on the filthy puddles before the door, and
+on the gem like water--drops that hung from the eaves of the thatched roof,
+and lighting up the dark statue like figures of the men, and casting their
+long shadows strongly against the mud wall of the house; at another, a
+black cloud as it flew across her disk, cast every thing into deep shade,
+while the only noise we heard was the hoarse dashing of the distant surf,
+rising and falling on the fitful gusts of the breeze.  We tried the door.
+It was fast.
+
+"Surround the house, men," said the lieutenant, in a whisper.  He rapped
+loudly.  "Pat Doolan, my man, open the door, will ye?" No answer.  "If you
+don't, we shall make free to break it open, Patrick, dear."
+
+All this while the light of a fire, or of candles, streamed through the
+joints of the door. The threat at length appeared to have the desired
+effect.  A poor decrepid old man undid the bolt and let us in. "Ohon a reel
+Ohon a reel What make you all this boder for--come you to help us to wake
+poor ould Kate there, and bring you the whisky wid you?"
+
+"Old man, where is Pat Doolan?" said the lieutenant.
+
+"Gone to borrow whisky, to wake ould Kate, there--the howling will begin
+whenever Mother Doncannon and Mistress Conolly come over from Middleton,
+and I look for dem every minute."
+
+There was no vestige of any living thing in the miserable hovel, except the
+old fellow.  On two low trestles, in the middle of the floor, lay a coffin
+with the lid on, on the top of which was stretched the dead body of an old
+emaciated woman in her grave--clothes, the quality of which was much finer
+than one could have expected to have seen in the midst of the surrounding
+squalidness. The face of the corpse was uncovered, the hands were crossed
+on the breast, and there was a plate of salt on the stomach.
+
+An iron cresset, charged with coarse rancid oil, hung from the roof, the
+dull smoky red light flickering on the dead corpse, as the breeze streamed
+in through the door and numberless chinks in the walls, making the cold,
+rigid, sharp features appear to move, and glimmer, and gibber as it were,
+from the changing shades.  Close to the head, there was a small door
+opening into an apartment of some kind, but the coffin was placed so near
+it, that one could not pass between the body and the door.
+
+"My good man," said Treenail, to the solitary mourner, "I must beg leave to
+remove the body a bit, and have the goodness to open that door."
+
+"Door, yere honour!  It's no door o'mine--and it's not opening that same,
+that old Phil Carrol shall busy himself wid."
+
+"Carline," said Mr Treenail, quick and sharp, "remove the body." It was
+done.
+
+"Cruel heavy the old dame is, sir, for all her wasted appearance," said one
+of the men.
+
+The lieutenant now ranged the press--gang against the wall fronting the
+door, and stepping into the middle of the room, drew his pistol and cocked
+it.  "Messmates," he sung out, as if addressing the skulkers in the other
+room, "I know you are here--the house is surrounded--and unless you open
+that door now, by the power, but I'll fire slap into you." There was a
+bustle, and a rumbling tumbling noise within.  "My lads, we are now sure of
+your game," sung out Treenail, with great animation.  "Sling that clumsy
+bench there." He pointed to an oaken form about eight feet long, and nearly
+three inches thick.  To produce a two--inch rope, and junk it into three
+lengths, and rig the battering--ram, was the work of an instant.  "One,
+two, three,"--and bang the door flew open, and there were our men stowed
+away, each sitting on the top of his bag, as snug as could be, although
+looking very much like condemned thieves.  We bound eight of them, and
+thrusting a stretcher across their backs, under their arms, and lashing
+the fins to the same by good stout lanyards, we were proceeding to stump
+our prisoners off to the boat, when, with the innate devilry that I have
+inherited, I know not how, but the original sin of which has more than
+once nearly cost me my life, I said, without addressing my superior
+officer, or any one else, directly--"I should like now to scale 'my pistol
+through that coffin.  If I miss, I can't hurt the old woman; and an eyelet
+hole in the coffin itself, will only be an act of civility to the worms."
+
+I looked towards my superior officer, who answered me with a knowing shake
+of the head. I advanced, while all was silent as death--the sharp click of
+the pistol lock now struck acutely on my own ear. I presented, when--crash
+the lid of the coffin, old woman and all, was dashed off in an instant, the
+corpse flying up in the air, and then falling heavily on the floor, rolling
+over and over, while a tall handsome fellow, in his stripped flannel shirt
+and blue trowsers, with the sweat pouring down over his face in steams, sat
+up in the shell.
+
+"All right," said Mr Treenail--"help him out of his berth."
+
+He was pinioned like the rest, and forthwith we walked them all off to the
+beach.  By this time there was an unusual bustle in the Holy Ground, and we
+could hear many an anathema, curses, not loud but deep, ejaculated from
+many a half--opened door as we passed along.  We reached the boat, and time
+it was we did so, for a number of stout fellows, who had followed us in a
+gradually increasing crowd, until they amounted to forty at the fewest, now
+nearly surrounded us, and kept closing in.  As the last of us jumped into
+the boat, they made a rush, so that if we had not shoved off with the speed
+of light, I think it very likely that we should have been overpowered.
+However, we reached the ship in safety, and the day following we weighed,
+and stood out to sea  with our convoy.
+
+It was a very large fleet nearly three hundred sail of merchant vessel
+and a noble sight truly.
+
+A line--of--battle ship led--and two frigates and three sloops of our class
+were stationed on the outskirts of the fleet, whipping them in as it were.
+We made Madeira in fourteen days, looked in, but did not anchor; superb
+island--magnificent mountains--white town,--and all very fine, but nothing
+particular happened for three weeks.  One fine evening, (we had by this
+time progressed into the trades, and were within three hundred miles of
+Barbadoes,) the sun had set bright and clear, after a most beautiful day,
+and we were bowling along right before it, rolling like the very devil; but
+there was no moon, and although the stars sparkled brilliantly, yet it was
+dark, and as we were the sternmost of the men of war, we had the task of
+whipping in the sluggards.  It was my watch on deck.  A gun from the
+commodore, who showed a number of lights.  "What is that, Mr Kennedy?"
+said the captain to the old gunner.--"The commodore has made the night
+signal for the sternmost ships to make more sail and close, sir." We
+repeated the signal--and stood on hailing the dullest of the merchantmen in
+our neighbourhood to make more sail, and firing a musket--shot now and then
+over the more distant of them.  By and by we saw a large West Indiaman
+suddenly haul her wind, and stand across our bows.
+
+"Forward there!" sung out Mr Splinter, "stand by to fire a shot at that
+fellow from the boat gun if he does not bear up.  What can he be after?
+Sergeant Armstrong,"--to a marine, who was standing close by him in the
+waist--"get a musket, and fire over him!"
+
+It was done, and the ship immediately bore up on her course again; we now
+ranged alongside of him on his larboard quarter.
+
+"Ho, the ship, ahoy!"--"Hillo!" was the reply.--"Make more sail, sir, and
+run into the body of the fleet, or I shall fire into you; why don't you,
+sir, keep in the wake of the commodore?" No answer.  "What meant you by
+hauling your wind, just now, sir?"
+
+"Yesh, Yesh," at length responded a voice from the merchantinan.
+
+"Something wrong here," said Mr Splinter.  "Back your maintopsail, sir, and
+hoist a light at the peak; I shall send a boat on board of you.
+Boatswain's mate, pipe away the crew of the jolly boat." We also hove to,
+and were in the act of lowering down the boat, when the officer rattled
+out. "Keep all fast, with the boat; I can't comprehend that chap's
+manoeuvres for the soul of me.  He has not hove to." Once more we were
+within pistol--shot of him.  "Why don't you heave to, sir?" All silent.
+
+Presently we could perceive a confusion and noise of struggling on board,
+and angry voices, as if people were trying to force their way up the
+hatchways from below; and a heavy thumping on the deck, and a creaking of
+the blocks, and rattling of the cordage, while the mainyard was first
+braced one way, and then another, as if two parties were striving for the
+mastery.  At length a voice hailed distinctly "We are captured by a"--A
+sudden sharp cry, and a splash overboard, told of some fearful deed.
+
+"We are taken by a privateer or pirate," sung out another voice.  This was
+followed by a heavy crunching blow, as when the spike of a butcher's axe is
+driven through a bullock's forehead deep into the brain.
+
+By this time all hands had been called, and the word had been passed to
+clear away two of the foremost carronades on the starboard side, and to
+load them with grape.
+
+"On board there--get below, all you of the English crew, as I shall fire
+with grape," sung out the captain.
+
+The hint was not taken.  The ship at length came to the wind--we rounded
+to, under her lee--and an armed boat, with Mr Treenail, and myself, and
+sixteen men, with cutlasses, were sent on board.
+
+We jumped on deck, and at the gangway, Mr Treenail stumbled, and fell over
+the dead body of a man, no doubt the one who had hailed last, with his
+scull cloven to the eyes, and a broken cutlass blade sticking in the gash.
+We were immediately accosted by the mate, who was lashed down to a ringbolt
+close by the bits, with his hands tied at the wrists by sharp cords, so
+tightly that the blood was spouting from beneath his nails.
+
+"We have been surprised by a privateer schooner, sir; the lieutenant of
+her, and twelve men, are now in the cabin."
+
+"Where are the rest of the crew?"
+
+"All secured in the forecastle, except the second mate and boatswain, the
+men who hailed you just now; the last was knocked on the head, and the
+former was stabbed and thrown overboard."
+
+We immediately released the men, eighteen in number, and armed them with
+boarding pikes. "What vessel is that astern of us?" said Treenail to the
+mate.  Before he could answer, a shot from the brig fired at the privateer
+showed she was broad awake.  Next moment Captain Deadeye hailed. "Have you
+mastered the prize crew, Mr Treenail?"--"Aye, aye, sir."--"Then keep your
+course, and keep two lights hoisted at your mizzen peak during the night,
+and blue Peter at the main topsail yardarm when the day breaks; I shall
+haul my wind after the suspicious sail in your wake."
+
+Another shot, and another, from the brig--the time between each flash and
+the report increasing with the distance.  By this the lieutenant had
+descended to the cabin, followed by his people, while the merchant crew
+once more took the charge of the ship, crowding sail into the body of the
+fleet.
+
+I followed him close, pistol and cutlass in hand, and I shall never forget
+the scene that presented itself when I entered.  The cabin was that of a
+vessel of five hundred tons, elegantly fitted up; the panels filled with
+crimson cloth, edged with gold mouldings, with superb damask hangings
+before the stem windows and the side berths, and brilliantly lighted up by
+two large swinging lamps hung from the deck above, which were reflected
+from, and multiplied in, several plate glass mirrors in the panels.  In the
+recess, which in cold weather had been occupied by the stove, now stood a
+splendid grand piano, the silk in the open work above the keys
+corresponding with the crimson cloth of the panels; it was open, a Leghom
+bonnet with a green veil, a parasol, and two long white gloves, as if r
+ecently pulled off, lay on it, with the very mould of the hands in them.
+
+The rudder case was particularly beautiful; it was a richly carved and
+gilded palm tree, the stem painted white, and interlaced with golden
+fretwork, like the lozenges of a pine--apple, while the leaves spread up
+and abroad on the roof.
+
+The table was laid for supper, with cold meat, and wine, and a profusion of
+silver things, all sparkling brightly; but it was in great disorder, wine
+spilt, and glasses broken, and dishes with meat upset, and knives, and
+forks, and spoons, scattered all about.  She was evidently one of those
+London West Indiamen, on board of which I knew there was much splendour and
+great comfort.  But, alas! the hand of lawless violence had been there.
+The captain lay across the table, with his head hanging over the side of it
+next to us, and unable to help himself, with his hands tied behind his
+back, and a gag in his mouth; his face purple from the blood running to
+his head, and the white of his eyes turned up, while his loud stentorous
+breathing but too clearly indicated the rupture of a vessel on the brain.
+
+He was a stout portly man, and, although we released him on the instant,
+and had him bled, and threw water on his face, and did all we could for
+him, he never spoke afterwards, and died in half an hour.
+
+Four gentlemanly--looking men were sitting at table, lashed to their
+chairs, pale and trembling, while six of the most ruffian--looking
+scoundrels I ever beheld, stood on the opposite side of the table in a row
+fronting us, with the light from the lamps shining full on them.  Three of
+them were small, but very square mulattoes; one was a South American
+Indian, with the square high--boned visage, and long, lank, black glossy
+hair of his cast.  These four had no clothing besides their trowsers, and
+stood with their arms folded, in all the calmness of desperate men, caught
+in the very fact of some horrible atrocity, which they knew shut out all
+hope of mercy.  The two others were white Frenchmen, tall,
+bushy--whiskered, sallow desperadoes, but still, wonderful to relate,
+with, if I may so speak, the manners of gentlemen.  One of them squinted,
+and had a hair--lip, which gave him a horrible expression.  They were
+dressed in white trowsers and shirts, yellow silk sashes round their
+waists, and a sort of blue uniform jacket, blue Gascon caps, with the
+peaks, from each of which depended a large bullion tassel, hanging down on
+one side of their heads.  The whole party had apparently made up their
+minds that resistance was vain, for their pistols and cutlasses, some of
+them bloody, had all been laid on the table, with the buts and handles
+towards us, contrasting horribly with the glittering equipage of steel,
+and crystal, and silver things, on the snow--white damask table--cloth.
+They were immediately seized and ironed, to which they submitted in
+silence.  We next released the passengers, and were overpowered with
+thanks, one dancing, one crying, one laughing, and another praying.  But,
+merciful Heaven! what an object met our eyes!  Drawing aside--the curtain
+that concealed a sofa, fitted into a recess, there lay, more dead than
+alive, a tall and most beautiful girl, her head resting on her left arm,
+her clothes disordered and tom, blood on her bosom, and foam on her mouth,
+with her long dark hair loose and dishevelled, and covering the upper part
+of her deadly pale face, through which her wild sparkling black eyes,
+protruding from their sockets, glanced and glared with the fire of a
+maniac's, while her blue lips kept gibbering an incoherent prayer one
+moment, and the next imploring mercy, as if she had still been in the
+hands of those who knew not the name; and anon, a low hysterical laugh
+made our very blood freeze in our bosoms, which soon ended in a long
+dismal yell, as she rolled off the couch upon the hard deck, and lay in a
+dead faint.
+
+Alas the day!--a Maniac she was from that hour. She was the only daughter
+of the murdered master of the ship, and never awoke, in her unclouded
+reason, to the fearful consciousness of her own dishonour and her parent's
+death.
+
+The Torch captured the schooner, and we left the privateer's men at
+Barbadoes to meet their reward, and several of the merchant sailors were
+turned over to the guardship, to prove the facts in the first instance, and
+to serve his Majesty as impressed men in the second, but scrimp measure of
+justice to the poor ship's crew.
+
+Anchored at Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes.--Town seemed built of cards--black
+faces--showy dresses of the negroes--dined at Mr C-----'s, capital dinner
+little breeze mill at the end of the room, that pumped a solution of
+saltpetre and water into a trough of tin, perforated with small holes,
+below which, and exposed to the breeze, were ranged the wine and liqueurs,
+all in cotton bags; the water then flowed into a well, where the pump was
+stepped, and thus was again pumped up and kept circulating.
+
+Landed the artillery, the soldiers, officers, and the Spanish Canon
+discharged the whole battery.
+
+Next morning, weighed at day--dawn, with the trade for Jamaica, and soon I
+ost sight of the bright blue waters of Carlisle Bay, and the smiling fields
+and tall cocoa--nut trees of the beautiful island.  In a week after we
+arrived off the east end of Jamaica, and that same evening, in obedience to
+the orders of the admiral on the Windward Island station, we hove to in
+Bull Bay, in order to land despatches, and secure our tithe of the crews of
+the merchant--vessels bound for Kingston, and the ports to leeward, as they
+passed us.  We had fallen in with a pilot canoe off Morant Bay with four
+negroes on board, who requested us to hoist in their boat, and take them
+all on board, as the pilot schooner, to which they belonged, had that
+morning bore up for Kingston, and left instructions to them to follow her
+in the first vessel appearing afterwards.  We did so, and now, as it was
+getting dark, the captain came up to Mr Treenail.
+
+"Why, Mr Treenail, I think we had better heave--to for the night, and in
+this case I shall want you to go in the cutter to Port Royal to deliver the
+despatches on board the flag--ship."
+
+"I don't think the admiral will be at Port Royal, sir," responded the
+lieutenant; "and, if I might suggest, these black chaps have offered to
+take me ashore here on the Palisadoes, a narrow spit of land, not above one
+hundred yards across, that divides the harbour from the ocean, and to haul
+the canoe across, and take me to the agent's house in Kingston, who will
+doubtless frank me up to the pen, where the admiral resides, and I shall
+thus deliver the letters, and be back again by day--dawn."
+
+"Not a bad plan," said old Deadeye; "put it in execution, and I will go
+below and get the despatches immediately."
+
+The canoe was once more hoisted out; the three black fellows, the pilot of
+the ship continuing on board, jumped into her alongside.
+
+"Had you not better take a couple of hands with you, Mr Treenail?" said the
+skipper.
+
+"Why, no, sir, I don't think I shall want them; but if you will spare me Mr
+Cringle I will be obliged, in case I want any help."
+
+We shoved off, and as the glowing sun dipped under Portland Point, as the
+tongue of land that runs out about four miles to the southward, on the
+western side of Port Royal harbour, is called, we arrived within a hundred
+yards of the Palisadoes.  The surf, at the particular spot we steered for,
+did not break on the shore in a rolling curling wave, as it usually does,
+but smoothed away under the lee of a small sandy promontory that ran out
+into the sea, about half a cable's length to windward, and then slid up the
+smooth white sand, without breaking, in a deep clear green swell, for the
+space of twenty yards, gradually shoaling, the colour becoming lighter and
+lighter, until it frothed away in a shallow white fringe, that buzzed as it
+receded back into the deep green sea, until it was again propelled forward
+by the succeeding billow.
+
+"I say, friend Bungo, how shall we manage? You don't mean to swamp us in a
+shove through that surf, do you?" said Mr Treenail.
+
+"No fear, massa, if you and toder leetle man--of--war buccra, only keep dem
+seat when we rise on de crest of de swell dere."
+
+We sat quiet enough.  Treenail was coolness itself, and I aped him as well
+as I could.  The loud murmur, increasing to a roar, of the sea, was trying
+enough as we approached, buoyed on the last long undulation.
+
+"Now sit still, massa, bote."
+
+We sank down into the trough, and presently were hove forwards with a
+smooth sliding motion up on the beach--until grit, grit, we stranded on the
+cream--coloured sand, high and dry.
+
+"Now jomp, massa, jomp."
+
+We leapt with all our strength, and thereby toppled down on our noses; the
+sea receded, and before the next billow approached, we had run the canoe
+twenty yards beyond high water mark.
+
+It was the work of a very few minutes to haul the canoe across the
+sandbank, and to launch it once more in the placid waters of the harbour
+of Kingston. We pulled across towards the town, until we landed at the
+bottom of Hanover Street; the lights from the cabin windows of the
+merchantmen glimmering as e passed, and the town only discernible from a
+solitary sparkle here and there.  But the contrast when we landed was very
+striking.  We had come through the darkness of the night in comparative
+quietness; and in two hours from the time we had left the old Torch, we
+were transferred from her orderly deck to the bustle of a crowded town.
+
+
+One of our crew undertook to be the guide to the agent's house.  We arrived
+before it.  It was a large mansion, and we could see lights glimmering in
+the ground floor; but it was gaily lit up aloft.  The house itself stood
+back about twenty feet from the street, from which it was separated by an
+iron railing.
+
+We knocked at the outer--gate, but no one answered.  At length our black
+guide found out a bell--pull, and presently the clang of a bell resounded
+throughout the mansion.  Still no one answered.  I pushed against, the
+door, and found it was open, and Mr Treenail and myself immediately
+ascended a flight of six marble steps, and stood in the lower piazza,
+with the hall, or lower vestibule, before us.  We entered. A very
+welldressed brown woman, who was sitting at her work at a small table,
+along with two young girls of the same complexion, instantly rose to
+receive us.
+
+"Beg pardon," said Mr Treenail, "pray, is this Mr-----'s house?" "Yes,
+sir, it is."
+
+"Will you have the goodness to say if he be at home?"
+
+"Oh yes, sir, he is dere upon dinner wid company," said the lady.
+
+"Well," continued the lieutenant, "say to him, that an officer of his
+Majesty's sloop Torch is below, with despatches for the admiral."
+
+"Surely, sir,--surely," the dark lady continued;--"Follow me, sir; and dat
+small gentleman,--[Thomas Cringle, Esquire, no less!]--him will better
+follow me too."
+
+We left the room, and, turning to the right, landed in the lower piazza of
+the house, fronting the north.  A large clumsy stair occupied the
+easternmost end, with a massive mahogany balustrade, but the whole affair
+below was very ill lighted.  The brown lady preceded us; and planting
+herself at the bottom of the staircase, began to shout to some one above.
+
+"Toby!--Toby!--buccra gentlemen arrive, Toby." But no Toby responded to
+the call.
+
+"My dear madam," said Treenail, "I have little time for ceremony.  Pray
+usher us up into Mr-----'s presence."
+
+"Den follow me, gentlemen, please."
+
+Forthwith we all ascended the dark staircase until we reached the first
+landing--place, when we heard a noise as of two negroes wrangling on the
+steps above us.
+
+"You rascal!" sang out one, "take dat; larn you for teal my wittal!"--then
+a sharp crack, as if he had smote the culprit across the pate; whereupon,
+like a shot, a black fellow, in a handsome livery, trundled down, pursued
+by another servant with a large silver ladle in his hand, with which he
+was belabouring the fugitive over his flinthard skull, right against our
+hostess, with the drumstick of a turkey in his hand, or rather in his
+mouth.
+
+"Top, you tief--top, you tief!--for me piece dat," shouted the pursuer.
+
+"You dam rascal!" quoth the dame.  But she had no time to utter another
+word, before the fugitive pitched, with all his weight, right against her;
+and at the very moment another servant came trundling down with a large
+tray--full of all kinds of meats--and I especially remember that two large
+crystal stands of jellies composed part of his load--so there we were
+regularly capsized, and caught all of a heap in the dark landing--place,
+half way up the stair; and down the other flight tumbled our guide, with Mr
+Treenail and myself, and the two blackies, on the top of her, Tolling in
+our descent over, or rather into, another large mahogany tray which had
+just been carried out, with a tureen of turtle soup in it, and a dish of
+roast--beef, and platefulls of land--crabs, and the Lord knows what all
+besides.
+
+The crash reached the ear of the landlord, who was seated at the head of
+his table in the upper piazza, a long gallery about fifty feet long by
+fourteen wide, and he immediately rose and ordered his butler to take a
+light.  When he came down to ascertain the cause of the uproar, I shall
+never forget the scene.
+
+There was, first of all, mine host, a remarkably neat personage, standing
+on the polished mahogany stair, three steps above his servant, who was a
+very well--dressed respectable elderly negro, with a candle in each hand;
+and beneath him, on the landing--place, lay two trays of viands, broken
+tureens of soup, fragments of dishes, and fractured glasses, and a chaos of
+eatables and drinkables, and table gear scattered all about, amidst which
+lay scrambling my lieutenant and myself, the brown housekeeper, and the two
+negro servants, all more or less covered with gravy and wine dregs.
+However, after a good laugh, we gathered ourselves up, and at length we
+were ushered on the scene.  Mine host, after stifling his laughter the
+best way he could, again sat down at the head of his table, sparkling with
+crystal and wax lights, while a superb lamp hung overhead.  The company was
+composed chiefly of naval and military men, but there was also a sprinkling
+of civilians, or Muftees, to use a West India expression.  Most of them
+rose as we entered, and after they had taken a glass of wine, and had their
+laugh at our mishap, our landlord retired to one side with Mr Treenail,
+while I, poor little middy as I was, remained standing at the end of the
+room, close to the head of the stairs.  The gentleman who sat at the foot
+of the table had his back towards me, I and was not at first aware of my
+presence.  But the guest at his right hand, a happy--looking, red--faced,
+well--dressed man, soon drew his attention towards me.  The party to whom I
+was thus indebted seemed a very jovial--looking personage, and appeared to
+be well known to all hands, and indeed the life of the party, for, like
+Falstaff, he was not only witty in himself, but the cause of wit in others.
+
+The gentleman to whom he had pointed me out immediately rose, made his bow,
+ordered a chair, and made room for me beside himself, where the moment it
+was known that we were direct from home, such a volley of questions was
+fired off at me, that I did not know which to answer first.  At length,
+after Treenail had taken a glass or two of wine, the agent started him off
+to the admiral's pen in his own gig, and I was desired to stay where I was
+until he returned.
+
+The whole party seemed very happy, my boon ally was fun itself, and I was
+much entertained with the mess he made when any of the foreigners at table
+addressed him in French or Spanish. I was particularly struck with a small,
+thin, dark Spaniard, who told very feelingly how the night before, on
+returning home from a party to his own lodgings, on passing through the
+piazza, he stumbled against something heavy that lay in his grass--hammock,
+which usually hung there.  He called for a light, when, to his horror, he
+found the body of his old and faithful valet lying in it, dead and cold,
+with a knife sticking under his fifth rib--no doubt intended for his
+master. The speaker was Bolivar. About midnight, Mr Treenail returned, we
+shook hands with Mr-----, and once more shoved off; and, guided by the
+lights shown on board the Torch, we were safe home again by three in the
+morning, when we immediately made sail, and nothing particular happened
+until we arrived within a day's sail of New Providence.  It seemed, that
+about a week before, a large American brig, bound from Havanna to Boston,
+had been captured in this very channel by one of our men--of--war
+schooners, and carried into Nassau; out of which port, for their own
+security, the uthorities had fitted a small schooner, carrying six guns
+and twenty--four men.  She was commanded by a very gallant fellow--there
+is no disputing that--and he must needs emulate the conduct of the officer
+who had made the capture--for in a fine clear night, when all the officers
+were below rummaging in their kits for the killing things they should
+array themselves in on the morrow, so as to smite the Fair of New
+Providence to the heart at a blow--Whiss--a shot flew over our mast--head.
+
+"A small schooner lying--to right ahead, sir," sung out the boatswain from
+the forecastle.
+
+Before we could beat to quarters, another sung between our masts.  We kept
+steadily on our course, and as we approached our pigmy antagonist, he bore
+up.  Presently we were alongside of him.
+
+"Heave--to," hailed the strange sail; "heave--to or I'll sink you."
+
+The devil you will, you midge, thought I.
+
+The captain took the trumpet--"Schooner, ahoy"--no answer "D--n your blood,
+sir, if you don't let every thing go by the run this instant, I'll fire a
+broadside.  Strike, sir, to his Britannic Majesty's sloop Torch."
+
+The poor fellow commanding the schooner had by this time found out his
+mistake and immediately came on board, where, instead of being lauded for
+his gallantry, I am sorry to say he was roundly rated for his want of
+discernment in mistaking his Majesty's cruiser for a Yankee merchantman.
+
+Next forenoon we arrived at Nassau.
+
+
+In a week after we again sailed for Bermuda, having taken on board ten
+American skippers, and several other Yankees, as prisoners of war.
+
+For the first three days after we cleared the Passages. we had fine
+weather. Wind at east south--east; but after that it came on to blow from
+the north--west, and so continued without intermission during the whole of
+the passage to Bermuda.  On the fourth morning after we left Nassau, we
+descried a sail in the south--east quarter, and immediately made sail in
+chase.  We overhauled her about noon; she hove--to, after being fired at
+repeatedly; and, on boarding her, we found she was a Swede from Charleston,
+bound to Havre--de--Grace.  All the letters we could find on board were
+very unceremoniously broken open, and nothing having transpired that could
+identify the cargo as enemy's property, we were bundling over the side,
+when a nautical looking subject, who had attracted my attention from the
+first, put in his oar.
+
+"Lieutenant," said he, "will you allow me to put this barrel of New York
+apples into the boat as a present to Captain Deadeye, from Captain-----of
+the United States navy?"
+
+Mr Treenail bowed, and said he would; and we shoved off and got on board
+again, and now there was the devil to pay, from the perplexity old Deadeye
+was thrown into, as to whether, here in the heat of the American war, he
+was bound to take this American captain prisoner or not. I was no party to
+the councils of my superiors, of course, but the foreign ship was finally
+allowed to continue her course.
+
+The next day I had the forenoon watch; the weather had lulled unexpectedly,
+nor was there much sea, and the deck was all alive, to take advantage of
+the fine blink, when the man at the mast--head sung out--"Breakers right
+ahead, sir."
+
+"Breakers!" said Mr Splinter, in great astonishment.  "Breakers! why the
+man must be mad--I say, Jenkins"
+
+"Breakers close under the bows," sung out the boatswain from forward.
+
+"The devil," quoth Splinter, and he ran along the gangway, and ascended the
+forecastle, while I kept close to his heels.  We looked out a--head, and
+there we certainly did see a splashing, and boiling, and white foaming of
+the ocean, that unquestionably looked very like breakers.  Gradually, this
+splashing and foaming appearance took a circular whisking shape, as if the
+clear green sea, for a space of a hundred yards in diameter, had been
+stirred about by a gigantic invisible spurtle, until every thing hissed
+again; and the curious part of it was, that the agitation of the water
+seemed to keep ahead of us, as if the breeze which impelled us had also
+floated it onwards.  At length the whirling circle of white foam ascended
+higher and higher, and then gradually contracted itself into a spinning
+black tube, which wavered about, for all the world, like a gigantic
+loch--leech, held by the tail between the finger and thumb, while it was
+poking its vast snout about in the clouds in search of a spot to fasten on.
+
+"Is the boat gun on the forecastle loaded?" said Captain Deadeye.
+It is, sir."
+
+"Then luff a bit--that will do--fire."
+
+The gun was discharged, and down rushed the black wavering pillar in a
+watery avalanche, and in a minute after the dark, heaving billows rolled o
+ver the spot whereout it arose, as if no such thing had ever been.
+
+This said troubling of the waters was neither more nor less than a
+waterspout, which again is neither more nor less than a whirlwind at sea,
+which gradually whisks the water round and round, and up and up, as you see
+straws so raised, until it reaches a certain height, when it invariably
+breaks.  Before this I had thought that a waterspout was created by some
+next to supernatural exertion of the power of the Deity, in order to suck
+up water into the clouds, that they, like the wine--skins in Spain, may be
+filled with rain.
+
+The morning after the weather was clear and beautiful, although the wind
+blew half a'gale.  Nothing particular happened until about seven o'clock in
+the evening. I had been invited to dine with the gunroom officers this day,
+and every thing was going on smooth and comfortable, when Mr Splinter
+spoke. "I say, master, don't you smell gunpowder?"
+
+"Yes I do," said the little master, "or something deuced like it."
+
+To explain the particular comfort of our position, it may be right to
+mention that the magazine of a brig sloop is exactly under the gunroom.
+Three of the American skippers had been quartered on the gunroom mess, and
+they were all at table.  Snuff, snuff, smelled one, and another sniffled,
+
+"Gunpowder, I guess, and in a state of ignition."
+
+"Will you not send for the gunner, sir?" said the third.
+
+Splinter did not like it, I saw, and this quailed me.
+
+The captain's bell rang.  "What smell of brimstone is that, steward?" "I
+really can't tell," said the man, trembling from head to foot; "Mr Splinter
+has sent for the gunner, sir."
+
+"The devil!" said Deadeye, as he hurried on deck.  We all followed.  A
+search was made.
+
+"Some matches have caught in the magazine," said one.
+
+"We shall be up and away like sky--rockets," said another.
+
+Several of the American masters ran out on the jib--boom, coveting the
+temporary security of being so far removed from the seat of the expected
+explosion, and all was alarm and confusion, until it was ascertained that
+two of the boys, little skylarking vagabonds, had stolen some pistol
+cartridges, and had been making lightning, as it is called, by holding a
+lighted candle between the fingers, and putting some loose powder into the
+palm of the hand, and then chucking it up into the flame.  They got a sound
+flogging, on a very unpoetical part of their corpuses, and once more the
+ship subsided into her usual orderly discipline.  The northwester still
+continued, with a clear blue sky, without a cloud overhead by day, and a
+bright cold moon by night.  It blew so hard for the three succeeding days,
+that we could not carry more than close reefed topsails to it, and a reefed
+foresail.  Indeed, towards six bells in the forenoon watch, it came
+thundering down with such violence, and the sea increased so much, that we
+had to hand the fore--topsail.
+
+This was by no means an easy job.  "Ease her a bit,"  said the first
+lieutenant, "there--shake the wind out of her sails for a moment, until the
+men get the canvass"--whirl, a poor fellow pitched off the lee fore yardarm
+into the sea.  "Up with the helm--heave him the bight of a rope." We kept
+away, but all was confusion, until an American midshipman, one of the
+prisoners on board, hove the bight of a rope at him.  The man got it under
+his arms, and after hauling him along for a hundred yards at the least--and
+one may judge of the velocity with which he was dragged through the water,
+by the fact that it took the united strain of ten powerful men to get him
+in--he was brought safely on board, pale and blue, when we found that the
+running of the rope had crushed in his broad chest below his arms, as if it
+had been a girl's waist, cutting into the very muscles of it and of his
+back half an inch deep.  He had to be bled before he could breathe, and it
+was an hour before the circulation could be restored, by the joint
+exertions of the surgeon and gunroom steward, chafing him with spirits and
+camphor, after he had been stripped and stowed away between the blankets in
+his hammock.
+
+The same afternoon we fell in with a small prize to the squadron in the
+Chesapeake, a dismasted schooner, manned by a prize crew of a midshipman
+and six men.  She had a signal of distress, an American ensign, with the
+union down, hoisted on the jury--mast, across which there was rigged a
+solitary lug--sail.  It was blowing so hard that we had some difficulty in
+boarding her, when we found she was a Baltimore pilot--boat--built
+schooner, of about 70 tons burden, laden with flour, and bound for
+Bermuda.  But three days before, in a sudden squall, they had carried away
+both masts short by the board, and the only spar which they had been able
+to rig, was a spare topmast which they had jammed into one of the pumps
+fortunately she was as tight as a bottle--and stayed it the best way they
+could.  The captain offered to take the little fellow who had charge of
+her, and his crew and cargo, on board, and then scuttle her; but no--all
+he wanted was a cask of water and some biscuit; and having had a glass of
+grog, he trundled over the side again, and returned to his desolate
+command.  However, he afterwards brought his prize safe into Bermuda.
+
+The weather still continued very rough, but we saw nothing until the second
+evening after this.  The forenoon had been even more boisterous than any of
+the preceding, and we were all fagged enough with "make sail," and "shorten
+sail," and "all hands," the whole day through; and as the night fell, I
+found myself, for the fourth time, in the maintop.  The men had just lain
+in from the main topsail yard, when we heard the watch called on deck,
+"Starboard watch, ahoy,"--which was a cheery sound to us of the larboard,
+who were thus released from duty on deck and allowed to go below.
+
+The men were scrambling down the weather shrouds, and I was preparing to
+follow them, when I jammed my left foot in the grating of the top, and
+capsized on my nose. I had been up nearly the whole of the previous night,
+and on deck the whole of the day, and actively employed too, as during the
+greatest part of it it blew a gale. I stooped down in some pain, to see
+what had bolted me to the grating, but I had no sooner extricated my foot,
+than, over--worked and over fatigued as I was, I fell over in the soundest
+sleep that ever I have enjoyed before or since, the back of my neck resting
+on a coil of rope, so that my head hung down within it.
+
+The rain all this time was beating on me, and I was drenched to the skin. I
+must have slept for four hours or so, when I was awakened by a rough thump
+on the side from the stumbling foot of the captain of the top, the word
+having been passed to shake a reef out of the topsails, the wind having
+rather suddenly gone down.  It was done; and now broad awake, I determined
+not to be caught napping again, so I descended, and swung myself in on deck
+out of the main rigging, just as Mr Treenail was mustering the crew at
+eight bells.  When I landed on the quarterdeck, there he stood abaft the
+binnacle, with the light shining on his face, his glazed hat glancing, and
+the rain--drop sparkling at the brim of it.  He had noticed me the moment I
+descended.
+
+"Heyday, Master Cringle, you are surely out of your watch.  Why, what are
+you doing here, eh?"
+
+I stepped up to him, and told him the truth, that, being over fatigued, I
+had fallen asleep in the top.
+
+"Well, well, boy," said he, "never mind, go below, and turn in; if you
+don't take your rest, you never will be a sailor."
+
+"But what do you see aloft?" glancing his eye upwards, and all the crew on
+deck as I passed them looked anxiously up also amongst the rigging, as if
+wondering what I saw there, for I had been so chilled in my noose, that my
+neck, from resting in the cold on the coil of rope, had become stiffened
+and rigid to an intolerable degree; and although, when I first came on
+deck, I had by a strong exertion brought my caput to its proper bearings,
+yet the moment I was dismissed by my superior officer, I for my own
+comfort was glad to conform to the contraction of the muscle, whereby I
+once more staved along the deck, glowering up into the heavens, as if I
+had seen some wonderful sight there.
+
+"What do you see aloft?" repeated Mr Treenail, while the crew, greatly
+puzzled, continued to follow my eye, as they thought, and to stare up into
+the rigging.
+
+"Why, sir, I have thereby got a stiff neck--that's all, sir."
+
+"Go and turn in at once, my good boy--make haste, now--tell our steward to
+give you a glass of hot grog, and mind your hand that you don't get sick."
+
+I did as I was desired, swallowed the grog, and turned in; but I could not
+have been in bed above an hour, when the drum beat to quarters, and I had
+once more to bundle out on the cold wet deck, where I found all excitement.
+At the time I speak of, we had been beaten by the Americans in several
+actions of single ships, and our discipline had improved in proportion as
+we came to learn by sad experience that the enemy was not to be
+undervalued. I found that there was a ship in sight, right a--head of us
+apparently carrying all sail.  A group of officers were on the forecastle
+with night--glasses, the whole crew being stationed in dark clusters round
+the guns at quarters.  Several of the American skippers were forward
+amongst us, and they were of opinion that the chase was a man--of--war,
+although our own people seemed to doubt this.  One of the skippers
+insisted that she was the Hornet, from the unusual shortness of her lower
+masts, and the immense squareness of her yards.  But the puzzle was, if it
+were the Hornet, why she did not shorten sail.  Still this might be
+accounted for, by her either wishing to make out what we were before she
+engaged us, or she might be clearing for action.  At this moment a whole
+cloud of studdingsails were blown from the yards as if the booms had been
+carrots; and to prove that the chase was keeping a bright look--out, she
+immediately kept away, and finally bore up dead before the wind, under the
+impression, no doubt, that she would draw a--head of us, from her gear
+being entire, before we could rig out our light sails again.
+
+And so she did for a time, but at length we got within gun--shot.  The
+American masters were now ordered below, the hatches were clapped on, and
+the word passed to see all clear.  Our shot was by this time flying over
+and over her, and it was evident she was not a man--of--war.  We peppered
+away--she could not even be a privateer; we were close under her
+lee--quarter, and yet she had never fired a shot; and her large swaggering
+Yankee ensign was now run up to the peak, only to be hauled down the next
+moment.  Hurrah! a large cotton ship, from Charlestown to Bourdeaux, prize
+to H.M.S. Torch.
+
+She was taken possession of, and proved to be the Natches, of four hundred
+tons burden, fully loaded with cotton.
+
+By the time we got the crew on board, and the second lieutenant, with a
+prize crew of fifteen men, had taken charge, the weather began to lour
+again, nevertheless we took the prize in tow, and continued on our voyage
+for the next three days, without any thing particular happening.  It was
+the middle watch, and I was sound asleep, when I was startled by a violent
+jerking of my hammock, and a cry "that the brig was amongst the breakers."
+I ran on deck in my shirt, where I found all hands, and a scene of
+confusion such as I never had witnessed before.  The gale had increased,
+yet the prize had not been cast off, and the consequence was, that by some
+mismanagement or carelessness, the swag of the large ship had suddenly hove
+the brig in the wind, and taken the sails a--back.  We accordingly fetched
+stern way, and ran foul of the prize, and there we were, in a heavy sea,
+with our stern grinding against the cotton ship's high quarter.
+
+The main boom, by the first rasp that took place after I came on deck, was
+broken short off, and nearly twelve feet of it hove right in over the
+taffril; the vessels then closed, and the next rub ground off the ship's
+mizzen channel as clean as if it had been sawed away.  Officers shouting,
+men swearing, rigging cracking, the vessels crashing and thumping together,
+I thought we were gone, when the first lieutenant seized his trumpet
+"Silence, men,--hold your tongues, you cowards, and mind the word of
+command!"
+
+The effect was magical.--"Brace round the foreyard; round with it--set the
+jib--that's it--fore--topmast stay--sail--haul--never mind if the gale
+takes it out of the bolt rope"--a thundering flap, and away it flew in
+truth down to leeward, like a puff of white smoke.--"Never mind, men, the
+jib stands.  Belay all that--down with the helm, now don't you see she has
+sternway yet?  Zounds! we shall be smashed to atoms if you don't mind your
+hands, you lubbers--main--topsail sheets let fly--there she pays off, and
+has headway once more, that's it--right your helm now--never mind his
+spanker--boom, the forestay will stand it--there--up with the helm, sir
+we have cleared him hurrah!"--And a near thing it was too but we soon had
+every thing snug; and although the gale continued without any intermission
+for ten days, at length we ran in and anchored with our prize in Five
+Fathom Hole, off the entrance to St George's Harbour.
+
+It was lucky for us that we got to anchor at the time we did, for that same
+afternoon, one of the most tremendous gales of wind from the westward came
+on that I ever saw.  Fortunately it was steady and did not veer about, and
+having good ground--tackle down, we rode it out well enough.  The effect
+was very uncommon; the wind was howling over our mast--heads, and amongst
+the cedar bushes on the cliffs above, while on deck it was nearly calm, and
+there was very little swell, being a weather shore; but half a mile out at
+sea all was white foam, and the tumbling waves seemed to meet from north
+and south, leaving a space of smooth water under the lee of the island,
+shaped like the tail of a comet, tapering away, and gradually roughening
+and becoming more stormy, until the roaring billows once more owed
+allegiance to the genius of the storm.
+
+There we rode, with three anchors a--head, in safety through the night; and
+next day, availing of a temporary lull, we ran up, and anchored off the
+Tanks.  Three days after this, the American frigate President was brought
+in by the Endymion, and the rest of the squadron.
+
+I went on board, in common with every officer in the fleet, and certainly I
+never saw a more superb vessel; her scantling was that of a seventy--four,
+and she appeared to have been fitted with great cares.  I got a week's
+leave at this time, and, as I had letters to several families, I contrived
+to spend my time pleasantly enough.
+
+Bermuda, as all the world knows, is a cluster of islands in the middle of
+the Atlantic.  There are Lord knows how many of them, but the beauty of the
+little straits and creeks which divide them, no man can describe who has
+not seen them.  The town of Saint George's, for instance, looks as if the
+houses were cut out of chalk; and one evening the family where I was on a
+visit proceeded to the main island, Hamilton, to attend a ball there.  We
+had to cross three ferries, although the distance was not above nine miles,
+if so far.  The Mudian women are unquestionably beautiful--so thought T
+homas Moore, a tolerable judge, before me. By the by, touching this Mudian
+ball, it was a very gay affair--the women pleasant and beautiful; but all
+the men, when they speak, or are spoken to, shut one eye and spit;--a lucid
+and succinct description of a community.
+
+The second day of my sojourn was fine--the first fine day since our arrival
+and with several young ladies of the family, I was prowling through the
+cedar wood above St George's, when a dark good--looking man passed us; he
+was dressed in tight worsted net pantaloons and Hessian boots, and wore a
+blue frock--coat and two large epaulets, with rich French bullion, and a
+round hat.  On passing he touched his hat with much grace, and in the
+evening I met him in society.  It was Commodore Decatur.  He was very much
+a Frenchman in manner, or, I should rather say, in look, for although very
+well bred, he, for one ingredient, by no means possessed a Frenchman's
+volubility; still, he was an exceedingly agreeable and very handsome man.
+
+The following day we spent in a pleasure cruise amongst the three hundred
+and sixty--five islands, many of them not above an acre in extent--fancy an
+island of an acre in extent!--with a solitary house, a small garden, a
+red--skinned family, a piggery, and all around clear deep pellucid water.
+None of the islands, or islets, rise to any great height, but they all
+shoot precipitously out of the water, as if the whole group, had originally
+been one huge platform of rock, with numberless grooves subsequently
+chiselled out in it by art.
+
+
+We had to wind our way amongst these manifold small channels for two hours
+before we reached the gentleman's house where we had been invited to dine;
+at length, on turning a corner, with both latteen sails drawing
+beautifully, we ran bump on a shoal; there was no danger, and knowing that
+the Mudians were capital sailors, I sat still.  Not so Captain K-----, a
+round plump little homo,--"Shove her off, my boys, shove her off." She
+would not move, and thereupon he in a fever of gallantry jumped overboard
+up to the waist in full fig; and one of the men following his example, we
+were soon afloat.  The ladies applauded, and the Captain sat in his wet
+breaks for the rest of the voyage, in all the consciousness of being
+considered a hero.  Ducks and onions are the grand staple of Bermuda, but
+there was a fearful dearth of both at the time I speak of; a knot of young
+West India merchants, who, with heavy purses and large credits on England,
+had at this time domiciled themselves in St George's, to batten on the
+spoils of poor Jonathan, having monopolized all the good things of the
+place. I happened to be acquainted with one of them, and thereby had less
+reason to complain, but many a poor fellow, sent ashore on duty, had to put
+up with but Lenten fair at the taverns.  At length, having refitted, we
+sailed, in company with the Rayo frigate, with a convoy of three
+transports, freighted with a regiment for New Orleans, and several
+merchantmen, bound for the West Indies.
+
+"The still vexed Bermoothes"--I arrived at them in a gale of wind, and I
+sailed from them in a gale of wind.  What the climate may be in the summer
+I don't know; but during the time I was there, it was one storm after
+another.
+
+We sailed in the evening with the moon at full, and the wind at west--north
+--west.  So soon as we got from under the lee of the land, the breeze
+struck us, and it came on to blow like thunder, so that we were all soon
+reduced to our storm staysails; and there we were, transports, merchantmen,
+and men--of--war, rising on the mountainous billows one moment, and the
+next losing sight of every thing but the water and sky in the deep trough
+of the sea, while the seething foam was blown over us in showers from the
+curling manes of the roaring waves.  But overhead, all this while, it was
+as clear as a lovely winter moon could make it, and the stars shone
+brightly in the deep blue sky; there was not even a thin fleecy shred of
+cloud racking across the moon's disk.  Oh, the glories of a northwester!
+
+But the devil seize such glory!  Glory, indeed! with a fleet of transports,
+and a regiment of soldiers on board!  Glory! why, I daresay five hundred
+rank and file, at the fewest, were all cascading at one and the same
+moment, a thousand poor fellows turned outside in, like so many pairs of
+old stockings.  Any glory in that?  But to proceed.
+
+Next morning the gale still continued, and when the day broke, there was
+the frigate standing across our bows, rolling and pitching, as she tore her
+way through the boiling sea, under a close--reefed main--topsail and reefed
+foresail, with topgallant--yards and royal masts, and every thing that
+could be struck with safety in war time, down on deck.  There she lay with
+her clear black bends, and bright white streaks and long tier of cannon on
+the maindeck, and the carronades on the quarterdeck and forecastle grinning
+through the ports in the black bulwarks, while the white hammocks,
+carefully covered by the hammock--cloths, crowned the defences of the
+gallant frigate fore and aft, as she delved through the green surge,--one
+minute rolling and rising on the curling white crest of a mountainous sea,
+amidst a hissing snowstorm of spray, with her bright copper glancing from
+stem to stem, and her scanty white canvass swelling aloft, and twenty feet
+of her keel forward occasionally hove into the air clean out of the water,
+as if she had been a sea--bird rushing to take wing,--and the next, sinking
+entirely out of sight, hull, masts, and rigging, behind an intervening sea,
+that rose in hoarse thunder between us, threatening to overwhelm both us
+and her.  As for the transports, the largest of the three had lost her fore
+topmast, and had bore up under her foresail; another was also scudding
+under a close reefed fore--topsail; but the third or head--quarter ship was
+still lying to windward, under her storm stay--sails.  None of the merchant
+vessels were to be seen, having been compelled to bear up in the night, and
+to run before it under bare poles.
+
+At length, as the sun rose, we got before the wind, and it soon moderated
+so far, that we could carry reefed topsails and foresail; and away we all
+bowled, with a clear, deep, cold, blue sky, and a bright sun overhead, and
+a stormy leaden--coloured ocean, with whitish green--crested billows,
+below. The sea continued to go down, and the wind to slacken, until the
+afternoon, when the Commodore made the signal for Torch to send, a boat's
+crew, the instant it could be done with safety, on board the dismasted
+ship, to assist in repairing damages, and in getting up a
+jury--fore--topmast.
+
+The damaged ship was at this time on our weather--quarter; we accordingly
+handed the fore--topsail, and presently she was alongside.  We hailed her,
+that we intended to send a boat on board, and desired her to heave--to, as
+we did, and presently she rounded to under our lee.  One of the
+quarter--boats was manned, with three of the carpenter's crew, and six good
+men over and above her complement; but it was no easy matter to get on
+board of her, let me tell you, after she had been lowered, carefully
+watching the rolls, with four hands in.  The moment she touched the water,
+the tackles were cleverly unhooked, and the rest of us tumbled on board,
+shin leather growing scarce, when we shoved off.  With great difficulty,
+and not without wet jackets, we, the supernumeraries, got on board, and the
+boat returned to the Torch.  The evening when we landed in the lobsterbox,
+as Jack loves to designate a transport, was too far advanced for us to do
+anything towards refitting that night; and the confusion, and uproar, and
+numberless abominations of the crowded craft, were irksome to a greater
+degree than I expected even, after having been accustomed to the strict and
+orderly discipline of a man--of--war.  The following forenoon the Torch was
+ordered by signal to chase in the south--east quarter, and hauling out from
+the fleet, she was soon out of sight.
+
+"There goes my house and home," said I, and a feeling of desolateness came
+over me, that I would have been ashamed at the time to have acknowledged.
+We stood on, and worked hard all day in repairing the damage sustained
+during the gale.
+
+At length dinner was announced, and I was invited, as the officer in charge
+of the seamen, to go down.  The party in the cabin consisted of an old
+gizzened Major with a brown wig, and a voice melodious as the sharpening of
+a saw--I fancied sometimes that the vibration created by it set the very
+glasses in the steward's pantry a--ringing three captains and six
+subalterns, every man of whom, as the devil would have it, played on the
+flute, and drew bad sketches, and kept journals.  Most of them were very
+white and blue in the gills when we sat down, and others of a dingy sort
+of whitey--brown, while they ogled the viands in a most suspicious manner.
+Evidently most of them had but small confidence in their moniplies; and one
+or two, as the ship gave a heavier roll than usual, looked wistfully
+towards the door, and half rose from their chairs, as if in act to bolt.
+However, hot brandy grog being the order of the day, we all, landsmen and
+sailors, got on astonishingly, and numberless long yarns were spun of what
+"what's--his--name of this, and so--and--so of t'other, did or did not do."
+
+About half--past five in the evening, the captain of the transport, or
+rather the agent, an old lieutenant in the navy, and our host, rang his
+bell for the steward.
+
+"Whereabouts are we in the fleet, steward?" said the ancient.
+
+"The stern most ship of all, sir," said the man.
+
+"Where is the Commodore?" "About three miles a--head, sir."
+
+"And the Torch, has she rejoined us?"
+
+"No, sir; she has been out of sight these two hours; when last seen she was
+in chase of something in the south--east quarter, and carrying all the sail
+she could stagger under."
+
+"Very well, very well."
+
+A song from Master Waistbelt, one of the young officers.  Before he had
+concluded, the mate came down.  By this time it was near sun--down.
+
+"Shall we shake a reef out of the main and mizzen--topsails, sir, and set
+the mainsail and spanker?  The wind has lulled, sir, and there is a strange
+sail in the northwest that seems to be dodging us--but she may be one of
+the merchantmen after all, sir."
+
+"Never mind, Mr Leechline," said our gallant captain.  "Mr Bandalier--a
+song if you please."
+
+Now the young soldiers on board happened to be men of the world, and
+Bandalier, who did not sing, turned off the request with a good--humoured
+laugh, alleging his inability with much suavity; but the old rough Turk of
+a tar--bucket chose to fire at this, and sang out--"Oh, if you don't choose
+to sing when you are asked, and to sport your damned fine airs"
+
+"Mr Crowfoot"
+
+"Captain," said the agent, piqued at having his title by courtesy withheld.
+
+"By no mean," said Major Sawrasp, who had spoken--"I believe I am speaking
+to Lieutenant Crowfoot, agent for transport No.--, wherein it so happens I
+am commanding officer--so"--
+
+Old Crowfoot saw he was in the wrong box, and therefore hove about, and
+backed out in good time--making the amende as smoothly as his gruff nature
+admitted, and trying to look pleased.
+
+Presently the same bothersome mate came down again--"The strange sail is
+creeping up on our quarter, sir."
+
+"Ay?" said Crowfoot, "how does she lay?"
+
+"She is hauled by the wind on the starboard tack, sir," continued the mate.
+
+We now went on deck, and found that our suspicious friend had shortened
+sail, as if he had made us out, and wag afraid to approach, or was lying by
+until nightfall.
+
+Sawrasp had before this, with the tact and ease of a soldier and a
+gentleman, soldered his feud with Crowfoot, and, with the rest of the
+lobsters, was full of fight.  The sun at length set, and the night closed
+in when the old major again addressed Crowfoot.
+
+"My dear fellow, can't you wait a bit, and let us have a rattle at that
+chap?" And old Crowfoot, who never bore a grudge long, seemed much inclined
+to fall in with the soldier's views; and, in fine, although the weather was
+now moderate, he did not make sail.  Presently the Commodore fired a gun,
+and showed lights.  It was the signal to close.  "Oh, time enough," said
+old Crowfoot--"what is the old man afraid of?" Another gun and a fresh c
+onstellation on board the frigate.  It was "an enemy in the northwest
+quarter."
+
+"Hah, hah," sung out the agent, "is it so?  Major, what say you to a brush
+let her close, eh?--should like to pepper her--wouldn't you--three hundred
+men, eh?"
+
+By this time we were all on deck--the schooner came bowling along under a
+reefed mainsail and jib, now rising, and presently disappearing behind the
+stormy heavings of the roaring sea, the rising moon shining brightly on her
+canvass pinions, as if she had been an albatross skimming along the surface
+of the foaming water, while her broad white streak glanced like a silver
+ribbon along her clear black side. She was a very large craft of her class,
+long and low in the water, and evidently very fast; and it was now clear,
+from our having been unable as yet to sway up our fore--topmast, that she
+took us for a disabled merchantman, which might be cut off from the convoy.
+
+As she approached, we could perceive by the bright moonlight, that she had
+six guns of a side, and two long ones on pivots, the one forward on the
+forecastle, and the other choke up to the mainmast.
+
+Her deck was crowded with dark figures, pike and cutlass in hand; we were
+by this time so near that we could see pistols in their belts, and a
+trumpet in the hand of a man who stood in the fore rigging, with his feet
+on the hammock netting, and his back against the shrouds.  We had cleared
+away our six eighteen--pound carronades, which composed our starboard
+broadside, and loaded them, each with a round shot, and a bag of two
+hundred musket--balls, while three hundred soldiers in their foraging
+jackets, and with their loaded muskets in their hands, were lying on the
+deck, concealed by the quarters, while the blue jackets were sprawling in
+groups round the carronades.
+
+I was lying down beside the gallant old Major, who had a bugler close to
+him, while Crowfoot was standing on the gun nearest us; but getting tired
+of this recumbent position, I crept aft, until I could see through a spare
+port.
+
+"Why don't the rascals fire?" quoth Sawrasp.
+
+"Oh, that would alarm the Commodore.  They intend to walk quietly on board
+of us; but they will find themselves mistaken a little," whispered
+Crowfoot.
+
+"Mind, men, no firing till the bugle sounds," said the Major.
+
+The word was passed along.
+
+The schooner was by this time ploughing through it within half pistolshot,
+with the white water dashing away from her bows, and buzzing past her
+sides her crew as thick as peas on her deck.  Once or twice she hauled her
+wind a little, and then again kept away from us, as if irresolute what to
+do.  At length, without hailing, and all silent as the grave, she put her
+helm a--starboard, and ranged alongside.
+
+"Now, my boys, give it him," shouted Crowfoot--"Fire!"
+
+"Ready, men," shouted the Major--"Present--fire!"
+
+The bugles sounded, the cannon roared, the musketry rattled, and the men
+cheered, and all was hurra, and fire, and fury.  The breeze was strong
+enough to carry all the smoke forward, and I saw the deck of the schooner,
+where the moment before all was still and motionless, and filled with dark
+figures, till there scarcely appeared standing room, at once converted into
+a shambles.  The blasting fiery tempest had laid low nearly the whole mass,
+like a maize plant before a hurricane; and such a cry arose, as if "Men
+fought on earth, and fiends in upper air."
+
+Scarcely a man was on his legs, the whole crew seemed to have been levelled
+with the deck, many dead, no doubt, and most wounded, while we could see
+numbers endeavouring to creep towards the hatches, while the black blood,
+in horrible streams, gushed and gurgled through her scuppers down her
+sides, and across the bright white streak that glanced in the moonlight.
+
+Some one on board of the privateer now hailed, "We have surrendered; cease
+firing, sir." But devil a bit--we continued blazing away--a lantern was run
+up to his main gaff, and then lowered again.
+
+"We have struck, sir," shouted another voice, "don't murder us don't fire,
+sir, for Godsake."
+
+But fire we still did; no sailor has the least compunction at even running
+down a privateer.  Mercy to privateersmen is unknown.  "Give them the
+stem," is the word, the curs being regarded by Jack at the best as
+highwaymen; so, when he found we still peppered away, and sailing two feet
+for our one, the schooner at length, in their desperation, hauled her
+wind, and speedily got beyond range of our carronades, having all this
+time never fired a shot. Shortly after this we ran--under the Rayo's stern
+she was lying to.
+
+"Mr Crowfoot what have you been after? I have a great mind to report you,
+sir."
+
+"We could not help it, sir," sung out Crowfoot in a most dolorous tone, in
+answer to the captain of the frigate; 'we have been nearly taken, sir, by
+a privateer, sir--an immense vessel, sir, that sails, like a witch, sir."
+
+"Keep close in my wake then, sir," rejoined the captain, in a gruff tone,
+and immediately the Rayo bore up.
+
+Next morning we were all carrying as much sail as we could crowd.  By this
+time we had gotten our jury--fore--topmast up, and the Rayo, having kept
+astern in the night, was now under topsails, and top--gallant sails, with
+the wet canvass at the head of the sails, showing that the reefs had been
+freshly shaken out--rolling wedge like on the swell, and rapidly shooting
+a--head, to resume her station.  As she passed us, and let fall her
+foresail, she made the signal to make more sail, her object being to get
+through the Caicos Passage, into which we were now entering, before n
+ightfall.  It was eleven o'clock in the forenoon.  A fine clear breezy day,
+fresh and pleasant, sometimes cloudy overhead, but always breaking away
+again, with a bit of a sneezer, and a small shower.  As the sun rose there
+were indications of squalls in the north--eastern quarter, and about noon
+one of them was whitening to windward.  So "hands by the topgallant
+clew--lines" was the word, and we were all standing by to shorten sail,
+when the Commodore came to the wind as sharp and suddenly as if he had
+anchored; but on a second look, I saw his sheets were let fly, haulyards
+let go, and apparently all was confusion on board of her.  I ran to the
+side and looked over.  The long hearing dark blue swell had changed into a
+light green hissing ripple.
+
+"Zounds, Captain Crowfoot, shoal water--why it breaks--we shall be ashore!"
+
+"Down with the helm--brace round the yards," shouted Crow foot; "that's it
+steady--luff, my man;" and the danger was so imminent that even the
+studding--sail haulyards were not let go and the consequence was, that the
+booms snapped off like carrots, as we came to the wind.
+
+"Lord help us, we shall never weather that foaming reef there set the
+spanker--haul out--haul down the foretopmast--staysail--so, mind your luff,
+my man."
+
+The frigate now began to fire right and left, and the hissing of the shot
+overhead was a fearful augury of what was to take place; so sudden was the
+accident, that they had not had time to draw the round shot.  The other
+transports were equally fortunate with ourselves, in weathering the shoal,
+and presently we were all close hauled to windward of the reef, until we
+weathered the easternmost prong, when we bore up.  But, poor Rayo! she had
+struck on a coral reef, where the Admiralty charts laid down fifteen
+fathoms water; and although there was some talk at the time of an error in
+judgment, in not having the lead going in the chains, still do I believe
+there was no fault lying at the door of her gallant captain.  By the time
+we had weathered the reef, the frigate had swung off from the pinnacle of
+rock on which she had been in a manner impaled, and was making all the sail
+she could, with a fothered sail under her bows, and chain--pumps clanging,
+and whole cataracts of water gushing from them, clear white jets spouting
+from all the scuppers, fore and aft.  She made the signal to close.  The
+next, alas! was the British ensign, seized, union down in the main rigging,
+the sign of the uttermost distress.  Still we all bowled along together,
+but her yards were not squared, nor her sails set with her customary
+precision, and her lurches became more and more sickening, until at length
+she rolled so heavily, that she dipped both yardarms alternately in the
+water, and reeled to and fro like a drunken man.
+
+"What is that splash?"
+
+It was the larboard--bow long eighteen--pound gun hove overboard, and
+watching the roll, the whole broadside, one after another, was cast into
+the sea.  The clang of the chain--pumps increased, the water rushed in at
+one side of the main--deck, and out at the other, in absolute cascades from
+the ports.  At this moment the whole fleet of boats were alongside, keeping
+way with the ship, in the light breeze.  Her main--topsail was hove aback,
+while the captain's voice resounded through the ship.
+
+"Now, men--all hands--bags and hammocks--starboard watch, the starboard
+side--larboard watch, the larboard side--no rushing now--she will swim this
+hour to come."
+
+The bags, and hammocks, and officers' kits, were handed into the boats; the
+men were told off over the side, as quietly by watches as if at muster, the
+officers last.  At length the first lieutenant came down.  By this time she
+was settling perceptibly in the water; but the old captain still stood on
+the gangway, holding by the iron stanchion, where, taking off his hat, he
+remained uncovered for a moment, with the tears standing in his eyes.  He
+then replaced it, descended, and took his place in the ship's launch--the
+last man to leave the ship; and there was little time to spare, for we had
+scarcely shoved off a few yards, to clear the spars of the wreck, when she
+sended forward, heavily and sickly, on the long swell.--She never rose to
+the opposite heave of the sea again, but gradually sank by the head.  The
+hull disappeared slowly and dignifiedly, the ensign fluttered and vanished
+beneath the dark ocean--I could have fancied reluctantly as if it had been
+drawn down through a trap--door.  The topsails next disappeared, the
+fore--topsail sinking fastest; and last of all, the white pennant at the
+main--topgallant--mast head, after flickering and struggling in the wind,
+flew up in the setting sun as if imbued with--life, like a stream of white
+fire, or as if it had been the spirit leaving the body, and was then drawn
+down into the abyss, and the last vestige of the Rayo vanished for ever.
+The crew, as if moved by one common impulse, gave three cheers.
+
+The captain now stood up in his boat--"Men, the Rayo is no more, but it is
+my duty to tell you, that although you are now to be distributed amongst
+the transports, you are still amenable to martial law; I am aware, men,
+this hint may not he necessary, still it is right you should know it."
+
+When the old hooker clipped out of sight, there was not a dry eye in the
+whole fleet.  "There she goes, the dear old beauty," said one of her crew.
+"There goes the blessed old black b--h," quoth another.  "Ah, many a merry
+night have we had in the clever little craft," quoth a third; and there was
+really a tolerable shedding of tears and squirting of tobacco juice.  But
+the blue ripple had scarcely blown over the glasslike surface of the sea
+where she had sunk, when the buoyancy of young hearts, with the prospect of
+a good furlough amongst the lobster boxes for a time, seemed to be
+uppermost amongst the men.  The officers, I saw and knew, felt very
+differently.
+
+"My eye!" sung out an old quartermaster incur boat, perched well forward
+with his back against the ring in the stem, and his arms crossed, after
+having been busily employed rummaging in his bag, "my eye, what a pity--oh,
+what a pity!"
+
+Come, there is some feeling, genuine, at all events, thought I.
+
+"My," said Bill Chestree, the captain of the foretop, "what is can't be
+helped, old Fizgig; old Rayo has gone down, and"--"Old Rayo be d--d, Master
+Bill," said the man; "but may I be flogged, if I han't forgotten half a
+pound of negro head baccy in Dick Catgut's bag."
+
+"Launch ahoy!" hailed a half drunken voice from one of the boats astern of
+us.  "Hillo," responded the coxswain.  The poor skipper even pricked up his
+ears.  "Have you got Dick Catgut's fiddle among ye?" This said Dick Catgut
+was the corporal of marines, and the prime instigator of all the fun
+amongst the men.  "No, no," said several voices, "no fiddle here." The hail
+passed round among the other boats, "No fiddle." "I would rather lose three
+days grog than have his fiddle mislaid," quoth the man who pulled the bow
+oar.
+
+"Why don't you ask Dick himself?" said our coxswain.
+
+"Aye--true enough--Dick, Dick Catgut!" but no one answered.  Alas! poor
+Dick was nowhere to be found; he had been mislaid as well as his fiddle.
+He had broken into the spirit room, as it turned out, and having got drunk,
+did not come to time when the frigate sunk.
+
+Our ship, immediately after the frigate's crew had been bestowed, and the
+boats got in, hoisted the Commodore's light, and the following morning we
+fell in with the Torch, off the east end of Jamaica, which, after seeing
+the transports safe into Kingston, and taking out me and my people, bore up
+through the Gulf, and resumed her cruising ground on the edge of the Gulf
+stream, between 25 degrees and 30 degrees north latitude.
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+
+The Quenching of the Torch.
+
+
+"Then rose from sea to sky, the wild farewell."
+BYRON, DON JUAN, II. 409
+
+
+The evening was closing in dark and rainy, with every appearance of a gale
+from the westward, and the weather had become so thick and boisterous, that
+the lieutenant of the watch had ordered the look--out at the mast--head
+down on deck.  The man, on his way down, had gone into the maintop to bring
+away some things he had placed there in going aloft, and was in the act of
+leaving it, when he sung out,--"A sail on the weather--bow."
+
+"What does she look like?"
+
+"Can't rightly say, sir; she is in the middle of the thick weather to
+windward."
+
+"Stay where you are a little.--Jenkins, jump forward, and see what you can
+make of her from the foreyard."
+
+Whilst the topman was obeying his instructions, the look--out again hailed
+"She is a ship, sir, close--hauled on the same tack----the weather clears,
+and I can see her now."
+
+The wind, ever since noon, had been blowing in heavy squalls, with
+appalling lulls between them.  One of these gusts had been so violent as to
+bury in the sea the lee--guns in the waist, although the brig had nothing
+set but her close--reefed main--topsail, and reefed foresail.  It was now
+spending, its fury, and she was beginning to roll heavily, when, with a
+suddenness almost incredible to one unacquainted with these latitudes, the
+veil of mist that had hung to windward the whole day was rent and drawn
+aside, and the red and level rays of the setting sun flashed at once,
+through a long arch of glowing clouds, on theblack hull and tall spars of
+his Britannic Majesty's sloop, Torch.  And, true enough, we were not the
+only spectators of this gloomy splendour; for, right in the wake of the
+moonlike sun, now half sunk in the sea, at the distance of a mile or more,
+lay a long warlike--looking craft, apparently a frigate or heavy corvette,
+rolling heavily and silently in the trough of the sea, with her masts,
+yards, and the scanty sail she had set, in strong relief against the
+glorious horizon.
+
+Jenkins now hailed from the foreyard--"The strange sail isbearing up, sir."
+
+As he spoke, a flash was seen, followed, after what seemed a long interval,
+by the deadened report of the gun, as if it had been an echo, and the
+sharp, half--ringing half--hissing sound of the shot.  It fell short, but
+close to us, and was evidently thrown from a heavy cannon, from the length
+of the range.
+
+Mr Splinter, the first lieutenant, jumped from the gun he stood on.
+
+"Quartermaster, keep her away a bit"--and dived into the cabin to make his
+report.
+
+Captain Deadeye was a staid, stiff--rumped, wall--eyed, old first
+lieutenantish--looking veteran, with his coat of a regular Rodney cut,
+broad skirts, long waist, and standup collar, over which dangled either a
+queue, or a marlinspike with a tuft of oakum at the end of it,--it would
+have puzzled Old Nick to say which.  His lower spars were cased in tight
+unmentionables of what had once been white kerseymere, and long boots, the
+coal--skuttle tops of which served as scuppers to carry off the drainings
+from his coat--flaps in bad weather; he was, in fact, the "last of the
+sea--monsters," but, like all his tribe, as brave as steel, and, when put
+to it, as alert as a cat.
+
+He no sooner heard Splinter's report, than he sprung up the ladder,
+brushing the tumbler of swizzle he had just brewed clean out of the fiddle
+into the lap of Mr Saveall, the purser, who had dined with him, and nearly
+extinguishing the said purser, by his arm striking the bowl of the pipe he
+was smoking, thereby forcing the shank half--way down his throat.
+
+"My glass, Wilson," to his steward.
+
+"She is close to, sir; you can see her plainly without it," said Mr
+Treenail, the second lieutenant, from the weather nettings, where he was
+reconnoitring.
+
+After a long look through his starboard blinker, (this other skylight had
+been shut up ever since Aboukir,) Deadeye gave orders to "clear away the
+weather--bow gun;" and as it was now getting too dark for flags to be seen
+distinctly, he desired that three lanterns might be got ready for hoisting
+vertically in the main--rigging.
+
+"All ready forward there?"
+
+"All ready, sir."
+
+"Then hoist away the lights, and throw a shot across her forefoot I fire!"
+Bang went our carronade, but our friend to windward paid no regard to the
+private signal; he had shaken a reef out of his topsails, and wars coming
+down fast upon us.
+
+It war clear that old Blowhard had at first taken him for one of our own
+cruisers, and meant to signalize him, "all regular and shipshape," to use
+his own expression.  Most of us, however, thought it would have been wiser
+to have made sail, and widened our distance, a little, in place of
+bothering with old fashioned manoeuvres, which might end in our catching a
+tartar; but the skipper had been all his life in line--of--battle ships, or
+heavy frigates; and it was a tough job, under, any circumstances, to
+persuade him of the propriety of "up--stick--and--away," as we soon felt to
+our cost.
+
+The enemy, for such he evidently was, now all at once yawed, and indulged
+us with a sight of his teeth; and there he was, fifteen ports of a side on
+his maindeck, with the due quantum of carronades on his quarterdeck and
+forecastle; whilst his short lower masts, white canvass, and the tremendous
+hoist in his topsails, showed him to be a heavy American frigate; and it
+was equally certain that he had cleverly hooked us under his lee, within
+comfortable range of his long twenty--fours.  To convince the most
+unbelieving, three jets of flame, amidst wreaths of white smoke, now
+glanced from his main--deck; but in this instance, the sound of the cannon
+was followed by a sharp crackle and a shower of splinters from the
+foreyard.
+
+It was clear we had got an ugly customer--poor Jenkins now called to
+Treenail, who was standing forward near the gun which had been fired "Och,
+sir, and it's badly wounded we are here."
+
+The officer was a Patlander, as well as the seaman.  "Which of you my bov?"
+the growing seriousness of the affair in no way checking his propensity to
+fun,--"Which of you,--you, or the yard?"
+
+"Both of us, your honour; but the yard badliest."
+
+"The devil!--Come down, then, or get into the top, and I will you looked
+after presently."
+
+The poor fellow crawled off the yard into the foretop, as he was ordered,
+where he was found after the brush, badly wounded by a splinter in the
+breast.
+
+Jonathan, no doubt "calculated," as well he might, that this taste of his
+quality would be quite sufficient for a little eighteen--gun sloop, close
+under his lee; but the fight was not to be so easily taken out of Deadeye,
+although even to his optic it was now high time to be off.
+
+"All hands make sail, Mr Splinter; that chap is too heavy for us. Mr
+Kelson," to the carpenter, "jump up and see what the foreyard will carry.
+Keep her away, my man," to the seaman at the helm. "Crack on, Mr Splinter,
+shake all the reefs out,---set the fore--topsail, and loose
+topgallant--sails;--stand by to sheet home; and see all clear to rig the
+booms out, if the breeze lulls."
+
+In less than a minute we were bowling along before it; but the wind was
+breezing up again, and no one could say how long the wounded foreyard would
+carry the weight and drag of the sails.  To mend the matter, Jonathan was
+coming up hand over hand with the freshening breeze, under a press of
+canvass; it was clear that escape was next to impossible.
+
+"Clear away the larboard guns!" I absolutely jumped off the deck with
+astonishment--who could have spoken it?  It appeared such downright
+madness to show fight under the very muzzles of the guns of an enemy, half
+of whose broadside was sufficient to sink us.  It was the captain,
+however, and there was nothing for itbut to obey.
+
+In an instant, the creaking and screaming of the carronade slides, the
+rattling of the carriage of the long twelve--pounder amidships, the
+thumping and punching of handspikes, and the dancing and jumping of jack
+himself, were heard through the whistling of the breeze, as the guns were
+being shotted and run out.  In a few seconds all was still again, but the
+rushing sound of the vessel going through the water, and of the rising
+gale amongst the rigging.
+
+The men stood clustered at their quarters, their cutlasses buckled round
+their waists, all without jackets and waistcoats, and many with nothing
+but their trowsers on.
+
+"Now, men, mind your aim; our only chance is to wing him. I will yaw the
+ship, and as your guns come to bear, slap it right into his bows.
+Starboard your helm, my man, and bring her to the wind." As she came round,
+blaze went our carronades and long--gun in succession, with goodwill and
+good aim, and down came his foretop--sail on the cap, with all the
+superincumbent spars and gear; the head of the topmast had been shot away.
+The men instinctively cheered.  "That will do; now knock off, my boys, and
+let us run for it.  Keep her awav again; make all sail."
+
+Jonathan was for an instant paralysed by our impudence; but just as we were
+getting before the wind, he yawed, and let drive his whole broadside; and
+fearfully did it transmogrify us.  Half an hour before we were as gay a
+little sloop as ever floated, with a crew of I20 as fine fellows as ever
+manned a British man--of--war.  The iron--shower sped--ten of the hundred
+and twenty never saw the sun rise again; seventeen more were wounded, three
+mortally; we had eight shot between wind and water, our maintop--mast shot
+away as clean as a carrot, and our hull and rigging otherwise regularly cut
+to pieces.  Another broadside succeeded; but by this time we had bore up
+thanks to the loss of our after sail, we could do nothing else; and what
+was better luck still, whilst the loss of our maintop--mast paid the brig
+off on the one hand, the loss of head--sail in the frigate brought her as
+quickly to the wind on the other; thus most of her shot fell astern of us;
+and, before she could bear up again in chase, the squall struck her, and
+carried her maintop--mast overboard.
+
+This gave us a start, crippled and bedevilled though we were; and as the
+night fell, we contrived to lose sight of our large friend.  With
+breathless anxiety did we carry on through that night, expecting every
+lurch to send our remaining topmast by the board; but the weather
+moderated, and next morning the sun shone on our bloodstained decks, at
+anchor off the entrance to St George's harbour.
+
+I was the mate of the watch, and, as day dawned, I had amused myself with
+other younkers over the side, examining the shot holes and other injuries
+sustained from the fire of the frigate, and contrasting the clean, sharp,
+well--defined apertures, made by the 24--pound shot from the long guns,
+with the bruised and splintered ones from the 32--pound carronades; but the
+men had begun to wash down the decks, and the first gush of clotted blood
+an water from the scuppers fairly turned me sick. I turned away, when Mr
+Kennedy, our gunner, a good steady old Scotchman, with whom I was a bit of
+a favourite, came up to me--"Mr Cringle, the Captain has sent for you; poor
+Mr Johnstone is fast going, he wants to see you."
+
+I knew my young messmate had been wounded, for I had seen him carried below
+after the frigate's second broadside; but the excitement of a boy, who had
+seldom smelled powder fired in anger before, had kept me on deck the whole
+night, and it never once occurred to me to ask for him, until the old
+gunner spoke.
+
+I hastened down to our small confined berth, where I saw a sight that
+quickly brought me to myself.  Poor Johnstone was indeed going; a grapeshot
+had struck him, and torn his belly open.  There he lay in his bloody
+hammock on the deck, pale and motionless as if he had already departed,
+except a slight twitching at the corners of his mouth, and a convulsive
+contraction and distension of his nostrils.
+
+His brown ringlets still clustered over his marble forehead, but they were
+drenched in the cold sweat of death.  The surgeon could do nothing for him,
+and had left him; but our old captain--bless him for it--I little expected,
+from his usual crusty bearing, to find him so employed--had knelt by his
+side, and, whilst he read from the Prayer--book one of those beautiful
+petitions in our Church service to Almighty God, for mercy to the passing
+soul of one so young, and so early cut off, the tears trickled down the old
+man's cheeks, and filled the furrows worn in them by the washing up of many
+a salt spray.  On the other side of his narrow bed, fomenting the rigid
+muscles of his neck and chest, sate Mistress Connolly, one of three women
+on board--a rough enough creature, Heaven knows! in common weather; but her
+stifled sobs showed that the mournful sight had stirred up all the woman
+within her.  She had opened the bosom of the poor boy's shirt, and untying
+the riband that fastened a small gold crucifix round his neck, she placed
+it in his cold hand.  The young midshipman was of a respectable family in
+Limerick, her native place, and a Catholic--another strand of the cord that
+bound her to him.  When the Captain finished reading, he bent over the
+departing youth and kissed his cheek.  "Your young messmate just now
+desired to see you, Mr Cringle, but it is too late, he is insensible and
+dying." Whilst he spoke, a strong shiver passed through the boy's frame,
+his face became slightly convulsed, and all was over!
+
+The Captain rose, and Connolly, with a delicacy of feeling which many might
+not have looked for in her situation, spread one of our clean mess
+tablecloths over the body.  "And is it really gone you are, my poor dear
+boy!" forgetting all difference of rank in the fulness of her heart.  "Who
+will tell this to your mother, and nobody here to wake you but ould Kate
+Connolly, and no time will they be giving me, nor whisky--Ochon! ochon!"
+
+But enough and to spare of this piping work.  The boatswain's whistle now
+called me to the gangway, to superintend the handling up, from a shore boat
+alongside, a supply of the grand staples of the island--ducks and onions.
+The three Mudians in her were characteristic samples of the inhabitants.
+Their faces and sins, where exposed, were not tanned, but absolutely burnt
+into a fiery--red colour by the sun.  They guessed and drawled like any
+buckskin from Virginia, superadding to their accomplishments their insular
+peculiarity of always shutting one eye when they spoke to you.  They are
+all Yankees at bottom; and if they could get their 365 Islands--so they
+call the large stones on which they live--under weigh, they would not be
+long in towing them into the Chesapeake.
+
+The word had been passed to get six of the larboard--guns and allthe shot
+over to the other side, to give the brig a list of a streak or two
+a--starboard, so that the stage on which the carpenter and his crew were
+at work over the side, stopping the shot holes about the water line, might
+swing clear of the wash of the sea.  I had jumped from the nettings, where
+I was perched, to assist in unbolting one of the carronade slides, when I
+slipped and capsized against a peg sticking out of one of the scuppers.  I
+took it for something else, and d--d the ring--bolt incontinently. Caboose,
+the cook, was passing with his mate, a Jamaica negro of the name of John
+Crow, at the time.  "Don't d--n the remains of your fellow--mortals, Master
+Cringle; that is my leg." The cook of a man--of--war is no small beer; he
+is his Majesty's warrant--officer, a much bigger wig than a poor little
+mid, with whom it is condescension on his part to jest.
+
+It seems to be a sort of rule, that no old sailor who has not lost a limb,
+or an eye at least, shall be eligible to the office; but as the kind of
+maiming is so far circumscribed that all cooks must have two arms, a
+laughable proportion of them have but one leg.  Besides the honour, the
+perquisites are good; accordingly, all old quartermasters, captains of
+tops, etc. look forward to the cookdom, as the cardinals look to the
+popedom; and really there is some analogy between them, for neither are
+preferred from any especial fitness for the office.  A cardinal is made
+pope because he is old, infirm, and imbecile,--our friend Caboose was made
+cook because he had been Lord Nelson's coxswain, was a drunken rascal, and
+had a wooden leg; for, as to his gastronomical qualifications, he knew no
+more of the science than just sufficient to watch the copper where the
+salt junk and potatoes were boiling.  Having been a little in the wind
+overnight, he had quartered himself, in the superabundance of his heroism,
+at a gun where he had no business to be, and in running it out, he had
+jammed his toe in a scupper hole, so fast that there was no extricating
+him; and notwithstanding his piteous entreaty "to be eased out handsomely,
+as the leg was made out of a plank of the Victory, and the ring at the end
+out of one of her bolts," the captain of the gun finding, after a stout
+pull, that the man was like to come home in his hand without the leg, was
+forced "to break him short off," as he phrased it, to get him out of the
+way, and let the carriage traverse. In the morning when he sobered, he had
+quite forgotten where the leg was, and how he broke it; he therefore got
+Kelson to splice the stump with the but--end of a mop; but in the hurry it
+had been left three inches too long, so he had to jerk himself up to the
+top of his peg at every step.  The Doctor, glad to breathe the fresh air
+after the horrible work he had gone through, was leaning over the side
+speaking to Kelson.  When I fell, he turned round and drew Cookee's fire
+on himself.  "Doctor, you have not prescribed for me yet."
+
+"No, Caboose, I have not; what is wrong?"
+
+"Wrong, sir? why, I have lost my leg, and the Captain's clerk says I am not
+in the Return!--Look here, sir, had Doctor Kelson not coopered me, where
+should I have been?--Why, Doctor, had I been looked after, amputation might
+have been unnecessary; a fish might have done, whereas I have had to be
+spliced."
+
+He was here cut short by the voice of his mate, who had gone forward to
+slay a pig for the gunroom mess.  "Oh, Lad, oh!--Massa Caboose!--Dem dam
+Yankee!--De Purser killed, massa!--Dem shoot him troo de head!--Oh, Lad!"
+
+Captain Deadeye had come on deck.  "You John Crow, what is wrong with you?"
+
+"Why, de Purser killed, Captain, dat all."
+
+"Purser killed?--Doctor, is Saveall hurt?"
+
+Treenail could stand it no longer.  "No, sir, no; it is one of the gunroom
+pigs that we shipped at Halifax three cruises ago; I am sure I don't know
+how he survived one, but the seamen took a fancy to him, and nicknamed him
+the Purser.  You know, sir, they make pets of any thing, and every thing,
+at a pinch!"
+
+Here John Crow drew the carcass from the hog--pen, and sure enough a shot
+had cut the poor Purser's head nearly off.  Blackee looked at him with a
+most whimsical expression; they sayno one can fathom a negro's affection
+for a pig.  "Poor Purser! de people call him Purser, sir, because him
+knowing chap; him cabbage all de grub, slush, and stuff in him own corner,
+and give only de small bit, and de bad piece, to de older pig; so Captain"
+
+Splinter saw the poor fellow was like to get into a scrape.  "That will do,
+John Crow--forward with you now, and lend a hand to cat the anchor.--All
+hands up anchor!" The boatswain's hoarse voice repeated the command, and he
+n turn was re--echoed by his mates. The capstan was manned, and the crew
+stamped, round to a point of wart most villainously performed by a bad
+drummer and a worse fifer, in as high glee as if those who were killed had
+been snug and well in their hammocks on the berth--deck--, in place of at
+the bottom of the sea, with each a shot at his feet.  We weighed, and began
+to work up, tack and tack, towards the island of Ireland, where the arsenal
+is, amongst a perfect labyrinth of shoals, through which the Mudian pilot
+conned the ship with great skill, taking his stand, to our no small
+wonderment, not at the gangway or poop, as usual, but on the bowsprit end,
+so that he might see the rocks under foot, and shun them accordingly, for
+they are so steep and numerous, (they look like large fish in the clear
+water,) and the channel is so intricate, that you have to go quite close
+to them.  At noon we arrived at the anchorage, and hauled our moorings on
+board.
+
+We had refitted, and been four days at sea, on our voyage to Jamaica, when
+the gunroom officers gave our mess a blow--out.
+
+The increased motion and rushing of the vessel through the water, the
+groaning of the masts, the howling of the rising gale, and the frequent
+trampling of the watch on deck, were prophetic of wet jackets to some of
+us; still, midshipman--like, we were as happy as a good dinner and some
+wine could make us, until the old gunner shoved his weather beaten phiz
+and bald pate in at the door.  "Beg pardon, Mr Splinter, but if you will
+spare Mr Cringle on the forecastle for an hour until the moon rises."
+
+("Spare, quotha, is his Majesty's officer a joint stool?")
+
+"Why, Mr Kennedy, why? here, man, take a glass of grog."
+
+"I thank you, sir.  It is coming on a roughish night, sir; the running
+ships should be crossing us hereabouts; indeed more than once I thought
+there was a strange sail close aboard of us, the scud is flying so low, and
+in such white flakes; and none of us have an eye like Mr Cringle, unless it
+be John Crow, and he is all but frozen."
+
+"Well, Tom, I suppose you will go"--Angelice, from a first lieutenant to a
+mid--"Brush instanter."
+
+Having changed my uniform, for shag--trowsers, pea--jacket, and south--west
+cap, I went forward, and took my station, in no pleasant humour, on the
+stowed foretopmast--staysail, with my arm round the stay. I had been half
+an hour there, the weather was getting worse, the rain was beating in my
+face, and the spray from the stem was flashing over me, as it roared
+through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters. I turned my back to the
+weather for a moment, to press my hand on my strained eyes.  When I opened
+them again, I saw the gunner's  gaunt high--featured visage thrust
+anxiously forward; his profile looked as if rubbed over with phosphorus,
+and his whole person as if we had been playing at snap--dragon. "What has
+come over you, Mr Kennedy?--who is burning the bluelight now?"
+
+"A wiser man than I am must tell you that; look forward, Mr Cringle--look
+there; what do your books say to that?"
+
+I looked forth, and saw, at the extreme end of the jib--boom, what I had
+read of, certainly, but never expected to see, a pale, greenish, glowworm
+coloured flame, of the size and shape of the frosted glass shade over the
+swinging lamp in the gunroom.  It drew out and flattened as the vessel
+pitched and rose again, and as she sheered about, it wavered round the
+point that seemed to attract it, like a soapsud bubble blown from a tobacco
+pipe before it is shaken into the air; at the core it was comparatively
+bright, but gradually faded into a halo.  It shed a baleful and ominous
+light on the surrounding objects; the cup of sailors on the forecastle
+looked like spectres, and they shrunk together, and whispered when it began
+to roll slowly along the spar towards where the boatswain was sitting at my
+feet.  At this instant something slid down the stay, and a cold clammy hand
+passed round my neck. I was within an ace of losing my hold, and tumbling
+overboard.  "Heaven have mercy on me, what's that?"
+
+"It's that skylarking son of a gun, Jem Sparkle's monkey, sir.  You, Jem,
+you'll never rest till that brute is made shark bait of."
+
+But Jackoo vanished up the stay again, chuckling and grinning in the
+ghostly radiance, as if he had been the "Spirit of the Lamp." The light
+was still there, but a cloud of mist, like a burst of vapour from a steam
+boiler, came down upon the gale, and flew past, when it disappeared.  I
+followed the white mass as it sailed down the wind; it did not, as it
+appeared to me, vanish in the darkness, but seemed to remain in sight to
+leeward, as if checked by a sudden flaw; yet none of our sails were taken
+aback.  A thought flashed on me. I peered still more intensely into the
+night. I was now certain.  "A sail, broad on the lee bow."
+
+The ship was in a buz in a moment.  The Captain answered from the
+quarterdeck--"Thank you, Mr Cringle.  How shall we steer?"
+
+"Keep her away a couple of points, sir, steady."
+
+"Steady," sung the man at the helm; and the slow melancholy cadence,
+although a familiar sound to me, now moaned through the rushing of the
+wind, and smote upon my heart as if it had been the wailing of a spirit.
+
+I turned to the boatswain, who was now standing beside me--"Is that you or
+Davy Jones steering, Mr Nipper? if you had not been here bodilv at my
+elbow, I could have sworn that was your voice."
+
+When the gunner made the same remark it startled the poor fellow he tried
+to take it as a joke, but could not.  "There may be a laced hammock with a
+shot in it, for some of us ere morning."
+
+At this moment, to my dismay, the object we were chasing shortened,
+gradually fell abeam of us, and finally disappeared.  "The Flying
+Dutchman."
+
+"I can't see her at all now."
+
+"She will be a fore--and--aft--rigged vessel that has tacked, sir," said
+the gunner.  And sure enough, after a few seconds, I saw the white object
+lengthen, and draw out again abaft our beam.
+
+"The chase has tacked sir," I sung out; "put the helm down, or she will,
+go to windward of us."
+
+We tacked also, and time it was we did so, for the rising moon now showed
+us a large schooner under a crowd of sail.  We edged down on her, when
+finding her manoeuvre detected, she brailed up her flat sails, and bore up
+before the wind.  This was our best point of sailing, and we cracked on,
+the captain rubbing his hands--"It's my turn to be the big un this time."
+Although blowing a strong north--easter, it was now clear moonlight and we
+hammered away from bow guns, but whenever a shot told amongst the rigging,
+the injury was repaired as if by magic.  It was evident we had repeatedly
+hulled her, from the glimmering white streaks along her counter and, across
+her stern, occasioned by the splintering of the timber, but it seemed to
+produce no effect.
+
+At length we drew well up on her quarter.  She continued all black hull and
+white sail, not a soul to be seen on deck, except a dark object, which we
+took for the man at the helm.  "What schooner's that?" No answer.
+"Heave--to, or I'll sink you." Still all silent.  "Sergeant Armstrong, do
+you think you could pick off that chap at the wheel?" The marine jumped on
+the forecastle, and levelled his piece, when a musket--shot from the
+schooner crashed through his skull, and he fell dead.  The old skipper's
+blood was up.  "Forecastle, there!  Mr Nipper, clap a canister of grape
+over the round shot into the boat--gun, and give it to him."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir!" gleefully rejoined the boatswain, forgetting the augury and
+every thing else in the excitement of the moment.  In a twinkling, the
+square foresail--topsail--topgallant--royal--and studdingsail haulyards
+were let go by the run on board of the schooner, as if they had been shot
+away, and he put his helm hard aport as, if to round to.
+
+"Rake him, sir, or give him the stem.  He has not surrendered.  I know
+their game.  Give him your broadside, sir, or he is off to windward of you
+like a shot.--No, no! we have him now; heave to, Mr  Splinter, heave--to!"
+We did so, and that so suddenly, that the studdingsail booms snapped like
+pipe--shanks, short off by the irons. Notwithstanding, we had shot two
+hundred yards to leeward before we could lay our maintopsail to the mast. I
+ran to windward.  The schooner's yards and rigging were now black with men,
+clustered like bees swanning, her square--sails were being close furled,
+her fore and--aft sails set, and away she was, close--hauled and dead to
+windward of us.
+
+"So much for undervaluing our American friends," grumbled Mr Splinter.
+
+We made all sail in chase, blazing away to little purpose; we had no chance
+on a bowline, and when our amigo had satisfied himself of his superiority
+by one or two short tacks, he deliberately hauled down his flying jib and
+gaff--topsail, took a reef in his mainsail, triced up the bunt of his
+foresail, and fired his long thirty--two at us.  The shot came in at the
+third aftermost port on the starboard side, and dismounted the carronade,
+smashing the slide, and wounding three men.  The second shot missed, and as
+it was madness to remain to be peppered, probably winged, whilst every one
+of ours fell short, we reluctantly kept away on our course, having the
+gratification of hearing a clear well--blown bugle on board the schooner
+play up "Yankee Doodle."
+
+As the brig fell off, our long--gun was run out to have a parting crack at
+her, when the third and last shot from the schooner struck the sill of the
+midship--port, and made the white splinters fly from the solid oak like
+bright silver sparks in the moonlight.  A sharp piercing cry rose into the
+air--my soul identified that death--shriek with the voice that I had heard,
+and I saw the man who was standing with the lanyard of the lock in his hand
+drop heavily across the breech, and discharge the gun in his fall.
+Thereupon a blood--red glare shot up into the cold blue sky, as if a
+volcano had burst forth from beneath the mighty deep, followed by a roar,
+and a shattering crash, and a mingling of unearthly cries and groans, and a
+concussion of the air, and of the water, as if our whole broadside had been
+fired at once.  Then a solitary splash here, and a dip there, and short
+sharp yells, and low choking bubbling moans, as the hissing fragments of
+the noble vessel we had seen fell into the sea, and the last of her gallant
+crew vanished for ever beneath that pale broad moon.  We were alone, and
+once more, all was dark, and wild, and stormy.  Fearfully had that ball
+sped, fired by a dead man's hand.  But what is it that clings black and
+doubled across that fatal cannon, dripping and heavy, and choking the
+scuppers with clotting gore, and swaying to and fro with the motion of the
+vessel, like a bloody fleece?
+
+"Who is it that was hit at the gun there?"
+
+"Mr Nipper, the boatswain, sir.  The last shot has cut him in two."
+
+After this most melancholy incident we continued on our voyage to Jamaica,
+nothing particular occurring until we anchored at Port Royal, where we had
+a regular overhaul of the old Bark, and after this was completed, we were
+ordered down to the leeward part of the island to afford protection to the
+coasting trade.  One fine morning, about a fortnight after we had left
+Port Royal, the Torch was lying at anchor in Bluefields Bay.  It was
+between eight and nine; the land--wind had died away, and the sea--breeze
+had not set in--there was not a breath stirring.  The pennant from the
+masthead fell sluggishly down, and clung amongst the rigging like a dead
+snake, whilst the folds of the St George's ensign that hung from the
+mizzen--peak, were as motionless as if they had been carved in marble.
+
+The anchorage was one unbroken mirror, except where its glass--like surface
+was shivered into sparkling ripples by the gambols of a skipjack, or the
+flashing stoop of his enemy the pelican; and the reflection of the vessel
+was so clear and steady, that at the distance of a cable's length you could
+not distinguish the water--line, nor tell where the substance ended and
+shadow began, until the casual dashing of a bucket overboard for a few
+moments broke up the phantom ship; but the wavering fragments soon
+reunited, and she again floated double, like the swan of the poet.  The
+heat was so intense, that the iron stanchions of the awning could not be
+grasped with the hand, and where the decks were not screened by it, the
+pitch boiledout from the seams.  The swell rolled in from the offing in
+long shining undulations, like a sea of quicksilver, whilst every now and
+then a flying fish would spark out from the unruffled bosom of the heaving
+water, and shoot away like a silver arrow, until it dropped with a flash
+into the sea again.  There was not a cloud in the heavens, but a quivering
+blue haze hung over the land, through which the white sugar--works and
+overseers' houses on the distant estates appeared to twinkle like objects
+seen through a thin smoke, whilst each of the tall stems of the cocoa--nut
+trees on the beach, when looked at steadfastly, seemed to be turning round
+with a small spiral motion, like so many endless screws.  There was a
+dreamy indistinctness about the outlines of the hills, even in the
+immediate vicinity, which increased as they receded, until the Blue
+Mountains in the horizon melted into sky.  The crew were listlessly
+spinning oakum, and mending sails, under the shade of the awning; the only
+exceptions to the general languor were John Crow the black, and jackoo the
+monkey. The former (who was an improvisatore of a rough stamp) sat out on
+the bowsprit, through choice, beyond the shade of the canvass, without hat
+or shirt, like a bronze bust, busy with his task, whatever that might be,
+singing at the top of his pipe, and between whiles confabulating with his
+hairy ally, as if he had been a messmate.  The monkey was hanging by the
+tail from the dolphin--striker, admiring what John Crow called "his own dam
+ogly face in the water."
+
+"Tail like yours would be good ting for a sailor, jackoo, it would leave
+his two hands free aloft--more use, more hornament, too, I'm sure, den de
+piece of greasy junk dat hangs from de Captain's taffril.--Now I shall sing
+to you, how dat Corromantee rascal, my fader, was sell me on de Gold Coast.
+
+"Two red nightcap, one long knife,
+All him get for Quackoo,
+For gun next day him sell him wife,
+You tink dat good song, lackoo?"
+
+"Chocko, chocko," chattered the monkey, as if in answer.
+
+"Ah, you tink so--sensible honimal!--What is dat? shark?--Jackoo, come up,
+sir: don't you see dat big shovel--nosed fis looking at you?  Pull your
+handout of the water--Caramighty!"
+
+The negro threw himself on the gammoning of the bowsprit to take hold of
+the poor ape, who, mistaking his kind intention, and ignorant of his
+danger, shrunk from him, lost his hold, and fell into the sea.  The shark
+instantly sank to have a run, then dashed at his prey, raising his snout
+over him, and shooting his head and shoulders three or four feet out of the
+water, with poor Jackoo shrieking in his jaws, whilst his small bones
+crackled and crunched under the monster's triple row of teeth.
+
+Whilst this small tragedy was acting--and painful enough it was to the
+kind--hearted negro--I was looking out towards the eastern horizon,
+watching the first dark--blue ripple of the sea--breeze, when a rushing
+noise passed over my head.  I looked up and saw a gawnaso, the large
+carrion--crow of the tropics, sailing, contrary to the habits of its kind,
+seaward over the brig. I followed it with my eye, until it vanished in the
+distance, when my attention was attracted by a dark speck far out in the
+offing, with a little tiny white sail.  With my glass I made it out to be
+a ship's boat, but I saw no one on board, and the sail was idly flapping
+about the mast.
+
+On making my report, I was desired to pull towards it in the gig; and as we
+approached, one of the crew said he thought he saw some one peering over
+the bow.  We drew nearer, and I saw him distinctly.
+
+"Why don't you haul the sheet aft, and come down to us, sir?"
+
+He neither moved nor answered, but, as the boat rose and fell on the short
+sea raised by the first of the breeze, the face kept mopping and mowing at
+us over the gunwale.
+
+"I will soon teach you manners, my fine fellow! give way, men" and I fired
+my musket, when the crow that I had seen, rose from the boat into the air,
+but immediately alighted again, to our astonishment, vulture--like with
+out--stretched wings, upon the head.
+
+Under the shadow of this horrible plume, the face seemed on the instant to
+alter like the hideous changes in a dream.  It appeared to become of a
+deathlike paleness, and anon streaked with blood. Another stroke of the
+oar--the chin had fallen down, and the tongue was hanging out.  Another
+pull--the eyes were gone, and from their sockets, brains and blood were
+fermenting and flowing down the cheeks.  It was the face of a putrefying
+corpse.  In this floating coffin we found the body of another sailor,
+doubled across one of the thwarts, with a long Spanish knife sticking
+between his ribs, as if he had died in some mortal struggle, or, what was
+equally probable, had put an end to himself in his frenzy; whilst along the
+bottom of the boat, arranged with some show of care, and covered by a piece
+of canvass stretched across an oar above it, lay the remains of a beautiful
+boy, about fourteen years of age, apparently but a few hours dead. Some
+biscuit, a roll of jerked beef, and an earthen water--jar, lay beside him,
+showing that hunger at least could have had no share in his destruction but
+the pipkin was dry, and the small water--cask in the bow was staved, and
+empty.
+
+We had no sooner cast our grappling over the bow, and begun to tow the boat
+to the ship, than the abominable bird that we had scared settled down into
+it again, notwithstanding our proximity, and began to peck at the face of
+the dead boy.  At this moment we heard a gibbering noise, and saw something
+like a bundle of old rags roll out from beneath the stem--sheets, and
+whatever it was, apparently make a fruitless attempt to drive the
+gallinaso from its prey. Heaven and earth, what an object met our eyes!
+It was a full--grown man, but so wasted, that one of the boys lifted him by
+his belt with one hand.  His knees were drawn up to his chin, his hands
+were like the talons of a bird, while the falling in of his
+chocolate--coloured and withered features gave an unearthly relief to his
+forehead, over which the horny and transparent skin was braced so tightly
+that it seemed ready to crack.  But in the midst of this desolation, his
+deep--set coal--black eyes sparkled like two diamonds with the fever of his
+sufferings; there was a fearful fascination in their flashing brightness,
+contrasted with the deathlike aspect of the face, and rigidity of the
+frame.  When sensible of our presence he tried to speak, but uld only utter
+a low moaning sound.  At length--"Agua, agua"--we had not a drop of water
+in the boat.  "El muchacho esta moriendo de sed--Agua."
+
+We got on board, and the surgeon gave the poor fellow some weak tepid grog.
+It acted like magic.  He gradually uncoiled himself, his voice, from being
+weak and husky, became comparative strong and clear.  "El hijo--Agua para
+mi Pedrillo--No le hace pari mi--oh la noche pasado, la noche pasado!" He
+was told to compose himself, and that his boy would be taken care of.
+"Dexa me verlo entonces, oh Dios, dexa me verlo"----and he crawled,
+grovelling on his chest, like a crushed worm, across the deck, until he got
+his head over the port sill, and looked down into the boat.  He there
+beheld the pale face of his dead son; it was the last object he ever saw,
+"Ay de mi!"  he groaned heavily, and dropped his face against the ship's
+side--He was dead.
+
+After spending several months in the service already alluded to, we were
+ordered on a cruise off the coast of Terra Firma.
+
+Morillo was at this time besieging Carthagena by land, while a Spanish
+squadron, under Admiral Enrile, blockaded the place by sea; and it pleased
+the officer who commanded the inshore division to conceive, while the old
+Torch was quietly beating up along the coast, that we had an intention of
+forcing the blockade.
+
+The night before had been gusty and tempestuous--all hands had been called
+three times, so that at last, thinking there was no use in going below, I
+lay down on the stern sheets of the boat over the stern--an awkward berth
+certainly, but a spare tarpaulins had that morning been stretched over the
+after part of the boat to dry, and I therefore ensconced myself beneath it.
+just before daylight, however, the brig, by a sudden shift of wind, was
+taken aback, and fetching stern--way, a sea struck her.  How I escaped I
+never could tell, but I was pitched right in on deck over the poop, and
+much bruised, where I found a sad scene of confusion, with the captain and
+several of the officers in their shirts, and the men tumbling up from below
+as fast as they could--while, amongst other incidents, one of our
+passengers who occupied a small cabin under the poop, having gone to sleep
+with the stern port open, the sea had surged in through it with such
+violence as to wash him out on deck in his shirt, where he lay sprawling
+among the feet of the men.  However, we soon got all right, and in five
+minutes the sloop was once more tearing through it on a wind; but the boat
+where I had been sleeping was smashed into staves, all that remained of her
+being the stem and stern--post dangling from the tackles at the ends of
+the davits.
+
+At this time it was grey dawn, and we were working up in shore, without
+dreaming of breaking the blockade, when it fell stark calm. Presently the
+Spanish squadron, anchored under Punto Canoa, perceived us, when a
+corvette, two schooners, a cutter, and eight gunboats, got under weigh, the
+latter of which soon swept close to us, ranging themselves on our bows and
+quarters; and although we showed our colours, and made the private
+international signal, they continued firing at us for about an hour,
+without, however, doing any damage, as they had chosen a wary distance.
+At length some of the shot falling near us, the skipper cleared for action,
+and with his own hand fired a 32--pounder at the nearest gun--boat, the
+crew of which bobbed as if they, had seen the shot coming.  This opened
+the eyes of the Dons, who thereupon ceased firing; and as a light breeze
+had now set down, they immediately made sail in pursuit of a schooner that
+had watched the opportunity of their being employed with us to run in
+under the walls, and was at this moment chased by a ship and a gun-boat,
+who had got within gun-shot and kept up a brisk fire on her.  So soon as
+the others came up, all hands opened on the gallant little hooker who was
+forcing the blockade, and peppered away; and there she was, like a hare,
+with a whole pack of harriers after her, sailing and sweeping in under
+their fire towards the doomed city.  As the wind was very light, the
+blockading squadron now manned their boats, and some of them were coming
+fast, when a raffle of musketry from the small craft sent them to the
+right about, and presently the chase was safely at anchor under the
+battery of Santa Catalina.
+
+But the fun was to come-for by this time some of the vessels that held
+her in chase, had got becahned under the batteries, which immediately
+opened on them cheerily; and down came a topgallant-mast .here, and a
+topsail-yard there, and a studdingsail t'other place-and such a squealing
+and creaking of blocks and rattling of the gearwhile yards braced hither
+and thither, and topping-lifts let go, and sheets let fly, showed that the
+Dons were in a sad quandary; and no wonder, for we could see the shot from
+the long 32-pounders on the walls, falling very thick all around several
+of them.  However, at 4 P.m. we had worked up alongside of the Commodore,
+when the old skipper gave our friend such a rating, that I don't think he
+will ever forget it.
+
+On the day following our being fired at, I was sent, being a good
+Spaniard, along with the second lieutenant-poor Treenail-to Morillo's
+headquarters.  We got an order to the officer commanding the nearest post
+on shore, to provide us with horses; but before reaching it, we had to
+walk, under a roasting sun, about two miles through miry roads, until we
+arrived at the barrier, where we found a detachment of artillery, but the
+commanding officer could only give us one poor broken-winded horse, and
+a jackass, on which we were to proceed to headquarters on the morrow; and
+here, under a thatched hut of the most primitive construction, consisting
+simply of cross sticks and pahn branches, we had to spend the night, the
+poor fellows being as kind as their own misery would let them.
+
+Next morning we proceeded, accompanied by a hussar, through dreadful
+roads, where the poor creatures we bestrode sunk to the belly at every
+flounder, until about four p.m., when we met two negroes and found, to
+our great distress, that the soldier who was our guide and escort, had
+led us out of our way, and that we were in very truth then travelling
+towards the town.  We therefore hove-about and returned to Palanquillo, a
+village that we had passed through that very morning, leaving the hussar
+and his horse sticking fast in a slough.  We arrived about nightfall,
+and as the village was almost entirely deserted, we were driven to take up
+our quarters in an old house, that seemed formerly to have been used as a
+distillery.  Here we found a Spanish lieutenant and several soldiers
+quartered, all of them suffering more or less from dysentery; and after
+passing a very comfortless night on hard benches, we rose at grey dawn,
+with our hands and faces bhstered from musquitto bites, and our hair full
+of wood ticks, or garapatos.  We again started on our journey to
+headquarters, and finally arrived at Torrecilla at two o'clock in the
+afternoon.  Both the Commander-in-Chief Morillo, and Admiral Enrile, had
+that morning proceeded to the works at Boca Chica, so we only found El
+Senor Montalvo, the Captain-General of the Province, a little kiln-dried
+diminutive Spaniard.  Morillo used to call him "uno muneco Creollo," but
+withal he was a gentlemanlike man in his manners.
+
+He received us very civilly; we delivered our despatches; and the same
+evenmg we made our bow, and having obtained fresh horses, set out on our
+return, and arrived at the village of Santa Rosa at nine at night, where
+we slept; and next morning continuing on our journey, we got once more
+safely on board of the old Brig at twelve o'clock at noon, in a miserable
+plight, not having had our clothes off for three days.  As for me I was
+used to roughing it, and in my humble equipment any disarrangement was not
+particularly discernible, but in poor Treenail. one of the nattiest
+fellows in the service, it was a very different matter.  He had issued
+forth on the enterprise, cased in tight blue pantaloons that fitted him
+like his skin, over which were drawn long well-polished Hessian boots,
+each with a formidable tassel at top, and his coat was buttoned close up
+to the chin, with a blaz-, ing swab on the right shoulder, while a laced
+cocked hat and dress sword completed his equipment.  But, alas! when we
+were accounted for on board of the old Torch, there was a fearful
+dilapidation of his external man.  First of all, his inexpressibles were
+absolutely tom into shreds by the briers and prickly bushes through which
+we had been travelling, and fluttered from his waistband like the stripes
+we see depending from an ancient Roman or Grecian coat of armour; his coat
+had only one skirt, and the bullion of the epaulet was reduced to a strand
+or two, while the tag that held the brim, or flaps of the cocked hat up,
+had given way, so that, although he looked fierce enough, stem on, still,
+when you had a sternview, the after part hung down his back like the tail
+of the hat of one of Landseer's flying dustmen.
+
+After this, we experienced, with little intermission, most dreadful
+weather for two weeks, until at length we were nearly torn in pieces, and
+the Captain was about abandoning his ground, and returning to Port Royal,
+when it came on to blow with redoubled violence.  We struggled against it
+for twelve hours, but were finally obliged to heave--to, the sea all the
+while running tremendously high.
+
+About noon on the day I speak of, the weather had begun to look a little
+better, but the sea had if any thing increased. I had just come on deck,
+when Mr Splinter sung out--"Look out for that sea, quartermaster!--Mind
+your starboard helm!--Ease her, man--ease her!"
+
+On it came, rolling as high as the foreyard, and tumbled in over the
+bows, green, clear, and unbroken.  It filled the deep waist of the Torch
+in an instant, and as I rose half smothered in the midst of a jumble of
+men, pigs, hencoops, and spare spars, I had nearly lost an eye by a
+floating boarding--pike that was lanced at me by the jauglet of the water.
+As for the boats on the booms, they had all gone to sea separately, and
+were bobbing at us in a squadron to leeward, the launch acting as
+commodore, with a crew of a dozen sheep, whose bleating as she rose on the
+crest of a wave came back upon us, faintly blending with the hoarse
+roaring of the storm, and seeming to cry, "No more mutton for you, my
+boys!"
+
+At length the lee ports were forced out--the pumps promptly rigged and
+manned--buckets slung and at work down the hatchways; and although we had
+narrowly escaped being swamped, and it continued to blow hard, with a
+heavy sea, the men, confident in the qualities of the ship, worked with
+glee, shaking their feathers, and quizzing each other.  But anon a sudden
+and appalling change came over the sea and the sky, that made the stoutest
+amongst us quail and draw his breath thick.  The firmament darkened--the
+horizon seeme to contract--the sea became black as ink--the wind fell to a
+dead calm--the teeming clouds descended and filled the murky arch of
+heaven with their whirling masses, until they appeared to touch our
+mast--heads, but there was neither lightning nor rain, not one glancing
+flash, not one refreshing drop--the windows of the sky had been sealed up
+by Him who had said to the storm, "Peace, be still."
+
+During this deathlike pause, infinitely more awful than the heaviest gale,
+every sound on board, the voices of the men, even the creaking of the
+bulkheads, was heard with startling distinctness; and the water--logged
+brig, having no wind to steady her, laboured so heavily in the trough of
+the sea, that we expected her masts to go overboard every moment.
+
+"Do you see and hear that, sir?" said Lieutenant Treenail to the Captain.
+
+We all looked eagerly forth in the direction indicated.  There was a white
+line in fearful contrast with the clouds and the rest of the ocean,
+gleaming on the extreme verge of the horizon--it grew broader--a  low
+increasing growl was heard--a thick blinding mist came driving up a--stern
+of us, whose small drops pierced into the skin like sharp hail.
+
+"Is it rain?"
+
+"No, no--salt, salt."
+
+And now the fierce Spirit of the Hurricane himself, the sea Azrael, in
+storm and in darkness, came thundering on with stunning violence, tearing
+off the snowy scalps of the tortured billows, and with tremendous and
+sheer force, crushing down beneath his chariot wheels their mountainous
+and howling ridges into one level plain of foaming water. Our chainplates,
+strong fastenings, and clenched bolts, drew like pliant wires, shrouds and
+stays were torn away like the summer gossamer, and our masts and spars,
+crackling before his fury like dry reeds in autumn, were blown clean out
+of the ship, over her bows, into the sea.
+
+Had we shown a shred of the strongest sail in the vessel, it would have
+been blown out of the bolt--rope in an instant; we had, therefore, to get
+her before the wind, by crossing a spar on the stump of the foremast, with
+four men at the wheel, one watch at the pumps, and, the other clearing the
+wreck.  But our spirits were soon dashed, when the old carpenter, one of
+the coolest and bravest men in the ship, rose through the forehatch, pale
+as a ghost, with his white hairs streaming straight out in the wind.  He
+did not speak to any of us, but clambered aft, towards the capstan, to
+which the Captain had lashed himself.
+
+"The water is rushing in forward like a mill--stream, sir; we have either
+started a but, or the wreck of the foremast has gone through her bows,
+for she is fast settling down by the head."
+
+"Get the boatswain to father a sail then, man, and try it over the leak;
+but don't alarm the people, Mr Kelson."
+
+The brig was, indeed, rapidly losing her buoyancy, and when the next heavy
+sea rose ahead of us, she gave a drunken sickening lurch, and pitched
+right into it, groaning and trembling in every plank, like a guilty and
+condemned thing in the prospect of impending punishment.
+
+"Stand by, to heave the guns overboard."
+
+Too late, too late--Oh God, that cry!--I was stunned and drowning, a chaos
+of wreck was beneath me, and around me, and above me, and blue agonized
+gasping faces, and struggling arms, and colourless clutching hands, and
+despairing yells for help, where help was impossible; when I felt a sharp
+bite on the neck, and breathed again.  My Newfoundland dog, Sneezer, had
+snatched at me, and dragged me out of the eddy of the sinking vessel.
+
+For life, for dear life, nearly suffocated amidst--the hissing spray, we
+reached the cutter, the dog and his helpless master.
+
+For three miserable days, I had been exposed, half naked and bareheaded,
+in an open boat, without water, or food, or shade.  The third fierce
+cloudless West Indian noon was long passed, and once more the dry burning
+sun sank in the west, like a red--hot shield of iron.  In my horrible
+extremity, I imprecated the wrath of Heaven on my defenceless head, and
+shaking my clenched hands against the brazen sky, I called aloud on the
+Almighty, "Oh, let me never see him rise again!" I glared on the noble dog,
+as he lay dying at the bottom of the boat; madness seized me, I tore his
+throat with my teeth, not for food, but that I might drink his hot blood
+it flowed, and vampirelike, I would have gorged myself; but as he turned
+his dull, grey, glazing eye on me, the pulses of my heart stopped, and I
+fell senseless.
+
+When my recollection returned, I was stretched on some fresh plantain
+leaves, in a low smoky hut, with my faithful dog lying beside me, whining
+and licking my hands and face.  On the rude joists that bound the rafters
+of the roof together, rested a light canoe with its paddles, and over
+against me, on the wall, hung some Indian fishing implements, and a
+long--barrelled Spanish gun.  Underneath lay a corpse, wrapped in a
+boat--sail, on which was clumsily written, with charcoal,--"The body of
+John Deadeye, Esq. late Commander of his Britannic Majesty's Sloop,
+Torch."
+
+There was a fire on the floor, at which Lieutenant Splinter, in his shirt
+and trowsers, drenched, unshorn, and deathlike, was roasting a joint of
+meat, whilst a dwarfish Indian, stark naked, sat opposite to him,
+squatting on his hams, more like a large bull--frog than a man, and
+fanning the flame with a palm leaf.  In the dark corner of the hut half a
+dozen miserable sheep shrunk huddled together.  Through the open door I
+saw the stars in the deep blue heaven, and the cold beams of the newly
+risen moon were dancing in a long flickering wake of silver light on the
+ever--heaving bosom of the ocean, whilst the melancholy murmur of the surf
+breaking on the shore, came booming on the gentle night--wind. I was
+instantly persuaded that I had been nourished during my delirium; for the
+fierceness of my sufferings was assuaged, and I was comparatively strong.
+I anxiously enquired of the Lieutenant the fate of our shipmates.
+
+"All gone down in the old Torch; and had it not been for the launch and
+our four--footed friends there, I should not have been here to have told
+it; but raw mutton, with the wool on, is not a mess to thrive on, Tom.
+All that the sharks have left of the Captain and five sea men came ashore
+last night. I have buried the poor fellows on the beach where they lay
+as well as I could, with an oar--blade for a shovel, and the bronze
+ornament there [pointing to the Indian] for an assistant."
+
+Here he looked towards the body; and the honest fellow's voice shook as
+he continued.
+
+"But seeing you were alive, I thought if you did recover, it would be
+gratifying to both of us, after having weathered it so long with him
+through gale and sunshine, to lay the kind--hearted old man's head on its
+everlasting pillow as decently as our forlorn condition permitted."
+
+As the Lieutenant spoke, Sneezer seemed to think his watch was up, and
+drew off towards the fire.  Clung and famished, the poor brute could no
+longer resist the temptation, but, making a desperate snatch at the joint,
+bolted through the door with it, hotly pursued by the Bull--frog.
+
+"Drop the leg of mutton, Sneezer," roared the Lieutenant, "drop the
+mutton--drop it, sir, drop it, drop it." And away raced his Majestv's
+officer in pursuit of the canine pirate.
+
+After a little, he and the Indian returned, the former with the joint in
+his hand; and presently the dog stole into the hut after them, and
+patiently lay down in a corner, until the Lieutenant good--humouredly
+threw the bone to him after our comfortless meal had been finished.
+
+I was so weak that my shipmate considerately refrained from pressing his
+society on me; and we, therefore, all betook ourselves to rest for the
+night.
+
+
+
+To COMMODORE CHRISTOPHER NORTH.
+
+DEAR OLD GENTLEMAN,
+
+Your chief devil has got me into a terrible mess by a misprint in last
+Chapter--confound my cramp fist--regarding which Old Splinter
+(erst of the Torch,) has ever since quizzed me verv nearly up to gunpowder
+mark.
+
+To the matter--The said imp makes me say, in page 84, standing on the
+bowsprit, that "the spray from the stern was flashing over me, as it
+roared through the waste of sparkling and hissing waters."  Now, I don't
+dispute the roaring of sterns--in season.  But,--me, if you or any other
+man shall make Tom Cringle's stern roar, out of season, on compulsion. I
+wrote STEM, the cutwater of the ship, the coulter as it were--the head of
+her, not the tail, as the devil would have it.  And again, when the
+privateer hauls his wind suddenly to let the Torch shoot past him, and
+thereby gain the weather--gage, when old Splinter should sing out, as it
+was written--but, confound the fist once more "Give her the stem"--that
+is, run her down and sink her, the stem being the strongest part, as the
+stern is the weakest, he, Belzebub, judging, I presume, of the respective
+strength of the two ends from his own comparative anatomy, makes him say,
+"Give her the stern," as if he were going to let drive at her with that
+end.  "Poo, nonsense--it don't signify." But it does signify, old man.
+
+To touch you more near--you yourself have been known to get fou and
+pugnacious on great occasions--the visit of royalty, for instance--it is
+on record.  A mountain foreigner from Rossshire engages you, for some
+unknown insult, in single combat, and, leagued with John Barleycorn,
+(let us imagine an impossibility,) floors you by a peg on the gnomon--the
+wound is in the front--your snout is broken, but your honour is whole.
+Would it be so, were the Gael to allege, that "her nainsell had coupit you
+by a pig kick on her preach?" By all the gods, he of the laconic garment,
+the "thousand hill man," would have been careering on a cloud after his
+"freen" Ossian, with the moon shining through him, within that very
+hour.
+
+Still I would not have bothered you; but I know his Most Gracious Majesty
+King William, God bless him! (who can forget poor Burns's "Tarry Breeks?")
+either has noticed it, or will notice it, the instant he comes to that
+part of the Log.  Now this, without explanation, is inconvenient, trowsers
+being likely to come as high up in these days as pantaloons, and I have
+some claim on him, seeing that my uncle, Job Cringle, some
+five--and--forty years ago, at Jamaica, in the town of Port Royal, had his
+headrails smashed, the neb of his nose (stem) bitten off by a bungo, and
+the end of his spine (stern--post), that mysterious point, where man ends,
+and monkey begins, grievously shaken in a spree at Kitty Finnans, in
+Prince William Henry's company.
+
+"Poo, nonsense." Indeed!--Why, the very devil himself, the author of the
+evil, shall be convinced that there is much peril in the transposition of
+ends.  I will ask him--"What is a sternutation?" (words being his weapons)
+"What is a sternutation?" He shall answer learnedly by the card--"A
+sneeze," the nose or stem being the organ.  Then he shall ask Jem
+Sparkle "What is a sternutation?"--You laugh, old gentleman; but your
+devil's "mistack" looks every inch as queer to a sailor as our topman's
+answer would sound to you.
+
+Yours with all cordiality, notwithstanding,
+
+"THOMAS CRINGLE."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+
+Scenes on the Costa Firme.
+
+"Here lies a sheer hulk, poor Tom Bowline."
+
+CHARLES DIBDIN,
+
+"Tom Bowling," LINE 1.
+
+
+
+I was awakened by the low growling, and short bark of the dog.  The night
+was far spent; the tiny sparks of the fire--flies that were glancing in
+the doorway began to grow pale; the chirping of the crickets and lizards,
+and the snore of the tree--toad, waxed fainter, and the wild cry of the
+tiger--cat was no longer heard.  The terral, or land--wind, which is
+usually strongest towards morning, moaned loudly on the hillside, and came
+rushing past with a melancholy sough, through the brushwood that
+surrounded the hut, shaking off the heavy dew from the palm and cocoa--nut
+trees, like large drops of rain.
+
+The hollow tap of the woodpecker; the clear flute--note of the Pavo del
+monte; the discordant shriek of the macaw; the shrill chirr of the wild
+Guinea fowl; and the chattering of the paroquets, began to be heard from
+the wood.  The ill--omened gaflinaso was sailing and circling round the
+hut, and the tall flamingo was stalking on the shallows of the lagoon, the
+haunt of the disgusting alligator, that lay beneath, divided from the sea
+by a narrow mud--bank, where a group of pelicans, perched on the wreck of
+one of our boats, were pluming themselves before taking wing.  In the
+east, the deep blue of the firmament, from which the lesser stars were
+fast fading, all but the "Eye of Mom," was warming into magnificent
+purple, and the amber rays of the yet unrisen sun were shooting up,
+streamer--like, with intervals between, through the parting clouds, as
+they broke away with a passing shower, that fell like a veil of silver
+gauze between us and the first primrose--coloured streaks of a tropical
+dawn.
+
+"That's a musket shot," said the Lieutenant.  The Indian crept on his
+belly to the door, dropped his chin on the ground, and placed his open
+palms behind his ears.  The distant wail of a bugle was heard, then three
+or four dropping shots again, in rapid succession.  Mr Splinter stooped
+to go forth, but the Indian caught him by the leg, uttering the single
+word "Espanoles."
+
+On the instant, a young Indian woman, with a shrieking infant in her
+arms, rushed to the door.  There was a blue gunshot wound in her neck,
+from which two or three large black clotting gouts of blood were
+trickling.  Her long black hair was streaming in coarse braids, and her
+features were pinched and sharpened, as if in the agony of death.  She
+glanced wildly behind, and gasped out "Escapa, Oreeque, escape, para mi,
+soi muerto ya." Another shot, and the miserable creature convulsively
+clasped her child, whose small shrill cry I often fancy I hear to this
+hour blending with its mother's death--shriek, and, falling backwards,
+rolled over the brow of the hill out of sight.  The ball had pierced the
+heart of the parent through the body of her offspring.  By this time a
+party of Spanish soldiers had surrounded the hut, one of whom, kneeling
+before the low door, pointed his musket into it.  The Indian, who had seen
+his wife and child thus cruelly shot down before his face, now fired his
+rifle, and the man feel dead.  "Siga mi Querida Bondia--maldito." Then
+springing to his feet, and stretching himself to his full height, with his
+arms extended towards Heaven, while a strong shiver shook him like an ague
+fit, he yelled forth the last words he ever uttered, "Venga la suerte, ya
+soi listo," and resumed his squatting position on the ground.
+
+Half a dozen musket balls were now fired at random through the wattles of
+the hut, while the Lieutenant, who spoke Spanish well, sung out lustily,
+that we were English officers who had been shipwrecked.
+
+"Mentira,"  growled the officer of the party, "Piratas son ustedes."
+"Pirates leagued with Indian bravoes; fire the hut, soldiers, and burn the
+scoundrels!"
+
+There was no time to be lost; Mr Splinter made a vigorous attempt to get
+out, in which I seconded him with all the strength that remained to me,
+but they beat us back again with the butts of their muskets.
+
+"Where are your conunissions, your uniforms, if you be British officers?"
+We had neither, and our fate appeared inevitable.
+
+The doorway was filled with brushwood, fire was set to the hut, and we
+heard the crackling of the palm thatch, while thick stifling wreaths of
+white smoke burst in upon us through the roof.
+
+"Lend a hand, Tom, now or never, and kick up the dark man there;" but he
+sat still as a statue.  We laid our shoulders to the end wall, and heaved
+at it with all our might; when we were nearly at the last gasp it gave
+way, and we rushed headlong into the middle of the party, followed by
+Sneezer with his shaggy coat, that was full of clots of tar, blazing like
+a torch.  He unceremoniously seized par le queue, the soldier who had
+throttled me, setting fire to the skirts of his coat, and blowing up his
+cartouche box.  I believe, under Providence, that the ludicrousness of
+this attack saved us from being bayoneted on the spot.  It gave time for
+Mr Splinter to recover his breath, when, being a powerful man, he shook
+off the two soldiers who had seized him, and dashed into the burning hut
+again. I thought he was mad, especially when I saw him return with his
+clothes and hair on fire, dragging out the body of the Captain.  He
+unfolded the sail it was wrapped in, and pointing to the remains of the
+naval uniform in which the mutilated and putrefying corpse was dressed, he
+said sternly to the officer--"We are in your power, and you may murder us
+if you will; but that was my Captain four days ago, and you see, he at
+least was a British officer--satisfy yourself." The person he addressed, a
+handsome young Spaniard, with a clear olive complexion, oval face, small
+brown mustaches, and large black eyes, shuddered at the horrible
+spectacle, but did as he was requested.
+
+When he saw the crown and anchor, and his Majesty's cipher on the
+appointments of the dead officer, he became convinced of our quality, and
+changed his tone--"Es verdad, son de la marina Englesa. But, gentlemen,
+were there not three persons in the hut?"
+
+There were indeed--the flames had consumed the dry roof and walls with
+incredible rapidity, which by this time had fallen in, but Oreeque was
+nowhere to be seen. I thought I saw something move in the midst of the
+fire, but it might have been fancy.  Again, the white ashes heaved, and a
+half--consumed hand and arm were thrust through the smouldering mass, then
+a human head, with the scalp burnt from the skull, and the flesh from the
+chaps and cheekbones; the trunk next appeared, the bleeding ribs laid
+bare, and the miserable Indian, with his limbs like scorched rafters,
+stood upright before us, like a demon in the midst of the fire.  He made
+no attempt to escape, but reeling to and fro like a drunken man, fell
+headlong, raising clouds of smoke and a shower of sparks in his fall.
+Alas! poor Oreeque, the newly risen sun was now shining on your ashes, and
+on the dead bodies of the ill--starred Bondia and her child, whose bones,
+ere his setting, the birds of the air, and beasts of the forest, will
+leave as white and fieshless as your own.  The officer, who belonged to
+the army investing Carthagena, now treated us with great civility; he
+heard our story, and desired his men to assist us in burying the remains
+of our late commander.
+
+We remained all day on the same part of the coast, but towards evening the
+party fell back on the outpost to which they belonged--after travelling an
+hour or so we emerged from a dry river course, in which the night had
+overtaken us, and came suddenly on a small plateau, where the post was
+established on the promontory of "Punto Canoa." There may be braver
+soldiers at a charge, although that I doubt, if they be properly led, but
+none more picturesque in a bivouac than the Spanish.  A gigantic wild
+cotton--tree, to which our largest English oaks would have been but as
+dwarfs, rose on one side, and overshadowed the whole level space.  The
+bright beams of the full moon glanced among the topmost leaves, and tipped
+the higher branches with silver, contrasting strangely with the scene
+below, where a large watch--fire cast a strong red glare on the
+surrounding objects, throwing up dense volumes of smoke, which eddied in
+dun wreaths amongst the foliage, and hung in the still night air like a
+canopy, about ten feet from the ground, leaving the space beneath
+comparatively clear.
+
+A temporary guard--house, with a rude verandah of bamboos and palm leaves,
+had been built between two of the immense spurs of the mighty tree, that
+shot out many yards from the parent stem like wooden buttresses, whilst
+overhead there was a sort of stage, made of planks laid across the lower
+boughs, supporting a quantity of provisions covered with tarpaulins.  The
+sentries in the background with their glancing arms, were seen pacing on
+their watch; some of the guard were asleep on wooden benches, and on the
+platform amongst the branches, where a little baboon--looking old man, in
+the dress of a drummer, had perched himself, and sat playing a Biscayan
+air on a sort of bagpipe; others were gathered round the fire, cooking
+their food, or cleaning their arms.  It shone brightly on the long line of
+Spanish transports that were moored below, stem on to the beach, and on
+the white sails of the armed craft that were still hovering under weigh in
+the offing, which, as the night wore on, stole in, one after another like
+phantoms of the ocean, and letting go their anchors with a splash, and a
+hollow rattle of the cable, remained still and silent like the rest.
+Farther off, it fell in a crimson stream on the surface of the sheltered
+bay, struggling with the light of the gentle moon, and tinging with blood
+the small waves that twinkled in her silver wake, across which a guard
+boat would now and then glide, like a fairy thing, the arms of the men
+flashing back the red light.
+
+
+Beyond the influence of the hot smoky glare, the glorious planet reassumed
+her sway in the midst of her attendant stars, and the relieved eye
+wandered forth into the lovely night, where the noiseless sheet--lightning
+was glancing, and ever and anon lighting up for an instant some fantastic
+shape in the fleecy clouds, like prodigies forerunning the destruction of
+the stronghold over which they impended; while beneath, the lofty ridge of
+the convent--crowned Popa, the citadel of San Felipe bristling with
+cannon, the white batteries and many towers of the fated city of
+Carthagena, and the Spanish blockading squadron at anchor before it, slept
+in the moonlight.
+
+We were civilly received by the captain, who apologized for the discomfort
+under which we must pass the night.  He gave us the best he had, and that
+was bad enough, both of food and wine, before showing us into the hut,
+where we found a rough deal coffin lying on the very bench that was to be
+our bed.  This he ordered away with all the coolness in the world.  "It
+was only one of his people who had died that morning of vomito, or yellow
+fever."
+
+"Comfortable country this," quoth Splinter, "and a pleasant morning we
+have had of it, Tom!"
+
+Next morning, we proceeded towards the Spanish headquarters, provided with
+horses through the kindness of the captain of the outpost, and preceded by
+a guide on an ass.  He was a moreno, or man of colour, who in place of
+bestriding his beast, gathered his limbs under him, and sat crosslegged on
+it like a tailor; so that when you saw the two "end on," the effect was
+laughable enough, the flank and tail of the ass appearing to constitute
+the lower part of the man, as if he had been a sort of composite animal,
+like the ancient satyr.  The road traversed a low swampy country, from
+which the rank moisture arose in a hot palpable mist, and crossed several
+shallow lagoons, from two to six feet deep of tepid, muddy, brackish
+water, some of them half a mile broad, and swarming with wild waterfowl.
+On these occasions, our friend the Satyr was signalled to make sail ahead
+on his donkey to pilot us; and as the water deepened, he would betake
+himself to swimming in its wake, holding on by the tail, and shouting,
+"Cuidado Burrico, Cuidado que no te ahogas."
+
+While passing through the largest of these, we noticed several calabashes
+about pistol--shot on our right; and as we fancied one of them bobbed now
+and then it struck me they might be Indian fishing floats.  To satisfy my
+curiosity, I hauled my wind, and leaving the track we were on, swam my
+horse towards the group.  The two first that I lifted had nothing attached
+to them, but proved to be mere empty gourds floating before the wind; but
+when I tried to seize the largest, it eluded my grasp in a most
+incomprehensible manner, and slid away astern of me with a curious hollow
+gabbling sort of noise, whereupon my palfrey snorted and reared, and
+nearly capsized me over his bows.  What a noble fish, thought I, as I
+tacked in chase, but my Bucephalus refused to face it. I therefore bore up
+to join my companions again; but in requital of the disappointment,
+smashed the gourd in passing with the stick I held in my hand, when, to my
+unutterable surprise, and amidst shouts of laughter from our moreno, the
+head and shoulders of an Indian, with a quantity of sedges tied round his
+neck, and buoyed up by half--a--dozen dead teal fastened by the legs to
+his girdle, started up before me.  "Ave Maria, purissima! you have
+broken my head, senior." But as the vegetable helmet had saved his skull,
+of itself possibly none of the softest, a small piece of money spliced the
+feud between us; and as he fitted his pate with another calabash,
+preparatory to resuming his cruise, he joined in our merriment, although
+from a different cause.--"What can these English simpletons see so very
+comical in a poor Indian catching wild--ducks?"
+
+Shortly after, we entered a forest of magnificent trees, whose sombre
+shade, on first passing from the intolerable glare of the sun, seemed
+absolute darkness.  The branches were alive with innumerable tropical
+birds and insects, and were laced together by a thick tracery of withes,
+along which a guana would occasionally dart, coming nearest of all the
+reptiles I had seen to the shape of the fabled dragon.
+
+But how different from the clean steams and beautiful green sward of our
+English woods!  Here, you were confined to a quagmire by impervious
+underwood of prickly pear, penguin, and speargrass; and when we rode under
+the drooping branches of the trees, that the leaves might brush away the
+halo of musquittoes, flying ants, and other winged plagues that buzzed
+about our temples, we found, to our dismay, that we had made bad worse by
+the introduction of a whole colony of garapatos, or wood--ticks, into our
+eyebrows and hair.  At length, for the second time, so far as I was
+concerned, we reached the reached the headquarters at Torrecilla, and were
+well received by the Spanish commander--in--chief, a tall, good--looking,
+soldierlike man, whose personal qualities had an excellent foil in the
+captain--general of the province, an old friend of mine, as already
+mentioned, and who certainly looked full as like a dancing--master, or, at
+the best, perruquier en general to the staff, as a viceroy.
+
+General Morillo, however, had a great share of Sancho Panza shrewdness,
+and I will add kindness, about him.  We were drenched and miserable when
+we arrived, yet he might have turned us over, naturally enough, to the
+care of his staff.  No such thing; the first thing he did was to walk both
+of us behind a canvass screen, that shut off one end of the large barnlike
+room, where a long table was laid for dinner.  This was his sleeping
+apartment, and drawing out of a leather bag two suits of uniform, he
+rigged us almost with his own hands.  Presently a point of war was sounded
+by half--a--dozen trumpeters, and Splinter and I made our appearance each
+in the dress of a Spanish general.  The party consisted of Morillo's
+personal staff, the captain--general, the inquisidor general, and several
+colonels and majors of different regiments.  In all, twenty people sat
+down to dinner; among whom were several young Spanish noblemen, some of
+whom I had met on my former visit, who, having served in the Peninsular
+war under the great Duke, made their advances with great cordiality.
+Strange enough--Splinter and I were the only parties present in uniform;
+all the others, priests and soldiers, were clothed in gingham coats and
+white trowsers.
+
+The besieging force at this time was composed of about five thousand
+Spaniards, as fine troops as I ever saw, and three thousand Creoles under
+the command of that desperate fellow Morales. I was not long in
+recognising an old friend of mine in the person of Captain Bayer,
+an aide--de--camp of Morillo, amongst the company.  He was very kind and
+attentive, and rather startled me by speaking very tolerable English now,
+from a kindly motive I make no question, whereas, when I had known him
+before in Kingston, he professed to speak nothing but Spanish or French.
+He was a German by birth, and lived to rise to the rank of colonel in the
+Spanish army, where he subsequently greatly distinguished himself, but he
+at length fell in some obscure skirmish in New Granada; and my old ally
+Morillo, Count of Carthagena, is now living in penury, an exile in Paris.
+
+After being, as related, furnished with food and raiment, we retired to
+our quatres, a most primitive sort of couch, being a simple wooden frame,
+with a piece of canvass stretched over it.  However, if we had no
+mattresses, we had none of the disagreeables often incidental to them,
+and, fatigue proved a good opiate, for we slept soundly until the drums
+and trumpets of the troops, getting under arms, awoke us at daylight.  The
+army was under weigh to occupy Carthagena, which had fallen through
+famine, and we had no choice but to accompany it.
+
+I knew nothing of the misery of a siege but by description; the reality
+even to me, case--hardened as I was by my own recent sufferings, was
+dreadful.  We entered by the gate of the raval, or suburb.  There was not
+a living thing to be seen in the street; the houses had been pulled down,
+that the fire of the place might not be obstructed in the event of a
+lodgment in the outwork.  We passed on, the military music echoing
+mournfully amongst the ruined walls, to the main gate, or Puerto de Tiera,
+which was also open, and the drawbridge lowered.  Under the archway, we
+saw a delicate female, worn to the bone, and weak as an infant, gathering
+garbage of the most loathsome description, the possession of which had
+been successfully disputed by a carrion crow.  A little farther on, the
+bodies of an old man and two small children were putrefying in the sun,
+while beside them lay a misererable, wasted, dying negro, vainly
+endeavouring to keep at a distance with a palm branch a number of the same
+obscene birds that were already devouring the carcass of one of the
+infants; before two hours, the faithful servant, and those he attempted to
+defend, were equally the prey of the disgusting gallinaso.  The houses, as
+we proceeded, appeared entirely deserted, except where a solitary spectre
+like inhabitant appeared at a balcony, and feebly exclaimed, "Viva, los
+Espanoles!  Viva, Fernando Septimo!"--We saw no domestic animal
+whatsoever, not even a cat or a dog; but I will not dwell on these
+horrible details any longer.
+
+One morning, shortly after our arrival, as we strolled beyond the land
+gate, we came to a place where four banquillos (a sort of short bench or
+stool, with an upright post at one end firmly fixed into the ground) were
+placed opposite a dead wall.  They were painted black, and we were not
+left long in suspense as to their use; for solemn music, and the roll
+of muffled drums in the distance, were fearful indications of what we were
+to witness.
+
+First came an entire regiment of Spanish infantry, which, filing off,
+formed three sides of a square,--the wall near which the banquillos were
+placed forming the fourth; then eight priests, and as many choristers
+chanting the service for the dying; next came several mounted officers of
+the staff, and four firing parties of twelve men each.  Three Spanish
+American prisoners followed, dressed in white, with crucifixes in their
+hands, each supported, more dead than alive, by two priests; but when the
+fourth victim appeared, we could neither look at nor think of any thing
+else.
+
+On enquiry we found he was an Englishman, of the name of S----: English,
+that is, in all except the place of his birth, for his whole education had
+been English, as were his parents and all his family; but it came out,
+accidentally I believe, on his trial, that he had been born at Buenos
+Ayres, and having joined the patriots, this brought treason home to him,
+which he was now led forth to expiate.  Whilst his fellow--sufferers
+appeared crushed down to the very earth, under their intense agony, so
+that they had to be supported as they tottered towards the place of
+execution, he stepped firmly and manfully out, and seemed impatient when
+at any time, from the crowding in front, the procession was obliged to
+halt.  At length they reached the fatal spot, and his three companions in
+misery being placed astride on the banquillos, their arms twisted round
+the upright posts, and fastened to them with cords, their backs being
+towards the soldiers.  Mr S----walked firmly up to the vacant bench,
+knelt down, and covering his face with his hands, rested his head on the
+edge of it.  For a brief space he seemed to be engaged in prayer, during
+which he sobbed audibly, but soon recovering himself, he rose, and folding
+his arms across his breast, sat down slowly and deliberately on the
+banquillo, facing the firing party with an unshrinking eye.
+
+He was now told that he must turn his back and submit to be tied like the
+others.  He resisted this, but on force being attempted to be used, he
+sprung to his feet, and stretching out his hand, while a dark red flush
+passed transiently across his pale face, he exclaimed in a loud voice,
+"Thus, thus, and not otherwise, you may butcher me, but I am an Englishman
+and no traitor, nor will I die the death of one." Moved by his gallantry,
+the soldiers withdrew, and left him standing.  At this time the sun was
+intensely hot, it was high noon, and the monk who attended Mr S----held
+an umbrella over his head; but the preparations being completed, he kissed
+him on both cheeks, while the hot tears trickled down his own, and was
+stepping back, when the unhappy man said to him, with the most perfect
+composure, "Todavia padre, todavia, mucho me gusta la sombra." But the
+time had arrived, the kind--hearted monk was obliged to retire.  The
+signal was given, the musketry rattled, and they were as clods of the
+valley "Truly," quoth old Splinter, "a man does sometimes become a horse
+by being born in a stable."
+
+Some time after this we were allowed to go to the village of Turbaco, a
+few miles distant from the city, for change of air.  On the third morning
+after our arrival, about the dawning, I was suddenly awakened by a shower
+of dust on my face, and a violent shaking of the bed, accompanied by a low
+grumbling unearthly noise, which seemed to pass immediately under where I
+lay.  Were I to liken it to any thing I had ever experienced before, it
+would be to the lumbering and tremor of a large waggon in a tempestuous
+night, heard and felt through the thin walls of a London house.--Like--yet
+how fearfully different!
+
+In a few seconds the motion ceased, and the noise gradually died away in
+hollow echoes in the distance--whereupon ensued such a crowing of cocks,
+cackling of geese, barking of dogs, lowing of kine, neighing of horses,
+and shouting of men, women, and children amongst the negro and coloured
+domestics, as baffles all description, whilst the various white inmates of
+the house (the rooms, for air and coolness, being without ceiling, and
+simply divided by partitions run up about ten feet high) were, one and
+all, calling to their servants and each other, in accents which did not by
+any means evince great composure.  In a moment this hubbub again sank into
+the deepest silence--man, and the beasts of the field, and the fowls of
+the air, became mute with breathless awe, at the impending tremendous
+manifestation of the power of that Almighty Being in whose hands the hills
+are as a very little thing--for the appalling voice of the earthquake was
+once more heard growling afar off, like distant thunder mingling with the
+rushing of a mighty wind, waxing louder and louder as it approached, and
+upheaving the sure and firm--set earth into long undulations, as if its
+surface had been the rolling swell of the fathomless ocean.  The house
+rocked, pictures of saints fell from the walls, tables and chairs were
+overturned, the window frames were forced out of their embrasures and
+broken in pieces, beams and rafters groaned and screamed, crushing the
+tiles of the roof into ten thousand fragments.  In several places the
+ground split open into chasms a fathom wide, with an explosion like a
+cannon--shot; the very foundation of the house seemed to be sinking under
+us; and whilst men and women rushed like maniacs naked into the fields,
+with a yell as if the Day of Judgment had arrived, and the whole brute
+creation, in an agony of fear, made the most desperate attempts to break
+forth from their enclosures into the open air, the end wall of my
+apartment was shaken down; and falling outwards with a deafening crash,
+disclosed, in the dull grey mysterious twilight of morning, the huge
+gnarled trees that overshadowed the building, bending and groaning, amidst
+clouds of dust, as if they had been tormented by a tempest, although the
+air was calm and motionless as death.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+
+The Piccaroon
+
+"Ours the wild life in tumult still to range."
+
+BYRON, THE CORSAIR, I. 7.
+
+
+Some time after this, we once more returned to Carthagena, to be at hand
+should any opportunity occur for Jamaica, and A.--Jwere lounging about one
+forenoon on the fortifications, looking with sickening hearts out to
+seaward, when a voice struck up the following negro ditty close to us:
+
+"Fader was a Corramantee,
+Moder was a Mingo,
+Black picaniny buccra wantee,
+So dem sell a me Peter, by jingo,
+Jiggery, jiggery, jiggery."
+
+"Well sung, Massa Bungo," exclaimed Mr Splinter; "where do you hail from,
+my hearty?"
+
+"Hiflo!  Bungo, indeed! free and easy dat, anyhow.  Who you yousef, eh?"
+
+"Why, Peter," continued the Lieutenant, "don't you know me?" "Cannot say
+dat I do," rejoined the negro, very gravely, without lifting his head, as
+he sat mending his jacket in one of the embrasures near the water gate of
+the arsenal--"Have not de honour of your acquaintance, sir."
+
+He then resumed his scream, for song it could not be called:--
+
+"Mammy Sally's daughter,
+Lose him shoe in an old canoe,
+Dat lay halffull of water,
+And den she knew not what to do.
+Jiggery, jig"--
+
+"Confound your jiggery, jiggery, sir!  But I know you well enough, my man;
+and you can scarcely have forgotten Lieutenant Splinter of the Torch, one
+would think?"
+
+However, it was clear that the poor fellow really had not known us; for
+the name so startled him, that, in his hurry to unlace his legs from under
+him, as he sat tailor--fashion, he fairly capsized out of his perch, and
+toppled down on his nose--a feature fortunately so flattened by the hand
+of nature, that I question if it could have been rendered more obtuse had
+he fallen out of the maintop on a timber--head, or a marine officer's.
+
+"Eh!--no--yes, him sure enough; and who is de picaniny hofficer--Oh! I
+see, Massa Tom Cringle?  Garamighty, gentlemen, where have you drop
+from?--Where is de old Torch?  Many a time hab I Peter Mangrove, pilot to
+Him Britanic Magesty squadron, taken de old brig in and through amongst de
+keys at Port Royal!"
+
+"Ay, and how often did you scour her copper against the coral reefs,
+Peter?"
+
+His Majesty's pilot gave a knowing look, and laid his hand on his breast
+"No more of dat if you love me, massa."
+
+"Well, well, it don't signify now, my boy; she will never give you that
+trouble again--foundered--all hands lost, Peter, but the two you see
+before you."
+
+"Werry sorry, Massa Plinter, werry sorry--What! de black cooksmate and
+all?--But misfortune can't be help.  Stop till I put up my needle, and I
+will take a turn wid you." Here he drew himself up with a great deal of
+absurd gravity.  "Proper dat British hofficer in distress should assist
+one anoder--We shall consult togeder.--How can I serve you?"
+
+"Why, Peter, if you could help us to a passage to Port Royal, it would be
+serving us most essentially.  When we used to be lying there, a week
+seldom passed without one of the squadron arriving from this; but here
+have we been for more than a month, without a single pennant belonging to
+the station having looked in: our money is running short, and if we are to
+hold on in Carthagena for another six weeks, we shall not have a shot
+left in the locker--not a copper to tinkle on a tombstone."
+
+The negro looked steadfastly at us, then carefully around.  There was no
+one near.
+
+"You see, Massa Plinter, I am desirable to serve you, for one little
+reason of my own; but, beside dat, it is good for me at present to make
+some friend wid de hofficer of de squadron, being as how dat I am absent
+widout leave."
+
+"Oh, I perceive--a large R against your name in the master attendant's
+books, eh?"
+
+"You have hit it, sir, werry close; besides I long mosh to return to my
+poor wife, Nancy Cator, dat I leave, wagabone dat I is, just about to be
+confine."
+
+I could not resist putting in my oar.
+
+"I saw Nancy just before we sailed, Peter,--fine child that; not quite so
+black as you, though."
+
+"Oh, massa," said Snowball, grinning and showing his white teeth, "you
+know I am soch a terrible black fellow--But you are a leetle out at
+present, massa--I meant, about to be confine in de workhouse, for stealing
+de admiral's Muscovy ducks;" and he laughed loud and long.--"However, if
+you will promise dat you will stand my friends, I will put you in de way
+of getting a shove across to de east end of Jamaica; and I will go wid
+you, too, for company."
+
+"Thank you," rejoined Mr Splinter; "but how do you mean to manage this?
+There is no Kingston trader here at present, and you don't mean to make a
+start of it in an open boat, do you?"
+
+"No, sir, I don't; but in de first place--as you are a gentleman, will you
+try and get me off when we get to Jamaica?  Secondly, wi you promise dat
+you will not seek to know more of de vessel you may go in, nor of her
+crew, than dey are willing to tell you, provided you are landed safe?"
+
+"Why, Peter, I scarcely think you would deceive us, for you know I saved
+your bacon in that awkward affair, when through drunkenness you plumped
+the Torch ashore, so"--
+
+"Forget dat, sir,----forget dat!--Never shall poor black pilot forget how
+you saved him from being seized upt when de gratings, boatswain's mates,
+and all, were ready at de gangway@never shall poor black rascal forget
+dat."
+
+"Indeed I do not think you would wittingly betray us into trouble, Peter;
+and as I guess you mean one of the forced traders, we will venture in her,
+rather than kick about here any longer, and pay a moderate sum for our
+passage."
+
+"Den wait here five minute,"--and so saying he slipt down through the
+embrasure into a canoe that lay beneath, and in a trice we saw him jump on
+board of a long low nondescript kind of craft, that lay moored within
+pistol--shot of the walls.
+
+She was a large shallow vessel, coppered to the bends, of great breadth of
+beam, with bright sides, like an American, so painted as to give her a
+clumsy mercantile sheer externally, but there were many things that belied
+this to a nautical eye: her copper, for instance, was bright as burnished
+gold on her very sharp bows and beautiful run; and we could see from the
+bastion where we stood, that her decks were flush and level.  She had no
+cannon mounted that were visible, but we distinguished grooves on her
+well--scrubbed decks, as from the recent traversing of carronade slides,
+while the bolts and rings in her high and solid bulwarks shone clear and
+bright in the ardent noontide.  There was a tarpawling stretched over a
+quantity of rubbish, old sails, old junk, and hencoops rather
+ostentatiously piled up forward, which we conjectured might conceal a
+long gun.
+
+She was a very taught--rigged hermaphrodite, or brig forward and schooner
+aft.  Her foremast and bowsprit were immensely strong and heavy, and her
+mainmast was so long and tapering, that the wonder was, how the few
+shrouds and stays about it could support it: it was the handsomest stick
+we had ever seen.  Her upper spars were on the same scale, tapering away
+through topmast, topgallant--mast, royal and skysail--masts, until they
+fined away into slender wands.  The sails, that were loose to dry, were
+old, and patched, And evidently displayed to cloak the character of the
+vessel, by an ostentatious show of their unserviceable condition, but her
+rigging was beautifully fitted, every rope lying in the chafe of another
+being carefully served with hide.  There were several large
+bushy--whiskered fellows lounging about the deck, with their hair
+gathered into dirty net bags, like the fishermen of Barcelona; many had
+red silk sashes round their waists, through which were stuck their long
+knives, in shark--skin sheaths.  Their numbers were not so great as to
+excite suspicion; but a certain daring reckless manner, would at once
+have distinguished them, independently of any thing else, from the quiet,
+hard--worked, redshirted merchant seaman.
+
+"That chap is not much to be trusted," said the Lieutenant; "his bunting
+would make a few jackets for Joseph, I take it." But we had little time to
+be critical before our friend Peter came paddling back with another
+blackamoor in the stem, of as ungainly an exterior as could well be,
+imagined.  He was a very large man, whose weight every now and then, as
+they breasted the short sea, cocked up the snout of the canoe with Peter
+Mangrove in it, as if he had been a cork, leaving him to flourish his
+paddle in the air, like the weatherwheel of a steam--boat in a sea--way.
+The new comer was strong and broad--shouldered, with long muscular arms,
+and a chest like Hercules; but his legs and thighs were, for his bulk,
+remarkably puny and misshapen.  A thick fell of black wool, in close
+tufts, as if his face had been stuck full of cloves, covered his chin and
+upper lip; and his hair, if hair it could be called, was twisted into a
+hundred short plaits, that bristled out, and gave his head, when he took
+his hat off, the appearance of a porcupine.  There was a large sabre--cut
+across his nose, and down his cheek, and he wore two immense gold earrmgs.
+His dress consisted of short cotton drawers, that did not reach within two
+inches of his knee, leaving his thin cucumber shanks (on which the small
+bullet--like calf appeared to have been stuck before, through mistake, in
+place of abaft) naked to the shoe; a check shirt, and an enormously large
+Panama hat, made of a sort of cane, split small, and worn shovel--fashion.
+Notwithstanding, he made his bow by no means ungracefully, and offered his
+services in choice Spanish, but spoke English as soon as he heard who we
+were.
+
+"Pray, sir, are you the master of that vessel?" said the lieutenant.
+
+"No, sir, I am the mate, and I learn you are desirous of a passage to
+Jamaica." This was spoken with a broad Scotch accent.
+
+"Yes, we are," said I, in very great astonishment; "but we will not sail
+with the devil; and who ever saw a negro Scotchman before, the spirit of
+Nicol Jarvie conjured into a blackamoor's skin!"
+
+The fellow laughed.  "I am black, as you see; so were my father and mother
+before me." And he looked at me, as much as to say, I have read the book
+you quote from.  "But I was born in the good town of Port--Glasgow,
+notwithstanding, and many a voyage I have made as cabin--boy and cook, in
+the good ship the Peggy Bogle, with worthy old jock Hunter; but that
+matters not. I was told you wanted to go to Jamaica; I dare say our
+captain will take you for a moderate passagemoney.  But here he comes to
+speak for himself.--Captain Vanderbosh, here are two shipwrecked British
+officers, who wish to be put on shore on the east end of Jamaica; will you
+take them, and what will you charge for their passage?"
+
+The man he spoke to was nearly as tall as himself; he was a sunburnt,
+angular, raw--boned, iron--visaged veteran, with a nose in shape and
+colour like the bowl of his own pipe, but not at all, according to the
+received idea, like a Dutchman.  His dress was quizzical enoughwhite
+trowsers, a long--flapped embroidered waistcoat, that might have belonged
+to a Spanish grandee, with an old--fashioned French--cut coat, showing the
+frayed marks where the lace had been stripped off, voluminous in the
+skirts, but very tight in the sleeves, which were so short as to leave his
+large bony paws, and six inches of his arm above the wrist, exposed;
+altogether, it fitted him like a purser's shirt on a handspike.
+
+"Vy, for von hondred thaler, I will land dem safe in Mancheoneal Bay; but
+how shall ve manage, Villiamson?  De cabin vas point yesterday."
+
+The Scotch negro nodded.  "Never mind; I dare say the smell of the paint
+won't signify to the gentlemen."
+
+The bargain was ratified, we agreed to pay the stipulated sum, and that
+same evening, having dropped down with the last of the seabreeze, we set
+sail from Bocca Chica, and began working up under the lee of the headland
+of Punto Canoa.  When off the San Domingo Gate, we burned a blue light,
+which was immediately answered by another in shore of us.  In the glare,
+we could perceive two boats, full of men.  Any one who has ever played at
+snapdragon, can imagine the unearthly appearance of objects when seen by
+this species of firework.  In the present instance, it was held aloft on
+a boat--hook, and cast a strong spectral light on the band of lawless
+ruffians, who were so crowded together, that they entirely filled the
+boats, no part of which could be seen.  It seemed as if two clusters of
+fiends, suddenly vomited forth from hell, were floating on the surface of
+the midnight sea, in the midst of brimstone flames.  In a few moments, our
+crew was strengthened by about forty as ugly Christians as I ever set eyes
+on. They were of all ages, countries, complexions, and tongues, and looked
+as if they had been kidnapped by a pressgang, as they had knocked off from
+the Tower of Babel.  From the moment they came on board, Captain
+Vanderbosh was shorn of all his glory, and sank into the petty officer,
+while, to our amazement, the Scottish negro took the command, evincing
+great coolness, energy, and skill.  He ordered the schooner to be wore,
+as soon as we had shipped the men, and laid her head off the land, then
+set all hands to shift the old suit of sails, and to bend new ones.
+
+"Why did you not shift your canvass before we started?" said I to the
+Dutch captain, or mate, or whatever he might be.
+
+"Vy vont you be content to take a quiet passage and hax no question?" was
+the uncivil rejoinder, which I felt inclined to resent, until I remembered
+that we were in the hands of the Philistines, where a quarrel would have
+been worse than useless. I was gulping down the insult as well as I could,
+when the black captain came--aft, and, with the air of an equal, invited
+us into the cabin to take a glass of grog.  We had scarcely sat down
+before we heard a noise like the swaying up of guns, or some other heavy
+articles, from the hold.
+
+I caught Mr Splinter's eye--he nodded, but said nothing.  In half an hour
+afterwards, when we went on deck, we saw by the light of the moon, twelve
+eighteen--pound carronades mounted, six of a side, with their
+accompaniments of rammers and sponges, water buckets, boxes of round,
+grape, and canister, and tubs of wadding, while the combings of the
+hatchways were thickly studded with round shot.  The tarpawling and lumber
+forward had disappeared, and there lay long Tom ready levelled, grinning
+on his pivot.
+
+The ropes were all coiled away, and laid down in regular man--of--war
+fashion; while an ugly gruff beast of a Spanish mulatto, apparently the
+officer of the watch, walked the weather--side of the quarter--deck, in
+the true pendulum style.  Look--outs were placed aft, and at the gangways
+and bows, who every now and then passed the word to keep a bright
+look--out, while the rest of the watch were stretched silent, but
+evidently broad awake, under the lee of the boat.  We noticed that each
+man had his cutlass buckled round his waistthat the boarding--pikes had
+been cut loose from the main boom, round which they had been stopped, and
+that about thirty muskets were ranged along a fixed'rack, that ran athwart
+ships, near the main hatchway.
+
+By the time we had reconnoitred thus far, the night became overcast, and a
+thick bank of clouds began to rise to windward; some heavy drops of rain
+fell, and the thunder grumbled at a distance.  The black veil crept
+gradually on, until it shrouded the whole firmament, and left us in as
+dark a night as ever poor devils were out in.  By and by, a narrow streak
+of bright moonlight appeared under the lower edge of the bank, defining
+the dark outlines of the tumbling multitudinous billows on the horizon, as
+distinctly as if they had been pasteboard waves in a theatre.
+
+"Is that a sail to windward, in the clear, think you?" said Mr Splinter to
+me in a whisper.  At this moment it lightened vividly.  "I am sure it is,"
+continued he--"I could see her white canvass glance just now."
+
+I looked steadily, and, at last, caught the small dark speck against the
+bright background, rising and falling on the swell of the sea like a
+feather,
+
+As we stood on, she was seen more distinctly, but, to all appearance,
+nobody was aware of her proximity.  We were mistaken in this, however, for
+the captain suddenly jumped on a gun, and gave his orders with a fiery
+energy that startled us.
+
+"Leroux!" A small French boy was at his side in a moment.  "Forward, and
+call all hands to shorten sail; but, doucement, you land crab!--Man the
+fore clew--garnets.--Hands by the topgallant clewlines--peak and throat
+haulyards--jib down--haul--rise tacks and sheets--let go--clew up--settle
+away the main--gaff there!"
+
+In almost as short a space as I have taken to write it, every inch of
+canvass was close furled--every light, except the one in the binnacle, and
+that was cautiously masked, carefully extinguished--a hundred and twenty
+men at quarters, and the ship under bare poles.  The head yards were then
+squared, and we bore up before the wind.  The stratagem proved successful;
+the strange sail could be seen through the night glasses, cracking on
+close to the wind, evidently under the impression that we had tacked.
+
+"Dere she goes, chasing de Gobel," said the Dutchman.
+
+She now burned a blue light, by which we saw she was a heavy cutter
+without doubt our old fellow--cruiser the Spark.  The Dutchman had come to
+the same conclusion.
+
+"My eye, Captain, no use to dodge from her; it is only dat footy little
+King's cutter on de Jamaica station."
+
+"It is her, true enough," answered Williamson; "and she is from Santa
+Martha with a freight of specie, I know. I will try a brush with her by"
+
+Splinter struck in before he could finish his irreverent exclamation.  "If
+your conjecture be true, I know the craft--a heavy vessel of her class,
+and you may depend on hard knocks, and small profit if you do take her;
+while, if she takes you"--
+
+"I'll be hanged if she does"--and he grinned at the conceit--then setting
+his teeth hard, "or rather, I will blow the schooner up with my own hand
+before I strike; better that than have one's bones bleached in chains on a
+key at Port Royal.--But, you see you cannot control us, gentlemen; so get
+down into the cable tier and take Peter Mangrove with you. I would not
+willingly see those come to harm who have trusted me."
+
+However, there was no shot flying as yet, we therefore staid on deck.  All
+sail was once more made; the carronades were cast loose on both sides, and
+double--shotted; the long gun slewed round; the tack of the fore--and--aft
+foresail hauled up, and we kept by the wind, and stood after the cutter,
+whose white canvass we could still see through the gloom like a
+snow--wreath.
+
+As soon as she saw us she tacked and stood towards us, and came bowling
+along gallantly, with the water roaring and flashing at her bows.  As the
+vessels neared each other, they both shortened sail, and finding that we
+could not weather her, we steered close under her lee.
+
+As we crossed on opposite tacks her commander hailed, "Ho, the brigantine,
+ahoy!"
+
+"Hillo!" sung out Blackie, as he backed his maintopsail.
+
+"What schooner is that?"
+
+"Ihe Spanish schooner Caridad."
+
+"Whence, and whither bound?"
+
+"Carthagena to Porto Rico."
+
+"Heave--to, and send your boat on board."
+
+"We have none that will swim, sir."
+
+"Very well--bring--to, and I will send mine."
+
+"Call away the boarders," said our captain, in a low stern tone; "let
+them crouch out of sight behind the boat."
+
+The cutter wore, and hove--to under our lee quarter, within pistol shot.
+We heard the rattle of the ropes running through the davit blocks, and the
+splash of the jolly boat touching the water, then the measured stroke of
+the oars, as they glanced like silver in the sparkling sea, and a voice
+calling out, "Give way, my lads."
+
+The character of the vessel we were on board of was now evident; and the
+bitter reflection that we were chained to the stake on board of a pirate,
+on the eve of a fierce contest with one of our own cruisers, was
+aggravated by the consideration that the cutter had fallen into a snare,
+by which a whole boat's crew would be sacrificed before a shot was fired.
+
+I watched my opportunity as she pulled up alongside, and called out,
+leaning well over the nettings, "Get back to your ship! treachery! get
+back to your ship!"
+
+The little French serpent was at my side with the speed of thought, his
+long clear knife glancing in one hand, while the fingers of the other were
+laid on his lips.  He could not have said more plainly, "Hold your tongue
+or I'll cut your throat;" but Sneezer now startled him by rushing between
+us, and giving a short angry growl.
+
+The officer in the boat had heard me imperfectly; he rose up--"I won't go
+back, my good man, until I see what you are made of; and as he spoke he
+sprung on board, but the instant he got over the bulwarks he was caught by
+two strong hands, gagged and thrown bodily down the main hatchway.
+
+"Heave," cried a voice, "and with a will!" and four cold 32--pound shot
+were hove at once into the boat alongside, which crashing through her
+bottom, swamped her in a moment, precipitating the miserable crew into the
+boiling sea.  Their shrieks still ring in my ears as they clung to the
+oars and some loose planks of the boat.
+
+"Bring up the officer, and take out the gag," said Williamson.
+
+Poor Walcolm, who had been an old messmate of mine, was now dragged to the
+gangway half--naked, his face bleeding, and heavily ironed, when the
+blackamoor, clapping a pistol to his head, bid him, as he feared instant
+death, hail "that the boat had swamped under the counter, and to send
+another." The poor fellow, who appeared stunned and confused, did so, but
+without seeming to know what he said.
+
+"Good God," said Mr Splinter, "don't you mean to pick up the boat's crew?"
+
+The blood curdled to my heart as the black savage answered in a voice of
+thunder, "Let them drown and be d--d! fill, and stand on!"
+
+But the clouds by this time broke away, and the mild moon shone clear and
+bright once more, upon this scene of most atrocious villainy.  By her
+light the cutter's people could see that there was no one struggling in
+the water now, and that the people must either have been saved, or were
+past all earthly aid; but the infamous deception was not entirely at an
+end.
+
+The captain of the cutter, seeing we were making sail, did the same, and
+after having shot ahead of us, hailed once more.
+
+"Mr Walcolm, why don't you run to leeward, and heave--to, sir?"
+
+"Answer him instantly, and hail again for another boat," said the sable
+fiend, and cocked his pistol.
+
+The click went to my heart.  The young midshipman turned his pale mild
+countenance, laced with his blood, upwards towards the moon and stars, as
+one who had looked his last look on earth; the large tears were flowing
+down his cheeks, and mingling with the crimson streaks, and a flood of
+silver light fell on the fine features of the poor boy, as he said firmly,
+"Never." The miscreant fired, and he fell dead.
+
+"Up with the helm, and wear across her stern." The order was obeyed.
+"Fire!" The whole broadside was poured in, and we could hear the shot
+rattle and tear along the cutter's deck, and the shrieks and groans of the
+wounded, while the white splinters glanced away in all directions.
+
+We now ranged alongside, and close action commenced, and never do I expect
+to see such an infernal scene again.  Up to this moment there had been
+neither confusion nor noise on board the pirate--all had been coolness and
+order; but when the yards locked, the crew broke loose from all control
+they ceased to be men they were demons, for they threw their own dead and
+wounded, as they were mown down like grass by the cutter's grape,
+indiscriminately down the hatchways to get clear of them.  They had stript
+themselves almost naked; and although they fought with the most desperate
+courage, yelling and cursing, each in his own tongue, most hideously, yet
+their very numbers, pent up in a small vessel, were against them.  At
+length, amidst the fire, and smoke, and hellish uproar, we could see that
+the deck had become a very shambles; and unless they soon carried the
+cutter by boarding, it was clear that the coolness and discipline of my
+own glorious service must prevail, even against such fearful odds, the
+superior size of the vessel, greater number of guns, and heavier metal.
+The pirates seemed aware of this themselves, for they now made a desperate
+attempt forward to carry their antagonist by boarding, led on by the black
+captain.  Just at this moment, the cutter's main--boom fell across the
+schooner's deck, close to where we were sheltering ourselves from the shot
+the best way we could; and while the rush forward was being made, by a
+sudden impulse Splinter and I, followed by Peter and the dog, (who with
+wonderful sagacity, seeing the uselessness of resistance, had cowered
+quietly by my side during the, whole row,) scrambled along it as the
+cutter's people were repelling the attack on her bow, and all four of us
+in our haste jumped down on the poor Irishman at the wheel.
+
+"Murder, fire, rape, and robbery! it is capsized, stove in, sunk, burned,
+and destroyed I am!  Captain, Captain, we are carried aft here--Och,
+hubbaboo for Patrick Donnally!"
+
+There was no time to be lost; if any of the crew came aft, we were dead
+men, so we tumbled down through the cabin skylight, men and beast, the
+hatch having been knocked off by a shot, and stowed ourselves away in the
+side berths.  The noise on deck soon ceased the cannon were again plied
+gradually the fire slackened, and we could hear that the pirate had
+scraped clear and escaped.  Some time after this, the lieutenant
+commanding the cutter came down.  Poor Mr Douglas! both Mr Splinter and I
+knew him well.  He sat down and covered his face with his hands, while the
+blood oozed down between his fingers.  He had received a cutlass wound on
+the head in the attack.  His right arm was bound up with his neckcloth,
+and he was very pale.
+
+"Steward, bring me a light.--Ask the doctor how many are killed and
+wounded; and, do you hear, tell him to come to me when he is done forward,
+but not a moment sooner.  To have been so mauled and duped by a cursed
+buccaneer; and my poor boat's crew"
+
+Splinter groaned.  He started--but at this moment the man returned again.
+
+"Thirteen killed, your honour, and fifteen wounded; scarcely one of us
+untouched." The poor fellow's own skull was bound round with a bloody
+cloth.
+
+"God help me!  God help me! but they have died the death of men.  Who
+knows what death the poor fellows in the boat have died?" Here he was cut
+short by a tremendous scuffle on the ladder, down which an old
+quarter--master was trundled neck and crop into the cabin.  "How now,
+Jones?"
+
+"Please your honour," said the man, as soon as he had gathered himself up,
+and had time to turn his quid, and smooth down his hair; but again the
+uproar was renewed, and Donnally was lugged in, scrambling and struggling,
+between two seamen--"this here Irish chap, your honour, has lost his wits,
+if so be he ever had any, your honour.  He has gone mad through fright."
+
+"Fright be d--d!" roared Donnally; "no man ever frightened me: but as his
+honour was skewering them bloody thieves forward, I was        boarded and
+carried aft by the devil, your honour--pooped by  Beelzebub, by--," and he
+rapped his fist on the table until every thing on it danced again.  "There
+were four of them, yeer honour--a black one and two blue ones--and a
+piebald one, with four legs and a bushy tail--each with two horns on his
+head, for all the world like those on Father M'Cleary's red cow--no, she
+was humbled--it is Father Clannachan's I mane--no, not his neither, for
+his was the parish bull; fait, I don't know what I mane, except that they
+had all horns on their heads, and vomited fire, and had each of them a
+tail at his stem, twisting and twining like a conger eel, with a blue
+light at the end on't."
+
+"And dat's a lie, if ever dere was one," exclaimed Peter Mangrove, jumping
+from the berth.  "Look at me, you Irish tief, and tell me if I have a blue
+light or a conger eel at my stem?"
+
+This was too much for poor Donnally.  He yelled out, "You'll believe your
+own eyes now, yeer honour, when you see one o'dem bodily before you!  Let
+me go--let me go" and, rushing up the ladder, he would, in all
+probability, have ended his earthly career in the salt sea, had his bullet
+head not encountered the broadest part of the purser, who was in the act
+of descending, with such violence, that he shot him out of the companion
+several feet above the deck, as if he had been discharged from a culverin;
+but the recoil sent poor Donnally, stunned and senseless, to the bottom of
+the ladder.  There was no standing all this; we laughed outright, and made
+ourselves known to Mr Douglas, who received us cordially, and in a week we
+were landed at Port Royal.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+
+The Cruise of the Spark
+
+"Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed."
+
+BYRON, THE CORSAIR, I.35.
+
+
+
+
+The only other midshipman on board the cutter beside young Walcolm, whose
+miserable death we had witnessed, twas a light delicate little fellow,
+about fourteen years old, of the name of Duncan; he was the smallest boy
+of his age I ever saw, and had been badly hurt in repelling the attack of
+the pirate.  His wound was a lacerated puncture in the left shoulder from
+a boarding pike, but it appeared to be healing kindly, and for some days
+we thought he was doing well.  However, about five o'clock in the
+afternoon on which we made Jamaica, the surgeon accosted Mr Douglas as we
+were walking the deck together.
+
+"I fear little Duncan is going to slip through my fingers after all, sir."
+
+"No!--I thought he had been better."
+
+"So he was till about noon, when a twitching of the muscles came on, which
+I fear betokens lock jaw; he wavers, too, now and then, a bad sign of
+itself where there is a fretting wound."
+
+We went below, where, notwithstanding the wind--sail that was let down
+close to where his hammock was slung, the heat of the small vessel was
+suffocating.  The large coarse tallow candle in the purser's lantern, that
+hung beside his shoulder, around which the loathsome cockroaches fluttered
+like moths in a summer evening, filled the between decks with a rancid oil
+smell, and with smoke as from a torch, while it ran down and melted like
+fat before a fire.  It cast a dull sickly, gleam on the pale face of the
+brown--hefted, girlish--looking lad, as he lay in his narrow hammock.
+When we entered, an old quartermaster was rubbing his legs, which were
+jerking about like the limbs of a galvanized frog, while two of the boys
+held his arms, also violently convulsed.  The poor little fellow was
+crying and sobbing most piteously, but made a strong effort to compose
+himself and "be a man" when he saw us.
+
+"This is so good of you, Mr Cringle! you will take charge of my letter to
+my sister, I know you will?--I say, Anson," to the quartermaster, "do lift
+me up a little till I try and finish it.--It will be a sore heart to poor
+Sarah; she has no mother now, nor father, and aunt is not over kind,"--and
+again he wept bitterly.  "Confound this jumping hand, it won't keep
+steady, all I can do.--I say, Doctor, I shan't die this time, shall I?"
+
+"I hope not, my fine little fellow."
+
+"I don't think I shall; I shall live to be a man yet, in spite of that
+bloody buccaneer's pike, I know I shall." God help me, the death rattle
+was already in his throat, and the flame was flickering in the socket;
+even as he spoke, the muscles of his neck stiffened to such a degree that
+I thought he was choked, but the violence of the convulsion quickly
+subsided.  "I am done for, Doctor!" he could no longer open his mouth, but
+spoke through his clenched teeth--"I feel it now!--God Almighty receive my
+soul, and protect my poor sister!" The arch--enemy was indeed advancing to
+the final struggle, for he now gave a sudden and sharp cry, and stretched
+out his legs and arms, which instantly became as rigid as marble, and in
+his agony he turned his face to the side I stood on, but he was no longer
+sensible.  "Sister," he said with difficulty--"Don't let them throw me
+overboard; there are sharks here."
+
+"Land on the lee bow,"--sung out the man at the masthead.
+
+The common life sound would not have moved any of us in the routine of
+duty, but bursting in, under such circumstances, it made us all start, as
+if it had been something unusual; the dying midshipman heard it, and said
+calmly--"Land,--I will never see it.--But how blue all your lips look.--It
+is cold, piercing cold, and dark, dark." Something seemed to rise in his
+throat, his features sharpened still more, and he tried to gasp, but his
+clenched teeth prevented him--he was gone.
+
+I went on deck with a heavy heart, and, on looking in the direction
+indicated, I beheld the towering Blue Mountain peak rising high above the
+horizon, even at the distance of fifty miles, with its outline clear and
+distinct against the splendid western sky, now gloriously illumined by the
+light of the set sun.  We stood on under easy sail for the night, and next
+morning when the day broke, we were off the east end of the magnificent
+Island of Jamaica. The stupendous peak now appeared to rise close aboard
+of us, with a large solitary star sparkling on his forehead, and reared
+his forest--crowned summit high into the cold blue sky, impending over us
+in frowning magnificence, while the long dark range of the Blue Mountains,
+with their outlines hard and clear in the grey light, sloped away on each
+side of him as if they had been the Giant's shoulders.  Great masses of
+white mist hung on their sides about half--way down, but all the valleys
+and coast as yet slept in the darkness.  We could see that the land--wind
+was blowing strong in shore, from the darker colour of the water, and the
+speed with which the coasters, only distinguishable by their white sails,
+slid along; while astern of us, out at sea, yet within a cable's length,
+for we had scarcely shot beyond its influence, the prevailing trade--wind
+blew a smart breeze, coming up strong to a defined line, beyond which and
+between it and the influence of the land--wind, there was a belt of dull
+lead--coloured sea, about half a mile broad, with a long heavy
+ground--swell rolling, but smooth as glass, and without even a ripple on
+the surface, in the midst of which we presently lay dead becalmed.
+
+The heavy dew was shaken in large drops out of the wet flapping sails,
+against which the reef points pattered like hail as the vessel rolled.
+The decks were wet and slippery, and our jackets saturated with moisture;
+but we enjoyed the luxury of cold to a degree that made the sea water when
+dashed about the decks, as they were being holystoned, appear absolutely
+warm.  Presently all nature awoke in its freshness so suddenly, that it
+looked like a change of scene in a theatre.  The sun, as yet set to us,
+rose to the huge peak, and glanced like lightning on his summit, making it
+gleam like a ruby; presently the clouds on his shaggy ribs rolled upwards,
+enveloping his head and shoulders, and were replaced by the thin blue
+mists which ascended from the valleys, forming a fleecy canopy, beneath
+which appeared hill and dale, woods and cultivated lands, where all had
+been undistinguishable a minute before, and gushing streams burst from the
+mountain sides like gouts of froth, marking their course in the level
+grounds by the vapours they sent up. Then breeze--mill towers burst into
+light, and cattle--mills, with their cone--shaped roofs, and overseers
+houses, and water--mills, with the white spray falling from the wheels,
+and sugar--works, with long pennants of white smoke streaming from the
+boiling--house chimneys seaward in the morning wind.  Immediately after,
+gangs of negroes were seen at work; loaded waggons, with enormous teams of
+fourteen to twenty oxen dragging them, rolled along the roads; long
+strings of mules loaded with canes were threading the fields; drogging
+vessels were seen to shove out from every cove; the morning song of the
+black fishermen was heard, while their tiny canoes, like black specks,
+started up suddenly on all sides of us, as if they had floated from the
+bottom of the sea; and the smiling scene burst at once, and as if by
+magic, on us, in all its coolness and beauty, under the cheering influence
+of the rapidly rising sun.  We fired a gun, and made the signal for a
+pilot; upon which a canoe, with three negroes in it, shoved off from a
+small schooner lying to about a mile to leeward.  They were soon
+alongside, when one of the three jumped on board.  This was the pilot, a
+slave, as I knew; and I remember the time, when, in my innocence, I would
+have expected to see something very squalid and miserable, but there was
+nothing of the kind; for I never in my life saw a more spruce saltwater
+dandy, in a small way.  He was well dressed, according to a seaman's
+notion--clean white trowsers, check shirt, with white lapels, neatly
+fastened at the throat with a black ribbon, smart straw hat; and
+altogether he carried an appearance of comfort--I was going to write
+independence--about him, that I was by no means prepared for.  He moved
+about with a swaggering roll, grinning and laughing with the seamen.
+
+"I say, blackie," said Mr Douglas.
+
+"John Lodge, massa, if you please, massa; blackie is not politeful, sir;"
+whereupon he showed his white teeth again.
+
+"Well, well, John Lodge, you are running us in too close surely;" and the
+remark seemed seasonable enough to a stranger, for the rocks on the bold
+shore were now within half pistol shot.
+
+"Mind your eye," shouted old Anson.  "You will have us ashore, you black
+rascal!"
+
+"You, sir, what water have you here?" sung out Mr Splinter.
+
+"Salt water, massa," rapped out Lodge, fairly dumfounded by such a volley
+of questions--"You hab six fadom good here, massa;" but suspecting he had
+gone too far--"I take de Tonnant, big ship as him is, close to dat reef,
+sir, you might have jump ashore, so you need not frighten for your leetle
+dish of a hooker; beside, massa, my character is at stake, you know"--then
+another grin and bow.
+
+There was no use in being angry with the poor fellow, so he was allowed to
+have his own way until we anchored in the evening at Port Royal.
+
+The morning after we arrived, I went ashore with a boat's crew to perform
+the magnanimous operation of cutting brooms; we pulled ashore for Green
+Bay, under the guns of the Twelve Apostles--a heavy battery of twelve
+cannon, where there is a tombstone with an inscription, setting forth that
+the party over whom it was erected, had been actually swallowed up in the
+great earthquake that destroyed the opposite town, but subsequently
+disgorged again; being, perchance, an unseemly morsel.
+
+We approached the beach--"Oars"--the men laid them in.
+
+"What sort of nuts be them, Peter Coamings?" said the coxswain to a new
+hand who had been lately impressed, and was now standing at the bow ready
+to fend off.
+
+Peter broke off one of the branches from the bush nearest him.
+
+"Smite my timbers, do the trees here bear shellfish?"
+
+The tide in the Gulf of Mexico does not ebb and flow above two feet,
+except at the springs, and the ends of the drooping branches of the
+mangrove--trees, that here cover the shore, are clustered, within the wash
+of the water, with a small well--flavoured oyster.  The first thing the
+seamen did when they got ashore, was to fasten an oakum tail to the rump
+of one of the most lubberly of the cutter's crew; they then gave him ten
+yards' law, when they started in chase, shouting amongst the bushes, and
+switching each other like the veriest schoolboys. I had walked some
+distance along the beach, pelting the amphibious little creatures, half
+crab, half lobster, called soldiers, which kept shouldering their large
+claws, and running out and in their little burrows, as the small ripple
+twinkled on the sand in the rising sun, when two men--of--wars boats,
+each with three officers in the stern, suddenly pulled round a little
+promontory that intercepted my view ahead.  Being somewhat out of the line
+of my duty, so far from my boat, I squatted amongst the brushwood,
+thinking they would pass by; but, as the devil would have it, they pulled
+directly for the place where I was ensconced, beached their boats, and
+jumped on shore.  "Here's a mess," thought I.
+
+I soon made out that one of the officers was Captain Pinkem of the Flash,
+and that the parties saluted each other with that stern courtesy which
+augured no good.
+
+"So, so, my masters, not enough of fighting on the coast of America, but
+you must have a little private defacing of God's image amongst
+yourselves?"
+
+Pinkem spoke first.  "Mr Clinch," (I now knew he addressed the first
+lieutenant of the flagship)--"Mr Clinch, it is not too late to prevent
+unpleasant consequences; I ask you again, at the eleventh hour, will you
+make an apology?"
+
+He seemed hurried and fidgety in his manner; which rather surprised me, as
+I knew he was a seasoned hand in these matters, and it contrasted
+unfavourably with the calm bearing of his antagonist, who by this time had
+thrown his hat on the ground, and stood with one foot on the handkerchief
+that marked his position, the distance, twelve paces, having already been
+measured.  By the by, his position was deucedly near in a line with the
+grey stone behind which I lay perdu; nevertheless, the risk I ran did not
+prevent me noticing that he was very pale, and had much the air of a brave
+man come to die in a bad cause.  He looked upwards for a second for two,
+and then answered, slowly and distinctly, "Captain Pinkem, I now repeat
+what I said before; this rencontre is none of my seeking.  You accuse me
+of having spoken slightingly of you seven years ago, when I was a mere
+boy.  You have the evidence of a gallant officer that I did so; therefore
+I may not gainsay it; but of uttering the words imputed to me, I declare,
+upon my honour, I have no recollection." He paused.
+
+"That won't do, my fine fellow," said Pinkem.
+
+"You are unreasonable," rejoined Clinch, in the same measured tone, "to
+expect farther amende for uttering words which I have no conviction of
+having spoken; yet to any other officer in the service I would not
+hesitate to make a more direct apology, but you know your credit as a
+pistol--shot renders this impossible."
+
+"Sorry for it, Mr Clinch, sorry for it."
+
+Here the pistols were handed to the principals by their respective
+seconds.  In their attitudes, the proficient and the novice were
+strikingly contrasted; (by this time I had crept round so as to have a
+view of both parties, or rather, if the truth must be told, to be out of
+the line of fire.) Pinkem stood with his side accurately turned towards
+his antagonist, so as to present the smallest possible surface; his head
+was, as it struck me, painfully slewed round, with his eye looking
+steadily at Clinch, over his right shoulder, whilst his arm was brought
+down close to his thigh, with the cock of the pistol turned outwards, so
+that his weapon must have covered his opponent by the simple raising of
+his arm below the elbow.  Clinch, on the other hand, stood fronting him,
+with the whole breadth of his chest; holding his weapon awkwardly across
+his body, with both hands.  Pinkem appeared unwilling to take him at such
+advantage, for, although violent and headstrong, and but too frequently
+the slave of his passions, he had some noble traits in his character.
+
+"Turn your feather edge to me, Mr Clinch; take a fair chance, man."
+
+The lieutenant bowed, and I thought would have spoken, but he was checked
+by the dread of being thought to fear; however, took the advice, and in an
+instant the word was given--"Are you both ready?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then fire!"
+
+Clinch fired without deliberation. I saw him, for my eyes were fixed on
+him, expecting to see him fall.  He stood firm, however, which was more
+than I did, as at the instant, a piece of the bullion of an epaulet, at
+first taken for a pellet of baser metal, struck me sharply on the nose,
+and shook my equanimity confoundedly; at length I turned to look at
+Pinkem, and there he stood with his arm raised, and pistol levelled, but
+he had not fired.  He stood thus whilst I might have counted ten, like a
+finger--post, then dropping his hand, his weapon went off, but without
+aim, the bullet striking the sand near his feet, and down he came headlong
+to the ground.  He fell with his face turned towards me, and I never shall
+forget the horrible expression of it.  His healthy complexion had, given
+place to a deadly blue, the eyes were wide open and straining in their
+sockets, the upper lip was drawn up, showing his teeth in a most frightful
+grin, the blood gushed from his mouth as if impelled by the strokes of a
+force pump, while his hands griped and dug into the sand.
+
+Before the sun set, he was a dead man.
+
+"A neat morning's work, gentlemen," thought I.
+
+The two surgeons came up, opened his dress, felt his pulse, and shook
+their heads; the boats crews grouped around them--he was lifted into his
+gig, the word was given to shove off, and--I returned to my
+broom--cutters.
+
+When we got on board, the gunner who had the watch was taking his
+fisherman's walk on the starboard side of the quarterdeck, and kept
+looking steadily at the land, as if to avoid seeing poor little Duncan's
+coffin, that lay on a grating near the gangway.  The crew, assisted by
+thirty men from the flag--ship, were employed in twenty different ways,
+repairing damages, and were bustling about, laughing, joking, and singing,
+with small regard to the melancholy object before their eyes, when Mr
+Douglas put his head up the ladder--"Now, Jackson, if you please."
+
+The old fellow's countenance fell as if his heart was wrung by the order
+he had to give.
+
+"Aloft there! lie out, you Perkins, and reeve a whip on the starboard
+yard--arm to lower Mr"--The rest stuck in his throat, but, as if
+ashamed of his softheartedness, he threw as much gruffness as he could
+into his voice as he sung out--"Beat to quarters there!--knock off, men!"
+
+The roll of the drum stayed the confusion and noise of the people at work
+in an instant, who immediately ranged themselves, in their clean frocks
+and trowsers, on each side of the quarterdeck.  At a given signal, the
+white deal coffin, wrapped in its befitting pall, the meteor flag of
+England, swung high above the hammock nettings between us and the bright
+blue sky, to the long clear note of the boatswain's whistle, which soon
+ending in a short chirrup, told that it now rested on the thwarts of the
+boat alongside.  We pulled ashore, and it was a slight perchance to move a
+woman, to see the poor little fellow's hat and bit of a dirk lying on his
+coffin, whilst the body was carried by four ships boys, the eldest
+scarcely fourteen. I noticed the tears stand in Anson's eyes as the coffin
+was lowered into the grave,--the boy had been wounded close to him,--and
+when we heard the hollow battle of the earth on the coffin,--an unusual
+sound to a sailor,--he shuddered.
+
+"Yes, Master Cringle," he said, in a whisper, "he was as kind hearted, and
+as brave a lad as ever trod on shoe leather,--none of the larkings of the
+men in the clear moonlight nights ever reached the cabin through him,--nor
+was he the boy to rouse the watch from under the lee of the boats in bad
+weather, to curry with the lieutenant, while he knew the look--outs were
+as bright as beagles,--and where was the man in our watch that wanted
+baccy while Mr Duncan had a shiner left?" The poor fellow drew the back of
+his horny hand across his eyes, and grumbled out as he turned away, "And
+here am I, Bill Anson, such a swab as to be ashamed of being sorry for
+him."
+
+We were now turned over into the receiving ship the old Spark, and
+fortunately there were captains enough in port to try us for the loss of
+the Torch, so we got over our court--martial speedily, and the very day I
+got back my dirk, the packet brought me out a lieutenant's Commission.
+Being now my own master for a season, I determined to visit some relations
+I had in the island, to whom I had never yet been introduced; so I shook
+hands with old Splinter, packed my kit, and went to the wharf to charter a
+wherry to carry me up to Kingston.  The moment my object was perceived by
+the black boat--men, I was surrounded by a mob of them, pulling and
+hauling each other, and shouting forth the various qualifications of their
+boats, with such vehemence, that I was nearly deafened.
+
+"Massa, no see Pam be Civil, sail like a witch, tack like a dolphin?"
+
+"Don't believe him, massa; Ballahoo is de boat dat can beat him."
+
+"Dam lie dat, as I am a gentleman!" roared a ragged black vagabond.
+
+"Come in de Monkey, massa; no flying fish can beat she."
+
+"Don't boder de gentleman," yelled a fourth,--"massa love de stamp and
+go--no so, massa?" as he saw me make a step in the direction of his boat.
+"Oh yes--so get out of de way, you black rascals,"--the fellow was as
+black as a sloe himself--"make room for man--of--war buccra; him leetle
+just now, but will be admiral one day."
+
+So saying, the fellow who had thus appropriated me, without more ado,
+levelled his head like a battering ram, and began to batter in breach all
+who stood in his way.  He first ran a tilt against Pam be Civil, and shot
+him like a rocket into the sea; the Monkey fared no better; the Ballahoo
+had to swim for it; and having thus opened a way by main force, I at
+length got safely moored in the stern sheets; but just as we were shoving
+off, Mr Callaloo, the clergyman of Port Royal, a tall yellow personage,
+begged for a passage, and was accordingly taken on board.  As it was high
+water, my boatmen chose the five foot channel, as the boat channel near to
+Gallows Point is called, by which a long stretch would be saved, and we
+were cracking on cheerily, my mind full of my recent promotion, when,
+scur, scur, scur, we stuck fast on the bank.  Our black boatmen, being
+little encumbered with clothes, jumped overboard in a covey like so many
+wild--ducks, shouting, as they dropped into the water, "We must all get
+out,--we must all get out;" whereupon Mr Callaloo, a sort of Dominie
+Sampson in his way, promptly leaped overboard up to his waist in the
+water.  The negroes were thunderstruck.
+
+"Massa Parson Callaloo, you mad surely, you mad!"
+
+"Children, I am not mad, but obedient--you said we must all get out"
+
+"To be sure, massa, and you no see we all did get out?"
+
+"And did you not see that I got out too?" rejoined the parson, still in
+the water, and somewhat nettled.
+
+"Oh, lud, massa! we no mean you--we meant poor nigger, not white man
+parson."
+
+"You said all, children, and thereupon I leaped," pronouncing the last
+word in two syllables--"be more correct in your grammar next time."
+
+The worthy but eccentric old chap then scrambled on board again, amidst
+the suppressed laughter of the boatmen, and kept his seat, wet clothes and
+all, until we reached Kingston.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+
+Scenes in Jamaica
+
+'Excellent--why this is the best fooling when all is done.'
+TWELFTH NIGHT, II. iii. 29--30.
+
+I confess that I did not promise myself much pleasure from my cruise
+ashore; somehow or other I had made up my mind to believe, that in
+Jamaica, putting aside the magnificence and natural beauty of the face of
+he country, there was little to interest me. I had pictured to myself the
+slaves--a miserable, squalid, half fed, ill--clothed, over--worked
+race--and their masters, and the white inhabitants generally, as an
+unwholesome--looking crew of saffron faced tyrants, who wore straw hats
+with umbrella brims, wide trowsers, and calico jackets, living on pepper
+pot and land crabs, and drinking sangaree and smoking cigars the whole
+day; in a word, that all that Bryan Edwards and others had written
+regarding the civilisation of the West Indies was a fable.  But I was
+agreeably undeceived; for although I did meet with some extraordinary
+characters, and witnessed not a few rum scenes, yet, on the whole, I
+gratefully bear witness to the great hospitality of the inhabitants, both
+in the towns and in the country.  In Kingston the society was exceedingly
+good, as good, I can freely affirm, as I ever met with in any provincial
+town anywhere; and there prevailed a warmth of heart, and a kindliness
+both in the males and females of those families to which I had the good
+fortune to be introduced, that I never experienced out of Jamaica.
+
+At the period I am describing, the island was in the hey--day of its
+prosperity, and the harbour of Kingston was full of shipping. I had never
+before seen so superb a mercantile haven; it is completely landlocked, and
+the whole navy of England might ride in it commodiously.
+
+On the sea face it is almost impregnable, for it would be little short of
+a miracle for an invading squadron to wind its way through the labyrinth
+of shoals and reefs lying off the mouth of it, amongst which the channels
+are so narrow and intricate, that at three or four points the sinking of a
+sand barge would effectually block up all ingress; but, independently of
+this, the entrance at Port Royal is defended by very strong works, the
+guns ranging the whole way across, while, a little farther on, the
+attacking ships would be exposed to a cross fire from the heavy metal of
+the Apostles' Battery; and even assuming all these obstacles to be
+overcome, and the passage into the harbour forced, before they could pass
+the narrows to get up to the anchorage at Kingston, they would be blown
+out of the water by a raking fire from sixty pieces of large cannon on
+Fort Augusta, which is so situated that they would have to turn to
+windward for at least half an hour, in a strait which, at the widest,
+would not allow them to reach beyond musket--shot of the walls.
+Fortunately, as yet Mr Canning had not called his New World into
+existence, and the whole of the trade of Terra Firma, from Porto Cavello
+down to Chagres, the greater part of the trade of the islands of Cuba and
+San Domingo, and even that of Lima and San Blas, and the other ports of
+the Pacific, carried on across the Isthmus of Darien, centred in Kingston,
+the usual supplies through Cadiz being stopped by the advance of the
+French in the Peninsula.  The result of this princely traffic, more
+magnificent than that of Tyre, was a stream of gold and silver flowing
+into the Bank of England, to the extent of three millions of pounds
+sterling annually, in return for British manufactures; thus supplying the
+sinews of war to the government at home, and, besides the advantage of so
+large a mart, employing an immense amount of British tonnage, and many
+thousand seamen; and in numberless ways opening up new outlets to British
+enterprise and capital.  Alas! alas! where is all this now?  The echo of
+the empty stores might answer "where!"
+
+On arriving at Kingston, my first object was to seek out Mr  the admiral's
+agent, and one of the most extensive merchants in the place, in order to
+deliver some letters to him, and get his advice as to my future
+proceedings.  Mr Callaloo undertook to be my pilot, striding along a--beam
+of me, and leaving in his wake two serpentine dottings on the pavement
+from the droppings of water from his voluminous coat--skirts, which had
+been thoroughly soaked by his recent ducking.
+
+Every thing appeared to be thriving, and as we passed along, the hot sandy
+streets were crowded with drays conveying goods from the wharfs to the
+stores, and from the stores to the Spanish Posadas. The merchants of the
+place, active, sharp--looking men, were seen grouped under the piazzas in
+earnest conversation with their Spanish customers, or perched on the top
+of the bales and boxes just landed, waiting to hook the gingham--coated,
+Moorish--looking Dons, as they came along with cigars in their mouths, and
+a train of negro servants following them with fire buckets on their heads,
+filled with pesos fuertes. The appearance of the town itself was novel
+and pleasing; the houses, chiefly of two stories, looked as if they had
+been built of cards, most of them being surrounded with piazzas from ten
+to fourteen feet wide, gaily painted green and white, and formed by the
+roofs projecting beyond the brick walls or shells of the houses.  On the
+ground--floor these piazzas are open, and in the lower part of the town,
+where the houses are built contiguous to each other, they form a covered
+way, affording a most grateful shelter from the sun, on each side of the
+streets, which last are unpaved, and more like dry river courses, than
+thoroughfares in a Christian town.  On the floor above, the balconies are
+shut in with a sort of movable blinds, called "jealousies,' like large
+bladed Venetian blinds, fixed in frames, with here and there a glazed sash
+to admit light in bad weather when the blinds are closed.  In the upper
+part of the town the effect is very beautiful, every house standing
+detached from its neighbour, in its little garden filled with vines,
+fruittrees, stately palms, and cocoa--nut trees, with a court of negro
+houses and offices behind, and a patriarchal--looking draw--well in the
+centre, generally overshadowed by a magnificent wild tamarind.  When I
+arrived at the great merchant's place of business, I was shown into a
+lofty cool room, with a range of desks along the walls, where a dozen
+clerks were quill--driving.  In the centre sat my man, a small sallow, yet
+perfectly gentlemanlike personage.
+
+"Dat is massa" quoth my black usher.
+
+I accordingly walked up to him, and presented my letter.  He never lifted
+his head from his paper, which I had half a mind to resent; but at the
+moment there was a bustle in the piazza, and a group of naval officers,
+amongst whom was the admiral, came in.  My silent friend was now alert
+enough, and profuse of his bows and smiles.
+
+"Who have we here?  Who is that boy, L----?" said the admiral to his
+secretary.
+
+"Young Cringle, sir; the only one except Mr Splinter saved from the Torch;
+he was first on the Admiralty list t'other day."
+
+"What, the lad Willoughby spoke so well of?"
+
+"The same, sir; he got his promotion by last packet."
+
+"I know, I know. I say, Mr Cringle, you are appointed to the Firebrand, do
+you know that?"--I did not know it, and began to fear my cruise on shore
+was all up.--"But I don't look for her from Havanna for a month; so leave
+your address with L----, that you may get the order to join when she does
+come."
+
+It appeared that I had seen the worst of the agent, for he gave me a very
+kind invitation to stay some days with him, and drove me home in his
+ketureen, a sort of sedan chair with the front and sides knocked out, and
+mounted on a gig body.
+
+Before dinner we were lounging about the piazza, and looking down into the
+street, when a negro funeral came past, preceded by a squad of drunken
+black vagabonds, singing and playing on gumbies, or African drums, made
+out of pieces of hollow trees, about six feet long, with skins braced
+over them, each carried by one man, while another beats it with his open
+hands.  The coffin was borne along on the heads of two negroes--a negro
+carries every thing on his head, from a bale of goods to a wine--glass or
+tea--cup.  It is a practice for the bearers, when they come near the house
+of any one against whom the deceased was supposed to have had a grudge, to
+pretend that the coffin will not pass by, and in the present case, when
+they came opposite to where we stood, they began to wheel round and round,
+and to stagger under their load, while the choristers shouted at the top
+of their lungs.
+
+"We beg you, shipmate, for come along--do, broder, come away;" then
+another reel.  "What, you no wantee go in a hole, eh?  You hab grudge
+against somebody lif here, eh?"--Another devil of a lurch "Massa----'s
+housekeeper, eh?  Ah, it must be!"--A tremendous stagger--"Oh, Massa----,
+dollar for drink; someting to hold play [negro wake] in Spring--path,
+[the negro burying--ground;] Bediacko say him won't pass 'less you give
+it." And here they began to spin round more violently than before; but at
+the instant a drove of bullocks coming along, they got entangled amongst
+them, and down went body and bearers and all, the coffin bursting in the
+fall, and the dead corpse, with its white grave--clothes and black face,
+rolling over and over in the sand amongst the feet of the cattle.  It was
+immediately caught up, however, bundled into the coffin again, and away
+they staggered, drumming and singing as loudly as before.
+
+The party at dinner was a large one; every thing in good style, wines
+superb, turtle, &c., magnificent, and the company exceedingly
+companionable.  A Mr Francis Fyall, (a great planting attorney, that is,
+an agent for a number of proprietors of estates, who preferred living in
+England, and paying a commission to him for managing in Jamaica, to facing
+the climate themselves,) to whom I had an introduction, rather posed me,
+by asking me during dinner, if I would take any thing in the long way with
+him, which he explained by saying he would be glad to take a glass of
+small beer with me.  This, after a deluge of Madeira, Champagne, and all
+manner of light wines, was rather trying; but I kept my countenance as
+well I could.  One thing I remember struck me as remarkable; just as we
+were rising to go to the drawing--room, a cloud of winged ants burst in
+upon us through the open windows, and had it not been for the glassshades
+would have extinguished the candles; but when they had once settled on the
+table, they deliberately wriggled themselves free of their wings, as one
+would cast off a great--coat, and crept away in their simple and more
+humble capacity of creeping things.
+
+Next day I went to wait on my relation, Mrs Palma.  I had had a
+confoundedly hot walk through the burning sand streets, and was nearly
+blinded by the reflection from them, as I ascended the front stairs.
+There are no carpets in the houses in Jamaica; but the floors, which are
+often mahogany, are beautifully polished, and shine like a well--kept
+dinner table.  They are, of course, very slippery, and require wary
+walking till one gets accustomed to them.  The rooms are made exceedingly
+dark during the heat of the day, according to the prevailing practice in
+all ardent climates.  A black footman, very handsomely dressed, all to his
+bare legs, (I thought at first he had black silk stocking on,) preceded
+me, and when he reached the drawing--room door, asked my name. I told him,
+"Mr Cringle,"--whereupon he sung out, to my dismay--"Massa Captain
+Ringtail to wait pan Misses."
+
+This put me out a little--especially as I heard some one say "Captain
+who--what a very odd name?"
+
+But I had no time for reflection, as I had not blundered three steps out
+of the glare of the piazza, into the palpable obscure of the darkened
+drawing--room, black as night from the contrast, when I capsized headlong
+over an ottoman in the middle of the apartment, and floundered right into
+the centre of a group of young ladies, and one or two lapdogs, by whom it
+was conjointly occupied.  Trying to recover myself, I slipped on the
+glasslike floor, and came down stern foremost; and being now regularly at
+the slack end, for I could not well get lower, I sat still, scratching my
+caput in the midst of a gay company of morning visitors, enjoying the
+gratifying consciousness that I was distinctly visible to them, although
+my dazzled optics could as yet distinguish nothing.  To add to my
+pleasurable sensations, I now perceived, from the coldness of the floor,
+that in MY downfall the catastrophe of my unmentionables had been
+grievously rent, but I had nothing for it but sitting patiently still
+amidst the suppressed laughter of the company, until I became accustomed
+to the twilight, and they, like bright stars, began to dawn on my
+bewildered senses in all their loveliness, and prodigiously handsome women
+some of' them were, for the Creoles, so far as figure is concerned, are
+generally perfect, while beautiful features are not wanting, and my travel
+had reconciled me to the absence of the rose from their cheeks.  My eldest
+cousin Mary (where is there a name like Mary?) now approached; she and I
+were old friends, and many a junketing we used to have in my father's
+house during the holydays, when she was a boarding--school girl in
+England.  My hardihood and self--possession returned, under the double
+gratification of seeing her, and the certainty that my blushes (for my
+cheeks were glowing like hot iron) could not have been observed in the
+subdued green light that pervaded the room.--"Well, Tom, since you are no
+longer dazzled, and see us all now, you had better get up, hadn't you--you
+see mamma is waiting there to embrace you?"
+
+"Why, I think myself I had better;--but when I broached--to so suddenly,
+I split my lower canvass, Mary, and I cannot budge until your mother lends
+me a petticoat."
+
+"A what? you are crazy, Tom"
+
+"Not a whit, not a whit, why I have split my--ahem.  This is speaking
+plain, an't it?"
+
+Away tripped the sylph--like girl, and in a twinkling reappeared with the
+desired garment, which in a convulsion of laughter she slipped over my
+head as I sat on the floor; and having fastened it properly round my
+waist, I rose and paid my respects to my warm hearted relations.  But that
+petticoat--it could not have been the old woman's, there could have been
+no such virtue in an old woman's petticoat; no, no, it must either have
+been a charmed garment, or--Mary's own; for from that hour I was a lost
+man, and the devoted slave of her large black eyes, and high pale
+forehead.  "Oh, murder you speak of the sun dazzling; what is it to the
+lustre of that same eye of yours, Mary!"
+
+In the evening I escorted the ladies to a ball, (by the way, a West India
+ball--room being a perfect lantern, open to the four winds of heaven, is
+cooler, notwithstanding the climate, than a ball--room anywhere else,)
+and a very gay affair it turned out to be, although I had more trouble in
+getting admittance than I bargained for, and was witness to as comical a
+row (considering the very frivolous origin of it, and the quality of the
+parties engaged in it) as ever took place even in that peppery country,
+where, I verily believe, the temper of the people, generous though it be
+in the main, is .hotter than the climate, and that, God knows! is
+soporiferous enough. I was walking through the entrance saloon with my
+fair cousin on my arm, stepping out like a hero to the opening crash of a
+fine military band, towards the entrance of the splendid ball--room filled
+with elegant company, brilliantly lighted up and ornamented with the most
+rare and beautiful shrubs and flowers, which no European conservatory
+could have furnished forth, and arched overhead with palm branches and a
+profusion of evergreens, while the polished floor, like one vast mirror,
+reflected the fine forms of the pale but lovely black--eyed and black
+haired West Indian dames, glancing amidst the more sombre dressed of their
+partners, while the whole group was relieved by being here and there
+spangled with a rich naval or military uniform.  As we approached, a
+constable put his staff across the doorway.
+
+"Beg pardon, sir, but you are not in full dress."
+
+Now this was the first night whereon I had sported my lieutenant's
+uniform, and with my gold swab on my shoulder, the sparkling bullion
+glancing in the corner of my eye at the very moment, my dress--sword by my
+side, gold buckles in my shoes, and spotless white trowsers, I had, in my
+innocence, considered myself a deuced killing fellow, and felt proportion
+ably mortified at this address.
+
+"No one can be admitted in trowsers, sir," said the man.
+
+"Shiver my timbers!" I could not help the exclamation, the transactions of
+the morning crowding on my recollection; "shiver my timbers! is my fate in
+this strange country to be for ever irrevocably bound up in a pair of
+breeches?"
+
+My cousin pinched my arm.--"Hush, Tom; go home and get mamma's petticoat."
+
+The man was peremptory; and as there was no use in getting into a squabble
+about such a trifle, I handed my partner over to the care of a gentleman
+of the party, who was fortunately accoutred according to rule, and,
+stepping to my quarters, I equipped myself in a pair of tight nether
+integuments, and returned to the ball--room.  By this time there was the
+devil to pay; the entrance saloon was crowded with military and naval men,
+high in oath, and headed by no less a person than a general officer, and a
+one--armed man, one of the chief civil officers in  the place, and who had
+been a sailor in his youth. I was just in time to see the advance of the
+combined column to the door of the ball--room, through which they drove
+the picket of constables like chaff, and then halted.  The one--armed
+functionary, a most powerful and very handsome man, now detached himself
+from the phalanx, and strode up to the advanced guard of stewards
+clustered in front of the ladies, who had shrunk together into a corner of
+the room, like so many frightened hares.
+
+The place being now patent to me, I walked up to comfort my party, and
+could see all that passed.  The champion of the Excluded had taken the
+precaution to roll up the legs of his trowsers, and to tie them tightly at
+the knee with his garters, which gave him the appearance of a Dutch
+skipper; and in all the consciousness of being now properly arrayed, he
+walked up to one of the men in authority--a small pot bellied gentleman,
+and set himself to intercede for the attacking column, the head of which
+was still lowering at the door.  But the little steward speedily
+interrupted him.
+
+"Why, Mr Singlefist, rules must be maintained, and let me see," here he
+peered through his glass at the substantial supporters of our friend,--"as
+I live, you yourself are inadmissible."
+
+The giant laughed.
+
+"Damn the body, he must have been a tailor!--Charge, my fine fellows, and
+throw the constables out of the window, and the stewards after them.
+Every man his bird; and here goes for my Cock Robin." With that he made a
+grab at his Lilliputian antagonist, but missed him, as he slid away
+amongst the women like an eel, while his pursuer, brandishing his wooden
+arm on high, to which I now perceived, for the first time, that there was
+a large steel hook appended, exclaimed in a broad Scotch accent, "Ah, if I
+had but caught the creature, I would have clapt this in his mouth, and
+played him like a salmon."
+
+At this signal, in poured the mass of soldiers and sailors; the constables
+vanished in an instant; the stewards were driven back upon the ladies; and
+such fainting and screaming, and swearing and threatening, and shying of
+cards, and fixing of time and place for a cool turn in the morning, it had
+never been my good fortune to witness before or since.  My wig! thought I,
+a precious country, where a man's life may be periled by the fashion of
+the covering to his nakedness!
+
+Next day, Mr Fyall, who, I afterwards learned, was a most estimable man
+in substantials, although somewhat eccentric in small matters, called and
+invited me to accompany him on a cruise amongst some of the estates under
+his management.  This was the very thing I desired, and three days
+afterwards I left my kind friends in Kingston, and set forth on my visit
+to Mr Fyall, who lived about seven miles from town. .
+
+The morning was fine as usual, although about noon the clouds, thin and
+fleecy and transparent at first, but gradually settling down more dense
+and heavy, began to congregate on the summit of the Liguanea Mountains,
+which rise about four miles distant, to a height of near 5000 feet, in
+rear of the town.  It thundered too a little now and then in the same
+direction, but this was an every--day occurrence in Jamaica at this
+season, and as I had only seven miles to go, off I started in a gig of
+mine host's, with my portmanteau well secured under a tarpawlin, in
+defiance of all threatening appearances, crowding sail, and urging the
+noble roan that had me in tow close upon thirteen knots.  I had not gone
+above three miles, however, when the sky in a moment changed from the
+intense glare of a tropical noontide to the deepest gloom, as if a bad
+angel had suddenly overshadowed us, and interposed his dark wings between
+us and the blessed sun; indeed, so instantaneous was the effect, that it
+reminded me of the withdrawing of the foot--lights in a theatre.  The road
+now wound round the base of a precipitous spur from the Liguanea
+Mountains, which, instead of melting onto the level country by gradual
+decreasing undulations, shot boldly out nearly a mile from the main range,
+and so abruptly, that it seemed mortised into the plain, like a rugged
+promontory running into a frozen lake.  On looking up along the ridge of
+this prong, I saw the lowering mass of black clouds gradually spread out,
+and detach themselves from the summits of the loftier mountains, to which
+they had clung the whole morning, and begin to roll slowly down the hill,
+seeming to touch the tree tops, while along their lower edges hung a
+fringe of dark vapour, or rather shreds of cloud in rapid motion, that
+shifted about, and shot out and shortened like streamers.
+
+As yet there was no lightning nor rain, and in the expectation of escaping
+the shower, as the wind was with me, I made more sail, pushing the horse
+into a gallop, to the great discomposure of the negro who sat beside me.
+
+"Massa, you can't escape it, you are galloping into it; don't massa hear
+de sound of de rain coming along against de wind, and smell de earthy
+smell of him like one new--made grave?"
+
+"The sound of the rain." In another clime, long, long ago, I had often
+read at my old mother's knee, "And Elijah said unto Ahab, there is a sound
+of abundance of rain, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the
+rain stop thee not; and it came to pass, in the meanwhile, that the heaven
+was dark with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain."
+
+I looked, and so it was, for in an instant a white sheet of the heaviest
+rain I had ever seen (if rain it might be called, for it was more like a
+water--spout) fell from the lower edge of the black cloud, with a strong
+rushing noise, that increased as it approached to a loud roar like that of
+a waterfall.  As it came along, it seemed to devour the rocks and trees,
+for they disappeared behind the watery screen the instant it reached them.
+
+We saw it a--head of us for more than a mile coming along the road,
+preceded by a black line from the moistening of the white dust, right in
+the wind's eye, and with such an even front, that I verily believe it was
+descending in bucketsful on my horse's head, while as yet not one drop had
+reached me.  At this moment the adjutant--general of the forces, Colonel
+F----, of the Coldstream Guards, in his tandem, drawn by two sprightly
+blood bays, with his servant, a light boy, mounted Creole fashion on the
+leader, was coming up in my wake at a spot where the road sank into a
+hollow, and was traversed by a watercourse already running knee deep,
+although dry as a bone but the minute before.
+
+I was now drenched to the skin, the water pouring out in cascades from
+both sides of the vehicle, when just as I reached the top of the opposite
+bank, there was a flash of lightning so vivid, accompanied by an explosion
+so loud and tremendous, that my horse, trembling from stem to stem, stood
+dead still; the dusky youth by my side jumped out, and buried his snout in
+the mud, like a porker in Spain nuzzling for acorns, and I felt more
+queerish than I would willingly have confessed to.  I could have knelt and
+prayed.  The noise of the thunder was a sharp ear--piercing crash, as if
+the whole vault of heaven had been made of glass, and had been shivered at
+a blow by the hand of the Almighty.
+
+It was, I am sure, twenty seconds before the usual roar and rumbling
+reverberation of the report from the hills, and among the clouds, was
+heard.
+
+I drove on, and arrived just in time to dress for dinner, but I did not
+learn till next day, that the flash which paralysed me, had struck dead
+the Colonel's servant and leading horse, as he ascended the bank of the
+ravine, by this time so much swollen, that the body of the lad was washed
+off the road into the neighbouring gully, where it was found, when the
+waters subsided, entirely covered with sand.
+
+I found the party congregated in the piazza around Mr Fyall, who was
+passing his jokes, without much regard to the feelings of his guests, and
+exhibiting as great a disregard of the common civilities and courtesies of
+life as can well be imagined.  One of the party was a little red--faced
+gentleman, Peregrine Whiffle, Esquire, by name who, in Jamaica parlance,
+was designated an extraordinary master in Chancery; the overseer of the
+pen, or breeding farm, in the great house as it is called, or mansionhouse
+of which Mr Fyall resided, and a merry, laughing, intelligent, round,
+red--faced man, with a sort of Duncan Knockdunder nose, through the wide
+nostrils of which you could see a cable's length into his head; he was
+either Fyall's head clerk, or a sort of first lieutenant; these personages
+and myself composed the party.  The dinner itself was excellent, although
+rather of the rough and round order; the wines and food intrinsically
+good; but my appetite was not increased by the exhibition of a deformed,
+bloated negro child, about ten years old, which Mr Fyall planted at his
+elbow, and, by way of practical joke, stuffed to repletion with all kinds
+of food and strong drink, until the little dingy brute was carried out
+drunk.
+
+The wine circulated freely, and by and by Fyall indulged in some
+remarkable stories of his youth, for he was the only speaker, which I
+found some difficulty in swallowing, until at length, on one thumper being
+tabled, involving an impossibility, and utterly indigestible, I
+involuntarily exclaimed, "by Jupiter!"
+
+"You want any ting, massa?" promptly chimed in the black servant at my
+elbow, a diminutive kiln--dried old negro.
+
+"No," said I, rather caught.
+
+"Oh, me tink you call for Jupiter."
+
+I looked in the baboon's face--"Why, if I did; what then?"
+
+"Only me Jupiter, at massa service, dat all."
+
+"You are, eh, no great shakes of a Thunderer; and who is that tall square
+man standing behind your master's chair?"
+
+"Daddy Cupid, massa."
+
+"And the old woman who is carrying away the dishes in the piazza?"
+
+"Mammy Weenus."
+
+"Daddy Cupid, and Mammy Weenus--Shade of Homer!"
+
+Jupiter, to my surprise, shrunk from my side, as if he had received a
+blow, and the next moment I could hear him communing with Venus in the
+piazza.
+
+"For true, dat leetle man--of--war buccra must be Obeah man: how  de debil
+him come to sabe dat it was stable--boy Homer who broke de candle shade on
+massa right hand, dat one wid de piece broken out of de edge?" and here he
+pointed towards it with his chin--a negro always points with his chin.
+
+I had never slept on shore out of Kingston before; the night season in the
+country in dear old England, we all know, is usually one of the deepest
+stillness--here it was any thing but still;--as the evening closed in,
+there arose a loud humming noise, a compound of the buzzing, and chirping,
+and whistling, and croaking of numberless reptiles and insects, on the
+earth, in the air, and in the water. I was awakened out of my first sleep
+by it, not that the sound was disagreeable, but it was unusual; and every
+now and then a beetle, the size of your thumb, would bang in through the
+open window, cruise round the room with a noise like a humming--top, and
+then dance a quadrille with half--a--dozen bats; while the fire--flies
+glanced like sparks, spangling the folds of the muslin curtains of the
+bed.  The croak of the tree--toad, too, a genteel reptile, with all the
+usual loveable properties of his species, about the size of the crown of
+your hat, sounded from the neighbouring swamp, like some one snoring in
+the piazza, blending harmoniously with the nasal concert got up by
+Jupiter, and some other heathen deities, who were sleeping there almost
+naked, excepting the head, which every negro swathes during the night with
+as much flannel and as many handkerchiefs as he can command.  By the way,
+they all slept on their faces--I wonder if this will account for their
+flat noses.
+
+Next morning we started at daylight, cracking along at the rate of twelve
+knots an hour in a sort of gig, with one horse in the shafts, and another
+hooked on a--breast of him to a sort of studdingsail--boom, or outrigger,
+and followed by three mounted servants, each with a led horse and two
+sumpter mules.
+
+In the evening we arrived at an estate under Mr Fyall's management, having
+passed a party of maroons immediately before. I never saw finer men tall,
+strapping fellows, dressed exactly as they should be and the climate
+requires; wide duck trowsers, over these a loose shirt, of duck also,
+gathered at the waist by a broad leathern belt, through which, on one
+side, their short cutlass is stuck, while on the other hangs a leathern
+pouch for ball, and a loose thong across one shoulder, supports, on the
+opposite hip, a large powder--horn and haversack.  This, with a straw hat,
+and a short gun in their hand, with a sling to be used on a march,
+completes their equipment--in better keeping with the climate, than the
+padded coats, heavy caps, tight cross--belts, and ponderous muskets of our
+regulars.  As we drove up to the door, the overseer began to bawl, "Boys,
+boys!" and kept blowing a dog--call.  All servants in the country in the
+West Indies, be they as old as Methuselah, are called boys.  In the
+present instance, half--a--dozen black fellows forthwith appeared, to take
+our luggage, and attend on massa in other respects.  The great man was
+as austere to the poor overseer, as if he had been guilty of some
+misdemeanour, and after a few short, crabbed words, desired him to get
+supper, "do you hear?"
+
+The meat consisted of plantation fare--salted fish, plantains and yams,
+and a piece of goat mutton.  Another "observe,"--a South Down mutton,
+after sojourning a year or two here, does not become a goat exactly, but
+he changes his heavy warm fleece, and wears long hair; and his progeny
+after him, if bred on the hot plains, never assume the wool again.  Mr
+Fyall and I sat down, and then in walked four mutes, stout young fellows,
+not over--well dressed, and with faces burnt to the colour of brick--dust.
+They were the bookkeepers, so called because they never see a book, their
+province being to attend the negroes in the field, and to superintend the
+manufacture of sugar and rum in the boiling and distilling--houses.
+
+One of them, the head bookkeeper, as he was called, appeared literally
+roasted by the intensity of the sun's rays.
+
+"How is Baldy Steer?" said the overseer to this person.
+
+"Better to--day, sir--I drenched him with train--oil and sulphur."
+
+"The devil you did," thought I--"alas! for Baldy." "And Mary, and
+Caroline, and the rest of that lot?" "Are sent to Perkin's Red Rover, sir;
+but I believe some of them are in calf already by Bullfinch--and I have
+cut Peter for the lampas." The knife and fork dropped from my hands.
+"What can all this mean? is this their boasted kindness to their slaves?
+One of a family drenched with train--oil and brimstone, another cut for
+some horrible complaint never heard of before, called lampas, and the
+females sent to the Red Rover, some being in calf already!" But I soon
+perceived that the baked man was the cowboy or shepherd of the estate,
+making his report of the casualties amongst his bullocks, mules, and
+heifers.
+
+"Juliet Ridge will not yield, sir," quoth another.
+
+"Who is this next? a stubborn concern she must be."
+
+"The liquor is very poor." Here he helped himself to rum and water, the
+rum coming up about an inch in the glass, regular half and half, fit to
+float a marlinspike.
+
+"It is more than yours is," thought I; and I again stared in wonderment,
+until I perceived he spoke of the juice of a cane patch.
+
+At this time a tall, lathy gentleman came in, wearing a most original cut
+coatee. He was a most extraordinary built man; he had absolutely no body,
+his bottom being placed between his shoulders, but what was wanted in
+corpus was made up in legs, indeed he looked like a pair of compasses,
+buttoned together at the shoulders, and supporting a yellow phiz half a
+yard long, thatched with a fell of sandy hair, falling down lank and
+greasy on each side of his face.  Fyall called him Buckskin, which, with
+some other circumstances, made me guess that he was neither more nor less
+than an American smuggler.
+
+After supper, a glass of punch was filled for each person, the overseer
+gave a rap on the table with his knuckles, and off started the
+bookkeepers, like shots out of shovels, leaving the Yankee, Mr Fyall, the
+overseer, and myself, at table.
+
+I was very tired, and reckoned on going to bed now--but no such thing.
+Fyall ordered Jupiter to bring a case from his gig--box, containing some
+capital brandy.  A new brewage of punch took place, and I found about the
+small hours that we were all verging fast towards drunkenness, or
+something very like that same.  The Yankee was specially plied by Fyall,
+evidently with an object, and he soon succeeded in making him helplessly
+drunk.
+
+The fun now "grew fast and furious,"--a large wash--tub was ordered in,
+placed under a beam at the corner of the room, and filled with water; a
+sack and a three--inch rope were then called for, and promptly produced by
+the blackies, who, apparently accustomed to Fyall's pranks, grinned with
+delight.--Buckskin was thrust into the sack, feet foremost; the mouth of
+it was then gathered round his throat with a string, and I was set to
+splice a bight in the rope, so as to fit under his arms without running,
+which might have choked him.  All things being prepared, the slack end was
+thrown over the beam.  He was soused in the tub, the word was given to
+hoist away, and we ran him up to the roof, and then belayed the rope round
+the body of the overseer, who was able to sit on his chair, and that was
+all.  The cold bath, and the being hung up to dry, speedily sobered the
+American, but his arms being within the sack, he could do nothing for his
+own emancipation; he kept swearing, however, and entreating, and dancing
+with rage, every jerk drawing the cord tighter round the waist of the
+overseer, who, unaware of his situation, thought himself bewitched as he
+was drawn with violence by starts along the floor, with the chair as it
+were glued to him.  At length the patient extricated one of his arms, and
+laying hold of the beam above him, drew himself up, and then letting go
+his hold suddenly, fairly lifted the drunken overseer, chair and all,
+several feet from the ground, so as to bring him on a level with himself,
+and then, in mid air, began to pummel his counterpoise with right
+goodwill.  At length, fearful of the consequences from the fury into which
+the man had worked himself, Fyall and I dashed out the candles, and fled
+to our rooms, where, after barricading the doors, we shouted to the
+servants to let the gentlemen down.
+
+The next morning had been fixed for duck--shooting, and the overseer and I
+were creeping along amongst the mangrove bushes on the shore, to get a
+shot at some teal, when we saw our friend the pair of compasses crossing
+the small bay in his boat, towards his little pilotboat--built schooner,
+which was moored in a small creek opposite, the brushwood concealing every
+thing but her masts.  My companion, as wild an Irishman as I ever knew,
+hailed him,--
+
+"Hillo, Obadiah--Buckskin--you Yankee rascal, heave--to.  Come ashore
+here--come ashore."
+
+Obed, smoking his pipe, deliberately uncoiled himself--I thou as he rose,
+there was to be no end of him--and stood upright in the boat, like an
+ill--rigged jurymast.
+
+"I say, Master Tummas, you ben't no friend of mine, I guess, a'ter last
+night's work; you hears how I coughs?"--and he began to wheezle and crow
+in a most remarkable fashion.
+
+"Never mind," rejoined the overseer; "if you go round that point, and put
+up the ducks--by the piper, but I'll fire at you!"
+
+Obed neighed like a horse expecting his oats, which was meant as a laugh
+of derision.  "Do you think your birding--piece can touch me here away,
+Master Tummas?" And again he nichered more loudly than before.
+
+"Don't provoke me to try, you yellow snake, you!"
+
+"Try, and be d--d, and there's a mark for thee," unveiling a certain part
+of his body, not his face.
+
+The overseer, or bushes, to give him his Jamaica name, looked at me and
+smiled, then coolly lifted his long Spanish barrel, and fired.  Down
+dropped the smuggler, and ashore came the boat.
+
+"I am mortally wounded, Master Tummas," quoth Obed; and I was
+confoundedly frightened at first, from the unusual proximity of the
+injured part to his head; but the overseer, as soon as he could get off
+the ground, where he had thrown himself in an uncontrollable fit of
+laughter, had the man stripped and laid across a log, where he set his
+servant to pick out the pellets with a penknife.
+
+Next night I was awakened out of my first sleep by a peculiar sort of
+tap, tap, on the floor, as if a cat with walnut shells had been moving
+about the room.  The feline race, in all its varieties, is my detestation,
+so I slipped out of bed to expel the intruder; but the instant my toe
+touched the ground, it was seized as if by a smith's forceps. I drew it
+into bed, but the annoyance followed it; and in an agony of alarm and
+pain, I thrust my hand down, when my thumb was instantly manacled to the
+other suffering member. I now lost my wits altogether, and roared murder,
+which brought a servant in with a light, and there I was, thumb and toe,
+in the clinch of a land--crab.
+
+I had been exceedingly struck with the beauty of the negro villages on the
+old settled estates, which are usually situated in the most picturesque
+spots, and I determined to visit the one which lay on a sunny bank full in
+view from my window, divided on two sides from the cane pieces by a
+precipitous ravine, and on the other two by a high logwood hedge, so like
+hawthorn, that I could scarcely tell the difference, even when close to it.
+
+At a distance it had the appearance of one entire orchard of fruit trees,
+where were mingled together the pyramidal orange, in fruit and in flower,
+the former in all its stages from green to dropping ripe,--the citron,
+lemon, and lime--trees, the stately, glossy--leaved star--apple, the
+golden shaddock and grape--fruit, with their slender branches bending
+under their ponderous yellow fruit,--the cashew, with its apple like
+those of the cities of the plain, fair to look at, but acrid to the taste,
+to which the far--famed nut is appended like a bud,--the avocada, with its
+brobdignag pear, as large as a purser's lantern,--the bread--fruit, with a
+leaf, one of which would have covered Adam like a bishop's apron, and a
+fruit for all the world in size and shape like a blackamoor's head; while
+for underwood you had the green, fresh, dew--spangled plantain, round
+which in the hottest day there is always a halo of coolness,--the coco
+root, the yam and granadillo, with their long vines twining up the
+neighbouring trees and shrubs like hop tendrils,--and peas and beans, in
+all their endless variety of blossom and of odour, from the Lima bean,
+with a stalk as thick as my arm, to the mouse pea, three inches high,--the
+pineapple, literally growing in, and constituting, with its prickly
+leaves, part of the hedgerows,--the custard--apple, like russet bags of
+cold pudding,--the cocoa and coffee bushes, and the devil knows what all,
+that is delightful in nature besides; while aloft, the tall graceful
+cocoa--nut, the majestic palm, and the gigantic wild cotton--tree, shot up
+here and there like minarets far above the rest, high into the blue
+heavens.
+
+I entered one of the narrow winding footpaths, where an immense variety of
+convolvuli crept along the penguin fences, disclosing their delicate
+flowers in the morning freshness, (all that class here shut shop at noon,)
+and passion flowers of all sizes, from a soup plate to a thumb ring.
+
+The huts were substantially thatched with palm leaves, and the walls woven
+with a basket--work of twigs, plastered over with clay, and whitewashed;
+the floors were of baked clay, dry and comfortable.  They all consisted of
+a hall and a sleeping--room off each side of it: in many of the former I
+noticed mahogany sideboards and chairs, and glass decanters, while a whole
+lot of African drums and flutes, and sometimes a good gun, hung from the
+rafters; and it would have gladdened an Irishman's heart to have seen the
+adjoining piggeries.  Before one of the houses an old woman was taking
+care of a dozen black infants, little naked, glossy, black guinea pigs,
+with party coloured beads tied round their loins, each squatted like a
+little Indian pagod in the middle of a large wooden bowl, to keep it off
+the damp ground.
+
+While I was pursuing my ramble, a large conch--shell was blown at the
+overseer's house, and the different gangs turned in to dinner; they came
+along, dancing and shouting, and playing tricks on each other in the
+little paths, in all the happy anticipation of a good dinner, and an hour
+and a half to eat it in, the men well clad in Osnaburg frocks and
+trowsers, and the women in baize petticoats and Osnaburg shifts, with a
+neat printed calico short gown over all.
+
+"And these are slaves," thought I, "and this is West Indian bondage!  Oh
+that some of my well--meaning anti--slavery friends were here, to judge
+from the evidence of their own senses!"
+
+The following night there was to be a grand play or wake in the negro
+houses, over the head cooper, who had died in the morning, and I
+determined to be present at it, although the overseer tried to dissuade
+me, saying that no white person ever broke in on these orgies, that the
+negroes were very averse to their doing so, and that neither he, nor any
+of the white people on the estate, had ever been present on such an
+occasion.  This very interdict excited my curiosity still more; so I rose
+about midnight, and let myself gently down through the window, and shaped
+my course in the direction of the negro houses, guided by a loud drumming,
+which, as I came nearer, every now and then sunk into a low murmuring
+roll, when a strong bass voice would burst forth into a wild recitative;
+to which succeeded a loud piercing chorus of female voices, during which
+the drums were beaten with great vehemence; this was succeeded by another
+solo, and so on.  There was no moon, and I had to thread my way along one
+of the winding footpaths by starlight.  When I arrived within a
+stone--cast of the hut before which the play was being held, I left the
+beaten track, and crept onwards, until I gained the shelter of the stem of
+a wild cotton--tree, behind which I skulked unseen.
+
+The scene was wild enough.  Before the door a circle was formed by about
+twenty women, all in their best clothes, sitting on the ground, and
+swaying their bodies to and fro, while they sung in chorus the wild dirge
+already mentioned, the words of which I could not make out; in the centre
+of the circle sat four men playing on gumbies, or the long drum formerly
+described, while a fifth stood behind them, with a conch--shell, which he
+kept sounding at intervals.  Other three negroes kept circling round the
+outer verge of the circle of women, naked all to their waist cloths,
+spinning about and about with their hands above their heads, like so many
+dancing dervishes.  It was one of these three that from time to time took
+up the recitative, the female chorus breaking in after each line.  Close
+to the drummers lay the body in an open coffin, supported on two low
+stools or trestles; a piece of flaming resinous wood was stuck in the
+ground at the head, and another at the feet; and a lump of kneaded clay,
+in which another torchlike splinter was fixed, rested on the breast.  An
+old man, naked like the solo singer, was digging a grave close to where
+the body lay.  The following was the chant:--
+
+"I say, broder, you can't go yet."
+
+THEN THE CHORUS OF FEMALE VOICES
+
+"When de morning star rise, den we put you in a hole."
+
+CHORUS AGAIN
+
+
+"Den you go in a Africa, you see Fetish dere."
+
+CHORUS
+
+"You shall nyam goat dere, wid all your family."
+
+CHORUS
+
+"Buccra can't come dere; say, dam rascal, why you no work?"
+
+CHORUS
+
+"Buccra can't catch Duppy, no, no."
+
+CHORUS
+
+Three calabashes, or gourds, with pork, yams, and rum, were placed on a
+small bench that stood close to the head of the bier, and at right angles
+to it.
+
+In a little while, the women, singing--men, and drummers, suddenly gave a
+loud shout, or rather yell, clapped their hands three times, and then
+rushed into the surrounding cottages, leaving the old grave--digger alone
+with the body.
+
+He had completed the grave, and had squatted himself on his hams beside
+the coffin, swinging his body as the women had done, and uttering a low
+moaning sound, frequently ending in a loud pech, like that of a paviour
+when he brings down his rammer.
+
+I noticed he kept looking towards the east, watching, as I conjectured,
+the first appearance of the morning star, but it was yet too early.
+
+He lifted the gourd with the pork, and took a large mouthful.
+
+"How is dis?  I can't put dis meat in Quacco's coffin, dere is salt in de
+pork; Duppy can't bear salt," another large mouthful--"Duppy hate salt too
+much,"--here he ate it all up, and placed the empty gourd in the coffin.
+He then took up the one with boiled yam in it, and tasted it also.
+
+"Salt here too--who de debil do such a ting?--must not let Duppy taste
+dat." He discussed this also, placing the empty vessel in the coffin as he
+had done with the other.  He then came to the calabash with the rum.
+There is no salt there, thought I.
+
+"Rum! ah, Duppy love rum--if it be well strong, let me see Massa Niger,
+who put water in a dis rum, eh?  Duppy will never touch dat"--a long
+pull--"no, no, never touch dat." Here he finished the whole, and placed
+the empty vessel beside the others; then gradually sunk back on his hams
+with his mouth open, and his eyes starting from the sockets, as he peered
+up into the tree, apparently at some terrible object. I looked up also,
+and saw a large yellow snake, nearly ten feet long, let itself gradually
+down directly over the coffin, between me and the bright glare, (the
+outline of its glossy mottled skin glancing in the strong light, which
+gave its dark opaque body the appearance of being edged with flame, and
+its glittering tongue, that of a red hot wire,) with its tail round a limb
+of the cottontree, until its head reached within an inch of the dead man's
+face, which it licked with its long forked tongue, uttering a loud hissing
+noise.
+
+I was fascinated with terror, and could not move a muscle; at length the
+creature slowly swung itself up again, and disappeared amongst the
+branches.
+
+Quashie gained courage, as the rum began to operate, and the snake to
+disappear.  "Come to catch Quaccols Duppy, before him get to Africa, sure
+as can be.  De metody parson say de debil old sarpant--dat must be old
+sarpant, for I never see so big one, so it must be debil."
+
+He caught a glimpse of my face at this moment; it seemed that I had no
+powers of fascination like the snake, for he roared out, "Murder, murder,
+de debil, de debil, first like a sarpent, den like himself; see him white
+face behind de tree; see him white face behind de tree;" and then, in the
+extremity of his fear, he popt, head foremost, into the grave, leaving his
+quivering legs and feet sticking upwards, as if he had been planted by the
+head, like a forked parsnip reversed.
+
+At this uproar, a number of negroes ran out of the nearest houses, and, to
+my surprise, four white seamen appeared suddenly amongst them, who, the
+moment they got sight of my uniform, as I ran away, gave chase, and having
+overtaken me, as I stumbled in the dark path, immediately pinioned me.
+They were all armed, and I had no doubt were part of the crew of the
+smuggling schooner, and that they had a depot amongst the negro houses.
+
+"Yo ho, my hearty, heave--to, or here goes with a brace of bullets."
+
+I told them who I was, and that curiosity alone brought me there.
+
+"Gammon, tell that to the marines; you're a spy, messmate, and on board
+you go with us, so sure as I be Paul Brandywine."
+
+Here was a change with a vengeance.  An hour before I was surrounded by
+friends, and resting comfortably, in my ward bed, and now I was a prisoner
+to a set of brigands, who were smugglers at the best, and what might they
+not be at the worst? I had no chance of escape by any sudden effort of
+strength or activity, for a piece of a handspike had been thrust across my
+back, passing under both of my arms, which were tightly lashed to it, as
+if I had been trussed for roasting, so that I could no more run, with a
+chance of escape, than a goose without her pinions.  After we left the
+negro houses, I perceived, with some surprise, that my captors kept the
+beaten tract, leading directly to, and past the overseer's dwelling.
+"Come, here is a chance, at all events," argued I to myself.  "If I get
+within hail, I will alarm the lieges, if a deuced good pipe don't fail
+me."
+
+This determination had scarcely been framed in my mind, when, as if my
+very thoughts had been audible, the smuggler next me on the right hand
+drew a pistol, and held it close to my starboard ear.
+
+"Friend, if you tries to raise the house, or speaks to any Niger, or other
+person we meets, I'll walk through your skull with two ounces of lead."
+
+"You are particularly obliging," said I; "but what do you promise
+yourselves by carrying me off?  Were you to murder me, you would be none
+the richer; for I have no valuables about me, as you may easily ascertain
+by searching me."
+
+"And do you think that freeborn Americans like we have kidnapped you for
+your dirty rings, and watch, and mayhap a few dollars, which I takes you
+to mean by your waluboles, as you calls them?"
+
+"Why, then, what, in the devil's name, have you kidnapped me for?" And I
+began to feel my choler overpowering my discretion, when Mr Paul
+Brandywine, who I now suspected to be the mate of the smuggler, took the
+small liberty of jerking the landyard, that had been made fast to the
+middle of the handspike, so violently, that I thought both my shoulders w
+ere dislocated; for I was fairly checked down on my back, just as you may
+have seen a pig--merchant on the Fermoy road bring an uproarious boar to
+his marrowbones; while the man who had previously threatened to blow my
+brains out, knelt beside me, and civilly insinuated, that "if I was tired
+of my life, he calculated I had better speak as loud again."
+
+There was no jest in all this; so I had nothing for it but to walk
+silently along with my escort, after having gathered myself up as well as
+I could.  We crept so close under the windows of the overseer's house,
+where we picked up a lot of empty ankers, slung on a long pole, that I
+fancied I heard, or really did hear, some one snore--oh how I envied the
+sleeper!  At length we reached the beach, where we found two men lying on
+their oars, in what, so far as I could distinguish, appeared to be a sharp
+swift--looking whale boat, which they kept close to, with her head
+seaward, however, to be ready for a start should any thing suspicious
+appear near to them.
+
+The boat--keeper hailed promptly, "Who goes there?" as they feathered
+their oars.
+
+"The tidy little Wave," was the answer.
+
+No more words passed, and the men who had, in the first instance, pulled a
+stroke or two to give the boat way, now backed water, and tailed her on to
+the beach, when we all stepped on board.
+
+Two of my captors now took each an oar; we shoved off, and glanced away
+through the darkness, along the smooth surface of the sparkling sea, until
+we reached the schooner, by this time hauled out into the fairway at the
+mouth of the cove, where she lay hove short, with her mainsail hoisted
+up, riding to the land--wind, and apparently all ready to cants and be off
+the moment the boat returned.
+
+As we came alongside, the captain of her, my friend Obediah, as I had no
+difficulty in guessing, from his very out of the way configuration, dark
+as it was, called out, "I says, Paul, who have you got in the
+starn--sheets there?"
+
+"A bloody spy, captain; he who was with the overseer when he peppered your
+sheathing t'other morning."
+
+"Oho, bring him on board--bring him on board. I knows there be a
+man--of--war schooner close aboard of the island somewheres hereabouts. I
+sees through it all, smash my eyes!--I sees through it.  But what kept
+you, Paul?  Don't you see the morning star has risen?"
+
+By this time I stood on the deck of the little vessel, which was no above
+a foot out of the water; and Obediah, as he spoke, pointed to the small
+dark pit of a companion, for there was no light below, nor indeed anywhere
+on board, except in the binnacle, and that carefully masked, indicating by
+his threatening manner, that I was to get below as speedily as possible.
+
+"Don't you see the morning star, sir?  Why, the sun will be up in an hour,
+I calculate, and then the sea--breeze will be down on us before we get any
+thing of an offing."
+
+The mention of the morning star recalled vividly to my recollection the
+scene I had so recently witnessed at the negro wake; it seemed there was
+another person beside poor Quacco, likely to be crammed into a hole before
+the day broke, and to be carried to Africa too, for what I knew; but one
+must needs go when the devil drives, so I slipped down into the cabin, and
+the schooner having weighed, made sail to the northward.
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+
+The Chase of the Smuggler
+
+Would I were in an alehouse in London, I would give all my fame for a pot
+of ale, and safety.'
+
+HENRY V, III. II. I2--I3.
+
+
+The crib in which I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, as I soon
+found, as hot as the black--hole in Calcutta.  I don't pretend to be
+braver than my neighbours, but I would pluck any man by the beard who
+called me coward.  In my small way I had in my time faced death in various
+shapes; but it had always been above board, with the open heaven overhead,
+and generally I had a goodly fellowship in danger, and the eyes of others
+were upon me.  No wonder, then, that the sinking of the heart within me,
+which I now experienced for the first time, was bitter exceedingly, and
+grievous to be 'borne.  Cooped up in a small suffocating cabin, scarcely
+eight feet square, and not above four feet high, with the certainty of
+being murdered, as I conceived, were I to try to force my way on deck, and
+the knowledge that all my earthly prospects, all my dreams of promotion,
+were likely to be blasted, and for ever ruined by my sudden spiriting away,
+not to take into the heavy tale the misery which my poor mother and my
+friends must suffer, when they came to know it--and "who will tell this to
+thee, Mary?" rose to my throat, but could get no farther for a cursed bump
+that was like to throttle me.  Why should I blush to own it--when the
+gipsy, after all, junked an old rich goutified coffee--planter at the
+eleventh hour, and married me, and is now the mother of half--a--dozen
+little Cringles or so?  However, I made a strong effort to bear my
+misfortunes like a man, and, folding my arms, I sat down on a chest to
+abide my fate, whatever that might be, with as much composure as I could
+command, when half--a--dozen cockroaches flew flicker against my face.
+
+For the information of those who have never seen this delicious insect, I
+take leave to mention here, that, when full grown, it is a large dingy
+brown--coloured beetle, about two inches long, with six legs, and two f
+eelers as long as its body.  It has a strong anti--hysterical flavour,
+something between rotten cheese and assafoetida, and seldom stirs aboard
+when the sun is up, but lies concealed in the most obscure and obscene
+crevices it can creep into; so that, when it is seen, its wings and body
+are thickly covered with dust and dirt of various shades, which any culprit
+who chances to fall asleep with his mouth open, is sure to reap the benefit
+of, as it has a great propensity to walk into it, partly for the sake of
+the crumbs adhering to the masticators, and also, apparently, with a
+scientific desire to inspect, by accurate admeasurement with the aforesaid
+antennae, the state and condition of the whole potato trap.
+
+At the same time I felt something gnawing the toe of my boot, which I
+inferred to be a rat--another agreeable customer for which I had a special
+abhorrence; but, as for beetles of all kinds, from my boyhood up, they had
+been an abomination unto me, and a cockroach is the most abominable of all
+beetles; so between the two I was speedily roused from my state of supine,
+or rather dogged endurance; and, forgetting the geography of my position, I
+sprung to my feet, whereby I nearly fractured my skull against the low deck
+above. I first tried the skylight; it was battened down--then the companion
+hatch; it was locked--but the ladder leading up to it being cooler than the
+noisome vapour bath I had left, I remained standing in it, trying to catch
+a mouthful of fresh air through the joints of the door.  All this while we
+had been slipping along shore with the land--wind on our beam, at the rate
+of five or six knots, but so gently and silently, that I could distinctly
+hear the roar of the surf, as the long smooth swell broke on the beach,
+which, from the loudness of the noise, could not be above a mile to
+windward of us. I perceived at the same time that the schooner, although
+going free, did not keep away nor take all the advantage of the land--wind
+to make his easting, before the sea--breeze set down, that he might have
+done, so that it was evident he did not intend to beat up, so as to fetch
+the Crooked Island Passage, which would have been his course, had he been
+bound for the States; but was standing over to the Cuba shore, at that time
+swarming with pirates.
+
+It was now good daylight, and the terral gradually died away, and left us
+rolling gunwale under, as we rose and fell on the long seas, with our sails
+flapping, bulkheads creaking and screaming, and mainboom jig--jigging, as
+if it would have torn every thing to pieces.  I could hear my friend Obed
+walking the deck, and whistling manfully for the sea--breeze, and
+exclaiming from time to time in his barbarous lingo, "Souffle, souffle, San
+Antonio." But the saint had no bowels, and there we lay roasting until near
+ten o'clock in the forenoon.  During all this period, Obed, who was
+shortsighted, as I learned afterwards, kept desiring his right arm, Paul
+Brandywine, to keep a bright look--out for the sea--breeze to windward, or
+rather to the eastward, for there was no wind--because he knowed it
+often times tumbling down right sudden and dangerous at this season about
+the corner of the island hereabouts; and the pride of the morning often
+brought a shower with it, fit to level a maize plat smooth as his hand.
+
+"No black clouds to windward yet, Paul?"
+
+Paul could see nothing, and the question was repeated three or four times.
+
+"There is a small black cloud about the size of my hand to windward, sir,
+right in the wake of the sun, just now, but it won't come to any thing; I
+sees no signs of any wind."
+
+"And Elijah said to his servant, Go up now, and look towards the sea, and
+he went up and looked, and said there is nothing; and he said go again
+seven times, and it came to pass the seventh time, that he said behold
+there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand."
+
+I knew what this foreboded, which, as I thought, was more than friend Obed
+did; for he shortened no sail, and kept all his kites abroad, for no use as
+it struck me, unless he wished to wear them out by flapping against the
+masts.  He was indeed a strange mixture of skill and carelessness; but,
+when fairly stirred up, one of the most daring and expert and
+self--possessed seamen I had ever seen, as very soon had an ugly
+opportunity of ascertaining.
+
+The cloud on the horizon continued to rise rapidly, spreading over the
+whole eastern sky, and the morning began to lower very ominously; but there
+was no sudden squall, the first of the breeze coming down as usual in cats'
+paws, and freshening gradually; nor did I expect there would be, although
+I was certain it would soon blow a merry capful of wind, which might take
+in some of the schooner's small sails, and pretty considerably bother us,
+unless we could better our offing speedily, for it blew right on shore,
+which, by the setting in of the sea--breeze, was now close under our lee.
+
+At length the sniffler reached us, and the sharp little vessel began to
+speak, as the rushing sound through the water is called; while the wind
+sang like an Eolian harp through the taut weather--rigging.  Presently I
+heard the word given to take in the two gaff--topsails and flying jib,
+which was scarcely done, when the moaning sound roughened into a roar, and
+the little vessel began to yerk at the head seas, as if she would have cut
+through them, in place of rising to them, and to lie over, as if Davy Jones
+himself had clapperclawed the mast heads, and was in the act of using them
+as levers to capsize her, while the sails were tugging at her, as if they
+would have torn the spars out of her, so that I expected every moment,
+either that she would turn over, keel up, or that the masts would snap
+short off by the deck.
+
+All this, which I would without the smallest feeling of dread, on the
+contrary with exhilaration, have faced cheerily on deck in the course of
+duty, proved at the time, under my circumstances, most alarming and painful
+to me; a fair--strae death out of the maintop, or off the weather--yard
+arm, would to my imagination have been an easy exit comparatively; but to
+be choked in this abominable hole, and drowned darkling like a blind
+puppy--the very thought made me frantic, and I shouted and tumbled about,
+until I missed my footing and fell backwards down the ladder, from the
+bottom of which I scuttled away to the lee--side of the cabin, quiet,
+through absolute despair and exhaustion from the heat and closeness.
+
+I had remarked that from the time the breeze freshened, the everlasting
+Yankee drawling of the crew, and the endless confabulation of the captain
+and his mate, had entirely ceased, and nothing was now heard on deck but
+the angry voice of the raging elements, and at intervals a shrill piercing
+word or two from Obed, in the altered tone of which I had some difficulty
+in recognising his pipe, which rose clear and distinct above the roar of
+the sea and wind, and was always answered by a prompt, sharp, "ay, ay,
+sir," from the men.  There was no circumlocution, nor calculating, nor
+guessing now, but all hands seemed to be doing their duty energetically and
+well.  "Come, the vagabonds are sailors after all, we shan't be swamped
+this turn;" and I resumed my place on the companion ladder, with more ease
+of mind, and a vast deal more composure, than when I was pitched from it
+when the squall came on.  In a moment after I could hear the captain sing
+out, loud even above the howling of the wind and rushing of the water,
+"There it comes at last--put your helm hard a--port--down with it, Paul,
+down with it, man--luff, and shake the wind out of her sails, or over we
+goes, clean and for ever.' Everything was jammed, nothing could be let go,
+nor was there an axe at hand to make short work with the sheets and
+haulyards; and for a second or two I thought it was all over, the water
+rushing half way up her decks, and bubbling into the companion through the
+crevices; but at length the lively little craft came gaily to the wind,
+shaking her plumage like a wild duck; the sails were got in, all to the
+foresail, which was set with the bonnet off, and then she lay--to like a
+seagull, without shipping a drop of water.  In the comparative stillness I
+could now distinctly hear every word that was said on deck.
+
+"Pretty near it; rather close shaving that same, captain," quoth Paul, with
+a congratulatory chuckle; 'but I say, sir, what is that wreath of smoke
+rising from Annotta Bay over the headland?"
+
+"Why, how should I know, Paul?  Negroes burning brush, I guess."
+
+"The smoke from brushwood never rose and flew over the bluff with that
+swirl, I calculate; it is a gun, or I mistake."
+
+And he stepped to the companion for the purpose, as I conceived, of taking
+out the spy--glass, which usually hangs there in brackets fitted to hold
+it; he undid the hatch and pushed it back, when I popped my head out, to
+the no small dismay of the mate; but Obed was up to me, and while with one
+hand he seized the glass, he ran the sliding top sharp up against my neck,
+till he pinned me into a kind of pillory, to my great annoyance; so I had
+to beg to be released, and once more slunk back into my hole.  There was a
+long pause; at length Paul, to whom the skipper had handed the spy--glass,
+spoke.
+
+"A schooner, sir, is rounding the point."
+
+As I afterwards learned, the negroes who had witnessed my capture,
+especially the old man who had taken me for his infernal majesty, had
+raised the alarm, so soon as they could venture down to the overseer's
+house, which was on the smuggling boat shoving off, and Mr Fyall
+immediately despatched an express to the Lieutenant commanding the Gleam,
+then lying in Annotta Bay, about ten miles distant, when she instantly
+slipped and shoved out.
+
+"Well, I can't help it if there be," rejoined the captain.  Another pause.
+
+"Why, I don't like her, sir; she looks like a man--of--war--and that must
+have been the smoke of the gun she fired on weighing.'
+
+"Eh?" sharply answered Obed, "if it be, it will be a hanging matter if we
+are caught with this young splice on board; he may belong to her for what I
+know.  Look again, Paul."
+
+A long, long look.
+
+"A man--of--war schooner, sure enough, sir; I can see her ensign and
+pennant, now that she is clear of the land."
+
+"Oh Lord, oh Lord!" cried Obed, in great perplexity, "what shall we do?"
+
+"Why, pull foot, Captain," promptly replied Paul; "the breeze has lulled,
+and in light winds she will have no chance with the tidy little Wave."
+
+I could now perceive that the smugglers made all sail, and I heard the
+frequent swish--swish of the water, as they threw bucketfuls on the sails,
+to thicken them and make them hold more wind, while we edged away, keeping
+as close to the wind, however, as we could, without stopping her way.
+
+"Starboard," quoth Obed--"rap full, Jem--let her walk through it, my
+boy--there, main and foresail, flat as boards; why, she will stand the
+main--gaff--topsail yet--set it, Paul, set it;" and his heart warmed as he
+gained confidence in the qualifications of his vessel.  "Come, weather me
+now, see how she trips it along--poo, I was an ass to quail, wan't I,
+Paul?"
+
+No chance, now, thought I, as I descended once more; "I may as well go and
+be suffocated at once." I knocked my foot against something, in stepping
+off the ladder, which, on putting down my hand, I found to be tinder--box,
+with steel and flint. I had formerly ascertained there was a candle in the
+cabin, on the small table, stuck into a bottle; so I immediately struck a
+light, and as I knew that meekness and solicitation, having been tried in
+vain, would not serve me, I determined to go on the other tack, and to see
+how far an assumption of coolness and self--possession, or, it might be, a
+dash of bravado, whether true or feigned, might not at least ensure me some
+consideration and better treatment from the lawless gang into whose hands I
+had fallen.
+
+So I set to and ransacked the lockers, where, amongst a vast variety of
+miscellaneous matters, I was not long in finding a bottle of very tolerable
+rum, some salt junk, some biscuit, and a goglet or porous earthen jar of
+water, with some capital cigars.  By this time I was like to faint with the
+heat and smell; so I filled a tumbler with good half--and--half and swigged
+it off.  The effect was speedy; I thought I could eat a bit, so I attacked
+the salt junk and made a hearty meal, after which I replenished my tumbler,
+lighted a cigar, pulled off my coat and waistcoat, and, with a sort of
+desperate glee, struck up at the top of my pipe, "Ye Mariners of England."
+My joviality was soon noticed on deck.
+
+"Eh, what be that?" quoth Obed,--"that be none of our ditties, I guess? who
+is singing below there?'
+
+"We be all on deck, sir,' responded Paul.
+
+"It can't be the spy, eh?--sure enough it must be he, and no one else; the
+heat and choke must have made him mad."
+
+"We shall soon see," said Paul, as he removed the skylight, and looked down
+into the cabin.
+
+Obed looked over his shoulder, peering at me with his little short--sighted
+pig's eyes, into which, in my pot valiancy, I immediately chucked half a
+tumbler of very strong grog, and under cover of it attempted to bolt
+through the scuttle, and thereby gain the deck; but Paul, with his shoulder
+of mutton fist, gave me a very unceremonious rebuff, and down I dropped
+again.
+
+"You makes yourself at home, I sees, and be hanged to you," said Obed,
+laying the emphasis on the last word, pronouncing it "yoo--oo" in two
+syllables.
+
+"I do, indeed, and be d--d to yoo--oo," I replied; "and why should I not?
+the visit was not volunteered, you know so come down, you long--legged
+Yankee smuggling scoundrel, or I'll blow your bloody buccaneering craft out
+of the water like the peel of an onion.  You see I have got the magazine
+scuttle up, and there are the barrels of powder, and here is the candle,
+so"--
+
+Obed laughed like the beginning of the bray of the jackass before he swings
+off into his "heehaw, heehaw."--"Smash my eyes, man, but them barrels be
+full of pimento, all but that one with the red mark, and that be crackers
+fresh and sharp from the Brandywine mills."
+
+"Well, well, gunpowder or pimento, I'll set fire to it if you don't be
+civil."
+
+"Why, I will be civil; you are a curious chap, a brave slip, to carry it
+so, with no friend near; so, civil I will be."
+
+He unlocked the companion hatch and came down to the cabin, doubling his
+long limbs up like foot--rules, to suit the low roof.
+
+"Free and easy, my man," continued the Captain, as he entered.  "Well, I
+forgive you--we are quits now--and if we were not beyond the Island Craft,
+I would put you ashore, but I can't stand back now."  "Why, may I ask?"
+"Simply, because one of your men--of--war schooners an't more than hull
+down astarn of me at this moment; she is working up in shore, and has not
+chased me as yet; indeed she may save herself the trouble, for ne'er a
+schooner in your blasted service has any chance with the tidy little Wave."
+
+I was by no means so sure of this.
+
+"Well Master Obediah, it may turn up as you say, and in a light wind, I
+know you will either sail or sweep away from any one of them; but, to be on
+the square with you, if it comes on to blow, that same hooker, which I take
+to be his Britannic Majesty's schooner Gleam, will, from his greater beam,
+and superior length, out carry and forereach on you, ay, and weather on you
+too, hand over hand; so this is my compact--if he nails you, you will
+require a friend at court, and I will stand that friend; if you escape--and
+I will not interfere either by advice or otherwise, either to get you taken
+or to get you clear will you promise to put me on board of the first
+English merchant vessel we fall in with, or, at the longest, to land me at
+St Jago de Cuba, and I will promise you, on my honour, notwithstanding all
+that has been said or done, that I will never hereafter inform against you,
+or in any way get you into trouble if I can help it.  Is it done?  Will you
+ive me your hand upon it?"
+
+Obed did not hesitate a moment; he clenched my hand, and squeezed it till
+the blood nearly spouted from my finger--ends; one might conceive of
+Norwegian bears greeting each other after this fashion, but I trust no
+Christian will ever, in time coming, subject my digits to a similar species
+of torture.
+
+"Agreed, my boy, I have promised, and you may depend on me; smuggler though
+I be, and somewhat worse on occasion mayhap, I never breaks my word."
+
+There was an earnestness about the poor fellow, in which I thought there
+could be no deception, and from that moment we were on what I may call a
+very friendly footing for a prisoner and his jailer.
+
+"Well, now, I believe you, so let us have a glass of grog, and"--
+
+Here the mate sung out, "Captain, come on deck, if you please; quickly,
+sir, quickly."
+
+By this time it had begun to breeze up again, and as the wind rose, I could
+see the spirits of the crew fell, as if conscious they had no chance if it
+freshened.  When we went on deck, Paul was still peering through the
+telescope.
+
+"The schooner has tacked, sir." A dead silence; then giving the glass a
+swing, and driving the joints into each other, with such vehemence as if he
+would have broken them in pieces, he exclaimed, "She is after us, so sure
+as I ben't a niger."
+
+"No! is she though?" eagerly enquired the captain, as he at length seized
+the spy--glass, twisting and turning it about and about, as he tried to hit
+his own very peculiar focus.  At length he took a long, long, breathless
+look, while the eyes of the whole crew, some fifteen hands or so, were
+riveted upon him with the most intense anxiety.
+
+"What a gaff--topsail she has got--my eye!--and a ringtail with more cloths
+in it than our squaresail--and the breeze comes down stronger and
+stronger!"
+
+All this while I looked out equally excited, but with a very different
+interest.  "Come, this will do,' thought I; 'she is after us; and if old
+Dick Casket brings that fiery sea--breeze he has now along with him, we
+shall puzzle the smuggler, for all his long start."
+
+"There's a gun, sir," cried Paul, trembling from head to foot.
+
+"Sure enough," said the skipper; "and it must be a signal.  And there go
+three flags at the fore.--She must, I'll bet a hundred dollars, have taken
+our tidy little Wave for the Admiral's tender that was lying in Morant
+Bay."
+
+"Blarney," thought I; "tidy as your little Wave is, she won't deceive old
+Dick--he is not the man to take a herring for a horse; she must be making
+signals to some man--of--war in sight."
+
+"A strange sail right a--head," sung out three men from forward all at
+once.
+
+"Didn't I say so?"--I had only thought so.  "Come, Master Obediah, it
+thickens now, you're in for it," said I.
+
+But he was not in the least shaken; as the matter grew serious, he seemed
+to brace up to meet it.  He had been flurried at the first, but he was
+collected and cool as a cucumber now, when he saw every thing depending on
+his seamanship and judgment.  Not so Paul, who seemed to have made up his
+mind that they must be taken.
+
+"Jezebel Brandywine, you are but a widowed old lady, I calculate. I shall
+never see the broad, smooth Chesapeake again--no more peach brandy for
+Paul;" and folding his arms, he set himself doggedly down on the low
+tafferel.
+
+Little did I think at the time how fearfully the poor fellow's foreboding
+was so soon to be fulfilled.
+
+"There again," said I, "a second puff to windward." This was another signal
+gun I knew; and I went forward to where the captain was reconnoitring the
+sail a--head through the glass.  "Let me see," said I, "and I will be
+honest with you, and tell you if I know her."
+
+He handed me the glass at once, and the instant I saw the top of her
+courses above the water, I was sure, from the red cross in her foresail,
+that she was the Firebrand, the very corvette to which I was appointed.
+She was so well to windward, that I considered it next to impossible that
+we should weather her, but Obediah seemed determined to try it.  After
+seeing his little vessel snug under mainsail, foresail, and jib, which was
+as much as she could stagger under, and every thing right and tight, and
+all clear to make more sail should the breeze lull, he ordered the men
+below, and took the helm himself.  What queer animals sailors are!  We were
+rising the corvette fast; and on going aft again from the bows, where I had
+been looking at her, I cast my eye down the hatchway into the men's berth,
+and there were the whole crew at breakfast, laughing and joking, and
+enjoying themselves, as heartily, apparently, nay, I verily believe in
+reality, as if they had been in a yacht on a cruise of pleasure, in place
+of having one enemy nearly within gunshot astern, and another trying to cut
+them off ahead.
+
+At this moment the schooner in chase luffed up in the wind, and I noticed
+the foot of the foresail lift.  "You'll have it now, friend Obed; there's
+at you in earnest." While I spoke, a column of thick white smoke spouted
+over the bows of the Gleam, about twenty yards to windward, and then blew
+back again amongst the sails and rigging, as if a gauze veil had for an
+instant been thrown over the little vessel, rolling off down the wind to
+leeward, in whirling eddies, growing thinner and thinner, until it
+disappeared altogether.  I heard the report this time, and the shot fell
+close alongside of us.
+
+"A good mark with that apple," coolly observed the Captain; "the Long Tom
+must be a tearer, to pitch its mouthful of iron this length."
+
+Another succeeded; and if I had been still pinned up in the companion,
+there would have been no log now, for it went crash through
+into the hold.
+
+"Go it, my boys," shouted I; "a few more as well aimed, and heigh for the
+Firebrand's gunroom!"
+
+At the mention of the Firebrand I thought Obed started, but he soon
+recovered himself, and looking at me with all the apparent composure in the
+world, he smiled as he said, "Not so fast, Lieutenant; you and I have not
+drank our last glass of swizzle yet, I guess.  If I can but weather that
+chap ahead, I don't fear the schooner."
+
+The corvette had by this time answered the signal from the Gleam, and had
+hauled his wind also, so that I did not conceive it possible that the Wave
+could scrape clear, without coming under his broadside.
+
+"You won't try it, Obed, surely?'
+
+"Answer me this, and I'll tell you," rejoined he.  "Does that corvette now
+carry long 18's or 32--pound carronades?"
+
+"She carries 32--pound carronades.'
+
+"Then you'll not sling your cot in her gunroom this cruise."
+
+All this time the little Wave was carrying to it gallantly, her jib--boom
+bending like whalebone, and her long slender topmasts whipping about like a
+couple of fishing--rods, as she thrashed at it, sending the spray flashing
+over her mastheads at every pitch; but notwithstanding her weatherly
+qualities, the heavy cross sea, as she drove into it, headed her off
+bodily, and she could not prevent the Gleam from creeping up on her weather
+quarter, where she peppered away from her long 24--pounder, throwing the
+shot over and over us.
+
+To tack, therefore, would have been to run into the lion's mouth, and to
+bear up was equally hopeless, as the corvette, going free, would have
+chased her under water; the only chance remaining was to stand on, and
+trust to the breeze taking off, and try to weather the ship, now about
+three miles distant on our lee bow, braced sharp up on the opposite tack,
+and evidently quite aware of our game.
+
+As the corvette and the Wave neared each other, he threw a shot at us from
+the boat gun on his topgallant forecastle, as if to ascertain beyond all
+doubt the extent of our insanity, and whether we were serious in our
+attempt to weather him and escape.
+
+Obed held right on his course, like grim Death.  Another bullet whistled
+over our mastheads, and, with the aid of the glass, I could see by the
+twinkling of feet, and here and there a busy peering face through the
+ports, that the crew were at quarters fore and aft, while fourteen marines
+or so were all ready rigged on the poop, and the nettings were bristling
+through the whole length of the ship, with fifty or sixty small--arm men.
+
+All this I took care to communicate to Obediah.  "I say, my good friend, I
+see little to laugh at in all this.  If you do go to windward of him at
+all, which I greatly doubt, you will have to cross his fore--foot within
+pistol--shot at the farthest, and then you will have to rasp along his
+whole broadside of great and small, and they are right well prepared and
+ready for you, that I can tell you; the skipper of that ship has had some
+hedication, I guess, in the war on your coast, for he seems up to your
+tricks, and I don't doubt but he will tip you the stem, if need be, with as
+little compunction as I would kill a cockroach, devil confound the whole
+breed!  There,--I see his marines and small--arm men handling their
+firelocks, as thick as sparrows under the lee of a hedge in a snow--storm,
+and the people are training the bull--dogs fore and aft.  Why, this is
+downright, stark staring lunacy, Obed; we shall be smashed like an
+eggshell, and all hands of us whipped off to Davy, from your cursed
+foolhardiness."
+
+I had made several pauses in my address, expecting an answer, but Obed was
+mute as a stone.  At length I took the glass from my eye, and turned round
+to look at him, startled by his silence.
+
+I might have heard of such things, but I had never before seen the working
+of the spirit so forcibly and fearfully demonstrated by the aspect of the
+outward man.  With the exception of myself, he was the only man on deck, as
+before mentioned, and by this time he was squatted down on it, with his
+long legs and thighs thrust down into the cabin, through the open skylight.
+The little vessel happened to carry a weather helm, so that his long sinewy
+arms, with their large veins and leaders strained to cracking, covered but
+a small way below the elbow by his jacket, were stretched as far as they
+could clutch the tiller to windward, and his enormous head, supported on
+his very short trunk, that seemed to be countersunk into the deck, gave him
+a most extraordinary appearance.  But this was not all; his complexion,
+usually sallow and sunburnt, was now ghastly and blue, like that of the
+corpse of a drowned man; the muscles of the neck, and the flesh of the
+cheeks and chin were rigid and fixed, and shrunk into one half of their
+usual compass; the lips were so compressed that they had almost entirely
+disappeared, and all that marked his mouth was a black line; the nostrils
+were distended, and thin and transparent, while the forehead was shrivelled
+into the most minute and immovable wrinkles, as if done with a crimping
+instrument while over his eyes, or rather his eye, for he kept
+one closed as if it had been hermetically sealed, he had lashed with half a
+dozen turns of spun--yarn a wooden socket, like the but--end of an opera
+glass, fitted with some sort of magnifier, through which he peered out
+ahead most intensely, stooping down, and stretching his long bare neck to
+its utmost reach, that he might see under the foot of the foresail.
+
+I had scarcely time to observe all this, when a round shot came through the
+head of the mainsail, grazing the mast, and the very next instant a bushel
+of grape, from one of the bow guns, a 32--pound carronade, was crashed in
+on us amidships. I flung down the glass, and dived through the companion
+into the cabin--I am not ashamed to own it; and any man who would
+undervalue my courage in consequence, can never, taking into consideration
+the peculiarities of my situation, have known the appalling sound, or
+infernal effect of a discharge of grape.  Round shot in broadsides is a
+joke to it; musketry is a joke to it; but only conjure up in your
+imagination, a shower of iron bullets, of the size of well--grown plums, to
+the number of from sixty to one hundred and twenty, taking effect within a
+circle, not above ten feet in diameter, and that all this time there was
+neither honour nor glory in the case, for I was a miserable captive, and I
+fancy I may save myself the trouble of farther enlargement.
+
+I found that the crew had by this time started and taken up the planks of
+the cabin floor, and had stowed themselves well down into the run, so as to
+be as much out of harm's way as they could manage, but there was neither
+fear nor flinching amongst them; and although totally devoid of all
+gasconade--on the contrary, they had taken all the precautions men could do
+in their situation, to keep out of harm's way, or at least to lessen the
+danger--there they sat, silent, and cool, and determined.  "I shall never
+undervalue an American as an enemy again," thought I. I lay down on the
+side of the little vessel, now nearly level as she lay over, alongside of
+Paul Brandywine, in a position that commanded a view of Obed's face through
+the small scuttle.  Ten minutes might have elapsed--a tearing crash--and a
+rattle on the deck overhead, as if a shower of stones had been thrown from
+aloft on it.
+
+"That's through the mainmast, I expect," quoth Paul.
+
+I looked from him to the Captain; a black thick stream of blood was
+trickling down behind his ear.  Paul had noticed it also.
+
+"You are hurt by one of them splinters, I see; give me the helm now,
+Captain;" and, crushed down as the poor fellow appeared to be under some
+fearful and mysterious consciousness of impending danger, he nevertheless
+addressed himself to take his Captain's place.
+
+"Hold your blasted tongue"--was the polite rejoinder.
+
+"I say, Captain,"--shouted your humble servant, "you may as well eat pease
+with a pitchfork, as try to weather him.  You are hooked, man, flounder as
+you will.  Old Nick can't shake you clear--so I won't stand this any
+longer;" and making a spring, I jammed myself through the skylight, until I
+sat on the deck, looking aft, and confronting him, and there we were, stuck
+up like the two kings of Brentford, or a couple of smiling cherries on one
+stalk. I have often laughed over the figure we must have cut, but at the
+time there was that going on that would have made Comus himself look grave.
+I had at length fairly aroused the sleeping devil within him.
+
+"Look out there, Lieutenant--look out there,"--and he pointed with his
+sinister claw down to leeward. I did so--whew!--what a sight for poor
+Master Thomas Cringle!  "You are booked for an outside place, Master
+Tommy," thought I to myself--for there was the corvette in very truth--she
+had just tacked, and was close aboard of us on our lee quarter, within
+musket--shot at the farthest, bowling along upon a wind, with the green,
+hissing, multitudinous sea surging along her sides, and washing up in foam,
+like snow flakes, through the mid--ship ports, far aft on the quarterdeck,
+to the glorification of jack, who never minds a wet jacket, so long as he
+witnesses the discomfiture of his ally, Peter Pipeclay.  The press of
+canvass she was carrying laid her over, until her copper sheathing, clear
+as glass, and glancing like gold, was seen high above the water, throughout
+her whole length, above which rose her glossy jet black bends, surmounted
+by a milk--white streak, broken at regular intervals into eleven goodly
+ports, from which the British cannon, ugly customers at the best, were
+grinning, tompion out, open--mouthed at us; and above all, the clean,
+well--stowed white hammocks filled the nettings, from tafferel to cathead
+oh! that I had been in one of them, snug on the berth deck!  Aloft, a cloud
+of white sail swelled to the breeze, till the cloth seemed inclined to say
+goodby to the bolt ropes, bending the masts like willow--wands, as if the
+devil, determined to beat Paganini himself, was preparing fiddlesticks to
+play a spring with, on the cracking and straining weather shrouds and
+backstays, and tearing her sharp wedge--like bows out of the bowels of the
+long swell, until the cutwater, and ten yards of the keel next to it, were
+hove clean out of the sea, into which she would descend again with a
+roaring plunge, burying every thing up to the hause--holes, and driving the
+brine into mist, over the fore--top, like vapour from a waterfall, through
+which, as she rose again, the bright red copper on her bows flashed back
+the sunbeams in momentary rainbows.  We were so near, that I could with the
+naked eye distinctly see the faces of the men.  There were at least I50
+determined fellows at quarters, and clustered with muskets in their hands,
+wherever they could be posted to most advantage.
+
+There they were in groups about the ports, (I could even see the captains
+of the guns, examining the locks,) in their clean white frocks and
+trowsers, the officers of the ship, and the marines, clearly
+distinguishable by their blue or red jackets.  I could discern the very
+sparkle of the epaulets.
+
+High overhead, the red cross, that for a thousand years "has braved the
+battle and the breeze," blew out strong from the peak, like a sheet of
+flickering white flame, or a thing instinct with life, struggling to tear
+away the ensign haulyards, and to escape high into the clouds; while, from
+the main--royal--masthead, the long white pennant streamed upwards into the
+azure heavens, like a ray of silver light.  Oh! it was a sight "most
+beautiful to see," as the old song hath it,------but I confess I would have
+preferred that pleasure from t'other side of the hedge.
+
+There was no hailing nor trumpeting, although, as we crossed on opposite
+tacks when we first weathered her, just before she hove in stays, I had
+heard a shrill voice sing out, "Take good aim, men--Fire"; but now each
+cannon in thunder shot forth its glance of flame, without a word being
+uttered, as she kept away to bring them to bear in succession, while the
+long feathery cloud of whirling white smoke that shrouded her sides from
+stem to stem, was sparkling brilliantly throughout with crackling musketry,
+for all the world like fire--flies in a bank of night fog from the hills,
+until the breeze blew it back again through the rigging, and once more
+unveiled the lovely craft in all her pride and glory.
+
+"You see all that?' said Obed.
+
+"To be sure I do, and I feel something too'; for a sharp rasping jar was
+repeated in rapid succession three or four times, as so many shot struck
+our hull, and made the splinters glance about merrily; and the musketballs
+were mottling our top sides and spars, plumping into the timber, whit whit!
+as thick as ever you saw schoolboys' plastering a church door with
+clay--pellets.  There was a heavy groan, and a stir amongst the seamen in
+the run.
+
+"And, pray, do you see and hear all that yourself, Master Obed?  The iron
+has clenched some of your chaps down there.--Stay a bit, you shall have a
+better dose presently, you obstinate old"--
+
+He waved his hand, and interrupted me with great energy--"I dare not give
+in, I cannot give in; all I have in the world swims in the little hooker,
+and strike I will not so long as two planks stick together.
+
+"Then," quoth I, "you are simply a damned, cold--blooded, calculating
+scoundrel--brave I will never call you." I saw he was now stung to the
+quick.
+
+"Lieutenant, smuggler as I am, don't goad me to what worse I may have been;
+there are some deeds done in my time, which at a moment like this I don't
+much like to think upon.  I am a desperate man, Master Cringle; don't, for
+your own sake, as well as mine, try me too far.'
+
+"Well but"--persisted I. He would hear nothing.
+
+"Enough said, sir, enough said; there was not an honester trader nor a
+happier man in all the Union, until your infernal pillaging an burning
+squadron in the Chesapeake captured and ruined me; but I paid it off on the
+prize--master, although we were driven on the rocks after all. I paid it
+off, and, God help me, I have never thriven since, enemy although he was.
+I see the poor fellow's face yet, as I!"--He checked himself suddenly, as
+if aware that he might say more than could be conveniently retracted.  "But
+I dare not be taken; let that satisfy you, Master Cringle, so go
+below--below with you, sir"--I saw he had succeeded in lashing himself into
+a fury--"or, by the Almighty God, who hears me, I shall be tempted to do
+another deed, the remembrance of which will haunt me till my dying day."
+
+All this passed in no time, as we say, much quicker than one can read it;
+and I now saw that the corvette had braced up sharp to the wind again, on
+the same tack that we were on; so I slipped down like an eel, and once more
+stretched myself beside Paul, on the lee side of the cabin.  We soon found
+that she was indeed after us in earnest, by the renewal of the cannonade,
+and the breezing up of the small arms again.  Two round shot now tore right
+through the deck, just beneath the larboard coamings of the main hatchway;
+the little vessel's deck, as she lay over, being altogether exposed to, the
+enemy's fire, they made her whole frame tremble again, smashing every thing
+in their way to shivers, and going right out through her bottom on the
+opposite side, within a dozen streaks of her keel, while the rattling of
+the clustered grapeshot every now and then made us start, the musketry all
+the while peppering away like a hail shower.  Still the skipper, who I
+expected every moment to see puffed away from the tiller like smoke, held
+upon deck as if he had been bullet--proof, and seemed to escape the hellish
+tornado of missiles of all sorts and sizes by a miracle.
+
+"He is in league with the old one, Paul," said I; "howsoever, you must be
+nabbed, for you see the ship is forereaching on you, and you can't go on
+t'other tack, surely, with these pretty eyelet holes between wind and water
+on the weather side there?  Your captain is mad why will you, then, and all
+these poor fellows, go down, because he dare not surrender, for some good
+deed of his own, eh?"
+
+The roar of the cannon and noise of the musketry made it necessary for me
+to raise my voice here, which the small scuttle, like Dionysius's ear,
+conveyed unexpectedly to my friend, the captain, on deck.
+
+"Hand me up my pistols, Paul."
+
+It had struck me before, and I was now certain, that from the time he had
+become so intensely excited as he was now, he spoke with a pure English
+accent, without the smallest dash of Yankeeism.
+
+"So, so; I see--no wonder you won't strike, you renegade," cried I.
+
+"You have tampered with my crew, sir, and abused me," he announced, in a
+stem, slow tone, much more alarming than his former fierceness, "so take
+that, to quiet you;" and deuce take me if he did not, the moment he
+received the pistols from his mate, fire slap at me, the ball piercing the
+large muscle of my neck on the right side, missing the artery by the merest
+accident.  Thinking I was done for, I covered my face with my hands, and
+commanded myself to God, with all the resignation that could be expected
+from a poor young fellow in my grievous circumstances, expecting to be cut
+off in the prima vera of his days, and to part for ever from--.  Poo, that
+there line is not my forte.  However, finding the haemorrhage by no means
+great, and that the wound was in fact slight, I took the captain's rather
+strong hint to be still, and lay quiet, until a 32--pound shot struck us
+bang on the quarter.  The subdued force with which it came, showed that we
+were widening our distance, for it did not drive through and through with a
+crash, but lodged in a timber; nevertheless it started one of the planks
+across which Paul and I lay, and pitched us both with extreme violence
+bodily into the run amongst the men, three of them lying amongst the
+ballast, which was covered with blood, two badly wounded, and one dead. I
+came off with some slight bruises, however; not so the poor mate.  He had
+been nearest the end or but that was started, which thereby struck him so
+forcibly, that it fractured his spine, and dashed him amongst his
+shipmates, shrieking piercingly in his great agony, and clutching whatever
+he could grasp with his hands, and tearing whatever he could reach with his
+teeth, while his limbs below his waist were dead and paralysed.
+
+"Oh, Christ! water, water," he cried, "water, for the love of God, water!"
+The crew did all they could; but his torments increased--the blood began to
+flow from his mouth--his hands became clay--cold and pulseless--his
+features sharp, blue, and death--like--his respiration difficult--the
+choking death--rattle succeeded, and in ten minutes he was dead.
+
+This was the last shot that told--every report became more and more faint,
+and the musketry soon ceased altogether.
+
+The breeze had taken off, and the Wave, resuming her superiority in light
+winds, had escaped.
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Cuba Fishermen
+
+"El Pescador de Puerto Escondido,
+Pesca mas que Peseado,
+Quando la Luna redonda Reflexado en la mar profunda.
+Pero cuidado,
+El pobre sera el nino perdido Si esta por Anglisman cogido.
+Ay de mi".
+
+
+It was now five in the afternoon, and the breeze continued to fall, and
+the sea to go down, until sunset, by which time we had I run the
+corvette hull down, and the schooner nearly out of sight.  Right ahead
+of us rose the high land of Cuba, to the westward of Cape Maize, clear
+and well--defined against the northern sky; and as we neither hauled our
+wind to weather the east end of the island, nor edged away for St Jago,
+it was evident, beyond all doubt, that we were running right in for some
+one of the piratical haunts on the Cuba coast.
+
+The crew now set to work, and removed the remains of their late
+messmate, and the two wounded men, from where they lay upon the ballast
+in the Run, to their own berth forward in the bow of the little vessel;
+they then replaced the planks which they had started, and arranged the
+dead body of the mate along the cabin floor, close to where I lay, faint
+and bleeding, and more heavily bruised than I had at first thought.
+
+The captain was still at the helm; he had never spoken a word either to
+me or any of the crew, since he had taken the trifling liberty of
+shooting me through the neck, and no thanks to him that the wound was
+not mortal; but he now resumed his American accent, and began to drawl
+out the necessary orders for repairing damages.
+
+When I went on deck shortly afterwards, I was surprised beyond measure
+to perceive the injury the little vessel had sustained, and the uncommon
+speed, handiness, and skill, with which it had been repaired.  However
+lazily the command might appear to have been given, the execution of it
+was quick as lightning.  The crew, now reduced to ten working hands,
+had, with an almost miraculous promptitude, knotted and spliced the
+rigging, mended and shifted sails, fished the sprung and wounded spars,
+and plugged and nailed lead over the shot--holes, and all within half an
+hour.
+
+I don't like Americans; I never did, and never shall like them; I have
+seldom met with an American gentleman, in the large and complete sense
+of the terms.  I have no wish to eat with them, drink with them, deal
+with, or consort with them in any way; but let me tell the whole truth,
+nor fight with them, were it not for the laurels to be acquired, by
+overcoming an enemy so brave, determined, and alert, and every way so
+worthy of one's steel, as they have always proved.  One used to fight
+with a Frenchman, as a matter of course, and for the fun of the thing as
+it were, never dreaming of the possibility of Johnny Crapeau beating us,
+where there was any thing approaching to an equality of force; but, say
+as much as we please about larger ships and more men, and a variety of
+excuses which proud John Bull, with some truth very often I will admit,
+has pertinaciously thrust forward to palliate his losses during the
+short war, a regard for truth and fair dealing, which I hope are no
+scarce qualities amongst British seamen, compels me to admit, that
+although I would of course peril my life and credit more readily with an
+English crew, yet I believe a feather would turn the scale between the
+two countries, so far as courage and seamanship goes; and let it not be
+forgotten, although we have now regained our superiority in this
+respect, yet, in gunnery and smallarm practice, we were as thoroughly
+weathered on by the Americans during the war, as we overtopped them in
+the bulldog courage with which our boarders handled those genuine
+English weapons, the cutlass and the pike.
+
+After the captain had given his orders, and seen the men fairly at work,
+he came down to the cabin, still ghastly and pale, but with none of that
+ferocity stamped on his grim features, from the outpouring of which I
+had suffered so severely.  He never once looked my way, no more than if
+I had been a bundle of old junk; but folding his hands on his knee, he
+sat down on a small locker, against which the feet of the dead mate
+rested, and gazed earnestly on his face, which was immediately under the
+open skylight, through which, by this time, the clear cold rays of the
+moon streamed full on it, the short twilight having already fled,
+chained as it is in these climates to the chariot wheels of the burning
+sun.  My eye naturally followed his, but I speedily withdrew it.  I had
+often bent over comrades who had been killed by gunshot wounds, and
+always remarked, what is wellknown, that the features wore a benign
+expression, bland and gentle, and contented as the face of a sleeping
+infant, while their limbs were composed decently, often gracefully, like
+one resting after great fatigue, as if nature, like an affectionate
+nurse, had arranged the deathbed of her departing child with more than
+usual care, preparatory to his last long sleep; whereas those who had
+died from the thrust of a pike, or the blow of a cutlass, however mild
+the living expression of their countenance might have been, were always
+fearfully contorted both in body and face.
+
+In the present instance, the eyes were wide open, white, prominent, and
+glazed like those of a dead fish; the hair, which was remarkably fine,
+and had been worn in long ringlets, amongst which a large gold earring
+glittered, the poor fellow having been a nautical dandy of the first
+water was drenched and clotted into heavy masses with the death--sweat,
+and had fallen back on the deck from his forehead, which was well
+formed, high, broad and massive.  His nose was transparent, thin, and
+sharp, the tense skin on the bridge of it glancing in the silver light,
+as if it had been glass.  His mouth was puckered on one side into
+angular wrinkles, like a curtain drawn up awry, while a clotted stream
+of black gore crept from it sluggishly down his right cheek, and
+coagulated in a heap on the deck.  His lower jaw had fallen, and there
+he lay agape with his mouth full of blood.
+
+His legs, indeed his whole body below his loins, where the fracture of
+the spine had taken place, rested precisely as they had been arranged
+after he died; but the excessive swelling and puffing out of his broad
+chest, contrasted shockingly with the shrinking of the body at the pit
+of the stomach, by which the arch of the ribs was left as well defined
+as if the skin had been drawn over a skeleton, and the distortion of the
+muscles of the cheeks and throat evinced the fearful strength of the
+convulsions which had preceded his dissolution.  It was evident, indeed,
+that throughout his whole person above the waist, the nervous system had
+been utterly shattered; the arms, especially, appeared to have been
+awfully distorted, for when crossed on his breast, they had to be
+forcibly fastened down at the wrists by a band of spun--yam to the
+buttons of his jacket.  His right hand was shut, with the exception of
+the forefinger, which was extended, pointing upwards; but the whole arm,
+from the shoulder down, had the horrible appearance of struggling to get
+free from the cord which confined it.
+
+Obed, by the time I had noticed all this, had knelt beside the shoulder
+of the corpse, and I could see by the moonlight that flickered across
+his face as the vessel rolled in the declining breeze, that he had
+pushed off his eye the uncouth spyglass which he had fastened over it
+during the chase, so that it now stood out from the middle of his
+forehead like a stunted horn; but, in truth, "it was not exalted," for
+he appeared crushed down to the very earth by the sadness of the scene
+before him, and I noticed the frequent sparkle of a heavy tear as it
+fell from his iron visage on the face of the dead man.  At length he
+untied the string that fastened the eyeglass round his head, and taking
+a coarse towel from a locker, he spunged poor Paul's face and neck with
+rum, and then fastened up his lower jaw with the lanyard.  Having
+performed this melancholy office, the poor fellow's feelings could no
+longer be restrained by my presence.
+
+"God help me, I have not now one friend in the wide world.  When I had
+neither home, nor food, nor clothing, he sheltered me, and fed me, and
+clothed me, when a single word would have gained him five hundred
+dollars, and run me up to the fore yardarm in a wreath of white smoke;
+but he was true as steel; and oh that he was now doing for me what I
+have done for him! who would have moaned over me,--me, who am now
+without wife or child, and have disgraced all my kin! alack--a--day,
+alack--a--day!"--And he sobbed and wept aloud, as if his very heart
+would have burst in twain.--"But I will soon follow you, Paul; I have
+had my warning already; I know it, and I believe it." At this instant
+the dead hand of the mate burst the ligature that kept it down across
+his body, and slowly rose up and remained in a beckoning attitude. I was
+seized with a cold shivering from head to foot, and would have shrieked
+aloud, had it not been for very shame, but Obed was unmoved.--"I know
+it, Paul.  I know it. I am ready, and I shall not be long behind you."
+
+He fastened the arm down once more, and having called a couple of hands
+to assist him, they lashed up the remains of their shipmate in his
+hammock, with a piece of iron ballast at his feet, and then, without
+more ado, handed the body up through the skylight; and I heard the heavy
+splash as they cast it into the sea.  When this was done, the captain
+returned to the cabin, bringing a light with him, filled and drank off a
+glass of strong grog.  Yet he did not even now deign to notice me, which
+was by no means soothing; and I found that, since he wouldn't speak, I
+must, at all hazards.
+
+"I say, Obed, do you ever read your Bible?" He looked steadily at me
+with his lacklustre eyes.  "Because, if you do, you may perhaps have
+fallen in with some such passages as the following:--Behold I am in your
+hand; but know ye for certain, that if ye put me to death, ye shall
+surely bring innocent blood upon yourselves."
+
+"It is true, Mr Cringle, I feel the truth of it here," and he laid his
+large bony hand on his heart.  "Yet I do not ask you to forgive me; I
+don't expect that you can or will; but unless the devil gets possession
+of me again--which, so sure as ever there was a demoniac in this world,
+he had this afternoon when you so tempted me--I hope soon to place you
+in safety, either in a friendly port, or on board of a British vessel;
+and then what becomes of me is of little consequence, now since the only
+living soul who cared a dollar for me is at rest amongst the coral
+branches at the bottom of the deep green sea."
+
+"Why, man," rejoined I, "leave off this stuff; something has turned your
+brain, surely; people must die in their beds, you now, if they be not
+shot, or put out of the way somehow or other; and as for my small
+affair, why I forgive you, man--from my heart I forgive you; were it
+only for the oddity of your scantling, mental and corporeal, I would do
+so; and you see I am not much hurting--so lend me a hand, like a good
+fellow, to wash the wound with a little spirits--it will stop the
+bleeding, and the stiffness will soon go off."
+
+"Lieutenant Cringle, I need not tell what I know you have found out,
+that I am not the vulgar Yankee smuggler, fit only to be made a butt of
+by you and your friends, that you no doubt at first took me for; but who
+or what I am, or what I may have been, you shall never know--but I will
+tell you this much"
+
+"Devil confound the fellow!--why this is too much upon the brogue, Obed.
+Will you help me to dress my wound, man, and leave off your cursed
+sentimental speeches, which you must have gleaned from some old novel or
+another?  I'll hear it all by and by."
+
+At this period I was a reckless young chap, with strong nerves, and my
+own share of that animal courage, which generally oozes out at one's
+finger ends when one gets married and turned of thirty; nevertheless I
+did watch with some anxiety the effect which my unceremonious
+interruption was to have upon him.  I was agreeably surprised to find
+that he took it all in good part, and set himself, with great alacrity
+and kindness even, to put me to rights, and so successfully, that when I
+was washed and cleansed, and fairly coopered up, I found myself quite
+able to take my place at the table; and having no fear of the College of
+Surgeons before my eyes, I helped myself to a little of the needful, and
+in the plenitude of my heart, I asked Obed's pardon for my ill--bred
+interruption.
+
+"It was not quite the thing to cut you short in the middle of your
+Newgate Calendar, Obed--beg pardon, your story I mean; no offence now,
+none in the world--eh?  But where the deuce, man, got you this fine
+linen of Egypt?" looking at the sleeves of the shirt Obed had obliged me
+with, as I sat without my coat.  "I had not dreamt you had any thing so
+luxurious in your kit."
+
+I saw his brow begin to lower again, so the devil prompted me to advert,
+by way of changing the subject, to a file of newspapers, which, as it
+turned out, might have proved to be by far the most dangerous topic I
+could have hit upon.  He had laid them aside, having taken them out of
+the locker when he was rummaging for the linen.  "What have we here?
+Kingston Chronicle, Montego Bay Gazette, Falmouth Advertiser.  A great
+newsmonger you must be.  What arrivals?--let me see;--you know I am a
+week from headquarters.  Let me see."
+
+At first he made a motion as if he would have snatched them out of my
+hands, but speedily appeared to give up the idea, merely murmuring
+"What can it signify now?"
+
+I continued to read--"Chanticleer from a cruise--Tonnant from Barbadoes
+Pique from Port--au--Prince.  Oh, the next interests me the Firebrand
+is daily expected from Havanna; she is to come through the gulf, round
+Cape Antonio, and beat up the haunts of the pirates all along the Cuba
+shore." I was certain now that at the mention of this corvette mine host
+winced in earnest.  This made me anxious to probe him farther.  "Why,
+what means this pencil mark--'Firebrand's number off the Chesapeake was
+1022?' How the deuce, my fine fellow, do you know that?"
+
+He shook his head, but said nothing, and I went on reading the pencil
+memoranda--"But this is most probably changed; she now carries a red
+cross in the head of her foresail, and has very short lower masts like
+the Hornet."  Still he made me no answer. I proceeded--"Stop, let me see
+what merchant ships are about sailing.  Loading for Liverpool, the John
+Gladstone, Peter Ponderous master;" and after it, again in pencil
+"Only sugar: goes through the gulf.--Only sugar," said I, still fishing;
+"too bulky, I suppose.--Ariel, Jenkins Whitehaven;" remark--"sugar,
+coffee, and logwood. Nuestra Senora de los Dolores, to sail for
+Chagres on 7th proximo;" remark--"rich cargo of bale goods, but no
+chance of overtaking her." "El Rayo to sail for St Jago de Cuba on the
+10th proximo;" remark--"sails fast; armed with a long gun and musketry;
+thirty hands; about ten Spanish passengers; valuable cargo of dry goods;
+mainmast rakes well aft; new cloth in the foresail about half--way up;
+will be off the Moro about the 13th.--And what is this written in ink
+under the above?--The San Pedro from Chagres, and Marianita from Santa
+Martha, although rich, have both got convoy.--Ah, too strong for your
+friends, Obed--I see, I see.--Francis Baring, Loan French, master--an
+odd name, rather, for a skipper;" remark--"forty seroons of cochineal
+and some specie; is to sail from Morant Bay on 5th proximo, to go
+through the windward passage; may be expected off Cape St Nicolas on the
+12th, or thereby." I laid down the paper and looked him full in the
+face.  "Nicolas is an ominous name.  I fear the good ship Francis Baring
+will find it so.  Some of the worthy saint's clerks to be fallen in with
+off the Mole, eh?  Don't you think as I do, Obed?" Still silent.  "Why
+you seem to take great delight in noting the intended departures and
+expected arrivals, my friend--merely to satisfy your curiosity, of
+course; but, to come to close quarters with you, captain, I now know
+pretty well the object of your visiting Jamaica now and then you are
+indeed no vulgar smuggler."
+
+"It is well for you and good for myself, Mr Cringle, that something
+weighs heavy at my heart at this moment, and that there is that about
+you which, notwithstanding your ill--timed jesting, commands my respect,
+and engages my goodwill--had it not been so, you would have been
+alongside of poor Paul at this moment." He leant his arms upon the
+table, and gazed intensely on my face as he continued in a solemn
+tremulous tone--"Do you believe in auguries, Mr Cringle?  Do you believe
+that coming events cast their shadows before?'"--oh, that little Wiggy
+Campbell had been beside me to have seen the figure and face of the man
+who now quoted him!
+
+"Yes, I do, it is part of the creed of every sailor to do so; I do
+believe that people have had forewarnings of peril to themselves or
+their friends."
+
+"Then what do you think of the mate beckoning me with his dead hand to
+follow him?"
+
+"Why, you are raving, Obed; you saw that he had been much convulsed, and
+that the limb, from the contraction of the sinews, was forcibly kept
+down in the position it broke loose from--the spunyarn gave way, and of
+course it started up--nothing wonderful in all this although it did at
+the time somewhat startle me, I confess."
+
+"It may be so, it may be so.  I don't know," rejoined he, "but taken
+along with what I saw before"--Here his voice sank into so hollow and
+sepulchral a tone as to be almost unintelligible.  "But there is no use
+in arguing on the subject.  Answer me this, Lieutenant Cringle, and
+truly, so help you God at your utmost need, did the mate leave the cabin
+at any moment after I was wounded by the splinter?" And he seized one of
+my hands convulsively with his iron paw, while he pointed up through the
+open scuttle towards heaven with the other, which trembled like a reed.
+The moon shone strong on the upper part of his countenance, while the
+yellow smoky glare of the candle over which he bent, blending harshly
+and inharmoniously with the pale silver light, fell full on his uncouth
+figure, and on his long scraggy bare neck and chin and cheeks, giving
+altogether a most unearthly expression to his savage features, from the
+conflicting tints and changing shadows cast by the flickering moonbeams
+streaming fitfully through the skylight, as the vessel rolled to and
+fro, and by the large torchlike candle as it wavered in the night wind.
+The Prince of the Powers of the Air might have sat for his picture by
+proxy.  It was just such a face as one has dreamed of after a hot supper
+and cold ale, when the whisky had been forgotten--horrible, changing,
+vague, glimmering, and undefined; and as if something was still wanting
+to complete the utter frightfulness of his aspect, the splinter wound in
+his head burst out afresh from his violent agitation, and streamed down
+in heavy drops from his forehead, falling warm on my hand.  I was much
+shaken at being adjured in this tremendous way, with the hot blood
+glewing our hands together, but I returned his grasp as steadily as I
+could, while I replied, with all the composure he had left me, and that
+would not have quite filled a Winchester bushel.
+
+"He never left my side from the time he offered to take your place after
+you had been wounded."
+
+He fell back against the locker as if he had been shot through the
+heart.  His grasp relaxed, he drew his breath very hard, and I thought
+he had fainted.
+
+"Then it was not him that stood by me; I thought it might have been him,
+but I was a fool, it was impossible."
+
+He made a desperate effort to recover his composure, and succeeded.
+
+"And, pray, Master Obediah," quoth I, "what did you see?"
+
+He answered me sharply--"Never mind, never mind--here, Potomac, lend us
+a hand to sling a cot for this gentleman; there now, see the lanyard is
+sound, and the lacing all tight and snug--now put that mattrass into it,
+and there is linen in the chest."
+
+In a trice my couch was rigged, all comfortable, snow--white linen, nice
+pillow, soft mattrass, &c. and Obed, filling me another tumbler, helped
+himself also; he then drank to my health, wished me a sound sleep,
+promised to call me at daylight, and as he left the cabin he said, "Mr
+Cringle, had it been my object to have injured you, I would not have
+waited until now.  You are quite safe so far as depends on me, so take
+your rest--good night, once more."
+
+I tumbled into bed, and never once opened my eyes until Obed called me
+at daylight, that is, at five in the morning, according to his promise.
+
+By this time we were well in with the Cuba shore; the land might be two
+miles from us, as we could see the white surf.  Out at sea, although all
+around was clear as crystal, there was nothing to be seen of the Gleam
+or Firebrand, but there were ten or twelve fishing canoes, each manned
+with from four to six hands, close aboard of us;--we seemed to have got
+becalmed in the middle of a small fleet of them.  The nearest to us
+hailed in Spanish, in a very friendly way.
+
+"Como estamos Capitan, que hay de nuevo; hay algo de bueno, para los
+pobres Pescadores?" and the fellow who had spoken laughed loudly.
+
+The Captain desired him to come on board, and then drew him aside,
+conversing earnestly with him.  The Spanish fisherman was a very
+powerful man; he was equipped in a blue cotton shirt, Osnaburg trowsers,
+sandals of untanned bullock's hide, a straw hat, and wore the eternal
+greasy red sash and long knife.  He was a bold, daring looking fellow,
+and frequently looked frowningly on me, and shook his head impatiently,
+while the Captain, as it seemed, was explaining to him who I was. Just
+in this nick of time my friend Potomac handed up my uniform coat, (I had
+previously been performing my ablutions on deck in my shirt and
+trowsers,) which I put on, swab and all, thinking no harm.  But there
+must have been mighty great offence nevertheless, for the fisherman, in
+a twinkling, casting a fierce look at me, jumped overboard like a
+feather, clearing the rail like a flying fish, and swam to his canoe
+that had shoved off a few paces.
+
+When he got on board he stood up and shook his clenched fist at Obed,
+shouting, "Picaro, traidor, Ingleses hay abordo, quieres enganarnos!" He
+then held up the blade of his paddle, a signal which all the canoes
+answered in a moment in the same manner, and then pulled towards the
+land, from whence a felucca, invisible until that moment, now swept out,
+as if she had floated up to the surface by magic, for I could see
+neither creek nor indentation on the shore, nor the smallest symptom of
+any entrance to a port or cove.  For a few minutes the canoes clustered
+round this necromantic craft, and I could notice that two or three hands
+from each of them jumped on board; they then paddled off in a string,
+and vanished one by one amongst the mangrove bushes as suddenly as the
+felucca had appeared.  All this puzzled me exceedingly I looked at Obed
+he was evidently sorely perplexed.
+
+"I had thought to have put you on board a British vessel before this, or
+failing that, to have run down, and landed you at St Jago, Mr Cringle,
+as I promised; but you see I am prevented by these honest men there.
+Get below, and as you value your life, and, I may say, mine, keep your
+temper, and be civil."
+
+I did as he suggested but peeped out of the cabin skylight to see what
+was going on, notwithstanding.  The felucca was armed with a heavy
+carronade on a pivot, and as full of men as she could hold, fierce, half
+naked, savage looking fellows,--she swept rapidly up to us, and closing
+on our larboard quarter, threw about five--and--twenty of her genteel
+young people on board, who immediately secured the crew, and seized
+Obed.  However, they, that is, the common sailors, seemed to have no
+great stomach for the job, and had it not been for the fellow I had
+frightened overboard, I don't think one of them would have touched him.
+Obed bore all this with great equanimity.
+
+"Why, Francisco," he said, to this personage, in good Spanish, "why,
+what madness is this? your suspicions are groundless; it is as I tell
+you, he is my prisoner, and whatever he may have been to me, he can be
+no spy on you."
+
+"Cuchillo entonces," was the savage reply.
+
+"No, no," persisted Obediah, "get cool, man, get cool; I am pledged that
+no harm shall come to him; and farther I have promised to put him ashore
+at St Jago, and I will be as good as my word."
+
+"You can't if you would," rejoined Francisco; "the Snake is at anchor
+under the Moro."
+
+"Then he must go with us."
+
+"We shall see as to that," said the other; then raising his voice he
+shouted to his ragamuffins, "Comrades, we are betrayed; there is an
+English officer on board, who can be nothing but a spy; follow me!"
+
+And he dashed down the companion ladder, knife in hand, while I sprung
+through the small scuttle, like a rat out of one hole when a ferret is
+put in at the other, and crept as close to Obed as I could; Francisco
+when he missed me, came on deck again.  The Captain had now seized a
+cutlass in one hand, and held a cocked pistol in the other.  It appeared
+he had greater control, the nature of which I now began to comprehend,
+over the felucca's people, than Francisco bargained for, as the moment
+the latter went below, they released him, and went forward in a body.
+My persecutor again advanced close up to me, seized me by the collar
+with one hand, and tried to drag me forward, brandishing his naked knife
+aloft in the other.
+
+Obed promptly caught his sword--arm--"Francisco," he exclaimed, still in
+Spanish, "fool, madman, let go your hold! let go, or by the Heaven above
+us, and the hell we are both hastening to, I will strike you dead!"
+
+The man paused, and looked round to his own people, and seeing one or
+two encouraging glances and gestures amongst them, he again attempted to
+drag me away from my hold on the tafferel.  Something flashed in the
+sun, and the man fell! his left arm, the hand of which still clutched my
+throat, while mine grasped its wrist, had been shred from his body by
+Obed's cutlass, like a twig; and, oh God, my blood curdles to my heart
+even now when I think of it! the dead fingers kept the grasp
+sufficiently long to allow the arm to fall heavily against my side,
+where it hung for some seconds, until the muscles relaxed and it dropped
+on the deck.  The instant that Obed struck the blow, he caught hold of
+my hand, threw away his cutlass, and advanced towards the group of the
+felucca's men, pistol in hand.
+
+"Am I not your captain, ye cowards--have I ever deceived you yet--have I
+ever flinched from heading you where the danger was greatest--have you
+not all that I am worth in your hands, and will you murder me now?"
+
+"Viva, el noble capitan, viva!"
+
+And the tide turned as rapidly in our favour as it had lately ebbed
+against us.
+
+"As for that scoundrel, he has got no more than he deserves," said he,
+turning to where Francisco lay, bleeding like a carcass in the shambles;
+"but tie up his arm some of ye, I would be sorry he bled to death."
+
+It was unavailing, the large arteries had emptied his whole lifeblood
+he had already gone to his account.
+
+This most miserable transaction, with all its concomitant horrors, to my
+astonishment, did not seem to make much impression on Obed, who now,
+turning to me, said, with perfect composure,--"You have there another
+melancholy voucher for my sincerity," pointing to the body; "but time
+presses, and you must now submit to be blindfolded, and that without
+further explanation at present."
+
+I did so with the best grace I could, and was led below, where two
+beauties, with loaded pistols, and a drawn knife each, obliged me with
+their society, one seated on each side of me on the small locker, like
+two deputy butchers ready to operate on an unfortunate veal.  It had now
+fallen dead calm, and, from what I heard, I conjectured that the felucca
+was sweeping in towards the land with us in tow, for the sound of the
+surf grew louder and louder.  By and by we seemed to slide beyond the
+long smooth swell into broken water, for the little vessel pitched sharp
+and suddenly, and again all was still, and we seemed to have sailed into
+some landlocked cove.  From the loud echo of the voices on deck, I
+judged that we were in a narrow canal, the banks of which were
+reflecting the sound; presently this ceased, and although we skimmed
+along as motionless as before, I no longer heard the splash of the
+felucca's sweeps; the roar of the sea gradually died away, until it
+sounded like distant thunder, and I thought we touched the ground now
+and then, although slightly.  All at once the Spanish part of the crew,
+for we still had a number of the felucca's people with us, sang out
+"Palanca," and we began to pole along a narrow marshy lagoon, coming so
+near the shore occasionally, that our sides were brushed by the branches
+of the mangrove bushes.  Again the channel seemed to widen, and I could
+hear the felucca once more ply her sweeps.  In about ten minutes after
+this the anchor was let go, and for a quarter of an hour, nothing was
+heard on deck but the bustle of the people furling sails, coiling down
+the ropes, and getting every thing in order, as is usual in coming into
+port.  It was evident that several boats had boarded us soon after we
+anchored, as I could make out part of the greetings between the
+strangers and Obed, in which my own name recurred more than once.  In a
+little while all was still again, and Obed called down the companion to
+my guards, that I might come on deck,--a boon I was not long in availing
+myself of.
+
+We were anchored nearly in the centre of a shallow swampy lagoon, about
+a mile across, as near as I could judge; two very large schooners,
+heavily armed, were moored ahead of us, one on each bow, and another
+rather smaller lay close under our stern; they all had sails bent, and
+every thing apparently in high order, and were full of men.  The shore,
+to the distance of a bow--shot from the water all around us, was low,
+marshy, and covered with an impervious jungle of thick strong reeds and
+wild canes, with here and there a thicket of mangroves; a little farther
+off, the land swelled into lofty hills, covered to the very summit with
+heavy timber, but every thing had a moist, green, steamy appearance, as
+if it had been the region of perpetual rain.  "Lots of yellow fever
+here," thought I, as the heavy rank smell of decayed vegetable matter
+came off on the faint sickly breeze, and the sluggish fog banks crept
+along the dull clay--coloured motionless surface of the tepid water.
+The sea view was quite shut out--I looked all round and could discern no
+vestige of the entrance.  Right ahead there was about a furlong of land
+cleared at the only spot which one could call a beach,--that is, a hard
+shore of sand and pebbles.  Had you tried to get ashore at any other
+point, your fate would have been that of the Master of Ravenswood; as
+fatal, that is, without the gentility; for you would have been
+suffocated in black mud, in place of clean sea--sand.  There was a long
+shed in the centre of this cleared spot, covered in with boards, and
+thatched with palm leaves; it was open below, a sort of capstan--house,
+where a vast quantity of sails, anchors, cordage, and most kinds of sea
+stores were stowed, carefully covered over with tarpawling.  Overhead
+there was a flooring laid along the couples of the roof, the whole
+length of the shed, forming a loft of nearly sixty feet long, divided by
+bulkheads into a variety of apartments, lit by small rude windows in the
+thatch, where the crews of the vessels, I concluded, were occasionally
+lodged during the time they might be under repair.  The boat was manned,
+and Obed took me ashore with him.
+
+We landed near the shed I have described, beneath which we encountered
+about forty of the most uncouth and ferocious--looking rascals that my
+eyes had ever been blessed withal; they were of every shade, from the
+woolly Negro and long--haired Indian, to the sallow American and fair
+Biscayan; and as they intermitted their various occupations of mending
+sails, fitting and stretching rigging, splicing ropes, making spun--yam,
+coopering gun carriages, grinding pikes and cutlasses, and filling
+cartridges, to look at me, they grinned and nodded to each other, and
+made sundry signs and gestures which made me regret many a past
+peccadillo that in more prosperous times I little thought on or repented
+of, and I internally prayed that I might be prepared to die as became a
+man, for my fate appeared to be sealed.  The only ray of hope that shot
+into my mind, through all this gloom, came from the respect the thieves,
+one and all, paid the Captain; and, as I had reaped the benefit of
+assuming an outward recklessness and daring, which I really did not at
+heart possess, I screwed myself up to maintain the same port still, and
+swaggered along, jabbering in my broken Spanish, right and left, and
+jesting even with the most infamous--looking scoundrels of the whole
+lot, while, God he knows, my heart was palpitating like a girl's when
+she is asked to be married.  Obed led the way up a ladder into the loft,
+where we found several messes at dinner; and passing through various
+rooms, in which a number of hammocks were slung, we at length arrived at
+the eastern end, which was boarded off into an apartment eighteen or
+twenty feet square, lighted by a small port--hole in the end, about ten
+feet from the ground.  I could see several huts from this window, built
+just on the edge of the high wood, where some of the country people
+seemed to be moving about, and round which a large flock of pigs and
+from twenty to thirty bullocks were grazing.  All beyond, as far as the
+eye could reach, was one continuous forest, without any vestige of a
+living thing; not even a thin wreath of blue smoke evinced the presence
+of a fellow--creature; I seemed to be hopelessly cut off from all
+succour, and my heart again died within me.
+
+"I am sorry to say you must consider yourself a prisoner here for a few
+days," said Obed.
+
+I could only groan.
+
+"But the moment the coast is clear, I will be as good as my word, and
+land you at St Jago."
+
+I groaned again.  The man was moved.
+
+"I would I could do so sooner," he continued; "but you see by how
+precarious a tenure I hold my control over these people; therefore I
+must be cautious, for your sake as well as my own, or they would make
+little of murdering both of us, especially as the fellow who would have
+cut your throat this morning has many friends amongst them; above all, I
+dare not leave them for any purpose for some days.  I must recover my
+seat, in which, by the necessary severity you witnessed, I have been
+somewhat shaken.  So goodbye; there is cold meat in that locker, and
+some claret to wash it down with.  Don't, I again warn you, venture out
+during the afternoon or night.  I will be with you betimes in the
+morning.  So goodbye so long.  Your cot, you see, is ready slung."
+
+He turned to depart, when, as if recollecting himself, he stooped down,
+and taking hold of a ring, he lifted up a trap door, from which there
+was a ladder leading down to the capstan--house. "I had forgotten this
+entrance; it will be more convenient for me in my visits."
+
+In my heart I believe he intended this as a hint that I should escape
+through the hole at some quiet opportunity; and he was descending the
+ladder, when he stopped and looked round, greatly mortified, as it
+struck me.
+
+"I forgot to mention that a sentry has been placed, I don't know by
+whose orders, at the foot of the ladder, to whom I must give orders to
+fire at you, if you venture to descend.  You see how the land lies; I
+can't help it."
+
+This was spoken in a low tone, then aloud--"There are books on that
+shelf behind the canvass screen; if you can settle to them, they may
+amuse you."
+
+He left me, and I sat down disconsolate enough. I found some Spanish
+books, and a volume of Lord Byron's poetry, containing the first canto
+of Childe Harold, two numbers of Blackwood, with several other English
+books and magazines, the names of the owners on all of them being
+carefully erased.
+
+But there was nothing else that indicated the marauding life of friend
+Obediah, whose apartment I conjectured was now my prison, if I except a
+pretty extensive assortment of arms, pistols, and cutlasses, and a range
+of massive cases, with iron clamps, which were ranged along one side of
+the room.  I paid my respects to the provender and claret; the hashed
+chicken was particularly good; bones rather large or so, but flesh white
+and delicate.  Had I known that I was dining upon a guana, or large wood
+lizard, I scarcely think I would have made so hearty a meal.  Long cork,
+No. 2, followed ditto, No. 1; and as the shades of evening, as poets
+say, began to fall by the time I had finished it, I toppled quietly into
+my cot, said my prayers such as they were, and fell asleep.
+
+It must have been towards morning, from the damp freshness of the air
+that came through the open window, when I was roused by the howling of a
+dog, a sound which always moves me.  I shook myself; but before I was
+thoroughly awake, it ceased; it appeared to have been close under my
+window.
+
+I was turning to go to sleep again, when a female, in a small suppressed
+voice, sung the following snatch of a vulgar Port Royal ditty, which I
+scarcely forgive myself for introducing here to polite society.
+
+"Young hofficer come home at night,
+Him give me ring and kisses;
+Nine months, one picaniny white,
+Him white almost like missis.
+But missis fum my back wid switch,
+Him say de shild for massa;
+But massa say him"
+
+
+The singer broke off suddenly, as if disturbed by the approach of some
+one.
+
+"Hush, hush, you old foolish--" said a man's voice, in the same low
+whispering tone; "you will waken de dronken sentry dere, when we shall
+all be put in iron.  Hush, he will know my voice more better."
+
+It was now clear that some one wished to attract my attention; besides,
+I had a dreamy recollection of having heard both the male and female
+voices before.  I listened, therefore, all alive.  The man began to sing
+in the same low tone.
+
+"Newfoundland dog love him master de morest
+Of all de dog ever I see;
+Let him starve him, and kick him, and cuff him de sorest,
+Difference none never makee to he."
+
+There was a pause for a minute or two.
+
+"It no use," the same voice continued; him either no dere, or he won't
+hear us."
+
+"Stop," said the female, "stop; woman head good for someting. I know who
+he shall hear.--Here, good dog, sing psalm; good dog, sing psalm,' and
+thereupon a long loud melancholy howl rose wailing through the night
+air.
+
+"If that be not my dear old dog Sneezer, it is a deuced good imitation
+of him," thought I.
+
+The woman again spoke--"Yowl leetle piece more, good dog," and the howl
+was repeated.
+
+I was now certain.  By this time I had risen, and stood at the open
+window; but it was too dark to see any thing distinctly below. I could
+barely distinguish two dark figures, and what I concluded was the dog
+sitting on end between them.
+
+"Who are you?" "What do you want with me?"
+
+"Speak softly, massa, speak softly, or the sentry may hear us, for all
+de rum I give him."
+
+Here the dog recognised me, and nearly spoiled sport altogether; indeed
+it might have cost us our lives, for he began to bark and frisk about,
+and to leap violently against the end of the capstan--house, in vain
+endeavours to reach the window. . "Down, Sneezer, down, sir; you used to
+be a dog of some sense; down."
+
+But Sneezer's joy had capsized his discretion, and the sound of my voice
+pronouncing his name drove him mad altogether, and he bounded against
+the end of the shed, like a battering--ram.
+
+"Stop, man, stop," and I held down the bight of my neckcloth, with an
+end in each hand.  He retired, took a noble run, and in a trice hooked
+his forepaws in the handkerchief, and I hauled him in at the window.
+"Now, Sneezer, down with you, sir, down with you, or your rampaging will
+get all our throats cut." He cowered at my feet, and was still as a lamb
+from that moment. I stepped to the window.  "Now, who are you, and what
+do you want?" said I.
+
+
+"Ah, massa, you no know me?"
+
+"How the devil should I? Don't you see it is as dark as pitch?"
+
+"Well, massa, I will tell you; it is me, massa."
+
+"I make no great doubt of that; but who may you be?"
+
+"Lord, you are de foolis person now; make me talk to him," said the
+female.  "Massa, never mind he, dat stupid fellow is my husband, and
+surely massa know me?"
+
+"Now, my very worthy friends, I think you want to make yourselves known
+to me; and if so, pray have the goodness to tell me your names, that is,
+if I can in any way serve you."
+
+"To be sure you can, massa; for dat purpose I come here."
+
+The woman hooked the word out of his mouth.  "Yes, massa, you must know
+me is Nancy, and dat old stupid is my husband Peter Mangrove, him who"
+here Peter chimed in--"Yes, massa, Peter Mangrove is de person you have
+de honour to address, and"--here he lowered his voice still more,
+although the whole dialogue from the commencement had been conducted in
+no higher tone than a loud whisper--"we have secured one big large
+canoe, near de mout of dis dam hole, which, wid your help, I tink we
+shall be able to launch troo de surf; and once in smoot water, den no
+fear but we shall run down de coast safely before de wind till we reach.
+St Jago."
+
+My heart jumped against my ribs.  Here's an unexpected chance, thought
+I. "But, Peter, how in the name of mumbo jumbo, came you here?"
+
+"Why, massa, you do forget a leetle, dat I am a Creole negro, and not a
+naked tatooed African, whose exploits, dat is de wonderful ting him
+never do in him's own country, him get embroidered and pinked in
+gunpowder on him breach; beside, I am a Christian gentleman like
+youshef; so d--n mumbo jumbo, Massa Cringle."
+
+I saw where I had erred.  "So say I, Peter, d--n mumbo jumbo
+particularly; but how came you here, man? tell me that."
+
+"Why, massa, I was out in de pilot boat schooner, wid my wife here, and
+five more hands, waiting for de outward bound, finking no harm, when dem
+piratical rascal catch we, and carry us off.  Yankee privateer bad
+enough; but who ever hear of pilot being carry off? blasphemy dat--carry
+off pilot!  Who ever dream of such a ting? every shivilized peoples
+respect pilot--carry off pilot!--oh Lord" and he groaned in spirit for
+several seconds.
+
+"And the dog?" enquired I.
+
+"Oh, massa, I could not leave him at home; and since you was good enough
+to board him wid us, he has messed wid us, ay and slept wid us; and when
+we started last, although he showed some dislike at going on board, I
+had only to say, Sneezer, we go look for you master and he make such a
+bound, dat he capsize my old woman dere, heel, over head; oh dear, what
+display, Nancy, you was exhibit!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Peter; you hab no decency, you old willain."
+
+"Well, but, Peter, speak out; when are we to make the attempt? where are
+the rest of your crew?"
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear! dat is de worstest; oh dear!" and he began to cry and
+sob like the veriest child.  "Oh, massa,"--after he had somewhat
+recovered himself;--"Oh, massa, dese people debits.  Why, de make all de
+oder on board walk de plank, wid two ten pound shot, one at each foot.
+Oh, if you had seen de clear shining blue skin, as de became leetle and
+leetle, and more leetler, down far in de clear green sea!  Oh dear! oh
+dear!  Only to tink dat each wavering black spot was fellow--creature
+like one--shef, wid de heart's blood warm in his bosom at de very
+instant of time we lost sight of him for ever!"
+
+"God bless me," said I; "and how did you escape, and the black dog, and
+the black--ahem--beg pardon--your wife I mean; how were you spared?"
+
+"Ah, massa! I can't say; but bad as de were, de seemed to have a liking
+for brute beasts, so dem save Sneezer, and my wife, and myshef; we were
+de only quadrupeds saved out of de whole crew Oh dear!  Oh dear!"
+
+"Well, well; I know enough now. I will spare you the pain of any farther
+recital, Peter; so tell me what I am to do."
+
+"Stop, massa, till I see if de sentry be still sound. I know de fellow,
+he was one on dem; let me see"--and I heard him through the loose
+flooring boards walk to the foot of the trap ladder leading up to my
+berth.  The soliloquy that followed was very curious of its kind.  The
+negro had excited himself by a recapitulation of the cruelties exercised
+on his unfortunate shipmates, and the unwarrantable caption of himself
+and rib, a deed that in the nautical calendar would rank in atrocity
+with the murder of a herald or the bearer of a flag of truce.  He kept
+murmuring to himself, as he groped about in the dark for the sentry
+"Catch pilot! who ever hear of such a ting?  I suppose dem would have
+pull down light--house, if dere had been any for pull. Where is dis
+sentry rascal?--him surely no sober yet?"
+
+The sentry had fallen asleep as he leant back on the ladder, and had
+gradually slid down into a sitting position, with his head leaning
+against one of the steps, as he reclined with his back towards it, thus
+exposing his throat and neck to the groping paw of the black pilot.
+
+"Ah--here him is, snoring heavy as my Nancy--well, dronk still; no fear
+of him overhearing we--nice position him lie in--quite convenient--could
+cut his troat now--slice him like a pumpkin--de debil is surely busy wid
+me, Peter. I find de very clasp--knife in my starboard pocket beginning
+to open of himshef."
+
+I tapped on the floor with my foot.
+
+"Ah, tank you, Massa Tom--de debil nearly get we all in a scrape just
+now.  However, I see him is quite sound--de sentry dat is, for de oder
+never sleep, you know." He had again come under the window.  "Now,
+Lieutenant, in two word, to--morrow night at two bells, in de middle
+watch, I will be here, and we shall make a start of it; will you
+venture, sir?"
+
+"Will I?--to be sure I will; but why not now, Peter? why not now?"
+
+"Ah, massa, you no smell de daylight; near daybreak already, sir.  Can't
+make try dis night, but to--morrow night I shall be here punctual."
+
+"Very well, but the dog, man?  If he be found in my quarters, we shall
+be blown, and I scarcely think he will leave me."
+
+"Garamighty! true enough, massa; what is to be done?  De people know de
+dog was catch wid me, and if he be found wid you, den de will sospect we
+communication togidder.  What is to be done?"
+
+I was myself not a little perplexed, when Nancy whispered, "De dog have
+more sense den many Christian person.  Tell him he must go wid us dis
+one night, no tell him dis night, else him won't; say dis one night, and
+dat if him don't, we shall all be deaded; try him, massa."
+
+I had benefited by more extraordinary hints before now, although, well
+as I knew the sagacity of the poor brute, I could not venture to hope it
+would come up to the expectations of Mrs Mangrove.  But I'll try. "Here,
+Sneezer, here, my boy; you must go home with Peter tonight, or we shall
+all get into a deuced mess; so here, my boy, here is the bight of the
+handkerchief again, and through the window you must go; come, Sneezer,
+come."
+
+To my great joy and surprise, the poor dumb beast rose from where he had
+coiled himself at my feet, and after having actually embraced me, by
+putting his forepaws on my shoulders, as he stood on his hind legs, and
+licked my face from ear to ear, uttering a low, fondling, nuzzling sort
+of whine, like a nurse caressing a child, he at once leapt on the window
+sill, put his forepaws through the handkerchief, and was dropped to the
+ground again. I could immediately perceive the two dark figures of the
+pilot and his wife, followed by the dog, glide away as noiselessly as if
+they had been spirits of the night, until they were lost under the shade
+of the thick jungle.
+
+I turned in, and--what will not youth and fatigue do?--I fell once more
+fast asleep, and never opened my eyes until Obed shook me in my cot
+about eight o'clock in the morning.
+
+"Good morning, Lieutenant. I have sent up your breakfast, but you don't
+seem inclined to eat it."
+
+"Don't you believe it, my dear Obed. I have been sound asleep till this
+moment; only stop till I have slipped on my--those shoes, if you please
+thank you--waistcoat--that will do.  Now--coffee, fish, yams, and
+plantains, and biscuit, white as snow, and short as--and eggs and
+zounds! claret to finish with?--Why, Obed, you surely don't desire that
+I should enjoy all these delicacies in solitary blessedness?"
+
+"Why, I intend to breakfast with you, if my society be not
+disagreeable."
+
+"Disagreeable!  Not in the least, quite the contrary.  That black
+grouper looks remarkably beautiful.  Another piece of yam, if you
+please.--Shall I fill you a cup of coffee, Obed?  For my own part, I
+always stow the ground tier of my cargo dry, and then take a
+topdressing.  Write this down as an approved axiom with all thorough
+breakfast eaters.  Why, man, you are off your feed; what are you turning
+up your ear for, in that incomprehensible fashion, like a duck in
+thunder?  A little of the claret--thank you.  The very best butter I
+have ever eaten out of Ireland--now, some of that avocado pear--and as
+for biscuit, Leman never came up to it. I say, man,--hillo, where are
+you?--rouse ye out of your brown study, man."
+
+"Did you hear that, Mr Cringle?"
+
+"Hear what?--I heard nothing," rejoined I; "but hand me over that land
+crab.--Thank you, and you may send the spawl of that creeping thing
+along with it; that guana. I had a dislike to eating a lizard at first,
+but I have got over it somehow;--and a  slice of ham, a small taste of
+the unclean beast, Obed--peach--fed, I'll warrant."
+
+There was a pause.  The report of a great gun came booming along,
+reverberated from side to side of the lagoon, the echoes growing shorter
+and shorter, and weaker and weaker, until they growled themselves asleep
+in a hollow rumble like distant thunder.
+
+"Ha, ha!  Dick Casket for a thousand!  Old Blowhard has stuck in your
+skirts, Master Obed--but Lord help me, man! let us finish our breakfast;
+he won't be here this half hour."
+
+I expected to see mine host's forehead lowering like a thunder cloud
+from my ill--timed funning; but to my surprise, his countenance
+exhibited more amenity than I thought had been in the nature of the
+beast, as he replied,--
+
+"Why, lieutenant, the felucca put to sea last night, to keep a bright
+look--out at the mouth of our cove here. I suppose that is him
+overhauling some vessel."
+
+"It may be so;--hush! there's another gun--Two!"
+
+Obed changed countenance at the double report.
+
+"I say, Obed, the felucca did not carry more than one gun when I saw
+her, and she has had no time to load and fire again."
+
+He did not answer a word, but continued, with a piece of guana on the
+end of, his fork in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, as if he
+had been touched by the wand of a magician.  Presently we heard one or
+two dropping shots, quickly thickening into a rattle of musketry.  He
+threw down his food, picked up his hat, and trundled down stairs, as if
+the devil had kicked him.  "Pedro, que hay?" I could hear him say to
+some one below, who appeared to have arrived in great haste, for he
+gasped for breath.
+
+"Aqui viene la feluca," answered Pedro; "perseguido por dos Lanchas
+Canoneras llenas de Gente."
+
+"Abordo entonces, abordo todo el mundo; arma arma, aqui vienen los
+Engleses; arma, arma!"
+
+And all from that instant was a regular hillabaloo.  The drums on board
+the schooners beat to quarters, a great bell, formerly the ornament of
+some goodly ship, no doubt, which had been slung in the fork of a tree,
+clanged away at a furious rate, the crews were hurrying to and fro,
+shouting to each other in Creole Spanish, and Yankee English, while
+every cannon--shot from the felucca or the boat guns came louder and
+louder, and the small arms peppered away sharper and sharper.  The
+shouts of the men engaged, both friends and foes, were now heard, and I
+could hear Obed's voice on board the largest schooner, which lay full in
+view from my window, giving orders, not only to his own crew, but to
+those of the others. I heard him distinctly sing out, after ordering
+them to haul upon the spring on his cable, "Now, men, I need not tell
+you to fight bravely, for if you are taken every devil of you will be
+hanged, so hoist away the signal," and a small black ball flew up
+through the rigging, until it reached the main topgallant--masthead of
+the schooner, where it hung a moment, and in the next blew out in a
+large black swallow--tailed flag, like a commodore's broad pennant.
+
+"Now," shrieked he, "let me see who dares give in with this voucher for
+his honesty flying aloft!" I twisted and craned myself out of the
+window, to get a view of what--was going on elsewhere; however, I could
+see nothing but Obed's large schooner from it, all the other craft were
+out of the range of my eye, being hid by the projecting roof of the
+shed.  The noise continued--the shouting rose higher than ever--the
+other schooners opened their fire, both cannon and musketry; and from
+the increasing vehemence of the Spanish exclamations, and the cheering
+on board Obed's vessels, I concluded the attacking party were having the
+worst of it.  My dog Sneezer now came jumping and scrambling up the trap
+stair, his paws slipping between the bars at every step, his mouth wide
+open, and his tongue hanging out, while he barked, and yelled, and
+gasped to get at me, as if his life depended on it.  After him I could
+see the round woolly pate of Peter Mangrove, Esquire, as excited
+apparently as the dog, and as anxious to get up; but they got jammed
+together in the small hatch, and stuck there, man and beast.  At length
+Peter spoke--
+
+"Now, sir, now!  Nancy has run on before to the beach wid two paddles;
+now for it, now for it."
+
+Down trundled master, and dog, and pilot.  By this time there was no one
+in the lower part of the shed, which was full of smoke, while the
+infernal tumult on the water still raged as furiously as ever, the shot
+of all sorts and sizes hissing, and splashing, and ricochetting along
+the smooth surface of the harbour, as if there had been a sleet of
+musket and cannonballs and grape.  Peter struck out at the top of his
+speed, Sneezer and I followed: we soon reached the jungle, dashed
+through a path that had been recently cleared with a cutlass or
+billhook, for the twigs were freshly shred, and in about ten minutes
+reached the high wood.  However, no rest for the wicked, although the
+row seemed lessening now.
+
+"Some one has got the worst of it," said I.
+
+"Never mind, massa," quoth Peter, "or we shan't get de betterest
+ourshef."
+
+And away we galloped again, until I had scarcely a rag an inch square on
+my back, or anywhere else, and my skin was tom in pieces by the prickly
+bushes and spear grass.  The sound of firing now ceased entirely,
+although there was still loud shouting now and then.
+
+"Push on, massa--dem will soon miss we."
+
+"True enough, Peter--but what is that?" as we came to a bundle of clouts
+walloping about in the morass.
+
+"De debil it must be, I tink," said the pilot.  "No, my Nancy it is,
+sticking in the mud up to her waist; what shall us do? you fink, massa,
+we hab time for can stop to pick she out?"
+
+"Heaven have mercy, Peter--yes, unquestionably."
+
+"Well, massa, you know best."
+
+So we tugged at the sable heroine, and first one leg came home out of
+the tenacious clay, with a plop, then the other was drawn out of the
+quagmire.  We then relieved her of the paddles, and each taking hold of
+one of the poor half--dead creature's hands, we succeeded in getting
+down to the beach, about half a mile to leeward of the entrance to the
+cove.  We found the canoe there, plumped Nancy stem foremost into the
+bottom of it for ballast, gathered all our remaining energies for a
+grand shove, and ran her like lightning into the surf, till the water
+flashed over and over us, reaching to our necks.  Next moment we were
+both swimming, and the canoe, although full of water, beyond the surf,
+rising and falling on the long swell.  We scrambled on board, set Nancy
+to bale with Peter's hat, seized our paddles, and skulled away like fury
+for ten minutes right out to sea, without looking once about us, until a
+musket--shot whistled over our heads, then another, and a third; and I
+had just time to hold up a white handkerchief, to prevent a whole
+platoon being let drive at us from the deck of his Britannic Majesty's
+schooner Gleam, lying--to about a cable's length to windward of us, with
+the Firebrand a mile astern of her out at sea.  In five minutes we got
+on board of the former.
+
+"Mercy on me, Tom Cringle, and is this the way we are to meet again?"
+said old Dick Gasket, as he held out his large, bony, sunburnt hand to
+me.  "You have led me a nice dance, in a vain attempt to redeem you from
+bondage, Tom; but I am delighted to see you although I have not had the
+credit of being your deliverer--very glad to see you, Tom; but come
+along man, come down with me, and let me rig you, not quite a Stultze's
+fit, you know, but a jury rig you shall have, as good as Dick Casket's
+kit can furnish forth, for really you are in a miserable plight, man."
+
+"Bad enough indeed.  Mr Casket--many thanks though--bad enough, as you
+say; but I would that your boats crew were in so good a plight."
+
+Mr Gasket looked earnestly at me--"Why, I have my own misgivings,
+Cringle; this morning at day--break, the Firebrand in company, we fell
+in with an armed felucca.  It was dead calm, and she was out of gun shot,
+close in with the land.  The Firebrand immediately sent the cutter on
+board full armed, with instructions to me to man the launch, and arm
+her with the boat--gun, and then to send both boats to overhaul the
+felucca.  I did so, standing in as quickly as the light air would take
+me, to support them; the felucca all this while sweeping in shore as
+fast as she could pull.  But the boats were too nimble for her, and our
+launch had already saluted her twice from the six pounder in the bow,
+when the sea--breeze came thundering down in a white squall, that reefed
+our gaff--topsail in a trice, and blew away a whole lot of light sails,
+like so many paper--kites.  When it cleared away, the devil a felucca,
+boat, or any thing else, was to be seen.  Capsized they could not have
+been, for all three were not likely to have gone that way; and as to any
+creek they could have run into, why we could see none.  That they had
+pulled in shore, however, was our conclusion; but here have we been, the
+whole morning, firing signal guns every five minutes without success."
+
+"Did you hear no firing after the squall?" said I.
+
+"Why, some of my people thought they did, but it was that hollow,
+tremulous, reverberating kind of sound, that it might have been thunder;
+and the breeze blew too strong to have allowed us to hear musketry a
+mile and a half to windward. I did think I saw some smoke rise, and blow
+off now and then, but" "But me no buts, Master Richard Casket; Peter
+Mangrove here, as well as myself, saw your people pursue the felucca
+into the lion's den, and I fear they have been crushed in his jaws." I
+briefly related what we had seen--Casket was in great distress.
+
+"They must have been taken, Cringle.  The fools! to allow themselves to
+be trepanned in this way.  We must stand out and speak the corvette.
+All hands make sail!"
+
+I could not help smiling at the grandeur of Dick's emphasis on the all,
+when twenty hands, one--third of them boys, and the rest landsmen,
+scrambled up from below, and began to pull and haul in no very
+seamanlike fashion.  He noticed it.
+
+"A--h, Tom, I know what you are grinning at, but I fear it has been no
+laughing matter to my poor boats crew--all my best hands gone, God help
+me!"
+
+Presently being under the Firebrand's lee quarter, we lowered down the
+boat and went on board, where, for the first time, the extreme
+ludicrousness of my appearance and following flashed on me. There we
+were all in a bunch, the dog, Mr and Mrs Mangrove, and Thomas Cringle,
+gentleman, such in appearance as I shall shortly describe them.
+
+Old Richard Gasket, Esq., first clambered up the side and made his bow
+to the Hon.  Captain Transom, who was standing near the gangway, on the
+snow--white deck, amidst a group of officers, where every thing was in
+the most apple--pie order, himself, both in mind and apparel, the most
+polished concern in the ship; while the whole crew, with the exception
+of the unfortunate absentees in the cutter, were scrambling, to get a
+good view of us.
+
+I have already said, that my uniform was torn to pieces; trowsers ditto;
+my shoes had parted company in the quagmire; and as for hat, it was left
+in my cot.  I had a dirty bandage tied round my neck, performing the
+twofold office of a cravat and a dressing to my wound; while the blood
+from the scratches had dried into black streaks adown and across my face
+and paws, and I was altogether so begrimed with mud that my mother would
+not have known me.  Dick made his salaam, and then took up a position
+beside the sally--port, with an important face, like a showman
+exhibiting wild beastesses, a regular "stir--him--up--with--a--long
+pole" sort of look. I followed him "This is Lieutenant Cringle, Captain
+Transom."
+
+"The devil it is!" said Transom, trying in vain to keep his gravity.
+"Why, I see it is--How do you do, Mr Cringle? glad to see you."
+
+"This is Peter Mangrove, branch--pilot," continued Casket, as Peter,
+bowing, tried to slide past out of sight.
+
+Till this instant I had not time to look at him--he was even a much
+queerer--looking figure than myself.  He had been encumbered with no
+garment besides his trowsers when we started, and these had been
+reduced, in the scramble through the brake, to a waistband and two knee
+bands, from which a few shreds fluttered in the breeze, the rest of his
+canvass having been entirely torn out of the bolt--ropes.  For an upper
+dress he had borrowed a waistcoat without sleeves from the purser of the
+schooner, which hung loose and unbuttoned before, while behind, being
+somewhat of the shortest, some very prominent parts of his stem frame
+were disclosed, as even an apology for a shirt he had none.  Being a
+decent man, however, he had tied his large straw hat round his waist, by
+strings fastened to the broad brims, which nearly met behind, so that
+the crown covered his loins before, like a petard, while the sameness of
+his black naked body was relieved by being laced with blood from
+numberless lacerations.
+
+Next came the female--"This is the pilot's wife, Captain Transom," again
+sung out old Dick; but decency won't let me venture on a description of
+poor Nancy's equipment, beyond mentioning, that one of the Gleam's crew
+had given her a pair of old trowsers, which, as a sailor has no bottom,
+and Nancy was not a sailor, were most ludicrously scanty at top, and
+devil another rag of any kind had the poor creature on, but a
+handkerchief across her bosom.  There was no standing all this; the crew
+forward and in the waist were all on the broad grin, while the officers,
+after struggling to maintain their gravity until they were nearly
+suffocated, fairly gave in, and the whole ship echoed with the most
+uproarious laughter; a young villain, whether a Mid or no I could not
+tell, yelling out in the throng, "Hurra for Tom Cringle's Tail!"
+
+I was fairly beginning to lose countenance, when up jumped Sneezer to my
+relief out of the boat, with an old cocked hat lashed on his head, a
+marine's jacket buttoned round his body, and his coalblack muzzle
+bedaubed with pipe--clay, regularly monkeyfied, the momentary handiwork
+of some wicked little reefers, while a small pipe sung out quietly, as
+if not intended to reach the quarterdeck, although it did do so, "And
+here comes the last joint of Mr Cringle's Tail." The dog began
+floundering and jumping about, and walloping amongst the people, most of
+whom knew him, and immediately drew their attention from me and my party
+to himself; for away they all bundled forward, dog and men tumbling and
+scrambling about like so many children, leaving the coast clear to me
+and my attendants.  The absurdity of the whole exhibition had for an
+instant, even under the very nose of a proverbially taught hand, led to
+freedoms which I had believed impossible in a man--of--war.  However,
+there was too much serious matter in hand, independently of any other
+consideration, to allow the merriment created by our appearance to last
+long.
+
+Captain Transom, immediately on being informed how matters stood, with
+seamanlike promptitude determined to lighten the Gleam, and send her in
+with the boats, for the purpose of destroying the haunt of the pirates,
+and recovering the men, if they were still alive; but before any thing
+could be done, it came on to blow, and for a week we had great
+difficulty in maintaining our position off the coast against the
+strength of the gale and lee current.
+
+It was on the Sunday morning after I had escaped that it moderated
+sufficiently for our purpose, when both vessels stood close in, and
+Peter and I were sent to reconnoitre the entrance of the port in the
+gig.  Having sounded and taken the bearings of the land, we returned on
+board, when the Gleam's provisions were taken out and her water started.
+The ballast was then shifted, so as to bring her by the head, that she
+might thus draw less water by being on an even keel, all sharp vessels
+of her class requiring much deeper water aft than forward; the
+corvette's launch, with a I2--pound carronade fitted, was then manned
+and armed with thirty seamen and marines, under the command of the
+second lieutenant; the jolly boat and the two quarter boats, each with
+twelve men, followed in a string, under the third lieutenant, the
+master, and the senior midshipman; thirty picked hands were added to the
+schooner's crew, and I was desired to take the gig with six smart hands
+and Peter Mangrove, and to accompany the whole as pilot; but to pull out
+of danger so soon as the action commenced, so as to be ready to help any
+disabled boat, or to carry orders from the commanding officer.
+
+At nine in the morning, we gave three cheers, and leaving the corvette,
+with barely forty hands on board, the Gleam made sail towards the
+harbour's mouth, with the boats in tow; but when we got within musket
+shot of the entrance, the breeze failed us, when the order of sailing
+was reversed, the boats now taking the schooner in tow, preceded by your
+humble servant in the gig.  We dashed safely through the small canal of
+blue water, which divided the surf at the harbour's mouth, having hit it
+to a nicety; but when about a pistolshot from the entrance, the channel
+narrowed to a muddy creek, not more than twenty yards wide, with high
+trees, and thick underwood close to the water's edge.  All was silent,
+the sun shone clown upon us like the concentrated rays of a burning
+glass, and there was no breeze to dissipate the heavy dank mist that
+hovered over the surface of the unwholesome canal, nor was there any
+appearance of a living thing, save and except a few startled waterfowl,
+and some guanoes on the trees, and now and then an alligator, like a
+black log of charred wood, would roll off a slimy bank of brown mud,
+with a splash into the water.
+
+We rowed on, the schooner every now and then taking the ground, but she
+was always quickly warped off again by a kedge; at length, after we had
+in all proceeded, it might be, about a mile from the beach, we came to a
+boom of strong timber clamped with iron, stretching across the creek.
+We were not unprepared for this; one of two old 32--pound carronades,
+which, in anticipation of some obstruction of the sort, had been got on
+deck from amongst the Gleam's ballast, and properly slung, was now made
+fast to the middle timber of the boom, and let go, when the weight of it
+sunk it to the bottom, and we passed on.  We pulled on for about half a
+mile further, when I noticed, high up on a sunny cliff, that shot boldly
+out into the clear blue heavens, a small red flag suddenly run up to the
+top of a tall, scathed, branchless palm tree, where it flared for a
+moment in the breeze like the flame of a torch, and then as suddenly
+disappeared.  "Come, they are on the look--out for us I see."
+
+The hills continued to close on us as we advanced, and that so
+precipitously, that we might have been crushed to pieces had half--a
+dozen active fellows, without any risk to themselves, for the trees
+would have screened them, simply loosened some of the fragments of rock
+that impended over us, so threateningly, it seemed, as if a little
+finger could have sent them bounding and thundering down the mountain
+side; but this either was not the game of the people we were in search
+of, or Obed's spirit and energy had been crushed out of him by the heart
+depressing belief that his hours were numbered, for no active
+obstruction was offered.
+
+We now suddenly rounded an abrupt corner of the creek, and there we were
+full in front of the schooners, who, with the felucca in advance, were
+lying in line of battle, with springs on their cables.  The horrible
+black pennant was, in the present instance, nowhere to be seen; indeed,
+why such an impolitic step as ever to have shown it at all was taken in
+the first attack, I never could understand; for the force was too small
+to have created any serious fear of being captured, (unless indeed it
+had been taken for an advanced guard, supported by a stronger,) while it
+must have appeared probable to Obediah, that the loss of the two boats
+would in all likelihood lead to a more powerful attempt, when, if it
+were successful, the damning fact of having fought under such an
+infernal emblem must have ensured a pirate's death on the gibbet to
+every soul who was taken, unless he had intended to have murdered all
+the witnesses of it.  But since proof in my person and the pilot's
+existed, now, if ever, was the time for mortal resistance, and to have
+hoisted it, for they knew that they all fought with halters about their
+necks.  They had all the Spanish flag flying except the Wave, which
+showed American colours, and the felucca, which had a white flag
+hoisted, from which last, whenever our gig appeared, a canoe shoved off,
+and pulled towards us.  The officer, if such he might be called, also
+carried a white flag in his hand.  He was a daring--looking fellow, and
+dashed up along--side of me. The incomprehensible folly of trying at
+this time of day to cloak the real character of the vessels, puzzled me,
+and does so to this hour.  I have never got a clew to it, unless it was
+that Obed's strong mind had given way before his superstitious fears,
+and others had now assumed the right of both judging and acting for him
+in this his closing scene.  The pirate officer at once recognised me,
+but seemed neither surprised nor disconcerted at the strength of the
+force which accompanied me.  He asked me in Spanish if I commanded it; I
+told him I did not, that the captain of the schooner was the senior
+officer.
+
+"Then will you be good enough, to go on board with me, to interpret for
+me?"
+
+
+"Certainly."
+
+In half a minute we were both on the Gleam's deck, the crews of the
+boats that had her in tow lying on their oars.
+
+"You are the commander of this force?" said the Spaniard.
+
+"I am," said old Gasket, who had figged himself out in full puff, after
+the manner of the ancients, as if he had been going to church, instead
+of to fight; and who the hell are you?"
+
+"I command one of these Spanish schooners, sir, which your boats so
+unwarrantably attacked a week ago, although you are at peace with Spain.
+But even had they been enemies, they were in a friendly port, which
+should have protected them."
+
+"All very good oysters," quoth old Dick; "and pray was it an honest
+trick of you to cabbage my young friend, Lieutenant Cringle there, as if
+you had been slavers kidnapping the Bungoes in the Bight of Biafra, and
+then to fire on and murder my people when sent in to claim him?"
+
+"As to carrying off that young gentleman, it was no affair of ours; he
+was brought away by the master of that American schooner; but so far as
+regards firing on your boats, I believe they fired first.  But the crews
+are not murdered; on the contrary, they have been well used, and are now
+on board that felucca.  I am come to surrender the whole fifteen to
+you."
+
+"The whole fifteen! and what have you made of the other twelve?"
+
+"Gastados," said the fellow, with all the sangfroid in the world,
+"gastados, (spent or expended) by their own folly."
+
+"Oh, they are expended, are they? then give us the fifteen."
+
+"Certainly, but you will in this case withdraw your force, of course"
+
+"We shall see about that--go and send us the men." He jumped down into
+the canoe, and shoved off;--whenever he reached the felucca, he struck
+the white flag, and hoisted the Spanish in its stead, and by hauling on
+a spring, he brought her to cover the largest schooner so effectually,
+that we could not fire a shot at her without going through the felucca.
+We could see all the men leave this latter vessel in two canoes, and go
+on board one of the other craft.  There was now no time to be lost, so I
+dashed at the felucca in the gig, and broke open the hatches, where we
+found the captured seamen and their gallant leader, Lieutenant----, in a
+sorry plight, expecting nothing but to be blown up, or instant death by
+shot or the knife.  We released them, and, sending to the Gleam for
+ammunition and small arms, led the way in the felucca, by Mr Gasket's
+orders, to the attack, the corvette's launch supporting us; while the
+schooner with the other craft were scraping up as fast as they could.
+We made straight for the largest schooner, which with her consorts now
+opened a heavy fire of grape and musketry, which we returned with
+interest.  I can tell little of what took place till I found myself on
+the pirate's quarterdeck, after a desperate tussle, and having driven
+the crew overboard, with dead and wounded men thickly strewn about, and
+our fellows busy firing at their surviving antagonists, as they were
+trying to gain the shore by swimming.
+
+Although the schooner we carried was the Commodore, and commanded by
+Obediah in person, yet the pirates, that is, the Spanish part of them,
+by no means showed the fight I expected.  While we were approaching, no
+fire could be hotter, and their yells and cheers were tremendous; but
+the instant we laid her along--side with the felucca, and swept her
+decks with a discharge of grape from the carronade, under cover of which
+we boarded on the quarter, while the launch's people scrambled up at the
+bows, their hearts failed, a regular panic overtook them, and they
+jumped overboard, without waiting for a taste either of cutlass or
+boarding--pike.  The captain himself, however, with about ten Americans,
+stood at bay round the long gun, which, notwithstanding their great
+inferiority in point of numbers to our party, they manfully fired three
+several times at us, after we had carried her aft; but we were so close
+that the grape came past us like a round shot, and only killed one hand
+at each discharge, whereas at thirty yards farther off, by having had
+room to spread, it might have made a pretty tableau of the whole party.
+I hailed Obed twice to surrender, while our people, staggered by the
+extreme hardihood of the small group, hung back for an instant; but he
+either did not hear me, or would not, for the only reply he seemed
+inclined to make was by slewing round the gun so as to bring me on with
+it, and the next moment a general rush was made, when the whole party
+was cut down, with three exceptions, one of whom was Obed himself, who
+getting on the gun, made a desperate bound over the men's heads, and
+jumped overboard.  He struck out gallantly, the shot pattering round him
+like the first of a thunder shower, but he dived apparently unhurt, and
+I lost sight of him.
+
+The other vessels having also been carried, the firing was all on our
+side by this time, and I, along with the other officers, was exerting
+myself to stop the butchery.
+
+"Cease firing, men; for shame, you see they no longer resist." And my
+voice was obeyed by all except the fifteen we had released, who were
+absolutely mad with fury--perfect fiends; such uncontrollable fierceness
+I had never witnessed, indeed, I had nearly cut one of them down before
+I could make them knock off firing.
+
+"Don't fire, sir," cried I to one.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir; but that scoundrel made me wash his shirts," and he let
+drive at a poor devil, who was squattering and swimming away towards the
+shore, and shot him through the head.
+
+"By heavens!  I will run you through, if you fire at that man!" shouted
+I to another, a marine, who was taking aim at no less a personage than
+friend Obed, who had risen to breathe, and was swimming after the
+others, but the very last man of all.
+
+"No, by G--? he made me wash his trowsers, sir."
+
+He fired--the pirate stretched out his arms, turned slowly on his back,
+with his face towards me.  I thought he gave me a sort of "Et tu, Brute"
+look, but I dare say it was fancy--his feet began to sink, and he
+gradually disappeared, a few bubbles of froth and blood marking the spot
+where he went down.  He had been shot dead. I will not attempt to
+describe my feelings at this moment, they burned themselves in on my
+heart at the time, and the impression is indelible.  Whether I had or
+had not acted, in one sense, unjustly, by ousting myself so
+conspicuously forward in the attempt to capture him, after what had
+passed between us, forced itself upon my judgment. I had certainly
+promised that I would, in no way that I could help, be instrumental in
+his destruction or seizure, provided he landed me at St Jago, or put me
+on board a friendly vessel.  He did neither, so his part of the compact
+might be considered broken; but then it was out of his power to have
+fulfilled it; besides, he not only threatened my life subsequently, but
+actually wounded me; still, however, on great provocation.  But what "is
+writ, is writ." He has gone to his account, pirate as he was, murderer
+if you will; yet I had, and still have, a tear for his memory,--and many
+a time have I prayed on my bare knees that his blue agonized dying look
+might be erased from my brain; but this can never be.  What he had been
+I never learned; but it is my deliberate opinion, that, with a clear
+stage and opportunity, he would have forced himself out from the surface
+of society for good or for evil.  The unfortunates who survived him, but
+to expiate their crimes on the gibbet at Port Royal, said he had joined
+them from a New York privateer, but they knew nothing farther of him
+beyond the fact, that by his skill and desperate courage, within a month
+he had by common acclaim been elected captain of the whole band.  There
+was a story current on board the corvette, of a small trading craft,
+with a person answering his description, having been captured in the
+Chesapeake, by one of the squadron, and sent to Halifax for
+adjudication, (the master, as in most cases of the kind, being left on
+board,) which from that hour had never been heard of, neither vessel,
+nor prize crew, nor captain, until two Americans were taken out of a
+slaver, off the Cape de Verds by the Firebrand, about a year afterwards,
+after a most brave and determined attempt to escape, both of whom were
+however allowed to enter, but subsequently deserted off Sandy Hook by
+swimming ashore, in consequence of a pressed hand hinting that one of
+them, surmised to be Obed, had been the master of the vessel above
+mentioned.
+
+All resistance having ceased, the few of the pirates who escaped having
+scampered into the woods, where it would have been vain to follow them,
+we secured our prisoners, and at the close of a bloody day, for fatal
+had it been to friend and foe, the prizes were got under weigh, and
+before nightfall we were all at sea, sailing in a fleet, under convoy of
+the corvette and Gleam.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+
+Vomito Prieto.
+
+"This disease is beyond my practice."
+
+Macbeth, Vi.59.
+
+
+
+The second and acting third--lieutenants were on board the prizes--the
+purser was busy in his vocation--the doctor ditto Indeed, he and his
+mates had more on their hands than they could well manage.  The first
+lieutenant was engaged on deck, and the master was in his cot, suffering
+from a severe contusion; so when got on board the corvette, and dived
+into the gunroom in search ol some crumbs of comfort, the deuce a living
+soul was there to welcome me, except the gunroom steward, who speedily
+produced some cold meat, and asked me if I would take a glass of swizzle.
+
+The food I had no great fancy to, although I had not tasted a morsel
+since six o'clock in the morning, and it was now eight in the evening;
+but the offer of the grog sounded gratefully in mine ear, and I was about
+tackling to a stout rummer of the same, when a smart dandified shaver,
+with gay mother--of--pearl buttons on his jacket, as thick set as peas,
+presented his tallow chops at the door.
+
+"Captain Transom desires me to say, that he will be glad of your company
+in the cabin, Mr Cringle."
+
+"My compliments--I will wait on him so soon as I have had a snack.  We
+have had no dinner in the gunroom to--day yet, you know, Mafame."
+
+"Why, it was in the knowledge of that the Captain sent me, sir.  He has
+not had any dinner either; but it is now on the table, and he waits for
+you."
+
+I was but little in spirits, and, to say sooth, was fitter for my bed
+than society; but the Captain's advances had been made with so much
+kindliness, that I got up, and made a strong endeavour to rouse myself;
+and, having made my toilet as well as my slender means admitted, I
+followed the Captain's steward into the cabin.
+
+I started--why, I could not well tell--as the sentry at the door stood to
+his arms when I passed in; and, as if I had been actually possessed by
+some wandering spirit, who had taken the small liberty of using my
+faculties and tongue without my concurrence, I hastily asked the man if
+he was an American?--He stared in great astonishment for a short space,
+turned his quid--and then rapped out, as angrily as respect for a
+commissioned officer would let him,--"No, by--, sir!"
+
+This startled me as much as the question I had almost unconsciously--and,
+I may say, involuntarily--put to the marine had surprised him, and I made
+a full stop, and leant back against the door--post.  The Captain, who was
+walking up and down the cabin, had heard me speak, but without
+comprehending the nature of my question, and now recalled me in some
+measure to myself, by enquiring if I wanted any thing.  I replied,
+hurriedly, that I did not.
+
+"Well, Mr Cringle, dinner is ready--so take that chair at the foot of the
+table, will you?"
+
+I sat down, mechanically, as it appeared to me--for a strange swimming
+dizzy sort of sensation had suddenly overtaken me, accompanied by a
+whoreson tingling, as Shakespeare hath it, in my ears. I was unable to
+eat a morsel; but I could have drunk the ocean, had it been claret or
+vin--de--grave--to both of which I helped myself as largely as good
+manners would allow, or a little beyond, mayhap.  All this while the
+Captain was stowing his cargo with great zeal, and tifting away at the
+fluids asbecame an honest sailor after so long a fast, interlarding his
+operations with a civil word to me now and then, without any especial
+regard as to the answer I made him, or, indeed, caring greatly whether I
+answered him or not.
+
+"Sharp work you must have had, Mr Cringle--should have liked to have been
+with you myself.  Help yourself, before passing that bottle--zounds, man,
+never take a bottle by the bilge--grasp the neck, man, at least in this
+fervent climate--thank you.  Pity you had not caught the captain though.
+What you told me of that man very much interested me, coupled with the
+prevailing reports regarding him in the ship--daring dog he must have
+been--can't forget how gallantly he weathered us when we chased him."
+
+I broke silence for the first time.  Indeed, I could scarcely have done
+so sooner, even had I chosen it, for the gallant officer was rather
+continuous in his yam--spinning.  However, he had nearly dined, and was
+leaning back, allowing the champaigne to trickle leisurely from a glass
+half a yard long, which he had applied to his lips, when I said, "Well,
+the imagination does sometimes play one strange tricks--I verily believe
+in second sight now, Captain, for at this very instant I am regularly the
+fool of my senses,----but pray don't laugh at me;" and I lay back on my
+chair, and pressed my hands over my shut eyes and hot burning temples,
+which were now throbbing as if the arteries would have burst.
+
+The Captain, who was evidently much surprised at my abruptness, said
+something hurriedly and rather sharply in answer, but I could not for the
+life of me mark what it was. I opened my eyes again, and looked towards
+the object that had before riveted my attention.  It was neither more nor
+less than the Captain's cloak, a plain, unpretending, substantial blue
+garment, lined with white, which, on coming below, he had cast carelessly
+down on the locker, that ran across the after part of the cabin behind
+him.  It was about eighteen feet from me, and as there was no light
+nearer it than the swinging lamp over the table at which we were seated,
+the whole of the cabin thereabouts was thrown considerably into shade.
+The cape of the cloak was turned over, showing the white lining, and was
+rather bundled as it were into a round heap, about the size of a man's
+head.  When first I looked at it, there was a dreamy, glimmering
+indistinctness about it that I could not well understand, and I would
+have said, had it been possible, that the wrinkles and folds in it were
+beginning to be instinct with motion, to creep and crawl as it were.  At
+all events, the false impression was so strong as to jar my nerves, and
+make me shudder with horror.  I knew there was no such d--ting, as well
+as Macbeth--, but nevertheless it was with an indescribable feeling of
+curiosity, dashed with awe, that I stared intently at it, as if
+fascinated, while almost unwittingly I made the remark already mentioned.
+
+I had expected that the unaccountable appearance which had excited my
+attention so strongly would have vanished with the closing of my eyes;
+but it did not, for when I looked at it again, the working and shifting
+of the folds of the cloth still continued, and even more distinctly than
+before.
+
+"Very extraordinary all this," I murmured to myself.
+
+"Pray, Mr Cringle, be sociable, man," said the Captain; "what the deuce
+do you see, that you stare over my shoulder in that way?  Were a woman
+now, I should tremble to look behind me, while you were glaring aft in
+that wild, moonstruck sort of fashion."
+
+"By all that is astonishing," I exclaimed in great agitation, "if the
+folds of the cape have not arranged themselves into the very likeness of
+his dying face!  Why it is his face, and no fanciful grouping of my
+heated brain.  Look there, sir--look there--I know it can't bebut there
+he lies,--the very features and upper part of the body, lith and limb, as
+when he disappeared beneath the water when he was shot dead."
+
+I felt the boiling blood, that had been rushing through my system like
+streams of molten lead, suddenly freeze and coagulate about my heart,
+impeding my respiration to a degree that I thought I should have been
+suffocated. I had the feeling as if my soul was going to take wing.  It
+was not fear, nor could I say I was in pain, but it was so utterly unlike
+any thing I had ever experienced before, and so indescribable, that I
+thought to myself--"this may be death."
+
+"Why, what a changeable rose you are, Master Cringle," said Captain
+Transom, good--naturedly; "your face was like the north--west moon in a
+fog but a minute ago, and now it is as pale as a lily@blue white, I
+declare.  Why, my man, you must be ill, and seriously too."
+
+His voice dissipated the hideous chimera--the folds fell, and relapsed
+into their own shape, and the cloak was once more a cloak, and nothing
+more--I drew a long breath.  "Ah, it is gone at last, thank God!"--and
+then aware of the strange effect my unaccountable incoherence must have
+had on the skipper, I thought to brazen it out by trying the free and
+easy line, which was neither more nor less than arrant impertinence in
+our relative positions.  "Why, I have been heated a little, and amusing
+myself with sundry vain imaginings, but allow me to take wine with you,
+Captain," filling a tumbler with vinde--grave to the brim, as I spoke.
+"Success to you, sir--here's to your speedy promotion--may you soon get a
+crack frigate; as for me I intend to be Archbishop of Canterbury, or maid
+of honour to the Queen of Sheba, or something in the heathen mythology."
+
+I drank off the wine, although I had the greatest difficulty in steadying
+my trembling hand, and carrying it to my lips; but notwithstanding my
+increasing giddiness, and the buzzing in my ears, and swimming of mine
+eyes, I noticed the Captain's face of amazement as he exclaimed, "The boy
+is either mad or drunk, by Jupiter!"
+
+I could not stand his searching and angry look, and in turning my eye, it
+again fell on the cloak, which now seemed to be stretched out at greater
+length, and to be altogether more voluminous than it was before.  I was
+forcibly struck with this, for I was certain no one had touched it.
+
+"By heavens! it heaves," I exclaimed, much moved--"how is this?  I
+never thought to have believed such things,----it stirs again--it takes
+the figure of a man--as if it were a pall covering his body.  Pray,
+Captain Transom, what trick is this?--Is there any thing below that cloak
+there?"
+
+"What cloak do you mean?"
+
+"Why, that blue one lying on the locker there--is there any cat or dog in
+the cabin?  "--and I started on my legs.--"Captain Transom," I continued,
+with great vehemence, "for the love of God tell me what is there below
+that cloak."
+
+He looked surprised beyond all measure.
+
+"Why, Mr Cringle, I cannot for the soul of me comprehend you; indeed I
+cannot; but, Mafame, indulge him.  See if there be any thing below my
+cloak."
+
+The servant walked to the locker, and lifted up the cape of it, and was
+in the act of taking it from the locker, when I impetuously, desired the
+man to leave it alone.
+
+"I can't look on him again," said I; while the faintishness increased, so
+that I could hardly speak.  "Don't move the covering from his face, for
+God's sake--don't remove it," and I lay back in my chair, screening my
+eyes from the lamp with my hands, and shuddering with an icy chill from
+head to foot.
+
+The Captain, who had hitherto maintained the well--bred, patronizing,
+although somewhat distant, air of a superior officer to an inferior who
+was his guest, addressed me now in an altered tone, and with a brotherly
+kindness.
+
+"Mr Cringle, I have some knowledge of you, and I know many of your
+friends; so I must take the liberty of an old acquaintance with you.
+This day's work has been a severe one, and your share in it, especially
+after your past fatigues, has been very trying, and as I will report it,
+I hope it may clap a good spoke in your wheel; but you are overheated,
+and have been over--excited; fatigue has broken you down, and I must
+really request you will take something warm, and turn in.--Here, Mafame,
+get the carpenter's mate to secure that cleat on the weather--side there,
+and sling my spare cot for Mr Cringle. You will be cooler here than in
+the gunroom."
+
+I heard his words without comprehending their meaning.  I sat and stared
+at him, quite conscious, all the time, of the extreme impropriety, not to
+say indecency, of my conduct; but there was a spell on me; I tried to
+speak, but could not; and, believing that I was either possessed by some
+dumb evil, or struck with palsy, I rose up, bowed to Captain Transom, and
+straightway hied me on deck.
+
+I could hear him say to his servant, as I was going up the ladder, "Look
+after that young gentleman, Mafame, and send Isaac to the doctor, and bid
+him come here now;" and then, in a commiserating tone--"Poor young
+fellow, what a pity!"
+
+When I got on deck all was quiet.  The cool fresh air had an
+instantaneous effect on my shattered nerves, the violent throbbing in my
+head ceased, and I began to hug myself with the notion that my distemper,
+whatever it might have been, had beaten a retreat.
+
+Suddenly I felt so collected and comfortable, as to be quite alive to the
+loveliness of the scene.  It was a beautiful moonlight night; such a
+night as is nowhere to be seen without the Tropics, and not often within
+them.  There was just breeze enough to set the sail to sleep, although
+not so strong as to prevent their giving a low murmuring flap now and
+then, when the corvette rolled a little heavier than usual on the long
+swell.  There was not a cloud to be seen in the sky, not even a stray
+shred of thin fleecy gauzelike vapour, to mark the direction of the upper
+current of the air, by its course across the moon's disk, which was now
+at the full, and about half--way up her track in the liquid heavens.
+
+The small twinkling lights from millions of lesser stars, in that part of
+the firmament where she hung, round as a silver pot--lid shield I mean,
+were swamped in the flood of greenish--white radiance shed by her, and it
+was only a few of the first magnitude, with a planet here and there, that
+were visible to the naked eye, in the neighbourhood of her crystal bright
+globe; but the clear depth, and dark translucent purity of the profound,
+when the eye tried to pierce into it at the zenith, where the stars once
+more shone and sparkled thick and brightly, beyond the merging influence
+of the pale cold orb, no man can describe now----one could, once--but
+rest his soul, he is dead and then to look forth far into the night,
+across the dark ridge of many a heaving swell of living water--but,
+"Thomas Cringle, ahoy where the devil are you cruising to" So, to come
+back to my story. I went aft, and mounted the small poop, and looked
+towards the aforesaid moon, a glorious resplendent tropical moon, and not
+the paper lantern affair hanging in an atmosphere of fog and smoke, about
+which your blear--eyed poets haven't so much.  By the by, these gentry
+are fond of singing of the blessed sun--were they sailors they would
+bless the moon also, and be--to them, in place of writing much
+wearisome poetry regarding her blighting propensities.  But I have lost
+the end of my yarn once more, in the strands of these parentheses. Lord,
+what a word to pronounce in the plural!--I can no more get out now, than
+a girl's silk worm from the innermost of a nest of pill boxes, where, to
+ride the simile to death at once, I have warped the thread of my story so
+round and round me, that I can't for the life of me unravel it.  Very odd
+all this.  Since I have recovered of this fever, every thing is slack
+about me; I can't set up the shrouds and backstays of my mind, not to
+speak of bobstays, if I should die for it.  The running rigging is all
+right enough, and the canvass is there; but I either can't set it, or
+when I do, I find I have too little ballast, or I get involved amongst
+shoals, and white water, and breakers--don't you hear them roar?--which I
+cannot weather, and crooked channels, under some lee--shore, through
+which I cannot scrape clear.  So down must go the anchor, as at present,
+and there--there goes the chain cable, rushing and rumbling through the
+hausehole.  But I suppose it will be all right by and by, as I get
+stronger.
+
+"But rouse thee, Thomas!  Where is this end of your yarn, that you are
+blameying about?"
+
+"Avast heaving, you swab you--avast--if you had as much calomel in your
+corpus as I have at this present speaking--why you would be a lad of more
+mettle than I take you for, that is all.--You would have about as much
+quicksilver in your stomach, as I have in my purse, and all my silver has
+been quick, ever since I remember, like the jests of the gravedigger in
+Hamlett--but, as you say, where the devil is the end of this yarn?"
+
+Ah, here it is! so off we go again--and looked forward towards the rising
+moon, whose shining wake of glow--worm--coloured light, sparkling in the
+small waves, that danced in the gentle wind on the heaving bosom of the
+dark blue sea, was right a--head of us, like a river of quicksilver with
+its course diminished in the distance to a point, flowing towards us,
+from the extreme verge of the horizon, through a rolling sea of ink, with
+the waters of which for a time it disdained to blend.  Concentrated, and
+shining like polished silver afar off--intense and sparkling as it
+streamed down nearer, but becoming less and less brilliant as it Widened
+in its approach to us, until, like the stream of the great Estuary of the
+Magdalena, losing itself in the salt waste of waters, it gradually melted
+beneath us and around us into the darkness.
+
+I looked aloft--every object appeared sharply cut out against the dark
+firmament, and the swaying of the mast--heads to and fro, as the vessel
+rolled, was so steady and slow, that they seemed stationary, while it was
+the moon and stars which appeared to vibrate and swing from side to side,
+high over head, like the vacillation of the clouds in a theatre, when the
+scene is first let down.
+
+The masts, and yards, and standing and running rigging, looked like black
+pillars, and bars, and wires of iron, reared against the sky, by some
+mighty spirit of the night; and the sails, as the moon shone dimly
+through them, were as dark as if they had been tarpawlings.  But when I
+walked forward and looked aft, what a beauteous change!  Now each mast,
+with its gently swelling canvass, the higher sails decreasing in size,
+until they tapered away nearly to a point, though topsail, topgallant
+sail, royal and skysails, showed like towers of snow, and the cordage
+like silver threads, while each dark spar seemed to be of ebony, fished
+with ivory, as a flood of cold, pale, mild light streamed from the
+beauteous planet over the whole stupendous machine, lighting up the sand
+white decks, on which the shadows of the men, and of every object that
+intercepted the moonbeams, were cast as strongly as if the planks had
+been inlaid with jet.
+
+There was nothing moving about the decks.  The lookouts, aft, and at the
+gangways, sat or stood like statues half bronze, half alabaster.  The old
+quartermaster, who was cunning the ship, and had perched himself on a
+carronade, with his arm leaning on the weather nettings, was equally
+motionless.  The watch had all disappeared forward, or were stowed out of
+sight under the lee of the boats; the first Lieutenant, as if captivated
+by the serenity of the scene, was leaning with folded arms on the weather
+gangway, looking abroad upon the ocean, and whistling now and then
+either for a wind, or for want of thought.  The only being who showed
+sign of life was the man at the wheel, and he scarcely moved, except now
+and then to give her a spoke or two, when the cheep of the tiller--rope,
+running through the well--greased leading blocks, would grate on the ear
+as a sound of some importance; while in daylight, in the ordinary bustle
+of the ship, no one could say he ever heard it.
+
+Three bells!--"Keep a bright look--out there," sung out the Lieutenant.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," from the four look--out men, in a volley.
+
+Then from the weather--gangway, "All's well" rose shrill into the night
+air.
+
+The watchword was echoed by the man on the forecastle, re--echoed by the
+lee--gangway look--out, and ending with the response of the man on the
+poop.  My dream was dissipated--and so was the first lieutenant's, who
+had but little poetry in his composition, honest man.
+
+"Fine night, Mr Cringle.  Look aloft, how beautifully set the sails are;
+that mizzen--topsail is well cut, eh?  Sits well, don't it?  But confound
+the lubbers!  Boatswain's mate, call the watch."
+
+Whi--whew, whi--whew, chirrup, chip, chip--the deck was alive in an
+instant, "as bees biz out wi" angry fyke.
+
+"Where is the captain of the mizzen--top?" growled the man in authority.
+
+"Here, sir."
+
+"Here, sir!--look at the weather--clew of the mizzen--topsail, sir, look
+at that sail, sir,--how many turns can you count in that clew, sir?
+Spring it, you no--sailor you--spring it, and set the sail again."
+
+How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable all this appeared to me at the
+time I will remember; but the obnoxious turns were shaken out, and the
+sail set again so as to please even the fastidious eye of the Lieutenant,
+who, seeing nothing more to find fault with, addressed me once more.
+
+"Have had no grub since morning, Mr Cringle; all the others are away in
+the prizes; you are as good as one of us now, only want the order to
+join, you know--so will you oblige me, and take charge of the deck, until
+I go below and change my clothes, and gobble a bit?"
+
+"Unquestionably,--with much pleasure."
+
+He forthwith dived, and I walked aft a few steps towards where the old
+quartermaster was standing on the gun.
+
+"How is her head, Quartermaster?"
+
+"South--east and by south, sir.  If the wind holds, we shall weather
+Morant Point, I think, sir."
+
+"Very like, very like.--What is that glancing backwards and forwards
+across the port--hole there, Quartermaster?"
+
+"I told you so, Mafame," said the man; "what are you skylarking about the
+mizen--chains for, man?--Come in, will you, come in."
+
+The Captain's caution to his servant flashed on me.
+
+"Come in, my man, and give my respects to the Captain, and tell him that
+I am quite well now; the fresh air has perfectly restored me."
+
+"I will, sir," said Mafame, half ashamed at being detected in his office
+of inspector--general of my actions; but the Doctor, to whom he had been
+sent, having now got a leisure moment from his labour in the shambles,
+came up and made enquiries as to how I felt.
+
+"Why, Doctor, I thought I was in for a fever half an hour ago, but it is
+quite gone off, or nearly so--there, feel my pulse."--It was regular, and
+there was no particular heat of skin.
+
+"Why, I don't think there is much the matter with you.  Mafame, tell the
+Captain so; but turn in and take some rest as soon as you can, and I will
+see you in the morning--and here," feeling in his waistcoat pocket, "here
+are a couple of capers for you; take them now, will you?" (And he handed
+me two blue pills, which I the next moment chucked overboard, to cure
+some bilious dolphin of the liver complaint.) I promised to do so
+whenever the Lieutenant relieved the deck, which would, I made no
+question, be within half an hour.
+
+"Very well, that will do--good--night. I am regularly done up myself,"
+quoth the Medico, as he descended to the gunroom.
+
+At this time of night, the prizes were all in a cluster under our lee
+quarter, like small icebergs covered with snow, and carrying every rag
+they could set.  The Gleam was a good way a--stern, as if to whip them
+in, and to take care that no stray piccaroon should make a dash at any of
+them.  They slid noiselessly along like phantoms of the deep, every thing
+in the air and in the water was so still--I crossed to the lee side of
+the deck to look at them--The Wave, seeing some one on the hammock
+nettings, sheered close to, under the Firebrand's lee quarter, and some
+one asked, "Do you want to speak us?" The man's voice, reflected from the
+concave surface of the schooner's mainsail, had a hollow, echoing sound,
+that startled me.
+
+"I should know that voice," said I to myself, "and the figure steering
+the schooner."
+
+The throbbing in my head and the dizzy feel, which had capsized my
+judgment in the cabin, again returned with increased violence--"It was no
+deception after all," thought I, "no cheat of the senses--I now believe
+such things are."
+
+The same voice now called out, "Come away, Tom, come away," no doubt to
+some other seaman on board the little vessel, but my heated fancy did not
+so construe it.  The col real again overtook me, and I ejaculated, "God
+have mercy upon me a sinner!"
+
+"Why don't you come, Tom?" said the voice once more.
+
+It was Obed's.  At this very instant of time, the Wave forged a--head
+into the Firebrand's shadow, so that her sails, but a moment before white
+as wool in the bright moonbeams suffered a sudden eclipse, and became
+black as ink.
+
+"His dark spirit is there," said I, audibly, "and calls me--go I will,
+whatever may befall."
+
+I hailed the schooner, or rather I had only to speak, and that in a low
+tone, for she was now close under the counter "Send your boat, for since
+you call, I know I must come."
+
+A small canoe slid off her deck; two ship boys got into it, and pulled
+under the starboard mizzen--chains, which entirely concealed them, as
+they held on for a moment with a boat--hook in the dark shadow of the
+ship.  This was done so silently, that neither the lookout on the poop,
+who was rather on the weather--side at the moment, nor the man at the lee
+gangway, who happened to be looking out forward, heard them, or saw me,
+as I slipped down unperceived.
+
+"Pull back again, my lads; quick now, quick."
+
+In a moment, I was along--side, the next I was on deck, and in this short
+space a change had come over the spirit of my dream, for I now was again
+conscious that I was on board the Wave with a prize crew.  My imagination
+had taken another direction.
+
+"Now Mr----, I beg pardon, I forget your name,"--I had never heard it,
+"make more sail, and haul out from the fleet for Mancheoneal Bay; I have
+despatches for the admiral--So, crack on."
+
+The midshipman who was in charge of her never for an instant doubted but
+that all was right; sail was made, and as the light breeze was the very
+thing for the little Wave, she began to snorer through it like smoke.
+When she had shot a cable's length a--head of the Firebrand, we kept away
+a point or two, so as to stand more in for the land, and, like most
+maniacs, I was inwardly exulting at the success of my manoeuvre, when we
+heard the corvette's bell struck rapidly.  Her maintop--sail was suddenly
+laid to the mast, whilst a loud voice echoed amongst the sails--"Any one
+see hi--in in the waist--anybody see him forward there?"
+
+"No, sir, no."
+
+"After guard, fire, and let go the life--buoy--lower away the quarter
+boats--jolly--boat also."
+
+We saw the flash, and presently the small blue light of the buoy, blazing
+and disappearing, as it rose and fell on the waves, in the corvette's
+wake, sailed away astern, sparkling fitfully, like an ignis fatuus.  The
+cordage rattled through the davit blocks, as the boats dashed into the
+water--the splash of the oars was heard, and presently the twinkle of the
+life--buoy was lost in the lurid glare of the blue lights, held aloft in
+each boat, where the crews were standing up, looking like spectres by the
+ghastly blaze, and anxiously peering about for some sign of the drowning
+man.
+
+"A man overboard," was repeated from one to another of the prize crew.
+
+"Sure enough," said I.
+
+"Shall we stand back, sir?" said the midshipman.
+
+"To what purpose?--there are enough there without us--no, no; crack on,
+we can do no good--carry on, carry on!"
+
+We did so, and I now found severe shooting pains, more racking than the
+sharpest rheumatism I had ever suffered, pervading my whole body.  They
+increased until I suffered the most excruciating agony, as if my bones
+had been converted into red--hot tubes of iron, and the marrow in them
+had been dried up with fervent heat, and I was obliged to beg that a
+hammock might be spread on deck, on which I lay down, pleading great
+fatigue and want of sleep as my excuse.
+
+My thirst was unquenchable; the more I drank, the hotter it became.  My
+tongue, and mouth, and throat, were burning, as if molten lead had been
+poured down into my stomach, while the most violent retching came on
+every ten minutes.  The prize crew, poor fellows, did all they could
+once or twice they seemed about standing back to the ship, but, "make
+sail, make sail," was my only cry.  They did so, and there I lay without
+any thing between me and the wet planks but a thin sailor's blanket and
+the canvass of the hammock, through the livelong night, and with no
+covering but a damp boatcloak, raving at times during the hot fits, at
+others having my power of utterance frozen up during the cold ones.  The
+men, once or twice, offered to carry me below, but the idea was horrible
+to me.
+
+"No, no--not there--for heaven's sake not there!  If you do take me down,
+I am sure I shall see him, and the dead mate--No, no overboard rather,
+throw me overboard rather."
+
+Oh, what would I not have given for the luxury of a flood of tears!--But
+the fountains of mine eyes were dried up, and seared as with a red--hot
+iron--my skin was parched, and hot, hot, as if every pore had been
+hermetically sealed; there was a hell within me and about me as if the
+deck on which I lay had been steel at a white heat, and the gushing
+blood, as under the action of a force--pump, throbbed through my head,
+like it would have burst on my brain--and such a racking, splitting
+headache--no language can describe it, and yet ever and anon in the midst
+of this raging fire, this furnace at my heart, seven times heated, a
+sudden icy shivering chill would shake me, and pierce through and through
+me, even when the roasting fever was at the hottest.
+
+At length the day broke on the long, long, moist, steamy night, and once
+more the sun rose to bless every thing but me.  As the morning wore on,
+my torments increased with the heat, and I lay sweltering on deck, in a
+furious delirium, held down forcibly by two men, who were relieved by
+others every now and then, while I raved about Obed, and Paul, and the
+scenes I had witnessed on board during the chase, and in the attack.
+None of my rough but kind nurses expected I could have held on till
+nightfall; but shortly after sunset I became more collected, and, as I
+was afterwards told, whenever any little office was performed for me,
+whenever some drink was held to my lips, I would say to the gruff
+sunburnt, black--whiskered, square shouldered topman who might be my
+Ganymede for the occasion, "Thank you, Mary; Heaven bless your pale face,
+Mary; bless you, bless you!"
+
+It  seemed  my fancy had shaken itself clear of the fearful objects  that
+had  so  pertinaciously  haunted me before,  and  occupying  itself  with
+pleasing recollections, had produced a corresponding cahn in the  animal;
+but the poor fellow to whom I had expressed myself so endearingly, was, I
+learned,  most awfully put out and dismayed.  He twisted and  turned  his
+iron  features  into  all  manner of ludicrous  combinations,  under  the
+laughter  of  his mates--"Now, Peter, may I be--but I would  rather  be
+shot at, than hear the poor young gentleman so quiz me in his madness."
+
+Then  again--as I praised his lovely taper fingers--they were  more  like
+bunches of frosted carrots, dipped in a tar--bucket, with the tails snapt
+short off, where about an inch thick.
+
+"My taper fingers--oh lord!  Now, Peter, I can't stomach this any longer,
+I'll  give you my grog for the next two days, if you will take my  spell
+here--My taper fingers--murder!"
+
+As  the evening closed in we saw the high land of Jamaica, but it was the
+following  afternoon before we were off the entrance of Mancheoneal  Bay.
+All  this  period,  although  it must have been  one  of  great  physical
+suffering,  has  ever, to my ethereal part, remained a dead  blank.   The
+first  thing I remember afterwards, was being carried ashore in the  dark
+in  a  hammock slung on two oars, so as to form a sort of rude palanquin,
+and  laid  down  at a short distance from the overseer's house  where  my
+troubles  had originally commenced. I soon became perfectly sensible  and
+collected, but I was so weak I could not speak; after resting  a  little,
+the  men  again  lifted me and proceeded.  The door of the  dining--hall,
+which was the back entrance into the overseer's house, opened flush  into
+the  little  garden through which we had come in--there were lights,  and
+sounds  of music, singing, and jovialty within.  The farther end  of  the
+room, at the door of which I now rested, opened into the piazza, or  open
+veranda,  which crossed it at right angles, and constituted the front  of
+the  house,  forming,  with this apartment, a figure  somewhat  like  the
+letter  T. I stood at the foot of the letter, as it were, and as I looked
+towards  the  piazza, which was gaily lit up, I could see it was  crowded
+with  male  and  female  negroes in their  holyday  apparel,  with  their
+wholesome clear brown--black skins, not blue--black as they appear in our
+cold  country,  and  beautiful white teeth,  and  sparkling  black  eyes,
+amongst  whom  were  several  gumbie--men and  flute--players,  and  John
+Canoes,  as  the negro Jack Pudding is called; the latter distinguishable
+by  wearing white false faces, and enormous shocks of horsehair, fastened
+on  to their woolly pates.  Their character hovers somewhere between that
+of  a harlequin and a clown, as they dance about, and thread through  the
+negro  groups, quizzing the women and slapping the men; and at  Christmas
+time,  the grand negro carnival, they don't confine their practical jokes
+to  their  own colour, but take all manner of comical liberties with  the
+whites equally with their fellow bondsmen.
+
+The blackamoor visitors had suddenly, to all appearance, broken off their
+dancing,  and  were now clustered behind a rather remarkable  group,  who
+were  seated  at  supper  in the dining--room, near  to  where  I  stood,
+forming,  as it were, the foreground in the scene.  Mr Fyall himself  was
+there,  and a rosy--gilled, happy--looking man, who I thought I had  seen
+before;  this  much I could discern, for the light fell strong  on  them,
+especially  on  the face of the latter, which shone like a  star  of  the
+first  magnitude, or a lighthouse in the red gleam--the usual  family  of
+the  overseer, the book--keepers that is, and the worthy who had been the
+proximate  cause of all my sufferings, the overseer himself,  were  there
+too,  as  if they had been sitting still at table where I saw  them  now,
+ever  since I left them three weeks before--at least my fancy did me  the
+favour  to  annihilate, for the nonce, all intermediate time between  the
+point  of  my  departure on the night of the cooper's  funeral,  and  the
+moment when I now revisited them.
+
+I  was  lifted out of the hammock, and supported to the door between  two
+seamen.   The  fresh,  nice--looking man before  mentioned,  Aaron  Bang,
+Esquire, by name, an incipient planting attorney in the neighbourhood, of
+great  promise, was in the act of singing a song, for it was during  some
+holyday--time, which had broken down the stiff observances of  a  Jamaica
+planter's life.  There he sat, lolling back on his chair, with  his  feet
+upon  the table, and a cigar, half consumed, in his hand.  He had twisted
+up  his  mouth  and  mirth--provoking nose, which,  by  an  unaccountable
+control over some muscle, present in the visage of no other human  being,
+he  made  to  describe a small circle round the centre of his  face,  and
+slewing  his  head  on  one  side, he was  warbling,  ore  Yotundo,  some
+melodious  ditty, with infinite complacency, and, to all  appearance,  to
+the great delight of his auditory, when his eyes lighted on me,--he was
+petrified  in  a  moment, I seemed to have blasted  him,----his  warbling
+ceased  instantaneously, the colour faded from his cheeks, but  there  he
+sat, with open mouth, and in the same attitude as if he still sung, and I
+had  suddenly become deaf, or as if he and his immediate compotators, and
+the group of blackies beyond, had all been on the instant turned to stone
+by a slap from one of their own John Canoes.  I must have been in truth a
+terrible  spectacle; my skin was yellow, not as saffron, but as the  skin
+of a ripe lime; the white of my eyes, to use an Irishism, ditto; my mouth
+and  lips had festered and broke out, as we say in Scotland; my head  was
+bound  round with a napkin--none of the cleanest, you may swear; my dress
+was  a  pair  of dirty duck trowsers, and my shirt, with the  boat--cloak
+that  had been my only counterpane on board of the little vessel, hanging
+from my shoulders.
+
+Lazarus  himself could scarcely have been a more appalling  object,  when
+the  voice  of  him  who spoke as never man spake,  said,  "Lazarus  come
+forth."
+
+I  made  an unavailing attempt to cross the threshold, but could not.   I
+was  spellbound,  or there was an invisible barrier erected  against  me,
+which  I  could  not  overleap.  The buzzing in my  ears,  the  pain  and
+throbbing in my head, and racking aches, once more bent me to the earth,
+ill  and  reduced as I was, a relapse, thought I; and I felt my  judgment
+once  more giving way before the sweltering fiend, who had retreated  but
+for  a  moment  to renew his attacks with still greater fierceness.   The
+moment  he once more entered into me--the instant that I was possessed--I
+cannot  call  it  by  any other name--an unnatural strength  pervaded  my
+shrunken muscles and emaciated frame, and I stepped boldly into the hall.
+While I had stood at the door, listless and feeble as a child, hanging on
+the  arms  of the two topmen, after they had raised me from the  hammock,
+the  whole  party  had  sat silently gazing at me, with  their  faculties
+paralysed  with terror.  But now, when I stumped into the room  like  the
+marble  statue  in Don Juan, and glared on them, my eyes  sparkling  with
+unearthly brilliancy under the fierce distemper which had anew thrust its
+red  hot fingers into my maw, and was at the moment seething my brain  in
+its  hellish caldron, the negroes in the piazza, one and all, men, women,
+and  children,  evanished into the night, and  the  whole  party  in  the
+foreground  started  to  their  legs,  as  if  they  had  been   suddenly
+galvanized;  the  table and chairs were overset, and  whites  and  blacks
+trundled, and scrambled, and bundled over and over each other,  neck  and
+crop,  as if the very devil had come to invite them to dinner in  propria
+personal horns, tail, and all.
+
+"Duppy come!  Duppy come!  Massa Tom Cringle ghost stand at for we  door;
+we  all shall dead, oh--we all shall go dead, oh!" bellowed the father of
+gods, my old ally Jupiter.
+
+"Guid guide us, that's an awful sicht!" quod the Scotch bookkeeper.
+
+"By the hockeytt speak if you be a ghost, or I'll exercise [exorcise]  ye
+wid  this  butt of a musket," quoth the cowboy@an Irishman  to  be  sure,
+whose  round bullet head was discernible in the human mass, by his black,
+twinkling, half--drunken--looking eyes.
+
+"Well--a--day,"  groaned another of them, a Welshman, I believe,  with  a
+face  as  long as my arm, and a drawl worthy of a Methodist parson;  "and
+what can it be--flesh and blood, it is not--can these dry bones live?"
+
+Ill as I was, however, I could perceive that all this row had now more of
+a  tipsy frolic in it--whatever it might have had at first--than absolute
+fear;  for  the  red--faced visitor, and Mr Fyall, as  if  half  ashamed,
+speedily  extricated  themselves from the  chaos  of  chairs  and  living
+creatures, righted the table, replaced the candles, and having sat  down,
+looking as grave as judges on the bench, Aaron Bang exclaimed--"I'll  bet
+a  dozen, it is the poor fellow himself returned on our hands, half--dead
+from  the  rascally  treatment he has met with  at  the  hands  of  these
+smuggling thieves!"
+
+"Smugglers, or no," said Fyall, "you are right for once, my peony rose, I
+do believe."
+
+But Aaron was a leetle staggered, notwithstanding, when I stumped towards
+him,  as  already described, and he shifted back and back as I  advanced,
+with  a  most  laughable cast of countenance, between jest  and  earnest,
+while  Fyall kept shouting to him--"If it be his ghost, try him in Latin,
+Mr  Bang--speak Latin to him, Aaron Bang--nothing for a ghost like Latin,
+it is their mother tongue."
+
+Bang,  who, it seemed, plumed himself on his erudition, forthwith began
+"Quae  maribus solum tribuunter." Aaron's conceit of exorcising a  spirit
+with the fag--end of an old grammar rule would have tickled me under most
+circumstances;  but I was far past laughing.  I had more need,  God  help
+me, to pray.  I made another step.  He hitched his chair back.  "Bam, Bo,
+Rem!"  shouted  the  incipient planting attorney.  Another  hitch,  which
+carried  him clean out of the supper--room, and across the narrow piazza;
+but,  in this last movement, he made a regular false step, the two back
+feet  of  his  chair  dropping over the first step of the  front  stairs,
+whereupon  he  lost  his  balance,  and  toppling  over,  vanished  in  a
+twinkling,  and rolled down half--a--dozen steps, heels over head,  until
+he lay sprawling on the manger or mule--trough before the door, where the
+Ceases  are fed under busha's own eye on all estates--for this  excellent
+and  most  cogent  reason,  that  otherwise  the  maize  or  guinea--com,
+belonging of right to poor mulo, would generally go towards improving the
+condition, not of the quadruped, but of the biped quashiet who had charge
+of him--and there he lay in a convulsion of laughter.
+
+The  two  seamen,  who  supported  me between  them,  were  at  first  so
+completely  dumfoundered  by all this, that they  could  not  speak.   At
+length,  however,  Timothy Tailtackle lost his patience,  and  found  his
+tongue.
+
+"This may be Jamaica frolic, good gentlemen, and all very comical in  its
+way; but, d--n me, if it be either gentlemanlike or Christian like, to be
+after  funning  and fuddling, while a fellow creature, and his  Majesty's
+commissioned officer to boot, stands before you, all but dead of  one  of
+your blasted fevers."
+
+The  honest  fellow's straightforward appeal, far from giving offence  to
+the  kindhearted people to whom it was made, was not only taken  in  good
+part,  but  Mr Fyall himself took the lead in setting the whole household
+immediately to work, to have me properly cared for.  The best room in the
+house  was  given up to me. I was carefully shifted and put to  bed;  but
+during  all that night and the following day, I was raving in  a  furious
+fever,  so  that I had to be forcibly held down in my bed, sometimes  for
+half an hour at a time.
+
+I  say,  messmate, have you ever had the yellow fever, the vomito prieto,
+black  vomit,  as the Spaniards call it?--No?--have you ever  had  a  bad
+bilious fever then?  No bad bilious fever either?--Why, then, you  are  a
+most unfortunate creature; for you have never known what it was to be  in
+Heaven, nor eke the other place.  Oh the delight, the blessedness of  the
+languor of recovery, when one finds himself in a large airy room, with  a
+dreamy  indistinct  recollection of great past suffering,  endured  in  a
+small  miserable vessel within the tropics, where you have  been  roasted
+one moment by the vertical rays of the sun, and the next annealed hissing
+hot  by  the  salt sea spray;--in a broad luxurious bed, some cool  sunny
+morning,  with  the fresh sea breeze whistling through the  open  windows
+that  look  into the piazza, and rustling the folds of the  clean  wire
+gauze  musquitto net that serves you for bed--curtains; while beyond  you
+look  forth  into the sequestered court--yard, overshadowed by  one  vast
+umbrageous  kennip tree, that makes every thing look green and  cool  and
+fresh beneath, and whose branches the rushing wind is rasping cheerily on
+the  shingles of the roof--and oh, how passing sweet is the lullaby  from
+the  humming of numberless glancing bright--hued flies, of all sorts  and
+sizes,  sparkling among the green leaves like chips of a prism,  and  the
+fitful whirring of the fairy--flitting humming bird, now here, now there,
+like  winged gems, or living atoms of the rainbow, round which their tiny
+wings, moving too quickly to be visible, form little haloes--and the palm
+tree at the house--corner is shaking its long hard leaves, making a sound
+for  all the world like the pattering of rain; and the orange--tree  top,
+with  ripe fruit, and green fruit, and white blossoms, is waving  to  and
+fro  flush  with the window--sill, dashing the fragrant odour  into  your
+room  at  every whish; and the double Jessamine is twining up  the  papaw
+(whose fruit, if rubbed on a bull's hide, immediately converts it into  a
+tender  beef--steak) and absolutely stifling you with sweet perfume;  and
+then  the sangaree old Madeira, two parts of water, no more, and nutmeg
+and  not  a  taste out of a thimble, but a rummerful of it, my boy,  that
+would  drown your first--born at his christening, if he slipped into  it,
+and  no stinting in the use of this ocean; on the contrary, the tidy  old
+brown nurse, or mayhap a buxom young one, at your bedside, with ever  and
+anon a lettle more panada, (d--n panada, I had forgotten that!) "and  den
+some  more sangaree; it will do massa good, strengthen him tomack"--and,
+but I am out of breath, and must lie to for a brief space.
+
+I opened my eyes late in the morning of the second day after landing, and
+saw Mr Fyall and the excellent Aaron Bang sitting one on each side of  my
+bed.  Although weak as a sucking infant, I had a strong persuasion on  my
+mind  that all danger was over, and that I was convalescent.   I  had  no
+feverish symptom whatsoever, but felt cool and comfortable, with  a  fine
+balmy  moisture  on  my  skin;  as  yet,  however,  I  spoke  with  great
+difficulty.
+
+Aaron noticed this.
+
+"Don't  exert yourself too much, Tom; take it coolly, man, and thank  God
+that you are now fairly round the corner.  Is your head painful?"
+
+"No--why should it?"
+
+Mr  Fyall  smiled, and I put up my hand--it was all I could  do,  for  my
+limbs  appeared loaded with lead at the extremities, and when  I  touched
+any  part of my frame, with my hand for instance, there was no concurring
+sensation conveyed by the nerves of the two parts; sometimes I felt as if
+touched by the hand of another; at others, as if I had touched the person
+of  some  one  else.   When I raised my hand to my forehead,  my  fingers
+instinctively moved to take hold of my hair, for I was in no small degree
+proud  of  some  luxuriant brown curls, which the women used  to  praise.
+Alas and alack--a--day! in place of ringlets, glossy with Macassar oil, I
+found a cool young tender plantain--leaf bound round my temples.
+
+"What is all this?" said I. "A kale--blade, where my hair used to be!"
+
+"How came this kale--blade here,
+And how came it here?"
+
+Sung  friend Bang, laughing, for he had great powers of laughter,  and  I
+saw he kept his quizzical face turned towards some object at the head  of
+the bed, which I could not see.
+
+"You may say that, Aaron--where's my wig, you rogue, eh?"
+
+"Never mind, Tom," said Fyall, "your hair will soon grow again, won't it,
+miss?"
+
+"Miss!  miss!" and I screwed my neck round, and lo!--"Ah, Mary,  and  are
+you  the  Delilah who have shorn my locks--you wicked young  female  lady
+you!"
+
+She  smiled  and  nodded to Aaron, who was a deuced  favourite  with  the
+ladies,  black, brown, and white, (I give the pas to the  staple  of  the
+country--hope no offence,) as well as with every one else who  ever  knew
+him.
+
+"How dare you, friend Bang, shave and blister my head, you dog?" said I.
+"You cannibal Indian, you have scalped me; you are a regular Mohawk."
+
+"Never mind, Tom--never mind, my boy," said he.  "Ay, you may blush, Mary
+Palma.   Cringle  there will fight, but he will have 'Palmam  qui  meruit
+ferat' for his motto yet, take my word for it."
+
+The  sight  of  my cousin's lovely face, and the heavenly  music  of  her
+tongue, made me so forgiving, that I could be angry with no one.--At this
+moment a nice--looking elderly man slid into the room as noiselessly as a
+cat.
+
+"How  are  you,  Lieutenant?  Why, you are positively gay  this  morning!
+Preserve me!--why have you taken off the dressing from your head?"
+
+"Preserve  me--you may say that, Doctor--why, you seem to have  preserved
+me, and pickled me after a very remarkable fashion, certainly!  Why, man,
+do you intend to make a mummy of me, with all your swaddlings?  Now, what
+is that crackling on my chest?  More plantain--leaves, as I live!"
+
+"Only another blister, sir."
+
+"Only another blister--and my feet--Zounds! what have you been doing with
+my feet?  The soles are as tender as if I had been bastinadoed."
+
+"Only cataplasms, sir; mustard and bird--pepper poultices nothing more."
+
+"Mustard and bird--pepper poultices!--and pray, what is that long fiddle
+case supported on two chairs in the piazza!"
+
+"What  case?" said the good Doctor, and his eye followed mine.   "Oh,  my
+gun--case.   I  am a great sportsman, you must know--but draw  down  that
+blind, Mr Bang, if you please, the breeze is too strong."
+
+"Gun--case!  I  would  rather have taken it for your  game--box,  Doctor.
+However, thanks be to Heaven, you have not bagged me this bout."
+
+At  this moment, I heard a violent scratching and jumping on the roof  of
+the house, and presently a loud croak, and a strong rushing noise, as  of
+a large bird taking flight--"What is that, Doctor?"
+
+"The  devil," said he, laughing, "at least your evil genius, Lieutenant,
+it  is  the  carrion crows, the large John--Crows, as  they  are  called,
+flying  away.   They have been holding a council of war  upon  you  since
+early dawn, expecting (I may tell you, now you are so well) that it might
+likely soon turn into a coroner's inquest."
+
+"John--Crow!--Coroner's inquest!--Cool shavers those  West  India  chaps,
+after  all!" muttered I; and again I lay back, and offered up my  heart,
+warm thanks to the Almighty, for his great mercy to me a sinner.
+
+My aunt and cousin had been on a visit in the neighbourhood, and overnight
+Mr Fyall had kindly sent for them to receive my last sigh, for  to all
+appearance  I was fast going.  Oh, the gratitude of  my  heart,  the
+tears  of joy I wept in my weak blessedness, and the overflowing of heart
+that I experienced towards that almighty and ever--merciful Being who had
+spared me, and brought me out of my great sickness, to look round on dear
+friends,  and on the idol of my heart, once more, after all  my  grievous
+sufferings!   I  took  Mary's hand--I could not  raise  it  for  lack  of
+strength,  or  I would have kissed it; but, as she leant over  me,  Fyall
+came behind her and gently pressed her sweet lips to mine, while the dear
+girl  blushed as red as Aaron Bang's face.  By this my aunt  herself  had
+come  into  the room, and a warm congratulations, and last, although  not
+least,  Timothy  Tailtackle made his appearance  in  the  piazza  at  the
+window,  with  a  clean,  joyful, well shaven countenance.   He  grinned,
+turned his quid, pulled up his trowsers, smoothed down his hair with  his
+hand,  and  gave a sort of half--tipsy shamble, meant for a  bow,  as  he
+entered the bedroom.
+
+"You have forereached on Davy this time, sir.  Heaven be praised for  it!
+He  was  close aboard of you, howsomdever, sir, once or twice."  Then  he
+bowed round the room again, with a sort of swing or caper, whichever  you
+choose  to  call  it,  as if he had been the party obliged.  "Kind  folk,
+these,  sir," he continued, in what was meant for sotto voce, and for  my
+ear  alone, but it was more like the growling of a mastiff puppy than any
+thing else.  "Kind folk, sir--bad as their mountebanking looked the first
+night, sir--why, Lord bless your honour, may they make a marine of me, if
+they  han't  set a Bungo to wait on us, Bill and I, that is--and  we  has
+grog more than does us good--and grub, my eye!--only think, sir--Bill and
+Timothy  Tailtackle waited on by a black Bungo!" and he  doubled  himself
+up, chuckling and hugging himself, with infinite glee.
+
+"All  now  went  merry as a marriage bell." I was carefully  conveyed  to
+Kingston,  where  I rallied under my aunt's hospitable roof,  as  rapidly
+almost  as I had sickened, and within a fortnight, all bypast strangeness
+explained  to  my  superiors,  I  at length  occupied  my  berth  in  the
+Firebrand's gunroom, as third lieutenant of the ship.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+
+More Scenes in Jamaica.
+
+
+There be land--rats and water--rats--water--thieves and land thieves I
+mean pirates.
+
+THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, I. iii. 22--24.
+
+The malady from whose fangs I had just escaped, was at this time making
+fearful ravages amongst the troops and white inhabitants of Jamaica
+generally; nor was the squadron exempted from the afflicting visitation,
+although it suffered in a smaller degree.
+
+I had occasion at this time to visit Uppark camp, a military post about
+a mile and a half from Kingston, where two regiments of infantry, and a
+detachment of artillery, were stationed.
+
+In the forenoon, I walked out in company with an officer, a relation of
+my own, whom I had gone to visit; enjoying the fresh sea breeze that
+whistled past us in half a gale of wind, although the sun was vertical,
+and shining into the bottom of a pint pot, as the sailors have it.
+
+The barracks were built on what appeared to me a very dry situation
+(although I have since heard it alleged that there was a swamp to
+windward of it, over which the sea breeze blew, but this I did not see,)
+considerably elevated above the hot sandy plain on which Kingston
+stands, and sloping gently towards the sea.  They were splendid, large,
+airy two story buildings, well raised off the ground on brick pillars,
+so that there was a perfectly free ventilation of air between the
+surface of the earth and the floor of the first story, as well as
+through the whole of the upper rooms.  A large balcony, or piazza, ran
+along the whole of the south front, both above and below, which shaded
+the brick shell of the house from the sun, and afforded a cool and
+convenient lounge for the men.  The outhouses of all kinds were well
+thrown back into the rear, so that in front there was nothing to
+intercept the sea--breeze.  The officers' quarters stood in advance of
+the men's barracks, and were, as might be expected, still more
+comfortable; and in front of all were the field--officer's houses, the
+whole of substantial brick and mortar.  This superb establishment stood
+in an extensive lawn, not surpassed in beauty by any nobleman's park
+that I had ever seen.  It was immediately after the rains when I visited
+it; the grass was luxuriant and newly cut, and the trees, which grew in
+detached clumps, were most magnificent.  We clambered up into one of
+them, a large umbrageous wild cotton--tree, which cast a shadow on the
+ground--the sun being, as already mentioned, right overhead--of thirty
+paces in diameter; but still it was but a dwarfish plant of its kind,
+for I have measured others whose gigantic shadows, at the same hour,
+were upwards of one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, and their
+trunks, one in particular that overhangs the Spanish Town road, twenty
+feet through of solid timber; that is, not including the enormous spurs
+that shoot out like buttresses, and end in strong twisted roots, that
+strike deep into the earth, and form stays, as it were, to the tree in
+all directions.
+
+Our object, however--publish it not in Askalon was, not so much to
+admire the charms of nature, as to enjoy the luxury of a real Havannah
+cigar, in solitary comfort; and a glorious perch we had selected.  The
+shade was grateful beyond measure.  The fresh breeze was rushing, almost
+roaring, through the leaves and groaning branches, and every thing
+around was green, and fragrant, and Cool, and delicious; by comparison
+that is, for the thermometer would, I daresay, have still vouched for
+eighty degrees.  The branches overhead were alive with a variety of
+beautiful lizards, and birds of the gayest plumage; amongst others, a
+score of small chattering green paroquets were hopping close to us, and
+playing at bopeep from the lower surfaces of the leaves of the wild
+pine, (a sort of Brobdignag parasite, that grows, like the mistletoe, in
+the clefts of the larger trees,) to which they clung, as green and
+shining as the leaves themselves, and ever and anon popping their little
+heads and shoulders over to peer at us; while the red--breasted
+woodpecker kept drumming on every hollow part of the bark, for all the
+world, like old Kelson, the carpenter of the Torch, tapping along the
+top sides for the dry rot.  All around us the men were lounging about in
+the shade, and sprawling on the grass in their foraging caps and light
+jackets, with an officer here and there lying reading, or sauntering
+about, bearding Phoebus himself, to watch for a shot at a swallow, as it
+skimmed past; while goats and horses, sheep and cattle, were browsing
+the fresh grass, or sheltering themselves from the heat beneath the
+trees.  All nature seemed alive and happy--a little drowsy from the heat
+or so, but that did not much signify--when two carts, each drawn by a
+mule, and driven by a negro, approached the tree whereon we were
+perched.  A solitary sergeant accompanied them, and they appeared, when
+a bowshot distant, to be loaded with white deal boxes.
+
+I paid little attention to them until they drove under the tree.
+
+"I say, Snowdrop," said the non--commissioned officer, "where be them
+black rascals, them pioneers--where is the fateague party, my Lily
+white, who ought to have the trench dug by this time?"
+
+"Dere now," grumbled the negro, "dere now--easy ting to deal wid white
+gentleman, but debil cannot satisfy dem worsted sash." Then aloud--"Me
+no know, sir--me can't tell--no for me business to dig hole--I only
+carry what you fill him up wid;" and the vampire, looking over his
+shoulder, cast his eye towards his load, and grinned until his white
+teeth glanced from ear to ear.
+
+"Now," said the Irish sergeant, "I could brain you, but it is not worth
+while!"--I question if he could, however, knowing as I did the thickness
+of their skulls, "Ah, here they come!"--and a dozen half drunken, more
+than half--naked, bloated, villainous--looking blackamoors, with shovels
+and pick--axes on their shoulders, came along the road, laughing and
+singing most lustily.  They passed beneath where we sat, and, when about
+a stonecast beyond, they all jumped into a trench or pit, which I had
+not noticed before, about twenty feet long, by eight wide.  It was
+already nearly six feet deep, but it seemed they had instructions to
+sink it further, for they first plied their pickaxes, and then began to
+shovel out the earth.  When they had completed their labour, the
+sergeant, who had been superintending their operations, returned to
+where the carts were still standing beneath the tree.  One of them had
+six coffins in it, with the name of the tenant of each, and number of
+his company, marked in red chalk on the smallest end!
+
+"I say, Snowdrop," said the sergeant, "how do you come to have only five
+bodies, when Cucumbershin there has six?"
+
+"To be sure I hab no more as five, and weight enough too.  You no see
+Corporal Bumblechops dere?  You knows how big he was."
+
+"Well, but where is Sergeant Heavystern? why did you not fetch him away
+with the others?"
+
+The negro answered doggedly, "Massa Sergeant, you should remember dem no
+die of consumption--cough you call him--nor fever and ague, nor any ting
+dat waste dem--for tree day gone--no more--all were mount guard--tout and
+fat; so as for Sergeant Heavystern, him left in de dead--house at de
+hospital."
+
+"I guessed as much, you dingy tief," said the sergeant, "but I will
+break your bones, if you don't give me a sufficing reason why you left
+him."--And he approached Snowdrop, with his cane raised in act to
+strike.
+
+"Top, massa," shouted the negro; "me will tell you--Dr Plaget desire dat
+Heavystern should be leave."
+
+"Confound Dr Plaget"--and he smote the pioneer across the pate, whereby
+he broke his stick, although, as I anticipated, without much hurting his
+man--but the sergeant instantly saw his error, and with the piece of the
+baton he gave Snowdrop a tap on the shin--bone, that set him pirouetting
+on one leg, with the other in his hand, like a tee--totum.
+
+"Why,  sir, did you not bring as many as Cucumbershin, sir?" "Becaase"
+screamed  Snowdrop, in great wrath, now all alive and kicking  from  the
+smart--"Becaase Cucumbershin is loaded wid light infantry, sir, and  all
+of mine are grenadier, Massa Sergeant--dat dem good reason surely!"
+
+"No, it is not, sir; go back and fetch Heavystern immediately, or by the
+powers but I will"--"Massa Sergeant, you must be mad--Dr Plaget--you
+won't yeerie--but him say, five grenadier--especially wid Corporal
+Bumblechop for one--is good load--ay, wery tif load--equal to seven
+tallion company [battallion, I presume], and more better load, great
+deal, den six light infantry--beside him say, tell Sergeant Pivot to
+send you back at five in de afternoon wid four more coffin, by which
+time he would have anoder load, and in trute de load was ready prepare
+in de deadhouse before I come away, only dem were not well cold just
+yet."
+
+I was mightily shocked at all this--but my chum took it very coolly.--He
+slightly raised one side of his mouth, and, giving a knowing wink with
+his eye, lighted a fresh cigar, and continued to puff away with all the
+composure in the world.
+
+At length the forenoon wore away, and the bugles sounded for dinner,
+when we adjourned to the messroom.  It was a very large and handsome
+saloon, standing alone in the lawn, and quite detached from all the
+other buildings, but the curtailed dimensions of the table in the middle
+of it, and the ominous crowding together of the regimental plate, like a
+show--table in Rundle and Bridge's back shop, gave startling proofs of
+the ravages of the "pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the
+destruction that wasteth at noonday;" for although the whole regiment
+was in barracks, there were only nine covers laid, one of which was for
+me.  The lieutenant--colonel, the major, and, I believe, fifteen other
+officers, had already been gathered to their fathers, within four months
+from the day on which the regiment landed from the transports.  Their
+warfare was o'er, and they slept well.  At the first, when the insidious
+disease began to creep on apace, and to evince its deadly virulence, all
+was dismay and anxiety--downright, slavish, unmanly fear, even amongst
+casehardened veterans, who had weathered the whole Peninsular war, and
+finished off with Waterloo. The next week passed over--the mortality
+increasing, but the dismay decreasing and so it wore on, until it
+reached its horrible climax, at the time I speak of, by which period
+there was absolutely no dread at all.  A reckless gaiety had succeeded
+not the screwing up of one's courage for the nonce, to mount a breach,
+or to lay an enemy's frigate aboard, where the substratum of fear is
+present, although cased over by an energetic exertion of the will; but
+an unnatural light--heartedness, for which account, ye philosophers, for
+I cannot--and this, too, amongst men who, although as steel in the
+field, yet whenever a common cold overtook them in quarters, or a small
+twinge of rheumatic pain, would, under other circumstances, have caudled
+and beflannelled themselves, and bored you for your sympathy, at no
+allowance, as they say.
+
+The major elect, that is, the senior captain, was in the chair; as for
+the lieutenant--colonel's vacancy, that was too high an aspiration for
+any man in the regiment.  A stranger of rank, and interest, and money,
+would of course get that step, for the two deaths in the regimental
+staff made but one captain a major, as my neighbour on the left hand
+feelingly remarked.  All was fun and joviality; we had a capital dinner,
+and no allusion whatever, direct or indirect, was made to the prevailing
+mortal epidemic, until the surgeon came in, about eight o'clock in the
+evening.
+
+"Sit down, doctor," said the president--"take some wine; can recommend
+the Madeira, claret but so, so your health."
+
+The doctor bowed, and soon became as happy and merry as the rest; so we
+carried on, until about ten o'clock, when the lights began to waltz a
+little, and propagate also, and I found I had got enough, or,
+peradventure, a little more than enough, when the senior captain rose,
+and walked very composedly out of the room--but I noticed him pinch the
+doctor's shoulder as he passed.
+
+The Medico thereupon stole quietly after him; but we did not seem to
+miss either--a young sub had usurped the deserted throne, and there we
+were all once more in full career, singing and bousing, and cracking.
+bad jokes to our hearts' content.  By--and--by, in comes the doctor once
+more.
+
+"Doctor," quoth young sub, "take some wine; can't recommend the Madeira
+this time," mimicking his predecessor very successfully; "the claret,
+you know, has been condemned, but a little hot brandy and water, eh?"
+
+The doctor once more bowed his pate, made his hot stuff, and volunteered
+a song.--After he had finished, and we had all hammered on the table to
+his honour and glory, until every thing danced again as if it had been a
+matter of very trivial concern, he said, "Sorry I was away so long; but
+old Spatterdash has got a damned thick skin, I can tell you--could
+scarcely get the lancet into him--I thought I should have had to send
+for a spring phleme--to tip him the veterinary, you know--and he won't
+take physic: so I fear he will have but a poor chance."
+
+Spatterdash was no other than mine host who had just vacated!
+
+"What, do you really think he is in for it?" said the second oldest
+captain who sat next me; and as he spoke he drew his leg from beneath
+the table, and, turning out his dexter heel, seemed to contemplate the
+site of the prospective fixed spur.
+
+"I do, indeed," quoth Dr Plaget.  He died within three days!
+
+But as I do not intend to write an essay on yellow fever, I will make an
+end, and get on shipboard as fast as I can, after stating one strong
+fact, authenticated to me by many unimpeachable witnesses.  It is this;
+that this dreadful epidemic, or contagious fever--call it which you will,
+has never appeared, or been propagated at or beyond an altitude of 3000
+feet above the level of the sea, although people seized with it on the
+hot sultry plains, and removed thither, have unquestionably died.  In a
+country like Jamaica, with a range of lofty mountains, far exceeding
+this height, intersecting the island through nearly its whole length,
+might not Government, after satisfying themselves of the truth of the
+fact, improve on the hint?  Might not a main--guard suffice in Kingston,
+for instance, while the regiments were in quarters half--way up the
+Liguanea Mountains, within twelve miles actual distance from the town,
+and within view of it, so that during the day, by a semaphore on the
+mountain, and another at the barrack of the outpost, a constant and
+instantaneous communication could be kept up, and, if need were, by
+lights in the night?
+
+The admiral, for instance, had a semaphore in the stationary flagship at
+Port Royal, which communicated with another at his Pen, or residence,
+near Kingston; and this again rattled off the information to the
+mountain retreat, where he occasionally retired to careen; and it is
+fitting to state also, that in all the mountain districts of Jamaica
+which I visited, there is abundance of excellent water and plenty of
+fuel.  These matters are worth consideration, one would think; however,
+allons--it is no business of Tom Cringle's.
+
+Speaking of telegraphing, I will relate an anecdote here, if you will
+wait until I mend my pen.  I had landed at Greenwich wharf on duty--this
+was the nearest point of communication between Port Royal and the
+Admiral's Pen--where, finding the flag lieutenant, he drove me up in his
+ketureen to lunch.  While we were regaling ourselves, the old signalman
+came into the piazza, and with several most remarkable obeisances, gave
+us to know that there were flags hoisted on the signalmast, at the
+mountain settlement, of which he could make nothing, the uppermost was
+neither the interrogative, the affirmative, nor the negative, nor in
+fact any thing that with the book he could make sense of.
+
+"Odd enough," said the lieutenant; "hand me the glass," and he peered
+away for half a minute.  "Confound me if I can make heads or tails of it
+either; there, Cringle, what do you think?  How do you construe it?"
+
+I took the telescope.  Uppermost there was hoisted on the signal mast a
+large tablecloth, not altogether immaculate, and under it a towel, as I
+guessed, for it was too opaque for bunting, and too white, although I
+could not affirm that it was fresh out of the fold either.
+
+"I am puzzled," said I, as I spied away again.  Meanwhile there was no
+acknowledgment made at our semaphore--"There, down they go," I continued
+"Why, it must be a mistake, Stop, here's a new batch going up above the
+green trees--There goes the tablecloth once more, and the towel, and
+deuce take me, if I can compare the lowermost to any thing but a
+dishclout--why, it must be a dishclout."
+
+The flags, or substitutes for them, streamed another minute in the
+breeze, but as there was still no answer made from our end of the
+string, they were once more hauled down--We waited another minute--"Why,
+here goes the same signal up again, tablecloth, towel, dishclout, and
+all--What the diable have we got here?  A red ball, two pennants under.
+What can that mean?--Ball--it is the bonnet--rouge, or I am a Dutchman,
+with two short streamers" Another look--"A red night--cap and a pair of
+stockings, by all that is portentous!" exclaimed I.
+
+"Ah, I see, I see!" said the lieutenant, laughing, "signal--man,
+acknowledge it."
+
+It was done, and down came all the flags in a trice.  It appeared, on
+enquiry, that the washing cart, which ought to have been sent up that
+morning, had been forgotten; and the Admiral and his secretary having
+ridden out, there was no one who could make the proper signal for it.
+So the old housekeeper took this singular method of having the cart
+despatched, and it was sent off accordingly.
+
+For the first week after I entered on my new office, I was busily
+engaged on board; during which time my mind was quite made up, that the
+most rising man in his Majesty's service, beyond all compare, was
+Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, third of the Firebrand.  During this eventful
+period I never addressed a note to any friend on shore, or to a brother
+officer, without writing in the left--hand lower corner of the envelope,
+"Lieutenant Cringle," and clapping three dashing, &c. &c. &c below the
+party's name for whom it was intended.
+
+"Must let 'em know that an officer of my rank in the service knows
+somewhat of the courtesies of life, eh?"
+
+In about ten days, however, we had gotten the ship into high order and
+ready for sea, and now the glory and honour of command, like my only
+epaulet, that had been soaked while on duty in one or two showers, and
+afterwards regularly bronzed in the sun, began to tarnish, and lose the
+new gloss, like every thing else in this weary world.  It was about this
+time, while sitting at breakfast in the gunroom one fine morning, with
+the other officers of our mess, gossiping about I hardly remember what,
+that we heard the captain's voice on deck.
+
+"Call the first lieutenant."
+
+"He is at breakfast, sir," said the man, whoever he might have been, to
+whom the order was addressed.
+
+"Never mind then--Here, boatswain's mate--Pipe away the men who were
+captured in the boats; tell them to clean themselves, and send
+Mr-----to me"--(This was the officer who had been taken prisoner along
+with them in the first attack)--"they are wanted in Kingston at the trial
+today. Stop, tell Mr Cringle also to get ready to go in the gig."
+
+The pirates, to the amount of forty--five, had been transferred to
+Kingston jail some days previously, preparatory to their trial, which,
+as above--mentioned, was fixed for this day.
+
+We pulled cheerily up to Kingston, and, landing at the Wherry wharf,
+marched along the hot dusty streets, under a broiling sun, Captain
+Transom, the other Lieutenant, and myself, in full puff, leading the
+van, followed by about fourteen seamen, in white straw hats, with broad
+black ribbons, and clean white frocks and trowsers, headed by a
+boatswain's mate, with his silver whistle hung round his neck--as
+respectable a tail as any Christian could desire to swinge behind him;
+and, man for man, I would willingly have perilled my promotion upon
+their walloping, with no offensive weapons but their stretchers, the
+Following, claymores and all, of any proud, disagreeable, would--be
+mighty mountaineer, that ever turned up his supercilious, whisky
+blossomed snout at Bailie Jarvie.  On they came, square--shouldered,
+narrow--flanked, tall, strapping fellows, tumbling and rolling about the
+piazzas in knots of three and four, until, at the corner of King Street,
+they came bolt up upon a well--known large, fat, brown lady, famous for
+her manufacture of spruce beer.
+
+"Avast, avast a bit"--sung out one of the topmen--"let the nobs heave a
+head, will ye, and let's have a pull."
+
+"Here, old mother Slush," sung out another of the cutter's crew. "Hand
+us up a dozen bottles of spruce, do you hear?"
+
+"Dozen battle of pruce!" groaned the old woman--"who shall pay me?"
+
+"Why, do you think the Firebrands are thieves, you old canary, you?"
+
+"How much, eh?" said the boatswain's mate.
+
+"Twelve feepennies," quoth the matron.
+
+"Oh, ah!" said one of the men--"Twelve times five is half a crown;
+there's a dollar for you, old mother Popandchokem--now give me back five
+shillings."
+
+"Eigh, oh!" whined out the spruce merchant; "you dem rascal, who tell
+you dat your dollar more wort den any one else money eh? How can give
+you back five shilling and keep back twelve feepenny--eh?" The culprit,
+who had stood the Cocker of the company, had by this time gained his
+end, which was to draw the fat damsel a step or two from the large tub
+half--full of water, where the bottles were packed, and to engage her
+attention by stirring up her bile, or corruption, as they call it in
+Scotland, while his messmates instantly seized the opportunity, and a
+bottle a--piece also, and, as I turned round to look for them, there
+they all were in a circle taking the meridian altitude of the sun, or as
+if they had been taking aim at the pigeons on the eaves of the houses
+above them with Indian mouth tubes.
+
+They then replaced the bottles in the tub, paid the woman more than she
+asked; but, by way of taking out the change, they chucked her stern
+foremost into the water amongst her merchandise, and then shouldered the
+vessel, old woman and all, and away they staggered with her, the empty
+bottles clattering together in the water, and the old lady swearing and
+bouncing and squattering amongst them, while jack shouted to her to hold
+her tongue, or they would let her go by the run bodily.  Thus they
+stumped in the wake of their captain, until he arrived at the door of
+the Courthouse, to the great entertainment of the bystanders, cutting
+the strings that confined the corks of the stone bottles as they bowled
+along, popping the spruce into each other's faces, and the faces of the
+negroes, as they ran out of the stores to look at jack in his frolic,
+and now and then taking a shot at the old woman's cockemony itself, as
+she was held kicking and spurring high above their heads.
+
+At length the captain, who was no great way ahead, saw what was going
+on, which was the signal for doucinog the whole affair, spruce--woman,
+tub, and bottles; and the party gathering themselves up, mustered close
+aboard of us, as grave as members of the General Assembly.
+
+The regular courthouse of the city being under repair, the Admiralty
+Sessions were held in a large room occupied temporarily for the purpose.
+At one end, raised two steps above the level of the floor, was the
+bench, on which were seated the Judge of the Admiralty Court, supported
+by two post captains in full uniform, who are ex--officio judges of this
+court in the colonies, one on each side.  On the right, the jury,
+composed of merchants of the place, and respectable planters of the
+neighbourhood, were enclosed in a sort of box, with a common white pine
+railing separating it from the rest of the court.  There was a long
+table in front of the bench, at which a lot of blackrobed devil's limbs
+of lawyers, were ranged--but both amongst them, and on the bench, the
+want of the cauliflower wigs was sorely felt by me, as well as by the
+seamen, who considered it little less than murder, that men in crops--
+black shock--pated fellows--should sit in judgment on their fellow
+creatures, where life and death were in the scales.
+
+On the left hand of the bench, the motley public, white, black, and of
+every intermediate shade--were grouped; as also in front of the dock,
+which was large.  It might have been made with a view to the possibility
+of fifteen unfortunates or so being arraigned at one time; but now there
+were no fewer than forty--three jammed and pegged together into it, like
+sheep in a Smithfield pen the evening before market--day.  These were
+the forty thieves--the pirates.  They were all, without exception,
+clean, well shaven, and decently rigged in white trowsers, linen or
+check shirts, and held their broad Panama sombreros in their hands.
+
+Most of them wore the red silk sash round the waist.  They had generally
+large bushy whiskers, and not a few had earrings of massive gold, (why
+call wearing earrings puppyism?  Shakspeare wore earrings, or the
+Chandos portrait lies,) and chains of the same metal round their necks,
+supporting, as I concluded, a crucifix, hid in the bosom of the shirt.
+A Spaniard can't murder a man comfortably, if he has not his crucifix
+about him.
+
+They were, collectively, the most daring, intrepid, Salvator Rosa
+looking men I had ever seen.  Most of them were above the middle size,
+and the spread of their shoulders, the grace with which their arms were
+hung, and finely developed muscles of the chest and neck, the latter
+exposed completely by the folding back of their shirt collars, cut large
+and square, after the Spanish fashion, beat the finest boat's--crew we
+could muster all to nothing.  Some of them were of mixed blood, that is,
+the cross between the European Spaniard and the aboriginal Indian of
+Cuba, a race long since sacrificed on tile altar of Mammon, the white
+man's god.
+
+Their hair, generally speaking, was long, and curled over the forehead
+black and glossy, or hung down to their shoulders in ringlets, that a
+dandy of the second Charles's time would have given his little finger
+for.  The forehead in most was high and broad, and of a clear olive, the
+nose straight, springing boldly from the brow, the cheeks oval, and the
+mouth--every Spaniard has a beautiful mouth, until he spoils it with the
+beastly cigar, as far as his well--formed firm lips can be spoiled; but
+his teeth he generally does destroy early in life.  Take the whole,
+however, and deduct for the teeth, I had never seen so handsome a set of
+men; and I am sure no woman, had she been there, would have gainsayed
+me.  They stood up, and looked forth upon their judges and the jury like
+brave men, desperadoes though they were.  They were, without exception,
+calm and collected, as if aware that they had small chance of escape,
+but still determined not to give that chance away.  One young man
+especially attracted my attention, from the bold, cool self--possession
+of his bearing.  He was in the very front of the dock, and dressed in no
+way different from the rest, so far as his under garments were
+concerned, unless it were that they were of a finer quality.  He wore a
+short green velvet jacket, profusely studded with knobs and chains, like
+small chain--shot, of solid gold, similar to the shifting button lately
+introduced by our dandies in their waistcoats.  It was not put on, but
+hung on one shoulder, being fastened across his breast by the two empty
+sleeves tied together in a knot.  He also wore the red silk sash,
+through which a broad gold cord ran twining like the strand of a rope.
+He had no earrings, but his hair was the most beautiful I had ever seen
+in a male--long and black, jet black and glossy.  It was turned up and
+fastened in a club on the crown of his head with a large pin, I should
+rather say skewer, of silver; but the outlandishness of the fashion was
+not offensive, when I came to take into the account the beauty of the
+plaiting, and of the long raven lovelocks that hung down behind each of
+his small transparent ears, and the short Hyperion--like curls that
+clustered thick and richly on his high, pale, broad forehead.  His eyes
+were large, black, and swimming, like a woman's; his nose straight and
+thin; and such a mouth, such an under--lip, full and melting; and teeth
+regular and white, and utterly free from the pollution of tobacco; and a
+beautifully moulded small chin, rounding off, and merging in his round,
+massive, muscular neck.
+
+I had never seen so fine a face, such perfection of features, and such a
+clear, dark, smooth skin.  It was a finer face than Lord Byron's, whom I
+had seen more than once, and wanted that hellish curl of the lip; and,
+as to figure, he could, to look at him, at any time have eaten up his
+lordship stoop and roop to his breakfast.  It was the countenance, in a
+word, of a most beautiful youth, melancholy, indeed, and anxious
+evidently anxious; for the large pearls that coursed each other down his
+forehead and cheek, and the slight quivering of the under--lip, every
+now and then evinced the powerful struggle that was going on within.
+His figure was, if possible, superior to his face.  It was not quite
+filled up, set, as we call it, but the arch of his chest was
+magnificent, his shoulders square, arms well put on; but his neck--"Have
+you seen the Apollo, neighbour?"--"No, but the cast of it at Somerset
+House."--"Well, that will do--so you know the sort of neck he had."
+His waist was fine, hips beautifully moulded; and although his under
+limbs were shrouded in his wide trowsers, they were evidently of a piece
+with what was seen and developed; and this was vouched for by the turn
+of his ankle and well--shaped foot on which he wore a small Spanish
+grass slipper, fitted with great nicety.  He was at least six feet two
+in height, and such as I have described him; there he stood, with his
+hands grasping the rail before him and looking intently at a wigless
+lawyer who was opening the accusation, while he had one ear turned a
+little towards the sworn interpreter of the court, whose province it
+was, at every pause, to explain to the prisoners what the learned
+gentleman was stating.  From time to time he said a word or two to a
+square--built, dark, ferocious--looking man standing next him,
+apparently about forty years of age, who, as well as his fellow
+prisoners, appeared to pay him great respect; and I could notice the
+expression of their countenances change as his rose or fell.
+
+The indictment had been read before I came in, and, as already
+mentioned, the lawyer was proceeding with his accusatory speech, and, as
+it appeared to me, the young Spaniard had some difficulty in
+understanding the interpreter's explanation.  Whenever he saw me, he
+exclaimed, "Ah! aqui viene, el Senor Teniente--ahora sabremos ahora,
+ahora;" and he beckoned to me to draw near. I did so.
+
+"I beg pardon, Mr Cringle," he said in Spanish, with the ease and grace
+of a nobleman "but I believe the interpreter to be incapable, and I am
+certain that what I say is not fittingly explained to the judges;
+neither do I believe he can give me a sound notion of what the advocate
+(avocado) is alleging against us.  May I entreat you to solicit the
+bench for permission to take his place?  I know you will expect no
+apology for the trouble from a man in my situation."
+
+This unexpected address in open court took me fairly aback, and I
+stopped short while in the act of passing the open space in front of the
+dock, which was kept clear by six marines in white jackets, whose
+muskets, fixed bayonets, and uniform caps, seemed out of place to my
+mind in a criminal court.  The lawyer suddenly suspended his harangue,
+while the judges fixed their eyes on me, and so did the audience,
+confound them!  To be the focus of so many eyes was trying to my
+modesty; for, although unacquainted with bettermost society, still,
+below any little manner that I had acquired, there was, and always will
+be, an under stratum of bashfulness, or sheepishness, or mauvaise honte,
+call it which you will; and the torture, the breaking on the wheel, with
+which a man of that temperament perceives the eyes of a whole courthouse,
+for instance, attracted to him, none but a bashful man can
+understand.  At length I summoned courage to speak.
+
+"May it please your honours, this poor fellow, on his own behalf, and on
+the part of his fellow--prisoners, complains of the incapacity of the
+sworn interpreter, and requests that I may be made the channel of
+communication in his stead."
+
+This was a tremendous effort, and once more the whole blood of my body
+rushed to my cheeks and forehead, and I "sweat extremely." The judges,
+he of the black robe and those of the epaulet, communed together.
+
+"Have you any objection to be sworn, Mr Cringle?"
+
+"None in the least, provided the court considers me competent, and the
+accused are willing to trust to me."
+
+"Si, si!" exclaimed the young Spaniard, as if comprehending what was
+going on--"Somos contentos--todos, todos!" and he looked round, like a
+prince, on his fellow--culprits.  A low murmuring, "Si, si--contento,
+contento!" passed amongst the group.
+
+"The accused, please your honours, are willing to trust to my
+correctness."
+
+"Pray, Mr Cringle, don't make yourself the advocate of these men, mind
+that," said the--, lawyer sans wig.
+
+"I don't intend it, sir," I said, slightly stung; "but if you had
+suffered what I have done at their hands, peradventure such a caution to
+you would have been unnecessary."
+
+The  sarcasm  told, I was glad to see; but remembering where  I  was,  I
+hauled but of action with the man of words, simply giving the last shot
+"I am sure no English gentleman would willingly throw any difficulty in
+the  way  of  the  poor fellows being made aware of  what  is  given  in
+evidence against them, bad as they may be."
+
+He was about rejoining, for a lawyer would as soon let you have the last
+word as a sweep or a baker the wall, when the officer of court
+approached and swore me in, and the trial proceeded.
+
+The whole party were proved by fifty witnesses to have been taken in
+arms on board of the schooners in the Cove; and farther, it was proved
+that no commission or authority to cruise whatsoever was found on board
+any of them, a strong proof that they were pirates.
+
+"Que dice, que dice?" enquired the young Spaniard already mentioned.
+
+I said that the court seemed to infer, and were pressing it on the jury,
+that the absence of any commission or letter of marque from a superior
+officer, or from any of the Spanish authorities, was strong evidence
+that they were marauders--in fact pirates.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed; "gracias, gracias!" Then, with an agitated hand, he
+drew from his bosom a parchment, folded like the manifest of a merchant
+ship, and at the same moment the gruff fierce--looking elderly man did
+the same, with another similar instrument from his own breast.
+
+"Here, here are the commissions--here are authorities from the Captain
+General of Cuba.  Read them."
+
+I looked over them; they were regular to all appearance; at least as
+there were no autographs in court of the Spanish Viceroy, or any of his
+officers, whose signatures, either real or forged, were affixed to the
+instruments, with which to compare them, there was a great chance, I
+conjectured, so far as I saw, that they would be acquitted: and in this
+case we, his majesty's officers, would have been converted into the
+transgressing party; for if it were established that the vessels taken
+were bona fide Guarda Costas, we should be placed in an awkward
+predicament, in having captured them by force of arms, not to take into
+account the having violated the sanctity of a friendly port.
+
+But I could see that this unexpected production of regular papers by
+their officers had surprised the pirates themselves, as much as it had
+done me,--whether it was a heinous offence of mine or not to conceal
+this impression from the court, (there is some dispute about the matter
+to this hour between me and my conscience,) I cannot tell; but I was
+determined to stick scrupulously to the temporary duties of my office,
+without stating what I suspected, or even translating some sudden
+expressions overheard by me, that would have shaken the credibility of
+the documents.
+
+"Comissiones, comissiones!" for instance, was murmured by a weather
+beaten Spaniard, with a fine bald head, from which two small tufts of
+grey hair stood out above his ears, and with a superb Moorish face
+"Comissiones es decir patentes--Si hay comissiones, el Diablo, mismo,
+les ha hecho!"
+
+The court was apparently nonplussed--not so the wigless man of law.  His
+pea green visage assumed a more ghastly hue, and the expression of his
+eyes became absolutely blasting.  He looked altogether like a cat sure
+of her mouse, but willing to let it play in fancied joy of escaping, as
+he said softly to the Jew crier, who was perched in a high chair above
+the heads of the people, like an ugly corbie in its dirty nest--"Crier,
+call Job Rumbletithump, mate of the Porpoise."
+
+"Job Rumbletithump, come into court!"
+
+"Here," quoth Job, as a stout, bluff honest--looking sailor rolled into
+the witnessbox.
+
+"Now, clerk of the crown, please to swear in the mate of the Porpoise."
+It was done.  "Now, my man, you were taken going through the Caicos
+Passage in the Porpoise by pirates, in August last--were you not?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Turn your face to the jury, and speak up, sir.  Do you see any of the
+honest men who made free with you in that dock, sir?  Look at them,
+sir."
+
+"The mate walked up to the dock, stopped, and fixed his eyes intently on
+the young Spaniard. I stared breathlessly at him also.  He grows pale as
+death--his lip quivers--the large drops of sweat once more burst from
+his brow. I grew sick, sick.
+
+"Yes, your honour," said the mate.
+
+"Yes--ah!" said the devil's limb, chuckling--"we are getting on the
+trail at last.  Can you swear to more than one?"
+
+"Yes, your honour."
+
+"Yes!" again responded the sans wig.  "How many?"
+
+The man counted them off.  "Fifteen, sir.  That young fellow there is
+the man who cut Captain Spurtel's throat, after violating his wife
+before his eyes."
+
+"God forgive me, is it possible?" gasped Thomas Cringle.
+
+"There's a monster in human form for you, gentlemen," continued devil's
+limb.  "Go on, Mr Rumbletithump."
+
+"That other man next him hung me up by the heels, and seared me on the
+bare"--Here honest job had just time to divert the current of his speech
+into a loud "whew."
+
+"Seared you on the whew!" quoth the facetious lawyer, determined to have
+his jest, even in the face of forty--three of his fellow creatures
+trembling on the brink of eternity.  "Explain, sir, tell the court where
+you were seared, and how you were seared, and all about your being
+seared."
+
+Job twisted and lolloped about, as if he was looking out for some
+opening to bolt through; but all egress was shut up.
+
+"Why, please your honour," the eloquent blood mantling in his honest
+sunburnt cheeks; while from my heart I pitied the poor fellow, for he
+was absolutely broiling in his bashfulness--"He seared me onon--why,
+please your honour, he seared me on--with a redhot iron!"
+
+"Why, I guessed as much, if he seared you at all; but where did he sear
+you?  Come now," coaxingly, "tell the court where and how he applied the
+actual cautery."
+
+Job being thus driven to his wit's end, turned and stood at bay.  "Now I
+will tell you, your honour, if you will but sit down for a moment, and
+answer me one question."
+
+"To be sure; why, Job, you brighten on us.  There, I am down now for
+your question."
+
+"Now, sir," quoth Rumbletithump, imitating his tormentor's manner much
+more cleverly than I expected, "what part of your honour's body touches
+your chair?"
+
+"How, sir!" said the man of words--"how dare you, sir, take such a
+liberty, sir?" while a murmuring laugh hummed through the court.
+
+"Now, sir, since you won't answer me, sir," said Job, elevated by his
+victory, while his hoarse voice roughened into a loud growl, "I will
+answer myself.  I was seared, sir, where"--
+
+"Silence!" quoth the crier at this instant drowning the mate's voice, so
+that I could not catch the words he used.
+
+"And there you have it, sir.  Put me in jail, if you like, sir."
+
+The murmur was bursting out into a guffaw, when the judge interfered.
+But there was no longer any attempt at ill--timed jesting on the part of
+the bar, which was but bad taste at the best on so solemn an occasion.
+
+Job continued, "I was burnt into the very muscle until I told where the
+gold was stowed away."
+
+"Aha!" screamed the lawyer, forgetting his recent discomfiture in the
+gladness of his success.  "And all the rest were abetting, eh?"
+
+"The rest of the fifteen were, sir."
+
+But the prosecutor, a glutton in his way, had thought he had bagged the
+whole forty--three.  And so he ultimately did before the evening closed
+in, as most of the others were identified by other witnesses; and when
+they could not actually be sworn to, the piracies were brought home to
+them by circumstantial evidence; such, for instance, as having been
+captured on board of the craft we had taken, which again were identified
+as the very vessels which had plundered the merchantmen and murdered
+several of their crews, so that by six o'clock the jury had returned a
+verdict of Guilty--and I believe there never was a juster--against the
+whole of them.  The finding, and sentence of death following thereupon,
+seemed not to create any strong effect upon the prisoners.  They had all
+seen how the trial was going; and, long before this, the bitterness of
+death seemed to be past.
+
+I could hear one of our boat's crew, who was standing behind me, say to
+his neighbour, "Why, Jem, surely he is in joke.  Why, he don't mean to
+condemn them to be hanged seriously, without his wig, eh?"
+
+Immediately after the judgment was pronounced, which, both as to import,
+and literally, I had translated to them, Captain Transom, who was
+sitting on the bench beside his brother officers, nodded to me, "I say,
+Mr Cringle, tell the coxswain to call Pearl, if you please."
+
+I passed the word to one of the Firebrand's marines, who was on duty,
+who again repeated the order to a seaman who was standing at the door.
+
+"I say, Moses, call the clergyman."
+
+Now this Pearl was no other than the seaman who pulled the stroke--oar
+in the gig; a very handsome negro, and the man who afterwards forked
+Whiffle out of the water--tall, powerful, and muscular, and altogether
+one of the best men in the ship.  The rest of the boat's crew, from his
+complexion, had fastened the sobriquet of the clergyman on him.
+
+"Call the clergyman."
+
+The superseded interpreter, who was standing near, seemingly  took no
+notice, immediately traduced this literally to the unhappy men.  A
+murmur arose amongst them.
+
+"Que--el padre ya!  Somos en Capilla entonces--poco tiempo, poco
+tiempo!"
+
+They had thought that the clergyman having been sent for, the sentence
+was immediately to be executed, but I undeceived them; and, in ten
+minutes after they were condemned, they were marched off under a strong
+escort of foot to the jail.
+
+I must make a long story short.  Two days afterwards, I was ordered with
+the launch to Kingston, early in the morning, to receive twenty--five of
+the pirates who had been ordered for execution that morning at Gallows
+Point.  It was little past four in the morning when we arrived at the
+Wherry wharf, where they were already clustered, with their hands
+pinioned behind their backs, silent and sad, but all of them calm, and
+evincing no unmanly fear of death.
+
+I don't know if other people have noticed it, but this was one of
+several instances where I have seen foreigners--Frenchmen, Italians, and
+Spaniards, for instance--meet death, inevitable death, with greater
+firmness than British soldiers or sailors.  Let me explain.  In the
+field, or grappling in mortal combat, on the blood--slippery quarterdeck
+of an enemy's vessel, British soldier or sailor is the bravest of the
+brave.  No soldier or sailor of any other country, saving and excepting
+those damned Yankees, can stand against them--they would be utterly
+overpowered--their hearts would fail them--they would either be cut down
+thrust through, or they would turn and flee.  Yet those same men who
+have turned and fled, will meet death, but it must be as I said,
+inevitable, unavoidable death, not only more firmly than their
+conquerors would do in their circumstances, but with an intrepidity oh,
+do not call it indifference!--altogether astonishing.  Be it their
+religion, or their physical conformation, or what it may, all I have to
+do with, is the fact, which I record as undeniable.  Out of five--and
+twenty individuals, in the present instance, not a sigh was heard, nor a
+moan, nor a querulous word.  They stepped lightly into the boats, and
+seated themselves in silence.  When told by the seamen to make room, or
+to shift so as not to be in the way of the oars, they did so with
+alacrity, and almost with an air of civility, although they knew that
+within half an hour their earthly career must close for ever.
+
+The young Spaniard who had stood forward so conspicuously on the trial,
+was in my boat; in stepping in he accidentally trod on my foot in
+passing forward; he turned and apologized, with much natural politeness
+"he hoped he had not hurt me?"
+
+I answered kindly, I presume--who could have done so harshly?  This
+emboldened him apparently, for he stopped, and asked leave to sit by me.
+I consented, while an incomprehensible feeling crept over me; and when
+once I had time to recollect myself, I shrunk from him, as a blood
+stained brute, with whom even in his extremity it was unfitting for me
+to hold any intercourse.  When he noticed my repugnance to remain near
+him, he addressed me hastily, as if afraid that I would destroy the
+opportunity he seemed to desire.
+
+"God did not always leave me the slave of my passions," he said, in a
+low, deep, most musical voice.  "The day has been when I would have
+shrunk as you do--but time presses.  You have a mother?" said he--I
+assented--"and an only sister?" As it happened, he was right here too.
+"And--and"--here he hesitated, and his voice shook and trembled with the
+most intense and heart--crushing emotion--"y una mas cara que ambos?"
+Mary, you can tell whether in this he did not also speak truth.  I
+acknowledged there was another being more dear to me than either.
+"Then," said he, "take this chain from my neck, and the crucifix, and a
+small miniature from my bosom; but not yet--not till I leave the boat.
+You will find an address affixed to the string of the latter.  Your
+course of service may lead you to St Jago if not, a brother officer may."
+His voice became inaudible; his hot scalding tears dropped fast on my
+hand, and the ravisher, the murderer, the pirate, wept as an innocent
+and helpless infant.  "You will deliver it.  Promise a dying man--
+promise a great sinner." But it was momentary--he quelled the passion
+with a fierce and savage energy, as he said sternly, "Promise! promise!"
+I did so, and I fulfilled it.
+
+The day broke. I took the jewels and miniature from his neck, as he led
+the way with the firm step of a hero, in ascending the long gibbet.  The
+halters were adjusted, when he stepped towards the side I was on, as far
+as the rope would let him, "Dexa me verla--dexa me verla, una vez mas!"
+I held up the miniature.  He looked--he glared intensely at it.  "Adios,
+Maria, seas feliz mi querida, feliz--feliz Maria--adios--adios--Maria
+Mar".
+
+The rope severed thy name from his lips, sweet girl; but not until it
+also severed his soul from his body, and sent him to his tremendous
+account--young in years, but old in wickedness--to answer at that
+tribunal, where we must all appear, to the God who made him, and whose
+gifts he had so fearfully abused, for thy broken heart and early death,
+amongst the other scarlet atrocities of his short but ill spent life.
+
+The signal had been given--the lumbering flap of the long drop was
+heard, and five--and--twenty human beings were wavering in the sea
+breeze in the agonies of death!  The other eighteen suffered on the same
+spot the week following; and for long after, this fearful and bloody
+example struck terror into the Cuba fishermen.
+
+"Strange now, that the majority--ahem--of my beauties and favourites
+through life have been called Mary.  There is my own Mary--un peu passee
+certainly--but deil mean her, for half a dozen lit"--"Now, Tom Cringle,
+don't bother with your sentimentality, but get along, do."--"Well, I
+will get along--but have patience, you Hottentot Venus--you Lord Nugent,
+you.  So once more we make sail."
+
+
+Next morning, soon after gunfire, I landed at the Wherry wharf in Port
+Royal.  It was barely daylight, but, to my surprise, I found my friend
+Peregrine Whiffle seated on a Spanish chair, close to the edge of the
+wharf, smoking a cigar.  This piece of furniture is an arm--chair
+strongly framed with hard--wood, over which, back and bottom, a tanned
+hide is stretched, which, in a hot climate, forms a most luxurious seat,
+the back tumbling out at an angle of 45 degrees, while the skin yields
+to every movement, and does not harbour a nest of biting ants, or a
+litter of scorpions, or any other of the customary occupants of a
+cushion that has been in Jamaica for a year.
+
+He did not know me as I passed; but his small glimmering red face
+instantly identified the worthy little old man to me.
+
+"Good morning, Mr Whiffle--the top of the morning to you, sir."
+
+"Hillo," responded Peregrine--"Tom, is it you?--how d'ye do, man--how
+d'ye do?" and he started to his feet, and almost embraced me.
+
+Now, I had never met the said Peregrine Whiffle but twice in my life;
+once at Mr Fyall's, and once during the few days I remained in Kingston,
+before I set out on my travels; but he was a warm hearted kindly old
+fellow, and, from knowing all my friends there very intimately, he, as a
+matter of course, became equally familiar with me.
+
+"Why the diable came you not to see me, man?  Have been here for change
+of air, to recruit, you know, after that demon, the gout, had been so
+perplexing me, ever since you came to anchor--the Firebrand, I mean--as
+for you, you have been mad one while, and philandering with those
+inconvenient white ladies the other.  You'll cure of that, my boy
+you'll come to the original comforts of the country soon, no fear!"
+
+"Perhaps I may, perhaps not."
+
+"Oh, your cousin Mary, I forgot--fine girl, Tom--may do for you at home
+yonder," (all Creoles speak of England as home, although they may never
+have seen it,) "but she can't make pepper--pot, nor give a dish of land
+crabs as land crabs should be given, nor see to the serving up of a
+ringtail pigeon, nor rub a beefsteak to the rotting turn with a bruised
+papaw, nor compose a medicated bath, nor, nor--oh, confound it, Tom, she
+will be, when you marry her, a cold, comfortless, motionless Creole
+icicle!"
+
+I let him have his swing.  "Never mind her then, never mind her, my dear
+sir; but time presses and I must be off, I must indeed, so good morning;
+I wish you a good morning, sir."
+
+He started to his feet, and caught hold of me.  "Sha'n't go, Tom,
+impossible--come along with me to my lodgings, and breakfast with me.
+Here, Pilfer, Pilfer," to his black valet, "give me my stick, and massu
+the chair, and run home and order breakfast--cold calipiver--our Jamaica
+salmon, you know, Tom--tea and coffee pickled mackerel, eggs, and cold
+tongue--any thing that Mother Dingychops can give us; so bolt, Pilfer,
+bolt!"
+
+I told him that before I came ashore I had heard the gig's--crew piped
+away, and that I therefore expected, as Jonathan says, that the captain
+would be after me immediately; so that I wished at all events to get
+away from where we were, as I had no desire to be caught gossiping about
+when my superior might be expected to pass.
+
+"True, boy, true"--as he shackled himself to me, and we began to crawl
+along towards the wharf--gate leading into the town.  Captain Transom by
+this time had landed, and came up with us.
+
+"Ah, Transom," said Whiffle, "glad to see you. I say, why won't you
+allow Mr Cringle here to go over to Spanish Town with me for a couple of
+days, eh?"
+
+"Why, I don't remember that Mr Cringle has ever asked leave."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I neither did ask leave, nor have I thought of doing so,"
+said I.
+
+"But I do for you," chimed in my friend Whiffle.  "Come, captain, give
+him leave, just for two days, that's a prime chap.  Why, Tom, you see
+you have got it, so off with you and come to me with your kit as soon as
+possible; I will hobble on and make the coffee and chocolate; and,
+Captain Transom, come along and breakfast with me too.  No refusal, I
+require society.  Nearly drowned yesterday, do you know that?  Off this
+same cursed wharf too--just here. I was looking down at the small fish
+playing about the piles, precisely in this position; one of them was as
+bright in the scales as a gold fish in my old grandmother's glass globe,
+and I had to crane over the ledge in this fashion," suiting the action
+to the word, "when away I went"--
+
+And,  to  our  unutterable  surprise,  splash  went  Peregrine  Whiffle,
+Esquire,  for the second time, and there--he was shouting, and  puffing,
+and  splashing  in the water.  We were both so convulsed  with  laughter
+that  I  believe he would have been drowned for us; but the boat--keeper
+of  the gig, the strong athletic negro before mentioned, promptly jumped
+on  the wharf with his boat--hook, and caught the dapper little old beau
+by  the  waistband  of his breeches, swaying him up, frightened  enough,
+with his little coat skirts fluttering in the breeze, and no wonder, but
+not much the worse for it all.
+
+"Diable porte I'amour," whispered Captain Transom.
+
+"Swallowed  a  Scotch  pint of salt water to a  certainty--run,  Pilfer,
+bring  me  some brandy--gout will be into my stomach, sure as fate--feel
+him  now--run, Pilfer, run, or gout will beat you--a dead heat that will
+be!" And he keckled at his small joke very complacently.
+
+We  had him carried by our people to his lodgings, where, after shifting
+and  brandying  to some tune, he took his place at the breakfast  table,
+and did the honours with his usual amenity and warm heartedness.
+
+After  breakfast  Peregrine remembered, what the  sly  rogue  had  never
+forgotten  I  suspect, that he was engaged to dine with  his  friend  Mr
+Pepperpot Wagtail, in Kingston.
+
+"But it don't signify, Wagtail will be delighted to see you, Tom
+hospitable fellow Wagtail--and, now I recollect myself, Fyall and Aaron
+Bang are to be there; dang it, were it not for the gout, we should have
+a night on't!"
+
+After breakfast we started in a canoe for Kingston, touching at the
+Firebrand for my kit.
+
+Moses Yerk, the unpoetical first lieutenant, was standing well forward
+on the quarterdeck as I passed over the side to get into the canoe, with
+the gunroom steward following me, carrying my kit under his arm.
+
+"I say, Tom, good for you, one lark after another."
+
+"Don't like that fellow," quoth Whiffle; "he is quarrelsome in his drink
+for a thousand, I know it by the cut of his jib."
+
+He had better have held his tongue, honest man; for as he looked up
+broad in Yerk's face, who was leaning over the hammocks, the scupper
+immediately over head, through whose instrumentality I never knew, was
+suddenly cleared, and a rush of dirty water, that had been lodged there
+since the decks had been washed down at daydawn, splashed slapdash over
+his head and shoulders and into his mouth, so as to set the dear little
+man a--coughing so violently that I thought he would have been
+throttled.  Before he had recovered sufficiently to find his tongue, we
+had pulled fifty yards from the ship, and a little farther on we
+overtook the captain, who had preceded us in the cutter, into which we
+transhipped ourselves.  But Whiffle never could acquit Yerk of having
+been, directly or indirectly, the cause of his suffering from the impure
+shower.
+
+This day was the first of the Negro Carnival or Christmas Holydays, and
+at the distance of two miles from Kingston the sound of the negro drums
+and horns, the barbarous music and yelling of the different African
+tribes, and the more mellow singing of the Set Girls, came off upon the
+breeze loud and strong.
+
+When we got nearer, the wharfs and different streets, as we successively
+opened them, were crowded with blackamoors, men, women, and children,
+dancing and singing and shouting, and all rigged out in their best.
+When we landed on the agents wharf we were immediately surrounded by a
+group of these merry--makers, which happened to be the Butchers John
+Canoe party, and a curious exhibition it unquestionably was.  The
+prominent character was, as usual, the John Canoe or Jack Pudding.  He
+was a light, active, clean made young Creole negro, without shoes or
+stockings; he wore a pair of light jean small--clothes, all too wide,
+but confined at the knees, below and above, by bands of red tape, after
+the manner that Malvolio would have called cross--gartering.  He wore a
+splendid blue velvet waistcoat, with old--fashioned flaps coming down
+over his hips, and covered with tarnished embroidery.  His shirt was
+absent on leave, I suppose, but at the wrists of his coat he had tin or
+white iron frills, with loose pieces attached, which tinkled as he
+moved, and set off the dingy paws that were stuck through these strange
+manacles, like black wax tapers in silver candlesticks.  His coat was an
+old blue artillery uniform one, with a small bell hung to the extreme
+points of the swallow--tailed skirts, and three tarnished epaulets; one
+on each shoulder, and. O ye immortal gods! O Mars omnipotent! the
+biggest of the three stuck at his rump, the point d'appuit for a sheep's
+tail.  He had an enormous cocked hat on, to which was appended in front
+a white false--face or mask, of a most methodistical expression, while,
+Janus like, there was another face behind, of the most quizzical
+description, a sort of living Antithesis, both being garnished and
+overtopped with one coarse wig, made of the hair of bullocks tails, on
+which the chapeau was strapped down with a broad band of gold lace.
+He skipped up to us with a white wand in one hand and a dirty
+handkerchief in the other, and with sundry moppings and mowings, first
+wiping my shoes with his mouchoir, then my face, (murder, what a flavour
+of salt fish and onions it had!) he made a smart enough pirouette, and
+then sprung on the back of a nondescript animal, that now advanced
+capering and jumping about after the most grotesque fashion that can be
+imagined.  This was the signal for the music to begin.  The performers
+were two gigantic men, dressed in calf--skins entire, head, four legs,
+and tail.  The skin of the head was made to fit like a hood, the two
+fore--feet hung dangling down in front, one over each shoulder, while
+the other two legs, or hind--feet, and the tail, trailed behind on the
+ground; deuce another article they had on in the shape of clothing
+except a handkerchief, of some flaming pattern, tied round the waist.
+There were also two flute--players in sheepskins, looking still more
+outlandish from the horns on the animals heads being preserved; and
+three stout fellows, who were dressed in the common white frock and
+trowsers, who kept sounding on bullocks horns.  These formed the band
+as it were, and might be considered John's immediate tail or following;
+but he was also accompanied by about fifty of the butcher negroes, all
+neatly dressed--blue jackets, white shirts, and Osnaburgh trowsers, with
+their steels and knife--cases by their sides, as bright as Turkish
+yataghans, and they all wore clean blue and white striped aprons. I
+could see and tell what they were; but the Thing John Canoe had perched
+himself upon I could make nothing of.  At length I began to comprehend
+the device.
+
+The Magnus Apollo of the party, the poet and chief musician, the
+nondescript already mentioned, was no less than the boatswain of the
+butcher--gang, answering to the driver in an agricultural one.  He was
+clothed in an entire bullock's hide horns, tail, and the other
+particulars, the whole of the skull being retained, and the effect of
+the voice growling through the jaws of the beast was most startling.
+His legs were enveloped in the skin of the hind--legs, while the arms
+were cased in that of the fore, the hands protruding a little above the
+hoofs, and, as he walked reared up on his hind--legs, he used, in order
+to support the load of the John Canoe who had perched on his shoulders,
+like a monkey on a dancing bear, a strong stick, or sprit, with a crutch
+top to it, which he leant his breast on every now and then.
+After the creature, which I will call the Device for shortness, had
+capered with its extra load, as if it had been a feather, for a minute
+or two, it came to a stand--still, and, sticking the end of the sprit
+into the ground, and tucking the crutch of it under its chin, it
+motioned to one of the attendants, who thereupon handed, of all things
+in the world, a fiddle to the ox.  He then shook off the John Canoe, who
+began to caper about as before, while the Device set up a deuced good
+pipe, and sung and played, barbarously enough, I will admit, to the tune
+of Guinea Corn, the following ditty:
+
+"Massa Buccra lobfor see,
+Bullock caper like monkee,
+Dance, and shump, and poke him toe,
+Like one humane person--just so."
+
+And  hereupon the tail of the beast, some fifty strong, music men,  John
+Canoe and all, began to rampauge about, as if they had been possessed by
+a devil whose name was Legion:
+
+"But Massa Buccra have white love,
+soft and silken like one dove.
+To brown girl--him barely shivel,
+to black girl--oh, Lord, de Devil!"
+
+Then  a  tremendous  gallopading, in the  which  Tailtackle  was  nearly
+capsized over the wharf.  He looked quietly over the edge of it.
+
+"Boat  keeper, hand me up that switch of a stretcher," (Friend, if  thou
+be'st  not  nautical, thou knowest what a rack--pin,  something  of  the
+stoutest is.)
+
+The  boy  did so, and Tailtackle, after moistening well his dexter  claw
+with  tobacco juice, seized the stick with his left by the  middle,  and
+balancing it for a second or two, he began to fasten the end of it  into
+his right fist, as if he had been screwing a bolt into a socket.  Having
+satisfied himself that his grip was secure, he let go the hold with  his
+left  hand,  and  crossed  his  arms on  his  breast,  with  the  weapon
+projecting over his left shoulder, like the drone of a bagpipe.
+
+The Device continued his chant, giving the seaman a wide berth, however:
+
+"But when him once two tree year here,
+Him tink white lady wery great boder;
+De coloured peoples, never fear,
+Ah, him lob him de morest nor any oder."
+
+Then another tumblification of the whole party.
+
+
+"But top--one time bad fever catch him,
+colour'd peoples kindly watch him
+in sick--room, nurse voice like music
+from him hand taste sweet de physic.
+Another trampoline."
+
+"So alway come--in two tree year,
+and so wid you, massa never fear
+brown girlfor cook--for wife--for nurse:
+buccra lady--poo--no wort a curse."
+
+"Get away, you scandalous scoundrel," cried I; "away with you, sir!"
+
+Here  the morrice--dancers began to circle round old Tailtackle, keeping
+him on the move, spinning round like a weathercock in a whirlwind, while
+they shouted, "Oh, massa, one macaronilt if you please." To get quit  of
+their importunity, Captain Transom gave them one.  "Ah, good massa, tank
+you, sweet massa!" And away danced John Canoe and his tail, careering up
+the street.
+
+In the same way all the other crafts and trades had their Gumbimen,
+Hornblowers, John Canoes, and Nondescript.  The Gardeners came nearest
+of any thing I had seen before to the Mayday boys in London; with this
+advantage, that their jack--in--the--Green was incomparably more
+beautiful, from the superior bloom of the larger flowers used in
+composing it.
+
+The very workhouse people, whose province it is to guard the Negro
+culprits who may be committed to it, and to inflict punishment on them,
+when required, had their John Canoe and Device; and their prime jest
+seemed to be every now and then to throw the fellow down who enacted the
+latter at the corner of a street, and to administer a sound flogging to
+him.  The John Canoe, who was the workhouse driver, was dressed up in a
+lawyer's cast off gown and bands, black silk breeches, no stockings nor
+shoes, but with sandals of bullock's hide strapped on his great splay
+feet, a small cocked hat on his head, to which were appended a large
+cauliflower wig, and the usual white false--face, bearing a very
+laughable resemblance to Chief--justice S----, with whom I happened to
+be personally acquainted.
+
+The whole party which accompanied these two worthies, musicians and
+tail, were dressed out so as to give a tolerable resemblance of the Bar
+broke loose, and they were all pretty considerably well drunk.  As we
+passed along, the Device was once more laid down, and we could notice a
+shield of tough hide strapped over the fellow's stem frame, so as to
+save the lashes of the cat, which John Canoe was administering with all
+his force, while the Device walloped about and yelled, as if he had been
+receiving the punishment on his naked flesh.  Presently, as he rolled
+over and over in the sand, bellowing to the life, I noticed the leather
+shield slip upwards to the small of his back, leaving the lower story
+uncovered in reality; but the driver and his tail were too drunk to
+observe this, and the former continued to lay on and laugh, while one of
+his people stood by in all the gravity of drunkenness, counting, as a
+first Lieutenant does, when a poor fellow is polishing at the gangway,--
+"Twenty--twenty--one twenty--two"--and so on, while the patient roared
+you, an it were any thing but a nightingales At length he broke away
+from the men who held him, after receiving a most sufficient flogging,
+to revenge which he immediately fastened on the John Canoe, wrenched his
+cat from him, and employed it so scientifically on him and his
+followers, giving them passing taps on the shins now and then with the
+handle, by way of spice to the dose, that the whole crew pulled foot as
+if Old Nick had held them in chase.
+
+The very children, urchins of five and six years old, had their
+Lilliputian John Canoes and Devices.  But the beautiful part of the
+exhibition was the Set Girls.  They danced along the streets, in bands
+of from fifteen to thirty.  There were brown sets, and black sets, and
+sets of all the intermediate gradations of colour.  Each set was dressed
+pin for pin alike, and carried umbrellas or parasols of the same colour
+and size, held over their nice showy, well put on toques, or Madras
+handkerchiefs, all of the same pattern, tied round their heads, fresh
+out of the fold.--They sang, as they swam along the streets, in the most
+luxurious attitudes. I had never seen more beautiful creatures than
+there were amongst the brown sets--clear olive complexions, and fine
+faces, elegant carriages, splendid figures,--full, plump, and magnificent.
+
+Most of the Sets were as much of a size as Lord----'s eighteen
+daughters, sailing down Regent Street, like a Charity School of a
+Sunday, led by a rum--looking old beadle--others again had large Roman
+matron--looking women in the leading files, the figurantes in their
+tails becoming slighter and smaller, as they tapered away, until they
+ended in leetle picaniny, no bigger as my tumb, but always preserving
+the uniformity of dress, and colour of the umbrella or parasol.
+Sometimes the breeze, on opening a corner, would strike the stern most
+of a set composed in this manner of small fry, and stagger the little
+things, getting beneath their tiny umbrellas, and fairly blowing them
+out of the line, and ruffling their ribbons and finery, as if they had
+been tulips bending and shaking their leaves before it.  But the colours
+were never blended in the same set--no blackie ever interloped with the
+browns, nor did the browns in any case mix with the sables--always
+keeping in mind--black woman--brown lady.
+
+But, as if the whole city had been tom--fooling, a loud burst of
+military music was now heard, and the north end of the street we were
+ascending, which leads out of the Place d'Armes or parade, that occupies
+the centre of the town, was filled with a cloud of dust, that rose as
+high as the house tops, through which the head of a column of troops
+sparkled; swords, and bayonets, and gay uniforms glancing in the sun.
+This was the Kingston regiment marching down to the Court--house in the
+lower part of the town, to mount the Christmas guards, which is always
+carefully attended to, in case any of the John Canoes should take a
+small fancy to burn or pillage the town, or to rise and cut the throats
+of their masters, or any little innocent recreation of the kind, out of
+compliment to Dr Lushington, or Messrs Macauley and Babington.
+
+First came a tolerably good band, a little too drummy, but still not
+amiss--well dressed, only the performers being of all colours, from
+white, down to jet--black, had a curious hodge--podge, or piebald
+appearance.  Then came a dozen mounted officers at the very least
+colonels--in--chief, and colonels, and lieutenant--colonels, and majors
+all very fine, and very bad horsemen.  Then the grenadier company,
+composed of white clerks of the place, very fine--looking young men
+indeed--another white company followed, not quite so smart looking--then
+came a century of the children of Israel, not over military in
+appearance--the days of Joshua, the son of Nun, had passed away, the
+glory had long departed from their house,--a phalanx of light browns
+succeeded, then a company of dark browns, or mulattoes; the regular half
+and--half in this, as well as in grog, is the best mixture after all,
+then quashie himself, or a company of free blacks, who, with the browns,
+seemed the best soldiers of the set, excepting the flank companies--and
+after blackie the battalion again gradually whitened away, until it
+ended in a very fine light company of buccras, smart young fellows as
+need be--all the officers were white, and all the soldiers, whatever
+their caste or colour, free of course.  Another battalion succeeded,
+composed in the same way, and really I was agreeably surprised to find
+the indigenous force of the colony so efficient.  I had never seen any
+thing more soldier--like amongst our volunteers at home.  Presently a
+halt was called, and a mounted officer, evidently desirous of showing
+off, galloped up to where we were standing, and began to swear at the
+drivers of a wagon, with a long team of sixteen bullocks, who had placed
+their vehicle, whether intentionally or not I could not tell, directly
+across the street, where being met by another wagon of the same kind,
+coming through the opposite lane, a regular jam had taken place, as they
+had contrived, being redolent of new rum, to lock their wheels, and
+twist their lines of bullocks together in much admired confusion.
+
+"Out of the way, sir, out of the way, you black rascals--don't you see
+the regiment coming?"
+
+The men spanked their long whips, and shouted to the steers by name
+"Back, back--Caesar--Antony--Crab, back, sir, back;" and they whistled
+loud and long, but Caesar and the rest only became more and more
+involved.
+
+"Order arms," roared another officer, fairly beaten by the bullocks and
+wagons--"Stand at ease."
+
+On this last signal, a whole cloud of spruce--beer sellers started
+fiercely from under the piazzas.
+
+"An insurrection of the slave population, mayhap,"--thought I, but their
+object was a very peaceable one, for presently, I verily believe, every
+man and officer in the regiment, had a tumbler of this, to me, most
+delicious beverage at his head--the drawing of the corks was more like
+street--firing than any thing else--a regular feu de joue. In the
+meantime, a council of war seemed to be holden by the mounted officers,
+as to how the obstacle in front was to be overcome; but at this moment
+confusion became worse confounded, by the approach of what I concluded
+to be the white man's John Canoe party, mounted by way of preeminence.
+First came a trumpeter John Canoe with a black face, which was all in
+rule, as his black counterparts wore white ones; but his Device, a
+curious little old man, dressed in a sort of blue uniform, and mounted
+on the skeleton, or ghost, of a gig--horse, I could make nothing of.  It
+carried a drawn sword in its hand, with which it made various
+flourishes, at each one of which I trembled for its Rosinante's ears.
+The Device was followed by about fifty other odd--looking creatures all
+on horseback; but they had no more seat than so many pairs of tongs,
+which in truth they greatly resembled, and made no show, and less fun.
+So we were wishing them out of the way, when some one whispered that the
+Kingston Light Horse mustered strong this morning.  I found afterwards
+that every man who kept a good horse, or could ride, invariably served
+in the foot--all free persons must join some corps or other; so that the
+troop, as it was called, was composed exclusively of those who could not
+ride, and who kept no saddle horses.
+
+The line was now formed, and after a variety of cumbrous manoeuvres out
+of Dundas, sixteen at the least, the regiment was countermarched, and
+filed along another street, where they gave three cheers, in honour of
+their having had a drink of spruce, and of having circumvented the
+bullocks and wagons.  A little farther on we encountered four beautiful
+nine--pounder fieldpieces, each lumbering along, drawn by half a dozen
+mules, and accompanied by three or four negroes, but with no escort
+whatsoever.
+
+"I say, quashie, where are the bombardiers, the artillerymen?"
+
+"Oh, massa, dem all gone to drink pruce."
+
+"What, more spruce!--spruce--nothing but spruce!" quoth I.
+
+"Oh, yes, massa--after dem drink pruce done, dem all go to him
+breakfast, massa--left we for take de gun to de barrack--beg one
+feepenny, massa"--as the price of the information, I suppose.
+
+"Are the guns loaded?" said I.
+
+"Me no sabe, massa--top, I shall see." And the fellow to whom I
+addressed myself stepped forward, and began to squint into the muzzle of
+one of the fieldpieces, slewing his head from side to side, with absurd
+gravity, like a magpie peeping into a marrow--bone.  "Him most be load--
+no daylight come troo de touch--hole--take care make me try him." And
+without more ado he shook out the red embers from his pipe right on the
+touch--hole of the gun, when the fragment of a broken tube spun up in a
+small jet of flame, that made me start and jump back.
+
+"How dare you, you scoundrel?" said the captain.
+
+"Eigh, massa, him no hax me to see if him be load--so I was try see.
+Indeed, I tink him is load after all yet."
+
+He stepped forward, and entered his rammer into the cannon, after an
+unavailing attempt to blow with his blubber--lips through the touch
+hole.
+
+Noticing that it did not produce the ringing sound it would have done in
+an empty gun, but went home with a soft thud, I sung out, "Stand clear,
+sir.  By Jupiter, the gun is loaded."
+
+The negro continued to bash at it with all his might.
+
+Meanwhile, the fellow who was driving the mules attached to the
+fieldpiece, turned his head, and saw what was going on.  In a trice he
+snatched up another rammer, and, without any warning, came crack over
+the fellow's cranium to whom we had been speaking, as hard as he could
+draw, making the instrument quiver again.
+
+"Dem you, ye, ye Jericho--ah so you bash my brokefast--eh?  You no see
+me tick him into de gun before we yoke de mule, dem, eh? You tief you,
+eh?"
+
+"No!" roared the other--"You Walkandyam, you hab no brokefast, you liard,
+at least I never see him."
+
+"Dem lie dat!" replied Walkandnyam--"look in de gun." Jericho peered
+into it again.
+
+"Dere, you son of a--" (I sha'n't say what)--"dere, I see de red
+flannin wadding over de cartridge--Your brokefast!--you be dem!" roared
+Jericho.
+
+And he made at him as if he would have eaten him alive.
+
+"You be dem youshef!" shrieked Walkandnyam--"and de red wadding be dem!"
+as he took a screw, and hooked out, not a cartridge certainly, but his
+own nightcap, full of yams and salt fish, smashed into a paste by
+Jericho's rammer.
+
+In the frenzy of his rage, he dashed this into his opponent's face, and
+they both stripped in a second.  Separating several yards, they levelled
+their heads like two telescopes on stands, and ran butt at each other
+like ram--goats, and quite as odoriferous, making the welkin ring again
+as their flint--hard skulls cracked together.  Finding each other
+invulnerable in this direction, they closed, and began scrambling and
+biting and kicking, and tumbling over and over in the sand; while the
+skipper and I stood by cheering them on, and nearly suffocated with
+laughter.  They never once struck with their closed fists I noticed; so
+they were not much hurt.  It was great cry and little wool; and at
+length they got tired, and hauled off by mutual consent, finishing off
+as usual with an appeal to us--"beg one feepenny, massa!"
+
+At six o'clock we drove to Mr Pepperpot Wagtail's.  The party was a
+bachelor's one, and, when we walked up the front steps, there was our
+host in person, standing to receive us at the door; while, on each side
+of him, there were five or six of his visitors, all sitting with their
+legs cocked up, their feet resting on a sort of surbase, above which the
+jealousies, or movable blinds of the piazza, were fixed.
+
+I was introduced to the whole party seriatim--and as each of the cock
+legs dropped his trams, he started up, caught hold of my hand, and wrung
+it as if I had been his dearest and oldest friend.
+
+Were I to designate Jamaica as a community, I would call it a
+handshaking people.  I have often laughed heartily upon seeing two
+cronies meeting in the streets of Kingston after a temporary separation;
+when about pistol--shot asunder, both would begin to tug and rug at the
+right--hand glove, but it is frequently a mighty serious affair in that
+hissing hot climate to get the gauntlet off; they approach,--one, a
+smart urbane little man, who would not disgrace St James's Street, being
+more kiln--dried and less moist in his corporeals than his country
+friend, has contrived to extract his paw, and holds it out in act to
+shake.
+
+"Ah! how do you do, Ratoon?" quoth the Kingston man.
+
+"Quite well, Shingle," rejoins the gloved, a stout red--faced
+sudoriferous yam--fed planter, dressed in blue--white jean trowsers and
+waistcoat, with long Hessian boots drawn up to his knee over the former,
+and a spannew square--skirted blue coatee, with lots of clear brass
+buttons: a broad brimmed black silk hat, worn white at the edge of the
+crown--wearing a very small neckcloth, above which shoots up an enormous
+shirt collar, the peaks of which might serve for winkers to a starting
+horse, and carrying a large whip in his hand--"Quite well, my dear
+fellow," while he persists in dragging at it--the other homo all the
+while standing in the absurd position of a finger--post--at length off
+comes the glove--piecemeal perhaps--a finger first, for instance--then a
+thumb--at length they tackle to, and shake each other like the very
+devil--not a sober pump--handle shake, but a regular jiggery jiggery, as
+if they were trying to dislocate each other's arms--and, confound them,
+even then they don't let go--they cling like sucker fish, and talk and
+wallop about, and throw themselves back and laugh, and then another
+jiggery jiggery.
+
+On horseback, this custom is conspicuously ridiculous--I have nearly
+gone into fits at beholding two men careering along the road at a hand
+gallop each on a goodish horse, with his negro boy astern of him on a
+mule, in clean frock and trowsers, and smart glazed hat with broad gold
+band, with massa's umbrella in a leathem case slung across his
+shoulders, and his portmanteau behind him on a mail pillion covered with
+a snow white sheep's fleece--suddenly they pull up on recognising each
+other, when, tucking their whips under their arms, or crossing them in
+their teeth, it may be they commence the rugging and riving operation.
+In this case, Shingle's bit of blood swerves, we may assume--Ratoon
+rides at him--Shingle fairly turns tail, and starts out at full speed,
+Ratoon thundering in his rear, with out--stretched arm; and it does
+happen, I am assured, that the hot pursuit often continues for a mile,
+before the desired clapperclaw is obtained.  But when two lusty planters
+meet on horseback, then indeed Greek meets Greek. They, begin the
+interview by shouting to each other, while fifty yards off, pulling away
+at the gloves all the while--"How are you, Canetop?--glad to see you,
+Canetop.  How do you do, I hope."--"How are you, Yamfu, my dear fellow?"
+their horses fretting and jumping all the time--and if the Jack
+Spaniards or gadflies be rife, they have, even when denuded for the
+shake, to spur at each other, more like a Knight Templar and a Saracen
+charging in mortal combat, than two men merely struggling to be civil;
+an after all they have often to get their black servants alongside to
+hold their horses, for shake they must, were they to break their necks
+in the attempt.  Why they won't shake hands with their gloves on, I am
+sure I can't tell.  It would be much cooler and nicer--lots of Scotchmen
+in the community too.
+
+This hand--shaking, however, was followed by an invitation to dinner
+from each individual in the company.  I looked at Captain Transom, as
+much as to say, "Can they mean us to take them at their word?" He
+nodded.
+
+"We are sorry, that being under orders to go to sea on Sunday morning,
+neither Mr Cringle nor myself can have the pleasure of accepting such
+kind invitations."
+
+"Well, when you come back you know--one day you must give me."
+
+"And I won't be denied," quoth a second.
+
+"Liberty Hall, you know, so to me you must come, no ceremony," said a
+third--and so on.
+
+At length, no less a man drove up to the door, than Judge----. When he
+drew up, his servant, who was sitting behind on a small projection of
+the ketureen, came round and took a parcel out of the gig, closely
+wrapped in a blanket--"Bring that carefully in, Leonidas," said the
+Judge, who now stumped up stairs with a small saw in his hand.  He
+received the parcel, and, laying it down carefully in a corner, he
+placed the saw on it, and then came up and shook hands with Wagtail, and
+made his bow very gracefully.
+
+"What--can't you do without your ice and sour claret yet?" said Wagtail.
+
+"Never mind, never mind," said the Judge; and here dinner being
+announced, we all adjourned to the dining room, where a very splendid
+entertainment was set out, to which we set to, and in the end, as it
+will appear, did the utmost justice to it.
+
+The wines were most exquisite.  Madeira, for instance, never can be
+drunk in perfection anywhere out of the Tropics.  You may have the wine
+as good at home, although I doubt it, but then you have not the climate
+to drink it in--I would say the same of most of the delicate French
+wines--that is, those that will stand the voyage--Burgundy of course not
+included; but never mind, let us get along.
+
+All the decanters were covered with cotton bags, kept wet with saltpetre
+and water, so that the evaporation carried on powerfully by the stream
+of air that flowed across the room, through the open doors and windows,
+made the fluids quite as cool as was desirable to worthies sitting
+luxuriating with the thermometer at 80 or thereby; yet, from the free
+current, I was in no way made aware of this degree of heat by any
+oppressive sensation; and I found in the West Indies as well as in the
+East, although the wind in the latter is more dry and parching, that a
+current of heated air, if it be moderately dry, even with the
+thermometer at 95 in the shade, is really not so enervating or
+oppressive as I have found it in the stagnating atmosphere on the sunny
+side of Pall Mall, with the mercury barely at 75.  A cargo of ice had a
+little before this arrived at Kingston, and at first all the inhabitants
+who could afford it iced every thing, wine, water, cold meats, fruits,
+and the Lord knows what all, tea, I believe, amongst other things; (by
+the way, I have tried this, and it is a luxury of its kind;) but the
+regular old stagers, who knew what was what, and had a regard for their
+interiors, soon began to eschew the ice in every way, saving and
+expecting to cool the water they washed their thin faces and hands in;
+so we had no ice, nor did we miss it, but the judge had a plateful of
+chips on the table before him, one of which he every now and then popped
+into his long thin bell--glass of claret, diluting it, I should have
+thought, in rather a heathenish manner; but n'importe, he worked away,
+sawing off pieces now and then from the large lump in the blanket, (to
+save the tear and wear attending a fracture,) which was handed to him by
+his servant, so that by eleven o'clock at night, allowing for the water,
+he must have concealed his three bottles of pure claret, besides
+garnishing with a lot of white wines.  In fine, we all carried on
+astonishingly, some good singing was given, a practical joke was tried
+on now and then by Fyall, and we continued mighty happy.  As to the
+singing part of it,--the landlord, with a bad voice, and worse ear,
+opened the rorytory, by volunteering a very extraordinary squeak;
+fortunately it was not very long, but it gave him a plea to screw a song
+out of his right--hand neighbour, who in turn acquired the same right of
+compelling the person next to him to make a fool of himself; at last it
+came to Transom, who, by the by, sung exceedingly well, but he had got
+more wine than usual, and essayed the coquette a bit.
+
+"Bring the wet nightcap!" quoth our host.
+
+"Oh, it is that you are at?" said Transom, and he sung as required; but
+it was all pearls before swine, I fear.
+
+At last we stuck fast at Fyall.  Music! there was not one particle in
+his whole composition; so the wet nightcap already impended over him,
+when I sung out, "Let him tell a story, Mr Wagtail!  Let him tell a
+story!"
+
+"Thank you, Tom," said Fyall; "I owe you a good turn for that, my boy."
+
+"Fyall's story--Mr Fyall's story!" resounded on all hands.  Fyall, glad
+to escape the song and wet nightcap, instantly began.
+
+"Why, my friends, you all know Isaac Grimm, the Jew snuff merchant and
+cigar maker, in Harbour Street.  Well, Isaac had a brother, Ezekiel by
+name, who carried on business in Curacao; you may have heard of him too.
+Ezekiel was often down here for the purpose of laying in provisions, and
+purchasing dry goods.  You all know that?"
+
+"Certainly!" shouted both Captain Transom and myself in a breath,
+although we had never heard of him before.
+
+"Hah, I knew it!"--Well then, Ezekiel was very rich; he came down in
+August last, in the Pickle schooner, and, as bad luck would have it, he
+fell sick of the fever.--"Isaac," quoth Ezekiel, "I am wery sheek; I
+tink I shall tie." "Hope note, dear proder; you hab no vife, nor
+shildir; pity you should tie, Ezekiel.  Ave you make your vill, Ezekiel?"
+"Yesh; de vill is make. I leavish every ting to you, Isaac, on von
+condition, dat you send my pody to be bury in Curacao. I love dat place;
+twenty years since I lef de Minories, all dat time I cheat dere, and
+tell lie dere, and lif dere happily. Oh, you most sent my pody for its
+puryment to Curacao!" "I will do dat, mine proder." "Den I depart in
+peace, dear Isaac;" and the Israelite was as good as his word for once.
+He did die.  Isaac, according to his promise, applied to the captains of
+several schooners; none of them would take the dead body.  "What shall I
+do?" thought Isaac, "de monish mosh not be loss." So he straightway had
+Ezekiel (for even a Jew won't keep long in that climate) cut up and
+packed with pickle into two barrels, marked, "Prime mess pork,
+Leicester, M'Call and Co. Cork" He then shipped the same in the Fan
+Fan, taking bills of lading in accordance with the brand, deliverable to
+Mordecai Levi of Curacao, to whom he sent the requisite instructions.
+The vessel sailed. Off St Domingo she carried away a mast, tried to
+fetch Carthagena under a jury--spar--fell to leeward, and finally
+brought up at Honduras.
+
+Three months after, Isaac encountered the master of the schooner in the
+streets of Kingston.  "Ah, mine goot captain--how is you you lookish tin
+ave you been sheek?" "No, Moses I am well enough, thank you--poor a
+bit, but sound in health, thank God.  You have heard of my having
+carried away the mainmast, and, after kicking about fifteen days on
+short allowance, having been obliged to bear up for Honduras?"  "I know
+noting of all dat," said Isaac; "sorry for it, captain--very sad inteed"
+"Sad--you may say that, Moses.  But I am honest although poor, and here
+is your bill of lading for your two barrels of provisions; Prime mess,
+it says damned tough, say I--Howsomedever," pulling out his purse, "the
+present value on Bogle, Jopp, and Co's. wharf is L.5, 6s. 8d. the
+barrel; so there are two doubloons, Moses, and now discharge the account
+on the back of the bill of lading, will you?" "Vy should I take payment,
+captain? if de"--(pork stuck in his throat like 'amen' in Macbeth,)
+"if de barrel ish lost, it can't be help--de act of God, you know." "I
+am an honest man, Isaac," continued the captain, "although a poor one,
+and I must tell the truth--we carried on with our own as long as it
+lasted, at length we had to break bulk, and your two barrels being
+nearest the hatchway, why we ate them first, that's all.  Lord, what has
+come over you?"--Isaac grew pale as a corpse.--"Oh, mine Got--mine poor
+proder, dat you ever was live, to tie in Jamaic--Oh tear, oh tear!"
+
+"Did they eat the head and hands and--"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Tom Cringle, don't interrupt me; you did not eat
+them; I tell it as it was told to me.  So Isaac Grimm," continued Fyall,
+"was fairly overcome; the kindly feelings of his nature were at length
+stirred up, and as he turned away, he wept--blew his nose hard, like a
+Chaldean trumpet in the new moon--and while the large tears coursed each
+other down his care--worn cheeks, he exclaimed, wringing the captain's
+hand, in a voice tremulous and scarcely audible from extreme emotion,"
+"Oh, Isaac Grimm, Isaac Grimm--tid not your heart mishgive you, ven you
+vas commit te great blasphemy of invoish Ezekiel--flesh of your flesh,
+pone of your pone--as por--de onclean peast, I mean.  If you hat put
+invoish him ash peef, surely te earthly tabernacle of him, as always
+sheet in de high places in te Sinacogue, would never have been allow to
+pass troo te powels of te pershicuting Nazareen.  Ah, mine goot captain
+mine very tear friend--vat--vat--vat av you done wid de cask, captain?"
+
+"Oh most lame and impotent conclusion," sung out the judge, who by this
+time had become deucedly prosy, and all hands arose, as if by common
+consent, and agreed that we had got enough.
+
+So off we started in groups.--Fyall, Captain Transom, Whiffle, Aaron
+Bang, and myself, sallied forth in a bunch, pretty well inclined for a
+lark, you may guess.  There are no lamps in the streets of Kingston, and
+as all the decent part of the community are in their cavies by half--
+past nine in the evening, and as it was now "the witching time o'
+night," there was not a soul in the streets that we saw, except a
+solitary town guard now and then, lurking about some dark corner under
+the piazzas.  These same streets, which were wide and comfortable enough
+in the daytime, had become unaccountably narrow and intricate since six
+o'clock in the evening; and, although the object of the party was to
+convoy Captain Transom and myself to our boat at the Ordnance Wharf, it
+struck me that we were as frequently on a totally different tack.
+
+"I say, Cringle, my boy," stuttered out my superior, Lieutenant and
+Captain being both drowned in and equalized by the claret--"why, Tom,
+Tom Cringle, you dog--don't you hear your superior officer speak, sir,
+eh?"
+
+My superior officer, during this address, was standing with both arms
+round a pillar of the piazza.
+
+"I am here, sir," said I.
+
+"Why, I know that; but why don't you speak when I Hillo where's Aaron,
+and Fyall, and the rest, eh?"
+
+They had been attracted by sounds of revelry in a splendid mansion in
+the next street, which we could see was lit up with great brilliancy,
+and had at this time shot about fifty yards ahead of us, working to
+windward, tack and tack, like Commodore Trunnion.
+
+"Ah, I see," said Transom; "let us heave ahead, Tom--now, do ye hear?--
+stand you with your white trowsers against the next pillar." The ranges
+supporting the piazza were at distances of about twenty feet from each
+other.--"Ah, stand there now--I see it."--So he weighted from the one he
+had tackled to, and making a staggering bolt of it, ran up to the pillar
+against which I stood, its position being marked by my white vestments,
+where he again hooked on for a second or two, until I had taken up a new
+position.
+
+"There, my boy, that's the way to lay out a warp--right in the wind's
+eye, Tom--we shall fairly beat those lubbers who are tacking in the
+stream--nothing like warping in the dead water near the shore--mark that
+down, Tom--never beat in a tideway when you can warp up along shore in
+the dead water--Damn the judge's ice" (hiccup) "he has poisoned me with
+that piece he plopped in my last whitewash of Madeira.  He a judge!  He
+may be a good crim--criminal judge, but no judge of wine--Why don't you
+laugh, Tom, eh?--and then his saw--the rasp of a saw I hate--wish it,
+and a whole nest more, had been in his legal stomach--full of old saws
+Shakespeare--he, he--why don't you laugh, Tom?--Poisoned by the judge,
+by Jupiter--Now, here we are fairly abreast of them--Hillo! Fyall, what
+are you after?"
+
+"Hush, hush," said Fyall, with drunken gravity.
+
+"And hush, hush," said Aaron Bang.
+
+"Come here, Tom, come here," said Whiffle, in a whisper.  We were now
+directly under the piazza of the fine house, in the first floor of which
+some gay scene was enacting.  "Here, Tom, here--now stand there--hold by
+that pillar there. I say, Transom, give me a lift."
+
+"Can't, Whiffle, can't, for the soul of me, Peregrine, my dear--but
+I see, I see."
+
+With that the gallant captain got down on all fours; Whiffle, a small
+light man, got on his back, and, with the aid of Bang and Fyall, managed
+to scramble up on my shoulders, where he stood, holding by the window
+sill above, with a foot on each side of my head.  His little red face
+was thus raised flush with the window sill, so that he could see into
+the dark piazza on the first floor, and right through into the
+magnificent and sparkling drawing room beyond.
+
+"Now tell us what's to be seen," said Aaron.
+
+"Stop, stop," rejoined Whiffle--"My eye, what a lot of splendid women
+no men--a regular lady party--Hush! a song." A harp was struck, and a
+symphony of Beethoven's played with great taste--A song, low and
+melancholy, from two females followed.
+
+"The music of the spheres!" quoth Whiffle.
+
+We were rapt--we had been inspired before--and, drunk as we were, there
+we sat or stood, as best suited us, exhibiting the strange sight of a
+cluster of silent tipsy men.  At length, at one of the finest swells, I
+heard a curious gurgling sound overhead, as if some one was being
+gagged, and I fancied Peregrine became lighter on my shoulders--Another
+fine dieaway note--I was sure of it.
+
+"Bang, Bang--Fyall--He is evaporating with delight--no weight at all,
+growing more and more ethereal--lighter and lighter, as I am a gentleman
+he is off--going, going, gone--exhaled into the blue heavens, by all
+that is wonderful!"
+
+Puzzled beyond measure, I stept hurriedly back, and capsized over the
+captain, who was still enacting the joint--stool on all--fours behind
+me, by which Whiffle had mounted to my crosstrees, and there we rolled
+in the sand, master and man.
+
+"Murdered, Tom Cringle--murdered--you have hogged me like the old
+Ramilies--broke my back, Tom--spoiled my quadrilling for ever and a day;
+d--n the judge's ice though, and the saw particularly."
+
+"Where is he--where is Whiffle?" enquired all hands, in a volley.
+
+"The devil only knows," said I; "he has flown up into the clouds, catch
+him who can.  He has left this earth anyhow, that is clear."
+
+"Ha, ha!" cried Fyall, in great glee, who had seen him drawn into the
+window by several white figures, after they had tied a silk handkerchief
+over his mouth; "Follow me, my boys;" and we all scrambled after him to
+the front door of the house, to which we ascended by a handsome flight
+of marble steps, and when there, we began to thunder away for
+admittance.  The door was opened by a very respectable looking elderly
+gentleman, with well powdered hair, and attended by two menservants in
+handsome liveries, carrying lights.  His bearing and gentlemanlike
+deportment had an immediate effect on me, and I believe on the others
+too.  He knew Fyall and Whiffle, it appeared.
+
+"Mr Fyall," he said, with much gentleness, "I know it is only meant as a
+frolic, but really I hope you will now end it.  Amongst yourselves,
+gentlemen, this may be all very well, but considering my religion, and
+the slights we Hebrews are so often exposed to, myself and my family are
+more sensitive and pervious to insult than you can well understand."
+
+"My dear fellow," quoth Fyall, "we are all very sorry; the fact is, we
+had some d--d bad shaddock after dinner, which has made us very giddy
+and foolish somehow.  Do you know, I could almost fancy I had been
+drinking wine."
+
+"Cool and deliciously impudent that same, (hiccup,)" quoth the skipper.
+
+"But hand us back little Whiffle," continued Fyall, "and we shall be
+off."
+
+Here Whiffie's voice was heard from the drawing room.  "Here, Fyall!--
+Tom Cringle!--Here, here, or I shall be murdered!"
+
+"Ah!  I see," said Mr H. "this way, gentlemen.  Come, I will deliver the
+culprit to you;" and we followed him into the drawing room, a most
+magnificent saloon, at least forty feet by thirty, brilliantly lit up
+with crystal lamps, and massive silver candelabra, and filled with
+elegant furniture, which was reflected, along with the chandeliers that
+hung from the centre of the coach roof, by several large mirrors, in
+rich frames, as well as in the highly polished mahogany floor.
+
+There, in the middle of the room, the other end of it being occupied by
+a bevy of twelve or fifteen richly--dressed females, visitors, as we
+conjectured, sat our friend Peregrine, pinioned into a large easy chair,
+with shawls and scarfs, amidst a sea of silk cushions, by four beautiful
+young women, black hair and eyes, clear white skins, fine figures, and
+little clothing.  A young Jewess is a beautiful animal, although, like
+the unclean--confound the metaphor--which they abhor--they don't improve
+by age.
+
+When we entered, the blushing girls, who had been beating Whiffle over
+his spindle shins, with their large garden fans, dashed through a side
+door, unable to contain their laughter, which we heard long after they
+had vanished, echoing through the lofty galleries of the house.  Our
+captive knight being restored to us, we made our bows to the other
+ladies, who were expiring with laughter, and took our leave, with little
+Whiffle on our shoulders--the worthy Hebrew, whom I afterwards knew in
+London, sending his servant and gig with Captain Transom and myself to
+the wharf.  There we tumbled ourselves into the boat, and got on board
+the Firebrand about three in the morning.  We were by this time pretty
+well sobered; at four a gun was fired, the topsails were let fall, and
+sheeted home, and topgallant--sails set over them, the ship having
+previously been hove short; at half--past, the cable being right up and
+down--another gun the drums and fifes beat merrily, spin flew the
+capstan, tramp went the men that manned it.  We were under weigh--
+Eastward, ho!--for Santiago de Cuba.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+The Cruise o the Firebrand
+
+Shewing, amongst other pleasant matters well worthy of being recorded,
+how Thomas communed with his two Consciences.
+
+"Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
+And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide,
+The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play,
+That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?"
+
+BYRON, THE CORSAIR, 1.9--I6.
+
+
+We had to beat up for three days before we could weather the east end of
+Jamaica, and tearing work we had of it.  I had seen bad weather and
+heavy seas in several quarters of the globe--I had tumbled about under a
+close--reefed main--topsail and reefed foresail, on the long seas in the
+Bay of Biscay--I had been kicked about in a seventy--four, off the
+Cape of Good Hope, as if she had been a cork--I had been hove hither and
+thither, by the short jumble of the North Sea, about Heligoland, and the
+shoals lying off the mouth of the Elbe, when every thing over head was
+black as thunder, and all beneath as white as snow--I had enjoyed the
+luxury of being tom in pieces by a northwester, which compelled us to
+lie--to for ten days at a stretch, under storm stay--sails, off the
+coast of Yankeeland, with a clear, deep, cold, blue sky above us,
+without a cloud, where the sun shone brightly the whole time by day, and
+a glorious harvest moon by night, as if they were smiling in derision
+upon our riven and strained ship, as she reeled to and fro like a
+wounded Titan; at one time buried in the trough of the sea, at another
+cast upwards towards the heavens by the throes of the tormented waters,
+from the troubled bosom of the bounding and roaring ocean, amidst
+hundreds of miniature rainbows, (ay, rainbows by night as well as by
+day,) in a hissing storm of white, foaming, seething spray, torn from
+the curling and rolling bright green crests of the mountainous billows.
+And I have had more than one narrow squeak for it in the neighbourhood
+of the "still vexed Bermoothes," besides various other small affairs,
+written in this Boke; but the devil such another tumblefication had I
+ever experienced--not as to danger, for there was none except to our
+spars and rigging, but as to discomfort as I did in that short, cross,
+splashing, and boiling sea, off Morant Point.  By noon, however, on the
+second day, having had a slant from the land wind in the night previous,
+we got well to windward of the long sandy spit that forms the east end
+of the island, and were in the act of getting a small pull of the weather
+braces, before edging away for St Jago, when the wind fell suddenly, and
+in half an hour it was stark calm--'una furiosa calma,' as the Spanish
+sailors quaintly enough call it.
+
+We got rolling tackles up, and the topgallant--masts down, and studding
+sails out of the tops, and lessened the lumber and weight aloft in
+every way we could think of, but, nevertheless, we continued to roll
+gunwale under, dipping the main--yardarm into the water every now and
+then, and setting every thing adrift, below and on deck, that was not
+bolted down, or otherwise well secured.
+
+When I went down to dinner, the scene was extremely good.  Old Yerk, the
+first lieutenant, was in the chair--one of the boys was jammed at his
+side, with his claws fastened round the foot of the table, holding a
+tureen of boiling pease--soup, with lumps of pork swimming in it, which
+the aforesaid Yerk was baling forth with great assiduity to his
+messmates.  Hydrostatics were much in vogue--the tendency of fluids to
+regain their equilibrium (confound them, they have often in the shape of
+claret destroyed mine) was beautifully illustrated, as the contents of
+each carefully balanced soup--plate kept swaying about on the principle
+of the spirit level.  The Doctor was croupier, and as it was a return to
+dinner to the captain, all hands were regularly figged out, the
+lieutenants, with their epaulets and best coats, and the master, purser,
+and doctor, all fittingly attired.  When I first entered, as I made my
+obeisance to the captain, I thought I saw an empty seat next him, but
+the matter of the soup was rather an engrossing concern, and took up my
+attention, so that I paid no particular regard to the circumstance;
+however, when we had all discussed the same, and were drinking our first
+glass of Tenerife, I raised my eyes to hob and nob with the master, when
+ye gods and little fishes--who should they light on, but the merry phiz
+merry, also! no more--of Aaron Bang, Esquire, who, during the soup
+interlude, had slid into the vacant chair unperceived by me.
+
+"Why, Mr Bang, where, in the name of all that is comical, where have you
+dropped from?" Alas! poor Aaron--Aaron in a rolling sea was of no
+kindred to Aaron ashore.  His rosy gills were no longer rosy, his round
+plump face seemed to be covered with parchment from an old bass drum,
+cut out from the centre where most bronzed by the drumstruck--there was
+no speculation in his eyes that he did glare withal--and his lips, which
+were usually firm and open, disclosing his nice teeth, in frequent grin,
+were held together, as if he had been in grievous pain.  At length he
+did venture to open them--and, like the ghost of Hamlet's father, "it
+lifted up its head and did address itself to motion, as it would speak."
+But they began to quiver, and he once more screwed them together, as if
+he feared the very exertion of uttering a word or two might unsettle his
+moniplies.
+
+The master was an odd garrulous small man, who had a certain number of
+stated jokes, which, so long as they were endured, he unmercifully
+inflicted on his messmates. I had come in for my share, as a new comer,
+as well as the rest; but even with me, although I had been but recently
+appointed, they had already began to pall, and wax wearisome; and blind
+as the beetle of a body was, he could not help seeing this.  So poor
+Bang, unable to return a shot, sea--sick and crestfallen, offered a
+target that he could not resist taking aim at.  Dinner was half over,
+and Bang had not eaten any thing, when, unseasonable as the hour was,
+the little pot--valiant master, primed with two tumblers of grog, in
+defiance of the captain's presence, fairly fastened on him, like a
+remora, and pinned him down with one of his longwinded stories about
+Captain David Jones, in the Phantome, during a cruise off Cape Flyaway,
+having run foul of a whale, and thereby nearly foundered; and that at
+length having got the monster harpooned and speared, and the devil knows
+what, but it ended in getting her alongside, when they scuttled the
+leviathan, and then, wonderful to relate, they found a Greenlandman,
+with royal yards crossed, in her maw, and the captain and mate in the
+cabin quarrelling about the reckoning.
+
+"What do you think of that, Mr Bang--as well they might be, Mr Bang--as
+well they might be?" Bang said nothing, but at the moment--whether the
+said Aaron lent wings to the bird or no I cannot tell--a goose, swimming
+in apple sauce, which he was, with a most stern countenance, endeavouring
+to carve, fetched away right over the gunwale of the dish; and taking a
+whole boat of melted butter with it, splashed across the table during a
+tremendous roll, that made every thing creak and groan again, right into
+the small master's lap who was his vis--a--vis. I could hear Aaron
+grumble out something about--"Strange affinity--birds of a feather." But
+his time was up, his minutes were numbered, and like a shot he bolted
+from the table, skulling or rather clawing away towards the door, by the
+backs of the chairs, like a green parrot, until he reached the marine at
+the bottom of the ladder, at the door of the captain's cabin, round
+whose neck he immediately fetterlocked his fins.
+
+He had only time to exclaim to his new ally, "My dear fellow, get me
+some brandy and water, for the love of mercy"--when he blew up, with an
+explosion like the bursting of a steam--boiler--"Oh dear, oh dear," we
+could hear him murmuring in the lulls of his agony then another loud
+report--"there goes my yesterday's supper--hot grog and toasted cheese"
+another roar, as if the spirit was leaving its earthly tabernacle
+"dinner--claret--Madeira--all cruel bad in a second edition--cheese,
+teal, and ringtail pigeon--black crabs calapi and turtle soup"--as his
+fleshly indulgences of the previous day rose up in judgment against him,
+like a man's evil deeds on his death--bed.  At length--the various
+strata of his interior were entirely excavated--"Ah!--I have got to my
+breakfast--to the simple tea and toast at last.--Brandy and water, my
+dear Transom, brandy and water, my darling, hot, without sugar"--and
+"Brandy and water" died in echoes in the distance as he was stowed away
+into his cot in the captain's cabin.  It seems that it had been all
+arranged between him and Transom, that he was to set off for St Thomas
+in the East, the morning on which we sailed, and to get a shove out in
+the pilot--boat schooner, from Morant Bay, to join us for the cruise;
+and accordingly he had come on board the night previous when I was
+below, and being somewhat qualmish he had wisely kept his cot; the fun
+of the thing depending, as it seemed, on all hands carefully keeping it
+from me that he was on board.
+
+I apprehend most people indulge in the fancy that they have Consciences,
+such as they are.  I myself now--even I, Thomas Cringle, Esquire,
+amongst sundry vain imaginings, conceive that I have a Conscience
+somewhat of the caoutchouc order I will confess stretching a little upon
+occasion, when the gale of my passions blows high, nevertheless a highly
+respectable Conscience, as things go a stalwart unchancy customer, who
+will not be gainsaid or contradicted; but he may be disobeyed, although
+never with impunity.  It is all true that a young, well--fledged
+gentlewoman, for she is furnished with a most swift pair of wings,
+called Prosperity, sometimes gets the better of Master Conscience, and
+smothers the Grim Feature for a time, under the bed of eider down,
+whereon you and her ladyship are reposing.  But she is a sad jilt in
+many instances, this same Prosperity; for some fine morning, with the
+sun glancing in through the crevices of the window--shutters, just at
+the nick when, after turning yourself, and rubbing your eyes, you
+courageously thrust forth one leg, with a determination to don your
+gramashes without more delay. "Tom," says she "Tom Cringle, I have got
+tired of you, Thomas; besides, I hear my next door neighbour, Madame
+Adversity, tirling at the door pin; so give me my down bed, Tom, and
+I'm off." With that she bangs open the window, and before I recover from
+my surprise, launches forth, with a loud whir, mattrass and all, leaving
+me, Pilgarlic, lying on the paillasse.  Well, her nest is scarcely cold,
+when in comes me Mistress Adversity, a wee outspoken sour crabbit
+gizzened anatomy of an old woman--"You ne'erdoweel, Tam," quoth she, "is
+it no enough that you consort with that scarlet limmer, who has just
+yescaped thorough the winday, but ye maun smoors my firstborn, puir
+Conscience, atween ye?  Whare hae ye stowed him, mantell me that?" And
+the ancient damosel gives me a shrewd clip on the skull with the poker.
+"That's right, mother," quoth Conscience, from beneath the straw
+mattrass--"Give it to him--he'll no hear me another devel, mother." And
+I found that my own weight, deserted as I was by that--ahem--Prosperity,
+was no longer sufficient to keep him down.  So up he rose, with a loud
+pech; and while the old woman keelhauled me with a poker on one side, he
+yerked at me on the other, until at length he gave me a regular cross
+buttock, and then between them they diddled me outright.  When I was
+fairly floored, "Now, my man," said Adversity, "I bear no spite; if you
+will but listen to my boy there, we shall be good friends still.  He is
+never unreasonable.  He has no objections to your consorting even with
+Madame Prosperity, in a decent way; but he will not consent to your
+letting her get the better of you, nor to your doting on her, even to
+the giving her a share of your bed, when she should never be allowed to
+get farther than the servants hall, for she should be kept in
+subjection, or she'll ruin you for ever, Thomas.--Conscience is a rough
+lad, I grant you, and I am keen and snell also; but never mind, take his
+advice, and you'll be some credit to your freens yet, ye scoonrel." I did
+so, and the old lady's visits became shorter and shorter, and more and
+more distant, until at length they ceased altogether; and once more
+Prosperity, like a dove with its heaven--borrowed hues all glowing in
+the morning sun, pitched one morning on my windowsill.  It was in June.
+"Tom, I am come back again." I glowered at her with all my bir. She made
+a step or two towards me, and the lesson of Adversity was fast
+evaporating into thin air, when, lo! the sleeping lion himself awoke.
+"Thomas," said Conscience, in a voice that made my flesh creep, "not
+into your bed, neither into your bosom, Thomas.  Be civil to the young
+woman, but remember what your best friend Adversity told you, and never
+let her be more than your handmaiden again; free to come, free to go,
+but never more to be your mistress." I screw myself about, and twist,
+and turn in great perplexity--Hard enough all this, and I am half
+inclined to try to throttle Conscience outright.
+
+But to make a long story short--I was resolute--"Step into the parlour,
+my dearest I hope we shall never part any more; but you must not get the
+upper hand, you know.  So step into the other room, and whenever I get
+my inexpressibles on, I will come to you there."
+
+But this Conscience, about which I am now hovering, seldom acts the
+monitor in this way, unless against respectable crimes, such as murder,
+debauching your friend's wife, or stealing.  But the chield I have to do
+with for the present, and who has led to this rigmarole, is a sort of
+deputy Conscience, a looker--out after small affairs--peccadilloes. The
+grewsome carle, Conscience Senior, you can grapple with, for he only
+steps forth on great occasions, when he says sternly--and the mischief
+is, that what he says, we know to be true--says he, "Thomas Cringle"--he
+never calls me Tom, or Mister, or Lieutenant--"Thomas Cringle," says he,
+"if you do that thing, you shall be damned." "Lud--a mercy," quoth I,
+Thomas, "I will perpend, Master Conscience" and I set myself to eschew
+the evil deed, with all my might.  But Conscience the Younger--whom I
+will take leave to call by Quashie's appellative hereafter, Conshy--is a
+funny little fellow, and another guess sort oft a chap altogether.  An
+instance--"I say, Tom, my boy--Tom Cringle--why the deuce now"--he
+won't say "the Devil" for the world--"Why the deuce, Tom, don't you
+confine yourself to a pint of wine at dinner, eh?" quoth Conshy.  "Why
+will you not give up your toddy after it?  You are ruining your
+interior, Thomas, my fine fellow--the gout is on the look out for you,
+your legs are spindling, and your paunch is increasing.  Read Hamlet's
+speech to Polonius, Tom, and if you don't find all the marks of
+premature old age creeping on you, then am I, Conshy, a Dutchman, that's
+all." Now Conshy always lectures you in the watches of the night; I
+generally think his advice is good at breakfast time, and during the
+forenoon, egad, I think it excellent and most reasonable, and I determine
+to stick by it and if Conshy and I dine alone, I do adhere to his maxims
+most rigidly; but if any of my old allies should topple in to dinner,
+Conshy, who is a solitary mechanic, bolts instanter.  Still I remember
+him for a time--we sit down--the dinner is good.  "I say, Jack, a glass
+of wine, Peter what shall we have?" and until the pint a--piece is
+discussed, all is right between Conshy and I. But then comes some
+grouse.  Hook, in his double--refined nonsense, palavers about the
+blasphemy of white wine after brown game--and he is not far wrong
+either;--at least I never thought he was, so long as my Hermitage
+lasted; but at the time I speak of, it was still to the fore--so the
+moment the pint a--piece was out, "Hold hard, Tom, now," cheeps little
+Conshy.  "Why, only one glass of Hermitage, Conshy." Conshy shakes his
+head.  Cheese--after the manner of the ancients--Hook again--"Only one
+glass of port, Conshy." He shakes his head, and at length the cloth is
+drawn, and a confounded old steward of mine, who is now installed as
+butler, brings in the crystal decanters, sparkling to the wax lights
+poor as I am, I consider mutton fat still damnable--and every thing as
+it should be, down to a finger--glass. "Now, Mary, where are the
+children?" I am resolute.  "Jack, I can't drink--out of sorts, my boy
+so mind yourself, you and Peter.--Now, Conshy," says I, "where are you
+now, my boy?" But just at this instant, jack strikes out, with "Cringle,
+order me a tumbler--something hot--I don't care what it is."--"Ditto,"
+quoth Peter; and down crumbles all my fine fabric of resolutions, only
+to be rebuilt tomorrow, before breakfast again, or at any odd moment,
+when one's flesh is somewhat fishified. Another instance.  "I say, Tom,"
+says Conshy, "do give over looking at that smart girl tripping it along
+t'other side of the street."--"Presently, my dear little man," says I.
+"Tight little woman that, Conshy; handsome bows; good bearings forward;
+tumbles home sweetly about the waist, and tumbles out well above the
+hips; what a beautiful run! and spars clean and tight; back--stays well
+set up."--"Now, Tom, you vagabond, give over.  Have you not a wife of
+your own?"--"To be sure I have, Conshy, my darling; but toujours per"
+"Have done, now, you are going too far," says Conshy.--"Oh, you be--".
+"Thomas," cries a still stern voice, from the very inmost recesses of
+my heart.  Wee Conshy holds up his finger, and pricks his ear.  "Do you
+hear him?" says he.--"I hear," says I, "I hear and tremble." Now, to
+apply.  Conshy has been nudging me for this half hour to hold my tongue
+regarding Aaron Bang's sea--sickness.--"It is absolutely indecent,"
+quoth he. "Can't help it, Conshy; no more than the extra tumbler; those
+who are delicate need not read it; those who are indelicate won't be the
+worse of it."--"But," persists Conshy--"I have other hairs in your neck,
+Master Tommy--you are growing a bit of a buffoon on us, and sorry am I
+to say it, sometimes not altogether, as a man with a rank imagination
+may construe you, a very decent one.  Now, my good boy, I would have you
+to remember that what you write is condemned in the pages of Old
+Christopher to an amber immortalization," (Ohon for the Provost!) "nay,
+don't perk and smile, I mean no compliment, for you are but the straw in
+the amber, Tom, and the only wonder is, how the deuce you got there."
+
+"But, my dear Conshy"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Tom--let me say out my say, and finish my advice--and
+how will you answer to my father, in your old age, when youth, and
+health, and wealth, may have flown, if you find any thing in this your
+Log calculated to bring a blush on an innocent cheek, Tom, when the time
+shall have for ever passed away wherein you could have remedied the
+injury?  For Conscience will speak to you then, not as I do now, in
+friendly confidence, and impelled by a sincere regard for you, you right
+hearted, but thoughtless, slapdash vagabond."
+
+There must have been a great deal of absurd perplexity in my visage, as
+I sat receiving my rebuke, for I noticed Conshy smile, which gave me
+courage.
+
+"I will reform, Conshy, and that immediately; but my moral is good,
+man."
+
+"Well, well, Tom, I will take you at your word, so set about it, set
+about it."
+
+"But, Conshy--a word in your starboard lug--why don't you go to the
+fountain--head--why don't you try your hand in a curtain lecture on Old
+Kit North himself, the hoary sinner who seduced me?"
+
+Conshy could no longer contain himself; the very idea of Old Kit having
+a conscience of any kind or description whatever, so tickled him, that
+he burst into a most uproarious fit of laughter, which I was in great
+hopes would have choked him, and thus made me well quit of him for ever.
+For some time I listened in great amazement, but there was something so
+infectious in his fun, that presently I began to laugh too, which only
+increased his cachinnation, so there were Conshy and I roaring, and
+shouting, with the tears running down our cheeks.
+
+"Kit listen to me!--Oh, Lord"
+
+"You are swearing, Conshy," said I, rubbing my hands at having caught
+him tripping.
+
+"And enough to make a Quaker swear," quoth he, still laughing.  "No, no,
+Kit never listens to me--why, he would never listen even to my father,
+until the gout and the Catholic Relief Bill, and last of all, the Reform
+Bill, broke him down, and softened his heart."
+
+So there is an allegory for you, worthy of John Bunyan.
+
+Next morning we got the breeze again, when we bore away for Santiago de
+Cuba, and arrived off the Moro Castle on the fifth evening at sunset,
+after leaving Port Royal harbour.  The Spaniards, in their better days,
+were a kind of coral worms; wherever they planted their colonies, they
+immediately set to covering themselves in with stone and mortar;
+applying their own entire energies, and the whole strength of their
+Indian captives, first to the erection of a fort; their second object
+(postponed to the other only through absolute necessity) being then to
+build a temple to their God.  Gradually vast fabrics appeared, where
+before there was nothing but one eternal forest, or a howling
+wilderness; and although it does come over one, when looking at the
+splendid moles, and firm--built bastions, and stupendous churches of the
+New World--the latter surpassing, or at the lest equalling in
+magnificence and grandeur those of Old Spain herself--that they are all
+cemented by the blood and sweat of millions of gentle Indians, of whose
+harmless existence in many quarters, they remain the only monuments,
+still it is a melancholy reflection to look back and picture to one's
+self what Spain was, and to compare her, in her high and palmy state,
+with what she is now--to compare her present condition even with what
+she was when, as a young midshipman, I first visited her glorious
+Transatlantic colonies.
+
+Until the Peninsula was overrun by the French, Buenos Ayres, La Guayra,
+Porto Cavello, Maracaibo, Santa Martha, and that stronghold of the west,
+the key of the Isthmus of Darien, Cartagena de las Indias, with Porto
+Bello, and Vera Cruz, on the Atlantic shores of South America, were all
+prosperous and happy--"Llenas de plata;" and on the Western coast,
+Valparaiso, Lima, Panama, and San Bias, were thriving and increasing in
+population and wealth.  England, through her colonies, was at that time
+driving a lucrative trade with all of them; but the demon of change was
+abroad, blown thither by the pestilent breath of European liberalism.
+What a vineyard for Abbe Sieyes to have laboured in!  Every Capitania
+would have become a purchaser of one of his cut and dried constitutions.
+Indeed he could not have turned them out of hand fast enough.  The
+enlightened few, in these countries, were as a drop in the bucket to the
+unenlightened many; and although no doubt there were numbers of the
+former who were well--meaning men, yet they were one and all guilty of
+that prime political blunder, in common with our Whig friends at home,
+of expecting a set of semi--barbarians to see the beauty of, and to
+conform to, their newfangled codes of free institutions, for which they
+were as ready as I am to die at this present moment.  Bolivar, in his
+early fever of patriotism, made the same mistake, although his shrewd
+mind, in his later career, saw that a despotism, pure or impure--I will
+not qualify it--was your only government for the savages he had at one
+time dignified with the name of fellow--patriots.  But he came to this
+wholesome conclusion too late; he tried backs it is true, but it would
+not do; the fiend had been unchained, and at length hunted him broken
+hearted into his grave.
+
+But the men of mind tell us, that those countries are now going through
+the political fermentation, which by and by will clear, when the
+sediment will be deposited, and the different ranks will each take their
+acknowledged and undisputed stations in society; and the United States
+are once and again quoted against we of the adverse faction, as If there
+were the most remote analogy between their population, originally
+composed of all the cleverest scoundrels of Europe, and the barbarians
+of Spanish America, where a few master spirits, all old Spaniards, did
+indeed for a season stick fiery off from the dark mass of savages
+amongst whom their lot was cast, like stars in a moonless night, but
+only to suffer a speedy eclipse from the clouds and storm which they
+themselves had set in motion.  We shall see.  The scum as yet is
+uppermost, and does not seem likely to subside, but it may boil over.
+In Cuba, however, all was at the time quiet, and still is, I believe,
+prosperous, and that too without having come through this said blessed
+political fermentation.
+
+During the night we stood off and on under easy sail, and next morning,
+when the day broke, with a strong breeze and a fresh shower, we were
+about two miles off the Moro Castle, at the entrance of Santiago de
+Cuba.
+
+I went aloft to look round me.  The sea--breeze blew strong, until it
+reached within half a mile of the shore, where it stopped short,
+shooting in cat's--paws occasionally into the smooth belt of water
+beyond, where the long unbroken swell rolled like molten silver in the
+rising sun, without a ripple on its surface, until it dashed its
+gigantic undulations against the face of the precipitous cliffs on the
+shore, and flew up in smoke.  The entrance to the harbour is very
+narrow, and looked from my perch like a zig--zag chasm in the rock,
+inlaid at the bottom with polished blue steel; so clear, and cahn, and
+pellucid was the still water, wherein the frowning rocks, and
+magnificent trees on the banks, and the white Moro, rising with its
+grinning tiers of cannon, battery above battery, were reflected veluti
+in speculum, as if it had been in a mirror.
+
+We had shortened sail, and fired a gun, and the signal for a pilot was
+flying, when the Captain hailed me.  "Does the sea breeze blow into the
+harbour yet, Mr Cringle?"
+
+"Not yet, sir; but it is creeping in fast."
+
+"Very well.  Let me know when we can run in.  Mr Yerk, back the main
+topsail, and heave the ship to."
+
+Presently the pilot canoe, with the Spanish flag flying in the stem,
+came alongside; and the pilot, a tall brown man, a Moreno, as the
+Spaniards say, came on board.  He wore a glazed cocked hat, rather an
+out--of--the--way finish to his figure, which was rigged in a simple
+Osnaburg shirt, and pair of trowsers.  He came on the quarterdeck, and
+made his bow to the captain with all the ease in the world, wished him a
+good morning, and taking his place by the quartermaster at the conn, he
+took charge of the ship.  "Senor," quoth he to me, "is de harbour blow
+up yet? I mean, you see de viento walking into him?--de terral--dat is
+land--wind--has he cease?"
+
+"No," I answered; "the belt of smooth water is growing narrower fast;
+but the sea breeze does not blow into the channel yet.  Now it has
+reached the entrance."
+
+"Ah, den make sail, Senior Capitan; fill de main--topsail." We stood in,
+the scene becoming more and more magnificent as we approached the land.
+
+The fresh green shores of this glorious island lay before us, fringed
+with white surf, as the everlasting ocean in its approach to it
+gradually changed its dark blue colour, as the water shoaled, into a
+bright joyous green under the blazing sun, as if in sympathy with the
+genius of the fair land, before it tumbled at his feet its gently
+swelling billows, in shaking thunders on the reefs and rocky face of the
+coast, against which they were driven up in clouds, the incense of their
+sacrifice.  The undulating hills in the vicinity were all, either
+cleared, and covered with the greenest verdure that imagination can
+picture, over which strayed large herds of cattle, or with forests of
+gigantic trees, from amongst which, every now and then, peeped out some
+palm thatched mountain settlement, with its small thread of blue smoke
+floating up into the calm clear morning air, while the blue hills in the
+distance rose higher and higher, and more and more blue, and dreamy, and
+indistinct, until their rugged summits could not be distinguished from
+the clouds through the glimmering hot haze of the tropics.
+
+"By the mark seven," sung out the leadsman in the starboard chains.
+"Quarter less three," responded he in the larboard, showing that the
+inequalities of the surface at the bottom of the sea, even in the
+breadth of the ship, were at least as abrupt as those presented above
+water by the sides of the natural canal into which we were now running.
+By this time, on our right hand, we were within pistol shot of the Moro,
+where the channel is not above fifty yards across; indeed there is a
+chain, made fast to a rock on the opposite side, that can be hove up by
+a capstan until it is level with the water, so as to constitute an
+insurmountable obstacle to any attempt to force an entrance in time of
+war.  As we stood in, the golden flag of Spain rose slowly on the staff
+at the Water Battery, and Cast its large sleepy folds abroad in the
+breeze; but, instead of floating over mailclad men, or Spanish soldiers
+in warlike array, three poor devils of half naked mulattoes stuck their
+heads out of an embrasure under its shadow. "Senor Capitan," they
+shouted, 'una Botella de Roma, por el honor del pais.' We were mighty
+close upon leaving the bones of the old ship here, by the by; for at the
+very instant of entering the harbour's mouth, the land wind checked us
+off, and very nearly hove us broadside on upon the rocks below the
+castle, against which the swell was breaking in thunder.
+
+"Let go the anchor," sung out the captain.
+
+"All gone, sir," promptly responded the boatswain from the forecastle.
+And as he spoke, we struck once, twice, and very heavily the third time.
+But the breeze coming in strong, we fetched away again; and as the cable
+was promptly cut, we got safely off.  However, on weighing the anchor
+afterwards, we found the water had been so shoal under the bows, that
+the ship, when she stranded, had struck it, and broken the stock short
+off by the ring.  The only laughable part of the story consisted in the
+old cook, an Irishman, with one leg and half an eye, scrambling out of
+the galley nearly naked, in his trowsers, shirt, and greasy nightcap,
+and sprawling on all fours after two tubsful of yams, which the third
+thump had capsized all over the deck.  "Oh you scurvy--looking tief,"
+said he, eying the pilot; "if it was running us ashore you were set on,
+why the blazes couldn't ye wait until the yams, were in the copper, bad
+luck to ye--and them all scraped too! I do believe, if they even had
+been taties, it would have been all the same to you." We stood on, the
+channel narrowing still more the rocks rising to a height of at least
+five hundred feet from the water's edge, as sharply and precipitously as
+if they had only yesterday been split asunder; the splintered
+projections and pinnacles on one side, having each their corresponding
+fissures and indentations on the other, as if the hand of a giant could
+have closed them together again.
+
+Noble trees shot out in all directions wherever they could find a little
+earth and a crevice to hold on by, almost meeting overhead in several
+places, and alive with all kinds of birds and beasts incidental to the
+climate; parrots of all sorts, great and small, clomb, and hung, and
+fluttered amongst the branches; and pigeons of numberless varieties; and
+the glancing woodpecker, with his small hammer like tap, tap, tap; and
+the West India nightingale, and humming birds of all hues; while cranes,
+black, white, and grey, frightened from their fishing--stations, stalked
+and peeped about, as awkwardly as a warrant--officer in his long
+skirted coat on a Sunday; while whole flocks of ducks flew across the
+mastheads and through the rigging; and the dragon--like guanas, and
+lizards of many kinds, disported themselves amongst the branches, not
+lazily or loathsomely, as we, who have only seen a lizard in our cold
+climate, are apt to picture, but alert, and quick as lightning, their
+colours changing with the changing light or the hues of the objects to
+which they clung, becoming literally in one respect portions of the
+landscape.
+
+And then the dark, transparent crystal depth of the pure waters under
+foot, reflecting all nature so steadily and distinctly, that in the
+hollows, where the overhanging foliage of the laurel--like bushes
+darkened the scene, you could not for your life tell where the elements
+met, so blended were earth and sea.
+
+"Starboard," said I. I had now come on deck.  "Starboard, or the main
+topgallant--masthead will befoul of the limb of that tree.  Foretop,
+there--lie out on the larboard fore--yardarm, and be ready to shove her
+off, if she sheers too close."
+
+"Let go the anchor," struck in the first lieutenant.
+
+Splash--the cable rumbled through the hause--hole.
+
+"Now here are we brought up in paradise," quoth the doctor.
+
+"Curukity coo--curukity coo," sung out a great bushy--whiskered sailor
+from the crows nest, who turned out to be no other than our old friend
+Timothy Tailtackle, quite juvenilffied by the laughing scene.  "Here am
+I, Jack, a booby amongst the singing--birds," crowed he to one of his
+messmates in the maintop, as he clutched a branch of a tree in his hand,
+and swung himself up into it.  But the ship, as Old Nick would have it,
+at the very instant dropped astern a yew yards in swinging to her
+anchor, and that so suddenly, that she left him on his perch in the
+tree, converting his jest, poor fellow, into melancholy earnest.  "Oh
+Lord, sir!" sung out Timotheus, in a great quandary.  "Captain, do heave
+ahead a bit--Murder--I shall never get down again!  Do, Mr Yerk, if you
+please, sir!" And there he sat twisting and craning himself about, and
+screwing his features into combinations evincing the most comical
+perplexity.
+
+The captain, by the way of a bit of fun, pretended not to hear him.
+"Maintop, there," quoth he.
+
+The midshipman in the top answered him, "Ay, ay, sir."
+
+"Not you, Mr Reefpoint; the captain of the top I want."
+
+"He. is not in the top, sir," responded little Reefpoint, chuckling like
+to choke himself.
+
+"Where the devil is he, sir?"
+
+"Here, sir," squealed Timothy, his usual gruff voice spindling into a
+small cheep through his great perplexity.  "Here, sir."
+
+"What are you doing there, sir?  Come down this moment, sir.  Rig out
+the main--topmast--studding--sail--boom, Mr Reefpoint, and tell him to
+slew himself down by that long water--withe."
+
+To hear was to obey.  Poor Timothy clambered down to the fork of the
+tree, from which the withe depended, and immediately began to warp
+himself down, until he reached within three or four yards of the
+starboard fore--topsail--yardarm; but the corvette still dropped astern,
+so that, after a vain attempt to hook on by his feet, he swung off into
+mid air, hanging by his hands.
+
+It was no longer a joke.  "Here, you black fellows in the pilot canoe,"
+shouted the captain, as he threw them a rope himself.  "Pass the end of
+that line round the stump yonder--that one below the cliff, there--now
+pull like devils, pull."
+
+They did not understand a word he said; but, comprehending his
+gestures, did what he wished.
+
+"Now haul on the line, men--gently, that will do.  Missed it again,"
+continued the skipper, as the poor fellow once more made a fruitless
+attempt to swing himself on to the yard.
+
+"Pay out the warp again," sung out Tailtackle--"quick, quick, let the
+ship swing from under, and leave me scope to dive, or I shall be obliged
+to let go, and be killed on the deck."
+
+"God bless me, yes," said Transom, "stick out the warp, let her swing to
+her anchor."
+
+In an instant all eyes were again fastened with intense anxiety on the
+poor fellow, whose strength was fast failing, and his grasp plainly
+relaxing.
+
+"See all clear to pick me up, messmates."
+
+Tailtackle slipped down to the extreme end of the black withe, that
+looked like a scorched snake, pressed his legs close together, pointing
+his toes downwards, and then steadying himself for a moment, with his
+hands right above his head, and his arms at the full stretch, he
+dropped, struck the water fairly, entering its dark blue depths without
+a splash, and instantly disappeared, leaving a white frothy mark on the
+surface.
+
+"Did you ever see any thing better done?" said Yerk.  "Why he clipped
+into the water with the speed of light, as clean and clear as if he had
+been a marlinspike."
+
+"Thank heaven!" gasped the captain; for if he had struck the water
+horizontally, or fallen headlong, he would have been shattered in pieces
+every bone would have been broken--he would have been as completely
+smashed as if he had dropped upon one of the limestone rocks on the
+ironbound shore.
+
+"Ship, ahoy!" We were all breathlessly looking over the side where he
+fell, expecting to see him rise again; but the hail came from the water
+on t'other side.  "Ship, ahoy--throw me a rope, good people--a rope, if
+you please.  Do you mean to careen the ship, that you have all run to
+the starboard side, leaving me to be drowned to port here?"
+
+"Ah, Tailtackle! well done, old boy," sung out a volley of voices, men
+and officers, rejoiced to see the honest fellow alive.  He clambered on
+board, in the bight of one of twenty ropes that were hove to him.
+
+When he came on deck the captain slyly said, "I don't think you'll go a
+bird nesting in a hurry again, Tailtackle."
+
+Tim looked with a most quizzical expression at his captain, all blue and
+breathless and dripping as he was; and then sticking his tongue slightly
+in his cheek, he turned away, without addressing him directly, but
+murmuring as he went, "A glass of grog now."
+
+The Captain, with whom he was a favourite, took the hint.  "Go below
+now, and turn in till eight bells, Tailtackle.  Mafame," to his steward,
+"send him a glass of hot brandy grog."
+
+"A northwester," whispered Tim aside to the functionary; "half and half,
+tallow chops--eh!"
+
+About an hour after this a very melancholy accident happened to a poor
+boy on board, of about fifteen years of age, who had already become a
+great favourite of mine from his modest, quiet deportment, as well as of
+all the gunroom--officers, although he had not been above a fortnight in
+the ship.  He had let himself down over the bows by the cable to bathe.
+There were several of his comrades standing on the forecastle looking at
+him, and he asked one of them to go out on the spritsail--yard, and look
+round to see if there were any sharks in the neighbourhood; but all
+around was deep, clear, green water.  He kept hold of the cable,
+however, and seemed determined not to put himself in harm's way, until a
+little wicked urchin, who used to wait on the warrant--officers mess, a
+small meddling snipe of a creature, who got flogged in well--behaved
+weeks only once, began to taunt my little mild favourite.
+
+"Why, you chicken--heart, I'll wager a thimbleful of grog, that such a
+tailor as you are in the water can't for the life of you swim out to the
+buoy there."
+
+"Never you mind, Pepperbottom," said the boy, giving the imp the name he
+had richly earned by repeated flagellations.  "Never you mind.  I am not
+ashamed to show my naked hide, you know.  But it is against orders in
+these seas to go overboard, unless with a sail underfoot; so I sha'n't
+run the risk of being tattooed by the boatswain's mate, like some one I
+could tell of."
+
+"Coward," muttered the little wasp, "you are afraid, sir;" and the other
+boys abetting the mischief--maker, the lad was goaded to leave his hold
+of the cable, and strike out for the buoy.  He reached it, and then
+turned, and pulled towards the ship again, when he caught
+my eye.
+
+"Who is that overboard?  How dare you, sir, disobey the standing order
+of the ship?  Come in, boy; come in."
+
+My hailing the little fellow shoved him off his balance, and he lost his
+presence of mind for a moment or two, during which he, if any thing,
+widened his distance from the ship.
+
+At this instant the lad on the spritsail--yard sung out quick and
+suddenly, "A shark, a shark!"
+
+And the monster, like a silver pillar, suddenly shot up perpendicularly
+from out the dark green depths of the sleeping pool, with the waters
+sparkling and hissing around him, as if he had been a sea demon rushing
+on his prey.
+
+"Pull for the cable, Louis," shouted fifty voices at once--"pull for
+the cable."
+
+The boy did so--we all ran forward.  He reached the cable grasped it
+with both hands, and hung on, but before he could swing himself out of
+the water, the fierce fish had turned.  His whitish green belly glanced
+in the sun--the poor little fellow gave a heart splitting yell, which
+was shattered amongst the impending rocks into piercing echoes, and
+these again were reverberated from cavern, to cavern, until they died
+away amongst the hollows in the distance, as if they had been the faint
+shrieks of the damned--yet he held fast for a second or two--the
+ravenous tyrant of the sea tug, tugging at him, till the stiff, taught
+cable shook again.  At length he was torn from his hold, but did not
+disappear; the animal continuing on the surface crunching his prey with
+his teeth, and digging at him with his jaws, as if trying to gorge a
+morsel too large to be swallowed, and making the water flash up in foam
+over the boats in pursuit, by the powerful strokes of his tail, but
+without ever letting go his hold.  The poor lad only cried once more
+but such a cry--oh God, I never shall forget it!--and, could it be
+possible, in his last shriek, his piercing expiring cry, his young voice
+seemed to pronounce my name--at least so I thought at the time, and
+others thought so too.  The next moment he appeared quite dead.  No less
+than three boats had been in the water alongside when the accident
+happened, and they were all on the spot by this time.  And there was the
+bleeding and mangled boy, torn along the surface of the water by the
+shark, with the boats in pursuit, leaving a long stream of blood,
+mottled with white specks of fat and marrow in his wake.  At length the
+man in the bow of the gig laid hold of him by the arm, another sailor
+caught the other arm, boat--hooks and oars were dug into and launched at
+the monster, who relinquished his prey at last, stripping off the flesh,
+however, from the upper part of the right thigh, until his teeth reached
+the knee, where he nipped the shank clean off, and made sail with the
+leg in his jaws.
+
+Poor little Louis never once moved after we took him in.--I thought I
+heard a small still stem voice thrill along my nerves, as if an echo of
+the beating of my heart had become articulate.  "Thomas, a fortnight ago
+you impressed that poor boy--who was, and now is not--out of a Bristol
+ship." Alas conscience spoke no more than the truth.
+
+Our instructions were to be at St Jago, until three British ships, then
+loading, were ready for sea, and then to convey them through the Caicos,
+or windward passage.  As our stay was therefore likely to be ten days or
+a fortnight at the shortest, the boats were hoisted out, and we made our
+little arrangements and preparations for taking all the recreation in
+our power; and our worthy skipper, taught and stiff as he was at sea,
+always encouraged all kinds of fun and larking, both amongst the men and
+the officers, on occasions like the present.  Amongst his other pleasant
+qualities, he was a great boat racer, constantly building and altering
+gigs and pulling boats, at his own expense, and matching the men against
+each other for small prizes.
+
+He had just finished what the old carpenter considered his chef
+d'oeuvre, and a curious affair this same masterpiece was.  In the first
+place it was forty--two feet long over all, and only three and a half
+feet beam--the planking was not much above an eighth of an inch in
+thickness, so that if one of the crew had slipped his foot off the
+stretcher, it must have gone through the bottom.  There was a standing
+order that no man was to go into it with shoes on.  She was to pull six
+oars, and her crew were the captains of the tops, the primest seamen in
+the ship, and the steersman, no less a character than the skipper
+himself.
+
+Her name, for I love to be particular, was the Dragonfly; she was
+painted out and in of a bright red, amounting to a flame colour, oars red
+the men wearing trowsers and shirts of red flannel, and red net
+nightcaps--which common uniform the captain himself wore.  I think I
+have said before, that he was a very handsome man, but if I have not I
+say so now, and when he had taken his seat, and the gigs, all fine men,
+were seated each with his oar held upright upon his knees ready to be
+dropped into the water at the same instant, the craft and her crew
+formed to my eye as pretty a plaything for grown children as ever was
+seen.  "Give way, men," the oars dipped as clean as so many knives,
+without a sparkle, the gallant fellows stretched out, and away shot the
+Dragonfly, like an arrow, the green water foaming into white smoke at
+the bows, and hissing away in her wake.
+
+She disappeared in a twinkling round a reach of the canal where we were
+anchored, and we, the officers, for we must needs have our boat also,
+were making ready to be off, to have a shot at some beautiful cranes
+that, floating on their large pinions, slowly passed us with their long
+legs stuck straight out astern, and their longer necks gathered into
+their crops, when we heard a loud shouting in the direction where the
+Captain's boat had vanished.  Presently the Devil's Darning Needle, as
+the Scotch part of the crew loved to call the Dragonfly, stuck her long
+snout round the headland, and came spinning along with a Spanish canoe
+manned by four negroes, and steered by an elderly gentleman, a sharp
+acute--looking little man, in a gingham coat, in her wake, also pulling
+very fast; however, the Don seemed dead beat, and the captain was in
+great glee.  By this time, both boats were alongside, and the old
+Spaniard, Don Ricardo Campana, addressed the captain, judging that he
+was one of the seamen.  "Is the Captain on board?" said he in Spanish.
+The Captain, who understood the language, but did not speak it, answered
+him in French, which Don Ricardo seemed to speak fluently, "No, sir, the
+Captain is not on board; but there is Mr Yerk, the first lieutenant, at
+the gangway." He had come for the letter--bag he said, and if we had any
+newspapers, and could spare them, it would be conferring a great favour
+on him.
+
+He got his letters and newspapers handed down, and very civilly gave the
+Captain a dollar, who touched his cap, tipped the money to the men, and
+winking slightly to old Yerk and the rest of us, addressed himself to
+shove off.  The old Don, drawing up his eyebrows a little, (I guess he
+rather saw who was who, for all his make--believe innocence,) bowed to
+the officers at the gangway, sat down, and desiring his people to use
+their broad--bladed, clumsy looking oars, or paddles, began to move
+awkwardly away.  We, that is the gunroom officers, all except the
+second Lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master, now got into our
+own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all went in a covey; the
+purser and doctor, and three of the middies forward, Thomas Cringle,
+gentleman, pulling the stroke oar, with old Moses Yerk as coxswain; and as
+the Dragonflies were all red, so we were all seagreen, boat, oars,
+trowsers, shirts, and nightcaps.  We soon distanced the cumbrous looking
+Don, and the strain was between the Devil's Darning Needle and our boat
+the Watersprite, which was making capital play, for although we had not
+the bottom of the topmen, yet we had more blood, so to speak, and we had
+already beaten them, in their last gig, all to sticks.  But Dragonfly
+was a new boat, and now in the water for the first time.
+
+We were both of us so intent on our own match, that we lost sight of the
+Spaniard altogether, and the Captain and the first Lieutenant were
+bobbing in the stern sheets of their respective gigs like a couple of
+souple Tams, as intent on the game as if all our lives had depended on
+it, when in an instant the long black dirty prow of the canoe was thrust
+in between us, the old Don singing out, "Dexa mi lugar, paysanos, dexa
+mi lugar, mis hijos." We kept away right and left, to look at the
+miracle;--and there lay the canoe, rumbling and splashing, with her crew
+walloping about, and grinning and yelling like incarnate fiends, and as
+naked as the day they were born, and the old Don himself so staid and so
+sedate and drawley as he was a minute before, now all alive, shouting
+"Tira diablitos, tira!" flourishing a small paddle, with which he
+steered, about his head like a wheel, and dancing and jumping about in
+his seat, as if his bottom had been a haggis with quicksilver in it.
+
+"Zounds," roared the skipper,--"why, topmen--why, gentlemen, give way
+for the honour of the ship--Gentlemen, stretch out--Men, pull like
+devils; twenty pounds if you beat him."
+
+We pulled, and they pulled, and the water roared, and the men strained
+their muscles and sinews to cracking, and all was splash, splash, and
+whiz, whiz, and pech, pech, about us, but it would not do the canoe
+headed us like a shot, and in passing, the cool old Don again subsided
+into a calm as suddenly as he had been roused from it, and sitting once
+more, stiff as a poker, turned round and touched his sombrero, "I will
+tell that you are coming, gentlemen."
+
+It was now the evening, near nightfall, and we had been so intent on
+beating our awkward--looking opponent, that we had none of us time to
+look at the splendid scene that burst upon our view, on rounding a
+precipitous rock, from the crevices of which some magnificent trees shot
+up--their gnarled trunks and twisted branches overhanging the canal
+where we were pulling, and anticipating the fast--falling darkness that
+was creeping over the fair face of nature; and there we floated, in the
+deep shadow of the cliff and trees Dragonflies and Water Sprites,
+motionless and silent, the boats floating so lightly that they scarcely
+seemed to touch the water, the men resting on their oars, and all of us
+rapt with the magnificence of the scenery around us, beneath us, and
+above us.
+
+The left or western bank of the narrow entrance to the harbour, from
+which we were now debauching, ran out in all its precipitousness and
+beauty, (with its dark evergreen bushes overshadowing the deep blue
+waters, and its gigantic trees shooting forth high into the glowing
+western sky, their topmost branches gold--tipped in the flood of
+radiance shed by the rapidly sinking sun, while all below where we lay
+was grey cold shade,) until it joined the northern shore, when it sloped
+away gradually towards the east; the higher parts of the town sparkled
+in the evening sun, on this dun ridge, like golden turrets on the back
+of an elephant, while the houses that were in the shade covered the
+declivity with their dark masses, until it sank down to the water's
+edge.  On the right hand the haven opened boldly out into a basin about
+four miles broad by seven long, in which the placid waters spread out
+beyond the shadow of the western bank into one vast sheet of molten
+gold, with the canoe tearing along the shining surface, her side
+glancing in the sun, and her paddles flashing back his rays, and leaving
+a long train of living fire sparkling in her wake.
+
+It was now about six o'clock in the evening; the sun had set to us, as
+we pulled along under the frowning brow of the cliff, where the birds
+were fast settling on their nightly perches, with small happy
+twitterings, and the lizards and numberless other chirping things began
+to send forth their evening hymn to the great Being who made them and
+us, and a solitary white sailing owl would every now and then flit
+spectre like from one green tuft, across the bald face of the cliff, to
+another, and the small divers around us were breaking up the black
+surface of the waters into little sparkling circles as they fished for
+their suppers.  All was becoming brown and indistinct near us; but the
+level beams of the setting sun still lingered with a golden radiance
+upon the lovely city, and the shipping at anchor before it, making their
+sails, where loosed to dry, glance like leaves of gold, and their spars,
+and masts, and rigging like wires of gold, and gilding their flags,
+which were waving majestically and slow from the peaks in the evening
+breeze; and the Moorish--looking steeples of the churches were yet
+sparkling in the glorious blaze, which was gradually deepening into
+gorgeous crimson, while the large pillars of the cathedral, then
+building on the highest part of the ridge, stood out like brazen
+monuments, softening even as we looked into a Stonehenge of amethysts.
+One half of every object, shipping, houses, trees, and hills, was
+gloriously illuminated; but even as we looked, the lower part of the
+town gradually sank into darkness, and faded from our sight--the
+deepening gloom cast by the high bank above us, like the dark shadow of
+a bad spirit, gradually crept on, and on, and extended farther and
+farther; the sailing water--fowl in regular lines, no longer made the
+water flash up like flame; the russet mantle of eve was fast extending
+over the entire hemisphere; the glancing minarets, and the tallest
+trees, and the topgallant--yards and masts of the shipping, alone
+flashed back the dying effulgence of the glorious orb, which every
+moment grew fainter and fainter, and redder and redder, until it shaded
+into purple, and the loud deep bell of the convent of La Merced swung
+over the still waters, announcing the arrival of even--song and the
+departure of day.
+
+"Had we not better pull back to supper, sir?" quoth Moses Yerk to the
+captain.  We all started, the men dipped their oars, our dreams were
+dispelled, the charm was broken--"Confound the matter--of--fact
+blockhead," or something very like it, grumbled the captain--"but give
+way, men," fast followed, and we returned towards the ship.  We had not
+pulled fifty yards, when we heard the distant rattle of the muskets of
+the sentries at the gangways, as they discharged them at sundown, and
+were remarking, as we were rowing leisurely along, upon the strange
+effect produced by the reports, as they were frittered away amongst the
+overhanging cliffs in chattering reverberations, when the captain
+suddenly sung out, "Oars!" All hands lay on them.  "Look there," he
+continued--"There--between the gigs--saw you ever any thing like that,
+gentlemen?" We all leant over; and although the boats, from the way they
+had, were skimming along nearer seven than five knots--there lay a large
+shark; he must have been twelve feet long at the shortest, swimming
+right in the middle, and equidistant from both, and keeping way with us
+most accurately.
+
+He was distinctly visible, from the strong and vivid phosphorescence
+excited by his rapid motion through the sleeping waters of the dark
+creek, which lit up his jaws, and head, and whole body; his eyes were
+especially luminous, while a long wake of sparkles streamed away astern
+of him from the lashing of his tail.  As the boats lost their speed, the
+luminousness of his appearance faded gradually as he shortened sail
+also, until he disappeared altogether.  He was then at rest, and
+suspended motionless in the water; and the only thing that indicated his
+proximity, was an occasional sparkle from the motion of a fin.  We
+brought the boats nearer together, after pulling a stroke or two, but he
+seemed to sink as we closed, until at last we could merely perceive an
+indistinct halo far down in the clear black profound.  But as we
+separated, and resumed our original position, he again rose near the
+surface; and although the ripple and dip of the oars rendered him
+invisible while we were pulling, yet the moment we again rested on them,
+there was the monster, like a persecuting fiend, once more right between
+us, glaring on us, and apparently watching every Motion.  It was a
+terrible spectacle, and rendered still more striking by the melancholy
+occurrence of the forenoon.
+
+"That's the very identical, damnable baste himself, as murthered poor
+little Louis this morning, yeer honour; I knows him from the tom flesh
+of him under his larboard blinker, sir--just where Wiggens's boathook
+punished him," quoth the Irish captain of the mizentop.
+"A water--kelpie," murmured another of the Captain's gigs, a Scotchman.
+
+The men were evidently alarmed.  "Stretch out, men; never mind the
+shark.  He can't jump into, the boat surely," said the skipper.  "What
+the deuce are you afraid of?"
+
+We arrived within pistol--shot of the ship.  As we approached, the
+sentry hailed, "Boat, ahoy!"
+
+"Firebrand," sung out the skipper, in reply.
+
+"Man the side--gangway lanterns there," quoth the officer on duty; and
+by the time we were close to, there were two sidesmen over the side with
+the manropes ready stuck out to our grasp, and two boys with lanterns
+above them.  We got on deck, the officers touching their hats, and
+speedily the Captain dived down the ladder, saying, as he descended, "Mr
+Yerk, I shall be happy to see you and your boat's crew at supper, or
+rather to a late dinner, at eight o'clock; but come down a moment as you
+are.  Tailtackle, bring the gigs into the cabin to get a glass of grog,
+will you?"
+
+"Ay, ay, sir," responded Timothy.  "Down with you, you flaming thieves,
+and see you don't snort and sniffle in your grog, as if you were in your
+own mess, like so many pigs slushing at the same trough.'
+
+"Lord love you, Tim," rejoined one of the topmen, "who made you master
+of the ceremonies, old Ironfist, eh?  Where learnt you your breeding?
+Among the cockatoos up yonder?"
+
+Tim laughed, who, although he ought to have been in his bed, had taken
+his seat in the Dragonfly when her crew were piped over the side in the
+evening, and thereby subjected himself to a rap over the knuckles from
+the Captain; but where the offence might be said to consist in a too
+assiduous discharge of his duty, it was easily forgiven, unfortunate as
+the issue of the race had been.  So down we all trundled into the cabin,
+masters and men.  It was brilliantly lighted up, the table sparkling
+with crystal and wine, and glancing with silver plate; and there on a
+sofa lay Aaron Bang in all his pristine beauty, and fresh from his
+toilet, for he had just got out of his cot after an eight--and--forty
+hours sojourn therein--nice white neck cloth white jean waistcoat and
+trowsers, and span--new blue coat He was reading when we entered; and
+the Captain, in his flame--coloured costume, was close aboard of him
+before he raised his eyes, and rather staggered him a bit; but when
+seven sea--green spirits followed, he was exceedingly nonplussed, and
+then came the six red Dragonflies, who ranged themselves three on each
+side of the door, with their net--bags in their hands, smoothing down
+their hair, and sidling and fidgeting about at finding themselves so far
+out of their element as the cabin.
+
+"Mafame," said the Captain, "a glass of grog apiece to the Dragonflies"
+and a tumbler of liquid amber (to borrow from my old friend Cooper)
+sparkled in the large bony claw of each of them.  "Now, drink Mr Bang's
+health." They, as in duty bound, let fly at our amigo in a volley.
+
+"Your health, Mr Bang."
+
+Aaron sprung from his seat, and made his salaam, and the Dragonflies
+bundled out of the cabin again.
+
+"I say, Transom, John Canoeing still--always some frolic in the wind."
+
+We, the Water Sprites, had shifted and rigged, and were all mustered aft
+on the poop, enjoying the little air there was, as it fanned gently, and
+waiting for the announcement of supper.  It was a pitch--dark night,
+neither moon nor stars.  The murky clouds seemed to have settled down on
+the mastheads, shrouding every object in the thickest gloom.
+
+"Ready with the gun forward there, Mr Catwell?" said Yerk.
+
+"All ready, sir."
+
+"Fire!"
+
+Pent up as we were in a narrow channel, walled in on each side with
+towering precipitous rocks, the explosion, multiplied by the echoes into
+a whole broadside, was tremendous, and absolutely deafening.
+
+The cold, grey, threatening rocks, and the large overhanging twisted
+branches of the trees, and the clear black water, and the white Moro in
+the distance, glanced for an instant, and then all was again veiled in
+utter darkness, and down came a rattling shower of sand and stones from
+the cliffs, and of rotten branches, and heavy dew from the trees,
+sparkling in the water like a shower of diamonds; and the birds of the
+air screamed, and, frightened from their nests and perches in crevices,
+and on the boughs of the trees, took flight with a strong rushing noise,
+that put one in mind of the rising of the fallen angels from the
+infernal council in Paradise Lost; and the cattle on the mountain--side
+lowed, and the fish, large and small, like darts and arrows of fire,
+sparkled up from the black abyss of waters, and swam in haloes of flame
+round the ship in every direction, as if they had been the ghosts of a
+shipwrecked crew, haunting the scene of their destruction; and the
+guanas and large lizards which had been shaken from the trees, skimmed
+and struggled on the surface in glances of fire, like evil spirits
+watching to seize them as their prey.  At length the screaming and
+shrieking of the birds, and clang of their the cattle, ceased; and the
+startled fish oozy caverns at the bottom of the sea, disappeared; and
+all was again black and undistinguishable, the deathlike silence being
+only broken by the hoarse murmuring of the distant surf.
+
+"Magnificent!" burst from the Captain.  "Messenger, send Mr Portfire
+here." The gunpowder functionary, he of the flannel cartridge, appeared.
+"Gunner, send one of your mates into the maintop, and let him bum a blue
+light."
+
+The lurid glare blazed up balefully amongst the spars and rigging,
+lighting up the decks, and blasting the crew into the likeness of the
+host of Sennacherib, when the day broke on them, and they were all dead
+corpses.  A--stem of us, indistinct from the distance, the white Moro
+Castle reappeared, and rose frowning, tier above tier, like a Tower of
+Babel, with its summit veiled in the clouds, and the startled sea--fowl
+wheeling above the higher batteries, like snowflakes blown about in
+storm; while, near at hand, the rocks on each side of us looked as if
+fresh splintered asunder, with the sulphurous flames which had split
+them still burning; the trees looked no longer green, but were sicklied
+o'er with a pale ashy colour, as if sheeted ghosts were holding their
+midnight orgies amongst their branches--cranes, and waterfowl, and birds
+of many kinds, and all the insect and reptile tribes, their gaudy
+noontide colours merged into one and the same fearful deathlike
+sameness, flitted and sailed and circled above us, and chattered, and
+screamed, and shrieked; and the unearthly--looking guanas, and
+numberless creeping things, ran out on the boughs to peer at us, and a
+large snake twined itself up a scathed stump that shot out from a
+shattered pinnacle of rock that overhung us, with its glossy skin,
+glancing like the brazen serpent set up by Moses in the camp of the
+Israelites; and the cattle on the beetling summit of the cliff craned
+over the precipitous ledge to look down upon us; and while every thing
+around us and above us was thus glancing in the blue and ghastly
+radiance, the band struck up a low moaning air; the light burnt out, and
+once more we were cast, by the contrast, into even more palpable
+darkness than before. I was entranced, and stood with folded arms,
+looking forth into the night, and musing intensely on the appalling
+scene which had just vanished like a feverish dream--"Dinner waits,
+sir," quoth Mafame.
+
+"Oh! I am coming;" and kicking all my romance to Old Nick, I descended,
+and we had a pleasant night of it, and some wine and some fun, and there
+an end--but I have often dreamed of that dark pool, and the scenes I
+witnessed there that day and night.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The Pirate's Leman
+
+"When lovely woman stoops to folly,
+And finds too late that men betray,
+What charm can soothe her melancholy,
+What art can wash her guilt away?"
+
+"The only art her guilt can cover,
+To hide her shame from every eye,
+To give repentance to her lover,
+And wring his bosom, is to die."
+OLIVER GOLDSMITH, "SONG" FROM
+
+THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD.
+
+
+
+
+"Ay Dios, si sera possible que he ya hallado lugar que pueda servir de
+escondida sepultura a la carga pesada deste cuerpo, que tan contra mi
+voluntad sostengo?"
+
+DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA.
+
+
+
+The next morning after breakfast I proceeded to Santiago, and landed at
+the custom house wharf, where I found everything bustle, dust, and heat;
+several of the captains of the English vessels were there, who
+immediately made up to me, and reported how far advanced in their lading
+they were, and enquired when we were to give them convoy, the latest
+news from Kingston, &c. At length I saw our friend Ricardo Campana going
+along one of the neighbouring streets, and I immediately made sail in
+chase.  He at once recognised me, gave me a cordial shake of the hand,
+and enquired how he could serve me. I produced two letters which I had
+brought for him, but which had been forgotten in the bustle of the
+preceding day; they were introductory, and although sealed, I had some
+reason to conjecture that my friend, Mr Pepperpot Wagtail, had done me
+much more than justice.  Campana, with great kindness, immediately
+invited me to his house.  "We foreigners," said he, "don't keep your
+hours; I am just going home to breakfast." It was past eleven in the
+forenoon. I was about excusing myself on the plea of having already
+breakfasted, when he silenced me.  "Why, I guessed as much, Mr
+Lieutenant, but then you have not lunched; you can call it lunch, you
+know, if it will ease your conscience. There was no saying nay to all
+this civility, so we stumped along the burning streets, through a mile
+of houses, large massive buildings, but very different in externals from
+the gay domiciles of Kingston.  Aaron Bang afterwards used to say that
+they looked more like prisons than dwelling--houses, and he was not in
+this very much out.  Most of them were built of brick and plastered
+over, with large windows, in front of each of which, like the houses in
+the south of Spain, there was erected a large heavy wooden balcony,
+projecting far enough from the wall to allow a Spanish chair, such as I
+have already described, to be placed in it.  The front of these verandas
+was closed in with a row of heavy balustrades at the bottom, of a
+variety of shapes, and by clumsy carved woodwork above, which
+effectually prevented you from seeing into the interior.  The whole had
+a Moorish air, and in the upper part of the town there was a Sabbath--
+like stillness prevailing, which was only broken now and then by the
+tinkle of a guitar from one of the aforesaid verandas, or by the
+rattling of a crazy volante, a sort of covered gig, drawn by a broken
+kneed and broken winded mule, with a kiln dried old Spaniard or dona in
+it.
+
+The lower part of the town had been busy enough, and the stir and hum of
+it rendered the quietude of the upper part of it more striking.
+
+A shovel hatted friar now suddenly accosted us.
+
+"Senor Campana--ese pobre familia de Cangrejo!  Lastima!  Lastima!"
+"Cangrejo--Cangrejo!" muttered I; "why, it is the very name attached to
+the miniature."
+
+Campana turned to the priest, and they conversed earnestly together for
+some moments, when he left him, and we again held on our way. I could
+not help asking him what family that was, whose situation the "padre"
+seemed so feelingly to bemoan.
+
+"Never mind," said he, "never mind; they were a proud family once, but
+that is all over now--come along."
+
+"But," said I, "I have a very peculiar cause of interest with regard to
+this family.  You are aware, of course, of the trial and execution of
+the pirates in Kingston, the most conspicuous of whom was a young man
+called Federico Cangrejo, from whom"
+
+"Mr Cringle," said he, solemnly, "at a fitting time I will hear you
+regarding that matter; at present I entreat you will not press it."
+
+Good manners would not allow me to push it farther, and we trudged along
+together, until we arrived at Don Ricardo Campana's door.  It was a
+large brick building, plastered over as already described, and
+whitewashed.  There was a projecting stair in front, with a flight of
+steps to the right and left, with a parapet wall towards the street.
+There were two large windows, with the wooden veranda or lattice already
+described, on the first floor, and on the second a range of smaller
+windows, of the same kind.  What answered to our ground floor was used
+as a warehouse, and filled with dry goods, sugar, coffee, hides, and a
+vast variety of miscellaneous articles.  We ascended the stairs, and
+entered a lofty room, cool and dark, and paved with large diamond--
+shaped bricks, and every way desirable for a West India lounge, all to
+the furniture, which was meagre enough; three or four chairs, a worm--
+eaten old leathern sofa, and a large clumsy hardwood table in the midst.
+
+There were several children playing about, little sallow devils,
+although, I dare say, they could all of them have been furnished with
+certificates of white parentage, upon whom one or two negro women were
+hovering in attendance beyond a large folding door that fronted the
+entrance.
+
+When we entered, the eldest of the children, a little girl of about
+eight years old, was sitting in the doorway, playing with a small blue
+toy that I could make nothing of, until on a nearer inspection I found
+it to be a live land--crab, which the little lady had manacled with a
+thread by the foot, the thread being fastened to a nail driven into a
+seam of the floor.
+
+As an article of food, I was already familiar with this creature, but I
+had never seen a living one before; it was in every respect like a sea
+crab, only smaller, the body being at the widest not above three inches
+across the back.  It fed without any apparent fear, and while it
+pattered over the tiled floor, with its hard claws, it would now and
+then stop and seize a crum of bread in its forceps, and feed itself like
+a little monkey.  By the time I had exchanged a few words with the
+little lady, the large door that opened into the hall on the right hand
+moved, and mine hostess made her appearance; a small woman, dressed in a
+black gown, very laxly fitted.  She was the very converse of our old
+ship, she never missed stays, although I did cruelly.
+
+"This is my friend, Lieutenant Cringle," said mine host.
+
+"A las pies de usted, senora," responded your humble servant.
+
+"I am very glad to see you," said the lady; "but breakfast is ready;
+welcome, sir, welcome."
+
+The food was not amiss, the coffee decidedly good, and the chocolate,
+wherein, if you had planted a teaspoon, it would have stood upright, was
+excellent.  When we had done with substantials, dulce, that is the fruit
+of the guava preserved, in small wooden boxes, (like drums of figs,)
+after being made into a kind of jam, was placed on the table, and mine
+host and his spouse had eaten a bushel of it apiece, and drank a gallon
+of that most heathenish beverage, cold clear water, before the repast
+was considered ended.  After a hearty meal and a pint of claret, I felt
+rather inclined to sit still, and expatiate for an hour or so, but
+Campana roused me, and asked whether or not I felt inclined to go and
+look at the town.  I had no apology, and although I would much rather
+have sat still, I rose to accompany him, when in walked Captain Transom
+and Mr Bang.  They were also kindly received by Don Ricardo.
+
+"Clad of the honour of this visit," said he in French, with a slight
+lift of the corner of his mouth; "I hope neither you nor your boat's
+crew took any harm after the heat of yesterday."
+
+Transom laughed.
+
+"Why, you did beat us very neatly, Don Ricardo.  Pray, where got you
+that canoe?  But a lady Mrs Campana, I presume?--Have the goodness to
+introduce me."
+
+The skipper was presented in due form, the lady receiving him without
+the least mauvaise honte, which, after all, I believe to be indigenous
+to our island.  Aaron was next introduced, who, as he spoke no lingo, as
+I knows of, to borrow Timotheus Tailtackle's phraseology but English,
+was rather posed in the interview.
+
+"I say, Tom, tell her I wish she may live a thousand years.  Ah, so,
+that will do."
+
+Madama made her conge, and hoped "El Senora Maria un asiento." "Mucho,
+mucho," sung out Bang, who meant by that that he was much obliged.
+
+At length Don Ricardo came to our aid.  He had arranged a party into the
+country for next morning, and invited us all to come back to a tertulia
+in the evening, and to take beds in his house, he undertaking to provide
+bestias to carry us.
+
+We therefore strolled out, a good deal puzzled what to make of ourselves
+until the evening, when we fell in with one of the captains of the
+English ships then loading, who told us that there was a sort of hotel a
+little way down the street, where we might dine at two o'clock at the
+table d'hote.  It was as yet only twelve, so we stumbled into this hotel
+to reconnoitre, and a sorry affair it was.  The public room was fitted
+with rough wooden tables, at which Spaniards, Americans, and Englishmen,
+sat and smoked, and drank sangaree, hot punch, or cold grog, as best
+suited them, and committed a vast variety of miscellaneous abominations
+during their potations.  We were about giving up all thoughts of the
+place, and had turned to go to the door, when in popped our friend Don
+Ricardo.  He saw we were somewhat abroad.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "if I may ask, have you any engagement to dinner?"
+
+"No, we have none."
+
+"Well, then, will you do me the honour of partaking of my family fare,
+at three o'clock?  I did not venture to invite you before, because I
+knew you had other letters to deliver, and I wished to leave you masters
+of your own time." We gladly accepted his kind offer; he had made his
+bow, and was cruising amongst the smokers, and punch drinkers, where the
+blue coated masters of the English merchantmen and American skippers,
+were hobbing and nobbing with the gingham--coated Dons, for the whole
+Spanish part of the community were figged out in Glasgow and Paisley
+ginghams; when the priest, who had attracted our attention in the
+morning, came up to him, and drew him aside.  They talked earnestly
+together, the clerigo, every now and then, indicating by significant
+nods and glances towards us, that we formed the burden of his song,
+whatever that might be.  Campana seemed exceedingly unwilling to
+communicate the message, which we guessed he had been entreated to carry
+to us, and made one or two attempts to shove the friar in propria
+persona towards us, that he might himself tell his own story.  At length
+they advanced together to where we stood, when he addressed me.
+
+"You must pardon me, Lieutenant; but as the proverb hath it, strange
+countries, strange manners; my friend here, Padre Carera, brings a
+message from El Senor Picador Cangrejo, one of our magnates, that he
+will consider it an especial favour if you will can on him, either this
+forenoon or tomorrow."
+
+"Why, who is this Cangrejo, Don Ricardo? if he be not the father of the
+poor fellow I mentioned, there must be some mystery about him."
+
+"No mystery," chimed in the monk; "no mystery, God help us, but mucha,
+mucha miseria, hijo mio; much misery, sir, and more impending, and none
+to help save only"--He did not finish the sentence, but taking off his
+shovel hat, and shewing his finely turned bald head, he looked up to
+heaven, and crossed himself, the tears trickling down his wrinkled
+cheeks.  "But," continued he, "you will come, Mr Cringle?"
+
+"Certainly," said I, "tomorrow I will call, if my friend Don Ricardo
+will be my guide." This being fixed, we strolled about until dinnertime,
+friend Aaron making his remarks regarding the people and their domiciles
+with great naivety.
+
+"Strange now, Tom, I had expected to see little else amongst the slave
+population here than misery and starvation; whereas, so far as I can
+observe, they are all deucedly well cared for, and fat, and contented;
+and from the enquiries I was making amongst the captains of the
+merchantmen"--("Masters," interjected Captain Transom, "Master of a
+merchantman, Captain of a man--of--war.") "Well, captains of
+merchantmen,--masters, I mean,--I find that the people whom they employ
+are generally free; and, farther, that the slaves are not more than
+three to one free person, yet they export a great deal of produce,
+Captain Transom--must keep my eyes about me." And so he did, as will be
+seen by and by.  But the dinner hour drew near, and we repaired to Don
+Ricardo's, where we found a party of eight assembled, and our appearance
+was the signal for the repast being ordered in. It was laid out in the
+entrance hall.  The table was of massive mahogany, the chairs of the
+same material, with stuffed bottoms, covered with a dingy--coloured
+morocco, which might have been red once.  But devil a dish of any kind
+was on the snow--white table--cloth when we sat down, and our
+situations, or the places we were expected to fill at the board, were
+only indicated by a large knife and silver fork and spoon laid down for
+each person.  The company consisted of Don Ricardo Campana, la Senora
+Campana, and a brother of hers, two dark young men, who were Don
+Ricardo's clerks, and three young women, ladies, or senoras, as I ought
+to have called them, who were sitting so far back into the shade, at the
+dark end of the room, when we entered, that I could not tell what they
+were.  Our hostess was, although a little woman, a good looking dark
+Spaniard, not very polished, but very kind; and seeing that our friend
+Aaron was the most helpless amongst us, she took him under her especial
+care, and made many a civil speech to him, although her husband did not
+fail to advertise her, that he understood not one word of Spanish, that
+is, of all she was saying to him.  However, he replied to her kindnesses
+by his never--failing exclamation of "mucho, mucho," and they appeared to
+be getting on extremely well.  "Bring dinner," quoth Don Ricardo, "trae
+la comida;" and four black female domestics entered, the first with a
+large dish of pillaffe, or fowls smothered in rice and onions; the second
+with a nondescript melange, flesh, fish, and fowl apparently, strongly
+flavoured with garlic; the third bore a dish of jerked beef, cut into
+long shreds, and swimming in seba or lard; and the fourth bore a large
+dish full of that indescribable thing known by those who read Don
+Quixote, as an olla podrida.  The sable handmaidens began to circulate
+round the table, and every one helped himself to the dish that he most
+fancied.  At length they placed them on the board, and brought massive
+silver salvers, with snow white bread, twisted into strands in the
+baking, like junks of a cable; and water jars, and yams nicely roasted
+and wrapped in plantain leaves.  These were in like manner handed round,
+and then deposited on the table, and the domestics vanished.
+
+We all got on cheerily enough, and both the Captain and myself were
+finishing off with the olla podrida, with which, it so happened, we were
+familiar, and friend Bang, taking the time from us, took heart of grace
+and straightway followed our example.  There was a pause rather an
+irksome one from its continuance, so much so indeed, that knocking off
+from my more immediate business of gorging the aforesaid olla podrida, I
+looked up, and as it so happened, by accident towards our friend Bang
+and there he was munching and screwing up his energies to swallow a
+large mouthful of the mixture, against which his stomach appeared to
+rebel.  "Smollet's feast after the manner of the ancients," whispered
+Transom.  At length he made a vigorous effort and straightway sung out
+"l'eau de vie, Don Ricardibus--some brandy, mon ami--for the love of all
+the respectable saints in your heathenish calendar."
+
+Mine host laughed, but the females were most confoundedly posed.  The
+younger ones ran for aromatic salts, while the lady of the house fetched
+some very peculiar distilled waters.  She, in her kindness, filled a
+glass and helped Bang, but the instant he perceived the flavour, he
+thrust it away.
+
+"Anniseed--damn anniseed--no, no--obliged--mucho, mucho but brandy
+plaino, that is simple of itself, if you please--that's it Lord love
+you, my dear madam--may you live a thousand years though."
+
+The pure brandy was administered, and once more the dark beauties
+reappeared, the first carrying a bottle of vin--de--grave, the second
+one of vino tinto, or claret, and the third one of l'eau de vie, for
+Aaron's peculiar use.  These were placed before the landlord, who helped
+himself to half a pint of claret, which he poured into a large tumbler,
+and then putting a drop or two of water into it, tasted it, and sent it
+to his wife.  In like manner, he gave a smaller quantity to each of the
+other Senoras, when the whole female part of the family drank our
+healths in a volley.  But all this time the devil a thing drinkable was
+there before we males, but goblets of pure cold water.  Bang's "mucho
+mucho" even failed him, for he had only in his modesty got a thimbleful
+of brandy to qualify the olla podrida.  However, in a twinkling a
+beautiful long--necked bottle of claret was planted at each of our right
+hands, and of course we lost no time in returning the unlooked--for
+civility of the ladies.  Until this moment I had not got a proper
+glimpse of the three Virgins of the Sun, who were seated at table with
+us.  They were very pretty Moorish--looking girls, as like as peas, dark
+hair, black eyes, clear colourless olive complexion, and no stays; but
+young and elastic as their figures were, this was no disadvantage.  They
+were all three dressed in black silk petticoats, over a sort of cambric
+chemise, with large frills hanging down at the bosom, but gown, properly
+so called, they had none, their arms being unencumbered with any
+clothing heavier than a shoulder--strap.  The eldest was a fine full
+young woman of about nineteen; the second was more tall and stately, but
+slighter; and the youngest, was--oh, she was an angel of light--such
+hair, such eyes, and such a mouth; then her neck and bosom when the
+wearer is, as in the present case she was, young and beautiful.  They
+all wore a long plain white gauze strap, like a broad ribbon, (little
+Reefpoint afterwards said they wore boat pennants at their mastheads,) I
+don't know what Madam Maradon Carson would call it, in their hair, which
+fell down from amongst the braids nearly to their heels, and then they
+replied in their magnificent language, when casually addressed during
+dinner, with so much naivete.  We, the males of the party, had drank
+little or nothing, a bottle of claret or so apiece, and a dram of
+brandy, to qualify a little vin--de--grave that we had flirted with
+during dinner, when our landlord rose, along with his brother--in--law,
+wished us a good afternoon, and departed to his counting house, saying
+he would be back by dark, leaving the Captain and I, and friend Bang, to
+amuse the ladies the best way we could, as the clerks had taken wing
+along with their master.  Don Ricardo's departure seemed to be the
+signal for all hands breaking loose, and a regular romping match took
+place, the girls producing their guitars, and we were all mighty
+frolicsome and happy, when a couple of padres from the convent of La
+Merced, in their white flannel gowns, black girdles, and shaven crowns,
+suddenly entered the hall.  We the foreign part of the society,
+calculated on being pulled up by the clerigos, but deuce a bit; on the
+contrary, the young females clustered round them, laughing and joking,
+while the Senora Campana presented them with goblets of claret, in which
+they drank our healths, once and again, and before long they were
+gamboling about, all shaven and shorn, like a couple of three--year
+olds.  Bang had a large share of their assiduity, and to see him
+waltzing with a fine active, and what I fancy to be a rarity, a clean
+looking priest, with his ever recurring "mucho, mucho," was rather
+entertaining.
+
+The director of the postoffice, and a man who was called the "Corregidor
+de  Tabaco," literally the "corrector of tobacco," dropped in about this
+time,  and one or two ladies, relatives of Mrs Campana, and Don  Ricardo
+returning  soon after, we had sweet meats and liqueurs, and coffee,  and
+chocolate, and a game at monte, and maco, and were, in fact, very happy.
+But  the happiest day, as well as the most miserable, must have an  end,
+and  the merry party dropped off, one after another, until we were  left
+all alone with our host's family.  Madama soon after took her departure,
+wishing  us  a  goodnight.  She had no sooner gone, than Bang  began  to
+shoot  out his horns a bit.  "I say, Tom, ask the Don to let us  have  a
+drop of something hot, will you, a tumbler of hot brandy and water after
+the  waltzing, eh?  I don't see the bedroom candles yet." Nor would  he,
+if  we  had  sat there till doomsday.  Campana seemed to have understood
+Bang,  the  brandy was immediately forthcoming, and we drew  in  to  the
+table to enjoy ourselves, Bang waxing talkative.  "Now what odd names,--
+why, what a strange office it must be for his Majesty of Spain to employ
+at every port a corrector of tobacco; that his liege subjects may not be
+imposed  on,  I  suppose--what capital cigars this same  corrector  must
+have, eh?"
+
+I  suppose it is scarcely necessary to mention, that throughout all  the
+Spanish American possessions, tobacco is a royal monopoly, and that  the
+officer  above  alluded to is the functionary who has the management  of
+it.   Don  Ricardo, hearing something about cigars, took the  hint,  and
+immediately  produced a straw case from his pocket,  and  handed  it  to
+Bang.
+
+"Mucho, mucho," quoth Bang; "capital, real Havannah."
+
+So  now,  since we had all gotten fairly into the clouds, there  was  no
+saying how long we should have remained in the seventh heaven much would
+have  depended  upon  the continuance of the supply of  brandy--but  two
+female slaves presently made their appearance, each carrying a quatre. I
+believe I have already described this easily rigged couch somewhere;  it
+is  a  hard--wood frame, like what supports the loose top of  a  laundry
+table,  with canvass stretched over the top of it, but in such a  manner
+that  it  can be folded up flat, and laid against the wall when  not  in
+use, while a bed can be immediately constructed by simply opening it and
+stretching  the  canvass.  The handmaidens accordingly set  to  work  to
+arrange  two  beds, or quatres, one on each side of the table  where  we
+were  sitting,  while  Bang  sat eyeing  them  askance,  in  a  kind  of
+wonderment as to the object of the preparations, which were by no  means
+new  either  to  the Captain or me, who, looking on them as  matters  of
+course,  continued  in close confabulation with Don Ricardo  during  the
+operations.
+
+"I  say, Tom," at length quoth Bang, "are you to be laid out on  one  of
+those outlandish pieces of machinery--eh?"
+
+"Why,  I suppose so; and comfortable enough beds they are, I can  assure
+you."
+
+"Don't  fancy  them  much,  however,"  said  Bang;  "rather  flimsy  the
+framework."
+
+The  servants now very unceremoniously, no leave asked, began  to  clear
+away all the glasses and tumblers on the table.
+
+"Hillo!" said the skipper, casting an enquiring glance at Campana,  who,
+however, did not return it, but, as a matter of course apparently, rose,
+and taking a chair to the other end of the room, close by the door of an
+apartment  which  opened  from it, began in cold  blood  to  unlace  and
+disburden himself of all his apparel, even unto his shirt.
+
+This  surprised us all a good deal, but our wonderment was lost  on  the
+Don,  who  got  up  from his seat, and in his linen garment,  which  was
+deucedly  laconic,  made  his  formal  bow,  wished  us  goodnight,  and
+presenting the reverse of his medal, which was extremely picturesque, he
+vanished  through the door.  By this, the ebony ladies had  cleared  the
+table  of the crystal, and had capped it with a yellow leather mattrass,
+with pillows of the same, both embossed with large tufts of red silk; on
+this  they placed one sheet, and leaving a silver apparatus at the head,
+they disappeared--"Buenos noches, senores--las camas estan listas."
+
+Bang  had  been  unable  to speak from excess of astonishment;  but  the
+skipper  and I, finding there was no help for it, had followed Campana's
+example, and kept pace with him in our peeling, so that by the  time  he
+disappeared,  we  were  ready  to topple  into  our  quatres,  which  we
+accordingly did, and by this time we were both at full length, with  our
+heads  cased  each in one of Don Ricardo's silk nightcaps, contemplating
+Bang's  appearance, as he sat in disconsolate mood in his chair  at  the
+head  of  the table, with the fag--end of a cigar in the corner  of  his
+cheek.
+
+"Now, Bang," said Transom, "turn in, and let us have a snooze, will ye?"
+
+Bang did not seem to like it much.
+
+"Zounds, Transom, did you ever hear of a gentleman being put to bed on a
+table?  Why, it must be a quiz.  Only fancy me dished out and served  up
+like  a great calipi in the shell!  However, here goes--But surely  this
+is  in  sorry taste; we had our chocolate a couple of hours ago--capital
+it  was  by the by--in vulgar Staffordshire china, and now they give  us
+silver"
+
+"Be  decent, Bang," cut in the skipper, who was by this time  more  than
+half asleep.  "Be decent, and go to bed--that's a good fellow."
+
+"Ah,  well" Aaron undressed himself, and lay down; and there he was laid
+out, with a candle on each side of his head, his red face surmounted  by
+a  redder handkerchief tied round his head, sticking out above the white
+sheet;  and  supported by Captain Transom and myself, one on each  side.
+All  was  now  quiet. I got up and put out the candles, and  as  I  fell
+asleep,  I could hear Aaron laughing to himself "Dished, and served  up,
+deuced  like  Saint Barts. I was intended for a doctor,  Tom,  you  must
+know.  I hope the Don is not a medical amateur; I trust he won't have  a
+touch at me before morning.  Rum subject I should make.  Possibly he may
+want to practice cutting for the stone--he! he!" All was silent for some
+time.
+
+"Hillo--what is that?" said Aaron again, as if suddenly aroused from his
+slumbers--"I say, none of your fun, Transom."
+
+A  large bat was flaffing about, and I could hear him occasionally  whir
+near our faces.
+
+"Oh,  a  bat--hate  bats--how the skipper snores!  I hope  there  be  no
+resurrection--men in St Jago, or I shall be stolen away to  a  certainty
+before morning.  How should I look as a skeleton in a glass--case, eh?"
+
+I  heard  no  more,  until,  it might be, about  midnight,  when  I  was
+awakened,  and frightened out of my wits, by Bang rolling off the  table
+on  to  my  quatre, which he broke in his fall, and then we both  rolled
+over and over on the floor.
+
+"Murder!"  roared  Bang.   "I am bewitched and  bedevilled.   Murder!  a
+scorpion  has dropped from the roof into my mouth, and stung me  on  the
+nose.   Murder!   Tom--Tom Cringle--Captain--Transom, my  dear  fellows,
+awake and send for the doctor.  Oh my wig--oh dear oh dear"
+
+At  this uproar I could hear Don Ricardo striking a light, and presently
+he  appeared  with a candle in his hand, more than half naked,  with  la
+senora peering through the half--opened door behind him.
+
+"Ave Maria purissima--what is the matter?  Where is el Senior
+Bang?"
+
+"Mucho,  mucho,"  shouted  Bang  from below  the  table.   "Send  for  a
+doctoribus, Senor Richarsum. I am dead and t'other thing help!--help!"
+
+"Dios guardo usted," again ejaculated Campana.  "What has befallen him?"
+addressing the skipper, who was by this time on his head's antipodes  in
+bed, rubbing his eyes, and in great amazement.
+
+"Tell  him,  my  dear Transom, that a scorpion fell from the  roof,  and
+stung me on the nose."
+
+"What says he?" enquired the Spaniard.
+
+Poor  Transom's  intellect was at this time none of the clearest,  being
+more than half asleep, and not quite so sober as a hermit is wont to be;
+besides,  he  must  needs speak Spanish, of which he  was  by  no  means
+master, which led to a very comical blunder.  Alacran, in Spanish, means
+scorpion, and Cayman, an alligator, not very similar in sound certainly,
+but  the termination being the same, he selected in the hurry the  wrong
+phrase.
+
+"He  says,"  replied Transom in bad Spanish, "that he has  swallowed  an
+alligator, or something of that sort, sir." Then a loud yawn.
+
+"Swallowed a what?" rejoined Campana, greatly astonished.
+
+"No, no," snorted the captain--"I am wrong--he says he has been stung by
+an alligator."
+
+"Stung by an alligator!--impossible."
+
+"Why, then," persisted the skipper, "if he be not stung by an alligator,
+or  if  he has not really swallowed one, at all events an alligator  has
+either stung or swallowed him--so make the most of it, Don Ricardo."
+
+"Why  this is absurd, with all submission," continued Campana; "how  the
+deuce  could he swallow an alligator, or an alligator get into my  house
+to annoy him?"
+
+"D--n  it," said Transom, half tipsy and very sleepy, "that's  his  look
+out.  You are very unreasonable, Don Ricardo; all that is the affair  of
+friend  Bang  and  the  alligator; my purpose is solely  to  convey  his
+meaning faithfully"--a loud snore.
+
+"Oh,"  said  Campana, laughing, "I see, I see; I left your friend  sobre
+mesa, [on the table,] but now I see he is sub rosa."
+
+"Help,  good  people, help!" roared Bang--"help, or my nose  will  reach
+from this to the Moro Castle--Help!"
+
+We  got him out, and were I to live a thousand years, which would  be  a
+tolerably good spell, I don't think I could forget his appearance.   His
+nose, usually the smallest article of the kind that I ever saw, was  now
+swollen as large as my fist, and as purple as a mulberry--the distension
+of  the  skin, from the venomous sting of the reptile--for stung he  had
+been by a scorpion--made it semi--transparent, so that it looked like  a
+large blob of currant jelly hung on a peg in the middle of his face,  or
+a  gigantic leech, gorged with blood, giving his visage the semblance of
+some grotesque old--fashioned dial, with a fantastic gnomon.
+
+"A  poultice--a poultice--a poultice, good people, or I shall  presently
+be  all  nose together,"--and a poultice was promptly manufactured  from
+mashed pumpkin, and he was put to bed, with his face covered up with it,
+as  if  an  Italian  artist had been taking a cast of  his  beauties  in
+plaster of Paris.
+
+In  the  application  of  this said poultice,  however,  we  had  nearly
+extinguished poor Aaron amongst us, by suffocating him outright; for the
+skipper,  who was the operating surgeon in the first instance,  with  me
+for  his mate, clapped a whole ladleful over his mouth and nose,  which,
+besides  being  scalding  hot, sealed those  orifices  effectually,  and
+indeed  about a couple of tablespoonfuls had actually been  forced  down
+his gullet, notwithstanding his struggles, and exclamations of "Pumpkin
+bad--softened  with castor oil--d--n it, skipper,  you'll  choke  me"
+spurt--sputter--sputter--"choke me, man."
+
+"Cuidado," said Don Ricardo; "let me manage"--and he got a small tube of
+wild  cane,  which he stuck into Bang's mouth, through  a  hole  in  the
+poultice--cloth, and set a negro servant to watch that it did  not  sink
+into  his  gullet, as he fell asleep, and with instructions to take  the
+poultice  off  whenever the pain abated; and there he lay on  his  back,
+whistling through this artificial beak, like a sick snipe.
+
+At  length,  however, all hands of us seemed to have fallen asleep,  but
+towards  the  dawning  I was awakened by repeated bursts  of  suppressed
+laughter,  and  upon  looking in the direction from  whence  the  sounds
+proceeded,  I was surprised beyond all measure to observe Transom  in  a
+corner of the room in his trowsers and shirt, squatted like a tailor  on
+his  hams, with one of the sable damsels on her knees beside him holding
+a  candle, while his Majesty's Post Captain was plying his needle  in  a
+style  and  with a dexterity that would have charmed our friend  Stultze
+exceedingly,  and every now and then bending double over his  work,  and
+swinging his body backwards and forwards with the water welling from his
+eyes,  laughing all the while like to choke himself.  As for his  bronze
+candlestick,  I  thought she would have expired on the  spot,  with  her
+white  teeth glancing like ivory, and the tears running down her cheeks,
+as she every now and then clapped a handkerchief on her mouth to smother
+the uncontrollable uproariousness of her mirth.
+
+"Why, captain, what spree is this?" said I.
+
+"Never  you  mind, but come here.  I say, Mr Cringle,  do  you  see  him
+piping  away  there"--and  there he was,  sure  enough,  still  gurgling
+through the wild cane--with his black guardian, whose province it was to
+have  removed the poultice, sound asleep, snoring in the huge  chair  at
+Bang's head, wherein he had established himself, while the candle at his
+patient's cheek was flickering in the socket.
+
+My superior was evidently bent on wickedness.
+
+"Get up and put on your trowsers, man."
+
+I did so.
+
+"Now wait a bit till I cooper him--Here, my darling"--to the sable
+virgin who was now on the qui vive, bustling about--"here," said the
+captain, sticking out a leg of Bang's trowsers, "hold you there, my
+dear"
+
+She happened to be a native of Haiti, and comprehended his French.
+
+"Now hold you that, Mr Cringle."
+
+I took hold of the other leg, and held it in a fitting position, while
+Transom deliberately sewed them both up.
+
+"Now for the coat sleeves"
+
+We sealed them in a similar manner.
+
+"So--now for his shirt."
+
+We sewed up the stem, and then the stern, converting it into an
+outlandish--looking pillow--case, and finally both sleeves; and last of
+all, we got two live land--crabs from the servants, by dint of
+persuasion and a little plata, and clapped one into each stocking foot.
+
+We then dressed ourselves, and when all was ready, we got a piece of
+tape for a landyard, and made one end fast to the handle of a large
+earthen water--jar, full to the brim, which we placed on Bangs pillow,
+and passed the other end round the neck of the sleeping negro.
+
+"Now get you to bed," said the captain to the dingy handmaiden, "and
+stand by to be off, Mr Cringle."
+
+He stepped to Don Ricardo's bedroom door, and tapped loudly.
+
+"Hillo!" quoth the Don.  On this hint, like men springing a mine, the
+last who leave the sap, we sprang into the street, when the skipper
+turned, and taking aim with a large custard apple which he had armed
+himself with (I have formerly described this fruit as resembling a
+russet bag of cold pudding), he let fly.  Spin flew the apple--bash on
+the blackamoor's obtuse snout.  He started  back, and in his terror and
+astonishment threw a somersault over the back of his chair--gush poured
+the water--smash fell the pipkin--"murder" roared Bang, dashing off the
+poultice--cast, with such fury that it lighted in the street--and away
+we raced at the top of ourspeed.
+
+We ran as fast as our legs could carry us for two hundred yards, and
+then turning, walked deliberately home again, as if we had been out
+taking a walk in the cool morning air.
+
+As we approached, we heard the yells of a negro, and Bang high in oath.
+
+"You black rascal, nothing must serve your turn but practising your John
+Canoe tricks upon a gentleman--take that, you villain, as a small
+recompense for floating me out of my bed--or rather off the table," and
+the ludicrousness of his couch seemed to come over the worthy fellow
+once more, and he laughed loud and long--"Poor devil, I hope I have not
+hurt you? here, Quashi, there's a pistole, go buy a plaster for your
+broken pate."
+
+By this we had returned in front of the house, and as we ascended the
+front stairs, we again heard a loud racketing within; but blackie's
+voice was now wanting in the row, wherein the Spaniard and our friend
+appeared to be the dramatis personae--and sure enough there was Don
+Ricardo and Bang at it, tooth and nail.
+
+"Allow me to assist you," quoth the Don.
+
+"Oh no--mucho--mucho," quoth Bang, who was spinning round and round in
+his shirt on one leg, trying to thrust his foot into his trowsers; but
+the garment was impervious; and after emulating Noblet in a pirouette,
+he sat down in despair.  We appeared--"Ah, Transom, glad to see you
+some evil spirit has bewitched me, I believe--overnight I was stung to
+death by a scorpion--half an hour ago I was deluged by an invisible
+spirit--and just now when I got up, and began to pull on my stockings,
+Lord! a land crab was in the toe part, and see how he has scarified me"
+forking up his peg--"I then tried my trowsers," he continued in a most
+doleful tone--"and lo! the legs are sealed.  And look at my face, saw
+you ever such an unfortunate?  But the devil take you, Transom, I see
+through your tricks now, and will pay you off for this yet, take my word
+for it."
+
+The truth is, that our amigo Aaron had gotten an awful fright on his
+first awakening after his cold bath, for he had given the poor black
+fellow an ugly blow upon the face, before he had gathered his senses
+well about him, and the next moment seeing the blood streaming from his
+nose, and mixing with the custard--like pulp of the fruit with which his
+face was plastered, he took it into his noodle that he had knocked the
+man's brains out.  However, we righted the worthy fellow the best way we
+could, and shortly afterwards coffee, was brought, and Bang having got
+himself shaven and dressed began to forget all his botherations.  But
+before we left the house, madama, Don Ricardo's better--half, insisted
+on anointing his nose with some mixture famous for reptile--bites.  His
+natural good--breeding made him submit to the application, which was
+neither more nor less than an infusion of indigo and ginger, with which
+the worthy lady painted our friend's face and muzzle in a most ludicrous
+manner--it was heads and tails between him and an ancient Briton.
+Reefpoint at this moment appeared at the door with a letter from the
+merchant captains, which had been sent down to the corvette, regarding
+the time of sailing, and acquainting us when they would be ready.  While
+Captain Transom was perusing it, Bang was practising Spanish at the
+expense of Don Ricardo, whom he had boxed into a corner; but all his
+Spanish seemed to be scraps of schoolboy Latin, and I noticed that
+Campana had the greatest difficulty in keeping his countenance.  At
+length Don Ricardo approached us--"Gentlemen, I have laid out a little
+plan for the dav; it is my wife's saint's day, and a holyday in the
+family, so we propose going to a coffee property of mine about ten miles
+from Santiago, and staying till morning--What say you?"
+
+I chimed in--"I fear, sir, that I shall be unable to accompany you, even
+if Captain Transom should be good enough to give me leave, as I have an
+errand to do for that unhappy young fellow that we spoke about last
+evening--some trinkets which I promised to deliver here they are"--and I
+produced the miniature and crucifix.
+
+Campana winced--"Unpleasant, certainly, Lieutenant"--said he.
+
+"I know it will be so myself, but I have promised"
+
+"Then far be it from me to induce you to break your promise," said the
+worthy man.  "My son," said he, gravely, "the friar you saw yesterday is
+confessor to Don Picador Cangrejo's family; his reason for asking to
+obtain an interview with you was from its being known that you were
+active in capturing the unfortunate men with whom young Federico
+Cangrejo, his only son, was leagued.  Oh that poor, poor boy!  Had you
+known him, gentlemen, as I knew him, poor, poor Federico!"
+
+"He was an awful villain, however, you must allow," said the Captain.
+
+"Granted in the fullest sense, my dear sir," rejoined Campana; "but we
+are all frail, erring creatures, and he was hardly dealt by.  He is now
+gone to his heavy, heavy account, and I may as well tell you the poor
+boy's sad story at once.  Had you but seen him in his prattling infancy,
+in his sunny boyhood!"
+
+"He was the only son of a rich old father, an honest worldly man, and of
+a most peevish, irascible temper.  Poor Federico, and his sister
+Francisca, his only sister, were often cruelly used; and his orphan
+cousin, my sweet god--daughter, Maria Olivera, their playmate, was, if
+any thing, more harshly treated; for although his mother was and is a
+most excellent woman, and always stood between them and the old man's
+ill temper, yet at the time I speak of she had returned to Spain, where
+a long period of ill health detained her for upwards of three years.
+Federico by this time was nineteen years of age, tall, handsome, and
+accomplished beyond all the youth of his rank and time of life in Cuba:
+But you have seen him, gentlemen--in his extremity; it is true--yet,
+fallen as he was, I mistake if you thought him a common man or good, or
+for evil, my heart told me he would be conspicuous, and I was, alas the
+day! too true a prophet.  His attachment to his cousin, who, on the death
+of her mother, had become an inmate of Don Picador's house, had been
+evident to all but the purblind old man for a long time; and when he did
+discover it, he imperatively forbade all intercourse between them, as,
+forsooth, he had projected a richer match for him, and shut Maria up in
+a corner of his large mansion, Federico, haughty and proud, could not
+stomach this.  He ceased to reside at his father's estate, which had
+been confided to his management, and began to frequent the billiard
+table, and monte--tables, and taverns, and in a thousand ways gave, from
+less to more, such unendurable offence, that his father at length shut
+his door against him, and turned him, with twenty doubloons in his
+pocket, into the street."
+
+"Friends interceded, for the feud soon became public, and, amongst
+others, I essayed to heal it; and with the fond, although passionate
+father, I easily succeeded; but how true it is, 'that evil communication
+corrupts good manners!' I found Federico, by this time, linked in bands
+of steel with a junto of desperadoes, whose calling was any thing but
+equivocal; and implacable to a degree, that, knowing him as I had known
+him, I had believed impossible.  But, alas, the human heart is indeed
+desperately wicked.  I struggled long with the excellent Father Carera
+to bring about a reconciliation, and thought we had succeeded, as
+Federico was induced to return to his father's house once more, and for
+many days and weeks we all flattered ourselves that he had reformed;
+until one morning, about four months ago, he was discovered coming out
+of his cousin's room about the dawning by his father, who immediately
+charged him with seducing his ward.  High words ensued.  Poor Maria
+rushed out and threw herself at her uncle's feet.  The old man, in a
+transport of fury, kicked her on the face as she lay prostrate;
+whereupon, God help me, he was felled to the earth by his own flesh, and
+bone, and blood--by his abandoned son."
+
+'What rein can hold licentious wickedness,
+When down the hill he holds his fierce career?'
+
+
+"The rest is soon told;--he joined the pirate vessels at Puerto
+Escondido, and, from his daring and reckless intrepidity, soon rose to
+command amongst them, and was proceeding in his infernal career, when
+the God whom he had so fearfully defied at length sent him to expiate
+his crimes on the scaffold."
+
+"But the priest"--said I, much excited.
+
+"True," continued Don Ricardo, "Padre Carera brought a joint message
+from his poor mother, and sister, and--and, oh my darling god--child, my
+heart--dear Maria!".  And the kind old man wept bitterly.  I was much
+moved.
+
+"Why, Mr Cringle," said Transom, "if you have promised to deliver the
+trinkets in propria persona, there's an end, take leave--nothing doing
+down yonder--send Tailtackle for clothes.  Mr Reefpoint, go to the boat
+and send up Tailtackle; so go you must to these unfortunates, and we
+shall then start on our cruise to the Coffee Estate with our worthy
+host."
+
+"Why," said Campana; "the family are in the country; they live about
+four miles from Santiago, on the very road to my property, and we shall
+call on our way; but I don't much admire these interviews there will be
+a scene, I fear"
+
+"Not on my part," said I; "but call I must, for I solemnly promised"
+and presented the miniature to Don Ricardo.
+
+Campana looked at it.  It was exquisitely finished, and represented a
+most beautiful girl, a dark, large--eyed, sparkling, Spanish beauty.
+"Oh, my dear, dear child," murmured Don Ricardo, "how like this was to
+what you were; how changed you are now from what it is--alas! alas!  But
+come, gentlemen, my wife is ready, and my two nieces," the pretty girls
+who were of our party the previous evening--"and here are the horses."
+
+At this moment the little midshipman, Master Reefpoint, a great
+favourite of mine, by the by, reappeared, with Tailtackle behind him,
+carrying my bundle.  I was regularly caught, as the clothes, on the
+chance of a lark, had been brought from the ship, although stowed out of
+sight under the stern--sheets of the boat.
+
+"Here are your clothes, Mr Cringle," quoth middy.
+
+"Devil confound your civility," internally murmured I.
+
+The captain twigged, and smiled.  Upon which little Reefy stole up to me
+"Lord, Mr Cringle, could you but get me leave to go, it would be such
+a"
+
+"Hold your tongue, boy, how can I"
+
+Transom struck in--"Master Reefpoint, I see what you are driving at; but
+how shall the Firebrand be taken care of when you are away, eh? besides,
+you have no clothes, and we shall be away a couple of days most
+probably."
+
+"Oh, yes, sir, I have clothes; I have a hair--brush and a tooth--brush,
+and two shirt collars, in my waistcoat pocket."
+
+"Very well, can we venture to lumber our kind friends with this giant,
+Mr Cringle, and can we really leave the ship without him?" Little Reefy
+was now all alive.  "Tailtackle, go on board--say we shall be back to
+dinner the day after tomorrow," said the Captain.
+
+We now made ready for the start, and certainly the cavalcade was rather
+a remarkable one.  First, there was an old lumbering family volante, a
+sort of gig, with four posts or uprights supporting a canopy covered
+with leather, and with a high dash--iron or splashboard in front.  There
+were curtains depending from this canopy, which on occasion could be let
+down, so as to cover in the sides and front.  The whole was of the most
+clumsy workmanship that can be imagined, and hung by untanned leather
+straps in a square wooden frame, from the front of which again protruded
+two shafts, straight as Corinthian pillars, and equally substantial,
+embracing an uncommonly fine mule, one of the largest and handsomest of
+the species which I had seen.  The harnessing partook of the same kind
+of unwieldy strength and solidity, and was richly embossed with silver
+and dirt.  Astride on this mulo sat a household negro, with a huge thong
+of bullock's hide in one hand, and the reins in the other.  In this
+voiture were ensconced La Senora Campana, a portly concern, as already
+mentioned, two of her bright black--eyed laughing nieces, and Master
+Reefpoint, invisible as he lay smothered amongst the ladies, all to his
+little glazed cocked hat, and jabbering away in a most unintelligible
+fashion, so far as the young ladies, and eke the old one, were
+concerned.  However, they appeared all mightily tickled by little Reefy,
+either mentally or physically, for off they trundled, laughing and
+skirting loud above the noise and creaking of the volante.  Then came
+three small, ambling, stoutish long--tailed ponies, the biggest not
+above fourteen hands high; these were the barbs intended for mine host,
+the skipper, and myself, caparisoned with high demipique old--fashioned
+Spanish saddles, mounted with silver stirrups, and clumsy bridles, with
+a ton of rusty iron in each poor brute's mouth for a bit, and curbs like
+a piece of our chain cable, all very rich, and, as before mentioned with
+regard to the volante, far from clean.  Their pace was a fast run, a
+compound of walk, trot, and canter, or rather of a trot and a canter,
+the latter broken down and frittered away through the instrumentality of
+a ferocious Mameluke bit, but as easy as an armchair; and this was, I
+speak it feelingly, a great convenience, as a sailor is not a Centaur,
+not altogether of a piece with his horse, as it were; yet both Captain
+Transom and myself were rather goodish horsemen for nauticals, although
+rather apt to go over the bows upon broaching--to suddenly.  Don
+Ricardo's costume would have been thought a little out of the way in
+Leicestershire; most people put on their boots "when they do a riding
+go,' but he chose to mount in shoes and white cotton stockings, and
+white jean small--clothes, with a flowing yellow--striped gingham coat,
+the skirts of which fluttered in the breeze behind him, his withered
+face shaded by a huge Panama hat, and--with enormous silver spurs on his
+heels, the rowels two inches in diameter.
+
+Away lumbered the volante, and away we pranced after it.  For the first
+two miles the scenery was tame enough; but after that, the gently
+swelling eminences on each side of the road rose abruptly into rugged
+mountains; and the dell between them, which had hitherto been verdant
+with waving guinea grass, became covered with large trees, under the
+dark shade of which we lost sight of the sun, and the contrast made
+every thing around us for a time almost undistinguishable.  The forest
+continued to overshadow the high--road for two miles further, only
+broken by a small cleared patch now and then, where the sharp--spiked
+limestone rocks shot up like minarets, and the fire scathed stumps of
+the felled trees stood out amongst the rotten earth in the crevices,
+from which, however, sprang yams and cocoas, and peas of all kinds, and
+granadillos, and a profusion of herbs and roots, with the greatest
+luxuriance.
+
+At length we came suddenly upon a cleared space; a most beautiful spot
+of ground, where, in the centre of a green plot of velvet grass,
+intersected with numberless small walks, gravelled from a neighbouring
+rivulet, stood a large one--story wooden edifice, built in the form of a
+square, with a court--yard in the centre.  From the moistness of the
+atmosphere, the outside of the unpainted weatherboarding had a green
+damp appearance, and so far as the house itself was concerned, there was
+an air of great discomfort about the place.  A large open balcony ran
+round the whole house on the outside; and fronting us there was a clumsy
+wooden porch supported on pillars, with the open door yawning behind it.
+
+The hills on both sides were cleared, and planted with most luxuriant
+coffee--bushes, and provision grounds, while the house was shaded by
+several splendid star--apple and kennip--trees, and there was a border
+of rich flowering shrubs surrounding it on all sides.  The hand of woman
+had been there!
+
+A few half--naked negroes were lounging about, and on hearing our
+approach they immediately came up and stared wildly at us.
+
+"All fresh from the ship these," quoth Bang.
+
+"Can't be," said Transom.  "Try and see."
+
+I spoke some of the commonest Spanish expressions to them, but they
+neither understood them, nor could they answer me.  But Bang was more
+successful in Eboe and Mandingo, both of which he spoke fluently
+accomplishments which I ought to have expected, by the by, when I
+declared he was little skilled in any tongue but English.
+
+Large herds of cattle were grazing on the skirts of the wood, and about
+one hundred mules were scrambling and picking their food in a rocky
+river--course which bisected the valley.  The hills, tree--covered, rose
+around this solitary residence in all directions, as if it had been
+situated in the bottom of a punch--bowl; while a small waterfall, about
+thirty feet high, fell so near one of the corners of the building, that
+when the wind set that way, as I afterwards found, the spray moistened
+my hair through the open window in my sleeping apartment.  We proceeded
+to the door and dismounted, following the example of our host, and
+proceeded to help the gentlewomen to alight from the volante.  When we
+were all accounted for in the porch, Don Ricardo began to shout,
+"Criados, criados, ven aca--pendejos, ven aca!" the call was for some
+time unattended to; at length, two tall, good--looking, decently--
+dressed negroes made their appearance, and took charge of our bestias
+and carriage; but all this time there was no appearance by any living
+creature belonging to the family.
+
+The dark hall, into which the porch opened was paved with the usual
+diamond--shaped bricks or tiles, but was not ceiled, the rafters of the
+roof being exposed; there was little or no furniture in it, that we
+could see, except a clumsy table in the centre of the room, and one or
+two of the leather--backed reclining chairs, such as Whiffle used to
+patronize.  Several doors opened from this comfortless saloon, which was
+innocent of paint, into other apartments, one of which was ajar.
+
+"Estrailo," murmured Don Ricardo, "muy estrailo!"
+
+"Coolish reception this, Tom." quoth Aaron Bang.
+
+"Deucedly so," said the skipper.
+
+But Campana, hooking his little fat wife under his arm, while we did the
+agreeable to the nieces, now addressed himself to enter, with the
+constant preliminary ejaculation of all well--bred Spaniards in crossing
+a friend's threshold, "Ave Maria purissima," when we were checked by a
+loud tearing fit of coughing, which seemed almost to suffocate the
+patient, and female voices in great alarm, proceeding from the room
+beyond.
+
+Presently a little anatomy of a man presented himself at the door of the
+apartment, wringing his hands, and apparently in great misery.  Campana
+and his wife, with all the alacrity of kind hearted people, immediately
+went up to him, and said something which I did not overhear, but the
+poor creature to whom they spoke appeared quite bewildered.  "What is
+it, Don Picador?" at length we could hear Campana say,--"what is it?  Is
+it my poor dear Maria who is worse, or what--speak, man--may my wife
+enter?"
+
+"Si, si--yes, yes," said the afflicted Don Picador--"yes, yes, let her
+go in--send--for I am unable to think or act--send one of my people back
+post to Santiago for the doctor--haste, haste.  Sangre--hecha sangre por
+la boca."
+
+"Good God, why did you not say so before?" rejoined Campana.
+
+Here his wife called loudly to her husband, "Ricardo, Ricardo, por amor
+de su alma, manda por el medico, she has burst a blood vessel Maria is
+dying!"
+
+"Let me mount myself; I will go myself."--And the excellent man rushed
+for the door, when the poor heart--broken Picador clung to his knees.
+
+"No, no, don't leave me.  Send some one else"
+
+"Take care, man, let me go"
+
+Transom and I volunteered in a breath--"No, no, I will go myself,"
+continued Don Ricardo; "let go, man--God help me, the old creature is
+crazed,--el viejo no vale."
+
+"Here, here! help, Don Ricardo!" cried his wife.
+
+Off started Transom for the doctor, and into the room rushed Don Picador
+and Campana, and, from the sounds in the sick--chamber, all seemed
+bustle and confusion; at length the former appeared to be endeavouring
+to lift the poor sufferer, so as to enable her to sit up in bed; in the
+meantime her coughing had gradually abated into a low suffocating
+convulsive gasp.
+
+"So, so, Ii ft her up, man,' we could hear Campana say; 'lift her up
+quick--or she will be suffocated."
+
+At length, in a moment of great irritation, excited on the one hand by
+his intense interest in the poor suffering girl, and anger at the
+peevish, helpless Don Picador, Don Ricardo, to our unutterable surprise,
+rapped out, in gude broad Scotch, as he brushed away Senor Cangrejo from
+the bedside with a violence that spun him out of the door--"God--the
+auld doited deevil is as fusionless as a docken."
+
+My jaw dropped--I was thunderstruck--Bang's eye met mine "Murder!" quoth
+Bang, so soon as his astonishment let him collect breath enough, "and
+here I have been for two whole days practising Spanish, to my great
+improvement no doubt, upon a Scotchman how Edified he must have been!"
+
+"But the docken, man," said I--"fusionless as a docken--how classic!
+what an exclamation to proceed from the mouth of a solemn Don!"
+
+"No gibes regarding the docken," promptly chimed in Bang; "it is a
+highly respectable vegetable, let me tell you, and useful on occasion,
+which is more."
+
+The noise in the room ceased, and presently Campana joined us.  "We must
+proceed," said he, "it will never do for you to deliver the jewels now,
+Mr Cringle; she is too much excited already, even from seeing me."
+
+But it was more easy to determine on proceeding than to put it in
+execution, for a heavy cloud, that had been overhanging the small valley
+the whole morning, had by this time spread out and covered the entire
+face of nature like a sable pall; the birds of the air flew low, and
+seemed perfectly gorged with the superabundance of flies, which were
+thickly betaking themselves for shelter under the evergreen leaves of
+the bushes.  All the winged creation, great and small, were fast
+hastening to the cover of the leaves and branches of the trees.  The
+cattle were speeding to the hollows under the impending rocks; negroes,
+men, women, and children, were hurrying with their hoes on their
+shoulders past the windows to their huts.  Several large bloodhounds had
+ventured into the hall, and were crouching with a low whine at our feet.
+The huge carrion crows were the only living things which seemed to brave
+the approaching chubasco, and were soaring high up in the heavens,
+appearing to touch the black agitated fringe of the lowering
+thunderclouds.  All other kinds of winged creatures, parrots, and
+pigeons, and cranes, had vanished by this time under the thickest trees,
+and into the deepest coverts, and the wild--ducks were shooting past in
+long lines, piercing the thick air with outstretched neck and clanging
+wing.
+
+Suddenly the wind fell, and the sound of the waterfall increased, and
+grew rough and loud, and the undefinable rushing noise that precedes a
+heavy fall of rain in the tropics, the voice of the wilderness, moaned
+through the high woods, until at length the clouds sank upon the valley
+in boiling mists, rolling halfway down the surrounding hills; and the
+water of the stream, whose scanty rill but an instant before hissed over
+the precipice, in a small transparent ribbon of clear glass--green,
+sprinkled with white foam, and then threaded its way round the large
+rocks in its capacious channel, like a silver eel twisting through a dry
+desert, now changed in a moment to a dark turgid chocolate colour; and
+even as we stood and looked, lo! a column of water from the mountains
+pitched in thunder over the face of the precipice, making the earth
+tremble, and driving up from the rugged face of the everlasting rocks in
+smoke, and forcing the air into eddies and sudden blasts which tossed
+the branches of the trees that overhung it, as they were dimly seen
+through clouds of drizzle, as if they had been shaken by a tempest,
+although there was not a breath stirring elsewhere out of heaven; while
+little wavering spiral wreaths of mist rose up thick from the surface of
+the boiling pool at the bottom of the cataract, like miniature water
+spouts, until they were dispersed by the agitation of the air above.
+
+At length the swollen torrent rolled roaring down the narrow valley,
+filling the whole water--course, about fifty yards wide, and advancing
+with a solid front a fathom high--a fathom deep does not convey the idea
+like a stream of lava, or as one may conceive of the Red Sea, when, at
+the stretching forth of the hand of the prophet of the Lord, its mighty
+waters rolled back and stood heaped up as a wall to the host of Israel.
+The channel of the stream, which but a minute before I could have leaped
+across, was the next instant filled, and utterly impassable.
+
+"You can't possibly move," said Don Picador; "you can neither go on nor
+retreat; you must stay until the river subsides." And the rain now began
+pattering in large drops, like scattering shots preceding an engagement,
+on the wooden shingles with which the house was roofed, gradually
+increasing to a loud rushing noise, which, as the rooms were not ceiled,
+prevented a word being heard.
+
+Don Ricardo began to fret and fidget most awfully,--"Beginning of the
+seasons--why, we may not get away for a week and all the ships will be
+kept back in their loading."
+
+All this time, the poor sufferer's tearing cough was heard in the lulls
+of the rain; but it gradually became less and less severe, and tile lady
+of the house, and Senora Campana, and Don Picador's daughter, at length
+slid into the room on tiptoe, leaving one of Don Ricardo's nieces in the
+room with the sick person.
+
+"She is asleep--hush." The weather continued as bad as ever, and we
+passed a very comfortless forenoon of it, Picador, Campana, Bang, and
+myself, perambulating the large dark hall, while the ladies were
+clustered together in a corner with their work.  At length the weather
+cleared, and I could get a glimpse of mine hostess and her fair
+daughter.  The former was a very handsome woman, about forty; she was
+tall, and finely formed; her ample figure set off by the very simple,
+yet, to my taste, very elegant dress formerly described: it was neither
+more nor less than the plain black silk petticoat over a chemise, made
+full at the bosom, with a great quantity of lace frills; her dark glossy
+hair was gathered on the crown of her head in one long braid, twisted
+round and round, and rising up like a small turret.  Over all she wore a
+loose shawl of yellow silk crape.  But the daughter, I never shall
+forget her!  Tall and full, and magnificently shaped--every motion was
+instinct with grace.  Her beautiful black hair hung a yard down her
+back, long and glossy, in three distinct braids, while it was shaded,
+Madonna--like, off her high and commanding forehead; her eyebrows--to
+use little Reefy's simile--looked as if cut out of a mouse's skin; and
+her eyes themselves, large, dark, and soft, yet brilliant and sparkling
+at the same time, however contradictory this may, read; her nose was
+straight, and her cheeks firm and oval, and her mouth, her full lips,
+her ivory teeth, her neck and bosom, were perfect, the latter if any
+giving promise of too matronly a womanhood; but at the time I saw her,
+nothing could have been more beautiful; and, above all, there was an
+inexpressible charm in the clear transparent darkness of her colourless
+skin, into which you thought you could look; her shoulders, and the
+upper part of her arms, were peculiarly beautiful.  Nothing is so
+exquisitely lovely as the upper part of a beautiful woman's arm, and yet
+we have lived to see this admirable feature shrouded and lost in those
+abominable gigots.--Why won't you, Master Kit North, lend a hand, and
+originate a crusade against those vile appendages?  I will lead into
+action if you like--"Woe unto the women that sew pillows to all
+armholes," Ezekiel, xiii. I8.  May I venture on such a quotation in such
+a place?--She was extremely like her brother; and her fine face was
+overspread with the pale cast of thought a settled melancholy, like the
+shadow of a cloud in a calm day on a summer landscape, mantled over her
+fine features; and although she moved with the air of a princess, and
+was possessed of that natural politeness which far surpasses all
+artificial polish, yet the heaviness of her heart was apparent in every
+motion, as well as in all she said.
+
+Many people labour under an unaccountable delusion, imagining, in their
+hallucination, that a Frenchwoman, for instance, or even an Englishwoman
+nay, some in their madness have been heard to say that a Scotchwoman
+has been known to walk.  Egregious errors all!  An Irishwoman of the
+true Milesian descent can walk a step or two sometimes, but all other
+women, fair or brown, short or tall, stout or thin, only stump, shuffle,
+jig, or amble--none but a Spaniard can walk.
+
+Once or twice she tried to enter into conversation with me on
+indifferent subjects; but there was a constant tendency to approach
+(against her own prearranged determination) the one, all--absorbing one,
+the fate of her poor brother.  "Oh, had you but known him, Mr Cringle
+had you but known him in his boyhood, before bad company had corrupted
+him!" exclaimed she, after having asked me if he died penitent and she
+turned away and wept. "Francisca," said a low hoarse female voice from
+the other room; "Francisca, ven aca, mi querida hermana." The sweet girl
+rose, and sped across the floor with the grace of Taglioni, (oh, the
+legs Taglionis! as poor dear Bang would have ventured to have said, if
+the sylphide had then been known,) and presently returning, whispered
+something to her mother, who rose and drew Don Picador aside.  The
+waspish old man shook himself clear of his wife, as he said with
+indecent asperity--"No, no, she will but make a fool of herself."
+
+His wife drew herself up.
+
+"She never made a fool of herself, Don Picador, but once; and God
+forgive those who were the cause of it.  It is not kind of you, it is
+not kind."
+
+"Well, well," rejoined the querulous old man, "do as you will, do as you
+will,--always crossing me, always crossing."
+
+His wife took no farther notice, but stepped across the room to me,
+"Our poor dying Maria knows you are here; and probably you are not aware
+that he wrote to her after his"--her voice quavered after his
+condemnation, the night before he suffered, that you were the only one
+who shewed him kindness; and she has also read the newspapers giving an
+account of the trial.  She wishes to see you will you pleasure her?
+Senora Campana has made her acquainted that you are the bearer of some
+trinkets belonging to him, from which she infers you witnessed his last
+moments, as one of them, she was told, was her picture, poor dear girl;
+and she knew that must have grown to his heart till the last.  But it
+will be too agitating. I will try and dissuade her from the interview
+until the doctor comes, at all events.'
+
+The worthy lady stepped again into Maria's apartment, and I could not
+avoid hearing what passed.
+
+"My dear Maria, Mr Cringle has no objection to wait on you; but after
+your severe attack this morning, I don't think it will be wise.  Delay
+it until Dr Bergara comes--at any rate, until the evening, Maria."
+
+"Mother," she said, in a weak, plaintive voice, although husky from the
+phlegm which was fast coagulating in her throat--"Mother, I already have
+ceased to be of this world; I am dying, dearest mother, fast dying; and
+oh, thou All--good and AR--merciful Being, against whom I have fearfully
+sinned, would that the last struggle were now o'er, and that my weary
+spirit were released, and my shame hidden in the silent tomb, and my
+sufferings and very name forgotten!" She paused and gasped for breath; I
+thought it was all over with her; but she rallied again and proceeded
+"Tune is rapidly ebbing from me, dearest mother,--for mother I must call
+you, more than a mother have you been to me--and the ocean of eternity
+is opening to my view.  If I am to see him at all, I must see him now; I
+shall be more agitated by the expectation of the interview than by
+seeing him at once.  Oh! let me see him now, let me look on one who
+witnessed his last moments."
+
+I could see Senora Cangrejo where she stood.  She crossed her hands on
+her bosom, and looked up towards heaven, and then turned mournfully
+towards me, and beckoned me to approach.  I entered the small room,
+which had been fitted up by the poor girl with some taste; the furniture
+was better than any I had seen in a Spanish house before, and there was
+a mat on the floor, and some exquisite miniatures and small landscapes
+on the walls.  It was her boudoir, opening apparently into a bedroom
+beyond.  It was lighted by a large open unglazed window, with a row of
+wooden balustrades beyond it, forming part of a small balcony.  A
+Carmelite friar, a venerable old man, with the hot tears fast falling
+from his old eyes over his wrinkled cheeks, whom I presently found to be
+the excellent Padre Carera, sat in a large chair by the bedside, with a
+silver cup in his hand, beside which lay a large crucifix of the same
+metal; he had just administered extreme unction, and the viaticum, he
+fondly hoped, would prove a passport for his dear child to another and a
+better world.  As I entered he rose, held out his hand to me, and moved
+round to the bottom of the bed.
+
+The shutters had been opened, and, with a suddenness which no one can
+comprehend who has not lived in these climates, the sun now shone
+brightly on the flowers and garden plants which grew in a range of pots
+on the balcony, and lighted up the pale features of a lovely girl,
+lovely even in the jaws of death, as she lay with her face towards the
+light, supported in a reclining position on cushions, on a red morocco
+mattrass, laid on a sort of frame or bed.
+
+"Light was her form, and darkly delicate, that brow, whereon her native
+sun had sat, but had not marr'd."
+
+She was tall, so far as I could judge, but oh, how attenuated!  Her
+lower limbs absolutely made no impression on the mattrass, to which her
+frame appeared to cling, giving a ghastly conspicuousness to the
+oedematoust swelling of her feet, and to her person, for, alas! She was
+in a way to have become a mother.
+
+The offspring of his wayward youth,
+When he betrayed Bianca's truth;
+The maid whose folly could confide
+In him, who made her not his bride.
+
+Her hand, grasping her pocket--handkerchief, drenched, alas, with blood,
+hung over the side of the bed, thin and pale, with her long taper
+fingers as transparent as if they had been fresh cut alabaster, with the
+blue veins winding through her wrists, and her bosom wasted and shrunk,
+and her neck no thicker than her arm, with the pulsations of the large
+arteries as plain and evident as if the skin had been a film, and her
+beautiful features, although now sharpened by the near approaching death
+agony, her lovely mouth, her straight nose, her arched eyebrows, black,
+like pencilled jet lines, and her small ears,--and oh, who can describe
+her rich black raven hair, lying combed out, and spread all over the bed
+and pillow?  She was dressed in a long loose gown of white crape; it
+looked like a winding--sheet; but the fire of her eyes--I have purposely
+not ventured to describe them--the unearthly brilliancy of her large,
+full, swimming eye!
+
+When I entered, I bowed, and remained standing near the door.  She said
+something, but in so low a voice that I could not catch the words; and
+when I stepped nearer, on purpose to hear more distinctly, all at once
+the blood mantled in her cheeks and forehead and throat, like the last
+gleam of the setting sun; but it faded as rapidly, and once more she lay
+pale as her smock.
+
+"Yet not such blush, as mounts when health would show,
+All the heart's hue in that delightful glow;
+But 'twas a hectic tint of secret care,
+That for a burning moment fever'd there;
+And the wild sparkle of her eye seemd caught
+From high, and lighten'd with electric thought;
+Though its black orb these long low lashes fringe,
+Had temper'd with a melancholy tinge."
+
+Her voice was becoming more and more weak, she said, so she must be
+prompt.  "You have some trinkets for me, Mr Cringle?" I presented them.
+She kissed the crucifix fervently, and then looked mournfully on her own
+miniature.  "This was thought like once, Mr Cringle.--Are the newspaper
+accounts of his trial correct?" she next asked.  I answered, that in the
+main facts they were.  "And do you believe in the commission of all
+these alleged atrocities by him?" I remained silent.  "Yes, they are but
+too true.  Hush, hush," said she "look there."
+
+I did as she requested.  There, glancing bright in the sunshine, a most
+beautiful butterfly fluttered in the air, in the very middle of the open
+window.  When we first saw it, it was flitting gaily and happily amongst
+the plants and flowers that were blooming in the balcony, but it
+gradually became more and more slow on the wing, and at last poised
+itself so unusually steadily for an insect of its class, that even had
+Maria not spoken, it would have attracted my attention.  Below it, on
+the window sill, near the wall, with head erect, and its little basilisk
+eyes upturned towards the lovely fly, crouched a camelion lizard; its
+beautiful body, when I first looked at it, was a bright sea--green.  It
+moved into the sunshine, a little away from the shade of the laurel
+bush, which grew on the side it first appeared on, and suddenly the back
+became transparent amber, the legs and belly continuing green.  From its
+breast under the chin, it every now and then shot out a semicircular
+film of a bright scarlet colour, like a leaf of a tulip stretched
+vertically, or the pectoral fin of a fish.
+
+This was evidently a decoy, and the poor fly was by degrees drawn down
+towards it, either under the impression of its being in reality a flower,
+or impelled by some impulse which it could not resist.  It gradually
+fluttered nearer and more near, the reptile remaining all the while
+steady as a stone, until it made a sudden spring, and in the next moment
+the small meally wings were quivering on each side of the camelion's
+tiny jaws. While in the act of gorging its prey, a little fork, like a
+wire, was projected from the opposite corner of the window; presently a
+small round black snout, with a pair of little fiery blasting eyes,
+appeared, and a thin black neck glanced in the sun.  The lizard saw it.
+I could fancy it trembled.  Its body became of a dark blue, then ashy
+pale; the imitation of the flower, the gaudy fin was withdrawn, it
+appeared to shrink back as far as it could, but it was nailed or
+fascinated to the window sill, for its feet did not move.  The head of
+the snake approached, with its long forked tongue shooting out and
+shortening, and with a low hissing noise.  By this time about two feet
+of its body was visible, lying with its white belly on the wooden beam,
+moving forward with a small horizontal wavy motion, the head and six
+inches of the neck being a little raised. I shrunk back from the
+serpent, but no one else seemed to have any dread of it; indeed, I
+afterwards learned, that this kind being good mousers, and otherwise
+quite harmless, were, if any thing, encouraged about houses in the
+country.  I looked again; its open mouth was now within an inch of the
+lizard, which by this time seemed utterly paralysed and motionless; the
+next instant its head was drawn into the snake's mouth, and by degrees
+the whole body disappeared, as the reptile gorged it, and I could
+perceive from the lump which gradually moved down the snake's neck, that
+it had been sucked into its stomach.  Involuntarily I raised my hand,
+when the whole suddenly disappeared.
+
+I turned, I could scarcely tell why, to look at the dying girl.  A
+transient flush had again lit up her pale wasted face.  She was
+evidently greatly excited.  "Can you read me that riddle, Mr Cringle?
+Does no analogy present itself to you between what you have seen,
+between the mysterious power possessed by these subtle reptiles, and
+Look--look again."
+
+A large and still more lovely butterfly suddenly rose from beneath where
+the snake had vanished, all glittering in the dazzling sunshine, and
+after fluttering for a moment, floated steadily up into the air, and
+disappeared in the blue sky.  My eye followed it as long as it was
+visible, and when it once more declined to where we had seen the snake,
+I saw a most splendid dragonfly, about three inches long, like a golden
+bodkin, with its gauze--like wings moving so quickly, as it hung
+steadily poised in mid air, like a hawk preparing to stoop, that the
+body seemed to be surrounded by silver tissue, or a bright halo, while
+it glanced in the sunbeam.
+
+"Can you not read it yet, Mr Cringle? can you not read my story in the
+fate of the first beautiful fly, and the miserable end of my Federico,
+in that of the lizard?  And oh, may the last appearance of the ethereal
+thing, which but now rose, and melted into the lovely sky, be a true
+type of what I shall be!  But that poor insect, that remains there
+suspended between heaven and earth, shall I say hell, what am I to think
+of it?"
+
+The dragonfly was still there.  She continued--"En purgatorio, ah Dios,
+tu quedas en purgatorio," as if the fly had represented the unhappy
+young pirate's soul in limbo.  Oh, let no one smile at the quaintness of
+the dying fancy of the poor heart--crushed girl.  The weather began to
+lower again, the wind came past us moaningly--the sun was obscured
+large drops of rain fell heavily into the room--a sudden dazzling flash
+of lightning took place, and the dragonfly was no longer there.  A long
+low wild cry was heard. I started, and my flesh creeped.  The cry was
+repeated.  "Es el--el mismo, y ningun otro.  Me venga, Federico; me
+venga, mi querido!" shrieked poor Maria, with a supernatural energy, and
+with such piercing distinctness that it was heard shrill even above the
+rolling thunder.
+
+I turned to look at Maria--another flash.  It glanced on the crucifix
+which the old priest had elevated at the foot of the bed, full in her
+view.  It was nearer, the thunder was louder.  "Is that the rain--drops
+which are falling heavily on the floor through the open window?" Oh God!
+Oh God! it is her warm heart's--blood, which was bubbling from her mouth
+like a crimson fountain.  Her pale fingers were clasped on her bosom in
+the attitude of prayer--a gentle quiver of her frame and the poor broken
+hearted girl, and her unborn babe, "sleeped the sleep that knows no
+waking."
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+
+Scenes in Cuba
+
+Ariel.--Safely in harbour,
+Is the king's ship; in the deep nook, where, once,
+Thou call'dst me up at midnight to fetch dew,
+From the still--vexed Bermoothes--there she's hid.
+
+THE TEMPEST, I ii 227--29.
+
+
+The spirit had indeed fled--the ethereal essence had departed--and the
+poor wasted and blood--stained husk which lay before us, could no longer
+be moved by our sorrows, or gratified by our sympathy.  Yet I stood
+riveted to the spot, until I was aroused by the deep--toned voice of
+Padre Carera, who, lifting up his hands towards heaven, addressed the
+Almighty in extempore prayer, beseeching his mercy to our erring sister
+who had just departed.  The unusualness of this startled me.--"As the
+tree falls, so must it lie," had been the creed of my forefathers, and
+was mine; but now for the first time I heard a clergyman wrestling in
+mental agony, and interceding with the God who hath said, "Repent before
+the night cometh, in which no man can work," for a sinful creature,
+whose worn--out frame was now as a clod of the valley.  But I had little
+time for consideration, as presently all the negro servants of the
+establishment set up a loud howl, as if they had lost their nearest and
+dearest.  "Oh, our poor dear young mistress is dead!  She has gone to
+the bosom of the Virgin!  She is gone to be happy!"--"Then why the deuce
+make such a yelling?" quoth Bang in the other room, when this had been
+translated to him.  Clad to leave the chamber of death, I entered the
+large hall, where I had left our friend.
+
+"I say, Tom--awful work.  Hear how the rain pours, and murder--such a
+flash!  Why, in Jamaica, we don't startle greatly at lightning, but
+absolutely I heard it hiss--there, again"--the noise of the thunder
+stopped further colloquy, and the wind now burst down the valley with a
+loud roar.
+
+Don Ricardo joined us.  "My good friends--we are in a scrape here--what
+is to be done?--a melancholy affair altogether."--Bang's curiosity here
+fairly got the better of him.
+
+"I say, Don Ricardibus--do--beg pardon, though--do give over this
+humbugging outlandish lingo of yours--speak like a Christian, in your
+mother tongue, and leave off your Spanish, which now, since I know it is
+all a bam, seems to sit as strangely on you as my grandmother's toupe
+would on Tom Cringle's Mary."
+
+"Now do pray, Mr Bang," said I, when Don Ricardo broke in "Why, Mr Bang,
+I am, as you now know, a Scotchman."
+
+"How do I know any such thing--that is, for a certainty--while you keep
+cruising amongst so many lingoes, as Tom there says?"
+
+"The docken, man," said I.--Don Ricardo smiled.
+
+"I am a Scotchman, my dear sir; and the same person who, in his youth,
+was neither more nor less than wee Richy Cloche, in the long town of
+Kirkaldy, and in his old age Don Ricardo Campana of St Jago de Cuba.
+But more of this anon,--at present we are in the house of mourning, and
+alas the day! that it should be so."
+
+By this time the storm had increased most fearfully, and as Don Ricardo,
+Aaron, and myself, sat in the dark damp corner of the large gloomy hall,
+we could scarcely see each other, for the lightning had now ceased, and
+the darkness was so thick, that had it not been for the light from the
+large funeral wax tapers, which had been instantly lit upon poor Maria's
+death, in the room where she lay, that streamed through the open door,
+we should have been unable to see our very fingers before us.
+
+"What is that?" said Campana; "heard you nothing, gentlemen?"
+
+"By this the storm grew loud apace,
+The water--wraith was shrieking;
+And in the scowl of heaven eachface,
+Grew dark as they were speaking."
+
+In  the lulls of the rain and the blast, the same long low cry was heard
+which had startled me by Maria's bedside, and occasioned the sudden  and
+fatal  exertion which had been the cause of the bursting out  afresh  of
+the blood vessel.
+
+"Why," said I, "it is little more than three o'clock in the afternoon
+yet, dark as it is; let us sally out, Mr Bang, for I verify believe that
+the hollo we have heard is my Captain's voice, and, if I conjecture
+rightly, he must have arrived at the other side of the river, probably
+with the Doctor."
+
+"Why, Tom," quoth Aaron, "it is only three in the afternoon, as you say,
+although by the sky I could almost vouch for its being midnight,--but I
+don't like that shouting--Did you ever read of a water--kelpie, Don
+Richy?"
+
+"Poo, poo, nonsense," said the Don; "Mr Cringle is, I fear, right
+enough." At this moment the wind thundered at the door and window
+shutters, and howled amongst the neighbouring trees and round the roof,
+as if it would have blown the house down upon our devoted heads.  The
+cry was again heard, during a momentary pause.
+
+"Zounds!" said Bang, "it is the skipper's voice, as sure as fate--he
+must be in danger--let us go and see, Tom."
+
+"Take me with you," said Campana,--the foremost always when any good
+deed was to be done----and, in place of clapping on his great--coat to
+meet the storm, to our unutterable surprise, he began to disrobe
+himself, all to his trowsers and large straw hat.  He then called one of
+the servants, "Trae me un lasso." The lasso, a long thong of plaited
+hide, was forthwith brought; he coiled it up in his left hand.  "Now,
+Pedro," said he to the negro servant who had fetched it, (a tall
+strapping fellow,) "you and Caspar follow me.  Gentlemen, are you
+ready?" Caspar appeared, properly accoutred, with a long pole in one
+hand and a thong similar to Don Ricardo's in the other, he as well as
+his comrade being stark naked all to their waistcloths.  "Ah, well done,
+my sons," said Don Ricardo, as both the negroes prepared to follow him.
+So off we started to the door, although we heard the tormenta raging
+without with appalling fury.  Bang undid the latch, and the next moment
+he was flat on his back, the large leaf having flown open with
+tremendous violence, capsizing him like an infant.
+
+The Padre from the inner chamber came to our assistance, and by our
+joint exertions we at length got the door to again and barricaded, after
+which we made our exit from the lee--side of the house by a window.
+Under other circumstances, it would have been difficult to refrain from
+laughing at the appearance we made.  We were all drenched in an instant
+after we left the shelter of the house, and there was old Campana, naked
+to the waist, with his large sombrero and long pigtail hanging down his
+back, like a mandarin of twenty buttons. Next followed his two black
+assistants, naked as I have described them, all three with their coils
+of rope in their hands, like a hangman and his deputies; then advanced
+friend Bang and myself, without our coats or hats, with handkerchiefs
+tied round our heads, and our bodies bent down so as to stem the gale as
+strongly as we could.
+
+But the planting attorney, a great schemer, a kind of Will Wimble in his
+way, had thought fit, of all things in the world, to bring his umbrella,
+which the wind, as might have been expected, reversed most
+unceremoniously the moment he attempted to hoist it, and tore it from
+the staff, so that, on the impulse of the moment, he had to clutch the
+flying red silk and thrust his head through the centre, where the stick
+had stood, as if he had been some curious flower.  As we turned the
+corner of the house, the full force of the storm met us right in the
+teeth, when flap flew Don Ricardo's hat past us; but the two blackamoors
+had taken the precaution to strap each of theirs down with a strong
+grass lanyard.  We continued to work to windward, while every now and
+then the hollo came past us on the gale louder and louder, until it
+guided us to the fording which we had crossed on our first arrival.  We
+stopped there;--the red torrent was rushing tumultuously past us, but we
+saw nothing save a few wet and shivering negroes on the opposite side,
+who had sheltered themselves under a cliff, and were busily employed in
+attempting to light a fire.  The holloing continued.
+
+"Why, what can be wrong?" at length said Don Ricardo, and he shouted to
+the people on the opposite side.
+
+He might as well have spared his breath, for, although they saw his
+gestures and the motion of his lips, they no more heard him than we did
+them, as they very considerately in return made mouths at us, bellowing
+no doubt that they could not hear us.
+
+"Don Ricardo--Don Ricardo!" at this crisis sung out Caspar, who had
+clambered up the rock, to have a peep about him--"Ave Maria--Alla son
+dos pobres, que peresquen pronto, si nosotros no pueden Hydros."
+
+"Whereabouts?" said Campana--"whereabouts? speak, man, speak."
+
+"Down in the valley--about a quarter of a league, I see two men on a
+large rock, in the middle of the stream; the wind is in that direction,
+it must be them we heard."
+
+"God be gracious to us! true enough--true enough--let us go to them
+then, my children." And we again all cantered off after the excellent
+Don Ricardo.  But before we could reach the spot, we had to make a
+detour, and come down upon it from the precipitous brow of the beetling
+cliff above, for there was no beach nor shore to the swollen river,
+which was here very deep and surged, rushing under the hollow bank with
+comparatively little noise, which was the reason why we heard the cries
+so distinctly.
+
+The unfortunates who were in peril, whoever they might be, seemed to
+comprehend our motions, for one of them held out a white handkerchief,
+which I immediately answered by a similar signal, when the shouting
+ceased, until, guided by the negroes, we reached the verge of the cliff,
+and looked down from the red crumbling bank on the foaming water, as it
+swept past beneath.  It was here about thirty yards broad, divided by a
+rocky wedge like islet, on which grew a profusion of dark bushes and one
+large tree, whose topmost branches were on a level with us where we
+stood.  This tree was divided, about twelve feet from the root, into two
+limbs in the fork of which sat, like a big monkey, no less a personage
+than Captain Transom himself, wet and dripping, with his clothes
+besmeared with mud, and shivering with cold.  At the foot of the tree
+sat in rueful mood, a small antique beau of an old man in a coat which
+had once been blue silk, wearing breeches, the original colour of which
+no man could tell, and without his wig, his clear bald pate shining
+amidst the surrounding desolation like an ostrich's egg.  Beside these
+worthies stood two trembling way--worn mules with drooping heads, their
+long ears hanging down most disconsolately.  The moment we came in
+sight, the skipper hailed us.
+
+"Why, I am hoarse with bawling, Don Ricardo, but here am I and el Doctor
+Pavo Real, in as sorry a plight as any two gentlemen need be. On
+attempting the ford two hours ago, blockheads as we were beg pardon, Don
+Pavo"--the doctor bowed, and grinned like a baboon--"we had nearly been
+drowned; indeed, we should have been drowned entirely, had we not
+brought up on this island of Barataria here.--But how is the young lady?
+tell me that," said the excellent--hearted fellow, even in the midst of
+his own danger.
+
+"Mind Yourself, my beautiful child," cried Bang.  'How are we to get you
+on terra firma?"
+
+"Poo--in the easiest way possible," rejoined he, with true seamanlike
+self--possession.  "I see you have ropes--Tom Cringle, heave me the end
+of the line which Don Ricardo carries, will you?"
+
+"No, no--I can do that myself," said Don Ricardo, and with a swing he
+hove the leathern noose at the skipper, and whipped it over his neck in
+a twinkling.  The Scotch Spaniard, I saw, was pluming himself on his
+skill, but Transom was up to him, for in an instant he dropped out of
+it, while in slipping through he let it fall over a broken limb of the
+tree.
+
+"Such an eel--such an eel!" shouted the attendant negroes, both expert
+hands with the lasso themselves.
+
+"Now, Don Ricardo, since I am not to be had, make your end of the thong
+fast round that large stone there." Campana did so.  "Ah, that will do."
+And so saying, the skipper warped himself to the top of the cliff with
+great agility.  He was no sooner in safety himself, however, than the
+idea of having left the poor doctor in peril flashed on him.
+
+"I must return--I must return!  If the river rises, the body will be
+drowned out and out."
+
+And notwithstanding our entreaties, he did return as he came, and
+descending the tree, began apparently to argue with the little Medico,
+and to endeavour to persuade him to ascend, and make his escape as he
+himself had done; but it would not do.  Pavo Real--as brave a little man
+as ever was seen--made many salaams and obeisances, but move he would
+not.  He shook his head repeatedly, in a very solemn way, as if he had
+said, "My very excellent friends, I am much obliged to you, but it is
+impossible; my dignity would be compromised by such a proceeding."
+
+Presently Transom appeared to wax very emphatic, and pointed to a
+pinnacle of limestone rock, which had stood out like a small steeple
+above the surface of the flashing, dark red eddies, when we first
+arrived on the spot, but now only stopped the water with a loud gurgle,
+the top rising and disappearing as the stream surged past, like, buov
+jangling in a tideway.  The small man still shook his head, but the
+water now rose so rapidly, that there was scarcely dry standing room for
+the two poor devils of mules, while the doctor and the skipper had the
+greatest difficulty in finding a footing for themselves.
+
+Time and circumstances began to press, and Transom, after, another
+unavailing attempt to persuade the doctor, began apparently to rouse
+himself, and muster his energies.  He first drove the mules forcibly
+into the stream at the side opposite where we stood, which was the
+deepest water, and least broken by rocks and stones, and we had the
+pleasure to see them scramble out safe and sound; he then put his hand
+to his mouth, and hailed us to throw him a rope, it was done--he caught
+it, and then by a significant gesture to Campana, gave him to understand
+that now was the time.  The Don, comprehending him, hove his noose with
+great precision, right over the little doctor's head, and before he
+recovered from his surprise, the captain slipped it under his arms, and
+signed to haul taught, while the Medico kicked, and spurred, and backed
+like a restive horse.  At one and the same moment, Transom made fast a
+guy round his waist, and we hoisted away, while he hauled on the other
+line, so that we landed the Lilliputian Esculapius safe on the top of
+the bank, with the wind nearly out of his body, however, from his
+violent exertions, and the running of the noose.
+
+It was now the work of a moment for the Captain to ascend the tree and
+again warp himself ashore, when he set himself to apologize with all his
+might and main, pleading strong necessity; and having succeeded in
+pacifying the offended dignity of the doctor, we turned towards the
+house.
+
+"Look out there," sung out Campana sharply.
+
+Time indeed, thought I, for right ahead of us, as if an invisible
+gigantic ploughshare had passed over the woods, a valley or chasm was
+suddenly opened down the hill--side with a noise like thunder, and
+branches and whole limbs of trees were instantly torn away, and
+tossed into the air like straws.
+
+"Down on your noses, my fine fellows," cried the skipper.  We were all
+flat in an instant except the Medico, the stubborn little brute, who
+stood until the tornado reached him, when in a twinkling he was cast on
+his back, with a violence sufficient, as I thought, to have driven his
+breath for ever and aye out of his body.  While we lay we heard all
+kinds of things hurtle past us through the air, pieces of timber,
+branches of trees, coffee--bushes, and even stones.  Presently it lulled
+again, and we got on end to look round us.
+
+"How will the old house stand all this, Don Ricardo?" said the drenched
+skipper.  He had to shout to be heard.  The Don was too busy to answer,
+but once more strode on towards the dwelling, as I expected something
+even worse than we had experienced to be still awaiting us.  By the time
+we reached it, it was full of negroes, men, women, and children, whose
+huts had already been destroyed, poor, drenched, miserable devils, with
+scarcely any clothing and to crown our comfort, we found the roof
+leaking in many places.  By this time the night began to fall, and our
+prospects were far from flattering.  The rain had entirely ceased, nor
+was there any lightning, but the storm was most tremendous, blowing in
+gusts, and veering round from east to north with the speed of thought.
+The force of the gale, however, gradually declined, until the wind
+subsided altogether, and every thing became quite still.  The low
+murmured conversation of the poor negroes who environed us, was heard
+distinctly; the hard breathing of the sleeping children could even be
+distinguished.  But I was by no means sure that the hurricane was over,
+and Don Ricardo and the rest seemed to think as I did, for there was not
+a word interchanged between us for some time.
+
+"Do you hear that?" at length said Aaron Bang, as a low moaning sound
+rose wailing into the night air.  It approached and grew louder.
+
+"The voice of the approaching tempest amongst the higher branches of the
+trees," said the Captain.
+
+The rushing noise overhead increased, but still all was so calm where we
+sat, that you could have heard a pin drop.  Poo, thought I, it has
+passed over us after all--no fear now, when one reflects how completely
+sheltered we are.  Suddenly, however, the lights in the room where the
+body lay were blown out, and the roof groaned and creaked as if it had
+been the bulkheads of a ship in a tempestuous sea.
+
+"We shall have to cut and run from this anchorage presently, after all,"
+said I; "the house will never hold on till morning."
+
+The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when, as if a thunderbolt had
+struck it, one of the windows in the hall was driven in with a roar, as
+if the Falls of Niagara had been pouring overhead, and the tempest
+having thus forced an entrance, the roof of that part of the house where
+we sat was blown up, as if by gunpowder--ay, in the twinkling of an eye;
+and there we were with the bare walls, and the angry heaven overhead,
+and the rain descending in bucketfuls.  Fortunately, two large joists or
+couples, being deeply embedded in the substance of the walls, remained,
+when the rafters and ridgepole were torn away, or we must have been
+crushed in the ruins.
+
+There was again a deathlike lull, the wind fell to a small melancholy
+sough amongst the tree--tops, and once more, where we sat, there was not
+a breath stirring.  So complete was the calm now, that after a light had
+been struck, and placed on the floor in the middle of the room, showing
+the surrounding group of shivering half--naked savages, with fearful
+distinctness, the flame shot up straight as an arrow, clear and bright,
+although the distant roar of the storm still thundered afar off as it
+rushed over the mountain above us.
+
+This unexpected stillness frightened the women even more than the
+fierceness of the gale when at the loudest had done.
+
+"We must go forth," said Senora Campana; "the elements are only
+gathering themselves for a more dreadful hurricane than what we have
+already experienced.  We must go forth to the little chapel in the wood,
+or the next burst may, and will, bury us under the walls;" and she moved
+towards Maria's room, where, by this time, lights had again been placed.
+"We must move the body," we could hear her say; "we must all proceed to
+the chapel; in a few minutes the storm will be raging again louder than
+ever."
+
+"And my wife is very right," said Don Ricardo; "so, Caspar, call the
+other people; have some mats, and quatres, and mattresses carried down
+to the chapel, and we shall all remove, for, with half of the roof gone,
+it is but tempting the Almighty to remain here longer."
+
+The word was passed, and we were soon under weigh, four negroes leading
+the van, carrying the uncoffined body of the poor girl on a sofa; while
+two servants, with large splinters of a sort of resinous wood for
+flambeaux, walked by the side of it.  Next followed the women of the
+family, covered up with all the cloaks and spare garments that could be
+collected; then came Don Picador Cangrejo, with Ricardo Campana, the
+skipper, Aaron Bang, and myself; the procession being closed by the
+household negroes, with more lights, which all burned steadily and
+clear.
+
+We descended through a magnificent natural avenue of lofty trees (whose
+brown moss--grown trunks and fantastic boughs were strongly lit up by
+the blaze of the torches; while the fresh white splinter--marks where
+the branches had been tom off by the storm, glanced bright and clear,
+and the rain--drops on the dark leaves sparkled like diamonds) towards
+the river, along whose brink the brimful red--foaming waters rushed past
+us, close by the edge of the path, now ebbing suddenly a foot or so, and
+then surging up again beyond their former bounds, as if large stones or
+trunks of trees above, were from time to time damming up the troubled
+waters, and then giving way.  After walking about four hundred yards, we
+came to a small but massive chapel, fronting the river, the back part
+resting against a rocky bank, with two superb cypress--trees growing,
+one on each side of the door; we entered, Padre Carera leading the way.
+The whole area of the interior of the building did not exceed a
+parallelogram of twenty feet by twelve.  At the eastern end, fronting
+the door, there was a small altar--piece of hard--wood, richly
+ornamented with silver, and one or two bare wooden benches standing on
+the tiled floor; but the chief security we had that the building would
+withstand the storm, consisted in its having no window or aperture
+whatsoever, excepting two small ports, one on each side of the altar
+piece, and the door, which was a massive frame of hardwood planking.
+
+The body was deposited at the foot of the altar, and the ladies, having
+been wrapped up in cloaks and blankets, were safely lodged in quatres,
+while we, the gentlemen of the comfortless party, seated ourselves,
+disconsolately enough, on the wooden benches.
+
+The door was made fast, after the servants had kindled a blazing wood
+fire on the floor; and although the flickering light cast by the wax
+tapers in the six large silver candlesticks which were planted beside
+the bier, as it blended with the red glare of the fire, and fell strong
+on the pale uncovered features of the corpse, and on the anxious faces
+of the women, was often startling enough, yet being conscious of a
+certain degree of security from the thickness of the walls, we made up
+our minds to spend the night where we were, as well as we could.
+
+"I say, Tom Cringle," said Aaron Bang, "all the females are snug there,
+you see; we have a blazing fire on the hearth, and here is some comfort
+for we men slaves;" whereupon he produced two bottles of brandy.  Don
+Ricardo Campana, with whom Bang seemed now to be absolutely in league,
+or, in vulgar phrase, as thick as pickpockets, had brought a goblet of
+water, and a small silver drinking cup, with him, so we passed the
+creature round, and tried all we could to while away the tedious night.
+But, as if a sudden thought had struck Aaron, he here tucked the brandy
+bottle under his arm, and asking me to carry the vessel with the water,
+he advanced, cup in hand, towards the ladies.
+
+"Now, Tom, interpret carefully."
+
+"Ahem--Madam and Senoras, this is a heavy night for all of us, but the
+chapel is damp--allow me to comfort you."
+
+"Muchisimos gracias," was the gratifying answer, and Bang accordingly
+gave each of our fair friends a heart--warming taste of brandy and
+water.  There was now calm for a full hour, and the Captain had stepped
+out to reconnoitre; on his return he reported that the swollen stream
+had very much subsided.
+
+"Well, we shall get away, I hope, tomorrow morning, after all,"
+whispered Bang.
+
+He had scarcely spoken when it began to pelt and rain again, as if a
+waterspout had burst overhead, but there was no wind.
+
+"Come, that is the clearing up of it," said Cloche.
+
+At this precise moment the priest was sitting with folded arms, beyond
+the body, on a stool or trestle, in the alcove or recess where it lay.
+Right overhead was one of the small round apertures in the gable of the
+chapel, which, opening on the bank, appeared to the eye a round black
+spot in the whitewashed wall.  The bright wax lights shed a strong
+lustre on the worthy Clerigo's figure, face, and fine bald head which
+shone like silver, while the deeper light of the embers on the floor was
+reflected in ruby tints from the large silver crucifix that hung at his
+waist.  The rushing of the swollen river prevented me hearing
+distinctly, but it occurred to me once or twice, that a strange!
+gurgling sound proceeded from the aforesaid round aperture.  The Padre
+seemed to hear it also, for every now and then he looked up, and once he
+rose and peered anxiously through it; but apparently unable to
+distinguish any thing, he sat down again.  However, my attention, had
+been excited, and half asleep as I was, I kept glimmering in the
+direction of the Clerigo.
+
+The Captain's deep snore had gradually lengthened out, so as to vouch
+for his forgetfulness, and Bang, Ricardo, Dr Pavo Real, and the ladies,
+had all subsided into the most perfect quietude, when I noticed, and I
+quaked and trembled like an aspen leaf as I did so, a long black paw,
+thrust through, and down from the dark aperture immediately over Padre
+Carera's head, which, whatever it was, it appeared to scratch sharply,
+and then giving the caput a smart cuff, vanished.  The Priest started,
+put up his hand, and rubbed his head, but seeing nothing, again leant
+back, and was about departing to the land of nod, like the others, once
+more.  However, in a few minutes, the same paw again protruded, and this
+time a peering black snout, with two glancing eyes, was thrust through
+the hole after it.  The paw kept swinging about like a pendulum for a
+few seconds, and was then suddenly thrust into the Padre's open mouth as
+he lay back asleep, and again giving him another smart crack, vanished
+as before.
+
+"Hobble, gobble," gurgled the Priest, nearly choked.
+
+"Ave Maria purissima, que bocado--what a mouthful!--What can that be?"
+
+This was more than I knew, I must confess, and altogether I was
+consumedly puzzled, but, from a disinclination to alarm the women, I
+held my tongue.  Padre Carera this time moved away to the other side
+from beneath the hole, but still within two feet of it--in fact, he
+could not get in this direction farther for the altar--piece--and being
+still half asleep, he lay back once more against the wall to finish his
+nap, taking the precaution, however, to clap on his long shovel hat,
+shaped like a small canoe, crosswise, with the peaks standing out from
+each side of his head, in place of wearing it fore and aft, as usual.
+Well, thought I, a strange party certainly; but drowsiness was fast
+settling down on me also, when the same black paw was again thrust
+through the hole, and I distinctly heard a nuzzling, whining, short
+bark. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, but before I was quite awake, the
+head and neck of a large Newfoundland dog was shoved into the chapel
+through the round aperture, and making a long stretch, with the black
+paws thrust down and resting on the wall, supporting the creature, the
+animal suddenly snatched the Padre's hat off his head, and giving it an
+angry worry--as much as to say, "Confound it--I had hoped to have had
+the head in it"--it dropped it on the floor, and with a loud yell,
+Sneezer, my own old dear Sneezer, leaped into the midst of us,
+floundering amongst the sleeping women, and kicking the firebrands
+about, making them hiss again with the water he shook from his shaggy
+coat, and frightening all hands like the very devil.
+
+"Sneezer, you villain, how came you here!" I exclaimed, in great
+amazement--"How came you here, sir?" The dog knew me at once, and when
+benches were reared against him, after the women had huddled into a
+corner, and every thing was in sad confusion, he ran to me, and leaped
+on my neck, gasping and yelping; but finding that I was angry, and in no
+mood for toying, he planted himself on end so suddenly, in the middle of
+the floor, close by the fire, that all our hands were stayed, and no one
+could find in his heart to strike the poor dumb brute, he sat so quiet
+and motionless.  "Sneezer, my boy, what have you to say--where have you
+come from?" He looked in the direction of the door, and then walked
+deliberately towards it, and tried to open it with his paws.
+
+"Now," said the Captain, "that little scamp, who would insist on riding
+with me to St Jago, to see, as he said, if he might not be of use in
+fetching the surgeon from the ship in case I could not find Dr Bergara,
+has come back, although I desired him to stay on board.  The puppy must
+have returned in his cursed troublesome zeal, for in no other way could
+your dog be here.  Certainly, however, he did not know that I had fallen
+in with Dr Pavo Real;" and the good--natured fellow's heart melted, as
+he continued--"Returned--why, he may be drowned--Cringle, take care
+little Reefpoint be not drowned."
+
+Sneezer lowered his black snout, and for a moment poked it into the
+white ashes of the fire, and then raising it and stretching his neck
+upwards to its full length, he gave a short bark, and then a long loud
+howl.
+
+"My life upon it, the poor boy is gone," said I.
+
+"But what can we do?" said Don Ricardo; "it is as dark as pitch."
+
+And we again set ourselves to have a small rally at the brandy and
+water, as a resolver of our doubts, whether we should sit still till
+daybreak, or sally forth now and run the chance of being drowned, with
+but small hope of doing any good; and the old priest having left the
+other end of the chapel, where the ladies were once more reposing, now
+came to join our council of war, and to have his share of the agua
+ardiente.
+
+The noise of the rain increased, and there was still a little puff of
+wind now and then, so that the Padre, taking an alfombra, or small mat,
+used to kneel on, and placing it on the step where the folding doors
+opened inwards, took a cloak on his shoulders, and sat himself down with
+his back against the leaves, to keep them closed, as the lock or bolt
+was broken, and was in the act of swigging off his cupful of comfort,
+when a strong gust drove the door open, as if the devil himself had
+kicked it, capsized the Padre, blew out the lights once more, and
+scattered the brands of the fire all about us.  Transom and I started
+up, the women shrieked; but before we could get the door to again, in
+rode little Reefpoint on a mule, with the doctor of the Firebrand behind
+him, bound, or lashed, as we call it, to him by a strong thong.  The
+black servants and the females took them for incarnate fiends, I fancy,
+for the yells and shrieks they set up were tremendous.
+
+"Yo, ho!" sung out little Reefy; "don't be frightened, ladies--Lord love
+ye, I am half drowned, and the doctor here is altogether so quite
+entirely drowned, I assure you.--I say, Medico, an't it true?" And the
+little Irish rogue slewed his head round, and gave the exhausted doctor
+a most comical look.
+
+"Not quite," quoth the doctor, "but deuced near it.  I say, Captain,
+would you have known us? why, we are dyed chocolate colour, you see, in
+that river, flowing not with milk and honey, but with something
+miraculously like pea soup, water I cannot call it."
+
+"But Heaven help us, why did you try the ford, man?" said Bang.
+
+"You may say that, sir," responded wee Reefy; "but our mule was knocked
+up, and it was so dark and tempestuous, that we should have perished by
+the road if we had tried back for St Jago; so seeing a light here, the
+only indication of a living thing, and the stream looking narrow and
+comparatively quiet--confound it, it was all the deeper though--we
+shoved across."
+
+"But, bless me, if you had been thrown in the stream, lashed together as
+you are, you would have been drowned to a certainty," said the Captain.
+
+"Oh," said little Reefy, "the doctor was not on the mule in crossing
+no, no, Captain, I knew better--I had him in tow, sir; but after we
+crossed he was so faint and chill, that I had to lash myself to him to
+keep him from sliding over the animal's counter, and walk he could not."
+
+"But, Master Reefpoint, why came you back? did I not desire you to
+remain on board of the Firebrand, sir?"
+
+The midshipman looked nonplussed.  "Why, Captain, I forgot to take my
+clothes with me, and--and--in truth, sir, I thought our surgeon would be
+of more use than any outlandish Gallipot that you could carry back."
+
+The good intentions of the lad saved him farther reproof, although I
+could not help smiling at his coming back for his clothes, when his
+whole wardrobe on starting was confined to the two false collars and a
+toothbrush.
+
+"But where is the young lady?" said the doctor.
+
+"Beyond your help, my dear doctor," said the skipper; "she is dead--all
+that remains of her you see within that small railing there."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" quoth the Medico, "poor girl--poor girl--deep decline,
+wasted, terribly wasted," said he, as he returned from the railing of
+the altar--piece, where he had been to look down upon the body; and
+then, as if there never had been such a being as poor Maria Olivera in
+existence, he continued, "Pray, Mr Bang, what may you have in that
+bottle?"
+
+"Brandy, to be sure, doctor," said Bang.
+
+"A thimbleful then, if you please."
+
+"By all means"--and the planting attorney handed the black bottle to the
+surgeon, who applied it to his lips, without more circumlocution.
+
+"Lord love us!--poisoned--Oh, gemini!"
+
+"Why, doctor," said Transom, "what has come over you?"
+
+"Poisoned, Captain--only taste."
+
+The bottle contained soy.  It was some time before we could get the poor
+man quieted; and when at length he was stretched along a bench, and the
+fire stirred up, and new wood added to it, the fresh air of early
+morning began to be scented.  At this time we missed Padre Carera, and,
+in truth, we all fell fast asleep; but in about an hour or so
+afterwards, I was awoke by some one stepping across me.  The same cause
+had stirred Transom.  It was Aaron Bang who had been to look out at the
+door.
+
+"I say, Cringle, look here--the Padre and the servants are digging a
+grave close to the chapel--are they going to bury the poor girl so
+suddenly?"
+
+I stepped to the door; the wind had entirely fallen--but it rained very
+fast--the small chapel door looked out on the still swollen, but
+subsiding river, and beyond that on the mountain, which rose abruptly
+from the opposite bank.  On the side of the hill facing us was situated
+a negro village, of about thirty huts, where lights were already
+twinkling, as if the inmates were preparing to go forth to their work.
+Far above them, on the ridge, there was a clear cold streak towards the
+east, against which the outline of the mountain, and the large trees
+which grew on it, were sharply cut out; but overhead, the firmament was
+as yet dark and threatening.  The morning star had just risen, and was
+sparkling bright and clear through the branches of a magnificent tree,
+that shot out from the highest part of the hill; it seemed to have
+attracted the Captain's attention as well as mine.
+
+"Were I romantic now, Mr Cringle, I could expatiate on that view.  How
+cold, and clear, and chaste, every thing looks!  The elements have
+subsided into a perfect calm, every thing is quiet and still, but there
+is no warmth, no comfort in the scene."
+
+"What a soaking rain!" said Aaron Bang; "why, the drops are as small as
+pin points, and so thick!--a Scotch mist is a joke to them.  Unusual all
+this, Captain.  You know our rain in Jamaica usually descends in
+bucketfuls, unless it be regularly set in for a week, and them, but then
+only, it becomes what in England we are in the habit of calling a
+soaking rain.  One good thing, however,--while it descends so quietly,
+the earth will absorb it all, and that furious river will not continue
+swollen."
+
+"Probably not," said I.
+
+"Mr Cringle," said the skipper, "do you mark that tree on the ridge of
+the mountain, that large tree in such conspicuous relief against the
+eastern sky?"
+
+"I do, Captain.  But--heaven help us!--what necromancy is this!  It
+seems to sink into the mountain--top--why, I only see the uppermost
+branches now.  It has disappeared, and yet the outline of the hill is as
+distinct and well defined as ever; I can even see the cattle on the
+ridge, although, they are running about in a very incomprehensible way
+certainly."
+
+"Hush!" said Don Ricardo, "hush!--the Padre is reading the funeral
+service in the chapel, preparatory to the body being brought out."
+
+And so he was.  But a low grumbling noise, gradually increasing was now
+distinctly audible.  The monk hurried on with the prescribed form--he
+finished it--and we were about moving the body to carry it forth--Bang
+and I being in the very act of stooping down to lift the bier, when the
+Captain sung out sharp and quick,--"Here, Tom!" the urgency of the
+appeal abolishing the Mister--"Here!--zounds, the whole hill--side is in
+motion!" And as he spoke I beheld the negro village, that hung on the
+opposite bank, gradually fetch way, houses, trees, and all, with a loud,
+harsh, grating sound.
+
+"God defend us!" I involuntarily exclaimed.
+
+"Stand clear," shouted the skipper; "the whole hill--side opposite is
+under weigh, and we shall be bothered here presently."
+
+He was right--the entire face of the hill over against us was by this
+time in motion, sliding over the substratum of rock like a first rate
+gliding along the well--greased ways at launching--an earthy avalanche.
+Presently the rough, rattling, and crashing sound, from the disrupture
+of the soil, and the breaking of the branches, and tearing up by the
+roots of the largest trees, gave warning of some tremendous incident.
+The lights in the huts still burned, but houses and all continued to
+slide down the declivity; and anon a loud startled exclamation was heard
+here and there, and then a pause, but the low mysterious hurtling sound
+never ceased.
+
+At length a loud continuous yell echoed along the hillside.  The noise
+increased--the rushing sound came stronger and stronger the river rose
+higher, and roared louder; it overleaped the lintel of the door--the
+fire on the floor hissed for a moment, and then expired in smouldering
+wreaths of white smoke--the discoloured torrent gurgled into the chapel,
+and reached the altar--piece; and while the cries from the hillside were
+highest, and bitterest, and most despairing, it suddenly filled the
+chapel to the top of the low doorpost; and although the large tapers
+which had been lit near the altar--piece were as yet unextinguished,
+like meteors sparkling on a troubled sea, all was misery and
+consternation.
+
+"Have patience, and be composed, now," shouted Don Ricardo.  "If it
+increases, we can escape through the apertures here, behind the altar
+piece, and from thence to the high ground beyond.  The heavy rain has
+loosened the soil on the opposite bank, and it has slid into the river
+course, negro houses and all.  But be composed, my dears nothing
+supernatural in all this; and rest assured, although the river has
+unquestionably been forced from its channel, that there is no danger, if
+you will only maintain your self--possession."
+
+And there we were--an inhabitant of a cold climate cannot go along with
+me in the description.  We were all alarmed, but we were not chilled
+cold is a great daunter of bravery.  At New Orleans, the black
+regiments, in the heart of the forenoon, were really the most efficient
+corps of the army; but in the morning, when the hoarfrost was on the
+long wire--grass, they were but as a broken reed.  "Him too cold for
+brave today," said the sergeant of the grenadier company of the West
+India regiment, which was brigaded in the ill--omened advance, when we
+attacked New Orleans; but here, having heat, and seeing none of the
+women egregiously alarmed, we all took heart of grace, and really there
+was no quailing amongst us.
+
+Senora Campana and her two nieces, Senora Cangrejo and her angelic
+daughter, had all betaken themselves to a sort of seat, enclosing the
+altar in a semicircle, with the pea soup--coloured water up to their
+knees.  Not a word--not an exclamation of fear escaped from them,
+although the gushing eddies from the open door showed that the soil from
+the opposite hill was fast settling down, and usurping the former
+channel of the river.
+
+"All very fine this to read of," at last exclaimed Aaron Bang.  "Zounds,
+we shall be drowned.  Look out, Transom; Tom Cringle, look out; for my
+part, I shall dive through the door, and take my chance."
+
+"No use in that," said Don Ricardo; "the two round openings there at the
+west end of the chapel, open on a dry shelf, from which the ground
+slopes easily upward to the house; let us put the ladies through them,
+and then we males can shift for ourselves as we best may."
+
+At this moment the water rose so high, that the bier on which the corpse
+of poor Maria Olivera lay stark and stiff, was floated off the trestles,
+and turning on its edge, after glancing for a moment in the light cast
+by the wax tapers, it sank into the thick brown water, and was no more
+seen.
+
+The old priest murmured a prayer, but the effect on us was electric.
+"Sauve qui peut" was now the cry; and Sneezer, quite in his element,
+began to cruise all about, threatening the tapers with instant
+extinction.
+
+"Ladies, get through the holes," shouted Don Ricardo.  "Captain, get you
+out first."
+
+"Can't desert my ship," said the gallant fellow; "the last to quit where
+danger is, my dear sir.  It is my charter; but, Mr Cringle, go you, and
+hand the ladies out."
+
+"I'll be d--d if I do," said I. "Beg pardon, sir; I simply mean to say,
+that I cannot usurp the pas from you."
+
+"Then," quoth Don Ricardo--a more discreet personage than any one of us
+"I will go myself;" and forthwith he screwed himself through one of the
+round holes in the wall behind the altar--piece.  "Give me out one of
+the wax tapers--there is no wind now," said Don Ricardo "and hand out my
+wife, Captain Transom."
+
+"Ave Maria!" said the matron, "I shall never get through that hole."
+
+"Try, my dear madam," said Bang, for by this time we were all deucedly
+alarmed at our situation.  "Try, madam;" and we lifted her towards the
+hole--fairly entered her into it head foremost, and all was smooth, till
+a certain part of the excellent woman's earthly tabernacle stuck fast.
+
+We could hear her invoking all the saints in the calendar on the
+outside to "make her thin;" but the flesh and muscle were obdurate
+through she would not go, until--delicacy being now blown to the winds,
+Captain Transom placed his shoulder to the old lady's extremity, and
+with the regular "Oh, heave oh!" shot her through the aperture into her
+husband's arms.  The young ladies we ejected much more easily, although
+Francesca Cangrejo did stick a little too.  The priest was next passed,
+then Don Picador; and so we went on, until in rotation we had all made
+our exit, and were perched shivering on the high bank.  God defend us!
+we had not been a minute there when the rushing of the stream increased
+the rain once more fell in torrents several large trees came down with
+a fearful impetus in the roaring torrent, and struck the corner of the
+chapel.  It shook--we could see the small cross on the eastern gable
+tremble.  Another stump surged against it--it gave way--and in a minute
+afterwards there was not a vestige remaining of the whole fabric.
+
+"What a funeral for thee, Maria!" said Don Ricardo.
+
+Not a vestige of the body was ever found.
+
+There was nothing now for it.  We all stopped, and turned, and looked,
+there was not a stone of the building to be seen--all was red
+precipitous bank, or dark flowing river--so we turned our steps towards
+the house.  The sun by this time had risen.  We found the northern range
+of rooms still entire, so we made the most of it; and, by dint of the
+Captain's and my nautical skill, before dinner--time, there was rigged a
+canvass jury--roof over the southern part of the fabric, and we were
+once--more seated in comparative comfort at our meal.  But it was all
+melancholy work enough. However, at last we retired to our beds; and
+next morning, when I awoke, there was the small stream once more
+trickling over the face of the rock, with  the slight spray wafting into
+my bedroom, a little discoloured certainly, but as quietly as if no
+storm had taken place.
+
+We were kept at Don Picador's for three days, as, from the shooting of
+the soil from the opposite hill, the river had been dammed up, and its
+channel altered, so that there was no venturing across.  Three Negroes
+were unfortunately drowned, when the bank shot, as Bang called it.  But
+the wonder passed away; and by nine o'clock on the fourth morning, when
+we mounted our mules to proceed, there was little apparently on the fair
+face of nature to mark that such fearful scenes had been.  However, when
+we did get under weigh, we found that the hurricane had not passed over
+us without leaving fearful evidences of its violence.
+
+We had breakfasted--the women had wept--Don Ricardo had blown his nose--
+Aaron Bang had blundered and fidgeted about and the bestias were at the
+door.  We embraced the ladies.
+
+"My son," said Senora Cangrejo, "we shall most likely never meet again.
+You have your country to go to--you have a mother.  Oh, may she never
+suffer the pangs which have wrung my heart But I know--I know that she
+never will." I bowed.  "We may never indeed, in all likelihood we shall
+never meet again!" continued she, in a rich, deep--toned, mellow voice;
+"but if your way of life shall ever lead you to Cordova, you will be
+sure of having many visitors, and many a door will open to you, if you
+will but give out that you have shown kindness to Maria Olivera, or to
+any one connected with her." She wept--and bent over me, pressing both
+her hands on the crown of my head.  "May that great God, who careth not
+for rank or station, for nation or for country, bless you, my son--bless
+you!"
+
+All this was sorry work.  She kissed me on the forehead, and turned
+away.  Her daughter was standing close to her, "like Niobe, all tears."
+"Farewell, Mr Cringle--may you be happy!" I kissed her hand--she turned
+to the Captain.  He looked inexpressible things, and taking her hand,
+held it to his breast; and then, making a slight genuflection, pressed
+it to his lips.  He appeared to be amazingly energetic, and she seemed
+to struggle to be released.  He recovered himself, however--made a
+solemn bow----the ladies vanished.  We shook hands with old Don Picador,
+mounted our mules, and bid a last adieu to the Valley of the Hurricane.
+
+We ambled along for some time in silence.  At length the skipper dropped
+astern, until he got alongside of me.  "I say, Tom"--I was well aware
+that he never called me Tom unless he was fou, or his heart was full,
+honest man--"Tom, what think you of Francesca Cangrejo?"
+
+Oh  ho!  sits  the wind in that quarter? thought I. "Why, I don't  know,
+Captain--I  have  seen her to disadvantage--so much  misery  fine  woman
+though--rather large to my taste--but"
+
+"Confound your buts," quoth the Captain.  "But, never mind push on, push
+on."--I  may tell the gentle reader in his ear, that the worthy  fellow,
+at  the moment when I send this chapter to the press, has his flag,  and
+that Francesca Cangrejo is no less a personage than his wife.
+
+However,  let us get along.  "Doctor Pavo Real," said Don Ricardo,  .now
+since  you have been good enough to spare us a day, let us get the heart
+of  your  secret  out  of  you.  Why, you must  have  been  pretty  well
+frightened on the island there.'
+
+"Never  so much frightened in my life, Don Ricardo; that English captain
+is a most tempestuous man--but all has ended well; and after having seen
+you to the crossing, I will bid you good--by."
+
+"Poo--nonsense."  "Come along--here is the English Medico, your  brother
+Esculapius;  so,  come along, you can return in the morning."  "But  the
+sick folk in Santiago"
+
+"Will  be none the sicker for your absence, Doctor Pavo Real," responded
+Don Ricardo.
+
+The  little  Doctor  laughed,  and away  we  all  cantered--Don  Ricardo
+leading, followed by his wife and nieces, on three stout mules, sitting,
+not  on side--saddles, but on a kind of chair, with a foot--board on the
+larboard  side  to support the feet--then followed the two  Calens,  and
+little  Reefpoint, while the Captain and I brought up the rear.  We  had
+not proceeded five hundred yards, when we were brought to a stand--still
+by  a  mighty tree, which had been thrown down by the wind fairly across
+the road.  On the right hand there was a perpendicular rock rising up to
+a  height  of  five hundred feet; and on the left an equally precipitous
+descent,  without  either ledge or parapet to prevent one  from  falling
+over.   What  was to be done?  We could not by any exertion of  strength
+remove the tree; and if we sent back for assistance, it would have  been
+a  work of time.  SO we dismounted, got the ladies to alight, and  Aaron
+Bang, Transom, and myself, like true knights--errant, undertook to  ride
+the mulos over the stump.
+
+Aaron  Bang  led gallantly, and made a deuced good jump of  it,  Transom
+followed, and made not quite so clever an exhibition--I then rattled  at
+it, and down came mule and rider.  However, we were accounted for on the
+right side.
+
+"But what shall become of us?" shouted the English doctor.
+
+"And as for me, I shall return," said the Spanish Medico.
+
+"Lord  love you, no," said little Reefpoint; "here, lash me to my beast,
+and  no  fear." The doctor made him fast, as desired, round  the  mule's
+neck  with a stout thong, and then drove him at the barricade, and  over
+they  came,  man  and beast, although, to tell the truth,  little  Reefy
+alighted  well out on the neck with a hand grasping each ear.   However,
+he  was  a  gallant  little  fellow, and in nowise  discouraged,  so  he
+undertook to bring over the other quadrupeds; and in little more than  a
+quarter of an hour we were all under weigh on the opposite side, in full
+sail towards Don Ricardo's property.  But as we proceeded up the valley,
+the  destruction  caused  by the storm became more  and  more  apparent.
+Trees  were strewn about in, all directions, having been tom up  by  the
+roots--road  there was literally none; and by the time  we  reached  the
+coffee  estate,  after a ride, or scramble, more properly  speaking,  of
+three  hours, we were all pretty much tired.  In some places the  road
+at  the  best  was  but a rocky shelf of Limestone not exceeding  twelve
+inches  in width, where, if you had slipped, down you would have gone  a
+thousand  feet.  At this time it was white and clean, as if it had  been
+newly  chiselled, all the soil and sand having been washed away  by  the
+recent heavy rains.
+
+The  situation was beautiful; the house stood on a platform scraped  out
+of  the hillside, with a beautiful view of the whole country down to  St
+Jago.  The accommodation was good; more comforts, more English comforts,
+in the mansion than I had yet seen in Cuba; and as it was built of solid
+slabs of limestone, and roofed with strong hardwood timbers and rafters,
+and  tiled, it had sustained comparatively little injury, as it had  the
+advantage of being at the same time sheltered by the overhanging  cliff.
+It  stood  in  the  middle of a large platform of hard sun--dried  clay,
+plastered  over, and as white as chalk, which extended about forty  feet
+from the eaves of the house, in every direction, on which the coffee was
+cured.  This platform was surrounded on all sides by the greenest  grass
+I  had  ever seen, and overshadowed, not the house alone, but the  whole
+level space, by one vast wild fig--tree.
+
+"I say, Tom, do you see that Scotchman hugging the Creole, eh?"
+
+"Scotchman!" said I, looking towards Don Ricardo, who certainly did  not
+appear  to  be  particularly  amorous; on  the  contrary,  we  had  just
+alighted, and the worthy man was enacting groom.
+
+"Yes,"  continued Bang, "the Scotchman hugging the Creole; look at  that
+tree--do you see the trunk of it?"
+
+I  did  look  at  it.  It was a magnificent cedar, with a tall  straight
+stem, covered over with a curious sort of fretwork, wove by the branches
+of  some  strong  parasitical plant, which had warped itself  round  and
+round  it,  by numberless snakelike convolutions, as if it  had  been  a
+vegetable  Laocoon.  The tree itself shot up branchless to the  uncommon
+height  of  fifty  feet; the average girth of the hunk  being  four--and
+twenty  feet,  or  eight--feet in diameter.  The leaf of  the  cedar  is
+small,  not  unlike the ash; but when I looked up, I  noticed  that  the
+feelers  of  this ligneous serpent had twisted round the larger  boughs,
+and blended their broad leaves with those of the tree, so that it looked
+like two trees grafted into one; but, as Aaron Bang said, in a very  few
+years the cedar would entirely disappear, its growth being impeded,  its
+pith extracted, and its core rotted, by the baleful embraces of the wild
+fig,  of "this Scotchman hugging the Creole." After we had fairly shaken
+into our places, there was every promise of a very pleasant visit.   Our
+host had a tolerable cellar, and although there was not much of style in
+his  establishment, still there was a fair allowance of  comfort,  every
+thing considered.  The evening after we arrived was most beautiful.  The
+house,  situated  on  its  white plateau of  barbicues,  as  the  coffee
+platforms  are  called, where large piles of the berries  in  their  red
+cherry like husks had been blackening in the sun the whole forenoon, and
+on  which  a  gang  of negroes was now employed covering  them  up  with
+tarpawlins  for  the  night, stood in the centre of an  amphitheatre  of
+mountains, the front box, as it were, the stage part opening on a bird's
+eye--view  of the distant town and harbour, with the everlasting  ocean
+beyond  it, the currents and flaws of wind making its surface look  like
+ice, as we were too distant to discern the, heaving of the swell, or the
+motion of the billows.  The fast falling shades of evening were deepened
+by the sombrous shadow of the immense tree overhead, and all down in the
+deep  valley  was now becoming dark and undistinguishable,  through  the
+blue  vapours that were gradually floating up towards us.  To the  left,
+on  the shoulder of the Horseshoe Hill, the sunbeams still lingered, and
+the  gigantic shadows of the trees on the right hand prong were strongly
+cast  across the valley on a red precipitous bank near the  top  of  it.
+The  sun  was descending beyond the wood, flashing through the branches,
+as  if  they  had been on fire.  He disappeared.  It was a  most  lovely
+still evening--the air--but hear the skipper.
+
+"It is the hour when from the boughs,
+The nightingale's high note is heard;
+It is the hour when lovers vows,
+Seem sweet in every whisper'd word;
+And gentle winds and waters near,
+Make music to the lonely ear.
+Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
+And in the sky the stars are met,
+And on the wave is deeper blue,
+And on the leaf is browner hue,
+And in the heaven that clear obscure,
+So softly dark, and darkly pure,
+Whichfollows the decline of day,
+When twilight melts beneath the moon away."
+
+"Well  recited,  skipper," shouted Bang.  "Given  as  the  noble  poet's
+verses   should   be  given.  I  did  not  know  the  extent   of   your
+accomplishments;  grown poetical ever since you saw Francesca  Cangrejo,
+eh?"
+
+The darkness hid the gallant captain's blushes, if blush he did.
+
+"I  say, Don Ricardo, who are those?"--half--a--dozen well--clad negroes
+had  approached  the house by this time--"Ask them, Mr Bang;  take  your
+friend Mr Cringle for an interpreter."
+
+"Well, I will.  Tom, who are they?  Ask them--do."
+
+I put the question, "Do you belong to the property?"
+
+The  foremost,  a  handsome Negro answered me, "No, we  don't,  sir;  at
+least, not till tomorrow."
+
+"Not till tomorrow?"
+
+"No, sir; somos caballeros hoy" (we are gentlemen to--day.)
+
+"Gentlemen today; and, pray, what shall you be tomorrow?"
+
+"Esclavos  otra  ves," (slaves again, sir,) rejoined  the  poor  fellow,
+nowise daunted.
+
+"And  you, my darling," said I to a nice well--dressed girl, who  seemed
+to be the sister of the spokesman, ".what are you today, may I ask?"
+
+She laughed--"Esclava, a slave to--day, but to--morrow I shall be free."
+
+"Very strange."
+
+"Not  at all, senor; there are six of us in a family, and one of  us  is
+free  each  day,  all to father there," pointing to an old  grey--headed
+negro,  who stood by, leaning on his staff--"he is free two days in  the
+week; and as I am going to have a child,"--a cool admission,--"I want to
+buy  another day for myself too--but Don Ricardo will tell you all about
+it."
+
+The Don by this time chimed in, talking kindly to the poor creatures;
+but we had to retire, as dinner was now announced, to which we sat down.
+
+Don Ricardo had been altogether Spanish in Santiago, because he lived
+there amongst Spaniards, and every thing was Spanish about him; so with
+the tact of his countrymen he had gradually been merged into the society
+in which he moved, and having married a very high caste Spanish lady, he
+at length became regularly amalgamated with the community.  But here, in
+his mountain retreat, sole master, his slaves in attendance on him, he
+was once more an Englishman, in externals, as he always was at heart,
+and Richie Cloche, from the Lang Toon of Kirkaldy, shone forth in all
+his glory as the kind hearted landlord.  His head household servant was
+an English, or rather a Jamaica negro; his equipment, so far as the
+dinner set out was concerned, was pure English; he would not even speak
+any thing but English himself.
+
+The entertainment was exceedingly good,--the only thing that puzzled us
+uninitiated subjects, was a fricassee of Macaca worms, that is, the worm
+which breeds in the rotten trunk of the cotton--tree, a beautiful little
+insect, as big as a miller's thumb, with a white trunk and a black head
+in one word, a gigantic caterpillar.
+
+Bang fed thereon--he had been accustomed to it in Jamaica in some Creole
+families where he visited, he said--but it was beyond my compass.
+However, all this while we were having a great deal of fun, when Senora
+Campana addressed her husband--"My dear, you are now in your English
+mood, so I suppose we must go." We had dined at six, and it might now be
+about eight.  Don Ricardo, with all the complacency in the world, bowed,
+as much as to say, you are right, my dear, you may go, when his youngest
+niece addressed him.
+
+"Tio--my uncle," said she, in a low silver--toned voice, "Juana and I
+have brought our guitars"--
+
+"Not another word to be said," quoth Transom--"the guitars by all
+means."
+
+The girls in an instant, without any preparatory blushing, or other
+botheration, rose, slipped their heads and right arms through the black
+ribbons that supported their instruments, and stepped into the middle of
+the room.
+
+"The Moorish Maid of Granada," said Senora Campana.  They nodded.
+
+"You shall take Fernando, the sailor's part," said Senora Candalaria,
+the youngest sister, to Juana, "for your voice is deeper than mine, and
+I shall be Anna."
+
+"Agreed," said Juana, with a lovely smile, and an arch twinkle of her
+eye towards me, and then launched forth in full tide, accompanying her
+sweet and mellow voice on that too much neglected instrument, the
+guitar.  It was a wild, irregular sort of ditty, with one or two
+startling arabesque bursts in it.  As near as may be, the following
+conveys the meaning, but not the poetry.
+
+The Moorish Maid of Granada
+
+FERNANDO
+
+The setting moon hangs over the hill;
+On the dark pure breast of the mountain lake
+Still trembles her greenish silver wake,
+And the blue mist floats over the rill.
+And the cold streaks of dawning appear,
+Giving token that sunrise is near;
+And the fast clearing east is flushing,
+And the watery clouds are blushing;
+And the day--star is sparkling on high,
+Like the fire of my Anna's dark eye.
+The ruby--red clouds in the east
+Float like islands upon the sea,
+When the winds are asleep on its breast;
+Ah, would that such calm were for me!
+
+And see, the first streamer--like ray
+From the unrisen god of day,
+Is piercing the ruby--red clouds,
+Shooting up like golden shrouds:
+And like silver gauze falls the shower,
+Leaving diamonds on bank, bush, and bower,
+Amidst many unopened flower.
+Why walks the dark maid of Granada?
+
+ANNA
+
+At evening when labour is done,
+And cool'd in the sea is the sun;
+And the dew sparkles clear on the rose,
+And the flowers are beginning to close,
+Which at nightfall again in the calm.
+
+Their incense to God breathe in balm;
+And the bat flickers up in the sky,
+And the beetle hums moaningly by;
+And to rest in the brake speeds the deer,
+While the nightingale sings loud and clear.
+
+Scorched by the heat of the sun's fierce light,
+The sweetest flowers are bending most
+Upon their slender stems;
+More faint are they than if tempest tost,
+Till they drink of the sparkling gems
+That fall from the eye of night.
+
+Hark! from lattices guitars are tinkling,
+And though in heaven the stars are twinkling,
+No tell--tale moon looks over the mountain,
+To peer at her pale cold face in the fountain;
+And serenader's mellow voice,
+Wailing of war, or warbling of love,
+Of love, while the melting maid of his choice,
+Leans out from her bower above.
+
+All is soft and yielding towards night,
+When blending darkness shrouds all from the sight;
+But chaste, chaste, is this cold, pure light,
+Sang the Moorish maid of Granada.
+
+After the song, we all applauded, and the ladies having made their
+conges, retired.  The Captain and I looked towards Aaron Bang and Don
+Ricardo; they were tooth and nail at something which we could not
+understand.  So we wisely held our tongues.
+
+"Very strange all this," quoth Bang.
+
+"Not at all," said Ricardo.  "As I tell you, every slave here can have
+himself or herself appraised, at any time they may choose, with liberty
+to purchase their freedom day by day."
+
+"But that would be compulsory manunmission," quoth Bang.
+
+"And if it be," said Ricardo, "what then?  The scheme works well here
+why should it not do so there--I mean with you, who have so many
+advantages over us?"
+
+This is an unentertaining subject to most people, but having no bias
+myself, I have considered it but justice to insert in my log the
+following letter, which Bang, honest fellow, addressed to me, some years
+after the time I speak of.
+
+
+MY DEAR CRINGLE,
+
+"Since I last saw you in London, it is nearly, but not quite, three
+years ago. I considered at the time we parted, that if I lived at the
+rate of L3000 a--year, I was not spending one--half of my average
+income, and on the faith of this I did plead guilty to my house in Park
+Lane, and a carriage for my wife,----and, in short, I spent my L3000 a
+year.  Where am I now?  In the old shop at Mammee Gully--my two eldest
+daughters, little things, in the very middle of their education, hastily
+ordered out, shipped as it were, like two bales of goods to Jamaica--my
+eldest nephew, whom I had adopted, obliged to exchange from the--Light
+Dragoons, and to enter a foot regiment, receiving the difference, which
+but cleared him from his mess accounts.  But the world says I was
+extravagant.  Like Timon, however--No, d--n Timon.  I spent money when I
+thought I had it, and therein I did no more than the Duke of Bedford, or
+Lord Grosvenor or many another worthy peer; and now when I no longer
+have it, why, I cut my coat by my cloth, have made up my mind to
+perpetual banishment here, and I owe no man a farthing."
+
+But all this is wandering from the subject.  We are now asked in direct
+terms to free our slaves.  I will not even glance at the injustice of
+this demand, the horrible infraction of rights that it would lead to;
+all this I will leave untouched; but, my dear fellow, were men in your
+service or the army to do us justice, each in his small sphere in
+England, how much good might you not do us?  Officers of rank are, of
+all others, the most influential witnesses we could adduce, if they,
+like you, have had opportunities of judging for themselves.  But I am
+rambling from my object.  You may remember our escapade into Cuba, a
+thousand years ago, when you were a lieutenant of the Firebrand.  Well,
+you may also remember Don Ricardo's doctrine regarding the gradual
+emancipation of the negroes, and how we saw his plan in full operation
+at least I did, for you knew little of these matters.  Well, last year I
+made a note of what then passed, and sent it to an eminent West India
+merchant in London, who had it published in the Courier, but it did not
+seem to please either one party or the other; a signal proof, one would
+have thought, that there was some good in it.  At a later period, I
+requested the same gentleman to have it published in Blackwood, where it
+would at least have had a fair trial on its own merits, but it was
+refused insertion.  My very worthy friend, who acted for old Kit at that
+time as secretary of state for colonial affairs, did not like it, I
+presume; it trenched a little, it would seem, on the integrity of his
+great question; it approached to something like compulsory manumission,
+about which he does rave.  Why will he not think on this subject like a
+Christian man?  The country--I say so--will never sanction the retaining
+in bondage of any slave, who is willing to pay his master his fair
+appraised value.
+
+Our friend----injures us, and himself too, a leetle by his ultra
+notions.  However, hear what I propose, and what, as I have told you
+formerly, was published in the Courier by no less a man than Lord----.
+
+Scheme for the gradual Abolition of Slavery.
+
+The following scheme of redemption for the slaves in our colonies is
+akin to a practice that prevails in some of the Spanish settlements.
+
+We have now bishops, (a most excellent measure,) and we may presume that
+the inferior clergy will be much more efficient than heretofore.  It is
+therefore proposed,--That every slave, on attaining the age of twenty
+one years, should be, by act of Parliament, competent to apply to his
+parish clergyman, and signify his desire to be appraised.  The
+clergyman's business would then be to select two respectable appraisers
+from amongst his parishioners, who should value the slave, calling in an
+umpire if they disagreed.
+
+As men even of good principles will often be more or less swayed by the
+peculiar interests of the body to which they belong, the rector should
+be instructed, if he saw any flagrant swerving from an honest
+appraisement, to notify the same to his bishop, who, by application to
+the governor, if need were, could thereby rectify it.  When the slave
+was thus valued, the valuation should be registered by the rector, in a
+book to be kept for that purpose, an attested copy of which should be
+annually lodged amongst the archives of the colony.
+
+We shall assume a case, where a slave is valued for LI20, Jamaica
+currency.  He soon, by working by--hours, selling the produce of his
+provision grounds, etc. Acquires L20; and how easily and frequently
+this is done, every one knows, who is at all acquainted with West India
+affairs.
+
+He then shall have a right to pay to his owner this L20 as the price of
+his Monday for ever, and his owner shall be bound to receive it.  A
+similar sum would purchase him his freedom on Tuesday; and other four
+instalments, to use a West India phrase, would buy him free altogether.
+You will notice, I consider that he is already free on the Sunday.  Now,
+where is the insurmountable difficulty here?  The planter may be put to
+inconvenience, certainly, great inconvenience, but he has compensation,
+and the slave has his freedom--if he deserves it; and as his
+emancipation in nine cases out of ten would be a work of time, he would,
+as he approached absolute freedom, become more civilized, that is, more
+fit to be free; and as he became more civilized, new wants would spring
+up, so that when he was finally free, he would not be content to work a
+day or two in the week for subsistence merely.  He would work the whole
+six to buy many little comforts, which, as a slave suddenly emancipated,
+he never would have thought of.
+
+As the slave becomes free, I would have his owner's allowance of
+provisions and clothing decrease gradually.
+
+It may be objected--suppose slaves partly free, to be taken in
+execution, and sold for debt. I answer, let them be so.  Why cannot
+three days of a man's labour be sold by the deputy marshal as well as
+six?
+
+Again--Suppose the gang is mortgaged, or liable to judgments against the
+owner of it. I still answer, let it be so--only, in this case let the
+slave pay his instalments into court, in place of paying them to his
+owners, and let him apply to his rector for information in such a case.
+
+By the register I would have kept, every one could at once see what
+property an owner had in his gang--that is, how many were actually
+slaves, and how many were in progress of becoming free.  Thus well
+disposed and industrious slaves would soon become freemen.  But the idle
+and worthless would still continue slaves, and why the devil shouldn't
+they?
+
+                       (Signed) A. B----.
+
+There does seem to be a rough, yet vigorous sound sense in all this.
+But I take leave of the subject, which I do not profess to understand;
+only I am willing to bear witness in favour of my old friends, so far as
+I can, conscientiously.
+
+We returned next day to Santiago, and had then to undergo the bitterness
+of parting.  With me it was a slight affair, but the skipper! However, I
+will not dwell on it.  We reached the town towards evening.  The women
+were ready to weep, I saw; but we all turned in, and next morning at
+breakfast we were moved, I will admit--some more, some less.  Little
+Reefy, poor fellow, was crying like a child; indeed he was little more,
+being barely fifteen.
+
+"Oh!  Mr Cringle, I wish I had never seen Miss Candalaria de los
+Dolores; indeed I do."
+
+This was Don Ricardo's youngest niece.
+
+"Ah, Reefy, Reefy," said I, "you must make haste, and be made post, and
+then"
+
+"What does he call her?" said Aaron.
+
+"Senora Tomassa Candalaria de los Dolores Gonzales y Vallejo," blubbered
+out little Reefy.
+
+"What a complicated piece of machinery she must be!" gravely rejoined
+Bang.
+
+The meal was protracted to a very unusual length, but time and tide wait
+for no man.  We rose.  Aaron Bang advanced to make his bow to our kind
+hostess; he held out his hand, but she, to Aaron's great surprise
+apparently, pushed it on one side and regularly closing with our friend,
+hugged him in right earnest. I have before mentioned that she was a very
+small woman; so, as the devil would have it, the golden pin in her hair
+was thrust into Aaron's eye, which made him jump back, wherein he lost
+his balance, and away he went, dragging Madama Campana down on the top
+of him.  However, none of us could--laugh now; we parted, jumped into
+our boat, and proceeded straight to the anchorage, where three British
+merchantmen were by this time riding all ready for sea.  We got on
+board.  "Mr Yerk," said the Captain, "fire a gun, and hoist blue Peter
+at the fore.  Loose the foretopsail." The masters came on board for
+their instructions; we passed but a melancholy evening of it, and next
+morning I took my last look of Santiago de Cuba.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The Cruise of the Wave. The Action with the Slaver.
+
+'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
+Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
+Far as the breeze can bear the billow's foam,
+Survey our empire, and behold our home.
+These are our realms, no limits to their sway.
+Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.'
+
+BYRON, THE CORSAIR, I. 1--6.
+
+
+
+At  three o'clock next morning, about an hour and a half before daydawn,
+I  was  roused from my cot by the gruff voice of the boatswain on deck
+"All hands up anchor."
+
+The  next  moment the gunroom steward entered with a lantern,  which  he
+placed on the table--"Gentlemen, all hands up anchor, if you please."
+
+"Botheration!" grumbled one.
+
+"Oh dear!" yawned another.
+
+"How  merrily  we live that sailors be!" sung another in a most  doleful
+strain,  and  in all the bitterness of heart consequent on being  roused
+out of a warm nest so unceremoniously.  But no help for it; so up we all
+got, and opening the door of my berth, I got out, and sat me down on the
+bench that ran along the starboard side of the table.
+
+For  the benefit of the uninitiated, let me describe a gunroom on  board
+of  a  sloop of war.  Everybody knows that the Captain's cabin  occupies
+the  after  part  of  the ship; next to it, on the  same  deck,  is  the
+gunroom.   In a corvette, such as the Firebrand, it is a room, as,  near
+as  may  be,  twenty  feet long by twelve wide, and lighted  by  a  long
+scuttle, or skylight, in the deck above.  On each side of this room runs
+a  row of small chambers, seven feet long by six feet wide, boarded  off
+from  the  main  saloon, or, in nautical phrase, separated  from  it  by
+bulkheads, each with a door and small window opening into the same, and,
+generally speaking, with a small scuttle in the side of the ship towards
+the  sea.   These are the officers' sleeping apartments, in  which  they
+have  each  a  chest  of  drawers and basin--stand;  while  overhead  is
+suspended  a cot, or hammock, kept asunder by a wooden frame,  six  feet
+long by about two broad, slung from cleats nailed to the beams above, by
+two  lanyards fastened to rings, one at the head, and the other  at  the
+foot;  from which radiate a number of smaller cords, which are  fastened
+to the canvass of the cot; while a small strip of canvass runs from head
+to  foot  on  each side, so as to prevent the sleeper from rolling  out.
+The  dimensions  of  the  gunroom  are,  as  will  be  seen,  very  much
+circumscribed  by the side berths; and when you take into account,  that
+the  centre is occupied by a long table, running the whole length of the
+room,  flanked by a wooden bench, with a high back to it, on each  side,
+and  a  large  clumsy chair at the head, and another at  the  foot,  not
+forgetting  the  sideboard at the head of the table,  (full  of  knives,
+forks,  spoons,  tumblers,  glasses &c.  &c.  &c.  stuck  into  mahogany
+sockets,)  all of which are made fast to the deck by strong  cleats  and
+staples, and bands of spunyarn, so as to prevent them fetching  way,  or
+moving, when the vessel pitches or rolls, you will understand that there
+is  no  great  scope to expatiate upon, free of the table, benches,  and
+bulkheads of the cabins.  While I sat monopolizing the full light of the
+lantern, and accoutring myself as decently as the hurry would admit  of,
+I  noticed  the officers, in their nightgowns and night--caps,  as  they
+extricated   themselves  from  their  coops;  and   picturesque--looking
+subjects enough there were amongst them, in all conscience.  At  length,
+that  is in about ten minutes from the time we were called, we were  all
+at stations--a gun was fired, and we weighed, and then stood out to sea,
+running  along about four knots, with the land--wind right aft.   Having
+made  an  offing  of three miles or so, we outran the  terral,  and  got
+becalmed in the belt of smooth water between it and the sea--breeze.  It
+was  striking to see the three merchant--ships gradually draw  out  from
+the land, until we were all clustered together in a bunch, with a half a
+gale  of wind curling the blue waves within musket--shot, while all  was
+long  swell and smooth water with us.  At length the breeze reached  us,
+and  we  made  sail with our convoy to the southward and  eastward,  the
+lumbering  merchantmen crowding every inch of canvass,  while  we  could
+hardly  keep  astern, under close--reefed topsails, foresail,  jib,  and
+spanker.
+
+"Pipe to breakfast," said the Captain to Mr Yerk.
+
+"A sail abeam of us to windward!"
+
+"What  is she?" sung out the skipper to the man at the masthead who  had
+hailed.
+
+"A  small schooner, sir; she has fired a gun, and hoisted an ensign  and
+pennant."
+
+"How is she steering?"
+
+"She has edged away for us, sir."
+
+"Very well.--Mr Yerk, make the signal for the convoy to stand on."  Then
+to the boatswain--
+
+"Mr Catwell, have the men gone to breakfast?"
+
+"No, sir, but they are just going."
+
+"Then pipe belay with breakfast for a minute, will you?  All hands  make
+sail!"
+
+"Crack on, Mr Yerk, and let us overhaul this small swaggerer."
+
+In  a  trice  we  had  all sail set, and were staggering  along  on  the
+larboard tack, close upon a wind.  We hauled out from the merchant ships
+like  smoke, and presently the schooner was seen from the deck.--"Go  to
+breakfast  now." The crew disappeared, all to the officers, man  at  the
+helm, quartermaster at the conn, and signalman.
+
+The first lieutenant had the book open on the drum of the capstan before
+him.  "Make our number," said the Captain.  It was done.  "What does she
+answer?"
+
+The  signalman  answered from the fore--rigging, where  he  had  perched
+himself  with his glass--"She makes the signal to telegraph, sir--3,  9,
+2, at the fore, sir"--and so on; which translated was simply this--"The
+Wave, with despatches from the admiral."
+
+"Oh, ho," said Transom; "what is she sent for?  Whenever the people have
+got their breakfast, tack, and stand towards her, Mr Yerk."
+
+The  little  vessel approached.--"Shorten sail, Mr Yerk, and  heave  the
+ship to," said the Captain to the first lieutenant.
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+"All hands, Mr Catwell."
+
+Presently the boatswain's whistle rung sharp and clear, while his  gruff
+voice,  to  which  his mates bore any thing but mellow  burdens,  echoed
+through the ship--"All hands shorten sail--fore and mainsails haul  up
+haul down to jib--in topgallant sails--now back the main--topsail."
+
+By  heaving--to, we brought the Wave on our weather bow.   She  was  now
+within a cable's length of the corvette; the captain was standing on the
+second  foremost, gun, on the larboard side.  "Mafame," to his  steward,
+"hand  me  up  my trumpet." He hailed the little vessel "Ho,  the  Wave,
+ahoy!"
+
+Presently  the  responding "hillo" came down the wind  to  us  from  the
+officer in command of her, like an echo--"Run under our stern and heave
+to, to leeward."
+
+"Ay, ay, sir."
+
+As  the  Wave  came  to  the wind, she lowered down  her  boat,  and  Mr
+Jigmaree, the boatswain of the dockyard in Jamaica, came on board,  and,
+touching his hat, presented his despatches to the Captain.  Presently he
+and  the  skipper retired into the cabin, and all hands were  inspecting
+the  Wave  in  her  new  character of one  of  his  Britannic  Majesty's
+cruisers.   When  I  had last seen her she was a most  beautiful  little
+craft,  both in hull and rigging, as ever delighted the eye of a sailor;
+but  the  dockyard riggers and carpenters had fairly bedeviled  her,  at
+least  so  far as appearances went.  First, they had replaced the  light
+rail  on her gunwale, by heavy solid bulwarks four feet high, surmounted
+by  hammock  nettings,  at least another foot, so that  the  symmetrical
+little vessel, that formerly floated on the foam light as a seagull, now
+looked  like a clumsy dish--shaped Dutch dogger. Her long slender  wands
+of masts, which used to swig about, as if there were neither shrouds nor
+stays  to  support them, were now as taut and stiff as church  steeples,
+with  four heavy shrouds of a side, and stays and back--stays,  and  the
+Devil knows what all.
+
+"Now,"  quoth Tailtackle, "if them heave'emtaughts at the yard have  not
+taken the speed out of the little beauty, I am a Dutchman." Timotheus, I
+may  state in the bygoing, was not a Dutchman; he was fundamentally  any
+thing but a Dutchman; but his opinion was sound, and soon verified to my
+cost.  Jigmaree now approached.
+
+"The Captain wants you in the cabin, sir," said he.
+I  descended,  and found the skipper seated at a table  with  his  clerk
+beside  him, and several open letters lying before him.  "Sit  down,  Mr
+Cringle."  I  took a chair.  "There--read that," and he  threw  an  open
+letter across the table to me, which ran as follows:
+
+SIR,
+
+"The  Vice--Admiral, commanding on the Jamaica station,  desires  me  to
+say,  that  the bearer, the boatswain of the dockyard, Mr Luke Jigmaree,
+has  instructions to cruise for, and if possible to fall  in  with  you,
+before  you  weather Cape Maize, and falling in with you, to deliver  up
+charge  of  the vessel to you, as well as of the five negroes,  and  the
+pilot,  Peter Mangrove, who are on board of her.  The Wave  having  been
+armed  and fitted with every thing considered necessary, you are to  man
+her with thirty--five of your crew, including officers, and to place her
+under  the  command of Lieutenant Thomas Cringle, who is to be furnished
+with  a copy of this letter authenticated by your signature, and to whom
+you will give written instructions, that he is first of all to cruise in
+the  great  Cuba channel, until the 14th proximo, for the prevention  of
+piracy,  and the suppression of the slave--trade carried on between  the
+island  of  Cuba and the coast of Africa, and to detain and  carry  into
+Havanna, or Nassau, New Providence, all vessels having slaves on  board,
+which  he  may  have  reason to believe have  been  shipped  beyond  the
+prescribed  limits on the African coast as specified in the margin;  and
+after   the  14th  he  is  to  proceed  direct  to  New  Providence   if
+unsuccessful, there to land Mr Jigmaree, and the dockyard  negroes,  and
+await  your return from the northward, after having seen the merchantmen
+clear of the Caicos passage.  When you have rejoined the Wave at Nassau,
+you  are to proceed with her as your tender to Crooked Island, and there
+to await instructions from the Vice--Admiral, which shall be transmitted
+by  the  packet  to  sail  on  the 9th proxinio,  to  the  care  of  the
+postmaster. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient servant."
+--------, Sec.
+
+
+To the Hon.  Captain Transom, etc.
+
+
+To  say sooth, I was by no means amorous of this independent command, as
+an  idea  had,  at  the time I speak of, gone abroad in  the  navy,  the
+lieutenants,  commanding  small  vessels,  seldom  rose  higher,  unless
+through  extraordinary interest, and I took the liberty  of  stating  my
+repugnance to my captain.
+
+He  smiled,  and threw over another letter to me; it was a  private  one
+from the Admiral's Secretary, and was as follows:(Confidential.)
+
+My DEAR TRANSOM,
+
+"The Vice Admiral has got a hint from Sir----, to kick that wild splice,
+young  Cringle, about a bit.  It seems he is a nephew of Old Blueblazes,
+and  as he has taken a fancy to the lad, he has promised his mother that
+he  will do his utmost to give him opportunities of being knocked on the
+head,  for  all of which the old lady has professed herself  wonderfully
+indebted.   As  the  puppy  has  peculiar  notions,  hint,  directly  or
+indirectly, that he is not to be permanently bolted down to  the  little
+and that if half a dozen skippers (you, my darling, among the rest) were
+to  evaporate during the approaching hot months, he may have some  small
+chance of t'other swab. Write me, and mind the claret and curacoa.   Put
+no  address  on  either; and on coming to anchor,  send  notice  to  old
+Peterkin in the lodge at the Master Attendant's, and he will relieve you
+and  the  pies  de  gallo,  some calm evening, of  all  farther  trouble
+regarding  them.  Don't forget the turtle from Crooked Island,  and  the
+cigars."
+
+"Always, my dear Transom,"
+
+"Yours sincerely,"
+
+"Oh, I forgot.  The Admiral begs you will spare him some steady old
+hands to act as gunner, boatswain, &c.--elderly men, if you please, who
+will shorten sail before the squall strikes him.  If you float him away
+with a crew of boys, the little scamp will get bothered, or capsized, in
+a jiffy.  All this for your worship's government.  How do you live with
+your passenger--prime follow, an't he?  My love to him.  Lady----is
+dying to see him again."
+
+"WELL, MR CRINGLE, what say you?"
+
+"Of course, I must obey, sir;--highly flattered by Mr Secretary's good
+opinion, any how."
+
+The Captain laughed heartily.
+
+"It is nearly calm, I see.  We must set about manning this seventy four
+for you, without delay.  So, come along, Captain Cringle."
+
+When we got on deck,--"Hail the Wave to close, Mr Yerk," said Transom.
+"Lower away the boat, and pipe away the yaulers, boatswain's mate."
+
+Presently the Captain and I were on the Wave's deck, where I was much
+surprised to find no less personages than Pepperpot Wagtail, and Paul
+Gelid, Esquires.  Mr Gelid, a conch, or native of the Bahamas, was the
+same yawning, drawling, long--legged Creole as ever.  He had been ill
+with fever, and had asked a passage to Nassau, where his brother was
+established.  At bottom, however, he was an excellent fellow, warm
+hearted, honourable, and upright.  As for little Wagtail--oh, he was a
+delight!--a small round man, with all the Jamaica Creole irritability of
+temper, but also all the Jamaica warmth of heart about him
+straightforward, and scrupulously conscientious in his dealings, but
+devoted to good cheer in every shape.  He had also been ailing, and had
+adventured on the cruise in order to recruit. I scarcely know how to
+describe his figure better than by comparing his corpus to an egg, with
+his little feet stuck through the bottom of the shell; but he was
+amazingly active withal.
+
+Both the Captain and myself were rejoiced to see our old friends; and it
+was immediately fixed that they should go on board the corvette, and
+sling their cots alongside of Mr Bang, so long as the courses--of the
+two vessels lay together.  This being carried into execution, we set
+about our arrangements.  Our precious blockheads at the dockyard had
+fitted a thirty--two pound carronade on the pivot, and stuck two long
+sixes, one on each side of the little vessel. I hate carronades. I had,
+before now, seen thirty--two pound shot thrown by them jump off a ship's
+side with a rebound like a football, when a shot from an eighteen--
+pounder long gun went crash, at the same range, through both sides of
+the ship, whipping off a leg and arm, or aiblins a head or two, in its
+transit.
+
+"My dear sir," said I, "don't shove me adrift with that old pot there
+do lend me one of your long brass eighteen--pounders."
+
+"Why, Master Cringle, what is your antipathy to carronades?"
+
+"I have no absolute antipathy to them, sir--they are all very well in
+their way.  For instance, I wish you would fit me with two twelvepound
+carronades instead of those two popgun long sixes.  These, with thirty
+muskets, and thirty--five men or so, would make me very complete."
+
+"A modest request," said Captain Transom.
+
+"Now, Tom Cringle, you have overshot your mark, my fine fellow," thought
+I; butjit was all right, and that forenoon the cutter was hoisted out
+with the guns in her, and the others dismounted and sent back in
+exchange; and in fine, after three days' hard work, I took the command
+of H.B.M. schooner, Wave, with Timothy Tailtackle as gunner, the senior
+midshipman as master, one of the carpenter's crew as carpenter, and a
+boatswain's--mate as boatswain, a surgeon's mate as surgeon, the
+captain's clerk as purser, and thirty foremast--men, besides the
+blackies, as the crew.  But the sailing of the little beauty had been
+regularly spoiled.  We could still in light winds weather on' the
+corvette, it is true, but then she was a slow top, unless it blew half a
+gale of wind; and as for going any thing free, why a sand barge would
+have beaten us.--We kept company with the Firebrand until we weathered
+Cape Maize.  It was near five o'clock in the afternoon, the corvette was
+about half a mile on our lee--bow, when, while walking the deck, after
+an early dinner, Tailtackle came up to me.
+
+"The Commodore has hove--to, sir."
+
+"Very like," said I; "to allow the merchant--ships to close, I presume."
+
+"A gun," said little Reefpoint.  "Ah--what signal now?"--It was
+the signal to close.
+
+"Put the helm up and run down to him," said I. It was done--and
+presently the comfortable feeling of bowling along before the breeze,
+succeeded the sharp yerking digging motion of the little vessel, tearing
+and pitching through a head sea, close upon a wind.  The water was
+buzzing under our bows, and we were once more close under the stern of
+the corvette.  There was a boat alongside ready manned.  The Captain
+hailed, "I sent your orders on board, Mr Cringle, to bear up on your
+separate cruise." At the same moment, the Firebrand's ensign and pennant
+were hoisted--we did the same--a gun from the Commodore--ditto from the
+tidy little Wave--and lo!  Thomas Cringle, esquire, launched for the
+first time on his own bottom.
+
+By this time the boat was alongside, with Messieurs Aaron Bang,
+Pepperpot Wagtail, and Paul Gelid--the former with his cot, and half a
+dozen cases of wine, and some pigs, and some poultry, all under the
+charge of his black servant.
+
+"Hillo," said I--"Mr Wagtail is at home here, you know, Mr Bang, and so
+is Mr Gelid; but to what lucky chance am I indebted for your society, my
+dear sir?"
+
+"Thank your stars, Tom--Captain Cringle, I beg pardon--and be grateful;
+I am sick of rumbling tumbling in company with these heavy tools of
+merchantmen, so I entreated Transom to let me go and take a turn with
+you, promising to join the Firebrand again at Nassau."
+
+"Why, I am delighted,"--and so I really was.  "But, my dear sir--I may
+lead you a dance, and, peradventure into trouble--a small vessel may
+catch a Tartar, you know.
+
+"D--n the expense," rejoined my jovial ally; "why, the hot little
+epicurean Wagtail, and Gelid, cold and frozen as he is, have both taken
+a fancy to me--and no wonder, knowing my pleasant qualities as they do
+ahem; so, for their sakes, I volunteer on this piece of knight--errantry
+as much as'--
+
+"Poo--you be starved, Aaron dear," rapped out little Wagtail; "you came
+here, because you thought you should have more fun, and escape the
+formality of the big ship, and eke the Captain's sour claret."
+
+"Ah," said Gelid, "my fine fellow," with his usual Creole drawl, "you
+did not wait for my opinion.  Ah--oh--why, Captain Cringle, a thousand
+pardons.  Friend Bang, there, swears that he can't do without you; and
+all he says about me is neither more nor less than humbug--ah."
+
+"My lovely yellowsnake," quoth Aaron, "and my amiable dumpling,
+gentlemen both, now, do hold your tongues.--Why, Tom, here we are, never
+you mind how, after half a quarrel with the skipper--will you take us,
+or will you send us back, like rejected addresses?"
+
+"Send you back, my boys!  No, no, too happy to get you." Another gun
+from the corvette.  "Firebrands, you must shove off.  My compliments,
+Wiggins, to the Captain, and there's a trifle for you to drink my
+health, when you get into port." The boat shoved off--the corvette
+filled her maintopsail.  "Put the helm down--ease off the mainsheet
+stand by to run up the squaresail.  How is her head, Mr Tailtackle?"
+
+Timothy gave a most extraordinary grin at my bestowing the Mister on him
+for the first time.
+
+"North--west, sir."
+
+"Keep her so"--and having bore up, we rapidly widened our distance from
+the Commodore and the fleet.
+
+All men know, or should know, that on board of a man--of--war, there is
+never any "yo heave oh'ing." That is confined to merchant vessels.  But
+when the crew are having a strong pull of any rope, it is allowable for
+the man next the belaying pin, to sing out, in order t@6 give unity to
+the drag, "one--two--three," the strain of the other men increasing with
+the figure.  The tack of the mainsail had got jammed somehow, and on my
+desiring it to be hauled up, the men, whose province it was, were unable
+to start it.
+
+"Something foul aloft," said I.
+
+Tailtackle came up.  "What are you fiddling at, men?  Give me here--one
+two--three."
+
+Crack went the strands of the rope under the paws of the Titan, whereby
+the head of the outermost sailor pitched right into Gelid's stomach,
+knocked him over and capsized him head foremost into the wind sail
+which was let down through the skylight into the little well cabin of
+the schooner.  It so happened that there was a bucket full of Spanish
+brown paint standing on the table in the cabin, right below the hoop of
+the canvass funnel, and into it plopped the august pate of Paul Gelid,
+esquire.  Bang had, in the meantime, caught him by the heels, and with
+the assistance of Pearl, the handsome negro formerly noticed, who, from
+his steadiness, had been spared to me as a quartermaster, the conch was
+once more hoisted on deck, with a scalp of red paint, reaching down over
+his eyes.
+
+"I say," quoth Bang, "Gelid, my darling, not quite so smooth as the real
+Macassar, eh?  Shall I try my hand--can shave beautifully--eh?"
+
+"Ah," drawled Gelid, "don't require it--lucky my head was shaved in that
+last fever, Aaron dear.  Ah--let me think--you tall man--you sailor--
+fellow--ah--do me the favour to scrape me with your knife--ah--and pray
+call my servant."
+
+Timothy, to whom he had addressed himself, set to, and scraped the red
+paint off his poll; and having called his servant, Chew Chew, handed him
+over to the negro, who, giving his arm to him, helped him below, and
+with the assistance of Cologne water, contrived to scrub him decently
+clean.
+
+As the evening fell, the breeze freshened; and during the night it blew
+strong, so that from the time we bore up, and parted company with the
+Firebrand, until day--dawn next morning, we had run I30 miles or thereby
+to the northward and westward, and were then on the edge of the Great
+Bahama Bank.  The breeze now failed us, and we lay roasting in the sun
+until mid--day, the current sweeping us to the northward, and still
+farther on to the bank, until the water shoaled to three fathoms.  At
+this time the sun was blazing fiercely right overhead; and from the
+shallowness of the water, there was not the smallest swell, or
+undulation of the surface.  The sea, as far as the eye could reach, was
+a sparkling light green, from the snow--white sand at the bottom, as if
+a level desert had been suddenly submerged under a few feet of crystal
+clear water, which formed a cheery spectacle, when compared with the
+customary leaden, or dark blue--colour of the rolling fathomless ocean.
+It was now dead calm.--"Fishing lines there--Idlers, fishing lines,"
+said I; and in a minute there were forty of them down over the side.
+
+In Europe, fish in their shapes partake of the sedate character of the
+people who inhabit the coasts of the seas or rivers in which they swim
+at least I think so.  The salmon, the trout, the cod, and all the other
+tribes of the finny people, are reputable in their shapes, and
+altogether respectable--looking creatures.  But, within the tropics,
+Dame Nature plays strange vagaries; and here, on the great Bahama Bank,
+every new customer, as he floundered in on deck--no joke to him, poor
+fellow--elicited shouts of laughter from the crew.  They were in no
+respect shaped like fish of our cold climates; some were all head
+others all tail--some, so far as shape went, had their heads where, with
+submission, I conceived their tails should have been; and then the
+colours, the intense brilliancy of the scales of these monstrous
+looking animals!  We hooked up a lot of bonitos, 10 Lbs apiece, at the
+least.  But Wagtail took small account of them.
+
+"Here," said Bang, at this moment, "by all that is wonderful, look
+here!" And he drew up a fish about a foot long, with a crop like a
+pigeon of the tumbler kind, which began to make a loud snorting noise.
+
+"Ah," drawled Gelid, "good fish, with claret sauce."
+
+"Daresay," rejoined Aaron; "but do your Bahama fish speak, Paul, eh?
+Balaam's ass was a joke to this fellow."
+
+I have already said that the water was not quite three fathoms deep, and
+it was so clear that I could see down to the very sand, and there were
+the fish cruising about in great numbers.
+
+"Haul in, Wagtail--you have hooked him," and up came a beautiful black
+grouper, about four pounds weight.
+
+"Ah, there is the regular jiggery--jiggery," sung out little Reefpoint,
+at the same moment, as he in turn began to pull up his line.  "Stand by
+to land him," and a red snapper, for all the world like a gigantic gold
+fish, was hauled on board; and so we carried on, black snappers, red
+snappers, and rock fish, and a vast variety, for all of which, however,
+Wagtail had names pat, until at length I caught a most lovely dolphin--a
+beauty to look at--but dry, terribly dry to eat. I cast it on the deck,
+and the chameleon tints of the dying fish, about which so many lies have
+been said and sung, were just beginning to fade, and wax pale, and ashy,
+and deathlike, when I felt another strong jiggery jiggery at my line,
+which little Reefpoint had, in the meantime, baited afresh.  "Zounds!  I
+have caught a whale--a shark at the very least" and I pulled him in,
+hand over hand.
+
+"A most noble Jew fish," said I.
+
+"A Jew fish!" responded Wagtail.
+
+"A Jew fish!" said Aaron Bang.
+
+"A Jew fish!" said Paul Gelid.
+
+"My dear Cringle," continued Wagtail, "when do you dine?"
+
+"At three, as usual."
+
+"Then, Mr Reefpoint, will you have the great kindness to cast off your
+sink, and hook that splendid fellow by the tail--only through the
+gristle--don't prick him in the flesh--and let him meander about till
+half--past two?"
+
+Reefy was half inclined to be angry at the idea of his Majesty's officer
+being converted into a cook's mate.
+
+"Why," said I, "we shall put him in a tub of water, here on deck, Mr
+Wagtail, if you please."
+
+"God bless me, no!" quoth the gastronome.  "Why, he is strong as an
+eagle, and will smash himself to mummy in half an hour in a tub.  No--no
+see, he weighs twelve pounds at the very lightest.  Lord!  Mr Cringle,
+I am surprised at you."
+
+The fish was let overboard again, according to his desire, and hauled in
+at the very moment he indicated by his watch, when, having seen him cut
+up and cleaned, with his own eyes--I believe I may say with his own
+hands--he betook himself to his small crib to dress.
+
+At dinner our Creole friend was very entertaining.  Bang drew him out,
+and had him to talk on all his favourite topics in a most amusing
+manner.  All at once Gelid lay back on his chair.
+
+"My God," said he, "I have broken my tooth with that confounded hard
+biscuit--terrible--really: ah!"--and he screwed up his face, as if he
+had been eating sourcrout, or had heard of the death of a dear friend.
+
+"Poo," quoth Aaron, "any comb maker will furnish you forth as good as
+new; those grinders you brag of are not your own, Gelid, you know that."
+
+"Indeed, Aaron, my dear, I know nothing of the kind; but this I know,
+that I have broken a most lovely white front tooth, ah!"
+
+"Oh, you be hanged," said Aaron; "why, you have been bechopped any time
+these ten years, I know."
+
+The time wore on, and it might have been half past seven when we went on
+deck.
+
+It was a very dark night--Tailtackle had the watch.  "Any thing in
+sight, Mr Tailtackle?"
+
+"Why, no, sir; but I have just asked your steward for your night glass,
+as, once or twice--but it is so thick--Pray, sir, how far are we off the
+Hole in the Wall?"
+
+"Why, sixty miles at the least."
+
+The Hole in the Wall is a very remarkable rock in the Crooked Island
+Passage, greatly resembling, as the name betokens, a wall breached by
+the sea, or by battering cannon, which rises abruptly out of the water,
+to a height of forty feet.
+
+"Then," quoth Tailtackle sharply, "there must be a sail close aboard of
+us, to windward there."
+
+"Where?" said I. "Quick, send for my night--glass."
+
+"I have it here in my hand, sir."
+
+"Let me see"--and I peered through it until my eyes ached again.  I
+could see nothing, and resumed my walk on the quarterdeck.  Tailtackle,
+in the meantime, continued to look through the telescope, and as I
+turned from aft to walk forward, a few minutes after this--"Why, sir,"
+said he, "it clears a bit, and I see the object that has
+puzzled me again."
+
+"Eh? give me the glass"--in a second I caught it.  "By Jupiter, you say
+true, Tailtackle! beat to quarters--quick--clear away the long gun
+forward there!"
+
+All was bustle for a minute. I kept my eye on the object, but I could
+not make out more, than that it was a strange sail; I could neither
+judge of her size nor her rig, from the distance, and the extreme
+darkness of the night.  At length I handed the glass to Tailtackle
+again.  We were at this time standing in towards the Cuba shore, with a
+fine breeze, and going along seven knots, as near as could be.
+
+"Give the glass to Mr Jigmaree, Mr Tailtackle, and come forward here,
+and see all snug."
+
+The long gun was slewed round--both carronades were run out, all three
+being loaded, double shotted, and carefully primed--the whole crew, with
+our black supernumeraries, being at quarters.
+
+"I see her quite distinct now, sir," sung out Timotheus.
+
+"Well, what looks she like?"
+
+"A large brig, sir, by the wind on the same tack--you can see her now
+without the glass--there--with the naked eye."
+
+I looked, and certainly fancied I saw some towering object rising high
+and dark to windward, like some mighty spectre walking the deep, but I
+could discern nothing more.
+
+"She is a large vessel, sure enough, sir," said Timothy once more "now
+she is hauling up her courses, sir--she takes in topgallant sails why,
+she is bearing up across our bows, sir--mind she don't rake us."
+
+"The deuce!" said I. I now saw the chase very distinctly bear up.  "Put
+the helm up--keep her away a bit--steady at that will do--fire a shot
+across her bows, Mr Tailtackle--and, Mr Reefpoint, show the private
+signal." The gun was fired, and the lights shown, but our spectral
+friend was all darkness and silence.  "Mr Scarfemwell," said I to the
+carpenter, "stand by the long gun.  Tailtackle, I don't like that chap
+open the magazine." By this time the strange sail was on our quarter, we
+shortened sail, while he, finding that his manoeuvre of crossing our
+bows had been foiled by our bearing up also, got the foretack on board
+again, and set his topgallant sails, all very cleverly.  He was not far
+out of pistol--shot.  Tailtackle, in his shirt and trowsers, and felt
+shoes, now stuck his head up the main hatchway.
+
+"I would recommend your getting the hatches on, sir--that fellow is not
+honest, sir, take my word for it."
+
+"Never mind, Mr Tailtackle, never mind.  Forward, there; Mr Jigmaree,
+slap a round shot into him, since he won't speak, or heave to--right
+between his masts, do you hear--are you ready?"
+
+"All ready, sir."
+"Fire." The gun was fired, and simultaneously we heard a crash on board
+the strange sail, followed by a piercing yell, similar to what the
+negroes raise over a dead comrade, and then a long melancholy howl.
+
+"A slaver, and the shot has told, sir," said Mr Handlead, the master.
+
+"Then we shall have some fun for it," thought I. I had scarcely spoken,
+when the brig once more shortened sail; and the instant that the
+foresail rose, he let fly his bow gun at us--then another, another, and
+another.
+
+"Nine guns of a side, as I am a sinner," quoth jigmaree; and three of
+the shot struck us, mortally wounded one poor fellow, and damaged poor
+little Reefy by a splinter in the side.
+
+"Stand by, men--take good aim--fire"--and we again let drive the long
+gun and carronade; but our friend was too quick for us, for by this time
+he had once more hauled his wind, and made sail as close to it as he
+could stagger.  We crowded every thing in chase, but he had the heels of
+us, and in an hour he was once more nearly out of sight in the dark
+night, right to windward.
+
+"Keep, at him, Mr Jigmaree;" and as I feared he was running us in under
+the land, I dived to consult the chart.  There, in the cabin, I found
+Wagtail, Gelid, and Bang, sitting smoking on each side of the small
+table, with some brandy and water before them.
+
+"Ah," quoth Gelid, "ah! fighting a little?  Not pleasant in the evening,
+certainly."
+
+"Confound you," said Aaron, "why will you bother at this awkward
+moment?"
+
+Meanwhile Wagtail was a good deal discomposed.
+
+"My dear fellow, hand me over that deviled biscuit."
+
+Bang handed him over the dish, slipping into it some fragments of ship
+biscuit, as hard as flint.  All this time I was busy poring over the
+chart.  Wagtail took up a piece and popt it into his mouth.
+
+"Zounds, Bang--my dear Aaron, what dentist are you in league with?
+Gelid first breaks his pet fang, and now you"--
+
+"Poo, poo," quoth his friend, "don't bother now--hillo--what the deuce
+I say, Wagtail--Gelid, my lad, look there"--as one of the seamen, with
+another following him, brought down on his back the poor fellow who had
+been wounded, and laid his bloody load on the table.
+
+To those who are unacquainted with these matters, it may be right to
+say, that the captain's cabin, in a small vessel like the Wave, is often
+in an emergency used as a cockpit--and so it was in the present
+instance.
+
+"Beg pardon, Captain and gentlemen," said the surgeon, "but I must, I
+fear, perform an ugly operation on this poor fellow. I fancy you had
+better go on deck, gentlemen."
+
+Now I had an opportunity to see of what sterling metal my friends were
+at bottom made.  Mr Bang in a twinkling had his coat off.
+
+"Doctor, I can be of use, I know it--no skill, but steady nerves,"
+although he had reckoned a leetle without his host here,--"And I can
+swathe a bandage too, although no surgeon," said Wagtail.
+
+Gelid said nothing, but he was in the end the best surgeon's mate
+amongst them.  The poor fellow, Wiggins, one of the captain's gigs, and
+a most excellent man, in quarterdeck parlance, was now laid on the table
+a fine handsome young fellow, faint and pale, very pale, but courageous
+as a lion, even in his extremity.  It appeared that a round shot had
+shattered his leg above the knee.  A tourniquet had been applied on his
+thigh, and there was not much bleeding.
+
+"Captain," said the poor fellow, while Bang supported him in his arms,
+"I shall do yet, sir; indeed I have no great pain."
+
+All this time the surgeon was cutting off his trowsers, and then, to be
+sure, a terrible spectacle presented itself.  The foot and leg, blue and
+shrunk, were connected with the thigh by a band of muscle about two
+inches wide, and an inch thick; that fined away to a bunch of white
+tendons or sinews at the knee, which again swelled out as they melted
+into the muscles of the calf of the leg; but as for the knee bone, it
+was smashed to pieces, leaving white spikes protruding from the
+shattered limb above, as well as from the shank beneath.  The doctor
+gave the poor fellow a large dose of laudanum in a glass of brandy, and
+then proceeded to amputate the limb, high up on the thigh.  Bang stood
+the knife part of it very steadily, but the instant the saw rasped
+against the shattered bone he shuddered.
+
+"I am going, Cringle--can't stand that--sick as a dog"--and he was so
+faint that I had to relieve him in supporting the poor fellow.  Wagtail
+had also to go on deck, but Paul Gelid remained firm as a rock.  The
+limb was cut off, the arteries taken up very cleverly, and the surgeon
+was in the act of slacking the tourniquet a little, when the thread that
+fastened the largest, or femoral artery, suddenly gave way and a gush
+like the jet from a fire--engine took place.  The poor fellow had just
+time to cry out, "Take that cold hand off my heart!" when his chest
+collapsed, his jaw fell, and in an instant his pulse stopped.
+
+
+"Dead as Julius Caesar, Captain," said Gelid, with his usual
+deliberation.  Dead enough, thought I; and I was leaving the cabin to
+resume my post on deck, when I stumbled against something at the ladder
+foot.
+
+"My, what is that?" grumbled I.
+
+"It is me, sir," said a small faint voice.
+
+"You!--who are you?"
+
+"Reefpoint, sir."
+
+"Bless me, boy, what are you doing here?  Not hurt, I hope?"
+
+"A little, sir--a graze from a splinter, sir--the same shot that struck
+poor Wiggins knocked it off, sir."
+
+"Why did you not go to the doctor, then, Mr Reefpoint?"
+
+"I waited till he was done with Wiggins, sir; but now, since it is all
+over with him, I will go and be dressed."
+
+His voice grew fainter and fainter, until I could scarcely hear him. I
+got him in my arms, and helped him into the cabin, where, on stripping
+the poor little fellow, it was found that he was much hurt on the right
+side, just above the hip.  Bang's kind heart, for by this time a glass
+of water had cured him of his faintness, shone conspicuous on this
+occasion.
+
+"Why, Reefy--little Reefy--you are not hurt, my man--Surely you are not
+wounded--such a little fellow,--I should have as soon thought of firing
+at a musquitto."
+
+"Indeed, sir, but I am; see here."--Bang looked at the hurt, as he
+supported the wounded midshipman in his arms.
+
+"God help me," said the excellent fellow, "you seem to me fitter for
+your mother's nursery, my poor dear boy, than to be knocked about in
+this coarse way here."
+
+Reefy, at this moment, fell over into his arms, in a dead faint.
+
+"You must take my berth, with the Captain's permission," said Aaron,
+while he and Wagtail undressed him with the greatest care, and placed
+him in the narrow crib.
+
+"Thank you, my dear sir," moaned little Reefpoint; "were my mother here,
+sir she would thank you too."
+
+Stern duty now called me on deck, and I heard no more.  The night was
+still very dark, and I could see nothing of the chase, but I made all
+the sail I could in the direction which I calculated she would steer,
+trusting that, before morning, we might get another glimpse of her.  In
+a little while Bang came on deck.
+
+"I say, Tom, now since little Reefy is asleep--what think you big craft
+that--nearly caught a Tartar--not very sorry he has escaped, eh?"
+
+"Why, my dear sir, I trust he has not escaped; I hope, when the day
+breaks, now since we have less wind, that we may have a tussle with him
+yet."
+
+"No, you don't wish it, do you, really and truly?"
+
+"Indeed, I do, sir; and the only thing which bothers me is the peril
+that you and your friends must necessarily encounter."
+
+"Poo, poo, don't mind us, Tom, don't mind us; but an't he too big for
+you, Tom?"
+
+He said this in such a comical way, that, for the life of me, I could
+not help laughing.
+
+"Why, we shall see; but attack him I must, and shall, if I can get at
+him.  However, we shall wait till morning; so I recommend your turning
+in, now since they have cleared away the cockpit out of the cabin; so
+good--night, my dear sir--I must stay here, I fear."
+
+"Good--night, Tom; God bless you.  I shall go and comfort Wagtail and
+Paul."
+
+I  was  at this time standing well aft on the larboard side of the deck,
+close abaft of the tiller--rope, so that, with no earthly disposition to
+be  an  eavesdropper, I could neither help seeing nor hearing  what  was
+going  on in the cabin, as the small open skylight was close to  my  All
+vestiges  of the cockpit had been cleared away, and the table  was  laid
+for  supper.  Wagtail and Gelid were sitting on the side I stood on,  so
+that  I  could  not  see them, although I heard every  word  they  said.
+Presently  Bang entered, and sat down opposite his allies.   He  crossed
+his arms, and leant down over the table, looking at them steadily.
+
+"My dear Aaron," I could hear little Wagtail say, "speak, man, don't
+frighten a body so."
+
+"Ah, Bang," drawled out Paul, "jests are good, being well--timed; what
+can you mean by that face of yours now, since the fighting is all over?"
+
+My curiosity fairly overcame my good manners, and I moved round more
+amidships, so as to command a view of both parties, as they sat opposite
+each other at the narrow table.
+
+Bang still held his peace for another minute; at length, in a very
+solemn tone, he said, "Gentlemen, do you ever say your prayers?" I don't
+know if I mentioned it before, but Aaron had a most musical deep mellow
+voice, and now it absolutely thrilled to my very soul.
+
+Wagtail and Paul looked at him, and then at each other, with a most
+absurd expression--between fear and jest--between crying and laughing
+but gave him no answer.
+
+"Are you, my lads, such blockheads as to be ashamed to acknowledge that
+you say your prayers?"
+
+"Ah," aid Gelid, "why, ah no--not--that is"
+
+"Oh, you Catholics are all so bigoted,--I suppose we should cross
+ourselves, eh?" said Wagtail hastily.
+
+"I am a Catholic, Master Wagtail," rejoined Bang--"better that than
+nothing.  Before sunrise, we may both have proved the truth of our
+creeds, if you have one; but if you mean it as a taunt, Wagtail, it does
+discredit to your judgment to select such a moment, to say nothing of
+your heart.  However, you cannot make me angry with you, Pepperpot, you
+little Creole wasp, do as you will." A slight smile here curled Aaron's
+lip for an instant, although he immediately resumed the solemn tone in
+which he had previously spoken.--"But I had hoped that two such old
+friends, as you both have been to me, would not altogether have made up
+their minds in cold blood, if advertised of their danger, to run the
+chance of dying like dogs in a ditch, without one preparatory thought
+towards that tremendous Being, before whom we may all stand before
+morning."
+
+"Murder!" quoth Wagtail, fairly frightened; "are you really serious,
+Aaron? I did not--would not, for the world, hurt your feelings in
+earnest, my dear; why do you desire so earnestly to know whether or not
+I ever say my prayers?"
+
+"Oh, don't bother, man," rejoined Bang, resuming his usual friendly
+tone; "you had better say boldly that you do not, without any
+roundaboutation."
+
+"But why, my dear Bang, why do you ask the question?" persisted Wagtail,
+in a deuced quandary.
+
+"Simply,"--and here our friend's voice once more fell to the low deep
+serious tone in which he had opened the conference,--"simply because, in
+my humble estimation, if you don't say your prayers tonight, it is three
+to one you shall never pray again."
+
+"The deuce!" said Pepperpot, twisting himself in all directions, as if
+his inexpressibles had been nailed to his seat, and he was trying to
+escape from them.  "What, in the devil's name, mean you, man?"
+
+"I mean neither more nor less than what I say. I speak English, don't I?
+I say, that that pestilent young fellow Cringle told me half an hour
+ago, that he was determined, as he words it, to stick to this Guineaman,
+who is three times his size, has eighteen guns, while Master Tommy has
+only three; and whose crew, I will venture to say, triples our number;
+and the snipe, from what I know of him, is the very man to keep his word
+so what say you, my darling, eh?"
+
+"Ah, very inconvenient, ah,--I shall stay below," said Paul.
+
+"So shall I," quoth Pepperpot; "won't stick my nose on deck, Aaron
+dear, no, not for the whole world."
+
+"Why," said Bang, in the same steady low tone, "you shall do as you
+please, ah,"--and here he very successfully imitated our amigo Gelid's
+drawl--"and as best suits you, ah; but I have consulted the gunner, an
+old ally of mine, who, to be plain with you--ah--says that the danger
+from splinter wounds below, is much greater than from their musketry on
+deck--ah--the risk from the round shot being pretty equal--ah--in either
+situation." At this announcement you could have jumped down either
+Wagtail's or Gelid's throat,--Wagtail's for choice--without touching
+their teeth.  "Farther, the aforesaid Timothy, and be hanged to him,
+deponeth, that the only place in a small vessel where we could have had
+a moderate chance of safety was the Run,--so called, I presume, from
+people running to it for safety; but where the deuce this sanctuary is
+situated I know not, nor does it signify greatly, for it is now
+converted into a spare powder magazine, and of course sealed to us.  So
+here we are, my lads, in as neat a taking as ever three unfortunate
+gentlemen were in, in this weary world.  However, now since I have
+comforted you, let us go to bed--time enough to think on all this in the
+morning, and I am consumedly tired."
+
+I heard no more, and resumed my solitary walk on deck, peering every now
+and then through the night--glass, until my eyes ached again.  The
+tedious night at length wore away, and the grey dawn found me sound
+asleep, leaning out at the gangway.  They had scarcely begun to wash
+down the decks, when we discerned our friend of the preceding night,
+about four miles to windward, close hauled on the same tack, apparently
+running in for the Cuba shore, as fast as canvass could carry him.  If
+this was his object, we had proved too quick for him, as by casting off
+stays, and slacking shrouds, and, in every way we could think of,
+loosening the rigid trim of the little vessel, we had in a great measure
+recovered her sailing; so when he found he was cut off from the land, he
+resolutely bore up, took in his top--gallant sails, hauled up his
+courses, fired a gun, and hoisted his large Spanish ensign, all in
+regular man--of--war fashion.  By this time it was broad daylight, and
+Wagtail, Gelid, and Bang, were all three on deck, performing their
+morning ablutions.  As for myself, I was well forward, near the long
+gun.  Pegtop, Mr Bang's black valet, came up to me.
+
+"Please, Massa Captain, can you spare me any muskets?"
+
+"Any muskets?" said I; "why, half a dozen if you choose."
+
+"De wery number my massa told me to hax for.  Tank you, Massa Captain."
+And forthwith he and the other two black servants in attendance on
+Wagtail and Gelid, each seized his two muskets out of the arm--chest,
+with the corresponding ammunition, and, like so many sable Robinson
+Crusoes, were stumping aft, when I again accosted the aforesaid Pegtop.
+
+"I say, my man, now since you have got the muskets, does your master
+really intend to fight?" The negro stopped short, and faced right round,
+his countenance expressing very great surprise and wonderment.  "Massa
+Bang fight?  Massa Aaron Bang fight?" and he looked up in my face with
+the most seriocomic expression that could be imagined.  "Ah, massa,"
+continued the poor fellow,--"you is joking--surely you is joking--my
+Massa Aaron Bang fight?  Oh, massa, surely you can't know he--surely you
+never see him shoot snipe, and wild--duck--oh dear, why him kill wild
+duck on de wing--ah, me often see him knock down teal wid single ball,
+one hundred--ah, one hundred and fifty yards--and man surely more big
+mark den teal?"
+
+"Granted," I said; "but a teal has not a loaded musket in its claws, a
+Spanish buccaneer may have a small difference, Master Pegtop, that?"
+
+"None at all, master," chimed in Pegtop, "very energetically myshef,
+Gabriel Pegtop, Christian man as me is, am one of de Falmouth black
+shot. Ah, I have been in de woods wid Massa Aaron, one time particular,
+when dem wery debils, Sambo Moses, Corromantee Tom, and Eboe Peter,
+took to de bush, at Crabyaw estate--after breakfast--ten black shot
+me was one, go out along wid our good massa, Massa Aaron.  Oh Lord, we
+walk troo de cool wood, and over de hot cleared ground, six hour, when
+every body say,--No use dis, Massa Bang--all we tired too much--must
+stop here--kindle fire--cook wittal. Ah, top dem who hab white liver,
+said Massa Aaron; you, Pegtop, take you fusee and cutlass, and follow
+me, my shild--Massa Aaron alway call me him shild, and troo enough, as
+parson Calaloo say, him family wery much like Joseph coat--many colour
+among dem, massa--though none quite so deep as mine eider"--and here the
+negro grinned at his own jest.  "Well, I was follow him, or rader was go
+before him, opening up de pass wid me cutlass, troo de wery tangle
+underwood.  We walk four hour--see no one, all still and quiet--no breeze
+shake de tree--oh, I sweat too much--dem hot, massa, sun shine right down,
+when we could catch glimpse of him--yet no trace of de runaways. At
+length, on turning corner, perched on small platform of rock,
+overshadowed by plumes of bamboos, like ostrich feather lady wear at de
+ball, who shall we see but dem wery dividual d----rascail I was mention,
+standing all tree, each wid one carabine pointed at us, at him shoulder,
+and cutlass at him side?  Pegtop, my boy, said Massa Aaron, we is in
+for it--follow me, but don't fire. So him pick off Sambo Moses--oh!
+cool as one cucumber.  Now, say he, man to man,--and wid dat him tro
+him gun on de ground, and drawing him cutlass, we push up--in one moment
+him and Corromantee Tom close.  Tom put up him hand to fend him head
+whip--ah--massa cutlass shred de hand at de wrist, like one carrot
+down Tom go--atop of him jump Massa Aaron. I master de leetle one, Eboe
+Peter, and we carry dem both prisoners into Falmouth.--Massa Aaron
+fight?  Ah, massa, no hax dat question again."
+
+"Well, but will Mr Gelid fight?" said I.
+
+"I tink him will too--great friend of Massa Bang--good duck--shot too
+oh yes, fink Massa Paul will fight."
+
+"Why," said I, "your friends are all heroes, Pegtop--will Mr Wagtail
+fight also?" He stole close up to me, and exchanged his smart Creole
+gibberish for a quiet sedate accent, as he whispered.
+
+"Not so sure of he--nice little fat man, but too fond of him belly.
+When I wait behind Massa Aaron chair, Pegtop sometime hear funny ting.
+One gentleman say--Ah, dat month we hear Lord Wellington take Saint
+Sebastian--when dat is, what time we hear dat news, Massa Wagtail? him
+say.--Eh, say Massa Wagtail--oh, we hear of dem news, dat wery day de
+first of de ringtail pigeon come to market. Den again, Dat big fight
+dem had at soch anoder place, when we hear of dat, Massa Wagtail?--say
+somebody else. Oh, oh, de wery day we hab dat beautiful grouper wid
+claret sauce at Massa Whiffie's. Oh, make me laugh to hear white
+gentleman mark great fight in him memory by what him eat de day de news
+come; so, Massa Captain Cringle, me no quite sure weder Massa Wagtail
+will fight or no."
+
+So saying, Pegtop, Chew Chew, and Yampea, each shouldered two muskets
+apiece, and betook themselves to the after part of the schooner, where
+they forthwith set themselves to scour, and oil, and clean the same, in
+a most skilful manner.  I expected the breeze would have freshened as
+the day broke, but I was disappointed; it fell, towards six o'clock,
+nearly calm.  Come, thought I, we may as well go to breakfast; and my
+guests and I forthwith sat down to our morning meal.  Soon after, the
+wind died away altogether--and "out sweeps" was the word; but I soon saw
+we had no chance with the chase at this game, and as to attacking him
+with the boats, it was entirely out of the question; neither could I, in
+the prospect of a battle, afford to murder the people, by pulling all
+day under a roasting sun, against one who could man his sweeps with
+relays of slaves, without one of his crew putting a finger to them; so I
+reluctantly laid them in, and there I stood looking at him the whole
+forenoon, as he gradually drew ahead of us.  At length I piped to
+dinner, and the men having finished theirs, were again on deck; but the
+calm still continued; and seeing no chance of it freshening, about four
+in the afternoon we sat down to ours in the cabin.  There was little
+said; my friends, although brave and resolute men, were naturally happy
+to see the brig creeping away from us, as fighting could only bring them
+danger; and my own feelings were of that mixed quality, that while I
+determined to do all I could to bring him to action, it would not have
+broken my heart had he escaped.  We had scarcely finished dinner,
+however, when the rushing of the water past the run of the little
+vessel, and the steadiness with which she skimmed along, shewed that the
+light air had freshened.
+
+Presently Tailtackle came down.  "The breeze has set down, sir; the
+strange sail has got it strong to windward, and brings it along with him
+cheerily."
+
+"Beat to quarters, then, Tailtackle; all hands stand by to shorten sail.
+How is she standing?"
+
+"Right down for us, sir."
+
+I went on deck, and there was the Guineaman about two miles to windward,
+evidently cleared for action, with her decks crowded with men, bowling
+along steadily under her single--reefed topsails.
+
+I saw all clear.  Wagtail and Gelid had followed me on deck, and were
+now busy with their black servants inspecting the muskets.  But Bang
+still remained in the cabin. I went down.  He was gobbling his last
+plantain, and forking up along with it most respectable slices of
+cheese, when I entered.
+
+I had seen before I left the deck that an action was now unavoidable,
+and judging from the disparity of force, I had my own doubts as to the
+issue.  I need scarcely say that I was greatly excited.  It was my first
+command: My future standing in the service depended on my conduct now,
+and, God help me, I was all this while a mere lad, not more than twenty
+one years old.  A strange indescribable feeling had come over me, and
+an irresistible desire to disburden my mind to the excellent man before
+me. I sat down.
+
+"Hey day," quoth Bang, as he laid down his coffee cup; "why, Tom, what
+ails you?  You look deuced pale, my boy."
+
+
+"Up  all  night, sir, and bothered all day," said I; "wearied enough,  I
+can tell you."
+
+I  felt a strong tremor pervade my whole frame at this moment; and I was
+impelled to speak by some unknown impulse, which I could not account for
+nor analyze.
+
+"Mr  Bang,  you  are  the only friend whom I could  count  on  in  these
+countries;  you  know  all  about me and mine,  and,  I  believe,  would
+willingly do a kind action to my father's son."
+
+"What are you at, Tom, my dear boy? come to the point, man."
+
+"I  will.  I  am distressed beyond measure at having led  you  and  your
+excellent friends, Wagtail and Gelid, into this danger; but I could  not
+help  it,  and I have satisfied my conscience on that point; so  I  have
+only  to entreat that you will stay below, and not unnecessarily  expose
+yourselves.   And  if I should fall--may I take this  liberty,  my  dear
+sir," and I involuntarily took his hand,--"if I should fall, and I doubt
+if  I shall ever see the sun set again, as we are fearfully overmatched"
+Bang struck in.
+
+"Why,  if  our friend be too big--why not be off then?  Pull foot,  man,
+eh?--Havannah under your lee?"
+
+"A thousand reasons against it, my dear sir. I am a young man and a
+young officer, my character is to make in the service--No, no, it is
+impossible--an older and more tried hand might have bore up, but I must
+fight it out.  If any stray shot carries me off, my dear sir, will you
+take"--Mary, I would have said, but I could not pronounce her name for
+the soul of me--"will you take charge of her miniature, and say I died
+as I have"--a choking lump rose in my throat, and I could not proceed for
+a second; "and will you send my writing desk to my poor mother, there
+are letters in"--the lump grew bigger, the hot tears streamed from my
+eyes in torrents.  I trembled like an aspen leaf, and grasping my
+excellent friend's hand more firmly, I sunk down on my knees in a
+passion of tears, and wept like a woman, and fervently prayed to that
+great God, in whose almighty hand I stood, that I might that day do my
+duty as an English seaman.  Bang knelt by me.  Presently the passion was
+quelled. I rose, and so did he.
+
+"Before you, my dear sir, I am not ashamed to have" "Don't mention  it
+my  good boy--don't mention it; neither of us, as the old general  said,
+will fight a bit the worse."
+
+I looked at him.  "Do you then mean to fight?" said I.
+
+"To  be sure I do--why not?  I have no wife,"--he did not say he had  no
+children--"Fight?  To be sure I do."
+
+"Another gun, sir," said Tailtackle, through the open skylight.  Now all
+was  bustle, and we hastened on deck.  Our antagonist was a large  brig,
+three  hundred tons at the least, a long low vessel, painted black,  out
+and  in,  and her sides round as an apple, with immensely square  yards.
+She  was  apparently full of men.  The sun was getting low, and she  was
+coming  down fast on us, on the verge of the dark blue water of the  sea
+breeze.   I could make out ten ports and nine guns of a side. I inwardly
+prayed  they might not be long ones, but I was not a little startled  to
+see  through  the  glass  that there were crowds  of  naked  negroes  at
+quarters,  and  on the forecastle and poop.  That she was  a  contraband
+Guineaman,  I had already made up my mind to believe; and that  she  had
+some  fifty  hands  of a crew, I also considered likely;  but  that  her
+captain  should  have resorted to such a perilous measure,  perilous  to
+themselves  as  well as to us, as arming the captive slaves,  was  quite
+unexpected,  and not a little alarming, as it evinced his  determination
+to make the most desperate resistance.
+
+Tailtackle was standing beside me at this time, with his jacket off, his
+cutlass girded on his thigh, and the belt drawn very tight.  All the
+rest of the crew were armed in a similar fashion; the small--arm--men
+with muskets in their hands, and the rest at quarters at the guns; while
+the pikes were cast loose from the spars round which they had been
+stopped, with tubs of wadding, and boxes of grape, all ready ranged, and
+every thing clear for action.
+
+"Mr Tailtackle" said I, "you are gunner here, and should be in the
+magazine.  Cast off that cutlass; it is not your province to lead the
+boarders." The poor fellow blushed, having, in the excitement of the
+moment, forgotten that he was any thing more than captain of the
+Firebrand's maintop.
+
+"Mr Timotheus," said Bang, "have you one of these bodkins to spare?"
+
+Timothy laughed.  "Certainly, sir; but you don't mean to head the
+boarders, sir--do you?"
+
+"Who knows, now since I have learned to walk on this dancing cork of a
+craft?" rejoined Aaron, with a grim smile, while he pulled off his coat,
+braced on his cutlass, and tied a large red cotton shawl round his head.
+He then took off his neckerchief and fastened it round his waist, as
+tight as he could draw.
+
+"Strange that all men in peril--on the uneasiness, like," said he,
+"should always gird themselves as tightly as they can."
+
+The slaver was now within musket--shot, when he put his helm to port,
+with the view of passing under our stem.  To prevent being raked, we had
+to luff up sharp in the wind, and fire a broadside. I noticed the white
+splinters glance from his black wales; and once more the same sharp yell
+rung in our ears, followed by the long melancholy howl, already
+described.
+
+"We have pinned some of the poor blacks again," said Tailtackle, who
+still lingered on the deck; small space for remark, for the slaver again
+fired his broadside at us, with the same cool precision as before.
+
+"Down with the helm, and let her come round," said I; "that will do
+master, run across his stern--Out sweeps forward, and keep her there
+get the other carronade over to leeward--that is it--now, blaze away
+while he is becalmed--fire, small--arm--men, and take good aim."
+
+We were now right across his stern, with his spanker boom within ten
+yards of us; and although he worked his two stem chasers with great
+determination, and poured whole showers of musketry from his rigging,
+and poop, and cabin--windows, yet, from the cleverness with which our
+sweeps were pulled, and the accuracy with which we were kept in our
+position, right athwart his stern, our fire, both from the cannon and
+musketry, the former loaded with round and grape, was telling, I could
+see, with fearful effect.
+
+Crash--"There, my lads, down goes his main--topmast--pepper him well,
+while they are blinded and confused among the wreck.  Fire away--there
+goes the peak, shot away cleverly, close by the throat.  Don't cease
+firing, although his flag be down--it was none of his doing.  There, my
+lads, there he has it again; you have shot away the weather fore
+topsail sheet, and he cannot get from under you."
+
+Two men at this moment lay out on his larboard foreyard--arm, apparently
+with the intention of splicing the sheet, and getting the clew of the
+fore--topsail once more down to the yard; if they had succeeded in this,
+the vessel would again have fetched way, and drawn out from under our
+fire.  Mr Bang and Paul Gelid had all this time been firing with
+murderous precision, from where they had ensconced themselves under the
+shelter of the larboard bulwark, close to the taffrail, with their three
+black servants in the cabin, loading the six muskets, and little
+Wagtail, who was no great shot, sitting on the deck, handing them up and
+down.
+
+"Now, Mr Bang," cried I, "for the love of Heaven"--and may Heaven
+forgive me for the ill--placed exclamation--"mark these two men--down
+with them?"
+
+Bang turned towards me with all the coolness in the world "What, those
+chaps on the end of the long stick?"
+
+"Yes--yes," (I here spoke of the larboard foreyard--arm,) "yes, down
+with them."
+
+He lifted his piece as steadily as if he had really been duck shooting.
+
+"I say, Gelid, my lad, take you the innermost."
+
+"Ah!" quoth Paul.  They fired--and down dropped both men, and squattered
+for a moment in the water, like wounded waterfowl, and then sank for
+ever, leaving two small puddles of blood on the surface.
+
+"Now, master," shouted I, "put the helm up and lay him alongside--there
+stand by with the grapplings--one round the backstay the other through
+the chainplate there--so,--you have it." As we ranged under his counter
+"Mainchains are your chance, men--boarders, follow me." And in the
+enthusiasm of the moment I jumped into the slaver's main channel,
+followed by twenty--eight men.  We were in the act of getting over the
+netting when the enemy rallied, and fired a volley of small arms, which
+sent four out of the twenty--eight to their account, and wounded three
+more.  We gained the quarterdeck, where the Spanish captain, and about
+forty of his crew, shewed a determined front, cutlass and pistol in hand
+we charged them--they stood their ground.  Tailtackle (who, the moment
+he heard the boarders called, had jumped out of the magazine, and
+followed me) at a blow clove the Spanish captain to the chine; the
+lieutenant, or second in command, was my bird, and I had disabled him by
+a sabre--cut on the sword--arm, when he drew his pistol, and shot me
+through the left shoulder. I felt no pain, but a sharp pinch, and then a
+cold sensation, as if water had been poured down my neck.
+
+Jigmaree was close by me with a boarding--pike, and our fellows were
+fighting with all the gallantry inherent in British sailors.  For a
+moment the battle was poised in equal scales.  At length our antagonists
+gave way, when about fifteen of the slaves, naked barbarians, who had
+been ranged with muskets in their hands on the forecastle, suddenly
+jumped down into the waist with a yell, and came to the rescue of the
+Spanish part of the crew.
+
+I thought we were lost.  Our people, all but Tailtackle, poor Handlead,
+and Jigmaree, held back.  The Spaniards rallied, and fought with renewed
+courage, and it was now, not for glory, but for dear life, as all
+retreat was cut off by the parting of the grapplings and warps, that had
+lashed the schooner alongside of the slaver, for the Wave had by this
+time forged a--head, and lay across the brig's bows, in place of being
+on her quarter, with her foremast jammed against the slaver's bowsprit,
+whose spritsail--yard crossed our deck between the masts.  We could not
+therefore retreat to our own vessel if we had wished it, as the
+Spaniards had possession of the waist and forecastle; all at once,
+however, a discharge of round and grape crashed through the bridleport
+of the brig, and swept off three of the black auxiliaries before
+mentioned, and wounded as many more, and the next moment an unexpected
+ally appeared on the field.  When we boarded, the Wave had been left
+with only Peter Mangrove; the five dockyard negroes; Pearl, one of the
+Captain's gigs, the handsome black already introduced on the scene; poor
+little Reefpoint, who, as already stated, was badly hurt; Aaron Bang,
+Paul Gelid, and Wagtail.  But this Pearl without price, at the very
+moment of time when I thought the game was up, jumped on deck through
+the bowport, cutlass in hand, followed by the five black carpenters and
+Peter Mangrove, after whom appeared no less a personage than Aaron Bang
+himself and the three blackamoor valets, armed with boarding--pikes.
+Bang flourished his cutlass for an instant.
+
+"Now, Pearl, my darling, shout to them in Coromantee--shout;" and
+forthwith the black quartermaster sung out, "Coromantee Sheik Cocoloo,
+kockemony populorum fiz;" which, as I afterwards learned, being
+interpreted, is, "Behold the Sultan Cocoloo, the great ostrich, with a
+feather in his tail like a palm branch; fight for him, you sons of
+female dogs." In an instant the black Spanish auxiliaries sided with
+Pearl, and Bang, and the negroes, and joined in charging the white
+Spaniards, who were speedily driven down the main hatchway, leaving one
+half of their number dead, or badly wounded, on the blood slippery deck.
+But they still made a desperate defence, by firing up the hatchway. I
+hailed them to surrender.
+
+"Zounds," cried Jigmaree, "there's the clink of hammers they are
+knocking off the fetters of the slaves."
+
+"If you let the blacks loose," I sung out in Spanish, "by the Heaven
+above us, I will blow you up, although I should go with you!  Hold your
+hands, Spaniards!  Mind what you do, madmen!"
+
+"On with the hatches, men," shouted Tailtackle.
+
+They had been thrown overboard, or put out of the way, they could
+nowhere be seen.  The firing from below continued.
+
+"Cast loose that carronade there; clap in a canister of grape, so now run
+it forward, and fire down the hatchway." It was done, and taking effect
+amongst the pent--up slaves, such a yell arose--oh God! oh God!--I never
+can forget it.  Still the maniacs continued firing up the hatchway.
+
+"Load and fire again." My people were now furious, and fought more like
+incarnate fiends broke loose from hell than human beings.
+
+"Run the gun up to the hatchway once more." They ran the carronade so
+furiously forward, that the coaming, or ledge, was split off, and down
+went the gun, carriage and all, with a crash into the hold.  Presently
+smoke appeared rising up the fore--hatchway.
+
+"They have set fire to the brig; overboard!--regain the schooner, or we
+shall all be blown into the air like peels of onions!" sung out little
+Jigmaree.
+
+But where was the Wave?  She had broke away, and was now a cable's
+length ahead, apparently fast leaving us, with Paul Gelid and Wagtail,
+and poor little Reefpoint, who, badly wounded as he was, had left his
+hammock, and come on deck in the emergency, making signs of their
+inability to cut away the halyards; and the tiller being shot away, the
+schooner had become utterly unmanageable.
+
+"UP,--and let fall the foresail, men--down with the fore tack cheerily
+now--get way on the brig, and overhaul the Wave promptly, or we are
+lost," cried I. It was done with all the coolness of desperate men. I
+took the helm, and presently we were once more alongside of our own
+vessel.  Time we were so, for about one hundred and fifty of the slaves,
+whose shackles had been knocked off, now scrambled up the fore hatchway,
+and we had only time to jump overboard, when they made a rush aft; and
+no doubt, exhausted as we were, they would have massacred us on the
+spot, frantic and furious as they evidently were from the murderous fire
+of grape that had been directed down the hatchway.
+
+But the fire was quicker than they.  The smouldering smoke that was
+rising like a pillar of cloud from the fore hatchway, was now streaked
+with tongues of red flame, which, licking the masts and spars, ran up
+and caught the sails and rigging.  In an instant, the fire spread to
+every part of the gear aloft, while the other element, the sea, was also
+striving for the mastery in the destruction of the doomed vessel; for
+our shot, or the fall of the carronade into the hold, had started some
+of the bottom planks, and she was fast settling down by the head.  We
+could hear the water rushing in like a mill stream.  The fire increased
+her guns went off as they became heated--she gave a sudden heel--and
+while five hundred human beings, pent up in her noisome hold, split the
+heavens with their piercing death--yells, down she went with a heavy
+lurch, head foremost, right in the wake of the setting sun, whose level
+rays made the thick dun wreaths that burst from her as she disappeared,
+glow with the hue of the amethyst; and while the whirling clouds, gilded
+by his dying radiance, curled up into the blue sky, in rolling masses,
+growing thinner and thinner, until they vanished away, even like the
+wreck whereout they arose,--and the circling eddies, created by her
+sinking, no longer sparkled and flashed in the red light--and the
+stilled waters where she had gone down, as if oil had been cast on them,
+were spread out like polished silver, shining like a mirror, while all
+around was dark blue ripple,--a puff of fat black smoke, denser than any
+we had yet seen, suddenly emerged with a loud gurgling noise, from out
+the deep bosom of the calmed sea, and rose like a balloon, rolling
+slowly upwards, until it reached a little way above our mastheads, where
+it melted and spread out into a dark pall, that overhung the scene of
+death, as if the incense of such a horrible and polluted sacrifice could
+not ascend into the pure heaven, but had been again crushed back upon
+our devoted heads, as a palpable manifestation of the wrath of Him who
+hath said--"Thou shalt not kill."
+
+For a few moments all was silent as the grave, and I felt as if the air
+had become too thick for breathing, while I looked up like another Cain.
+
+Presently, about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, men, women, and
+children, who had been drawn down by the vortex, rose amidst numberless
+pieces of smoking wreck, to the surface of the sea; the strongest
+yelling like fiends in their despair, while the weaker, the women, and
+the helpless gasping little ones, were choking, and gurgling, and
+sinking all around.  Yea, the small thin expiring cry of the innocent
+sucking infant tom from its sinking mother's breast, as she held it for
+a brief moment above the waters, which had already for ever closed over
+herself, was there. But we could not perceive one single individual of
+her white crew; like desperate men, they had all gone down with the
+brig.  We picked up about one half of the miserable Africans, and--my
+pen trembles as I write it--fell necessity compelled us to fire on the
+remainder, as it was utterly impossible for us to take them on board.
+Oh that I could erase such a scene for ever from my memory!  One
+incident I cannot help relating.  We had saved a woman, a handsome clear
+skinned girl, of about sixteen years of age.  She was very faint when
+we got her in, and was lying with her head over a port--sill, when a
+strong athletic young negro swam to the part of the schooner where she
+was.  She held down her hand to him; he was in the act of grasping it,
+when he was shot through the heart from above.  She instantly jumped
+overboard, and, clasping him in her arms, they sank, and disappeared
+together.  "Oh, woman, whatever may be the colour of your skin, your
+heart is of one only!" said Aaron.
+
+Soon all was quiet; a wounded black here and there was shrieking in his
+great agony, and struggling for a moment before he sank into his watery
+grave for ever; a few pieces of wreck were floating and sparkling on the
+surface of the deep in the blood red sunbeams, which streamed in a flood
+of glorious light on the bloody deck, shattered hull, and torn rigging
+of the Wave, and on the dead bodies and mangled limbs of those who had
+fallen; while some heavy scattering drops of rain fell sparkling from a
+passing cloud, as if Nature had wept in pity over the dismal scene; or
+as if they had been blessed tears, shed by an angel, in his heavenward
+course, as he hovered for a moment, and looked down in pity on the
+fantastic tricks played by the worm of a day--by weak man, in his little
+moment of power and ferocity. I said something--ill and hastily.  Aaron
+was close beside me, sitting on a carronade slide, while the surgeon was
+dressing a pike wound in his neck.  He looked up solemnly in my face,
+and then pointed to the blessed luminary, that was now sinking in the
+sea, and blazing up into the resplendent heavens--"Cringle, for shame
+for shame--your impatience is blasphemous.  Remember this morning and
+thank Him"--here he looked up and crossed himself--"thank Him who, while
+he has called poor Mr Handlead, and so many brave fellows to their last
+awful reckoning, has mercifully brought us to the end of this fearful
+day;--oh, thank Him, Tom, that you have seen the sun set once more!"
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+
+The Second Cruise of the Wave
+
+"I longed to see the Isles that gem, Old Ocean's purple diadem,
+I sought by turns, and saw them all."
+
+BYRON, THE BRIDE OF ABYDOS, II. 355--57.
+
+
+The  puncture  in Mr Bang's neck from the boarding--pike  was  not  very
+deep,  still it was an ugly lacerated wound; and if The had not  to  use
+his  own  phrase, been somewhat bullnecked, there is no saying what  the
+consequences might have been.
+
+"Tom, my boy," said he, after the doctor was done with him, "I am nicely
+coopered  now--nearly as good as new--a little stiffish or so  lucky  to
+have  such a comfortable coating of muscle, otherwise the carotid  would
+have  been in danger.  So come here, and take your turn, and I will hold
+the candle."
+
+It  was dead calm, and as I had desired the cabin to be again used as  a
+cockpit, it was at this time full of poor fellows, waiting to have their
+wounds  dressed, whenever the surgeon could go below.  The  lantern  was
+brought, and sitting down on a wadding tub, I stripped.  The ball, which
+I  knew had lodged in the fleshy part of my left shoulder, had first  of
+all  struck  me right over the collar--bone, from which it had  glanced,
+and  then  buried itself in the muscle of the arm, just below the  skin,
+where  it stood out, as if it had been a sloe both in shape and  colour.
+The  collar--bone  was  much shattered, and my chest  was  a  good  deal
+shaken, and greatly bruised; but I had perceived nothing of all this  at
+the  time I was shot; the sole perceptible sensation was the feeling  of
+cold  water  running  down, and the pinch in the  shoulder,  as  already
+described.  I  was much surprised (every man who has been seriously  hit
+being  entitled to expatiate) with the extreme smallness of the puncture
+in  the  skin  through which the ball had entered; you  could  not  have
+forced a pea through it, and there was scarcely any flow of blood.
+
+"A very simple affair this, sir," said the surgeon, as he made a minute
+incision right over the ball, the instrument cutting into the cold dull
+lead with a cheep, and then pressing his fingers, one on each side of
+it, it jumped out nearly into Aaron's mouth.
+
+"A pretty sugar--plum, Tom--if that collar--bone of yours had not been
+all the harder, you would have been embalmed in a gazette, to use your
+own favourite expression.  But, my good boy, your bruise on the chest is
+serious; you must go to bed, and take care of yourself."
+
+Alas! there was no bed for me to go to.  The cabin was occupied by the
+wounded, where the surgeon was still at work.  Out of our small crew,
+nine had been killed, and eleven wounded, counting passengers--twenty
+out of forty--two--a fearful proportion.
+
+The night had now fallen.
+
+"Pearl, send some of the people aft, and get a spare square--sail from
+the sailmaker, and"
+
+"Will the awning not do, sir?"
+
+"To be sure it will," said I--it did not occur to me.  "Get the awning
+triced up to the stancheons, and tell my steward to get the beds on deck
+a few flags to shut us in will make the thing complete."
+
+It was done; and while the sharp cries of the wounded, who were
+immediately under the knife of the doctor, and the low moans of those
+whose wounds had been dressed, or were waiting their turn, reached our
+ears distinctly through the small skylight, our beds were arranged on
+deck, under the shelter of the awning, a curtain of flags veiling our
+quarters from the gaze of the crew.  Paul Gelid and Pepperpot occupied
+the starboard side of the little vessel; Aaron Bang and myself the
+larboard.  By this time it was close on eight o'clock in the evening.  I
+had merely looked in on our friends, ensconced as they were in their
+temporary hurricane house; for I had more work than I could accomplish
+on deck in repairing damages.  Most of our standing, and great part of
+our running rigging, had been shot away, which the tired crew were
+busied in splicing and knotting the! best way they could.  Our mainmast
+was very badly wounded close to the deck.  It was fished as
+scientifically as our circumstances admitted.  The foremast had
+fortunately escaped--it was untouched; but there were no fewer than
+thirteen round shot through our hull, five of them between wind and
+water.
+
+When every thing had been done which ingenuity could devise, or the most
+determined perseverance execute, I returned to our canvass--shed aft,
+and found Mr Wagtail sitting on the deck, arranging, with the help of my
+steward, the supper equipment to the best of his ability.  Our meal, as
+may easily be imagined, was frugal in le extreme--salt beef, biscuit,
+some roasted yams, and cold grog--some of Aaron's excellent rum.  But I
+mark it down, that I question if any one of the four who partook of it,
+ever made so hearty a supper before or since.  We worked away at the
+junk until we had polished the bone, clean as an elephant's tusk, and
+the roasted yams disappeared in bushelfuls; while the old rum sank in
+the bottle, like mercury in the barometer indicating an approaching
+gale.
+
+"I say, Tom," quoth Aaron, "how do you feel, my boy?"
+
+"Why, not quite so buoyant as I could wish.  To me it has been a day of
+fearful responsibility."
+
+"And well it may," said he.  "As for myself, I go to rest with the
+tremendous consciousness that even I, who am not a professional butcher,
+have this blessed day shed more than one fellow--creature's blood--a
+trembling consideration--and all for what, Tom?  You met a big ship in
+the dark, and desired her to stop.  She said she would not--You said,
+'You shall.'--She rejoined, 'I'll be d--d if I do.' And thereupon you
+set about compelling her; and certainly you have interrupted her course
+to some purpose, at the trivial cost of the lives of only five or six
+hundred human beings, whose hearts were beating cheerily in their bosoms
+within these last six hours, but whose bodies are now food for fishes."
+
+I was stung.
+
+"At your hands, my dear sir, I did not expect this, and"
+
+"Hush," said he, "I don't blame you--it is all right; but why will not
+the Government at home arrange by treaty that this nefarious trade
+should be entirely put down?  Surely all our victories by sea and land
+might warrant our stipulating for so much, in place of huggermuggering
+with doubtful ill--defined treaties, specifying that you Johnny Crapeau,
+and you Jack Spaniard, shall steal men, and deal in human flesh, in such
+and such a degree of latitude only, while, if you pick up one single
+slave a league to the northward or southward of the prescribed line of
+coast, then we shall blow you out of the water wherever we meet you.
+Why should poor devils, who live in one degree of latitude, be allowed
+to be kidnapped, whilst we make it felony to steal their immediate
+neighbours?" Aaron waxed warm as he proceeded. "Why will not Englishmen
+lend a hand to put down the slave--trade amongst our opponents in sugar
+growing, before they so recklessly endeavour to crush slavery in our own
+worn--out colonies, utterly disregardless of our rights and lives?
+Mind, Tom, I don't defend slavery, I sincerely wish we could do without
+it, but am I to be the only one to pay the piper in compassing its
+extinction?  If, however, it really be that Upas--tree, under whose
+baleful shade every kindly feeling in the human bosom, whether of master
+or servant, withers and dies, I ask, who planted it?  If it possess the
+magical, and incredible, and most pestilential quality, that the English
+gentleman, who shall be virtuous and beneficent, and just in all his
+ways, before he leaves home, and after he returns home, shall, during
+his temporary sojourn within its influence become a very Nero for
+cruelty, and have his warm heart of flesh smuggled out of his bosom, by
+some hocus pocus, utterly unintelligible to any unprejudiced rational
+being, or indurated into the flint of the nether millstone, or frozen
+into a lump of ice"
+
+"Lord!" ejaculated Wagtail, "only fancy a snowball in a man's stomach,
+and in Jamaica too!"
+
+"Hold your tongue, Waggy, my love," continued Aaron; "if all this were
+so, I would again ask, who planted it?--say not that we did it--I am a
+planter, but I did not plant slavery. I found it growing and
+flourishing, and fostered by the Government, and made my home amongst
+the branches like a respectable corbie craw, or a pelican in a wild--
+duck's nest, with all my pretty little tender black branchers hopping
+about me, along with numberless other unfortunates, and now find that
+the tree is being uprooted by the very hands that planted and nourished
+it, and seduced me to live in it, and all"
+
+I laughed aloud--"Come, come, my dear sir, you are a perfect Lord
+Castlereagh in the congruity of your figures.  How the deuce can any
+living thing exist among the poisonous branches of the Upas--tree--or a
+wild--duck build"
+
+"Get along with your criticism, Tom--and don't laugh, hang it, don't
+laugh--but who told you that a corbie cannot?"
+
+"Why there are no corbies in Java."
+
+"Pah--botheration--there are pelicans then; but you know it is not an
+Upas--tree, you know it is all a chimera, and, like the air--drawn
+dagger of Macbeth, 'that there is no such thing.' Now, that is a good
+burst, Gelid, my lad, a'nt it?" said Bang, as he drew a long breath, and
+again launched forth.
+
+"Our Government shall quarrel about sixpence here or sixpence there of
+discriminative duty in a foreign port, while they have clapped a knife
+to our throats, and a flaming fagot to our houses, by absurd edicts and
+fanatical intermeddling with our own colonies, where the slave--trade
+has notoriously, and to their own conviction, entirely ceased; while, I
+say it again, they will not put out their little finger to prevent, nay,
+they calmly look on, and permit a traffic utterly repugnant to all the
+best feelings of our nature, and baneful to an incalculable degree to
+our own West Indian possessions; provided, forsooth, the slaves be
+stolen within certain limits, which, as no one can prove, naturally
+leads to this infernal contraband, the suppression of which--Lord, what
+a thing to think of!--has nearly deprived the world of the invaluable
+services of me, Aaron Bang, Esquire, Member of Council of the Island of
+Jamaica, and Custos Rotulorum Populorum Jig of the Parish of----"
+
+"Lord," said Wagtail, "why, the yam is not half done."
+
+"But the rum is--ah!" drawled Gelid.
+
+"D--n the yam and the rum too," rapped out Bang.  "Why, you belly--gods,
+you have interrupted such a torrent of eloquence!"
+
+I began to guess that our friends were waxing peppery.  "Why, gentlemen,
+I don't know how you feel, but I am regularly done up--it is quite calm,
+and I hope we shall all sleep, so good--night."
+
+We nestled in, and the sun had risen before I was called next morning.
+I hope "I rose a sadder and a wiser man. Upon that morrow's morn."
+
+"On  deck,  there," said I, while dressing.  Mr Peter Swop, one  of  the
+Firebrand's  master--mates, and now, in consequence of  poor  Handlead's
+death,  acting--master  of the Wave, popped  in  his  head  through  the
+opening in the flags.  "How is the weather, Mr Swop?"
+
+"Calm all night, sir; not a breath stirring, sir."
+
+"Are  the  sails  shifted?"  said I, "and  the  starboard  main--shrouds
+replaced?"
+
+"They  are not yet, sir; the sails are on deck, and the rigging  is  now
+stretching, and will be all ready to get over the masthead by breakfast
+time, sir."
+
+"How is her head?"
+
+"Why,"  rejoined Swop, "it has been boxing all round the  compass,  sir,
+for  these  last twelve hours; at present it is north--east."  "Have  we
+drifted much since last night, Mr Swop?"
+
+"No, sir--much where we were, sir," rejoined the master.  "There are
+several pieces of wreck, and three dead bodies floating close to, sir."
+
+By this time I was dressed, and had gone from under the awning on deck.
+The first thing I did was to glance my eye over the nettings, and there
+perceived on our quarter, three dead bodies, as Mr Swop had said,
+floating----one a white Spaniard, and the others the corpses of two
+unfortunate Africans, who had perished miserably when the brig went
+down.  The white man's remains, swollen as they were, from the heat of
+the climate, and sudden putrefaction consequent thereon, floated quietly
+within pistol--shot, motionless and still; but the bodies of the two
+negroes were nearly hidden by the clustering sea--birds which had
+perched on them.  There were at least two dozen shipped on each carcass,
+busy with their beaks and claws, while, on the other hand, the water in
+the immediate neighbourhood seemed quite alive, from the rushing and
+walloping of numberless fishes, who were tearing the prey piecemeal.
+The view was any thing but pleasant, and I naturally turned my eyes
+forward to see what was going on in the bows of the schooner.  I was
+startled from the number of black faces which I saw.
+
+"Why, Mr Tailtackle, how many of these poor creatures have we on board?"
+
+"There are fifty--nine, sir, under hatches in the fore--hold," said
+Timothy, "and thirty--five on deck; but I hope we shan't have them long,
+sir.  It looks like a breeze to windward.  We shall have it before long,
+sir."
+
+At this moment Mr Bang came on deck.
+
+"Lord, Tom, I thought it was a flea--bite, last night, but, mercy, I am
+as stiff and sore as a gentleman need be.  How do you feel? I see you
+have one of your fins in a sling--eh?"
+
+"I am a little stiff, certainly; however, that will go off; but come
+forward here, my dear sir; come here, and look at this shot--hole--saw
+you ever anything like that?"
+
+This was the smashing of one of our pumps from a round shot, the
+splinters from which were stuck into the bottom of the launch, which
+overhung it, forming really a figure very like the letter A.
+
+"Don't take it to myself, Tom--no, not at all."
+
+At this moment the black savages on the forecastle discovered our
+friend, and shouts of "Sheik Cocoloo" rent the skies.  Mr Bang, for a
+moment, appeared startled, so far as I could judge, he had forgotten
+that part of his exploit, and did not know what to make of it, until at
+last the actual meaning seemed to flash on him, when, with a shout of
+laughter, he bolted in through the opening of the flags to his former
+quarters below the awning.  I descended to the cabin, breakfast having
+been announced, and sat down to our meal, confronted by Paul Gelid and
+Pepperpot Wagtail.  Presently we heard Aaron sing out, the small skuttle
+being right overhead, "Pegtop, come here, Pegtop, I say, help me on with
+my neckcloth--so--that will do; now I shall go on deck.  Why, Pearl, my
+boy, what do you want?" and before Pearl could get a word in, Aaron
+continued, "I say, Pearl, go to the other end of the ship, and tell your
+Coromantee friends that it is all a humbug that I am not the Sultan
+Cocoloo; farther more, that I have not a feather in my tail like a palm
+branch, of the truth of which I offer to give them ocular proof."
+
+Pearl made his salaam.  "Oh, sir, I fear that we must not say too much
+on that subject; we have not irons for one half of them savage negirs;"
+the fellow was as black as a coal himself; "and were they to be
+undeceived, why, reduced as our crew is, they might at any time rise on,
+and massacre the whole watch."
+
+"The devil!" we could hear friend Aaron say; "oh, then, go forward, and
+assure them that I am a bigger ostrich than ever, and I shall astonish
+them presently, take my word for it.  Pegtop, come here, you scoundrel,"
+he continued; "I say, Pegtop, get me out my uniform coat,"--our friend
+was a captain of Jamaica militia--"so--and my sword--that will do--and
+here, pull off my trowsers it will be more classical to perambulate in
+my shirt, in case it really be necessary to persuade them that the palm
+branch was all a figure of speech.  Now, my hat--there--walk before me,
+and fan me with the top of that herring barrel."
+
+This was a lid of one of the wadding--tubs, which, to come up to
+Jigmaree's notions of neatness, had been fitted with covers, and forth
+stumped Bang, preceded by Pegtop doing the honours.  But the instant he
+appeared from beneath the flags, the same wild shout arose from the
+captive slaves forward, and such of them as were not fettered,
+immediately began to bundle and tumble round our friend, rubbing their
+flat noses and woolly heads all over him, and taking hold of the hem of
+his garment, whereby his personal decency was so seriously periled,
+that, after an unavailing attempt to shake them off, he fairly bolted,
+and ran for shelter, once more, under the awning, amidst the suppressed
+mirth of the whole crew, Aaron himself laughing louder than any of them
+all the while.  "I say, Tom, and fellow sufferers," quoth he, after he
+had run to earth under the awning, and looking down the scuttle into the
+cabin where we were at breakfast, "how am I to get into the cabin? if I
+go out on the quarterdeck but one arm's length, in order to reach the
+companion, these barbarians will be at me again.  Ah, I see"
+
+Whereupon, without more ado, he stuck his legs down through the small
+hatch right over the breakfast table, with the intention of descending,
+and the first thing he accomplished, was to pop his foot into a large
+dish of scalding hominy, or hasty--pudding, made of Indian corn meal,
+with which Wagtail was in the habit of commencing his stowage at
+breakfast.  But this proving too hot for comfort, he instantly drew it
+out, and in his attempt to reascend, he stuck his bespattered toe into
+Paul Gelid's mouth.  "Oh! oh!" exclaimed Paul, while little Wagtail lay
+back laughing like to die; but the next instant Bang gave another
+struggle, or wallop, like a pelloch in shoal--water, whereby Pepperpot
+borrowed a good kick on the side of the head, and down came the Great
+Ostrich, Aaron Bang, but without any feather in his tail, as I can
+avouch, slap upon the table, smashing cups and saucers, and hominy, and
+devil knows what all, to pieces, as he floundered on the board.  This
+was so absurd, that we were all obliged to give uncontrolled course to
+our mirth for a minute or two, when, making the best of the wreck, we
+contrived to breakfast in tolerable comfort.
+
+Soon after the meal was finished, a light air enabled us once more to
+lie our course, and we gradually crept to the northward, until twelve
+o'clock in the forenoon, after which time it fell calm again.  I went
+down to the cabin; Bang had been overhauling my small library, when a
+shelf gave way (the whole affair having been injured by a round shot in
+the action, which had tom right through the cabin), so down came several
+scrolls, rolled up, and covered with brown paper.
+
+"What are all these?" I could hear our friend say. "They are my logs,"
+said I.
+
+"Your what?"
+
+"My private journals."
+
+"Oh, I see," said Aaron.  "I will have a turn at them, with your
+permission.  But what is this so carefully bound with red tape, and
+sealed, and marked--let me see, 'Thomas Cringle, his log--book.'"
+
+He looked at me.--"Why, my dear sir, to say the truth, that is my first
+attempt; full of trash, believe me;--what else could you expect, from so
+mere a lad as I was when I wrote it?"
+
+"The child is father to the man," Tom, my boy; so may I peruse it; may
+I read it for the edification of my learned allies,--Pepperpot
+Wagtail, and Paul Gelid, esquires?"
+
+"Certainly," I replied, "no objection in the world, but you will laugh
+at me, I know; still, do as you please, only, had you not better have
+your wound dressed first?"
+
+"My wound!  Poo, poo! just enough to swear by--a flea--bite never mind
+it; so here goes"--and he read aloud what is detailed in the "Launching
+of the Log," making his remarks with so much naivete, that I daresay the
+reader will be glad to hear a few of them.  His anxiety, for instance,
+when he read of the young aide--de--camp being shot and dragged by the
+stirrup, to know "what became of the empty horse," was very
+entertaining; and when he had read the description of Davoust's face and
+person, where I describe his nose, as neither fine nor dumpy--a fair
+enough proboscis as noses go, he laid down the Log with the most
+laughable seriousness.
+
+"Now," quoth he, "very inexplicit all this, Tom.  Why, I am most curious
+in noses. I judge of character altogether from the nose.  I never lose
+sight of a man's snout, albeit I never saw the tip of my own.  You may
+rely on it, that it is all a mistake to consider the regular Roman nose,
+with a curve like a shoemaker's paring knife, or the straight Grecian,
+with a thin transparent ridge, that you can see through, or the Deutsch
+meerschaum, or the Saxon pump--handle, or the Scotch mull, or any other
+nose, that can be taken hold of, as the standard gnomon.  No, no; I
+never saw a man with a large nose who was not a blockhead--eh!  Gelid,
+my love?  The pimple for me--the regular pimple but allons."--And where,
+having introduced the German refugees to Captain Deadeye, I go on to say
+that I thereupon dived into the midshipmen's berth for a morsel of
+comfort, and was soon "far into the secrets of a pork pie,"--he lay
+back, and exclaimed with a long drawling emphasis--"A pork pie!"
+
+"A pork pie!" said Paul Gelid.
+
+"Why, do you know," said Mr Wagtail--"I--why, I never in all my life saw
+a pork pie."
+
+"My dear Pepperpot," chimed in Gelid, "we both forget.  Don't you
+remember the day we dined with the Admiral at the pen, in July last?"
+
+"No," said Wagtail, "I totally forget it." Bang, I saw was all this
+while chuckling to himself--"I absolutely forget it altogether."
+
+"Bless me," said Gelid, "don't you remember the beautiful calipeever we
+had that day?"
+
+"Really I do not," said Pepperpot, "I have had so many good feeds
+there."
+
+"Why," continued Gelid, "Lord love you, Wagtail, not remember that
+calipeever, so crisp in the broiling?"
+
+"No," said Wagtail, "really I do not."
+
+"Lord, man, it had a pudding in its belly."
+
+"Oh, now I remember," said Wagtail.
+
+Bang laughed outright, and I could not help making a hole in my manners
+also, even prepared as I was for my jest by my sable crony Pegtop.--To
+proceed.
+
+Aaron looked at me with one of his quizzical grins; "Cringle, my
+darling, do you keep these Logs still?"
+
+"I do, my dear sir, invariably."
+
+"What," struck in little Wagtail, "the deuce!--for instance shall I, and
+Paul, and Aaron there, all be embalmed or preserved" ("Say pickled,"
+quoth the latter) "in these said Logs of yours?" This was too absurd,
+and I could not answer my allies for laughing.  As for Gelid, he had
+been swaying himself backwards and forwards, half asleep, on the hind
+legs of his chair all this while, puffing away at a cigar.
+
+"Ah!" said he half asleep, and but partly overhearing what was going on;
+"ah, Tom, my dear, you don't say that we shall all be handed down to our
+poster"--a long yawn--"to our poster" another yawn--when Bang, watching
+his opportunity as he sat opposite, gently touched one of the fore--legs
+of the balanced chair with his toe, while he finished Gelid's sentence
+by interjecting, "iors," as the conch fell back and floundered over on
+his stem; his tormentor drawling out in wicked mimicry.
+
+"Yes, dear Gelid, so sure as you have been landed down on your
+posteriors now--ah--you shall be handed down to your posterity
+hereafter, by that pestilent little scamp Cringle.  Ah, Tom, I know you.
+Paul, Paul, it will be paulo postfuturum with you, my lad."
+
+Here we were interrupted by my steward's entering with his tallow face.
+"Dinner on the table, sir." We adjourned accordingly.
+
+After dinner we carried on very much as usual, although the events of
+the previous day had their natural effect; there was little mirth, and
+no loud laughter.  Once more we all turned in, the calm still
+continuing, and next morning after breakfast, friend Aaron took to the
+Log again.
+
+
+But the most amusing exhibition took place when he came to the
+description of the row in the dark stair at the agent's house, where the
+negroes fight for the scraps, and capsize Treenail, myself, and the
+brown lady, down the steps.
+
+"Why, I say, Tom," again quoth Aaron, "I never knew before, that you
+were in Jamaica at the period you here write of."
+
+"Why, my dear sir, I scarcely can say that I was there, my visit was
+so hurried."
+
+"Hurried!" rejoined he, "hurried--by no means; were you not in the
+island for four or five hours?  Ah, long enough to have authorized your
+writing an anti--slavery pamphlet of one hundred and fifty pages."
+
+I smiled.
+
+"Oh, you may laugh, my boy, but it is true--what a subject for an anti--
+slavery lecture--listen and be instructed." Here our friend shook
+himself as a bruiser does to ascertain that all is right before he
+throws up his guard, and for the first five minutes he only jerked his
+right shoulder this way and his left shoulder t'other way, while his
+fins walloped down against his sides like empty sleeves; at length, as
+he warmed, he stretched forth his arms like Saint Paul in the Cartoon
+and although he now and then could not help sticking his tongue in his
+cheek, still the exhibition was so true and so exquisitely comical, that
+I never shall forget it.--"The whole white inhabitants of Kingston are
+luxurious monsters, living in more than Eastern splendour; and their
+universal practice, during their magnificent repasts, is to entertain
+themselves, by compelling their black servants to belabour each other
+across the pate with silver ladles, and to stick drumsticks of turkeys
+down each other's throats.  Merciful heaven! only picture the miserable
+slaves, each with the spaul of a turkey sticking in his gob; dwell upon
+that, my dearly beloved hearers, dwell upon that--and then let those who
+have the atrocious hardihood to do so, speak of the kindliness of the
+planters hearts.  Kindliness! kindliness, to cram the leg of a turkey
+down a man's throat, while his yoke--fellow in bondage is fracturing his
+tender woolly skull--for all negroes, as is well known, have craniums,
+much thinner, and more fragile than an egg--shell--with so tremendous a
+weapon as a silver ladle?  Ay, a silver ladle!!!  Some people make light
+of a silver ladle as an instrument of punishment--it is spoken of as a
+very slight affair, and that the blows inflicted by it are mere child's
+play.  If any of you, my beloved hearers, labour under this delusion,
+and will allow me, for your edification, to hammer you about the chops
+with one of the aforesaid silver soup--ladles of those yellow tyrants,
+for one little half hour, I pledge myself the delusion shall be
+dispelled once and for ever.  Well then, after this fearful scene has
+continued for, I dare not say how long--the black butler--ay, the black
+butler, a slave himself--oh, my friends, even the black butlers are
+slaves the very men who minister the wine in health which maketh their
+hearts glad, and the castor oil in sickness, which maketh them any thing
+but of a cheerful countenance--this very black butler is desired, on
+peril of having a drumstick stuck into his own gizzard also, and his
+skull fractured by the aforesaid iron ladles--red hot, it may be--ay,
+and who shall say they are not full of molten lead? yes, molten lead--
+does not our reverend brother Lachrimac Roarem say that the ladles might
+have been full of molten lead, and what evidence have we on the other
+side, that they were not full of molten lead?  Why, none at all, none--
+nothing but the oaths of all the naval and military officers who have
+ever served in these pestilent settlements; and of all the planters and
+merchants in the West Indies, the interested planters--those planters
+who suborn all the navy and army to a man--those planters whose molasses
+is but another name for human blood. (Here a large puff and blow, and a
+swabification of the white handkerchief, while the congregation blow a
+flourish of trumpets.) My friends--(another puff)--my friends--we all
+know, my friends, that bullocks blood is largely used in the sugar
+refineries in England, but, alas! there is no bullocks  blood used in
+the refineries in the West Indies.  This I will prove to you on the oath
+of six dissenting clergymen.  No. What then is the inference?  Oh, is it
+not palpable?  Do you not every day, as jurors, hang men on
+circumstantial evidence?  Are not many of yourselves hanged and
+transported every year, on the simple fact being proved, of your being
+found stooping down in pity over some poor fellow with a broken head,
+with your hands in his breeches pockets in order to help him up? And can
+you fail to draw the proper inference in the present case?  Oh, no! no!
+my friends, it is the blood of the negroes that is used in these
+refining pandemoniums of the poor negroes, who are worth one hundred
+pounds apiece to their masters, and on whose health and capacity for
+work these same planters absolutely and entirely depend."
+
+Here our friend gathered all his energies, and began to roar like a
+perfect bull of Bashan, and to swing his arms about like the sails of a
+windmill, and to stamp and jump, and lollop about with his body as he
+went on.
+
+"Well, this butler, this poor black butler--this poor black slave butler
+this poor black Christian slave butler--for he may have been a
+Christian, and most likely was a Christian, and indeed must have been a
+Christian--is enforced, after all the cruelties already related, on pain
+of being choked with the leg of a turkey himself, and having molten lead
+poured down his own throat, to do what?--who would not weep?--to--to--to
+chuck each of his fellow--servants, poor miserable creatures! each with
+a bone in his throat, and molten lead in his belly, and a fractured
+skull--to chuck them, neck and croup, one after another, down a dark
+staircase, a pitch--dark staircase, amidst a chaos of plates and dishes,
+and the hardest and most expensive china, and the finest cut crystal--
+that the wounds inflicted may be the keener and silver spoons, and
+knives and forks.  Yea, my Christian brethren, carving knives and
+pitchforks right down on the top of their brown mistresses, who are
+thereby invariably bruised like the clown in the pantomime--at least as
+I am told he is, for I never go to such profane Places--oh, no!--bruised
+as flat as pancakes, and generally murdered outright on the spot.  Last
+of all the landlord gets up, and kicks the miserable butler himself down
+after his mates, into the very heart of the living mass; and this not
+once and away, but every day in the week, Sundays not excepted.  Oh, my
+dear, dear hearers, can you can you, with your fleshy hearts thumping
+and bumping against your small ribs, forget the black butler, and the
+mulatto concubines, and the pitchforks, and the iron ladles full of
+molten lead?  My feelings overpower me, I must conclude.  Go in peace,
+and ponder these things in your hearts, and pay your sixpences at the
+doors.--Exeunt omnes, piping their eyes, and blowing their noses."
+
+Our shouts of laughter interrupted our friend, who never moved a muscle.
+
+Again, where old Crowfoot asks his steward--"How does the privateer
+lay?"
+
+"There again now," said Aaron, with an irritable grin,--"why, Tom, your
+style is most pestilent--you lay here and you lay there--are you sure
+that you are not a hen, Tom?"
+
+One more touch at Massa Aaron, and I have done.  After coming to the
+description of the horrible carnage that the fire from the Transport
+caused on the privateer's deck before she sheered off, I remarked "I
+never recall that early and dismal scene to my recollection,--the awful
+havoc created on the schooner's deck by our fire, the struggling, and
+crawling, and wriggling of the dark mass of wounded men, as they
+endeavoured, fruitlessly, to shelter themselves from our guns, even
+behind the dead bodies of their slain shipmates--without conjuring up a
+very fearful and harrowing image."
+
+"Were you ever at Biggleswade, my dear sir?"
+
+"To be sure I have," said Mr Bang.
+
+"Then did you ever see an eel--pot, with the water drawn off, when the
+snake--like fish were twining, and twisting, and crawling, like
+Brobdignag maggots, in living knots, a horrible and disgusting mass of
+living abomination, amidst the filthy slime at the bottom?"
+
+"Ach--have done, Tom--hang your similes.  Can't you cut your coat by me,
+man?  Only observe the delicacy of mine."
+
+"The corby craw for instance," said I, laughing.
+
+"Ever at Biggleswade!" struck in Paul Gelid.  "Ever at Biggleswade!
+Lord love you, Cringle, we have all been at Biggleswade.  Don't you
+know," (how he conceived I should have known, I am sure I never could
+tell,) "don't you know that Wagtail and I once made a voyage to England,
+ay, in the hurricane months, too--ah--for the express purpose of eating
+eels there,--and Lord, Tom, my dear fellow," (here he sunk his voice
+into a most dolorous key,) "let me tell you that we were caught in a
+hurricane, in the Gulf, and very nearly lost, when, instead of eating
+eels, sharks would have eaten usah--and at length driven into Havannah--
+ah.  And when we did get home"--(here I thought my excellent friend
+would have cried outright)--"Lord, sir! we found that the fall was not
+the season to eat eels in after all--ah--that is, in perfection.  But we
+found out from Whiffle, whom we met in town, and who had learned it from
+the guard of the North mail, that one of the last season's pots was
+still on hand at Biggleswade; so down we trundled in the mail that very
+evening."
+
+"And don't you remember the awful cold I caught that night, being
+obliged to go outside?" quoth Waggy.
+
+"Ah, and so you did, my dear fellow," continued his ally.
+
+"But gracious--on alighting, we found that the agent of a confounded
+gormandizing Lord Mayor had that very evening boned the entire contents
+of the only remaining pot, for a cursed livery dinnerah. Eels, indeed!
+we got none but those of the new catch, full of mud, and tasting of mud
+and red worms.  Wagtail was really very ill in consequence--ah."
+
+Pepperpot had all this while listened with mute attention, as if the
+narrative had been most moving, and I question not he thought so; but
+Bang--oh, the rogue!--looked also very grave and sympathizing, but there
+was a laughing devil in his eye, that showed he was inwardly enjoying
+the beautiful rise of his friends.
+
+We were here interrupted by a hail from the look--out man at the
+masthead,----'Land right a--head.'
+
+"What does it look like?" said I.
+
+"It makes in low hummocks, sir.  Now I see houses on the highest one."
+
+"Hurrah, Nassau, New Providence, ho!"
+
+Shortly after we made the land about Nassau, the breeze died away, and
+it fell nearly calm.
+
+"I say, Thomas," quoth Aaron, "for this night at least we must still be
+your guests, and lumber you on board of your seventy--four.  No chance,
+so far as I see, of getting into port to--night; at least if we do, it
+will be too late to go on shore."
+
+He said truly, and we therefore made up our mind to sit down once more
+to our rough and round dinner, in the small, hot, choky cabin of the
+Wave.  As it happened, we were all in high glee.  I flattered myself
+that my conduct in the late affair would hoist me up a step or two on
+the roster for promotion, and my excellent friends were delighted at the
+idea of getting on shore.
+
+After the cloth had been drawn, Mr Bang opened his fire.
+
+"Tom, my boy, I respect your service, but I have no great ambition to
+belong to it. I am sure no bribe that I am aware of could ever tempt me
+to make 'my home upon the deep,' and I really am not sure that it is a
+very gentlemanly calling after all.--Nay, don't look glum; what I meant
+was, the egregious weariness of spirit you must all undergo from
+consorting with the same men day after day, hearing the same jokes
+repeated for the hundredth time, and, whichever way you turn, seeing the
+same faces morning, noon, and night, and listening to the same voices.
+Oh! I should die in a year's time were I to become a sailor."
+
+"But," rejoined I, "you have your land bores in the same way that we
+have our sea bores; and we have this advantage over you, that if the
+devil should stand at the door, we can always escape from them sooner or
+later, and can buoy up our souls with the certainty that we can so
+escape from them at the end of the cruise at the farthest; whereas if
+you happen to have taken root amidst a colony of bores on shore, why you
+never can escape, unless you sacrifice all your temporalities for that
+purpose; ergo, my dear sir, our life has its advantages, and yours has
+it disadvantages."
+
+"Too true--too true," rejoined Mr Bang.  "In fact, judging from my own
+small experience, Borism is fast attaining a head it never reached
+before.  Speechifying is the crying and prominent vice of the age.  Why
+will the ganders not recollect that eloquence is the gift of heaven,
+Thomas?  A man may improve it unquestionably, but the Promethean fire,
+the electrical spark, must be from on high.  No mental perseverance or
+education could ever have made a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, in the ages
+long past; nor an Edmund Burke"
+
+"Nor an Aaron Bang in times present," said I.
+
+"Hide my roseate blushes, Thomas," quoth Aaron, as he continued--"Would
+that men would speak according to their gifts, study Shakspeare and Don
+Quixote, and learn of me; and that the real blockhead would content
+himself with speaking when he is spoken to, drinking when he is drucken
+to, and ganging to the kirk when the bell rings.  You never can go into
+a party nowadays, that you don't meet with some shallow, prosing,
+pestilent ass of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversation;
+and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the blockhead's
+composition; but a creature of this calibre you can wither, for it is
+not worth crushing, by withholding the sunshine of your countenance from
+it, or by leaving it to drivel on, until the utter contempt of the whole
+company claps to change the figure--a wet night--cap as an extinguisher
+on it, and its small stinking flame flickers and goes out of itself.
+Then there is your sentimental water--fly, who blaws in the lugs of the
+women, and clips the King's English, and your high--flying dominie body,
+who whumles them outright. I speak in a figure.  But all these are as
+dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the
+solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happen to be rich,
+fancies himself entitled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir
+Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld
+parritch in his pate into pregnant brain.  There is a plateful of P's
+for you at any rate, Tom.  Beautiful exemplification of the art
+alliterative--an't it?"
+
+'Oh that Heaven the gift would gie us,
+To see ourselves as others see us!'
+
+My   dear  boy,  speechifying  has  extinguished  conversation.   Public
+meetings,  God  knows, are rife enough, and why will the  numskulls  not
+confine  their  infernal dullness to them? why  not  be  satisfied  with
+splitting the ears of the groundlings there? why will they not  consider
+that convivial conversation should be lively as the sparkle of musketry,
+brilliant,  sharp, and sprightly, and not like the thundering  of  heavy
+cannon,  or  heavier bombs.--But no--you shall ask one of  the  Drawleys
+across the table to take wine.  'Ah,' says he--and how he makes out  the
+concatenation, God only knows--'this puts me in mind, Mr Thingumbob,  of
+what  happened when I was chairman of the county club, on  such  a  day.
+Alarming times these were, and deucedly nervous I was when I got  up  to
+return  thanks.  My friends, said I, this unexpected and most unlooked--
+for  honour--this'--Here blowing all your breeding to  the  winds,  you
+fire a question across his bows into the fat pleasant fellow, who speaks
+for  society  beyond him, and expect to find that the  dull  sailor  has
+hauled  his  wind, or dropped astern--(do you twig how nautical  I  have
+become  in  my  lingo under Tailtackle's tuition, Tom?)--but,  alas!  no
+sooner  has  the  sparkle  of our fat friend's  wit  lit  up  the  whole
+worshipful  society,  than at the first lull, down comes  Drawley  again
+upon you, like a heavy--sterned Dutch dogger, right before the wind--'As
+I  was saying--this unexpected and most unlooked--for honour'--and there
+you  are pinned to the stake, and compelled to stand the fire of all his
+blunt  bird--boltst for half an hour on end.  At length his mud has  all
+dribbled  from him, and you hug yourself--'Ah,--come, here is a  talking
+man  opening his fire, so we shall have some conversation at last.'  But
+alas and alack a day!  Prosey the second chimes in, and works away,  and
+hems  and  haws,  and  hawks up some old scraps of schoolboy  Latin  and
+Greek,  which  are  all Hebrew to you, honest man, until  at  length  he
+finishes  off by some solemn twaddle about fossil turnips and  vitrified
+brickbats;  and thus concludes Fozy No. 2. Oh, shade of Edie  Ochiltree!
+that we should stand in the taunt of such umnerciful spendthrifts of our
+time  on earth!  Besides, the devil of it is, that whatever may be  said
+of the flippant palaverers, the heavy bores are generally most excellent
+and  amiable men, so that one can't abuse the sumphs with any thing like
+a quiet conscience."
+
+"Come," said I, "my dear sir, you are growing satirical."
+
+"Quarter less three," sung out the leadsman in the chains.
+
+We were now running in past the end of Hog Island to the port of Nassau,
+where the lights were sparkling brightly.  We anchored, but it was too
+late to go on shore that evening, so, after a parting glass of swizzle,
+we all turned in for the night.
+
+To be near the wharf, for the convenience of refitting, I had run the
+schooner close in, being aware of the complete security of the harbour,
+so that in the night I could feel the little vessel gently take the
+ground.  This awoke me and several of the crew, for accustomed as
+sailors are to the smooth bounding motion of a buoyant vessel, rising
+and falling on the heaving bosom of the ocean, the least touch on the
+solid ground, or against any hard floating substance, thrills to their
+hearts with electrical quickness.  Through the thin bulkhead I could
+hear the officers speaking to each other.
+
+"We are touching the ground," said one.
+
+"And if we be, there is no sea here--all smooth--land--locked entirely,"
+quoth another.
+
+So all hands of us, except the watch on deck, snoozed away once more
+into the land of deep forgetfulness.  We had all for some days
+previously been over--worked, and over--fatigued; indeed, ever since the
+action had caused the duty of the little vessel to devolve on one half
+of her original crew, those who had escaped had been subjected to great
+privations, and were nearly worn out.
+
+It might have been four bells in the middle watch, when I was awakened
+by the discontinuance of Mr Swop's heavy step over head; but judging
+that the poor fellow might have toppled over into a slight temporary
+snooze, I thought little of it, persuaded as I was that the vessel was
+lying in the most perfect safety.  In this belief I was falling over
+once more, when I heard a short startled grunt from one of the men in
+the steerage,--then a sudden sharp exclamation from another--a louder
+ejaculation of surprise from a third--and presently Mr Wagtail, who was
+sleeping on a matrass spread on the locker below me, gave a spluttering
+cough.  A heavy splash followed, and, simultaneously, several of the men
+forward shouted out "Ship MI of water--water up to our hammocks;" while
+Waggy, who had rolled off his narrow couch, sang out at the top of his
+pipe, "I am drowned, Bang.  Tom Cringle, my dear--Gelid, I am drowned--
+we are all drowned--the ship is at the bottom of the sea, and we shall
+have eels enough here, if we had none at Biggleswade.  Oh! murder!
+murder!"
+
+"Sound the well," I could hear Tailtackle, who had run on deck, sing
+out.
+
+"No use in that," I called out, as I splashed out of my warm cot, up to
+my knees in water.
+
+"Bring a light, Mr Tailtackle; a bottom plank must have started, or a
+but, or a hidden--end.  The schooner is full of water beyond doubt, and
+as the tide is still making, stand by to hoist out the boats, and get
+the wounded into them.  But don't be alarmed, men; the schooner is on
+the ground, and it is near high--water.  So be cool and quiet.  Don't
+bother now--don't"
+
+By the time I had finished my extempore speech I was on deck, where I
+soon found that, in very truth, there was no use in sounding the well,
+or manning the pumps either, as some wounded plank had been crushed out
+bodily by the pressure of the vessel when she took the ground; and there
+she lay--the tidy little Wave--regularly bilged, with the tide flowing
+into her.
+
+Every one of the crew was now on the alert.  Bedding and bags and some
+provisions were placed in the boats of the schooner; and several craft
+from the shore, hearing the alarm, were now alongside; so danger there
+was none, except that of catching cold, and I therefore bethought me of
+looking in on my guests in the cabin.  I descended and waded into our
+late dormitory with a candle in my hand and the water nearly up to my
+waist. I there found my steward, also with a light, splashing about in
+the water, catching a stray hat here, and fishing up a spare coat there,
+and anchoring a chair, with a piece of spunyarn, to the pillar of the
+small side--berth on the starboard side, while our friend Massa Aaron
+was coolly lying in his cot on the larboard, the bottom of which was by
+this time within an inch of the surface of the water, and bestirring
+himself in an attempt to get his trowsers on, which by some lucky chance
+he had stowed away under his pillow overnight, and there he was sticking
+up first one peg and then another, until by sidling and shifting in his
+narrow lair, he contrived to rig himself in his nether garments.  "But,
+steward, my good man," he was saying when I entered, "where is my coat,
+eh?" The man groped for a moment down in the water, which his nose
+dipped into, with his shirt--sleeves tucked up to his arm--pits, and
+then held up some dark object, that, to me at least, looked like a piece
+of black cloth hooked out of a dyer's vat.  Alas! this was Massa Aaron's
+coat; and while the hats were bobbing at each other in the other corner
+like seventy--fours, with a squadron of shoes in their wakes, and
+Wagtail was sitting in the side--berth with his wet night--gown drawn
+about him, his muscular development in high relief through the clinging
+drapery, and bemoaning his fate in the most pathetic manner--that can be
+conceived, our ally Aaron exclaimed, "I say, Tom, how do you like the
+cut of my Sunday coat, eh?" while our friend Paul Gelid, who it seems
+had slept through the whole row, was at length startled out of his
+sleep, and sticking one of his long shanks over the side of his cot in
+act to descend, immersed it in the cold salt brine.
+
+"Lord!  Wagtail," he exclaimed, "my dear fellow, the cabin is full of
+water--we are sinking--ah!  Deucedly annoying to be drowned in this
+hole, amidst dirty water, like a tubful of ill--washed potatoes--ah."
+
+"Tom--Tom Cringle," shouted Mr Bang at this juncture, while he looked
+over the edge of his cot on the stramash below, "saw ever any man the
+like of that?  Why, see there--there, just under your candle, Tom--a
+bird's nest floating about with a mavis in it, as I am a gentleman."
+
+"D--n your bird's nest and mavis too, whatever that may be," roared
+little Mr Pepperpot.
+
+"By Jupiter, it is my wig, with a live rat in it."
+
+"Confound your wig!--ah," quoth Paul, as the steward fished up what I
+took at first for a pair of brimfull water--stoups.  "Zounds! look at my
+boots."
+
+"And confound both the wig and boots, say I," sung out Mr Bang.  "Look
+at my Sunday coat.  Why, who set the ship onfire, Tom?"
+
+Here his eye caught mine, and a few words sufficed to explain how we
+were situated, and then the only bother was how to get ashore, and where
+we were to sojourn, so as to have our clothes dried, as nothing could
+now be done until daylight.  I therefore got our friends safely into a
+Nassau boat alongside, with their wet trunks and portmanteaus in charge
+of their black servants, and left them to fish their way to their
+lodging--house as they best could.  By this, the wounded and the sound
+part of the crew had been placed on board of two merchant brigs, that
+lay close to us; and the masters of them proving accommodating men, I
+got them alongside, as the tide flowed, one on the starboard, the other
+on the larboard side, right over the Wave; and next forenoon, when they
+took the ground, we rigged two spare topmasts from one vessel to another,
+and making the main and fore rigging of the schooner fast to them, as the
+tide once more made, we weighed her, and floated her alongside of the
+sheer--hulk, against which we were enabled to heave her out, so as to get
+at the leak, and then by rigging bilge--pumps, we contrived to free her
+and keep her dry.  The damaged plank was soon removed; and, being in a
+fair way to surmount all my difficulties, about half--past five in the
+evening I equipped myself in dry clothes, and proceeded on shore to call
+on our friends at their new domicile.  When I entered. I was shown into
+the dining hall by my ally, Pegtop.
+
+"Massa will be here presently, sir."
+
+"Oh--tell him he need not hurry himself:--But how are Mr Bang and his
+friends?"
+
+"Oh, dem all wery so so, only Massa Wagtail hab take soch a terrible
+cold, dat him tink he is going to dead; him wery sorry for himshef, for
+true massa."
+
+"But where are the gentlemen, Pegtop?"
+
+"All, every one on dem, is in him bed.  Wet clothes have been drying all
+day."
+
+"And when do they mean to dine?"
+
+Here Pegtop doubled himself up, and laughed like to split himself.
+
+"Dem is all dining in bed, Massa.  Shall I show you to dem?"
+
+"I shall be obliged; but don't let me intrude.  Give my compliments, and
+say I have looked in simply to enquire after their health."
+
+Here Mr Wagtail shouted from the inner apartment.
+
+"Hillo!  Tom, my boy!  Tom Cringle!--here, my lad, here!"
+
+I was shown into the room from whence the voice proceeded, which
+happened to be Massa Aaron's bedroom: and there were my three friends
+stretched on sofas, in their night--clothes, with a blanket, sheet, and
+counterpane over each, forming three sides of a square round a long
+table, on which a most capital dinner was smoking, with wines of several
+kinds, and a perfect galaxy of wax candles, and their sable valets, in
+nice clean attire, and smart livery coats, waiting on them.
+
+"Ah, Tom," quoth Massa Paul, "delighted to see you,--come, you seem to
+have dry clothes on, so take the head of the table."
+
+I did so; and broke ground forthwith with great zeal.
+
+"Tom, a glass of wine, my dear," said Aaron.  "Don't you admire us
+classical, after the manner of the ancients, eh?  Wagtail's head--dress,
+and Paul's night--cap--oh, the comforts of a woollen one!  Ah, Tom, Tom,
+the Greeks had no Kilmamock--none."
+
+We all carried on cheerily, and Bang began to sparkle.
+
+"Well, now since you have weighed the schooner and found not much
+wanting I feel my spirits rising again.--A glass of champagne, Tom,
+your health, boy.--The dip the old hooker has got must have surprises
+the rats and cockroaches.  Do you know, Tom, I really have an idea of
+writing a history of the cruise; only I am deterred from the melancholy
+consciousness that every blockhead nowadays fancies he can write."
+
+"Why, my dear sir, are you not coquetting for a compliment?  Don't we
+all know, that many of the crack articles in Ebony's Mag" "Bah,"
+clapping his hand on my mouth; "hold your tongue; all wrong in that"
+
+"Well, if it be not you then, I scarcely know to whom to attribute them.
+Until lately, I only knew you as the warm hearted West Indian
+gentleman; but now I am certain I am to"
+
+"Tom, hold your tongue, my beautiful little man.  For, although I must
+plead guilty to having mixed a little in literary society in my younger
+days--Alas! my heart, those days are gane."
+
+"Ah,  Mr  Swop," continued Mr Bang, as the master was ushered  into  the
+room.  "Plate and glasses for Mr Swop."
+
+The  sailor  bowed,  perched himself on the  very  edge  of  his  chair,
+scarcely  within  long  arm's  length of the  table,  and  sitting  bolt
+upright,  as if he had swallowed a spare studdingsail--boom,  drank  our
+healths, and smoothed down his hair on his brow.
+
+"Captain, I come to report the schooner ready to"
+
+"Poo,"  rattled  out  Mr  Bang; "time for your  tale  by  and  by;--help
+yourself  to  some  of  that  capital beef, Peter,--So--Yes,  my  love,"
+continued  our friend, resuming his yarn.  "I once coped even with  John
+Wilson  himself.  Yea, in the fullness of my powers, I feared  not  even
+the Professor."
+
+"Indeed!" said I.
+
+"True,  as  I am a gentleman.  Why, I once, in a public trial of  skill,
+beat him, even him, by eighteen measured inches, from toe to heel."
+
+I stared.
+
+"I was the slighter man of the two, certainly.  Still, in a flying leap,
+I always had the best of it, until he astonished the world with the Isle
+of  Palms. From that day forth, my springiness and elasticity  left  me.
+Fallen  was my muscles brawny vaunt. I quailed.  My genius stood rebuked
+before  him.   Nevertheless, at hop--step--and--jump  I  was  his  match
+still.   When  out  came the City of the Plague! From  that  the  Great
+Ostrich  could not hold the candle to the Flying Philosopher.  And  now,
+heaven  help  me!   I  can  scarcely cover  nineteen  feet,  with  every
+advantage  of ground for the run.  It is true, the Professor was  always
+in condition, and never required training; now, unless I had time for my
+hard food, I was seldom in wind."
+
+Mr  Peter  Swop,  emboldened  and brightened  by  the  wine  he  had  so
+industriously  swilled,  and  willing  to  contribute   his   quota   of
+conversation, having previously jumbled in his noddle what Mr  Bang  had
+said  about an ostrich, and hard food, asked, across the table  "Do  you
+believe ostriches eat iron, Mr Bang?"
+
+Mr   Bang  slowly  put  down  his  glass,  and  looking  with  the  most
+imperturbable  seriousness  the  innocent  master  right  in  the  face,
+exclaimed:
+
+"Ostriches eat iron!--Do I believe ostriches eat iron, did you  say,  Mr
+Swop?   Will  you have the great kindness to tell me if  this  glass  of
+madeira be poison, Mr Swop?  Why, when Captain Cringle there was in  the
+Bight  of  Benin, from which 'One comes out where a hundred go  in,'  on
+board of the--what--d'ye--call--her? I forget her name--they had a  tame
+ostrich, which was the wonder of the whole squadron.  At the first  go
+off  it  had plenty of food, but at length they had to put it  on  short
+allowance of a Winchester bushel of tenpenny nails and a pump--bolt  a
+day;  but their supplies failing, they had even to reduce this quantity,
+whereby  the poor bird, after unavailing endeavours to get at  the  iron
+ballast, was driven to pick out the iron bolts of the ship in the  clear
+moonlight  nights,  when no one was thinking of it; so  that  the  craft
+would  soon have been a perfect wreck.  And as the commodore  would  not
+hear  of  the creature being killed, Tom there undertook to keep  it  on
+copper bolts and sheathing until they reached Cape Coast.  But it  would
+not  do;  the  copper soured on its stomach, and it  died.   Believe  an
+ostrich eats iron, quotha!  But to return to the training for the jump
+I  used  to  stick to beef--steaks and a thimbleful of Burton  ale;  and
+again I tried the dried knuckle parts of legs of five--year--old black
+faced  muttons;  but,  latterly, I trained best,  so  far  as  wind  was
+concerned, on birsled pease and whisky"
+
+"On what?" shouted I, in great astonishment.  "On what?"
+
+"Yes, my boys; parched pease and whisky.  Charge properly with birsled
+pease, and if you take a caulkers just as you begin your run, there is
+the linstock to the gun for you, and away you fly through the air on the
+self--propelling principle of the Congreve Rocket.  Well might that
+amiable, and venerable, and most learned Theban, Cockibus Bungo, who
+always held the stakes on these great occasions, exclaim, in his
+astonishment, to Cheesey, the janitor of many days--as 'Like fire from
+flint I glanced away,' disdaining the laws of gravitation--by Mercury, I
+swear,--yea, by his winged heel, I shall have at the Professor yet, if I
+live, and whisky and birsled pease fail me not."
+
+Here  Paul and I laughed outright; but Mr Wagtail appeared out of sorts,
+somehow; and Swop looked first at one, and then at another, with a  look
+of  the  most  ludicrous uncertainty as to whether Mr Bang was  quizzing
+him, or telling a verity.
+
+"Why, Wagtail," said Gelid, "what ails you, my boy?"
+
+I  looked  towards  our little amiable fat friend.  His  face  was  much
+flushed,  although I learned that he had been unusually abstemious,  and
+he  appeared  heated and restless, and had evidently  feverish  symptoms
+about him.
+
+"Who's  there?"  said Wagtail, looking towards the door  with  a  raised
+look.
+
+It was Tailtackle, with two of the boys carrying a litter, followed by
+Peter Mangrove, as if he had been chief mourner at a funeral.  Out of
+the litter a black paw, with fishes or splints whipped round it by a
+band of spunyam, protruded, and kept swaying about like a pendulum.
+
+"What have you got there, Mr Tailtackle?"
+
+The gunner turned round.
+
+"Oh, it is a vagary of Peter Mangrove's, sir.  Not contented with
+getting the doctor to set Sneezer's starboard foreleg, he insists on
+bringing him away from amongst the people at the capstan--house."
+
+"True, Massa--Massa Tailtackle say true; de poor dumb dog never shall
+cure him leg none at all, mong de men dere; dey all love him so mosh,
+and make of him so mosh, and stuff him wid salt wittal so mosh, till him
+blood inflammation like a hell; and den him so good temper, and so
+gratify wid dere attention, dat I believe him will eat till him
+kickeriboo of sorefut, [surfeit, I presumed;] and, beside, I know de dog
+healt will instantly mend if him see you.  Oh, Massa Aaron, [our friend
+was smiling,] it not like you to make fun of poor black fellow, when him
+is take de part of soch old friend as poor Sneezer.  De Captain dere
+cannot laugh, dat is if him will only tink on dat fearful cove at Puerto
+Escondido, and what Sneezer did for bote of we dere."
+
+"Well, well, Mangrove, my man," said Mr Bang, "I will ask leave of my
+friends here to have the dog bestowed in a corner of the piazza, so let
+the boys lay him down there, and here is a glass of grog for you--so.
+Now go back again,"--as the poor fellow had drank our health's.
+
+Here Sneezer, who had been still as a mouse all this while, put his
+black snout out of the hammock, and began to cheep and whine in his
+gladness at seeing his master, and the large tears ran down his coal
+black muzzle as he licked my hand, while every now and then he gave a
+short fondling bark, as if he had said, "Ah, master, I thought you had
+forgotten me altogether, ever since the action where I got my leg broke
+by a grape--shot, but I find I am mistaken."
+
+"Now, Tailtackle, what say you?"
+
+"We may ease off the tackles to--morrow afternoon," said the gunner,
+"and right the schooner, sir; we have put in a dozen cashew knees, as
+tough as leather, and bolted the planks tight and fast.  You saw these
+heavy quarters did us no good, sir; I hope you will beautify her again,
+now since the Spaniard's shot has pretty well demolished them already.
+I hope you won't replace them, sir. I hope Captain Transom may see her
+as she should be, as she was when your honour had your first pleasure
+cruise in her." Here--but I may have dreamed it I thought the quid in
+the honest fellow's cheek stuck out in higher relief than usual for a
+short space.
+
+"We shall see, we shall see," said I.
+
+"I say, Don Timotheus," quoth Bang, "you don't mean to be off without
+drinking our healths?" as he tipped him a tumbler of brandy grog of very
+dangerous strength.
+
+The warrant officer drank it, and vanished, and presently Mr Gelid's
+brother, who had just returned from one of the out islands, made his
+appearance, and after the greeting between them was over, the stranger
+advanced, and with much grace invited us en masse to his house.  But by
+this time Mr Wagtail was so ill, that we could not move that night, our
+chief concern now being to see him properly bestowed; and very soon I
+was convinced that his disease was a violent bilious fever.
+
+The old brown landlady, like all her caste, was a most excellent nurse;
+and after the most approved and skilful surgeon of the town had seen
+him, and prescribed what was thought right, we all turned in.  Next
+morning, before any of us were up, a whole plateful of cards were handed
+to us, and during the forenoon these were followed by as many
+invitations to dinner.  We had difficulty in making our election, but
+that day I remember we dined at the beautiful Mrs C----'s, and in the
+evening adjourned to a ball--a very gay affair; and I do freely avow,
+that I never saw so many pretty women in a community of the same size
+before.  Oh! it was a little paradise, and not without its Eve.  But
+such an Eve! I scarcely think the old Serpent himself could have found
+it in his heart to have beguiled her.
+
+"I say, Tom, my dear boy," said Mr Bang, "do you see that darling?  Oh,
+who can picture to himself, without a tear, that such a creature of
+light, such an ethereal--looking thing, whose step 'would ne'er wear out
+the everlasting flint,' that floating gossamer on the thin air, shall
+one day become an anxious--looking, sharp--featured, pale--faced, loud
+tongued, thin--bosomed, broad bottomed wife!"
+
+The next day, or rather in the same night, his Majesty's ship Rabo
+arrived, and the first tidings we had of it in the morning were
+communicated by Captain Qeuedechat himself, an honest, uproarious
+sailor, who chose to begin, as many a worthy ends, by driving up to the
+door of the lodging in a cart.
+
+"Is the Captain of the small schooner that was swamped, here?" he asked
+of Massa Pegtop.
+
+Free and easy this, thought I.
+
+"Yes, sir, Captain Cringle is here, but him no get up yet."
+"Oh, never mind, tell him not to hurry himself; but where is the table
+laid for breakfast?"
+
+"Here, sir," said Pegtop, as he showed him into the piazza.
+
+"Ah, that will do--so give me the newspaper--tol de rol," and he began
+reading and singing, in all the buoyancy of mind consequent on escaping
+from shipboard after a three months cruise.
+
+I dressed and came to him as soon as I could; and the gallant Captain,
+whom I had figured to myself a fine light gossamer lad of twenty--two,
+stared me in the face as a fat elderly cock of forty at the least; and
+as to bulk, I would not have guaranteed that eighteen stone could have
+made him kick the beam. However, he was an excellent fellow, and that
+day he and his crew were of most essential service in assisting me in
+refitting the Wave, for which I shall always be grateful. I had spent
+the greater part of the forenoon in my professional duty, but after two
+o'clock I had knocked off, in order to make a few calls on the families
+to whom I had introductions, and who were afterwards so signally kind to
+me. I then returned to our lodgings in order to dress for dinner, before
+I sallied forth to worthy old Mr N----'s, where we were all to dine,
+when I met Aaron.
+
+"No chance of our removing to Peter Gelid's this evening."
+
+"Why?" I asked.
+
+"Oh, poor Pepperpot Wagtail is become alarmingly ill; inflammatory
+symptoms have appeared, and"--Here the colloquy was cut short by the
+entrance of Mrs Peter Celid--a pretty woman enough.  She had come to
+learn herself from our landlady, how Mr Wagtail was, and with the
+kindliness of the country, she volunteered to visit poor little Waggy in
+his sick--bed. I did not go into the room with her; but when she
+returned, she startled us all a good deal, by stating her opinion that
+the worthy man was really very ill, in which she was corroborated by the
+doctor, who now arrived.  So soon as the medico saw him, he bled him,
+and after prescribing a lot of effervescing draughts, and various
+febrifuge mixtures, he left a large blister with the old brown landlady,
+to be applied over his stomach if the wavering and flightiness did not
+leave him before morning.  We returned early after dinner from Mr N----'s
+to our lodgings, and as I knew Gelid was expected at his brother's in
+the evening, to meet a large assemblage of kindred, and as the night was
+rainy and tempestuous, I persuaded him to trust the watch to me; and as
+our brown landlady had been up nearly the whole of the previous night, I
+sent for Tailtackle to spell me, while the black valets acted with great
+assiduity in their capacity of surgeon's mates.  About two in the
+morning Mr Wagtail became delirious, and it was all that I could do,
+aided by my sable assistants, and an old black nurse, to hold him down
+in his bed.  Now was the time to clap on the blister, but he repeatedly
+tore it off, so that at length we had to give it up for an impracticable
+job; and Tailtackle, whom I had called from his pallet, where he had
+gone to lie down for an hour, placed the caustico, as the Spaniards call
+it, at the side of the bed.
+
+"No use in trying this any more at present," said I; "we must wait until
+he gets quieter, Mr Tailtackle; so go to your bed, and I shall lie down
+on this sofa here, where Marie Paparoche" (this was our old landlady)
+"has spread sheets, I see, and made all comfortable.  And send Mr Bang's
+servant, will you;" (friend Aaron had ridden into the country after
+dinner to visit a friend, and the storm, as I conjectured, had kept him
+there;) "he is fresh, and will call me in case I be wanted, or Mr
+Wagtail gets worse."
+
+I lay down, and soon fell fast asleep, and I remembered nothing, until I
+awoke about eleven o'clock next morning, and heard Mr Bang speaking to
+Wagtail, at whose bedside he was standing.
+
+"Pepperpot, my dear, be thankful--you are quite cool--a fine moisture on
+your skin this morning--be thankful, my little man how did your blister
+rise?"
+
+"My good friend," quoth Wagtail, in a thin weak voice, "I can't tell--I
+don't know; but this I perceive, that I am unable to rise, whether it
+has risen or no."
+
+"Ah--weak," quoth Gelid, who had now entered the room.
+
+"Nay," said Pepperpot, "not so weak as deucedly sore, and on a very
+unromantic spot, my dears."
+
+"Why," said Aaron, "the pit of the stomach is not a very genteel
+department, nor the abdomen neither."
+
+"Why," said Wagtail, "I have no blister on either of those places, but
+if it were possible to dream of such a thing, I would say it had been
+clapped on"
+
+Here his innate propriety tongue--tied him.
+
+"Eh?" said Aaron; "what--has the caustico that was intended for the
+frontiers of Belgium been clapped by mistake on the broad Pays Bas?"
+
+And so in very truth it turned out; for while we slept, the patient had
+risen, and sat down on the blister that lay, as already mentioned, on a
+chair at his bedside, and again toppling into bed, had fallen into a
+sound sleep, from which he had but a few moments before the time I write
+of awoke.
+
+"Why, now," continued Aaron, to the doctor of the Wave who had just
+entered--"why, here is a discovery, my dear doctor.  You clap a hot
+blister on a poor fellow's head to cool it, but Doctor Cringle there has
+cooled Master Wagtail's brain, by blistering his stern--eh?--Make notes,
+and mind you report this to the College of  Surgeons."
+
+I cleared myself of these imputations.  Wagtail recovered; our refitting
+was completed; our wood, and water, and provisions, replenished; and,
+after spending one of the happiest fortnights of my life, in one
+continued round of gaiety, I prepared to leave--with tears in my eyes, I
+will confess--the clear waters, bright blue skies, glorious climate, and
+warm hearted community of Nassau, New Providence.  Well might that old
+villain Blackbeard have made this sweet spot his favourite rendezvous.
+By the way, this same John Teach or Blackbeard, had fourteen wives in
+the lovely island; and I am not sure but I could have picked out
+something approximating to the aforesaid number myself, with time and
+opportunity, from among such a galaxy of loveliness as then shone and
+sparkled in this dear little town.  Speaking of the pirate Blackbeard, I
+ought to have related that one morning when I was at breakfast at
+Mrs C----'s, the amiable, and beautiful, and innocent girl matron ay, you
+supercilious son of a sea--cook, you may turn up your nose at the
+expression, but if you could have seen the burden of my song as I saw
+her, and felt the elegancies of her manner and conversation as I felt
+them--but let us stick to Blackbeard, if you please.  We were all
+comfortably seated at breakfast; I had finished my sixth egg, had
+concealed a beautiful dried snapper, before which even a rizzard haddock
+sank into insignificance, and was bethinking me of finishing off with a
+slice of Scotch mutton--ham, when in slid Mr Bang.  He was received with
+all possible cordiality, and commenced operations very vigorously.
+
+He was an amazing favourite of our hostess, (as where was he not a
+favourite?) so that it was some time before he even looked my way.  We
+were in the midst of a discussion regarding the beauty of New
+Providence, and the West India Islands in general; and I was remarking
+that nature had been liberal, that the scenery was unquestionably
+magnificent in the larger islands, and beautiful in the smaller; but
+there were none of those heart--stirring reminiscences, none of those
+thrilling electrical associations, which vibrate to the heart at
+visiting scenes in Europe famous in antiquity--famous as the spot in
+which recent victories had been achieved--famous even for the very
+freebooters, who once held unlawful sway in the neighbourhood.  "Why,
+there never has flourished hereabouts, for instance, even one thoroughly
+melodramatic thief." Massa Aaron let me go on, until he had nearly
+finished his breakfast.  At length he fired a shot at me.
+
+"I say, Tom, you are expatiating, I see.  Nothing heart stirring, say
+you?  In new countries it would bother you to have old associations
+certainly; and you have had your Rob Roy, I grant you, and the old
+country has had her Robin Hood.  But has not Jamaica had her Three
+fingered Jack? Ay, a more gentlemanlike scoundrel than either of the
+former.  When did jack refuse a piece of yam, and a cordial from his
+horn, to the wayworn man, white or black?  When did he injure a woman?
+When did Jack refuse food and a draught of cold water, the greatest
+boon, in our ardent climate, that he could offer, to a wearied child?
+Oh, there was much poetry in the poor fellow!  And here, had they not
+that most melodramatic (as you choose to word it) of thieves,
+Blackbeard, before whom Bluebeard must for ever hide his diminished
+head?  Why, Bluebeard had only one wife at a time, although he murdered
+five of them, whereas Blackbeard had seldom fewer than a dozen, and he
+was never known to murder above three.  But I have fallen in with such a
+treasure!  Oh, such a discovery!  I have been communing with Noah
+himself with an old negro, who remembers this very Blackbeard--the
+pirate Blackbeard."
+
+"The deuce," said I; "impossible!"
+"But it is true.  Why it is only ninety--four years ago since the
+scoundrel flourished, and this old cock is one hundred and ten. I have
+jotted it down--worth a hundred pounds.  Read, my adorable Mrs C----,
+read."
+
+"But, my dear Mr Bang," said she, "had you not better read it yourself?"
+
+"You, if you please," quoth Aaron, who forthwith set himself to make the
+best use of his time.
+
+MEMOIR OF JOHN TEACH, ESQUIRE VULGARLY CALLED BLACKBEARD.
+BY AARON BANGS, ESQUIRE, F.R.S.
+
+"He was the mildest mannered man.
+That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat;
+With such true breeding of a gentleman,
+You never could discern his real thought.
+Pity he loved adventurous life's variety,
+He was so great a loss to good society."
+
+
+John Teach, or Blackbeard, was a very eminent man--a very handsome man,
+and a very devil amongst the ladies.
+
+He was a Welshman, and introduced the leek into Nassau about the year
+1718, and was a very remarkable personage, although, from some singular
+imperfection in his moral constitution, he never could distinguish
+clearly between meum and tuum.
+
+He found his patrimony was not sufficient to support him; and as he
+disliked agricultural pursuits as much as mercantile, he got together
+forty or fifty fine young men one day, and borrowed a vessel from some
+merchants that was lying at the Nore, and set sail for the Bahamas.  On
+his way he fell in with several West Indiamen, and, sending a boat on
+board of each, he asked them for the loan of provisions and wine, and
+all their gold, and silver, and clothes, which request was in every
+instance but one civilly acceded to; whereupon, drinking their good
+healths, he returned to his ship.  In the instance where he had been
+uncivilly treated, to show his forbearance, he saluted them with twenty
+one guns; but by some accident the shot had not been withdrawn, so that
+unfortunately the contumacious ill bred craft sank, and as Blackbeard's
+own vessel was very crowded, he was unable to save any of the crew.  He
+was a great admirer of fine air, and accordingly established himself on
+the island of New Providence, and invited a number of elegant young men,
+who were fond of pleasure cruises, to visit him, so that presently he
+found it necessary to launch forth in order to borrow more provisions.
+
+At this period he was a great dandy; and amongst other vagaries, he
+allowed his beard to grow a foot long at the shortest, and then plaited
+it into three strands, indicating that he was a bashaw of no common
+dimensions.  He wore red breeches, but no stockings, and sandals of
+bullock's hide.  He was a perfect Egyptian in his curiousness in fine
+linen, and his shirt was always white as the driven snow when it was
+clean, which was the first Sunday of every month.  In waistcoats he was
+especially select; but the cut of them very much depended on the fashion
+in favour with the last gentleman he had borrowed from.  He never wore
+any thing but a full dress purple velvet coat, under which bristled
+three brace of pistols, and two naked stilettoes, only eighteen inches
+long, and he had generally a lighted matchfizzing in the bow of his
+cocked scraper whereat he lighted his pipe, or fired off a cannon, as
+pleased him.
+
+One of his favourite amusements, when he got half slewed, was to adjourn
+to the hold with his compotators, and kindling some brimstone matches,
+to dance and roar, as if he had been the devil himself, until his allies
+were nearly suffocated.  At another time he would blow out the candles
+in the cabin, and blaze away with his loaded pistols at random, right
+and left, whereby he severely wounded the feelings of some of his
+intimates by the poignancy of his wit, all of which he considered a most
+excellent joke.  But he was kind to his fourteen wives so long as he was
+sober, as it is known that he never murdered above three of them.  His
+borrowing, however, gave offence to our government, no one can tell how;
+and at length two of our frigates, the Lime and Pearl, then cruising off
+the American coast, after driving him from his, stronghold, hunted him
+down in an inlet in North Carolina, where, in an eight--gun schooner,
+with thirty desperate fellows, he made a defence worthy of his
+honourable life, and fought so furiously that he killed and wounded more
+men of the attacking party than his own crew consisted of; and following
+up his success, he boarded, sword in hand, the headmost of the two armed
+sloops, which had been detached by the frigates, with ninety men on
+board, to capture him; and being followed by twelve men and his trusty
+lieutenant, he would have carried her out and out, maugre the disparity
+of force, had he not fainted from loss of blood, when, falling on his
+back, he died where he fell, like a hero--"His face to the sky, and his
+feet to the foe" leaving eleven forlorn widows, being the fourteen
+wives, minus the three that he had throttled.
+
+"NO CHIVALROUS ASSOCIATIONS indeed!  Match me such a character as this."
+
+We  all  applauded to the echo.  But I must end my song,  for  I  should
+never  tire  in  dwelling  on  the happy days  we  spent  in  this  most
+enchanting  little island.  The lovely blithe girls, and the  hospitable
+kind  hearted men, and the children! I never saw such cherubs, with  all
+the  sprightliness of the little pale--faced creoles of the West Indies,
+while the healthy bloom of Old England blossomed on their cheeks.
+
+"I say, Tom," said Massa Aaron, on one occasion when I was rather
+tedious on the subject, "all those little cherubs, as you call them, at
+least the most of them, are the offspring of the cotton bales captured
+in the American war."
+
+"The what?" said I.
+
+"The children of the American war--and I will prove it thus taking the
+time from no less an authority than Hamlet, when he chose to follow the
+great Dictator, Julius Caesar himself, through all the corruption of our
+physical nature, until he found him stopping a beer barrel--(only
+imagine the froth of one of our disinterested friend Buxton's beer
+barrels, savouring of quassia, not hop, fizzing through the clay of
+Julius Caesar the Roman!)--as thus: If there had been no Yankee war,
+there would have been no prize cargoes of cotton sent into Nassau; if
+there had been no prize cargoes sent into Nassau, there would have been
+little money made; if there had been little money made, there would have
+been fewer marriages; if there had been fewer marriages, there would
+have been fewer cherubs.  There is logic for you, my darling."
+
+"Your last is a non sequitur, my dear sir," said I, laughing.  "But, in
+the main, Parson Malthus is right, out of Ireland that is, after all."
+
+That evening I got into a small scrape, by impressing three apprentices
+out of a Scotch brig, and if Mr Bang had not stood my friend, I might
+have, got into serious trouble.  Thanks to him, the affair was soldered.
+
+When on the eve of sailing, my excellent friends, Messrs Bang, Gelid,
+and Wagtail, determined, in consequence of letters which they had
+received from Jamaica, to return home in a beautiful armed brig that was
+to sail in a few days, laden with flour. I cannot well describe how much
+this moved me.  Young and enthusiastic as I was, I had grappled myself
+with hooks of steel to Mr Bang; and now, when he unexpectedly
+communicated his intention of leaving me, I felt more forlorn and
+deserted than I was willing to plead to.
+
+"My dear boy," said he, "make my peace with Transom.  If urgent business
+had not pressed me, I would not have broken my promise to rejoin him;
+but I am imperiously called for in Jamaica, where I hope soon to see
+you." He continued, with a slight tremor in his voice, which thrilled to
+my heart, as it vouched for the strength of his regard,--"If ever I am
+where you may come, Tom, and you don't make my house your home, provided
+you have not a better of your own, I will never forgive you." He paused.
+"You young fellows sometimes spend faster than you should do, and
+quarterly bills are long of coming round. I have drawn for more money
+than I want. I wish you would--let me be your banker for a hundred
+pounds, Tom."
+
+I squeezed his hand.  "No, no--many, many thanks, my dear sir but I
+never outrun the constable. Goodbye, God bless you.  Farewell, Mr
+Wagtail--Mr Gelid, adieu." I tumbled into the boat and pulled on board.
+The first thing I did was to send the wine and sea stock, a most
+exuberant assortment unquestionably, belonging to my Jamaica friends,
+ashore; but, to my surprise, the boat was sent back, with Mr Bang's
+card, on which was written in pencil, "Don't affront us, Captain
+Cringle." Thereupon I got the schooner under weigh, and no event worth
+narrating turned up until we anchored close to the post office at
+Crooked Island, two days after.
+
+We found the Firebrand there, and the post--office mail--boat, with her
+red flag and white horse in it, and I went on board the corvette to
+deliver my official letter, detailing the incidents of the cruise, and
+was most graciously received by my captain.
+
+There was a sail in sight when we anchored, which at first we took for
+the Jamaica packet; but it turned out to be the Tinker, friend Bang's
+flour--loaded brig; and by five in the evening our friends were all
+three once more restored to us, but, alas! so far as regarded two of
+them, only for a moment.  Messrs Gelid and Wagtail had, on second
+thoughts, it seems, hauled their wind to lay in a stock of turtle at
+Crooked Island, and I went ashore with them, and assisted in the
+selection from the turtle crawls filled with beautiful clear water, and
+lots of fine lively fresh--caught fish, the postmaster being the turtle
+merchant.
+
+"I say, Paul, happier in the fish way here than you were at Biggleswade
+eh?" said Aaron.
+
+After we had completed our purchases, our friends went on board the
+corvette, and I was invited to meet them at dinner, where the aforesaid
+postmaster, a stout conch, with a square--cut coatee and red cape and
+cuffs, was also a guest.
+
+He must have had but a dull time of it, as there were no other white
+inhabitants that I saw, on the island besides himself; his wife having
+gone to Nassau, which he looked on as the prime city of the world, to be
+confined, as he told us.  Bang said, that she must rather have gone to
+be delivered from confinement; and, in truth, Crooked Island was a most
+desolate domicile for a lady; our friend the postmaster's family, and a
+few negroes employed in catching turtle, and making salt, and dressing
+some scrubby cotton--trees, composing the whole population.  In the
+evening the packet did arrive, however, and Captain Transom received his
+orders.
+
+"Captain Transom, my boy," quoth Bang towards nightfall, "the best of
+friends must part--we must move--good--night--we shall be off presently
+good--by"--and he held out his hand.
+
+"Devil a bit," said Transom; "Bang, you shall not go, neither you nor
+your friends.  You promised, in fact shipped with me for the cruise, and
+Lady----has my word and honour that you shall be restored to her longing
+eye, sound and safe--so you must all remain, and send down the flour
+brig to say you are coming."
+
+To make a long story short, Massa Aaron was boned, but his friends were
+obdurate, so we all weighed that night; the Tinker bearing up for
+Jamaica, while we kept by the wind, steering for Conaives in St Domingo.
+
+The third day we were off Cape St Nicholas, and getting a slant of wind
+from the westward, we ran up the Bight of Leogane all that night, but
+towards morning it fell calm; we were close in under the highland, about
+two miles from the shore, and the night was the darkest I ever was out
+in anywhere.  There were neither moon nor stars to be seen, and the dark
+clouds settled down, until they appeared to rest upon our mastheads,
+compressing, as it were, the hot steamy air upon us until it became too
+dense for breathing.  In the early part of the night it had rained in
+heavy showers now and then, and there were one or two faint flashes of
+lightning, and some heavy peals of thunder, which rolled amongst the
+distant hills in loud shaking reverberations, which gradually became
+fainter and fainter, until they grumbled away in the distance in hoarse
+murmurs, like the low notes of an organ in one of our old cathedrals;
+but now there was neither rain nor wind--all nature seemed fearfully
+hushed; for where we lay, in the smooth bight, there was no swell, not
+even a ripple on the glasslike sea; the sound of the shifting of a
+handspike, or the tread of the men, as they ran to haul on--a rope, or
+the creaking of the rudder, sounded loud and distinct.  The sea in our
+neighbourhood was strongly phosphorescent, so that the smallest chip
+thrown overboard struck fire from the water, as if it had been a piece
+of iron cast on flint; and when you looked over the quarter, as I
+delight to do, and tried to penetrate into the dark clear profound
+beneath,  you every now and then saw a burst of pale light, like a halo,
+far down in the depths of the green sea, caused by the motion of some
+fish, or of what Jack, no great natural philosopher, usually calls
+blubbers; and when the dolphin or skip--jack leapt into the air, they
+sparkled out from the still bosom of the deep dark water like rockets,
+until they fell again into their element in a flash of fire.  This
+evening the corvette had showed no lights, and although I conjectured
+she was not far from us, still I could not with any certainty indicate
+her whereabouts.  It might now have been about three o'clock, and I was
+standing on the aftermost gun on the starboard side, peering into the
+impervious darkness over the tafferel, with my dear old dog Sneezer by
+my side, nuzzling and fondling after his affectionate fashion, while the
+pilot, Peter Mangrove, stood within handspike length of me.  The dog had
+been growling, but all in fun, and snapping at me, when in a moment he
+hauled off, planted his paws on the rail, looked forth into the night,
+and gave a short, anxious bark, Ii e the solitary pop of the sentry's
+musket to alarm the main guard in outpost work.
+
+Peter Mangrove advanced, and put his arm round the dog's neck.  "What
+you see, my shild?" said the black pilot.
+
+Sneezer uplifted his voice, and gave a long continuous growl.
+
+"Ah!" said Mangrove sharply, "Massa Captain, something near we--never
+doubt dat--de dog yeerie someting we can't yeerie, and see someting we
+can't see."
+
+I had lived long enough never to despise any caution, from whatever
+quarter it proceeded.  So I listened, still as a stone.  Presently I
+thought I heard the distant splash of oars.  I placed my hand behind my
+ear, and waited with breathless attention.  Immediately I saw the
+sparkling dip of them in the calm black water, as if a boat, and a large
+one, was pulling very fast towards us.  "Look out, hail that boat," said
+I.
+
+"Boat ahoy!" sung out the man, to whom I had spoken.  No answer.
+"Coming here?" reiterated the seaman.  No better success.  The boat or
+canoe, or whatever it might be, was by this time close aboard of us,
+within pistol--shot at the farthest--no time to be lost, so I hailed
+myself, and this time the challenge did produce an answer.
+
+"Sore boat--fruit and wegitab."
+
+"Shore boat, with fruit and vegetables, at this time of night--I don't
+like it," said I. "Boatswain's mate,--all hands--pipe away the boarders.
+Cutlasses, men--quick, a piratical row--boat is close to." And verily we
+had little time to lose, when a large canoe or row--boat, pulling twelve
+oars at the fewest, and carrying twenty--five men, or thereabouts, swept
+up on our larboard quarter, hooked on, and the next moment upwards of
+twenty unlooked--for visitors scrambled up our shallow side, and jumped
+on board.  All this took place so suddenly that there were not ten of my
+people ready to receive them, but those ten were the prime men of the
+ship.
+
+"Surrender, you scoundrels--surrender.  You have boarded a man of--war.
+Down with your arms, or we shall kill you to a man."
+
+But they either did not understand me, or did not believe me, for the
+answer was a blow from a cutlass, which, if I had not parried with my
+night--glass, which it broke in pieces, might have effectually stopped
+my promotion.
+
+"Cut them down, boarders, down with them--they are pirates," shouted I;
+"heave cold shot into their boat alongside--all hands, Mr Rousemout," to
+the boatswain, "call all hands."
+
+We closed.  The assailants had no firearms, but they were armed with
+swords and long knives, and as they fought with desperation, several of
+our people were cruelly haggled; and after the first charge, the
+combatants on both sides became so blended, that it was impossible to
+strike a blow, without running the risk of cutting down a friend.  By
+this time all hands were on deck; the boat alongside had been swamped by
+the cold shot that had been hove crashing through her bottom, when down
+came a shower from the surcharged clouds, or waterspout--call it which
+you will--that absolutely deluged the decks, the scuppers being utterly
+unable to carry off the water.  So long as the pirates fought in a body,
+I had no fears, as, dark as it was, our men, who held together, knew
+where to strike and thrust; but when the torrent of rain descended in
+bucketfuls, the former broke away, and were pursued singly into various
+corners about the deck, all escape being cut off from the swamping of
+their boat.  Still they were not vanquished, and I ran aft to the
+binnacle, where a blue light was stowed away,--one of several that we
+had got on deck to bum that night, in order to point out our whereabouts
+to the Firebrand.  I fired it, and rushing forward cutlass--in--hand, we
+set on the gang of black desperadoes with such fury, that after killing
+two of them outright, and wounding and taking prisoners seven, we drove
+the rest overboard into the sea, where the small--armed men, who by this
+time had tackled to their muskets, made short work of them, guided as
+they were by the sparkling of the dark water, as they struck out and
+swam for their lives.  The blue light was immediately answered by
+another from the corvette, which lay about a mile off; but before her
+boats, two of which were immediately armed and manned, could reach us,
+we had defeated our antagonists, and the rain had increased to such a
+degree, that the heavy drops, as they fell with a strong rushing noise
+into the sea, flashed it up into one entire sheet of fire.
+
+We--secured our prisoners, all blacks and mulattoes, the most villainous
+looking scoundrels I had ever seen, and shortly after it came on to
+thunder and lighten, as if heaven and earth had been falling together.
+A most vivid flash--it almost blinded me.  Presently the Firebrand burnt
+another blue light, whereby we saw that her maintopmast was gone close
+by the cap, with the topsail, and upper spars, and yards, and gear, all
+hanging down in a lumbering mass of confused wreck; she had been struck
+by the levin brand, which had killed four men, and stunned several more.
+
+By  this  time the cold grey streaks of morning appeared in the  eastern
+horizon,  and  soon  after the day broke; and  by  two  o'clock  in  the
+afternoon,  both corvette and schooner were at anchor at Conaives.   The
+village, for town it could not be called, stands on a low hot plain,  as
+if  the  washings of the mountains on the left hand side as we stood  in
+had  been  carried out into the sea, and formed into a white plateau  of
+sand; all was hot and stunted, and scrubby. We brought up inside of  the
+corvette,  in  three fathoms water.  My superior officer  had  made  the
+private  signal to come on board and dine.  I dressed, and the boat  was
+lowered  down, and we pulled for the corvette, but our course lay  under
+the stern of the two English ships that were lying there loading cargoes
+of coffee.
+
+"Pray, sir," said a decent--looking man, who leant on the tafferel of
+one of them--"Pray, sir, are you going on board of the Commodore?"
+
+"I am," I answered.
+
+"I am invited there too, sir; will you have the kindness to say I will
+be there presently?"
+
+"Certainly--give way, men."
+
+Presently we were alongside the corvette, and the next moment we stood
+on her deck, holystoned white and clean, with my stanch friend Captain
+Transom and his officers, all in full fig, walking to and fro under the
+awning, a most magnificent naval lounge, being thirty two feet wide at
+the gangway, and extending fifty feet or more aft, until it narrowed to
+twenty at the tafferel.  We were all--the two masters of the
+merchantmen, decent respectable men in their way, included--graciously
+received, and sat down to an excellent dinner, Mr Bang taking the lead
+as usual in all the fun; and we were just on the verge of cigars and
+cold grog, when the first lieutenant came down and said that the captain
+of the port had come off, and was then on board.
+
+"Show him in," said Captain Transom, and a tall, vulgar--looking
+blackamoor, dressed apparently in the cast--off coat of a French
+grenadier officer, entered the cabin with his chapeau in his hand, and a
+Madras handkerchief tied round his woolly skull.  He made his bow, and
+remained standing near the door.
+
+"You are the captain of the port?" said Captain Transom.  The man
+answered in French, that he was.  "Why, then, take a chair, sir, if you
+please."
+
+He begged to be excused and after tipping off his bumper of claret, and
+receiving the Captain's report, he made his bow and departed.
+
+I returned to the Wave, and next morning I breakfasted on board of the
+Commodore, and afterwards we all proceeded on shore to Monsieur B----'s,
+to whom Massa Aaron was known.  The town, if I may call it so, had
+certainly a very desolate appearance.  There was nothing stirring; and
+although a group of idlers, amounting to about twenty or thirty, did
+collect about us on the end of the wharf, which, by the by, was terribly
+out of repair, yet they all appeared ill clad, and in no way so well
+furnished as the blackies in Jamaica; and when we marched up through a
+hot, sandy, unpaved street into the town, the low, one--story, shabby
+looking houses were falling into decay, and the streets more resembled
+river--courses than thoroughfares, while the large carrion crows were
+picking garbage on the very crown of the causeway, without apparently
+entertaining the least fear of us, or of the negro children who were
+playing close to them, so near, in fact, that every now and then one of
+the urchins would aim a blow at one of the obscene birds, when it would
+give a loud discordant croak, and jump a pace or two, with outspread
+wings, but without taking flight.  Still many of the women, who were
+sitting under the small piazzas, or projecting eaves of the houses, with
+their little stalls, filled with pullicate handkerchiefs, and pieces of
+muslin, and ginghams for sale, were healthy--looking, and appeared
+comfortable and happy.  As we advanced into the town, almost every male
+we met was a soldier, all rigged and well dressed, too, in the French
+uniform; in fact, the remarkable man, King Henry, or Christophe,
+took care to have his troops well fed and clothed in every case.  On
+our way we had to pass by the Commandant, Baron B----'s house, when it
+occurred to Captain Transom that we ought to stop and pay our respects;
+but Mr Bang, being bound by no such etiquette, bore up for his friend
+Monsieur B----'s.  As we approached the house--a long, low, one--story
+building, with a narrow piazza, and a range of unglazed windows, staring
+open, with their wooden shutters, like ports in a ship's side, towards
+the street--we found a sentry at the door, who, when we announced
+ourselves, carried arms all in regular style.  Presently a very good
+looking negro, in a handsome aide de--camp's uniform, appeared, and, hat
+in hand, with all the grace in the world, ushered us into the presence
+of the Baron, who was lounging in a Spanish chair half asleep, but on
+hearing us announced he rose, and received us with great amenity.  He
+was a fat elderly negro, so far as I could judge, about sixty years of
+age, and was dressed in very wide jean trowsers, over which a pair of
+well polished Hessian boots were drawn, which, by adhering close to his
+legs, gave him, in contrast with the wide puffing of his garments above,
+the appearance of being underlimbed, which he by no means was, being a
+stout old Turk.
+
+After a profusion of congees and fine speeches, and superabundant
+assurances of the esteem in which his master King Henry held our master
+King George, we made our bows and repaired to Monsieur B----'s, where I
+was engaged to dine.  As for Captain Transom, he went on board that
+evening to superintend the repairs of the ship.
+
+There was no one to meet us but Monsieur B----and his daughter, a tall
+and very elegant brown girl, who had been educated in France, and did
+the honours incomparably well.  We sat down, Massa Aaron whispering in
+my lug, that in Jamaica it was not quite the thing to introduce brown
+ladies at dinner; but, as he said, "Why not?  Neither you nor I are high
+caste creoles--so en avant."
+
+Dinner was nearly over, when Baron B----'s aide--de--camp slid into the
+room.  Monsieur B----rose.  "Captain Latour, you are welcome--be seated.
+I hope you have not dined?"
+
+"Why no," said the negro officer, as he drew a chair, while he exchanged
+glances with the beautiful Eugenie, and sat himself down close to el
+Senor Bang.
+
+"Hillo, Quashie!  Whereaway, my lad? a little above the salt, an't you?"
+ejaculated our amigo; while Pegtop, who had just come on shore, and was
+standing behind his master, stared and gaped in the greatest wonderment.
+But Mr Bang's natural good breeding, and knowledge of the world,
+instantly recalled him to time and circumstances; and when the young
+officer looked at him, regarding him with some surprise, he bowed, and
+invited him, in the best French he could muster, to drink wine.  The
+aide--de--camp was, as I have said, jet--black as the ace of spades, but
+he was, notwithstanding, so far as figure went, a very handsome man
+tall and well made, especially about the shoulders, which were
+beautifully formed, and, in the estimation of a statuary, would probably
+have balanced the cucumber curve of the shin; his face, however, was
+regular negro--flat nose, heavy lips, fine eyes, and beautiful teeth,
+and he wore two immense gold earrings.  His woolly head was bound round
+with a pullicate handkerchief, which we had not noticed until he took
+off his laced cocked hat.  His coat was the exact pattern of the French
+staff uniform at the time--plain blue, without lace, except at the cape
+and cuffs, which were of scarlet cloth, covered with rich embroidery.
+He wore a very handsome straight sword, with steel scabbard, and the
+white trowsers, and long Hessian boots, already described as part of the
+costume of his general.
+
+Mr Bang, as I have said, had rallied by this time, and with the tact of
+a gentleman, appeared to have forgotten whether his new ally was black,
+blue, or green, while the claret, stimulating him into self possession,
+was evaporating in broken French.  But his man Pegtop had been pushed
+off his balance altogether; his equanimity was utterly gone.  When the
+young officer brushed past him, at the first go off, while he was
+rinsing some glasses in the passage, his sword banged against Pegtop's
+derriere as he stooped down over his work.  He started and looked round,
+and merely exclaimed--"Eigh, Massa Niger, wurra dat!" But now, when,
+standing behind his master's chair, he saw the aide--de--camp consorting
+with him whom he looked upon as the greatest man in existence, on terms
+of equality, all his faculties were paralysed.
+
+"Pegtop," said I, "hand me some yam, if you please."
+
+He looked at me all agape, as if he had been half strangled.
+
+"Pegtop, you scoundrel," quoth massa Aaron, "don't you hear what Captain
+Cringle says, sir?"
+
+"Oh yes, massa;" and thereupon the sable valet brought me a bottle of
+fish sauce, which he endeavoured to pour into my wineglass.  All this
+while Eugenie and the aide--de--camp were playing the agreeable--and in
+very good taste, too, let me tell you.
+
+I had just drank wine with mine host, when I cast my eye along the
+passage that led out of the room, and there was Pegtop dancing, and
+jumping, and smiting his thigh, in an ecstasy of laughter, as he doubled
+himself up, with the tears welling over his cheeks.
+
+"Oh, Lord!  Oh!--Massa Bang bow, and make face, and drink wine, and do
+every ting shivil, to one dam black rascall nigger!--Oh, blackee more
+worser clan me, Gabriel Pegtop----Oh, Lard!--ha! ha! ha!"--Thereupon he
+threw himself down in the piazza, amongst plates and dishes and shouted
+and laughed in a perfect frenzy, until Mr Bang got up, and thrust the
+poor fellow out of doors, in a pelting shower, which soon so far quelled
+the hysterical passion, that he came in again, grave as a judge, and
+took his place behind his master's chair once more, and every thing went
+on smoothly.  The aide de--camp, who appeared quite unconscious that he
+was the cause of the poor fellow's mirth, renewed his attentions to
+Eugenie; and Mr Bang, Monsieur B----, and myself, were again engaged in
+conversation, and our friend Pegtop was in the act of handing a slice of
+melon to the black officer, when a file of soldiers, with fixed
+bayonets, stept into the piazza, and ordered arms, one taking up his
+station on each side of the door.  Presently another aide--de--camp,
+booted and spurred, dashed after them; and, as soon as he crossed the
+threshold, sung out, "Place, pour Monsieur le Baron."
+
+The electrical nerve was again touched--"Oh!--oh!--oh!  Caramighty! here
+comes anoder on dem," roared Pegtop, sticking the slice of melon, which
+was intended for Mademoiselle Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the
+paroxysm, if possible, (while he fractured the plate on the black aide's
+skull,) and immediately blew it out again, with an explosion, and a
+scattering of the fragments, as if it had been the blasting of a stone
+quarry.
+
+"Zounds, this is too much,"--exclaimed Bang, as he rose and kicked the
+poor fellow out again, with such vehemence, that his skull, encountering
+the paunch of our friend the Baron, who was entering from the street at
+that instant, capsized him outright, and away rolled his Excellency the
+General de Division, Commandant de L'Arrondissement, &c. &c. digging his
+spurs into poor Pegtop's transom, and sacring furiously, while the black
+servant roared as if he had been harpooned by the very devil.  The aides
+started to their feet and one of them looked at Mr Bang, and touched the
+hilt of his sword, grinding the word 'satisfaction' between his teeth,
+while the other ordered the sentries to run the poor fellow, whose mirth
+had been so uproarious, through.  However, he got off with one or two
+brogues in a very safe place; and when Monsieur B----explained how
+matters stood, and that the "pauvre diable," as the black Baron coolly
+called him, was a mere servant, and an uncultivated creature, and that
+no insult was meant, we had all a hearty laugh, and every thing rolled
+right again.  At length the Baron and his black tail rose to wish us a
+good evening, and we were thinking of finishing off with a cigar and a
+glass of cold grog, when Monsieur B----'s daughter returned into the
+piazza, very pale, and evidently much frightened. "Mon pere," said she
+while her voice quavered from excessive agitation--"My father--why do
+the soldiers remain?"
+
+We all peered into the dark passage, and there, true enough, were the
+black sentries at their posts beside the doorway, still and motionless
+as statues.  Monsieur B----, poor fellow, fell back in his chair at the
+sight, as if he had been shot through the heart.
+
+"My fate is sealed--I am lost--oh, Eugenie!" were the only words he
+could utter.
+
+"No, no," exclaimed the weeping girl, "God forbid--the Baron is a kind
+hearted man--King Henry cannot--no, no--he knows you are not
+disaffected, he will not injure you."
+
+Here one of the black aides--de--camp suddenly returned.  It was the
+poor fellow who had been making love to Eugenie during the
+entertainment.  He looked absolutely blue with dismay; his voice shook,
+and his knees knocked together as he approached our host.
+
+He tried to speak, but could not.  "Oh, Pierre, Pierre," moaned, or
+rather gasped Eugenie, "what have you come to communicate? what dreadful
+news are you the bearer of?" He held out an open letter to poor B----,
+who, unable to read it from excessive agitation, handed it to me.  It
+ran thus:
+
+"MONSIEUR LE BARON,
+Monsieur--has been arrested here this morning; he is a white
+Frenchman, and there are strong suspicions against him.  Place his
+partner M. B----under the surveillance of the police instantly.  You are
+made answerable for his safe custody."
+
+"Witness his Majesty's hand and seal, at Sans Souci, this----"
+
+The Count.
+
+
+"Then I am doomed," groaned poor Mr B----.  His daughter fainted, the
+black officer wept, and having laid his senseless mistress on a sofa, he
+approached and wrung B----'s hand.  "Alas, my dear sir--how my heart
+bleeds!  But cheer up--King Henry is just--all may be right--all may
+still be right; and so far as my duty to him will allow, you may count
+on nothing being done here that is not absolutely necessary for holding
+ourselves blameless with the Government."
+
+Enough and to spare of this.  We slept on shore that night, and a very
+neat catastrophe was likely to have ensued thereupon.  Intending to go
+on board ship at daybreak, I had got up and dressed myself, and opened
+the door into the street to let myself out, when I stumbled unwittingly
+against the black sentry, who must have been half asleep, for he
+immediately stepped several paces back, and presenting his musket, the
+clear barrel glancing in the moonlight, snapped it at me. Fortunately it
+missed fire, which gave me time to explain that it was not M. B----,
+attempting to escape; but that day week he was marched to the prison of
+La Force, near Cape Henry, where his partner had been previously lodged;
+and from that hour to this, neither of them were ever heard of.  Next
+evening I again went ashore, but I was denied admittance to him; and, as
+my orders were imperative not to interfere in any way, I had to return
+on board with a heavy heart.
+
+The day following, Captain Transom and myself paid a formal I visit to
+the black Baron, in order to leave no stone unturned to obtain poor
+B----'s release if we could.  Mr Bang accompanied us.  We found the sable
+dignitary lounging in a grass hammock, (slung from corner to corner of a
+very comfortless room, for the floor was tiled, the windows were
+unglazed, and there was no furniture whatsoever but an old--fashioned
+mahogany sideboard and three wicker chairs) apparently half--asleep, or
+ruminating after his breakfast.  On our being announced by a half--naked
+negro servant, who aroused him, he got up and received us very kindly I
+beg his lordship's pardon, I should write graciously--and made us take
+wine and biscuit, and talked and rattled; but I saw he carefully avoided
+the subject which he evidently knew was the object of our visit.  At
+length, finding it would be impossible for him to parry it much longer
+single--handed, with tact worthy of a man of fashion, he called out
+"Marie!  Marie!" Our eyes followed his, and we saw a young and very
+handsome brown lady rise, whom we had perceived seated at her work when
+we first entered, in a small dark back porch, and advance after
+curtseying to us seriatim, with great elegance, as the old fat niger
+introduced her to us as "Madame la Baronne."
+
+"His wife?" whispered Aaron; "the old rank goat!"
+
+Her brown ladyship did the honours of the wine--ewer with the perfect
+quietude and ease of a well--bred woman.  She was a most lovely clear
+skinned quadroon girl.  She could not have been twenty; tall and
+beautifully shaped.  Her long coal--black tresses were dressed high on
+her head, which was bound round with the everlasting Madras
+handkerchief, in which pale blue was the prevailing colour; but it was
+elegantly adjusted, and did not come down far enough to shade the fine
+development of her majestic forehead--Pasta's in Semiramide was not more
+commanding.  Her eyebrows were delicately arched and sharply defined,
+and her eyes of jet were large and swimming; her nose had not utterly
+abjured its African origin, neither had her lips, but, notwithstanding,
+her countenance shone with all the beauty of expression so conspicuous
+in the Egyptian sphinx Abyssinian, but most sweet--while her teeth were
+as the finest ivory, and her chin and throat, and bosom, as if her bust
+had been an antique statue of the rarest workmanship.  The only
+ornaments she wore were two large virgin gold ear--rings, massive yellow
+hoops without any carving, but so heavy that they seemed to weigh down
+the small thin transparent ears which they perforated; and a broad black
+velvet band round her neck, to which was appended a large massive
+crucifix of the same metal.  She also wore two broad bracelets of black
+velvet clasped with gold.  Her beautifully moulded form was scarcely
+veiled by a cambric chemise, with exceedingly short sleeves, over which
+she wore a rose--coloured silk petticoat, short enough to display a
+finely formed foot and ankle, with a well--selected pearl white silk
+stocking, and a neat low--cut French black kid shoe.  As for gown, she
+had none.  She wore a large--sparkling diamond ring on her marriage
+finger, and we were all bowing before the deity, when our attention was
+arrested by a cloud of dust at the top of the street, and presently a
+solitary black dragoon sparked out from it, his accoutrements and
+headpiece blazing in the sun, then three more abreast, and immediately a
+troop of five--and--twenty cavaliers, or thereabouts, came thundering
+down the street.  They formed opposite the Baron's house, and I will say
+I never saw a better appointed troop of horse anywhere.  Presently an
+aide--de--camp scampered up; and having arrived opposite the door,
+dismounted, and entering, exclaimed, "Les Comtes de Lemonade et
+Marmalade."--"The who?" said Mr Bang; but presently two very handsome
+young men of colour, in splendid uniforms, rode up, followed by a
+glittering staff, of at least twenty mounted officers.  They alighted,
+and entering, made their bow to Baron B----.  The youngest, the Count
+Lemonade, spoke very decent English, and what between Mr Bang's and my
+bad, and Captain Transom's very good, French, we all made ourselves
+agreeable. I may state here, that Lemonade and Marmalade are two
+districts of the island of St Domingo, which had been pitched on by
+Christophe to give titles to two of his fire--new nobility.  The
+grandees had come on a survey of the district, and although we did not
+fail to press the matter of poor B----'s release, yet they either had no
+authority to interfere in the matter, or they would not acknowledge that
+they had, so we reluctantly took leave, and went on shipboard.
+
+"Tom, you villain," said Mr Bang, as we stepped into the boat, "if my
+eye had caught yours when these noblemen made their entree, I should
+have exploded with laughter, and most likely have had my throat cut for
+my pains.  Pray, did his highness of Lemonade carry a punch--ladle in
+his hand? I am sure I expected he of Marmalade to have carried a jelly
+can?  Oh, Tom, at the moment I heard them announced, my dear old mother
+flitted before my mind's eye, with the bright, well--scoured, large
+brass pans in the background, as she superintended her handmaidens in
+their annual preservations."
+
+After the fruitless interview, we weighed, and sailed for Port au
+Prince, where we arrived the following evening.
+
+I had heard much of the magnificence of the scenery in the Bight of
+Leogane, but the reality far surpassed what I had pictured to myself.
+The breeze, towards noon of the following day, had come up in a gentle
+air from the westward, and we were gliding along before it like a spread
+eagle, with all our light sails abroad to catch the sweet zephyr, which
+was not even strong enough to ruffle the silver surface of the
+landlocked sea, that glowed beneath the blazing midday sun, with a
+dolphin here and there cleaving the shining surface with an arrowy
+ripple, and a brown--skinned shark glaring on us, far down in the deep,
+clear, green profound, like a water fiend, and a slow--sailing pelican
+overhead, after a long sweep on poised wing, dropping into the sea like
+lead, and flashing up the water like the bursting of a shell, as we
+sailed up into a glorious amphitheatre of stupendous mountains, covered
+with one eternal forest, that rose gradually from the hot sandy plains
+that skirted the shore; while what had once been smiling fields, and
+rich sugar plantations, in the long misty level districts at their
+bases, were now covered with brushwood, fast rising up into one
+impervious thicket; and as the Island of Conave closed in the view
+behind us to seaward, the sun sank beyond it, amidst rolling masses of
+golden and blood--red clouds, giving token of a goodly day to--morrow,
+and gilding the outline of the rocky islet (as if to a certain depth it
+had been transparent) with a golden halo, gradually deepening into
+imperial purple.  Beyond the shadow of the tree--covered islet, on the
+left hand, rose the town of Port--au--Prince, with its long streets
+rising like terraces on the gently swelling shore, while the mountains
+behind it, still gold tipped in the declining sunbeams, seemed to impend
+frowningly over it, and the shipping in the roadstead at anchor off the
+town were just beginning to fade from our sight in the gradually
+increasing darkness, and a solitary light began to sparkle in a cabin
+window and then disappear, and to twinkle for a moment in the piazzas of
+the houses on shore like a will--of--the--wisp, and the chirping buzz of
+myriads of insects and reptiles was coming off from the island a--stem
+of us, borne on the wings of the light wind, which, charged with rich
+odours from the closing flowers, fanned us "like the sweet south, soft
+breathing o'er a bed of violets," when a sudden flash and a jet of white
+smoke puffed out from the hill--fort above the town, the report
+thundering amongst the everlasting hills, and gradually rumbling itself
+away into the distant ravines and valleys, like a lion growling itself
+to sleep, and the shades of night fell on the dead face of nature like a
+pall, and all was undistinguishable.--When I had written thus far--it
+was at Port--au--Prince, at Mr S----'s--Mr Bang entered--"Ah!  Tom--at
+the log, polishing--using the plane--shaping out something for Ebony
+let me see."
+
+Here our friend read the preceding paragraphs.  They did not please him.
+
+"Don't like it, Tom."
+
+"No?  Pray, why, my dear sir?--I have tried to" "Hold your tongue, my
+good boy."
+
+"Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer,
+List old ladies o'er your tea,
+At description Tom's a tailor,
+When he is compared to me.
+Tooral looral loo."
+
+"Attend--brevity is the soul of wit,--ahem.  Listen how I shall crush
+all your lengthy yam into an eggshell.  'The Bight of Leogane is a
+horseshoe--Cape St Nicholas is the caulker on the northern heel Cape
+Tiberoon, the ditto on the south--Port--au--Prince is the tip at the toe
+towards the east--Conaives, Leogane, Petit Trouve, &c. &c. &c. are the
+nails, and the Island of Gonave is the frog.' Now every human being who
+knows that a horse has four legs and a tail--of course this includes all
+the human race, excepting tailors and sailors--must understand this at
+once; it is palpable and plain, although no man could have put it so
+perspicuously, excepting my friend William Cobbettt or myself.  By the
+way, speaking of horses, that blood thing of the old Baron's nearly gave
+you your quietus t'other day, Tom.  Why will you always pass the flank
+of a horse in place of going ahead of him, to use your own phrase?
+Never ride near a led horse on passing when you can help it; give him a
+wide berth, or clap the groom's corpus between you and his heels; and
+never, never go near the croup of any quadruped bigger than a cat, for
+even a cow's is inconvenient, when you can by any possibility help it."
+
+I laughed--"Well, well, my dear sir--but you undervalue my equestrian
+capability somewhat too, for I do pretend to know that a horse has four
+legs and a tail."
+
+There was no pleasing Aaron this morning, I saw.
+
+"Then, Tummas, my man, you know a deuced deal more than I do.  As for
+the tail, conceditur--but devilish few horses have four legs nowadays,
+take my word for it.  However, here comes Transom; I am off to have a
+lounge with him, and I will finish the veterinary lecture at some more
+convenient season.  Tol lol de rol."--Exit singing.
+
+The morning after this I went ashore at daylight, and, guided by the
+sound of military music, proceeded to the Place Republicain, or square
+before President Petion's palaces where I found eight regiments of foot
+under arms, with their bands playing, and in the act of defiling before
+General Boyer who commanded the arrondissement.  This was the garrison
+of Port--au--Prince, but neither the personal appearance of the troops,
+nor their appointments, were at all equal to those of King Henry's well
+dressed and well drilled cohorts that we saw at Conaives.  The
+President's guards were certainly fine men, and a squadron of dismounted
+cavalry, in splendid blue uniforms, with scarlet trowsers richly laced,
+might have vied with the elite of Nap's own, barring the black faces.
+But the materiel of the other regiments was not superfine, as M. Boyer,
+before whom they were defiling, might have said.
+
+I went to breakfast with Mr S----, one of the English merchants of the
+place, a kind and most hospitable man; and under his guidance, the
+Captain, Mr Bang, and I, proceeded afterwards to call on Petion.
+Christophe, or King Henry, had some time before retired from the siege
+of Port--au--Prince, and we found the town in a very miserable state.
+Many of the houses were injured from shot; the President's palace, for
+instance, was perforated in several places, which had not been repaired.
+In the antechamber you could see the blue heavens through the shot
+holes in the roof.--"Next time I come to court, Tom," said Mr Bang, "I
+will bring an umbrella." Turning out of the parade, we passed through a
+rickety, unpainted open gate, in a wall about six feet high; the space
+beyond was an open green or grass--plot, parched and burned up by the
+sun, with a common fowl here and there fluttering and hotching in the
+hole she had scratched in the and soil; but there was neither sentry nor
+servant to be seen, nor any of the usual pomp and circumstance about a
+great man's dwelling.  Presently we were in front of a long, low, one
+story building, with a flight of steps leading up into an entrance hall,
+furnished with several gaudy sofas, and half--a--dozen chairs with a
+plain wooden floor, on which a slight approach to the usual West India
+polish had been attempted, but mightily behind the elegant domiciles of
+my Kingston friends in this respect.  In the centre of this room stood
+three young officers, fair mulattoes, with their plumed cocked--hats in
+their hands, and dressed very handsomely in French uniforms; and it
+always struck me as curious, that men who hated the very name of
+Frenchman, as the devil hates holy water, should copy all the customs
+and manners of the detested people so closely. I may mention here once
+for all, that Petion's officers, who, generally speaking, were all men
+of colour, and not negroes, were as much superior in education, and, I
+fear I must say, in intellect, as they certainly were in personal
+appearance, to the black officers of King Henry, as his soldiery were
+superior to those of the neighbouring black republic.
+
+"Ah, Monsieur S----, comment vous portez vous? je suis bien aise de vous
+voir," said one of the young officers; "how are you, how have you been?"
+
+"Vous devenez tout a fait rare," quoth a second.  "Le President will be
+delighted to see you.  Why, he says he thought you must have been dead,
+and les messieurs La"
+
+"Who?--introduce us."
+
+It was done in due form--the Honourable Captain Transom, Captain Cringle
+of his Britannic Majesty's schooner, Wave, and Aaron Bang, Esquire.  And
+presently we were all as thick as pickpockets.
+
+"But come, the President will be delighted to see you." We followed the
+officer who spoke, as he marshalled us along, and in an inner chamber,
+wherein there were also several large holes in the ceiling through which
+the sun shone, we found President Petion, the black Washington, sitting
+on a very old ragged sofa, amidst a confused mass of papers, dressed in
+a blue military undress frock, white trowsers, and the everlasting
+Madras handkerchief bound round his brows.  He was much darker than I
+expected to have seen him, darker than one usually sees a mulatto, or
+the direct cross between the negro and the white, yet his features were
+in no way akin to those of an African.  His nose was as high, sharp, and
+well defined as that of any Hindoo I ever saw in the Hoogly, and his
+hair was fine and silky.  In fact, dark as he was, he was at least three
+removes from the African; and when I mention that he had been long in
+Europe--he was even for a short space acting adjutant general of the
+army of Italy with Napoleon--his general manner, which was extremely
+good, kind and affable, was not matter of so much surprise.
+
+He rose to receive us with much grace, and entered into conversation
+with all the ease and polish of a gentleman--"le me porte assez bien
+aujourd'hui; but I have been very unwell, M. S----, so tell me the
+news." Early as it was, he immediately ordered in coffee; it was brought
+by two black servants, followed by a most sylph--like girl, about twelve
+years of age, the President's natural daughter; she was fairer than her
+father, and acquitted herself very gracefully.  She was rigged, pin for
+pin, like a little woman, with a perfect turret of artificial flowers
+twined amongst the braids of her beautiful hair; and although her neck
+was rather overloaded with ornaments, and her poor little ears were
+stretching under the weight of the heavy gold and emerald earrings,
+while her bracelets were like manacles, yet I had never seen a more
+lovely little girl.  She wore a frock of green Chinese crape, beneath
+which appeared the prettiest little feet in the world.
+
+We were invited to attend a ball in the evening, given in honour of the
+President's birthday, and after a sumptuous dinner at our friend
+M. S----'s, we all adjourned to the gay scene.  There was a company of
+grenadiers of the President's guard, with their band, on duty in front
+of the palace, as a guard of honour; they carried arms as we passed, all
+in good style; and at the door we met two aides de--camp in full dress,
+one of whom ushered us into an anteroom, where a crowd of brown, with a
+sprinkling of black ladies, and a whole host of brown and black
+officers, with a white foreign merchant here and there, were drinking
+coffee, and taking refreshments of one kind or another.  The ladies were
+dressed in the very height of the newest Parisian fashion of the day
+hats and feathers, and jewellery, real or fictitious, short sleeves, and
+shorter petticoats fine silks, and broad blonde trimmings and flounces,
+and low--cut corsages--some of them even venturing on rouge, which gave
+them the appearance of purple dahlias; but as to manner, all lady--like
+and proper; while the men, most of them militaires, were as fine as gold
+and silver lace, and gay uniforms, and dress--swords could make them
+and all was blaze, and sparkle, and jingle; but the black officers, in
+general, covered their woolly pates with Madras handkerchiefs, as if
+ashamed to show them, the brown officers alone venturing to show their
+own hair.  Presently a military band struck up with a sudden crash in
+the inner--room, and the large folding doors being thrown open, the
+ballroom lay before us, in the centre of which stood the President,
+surrounded by his very splendid staff, with his daughter on his arm.  He
+was dressed in a plain blue uniform, with gold epaulets, and acquitted
+himself extremely well, conversing freely on European politics, and
+giving his remarks with great shrewdness, and a very peculiar naivete.
+As for his daughter, however much she might appear to have been
+overdressed in the morning, she was now simple in her attire as a little
+shepherdesses plain white muslin frock, white sash, white shoes, white
+gloves, pearl ear--rings and necklace, and a simple, but most beautiful,
+camilla japonica in her hair.  Dancing now commenced, and all that I
+shall say is, that before I had been an hour in the room, I had
+forgotten whether the faces around me were black, brown, or white; every
+thing was conducted with such decorum.  However, I could see that the
+fine jet was not altogether the approved style of beauty, and that many
+a very handsome woolly--headed belle was destined to ornament the walls,
+until a few of the young white merchants made a dash amongst them, more
+for the fun of the thing, as it struck me, than any thing else, which
+piqued some of the brown officers, and for the rest of the evening
+blackee had it hollow. And there was friend Aaron waltzing with a very
+splendid woman, elegantly dressed, but black as a coal, with long kid
+gloves, between which and the sleeve of her gown, a space of two inches
+of the black skin, like an ebony armlet, was visible; while her white
+dress, and rich white satin hat, and a lofty plume of feathers, with a
+pearl necklace and diamond earrings, set off her loveliness most
+conspicuously.  At every wheel round Mr Bang slewed his head a little on
+one side, and peeped in at one of her bright eyes, and then tossing his
+cranium on t'other side, took a squint in at the other, and then cast
+his eyes towards the roof, and muttered with his lips as if he had been
+shot all of a heap by the blind boy's but--shaft; but every now and then
+as we passed, the rogue would stick his tongue in his cheek, yet so
+slightly as to be perceptible to no one but myself.  After this heat,
+Massa Aaron and myself were perambulating the ballroom, quite satisfied
+with our own prowess and I was churming to myself, "Voulez vous dansez,
+mademoiselle"--"De tout mon coeur," said a buxom brown dame, about
+eighteen stone by the coffee--mill in St James's Street.  That devil
+Aaron gave me a look that I swore I would pay him for, the villain; as
+the extensive mademoiselle, suiting the action to the word, started up,
+and hooked on, and as a cotillion had been called, there I was, figuring
+away most emphatically, to Bang and Transom's great entertainment.  At
+length the dance was at an end, And a waltz was once more called, and
+having done my duty, I thought I might slip out between the acts; so I
+offered to hand my solid armful to her seat--"Certainement vouz pouvez
+bien restez encore un moment."
+
+The devil confound you and Aaron Bang, thought I--but waltz I must, and
+away we whirled until the room spun round faster than we did, and when I
+was at length emancipated, my dark fair and fat one whispered, in a
+regular die--away, "J'espere vous revoir bientot." All this while there
+was a heavy firing of champagne and other corks, and the fun grew so
+fast and furious, that I remembered very little more of the matter,
+until the morning breeze whistled through my muslin curtains, or
+musquitto net, about noon on the following day.
+
+I arose, and found mine host setting out to bathe at Madame Le Clerc's
+bath, at Marquesan. I rode with him; and after a cool dip we breakfasted
+with President Petion at his country--house there, and met with great
+kindness.  About the house itself there was nothing particularly to
+distinguish it from many others in the neighbourhood; but the little
+statues, and fragments of marble steps, and detached portions of old
+fashioned wrought--iron railing, which had been grouped together, so as
+to form an ornamental terrace below it, facing the sea, showed that it
+had been a compilation from the ruins of the houses of the rich French
+planters, which were now blackening in the sun on the plain of Leogane.
+A couple of Buenos Ayrean privateers were riding at anchor in the bight
+just below the windows, manned, as I afterwards found, by Americans.
+The President, in his quiet way, after contemplating them through his
+glass, said, "Ces pavilions sont bien neuf."
+
+The next morning, as we were pulling in my gig, no less a man than Massa
+Aaron steering, to board the Arethusa, one of the merchantmen lying at
+anchor off the town, we were nearly run down by getting athwart the bows
+of an American schooner standing in for the port.  As it was, her
+cutwater gave us so smart a crack that I thought we were done for; but
+our Palinurus, finding he could not clear her, with his inherent self
+possession put his helm to port, and kept away on the same course as the
+schooner, so that we got off with the loss of our two larboard oars,
+which were snapped off like parsnips, and a good heavy bump that nearly
+drove us into staves.
+
+"Never mind, my dear sir, never mind," said I; "but hereafter listen to
+the old song:"
+
+'Steer clear of the stem of a sailing ship.'
+
+"Massa Aaron was down on me like lightning"
+
+"Or the stern of a kicking horse, Tom."
+
+While I continued--
+
+'Or you a wet jacket may catch, and a dip.'
+
+He again cleverly clipped the word out of my mouth,
+
+"Or a kick on the croup, which is worse, Tom."
+
+
+"Why, my dear sir, you are an improvisatore of the first quality."
+
+We  rowed ashore, and nothing particular happened that day, until we sat
+down  to  dinner  at Mr S--'s.  We had a very agreeable party.   Captain
+Transom and Mr Bang were, as usual, the life of the company; and it  was
+verging  towards  eight o'clock in the evening, when an English  sailor,
+apparently belonging to the merchant service, came into the piazza,  and
+planted himself opposite to the window where I sat.
+
+He  made  various nautical salaams, until he had attracted my attention.
+"Excuse  me,"  I  said to Mr S----, "there is some  one  in  the  piazza
+wanting me." I rose.
+
+"Are you Captain Transom?" said the man.
+
+"No, I am not.  There is the Captain; do you want him?"
+
+"If you please, sir," said the man.
+
+I called my superior officer into the narrow dark piazza.
+
+"Well, my man," said Transom, "what want you with me?"
+
+"I am sent, sir, to you from the Captain of the Haytian ship, the E----,
+to request a visit from you, and to ask for a prayer book."
+
+"A what?" said Transom.
+
+"A prayer book, sir.  I suppose you know that he and the Captain of that
+other  Haytian  ship,  the  P----, are condemned  to  be  shot  tomorrow
+morning."
+
+"I know nothing of all this," said Transom.  "Do you, Cringle?"
+
+"No, sir," said I.
+
+"Then let us adjourn to the dining room again; or, stop, ask Mr S----and
+Mr Bang to step--here for a moment."
+
+They  appeared;  and  when  Transom explained  the  affair,  so  far  as
+consisted with his knowledge, Mr S----told us that the two unfortunates
+in  question were, one of them, a Guernsey man, and the other a  man  of
+colour, a native of St Vincent's, whom the President had promoted to the
+command  of two Haytian ships that had been employed in carrying  coffee
+to  England;  but  on their last return voyage, they  had  introduced  a
+quantity  of  base Birmingham coin into the Republic; which fact  having
+been  proved on their trial, they had been convicted of treason  against
+the  state,  condemned, and were now under sentence of  death;  and  the
+government being purely military, they were to be shot tomorrow morning.
+A  boat  was  immediately sent on board, the messenger returned  with  a
+prayer book; and we prepared to visit the miserable men.
+
+Mr Bang insisted on joining us--ever first where misery was to be
+relieved--and we proceeded towards the prison.  Following the sailor,
+who was the mate of one of the ships, presently we arrived before the
+door of the place where the unfortunate men were confined.  We were
+speedily admitted; but the building had none of the common appurtenances
+of a prison.  There were neither long galleries, nor strong ironbound
+and clamped doors, to pass through; nor jailers with rusty keys
+jingling; nor fetters clanking; for we had not made two steps past the
+black grenadiers who guarded the door, when a sergeant showed us into a
+long ill--lighted room, about thirty feet by twelve--in truth, it was
+more like a gallery than a room--with the windows into the street open,
+and no precautions taken, apparently at least, to prevent the escape of
+the condemned.  In truth, if they had broken forth, I imagine the kind
+hearted President would not have made any very serious enquiry as to the
+how.
+
+There was a small rickety old card table, covered with tattered green
+cloth, standing in the middle of the floor, which was composed of dirty
+unpolished pitch pine planks, and on this table glimmered two brown wax
+candles, in old fashioned brass candlesticks.  Between us and the table,
+forming a sort of line across the floor, stood four black soldiers, with
+their muskets at their shoulders, while beyond them sat, in old
+fashioned armchairs, three figures, whose appearance I never can forget.
+
+The man fronting us rose on our entrance.  He was an uncommonly handsome
+elderly personage; his age I should guess to have been about fifty.  He
+was dressed in white trowsers and shirt, and wore no coat; his head was
+very bald, but he had large and very dark whiskers and eyebrows, above
+which towered a most splendid forehead, white, massive, and spreading.
+His eyes were deep--set and sparkling, but he was pale, very pale, and
+his fine features were sharp and pinched.  He sat with his hands clasped
+together, and resting on the table, his fingers twitching to and fro
+convulsively, while his under jaw had dropped a little, and from the
+constant motion of his head, and the heaving of his chest, it was clear
+that he was breathing quick and painfully.
+
+The figure on his right hand was altogether a more vulgar--looking
+personage.  He was a man of colour, his caste being indicated by his
+short curly black hair, and his African descent vouched for by his
+obtuse features; but he was composed and steady in his bearing.  He was
+dressed in white trowsers and waistcoat, and a blue surtout; and on our
+entrance he rose, and remained standing.  But the person on the elder
+prisoner's left hand riveted my attention more than either of the other
+two.  She was a respectable looking, little, thin woman, but dressed
+with great neatness, in a plain black silk gown.  Her sharp features
+were high and well formed; her eyes and mouth were not particularly
+noticeable, but her hair was most beautiful--her long shining auburn
+hair--although she must have been forty years of age, and her skin was
+like the driven snow.  When we entered, she was seated on the left hand
+of the eldest prisoner, and was lying back on her chair, with her arms
+crossed on her bosom, her eyes wide open, and staring upwards towards
+the roof, with the tears coursing each other down over her cheeks, while
+her lower jaw had fallen down, as if she had been dead--her breathing
+was scarcely perceptible--her bosom remaining still as a frozen sea, for
+the space of a minute, when she would draw a long breath, with a low
+moaning noise, to which succeeded a convulsive crowing gasp, like a
+child in the hooping--cough, and all would be still again.
+
+At length Captain Transom addressed the elder prisoner.  "You have sent
+for us, Mr----what can we do for you, in accordance with our duty as
+English officers?"
+
+The poor man looked at us with a vacant stare--but his fellow sufferer
+instantly spoke.  "Gentlemen, this is kind--very kind.  I sent my mate
+to borrow a prayer book from you, for our consolation now must flow from
+above--man cannot comfort us."
+
+The female, who was the elder prisoner's wife, suddenly leant forward in
+her chair, and peered intently into Mr Bang's face "Prayer book," said
+she--"prayer book--why, I have a prayer book I will go for my prayer
+book"--and she rose quickly from her seat,
+
+"Restez"--quoth the black sergeant--the word seemed to rouse her--she
+laid her head on her hands, on the table, and sobbed out as if her heart
+were bursting--"Oh God! oh God! is it come to this--is it come to this?"
+the frail table trembling beneath her, with her heart crushing emotion.
+His wife's misery now seemed to recall the elder prisoner to himself.
+He made a strong effort, and in a great degree recovered his composure.
+
+"Captain Transom," said he, "I believe you know our story.  That we have
+been justly condemned I admit, but it is a fearful thing to die,
+Captain, in a strange country, and by the hands of these barbarians, and
+to leave my own dear"--Here his voice altogether failed him--presently
+he resumed.  "The Government have sealed up my papers and packages, and
+I have neither Bible nor prayer book--will you spare us the use of one,
+or both, for this night, sir?"
+
+The Captain said, he had brought a prayer book, and did all he could to
+comfort the poor fellows.  But, alas! their grief "knew not
+consolation's name."
+
+Captain Transom read prayers, which were listened to by both of the
+miserable men with the greatest devotion, while all the while, the poor
+woman never moved a muscle, every faculty appearing to be once more
+frozen up by grief and misery.  At length, the elder prisoner again
+spoke. "I know I have no claim on you, gentlemen; but I am an Englishman
+at least I hope I may call myself an Englishman, and my wife there is
+an Englishwoman--when I am gone oh, gentlemen, what is to become of her?
+If I were but sure that she would be cared for, and enabled to return
+to her friends, the bitterness of death would be past." Here the poor
+woman threw herself round her husband's neck, and gave a shrill sharp
+cry, and relaxing her hold, fell down across his knees, with her head
+hanging back, and her face towards the roof, in a dead faint.  For a
+minute or two, the husband's sole concern seemed to be the condition of
+his wife.
+
+"I will undertake that she shall be sent safe to England, my good man,"
+said Mr Bang.
+
+The felon looked at him--drew one hand across his eyes, which were misty
+with tears, held down his head, and again looked up at length he found
+his tongue.  "That God who rewardeth good deeds here, that God whom I
+have offended, before whom I must answer for my sins by daybreak to
+morrow, will reward you--I can only thank you." He seized Mr Bang's hand
+and kissed it.
+
+With heavy hearts we left the miserable group, and I may mention here,
+that Mr Bang was as good as his word, and paid the poor woman's passage
+home, and, so far as I know, she is now restored to her family.
+
+We slept that night at Mr S----'s, and as the morning dawned we mounted
+our horses, which our worthy host had kindly desired to be ready, in
+order to enable us to take our exercise in the cool of the morning.  As
+we rode past the Place d'armes, or open space in front of the
+President's palace, we heard sounds of military music, and asked the
+first chance passenger what was going on.  "Execution militaire; or
+rather," said the man, "the two sea captains, who introduced the base
+money, are to be shot this morning--there against the rampart." Of the
+fact we were aware, but we did not dream that we had ridden so near the
+whereabouts.
+
+"Ay, indeed?"--said Mr Bang.  He looked towards the Captain.  "My dear
+Transom, I have no wish to witness so horrible a sight, but still--what
+say you--shall we pull up, or ride on?"
+
+The truth was that Captain Transom and myself were both of us desirous
+of seeing the execution--from what impelling motive, let learned
+blockheads, who have never gloated over a hanging, determine; and
+quickly it was determined that we should wait and witness it.
+
+First advanced a whole regiment of the President's guards, then a
+battalion of infantry of the line, close to which followed a whole bevy
+of priests clad in white, which contrasted conspicuously with their
+brown and black faces.  After them marched two firing parties of twelve
+men each, drafted indiscriminately, as it would appear, from the whole
+garrison; for the grenadier cap was there intermingled with the glazed
+shako of the battalion company, and the light morion of the dismounted
+dragoon.  Then came the prisoners.  The elder culprit, respectably
+clothed in white shirt, waistcoat, and trowsers, and blue coat, with an
+Indian silk yellow handkerchief bound round his head.  His lips were
+compressed together with an unnatural firmness, and his features were
+sharpened like those of a corpse.  His complexion was ashy blue.  His
+eyes were half shut, but every now and then he opened them wide, and
+gave a startling rapid glance about him, and occasionally he staggered a
+little in his gait.  As he approached the place of execution, his
+eyelids fell, his under--jaw dropped, his arms hung dangling by his side
+like empty sleeves; still he walked on, mechanically keeping time, like
+an automaton, to the measured tread of the soldiery.  His fellow
+sufferer followed him.  His eye was bright, his complexion healthy, his
+step firm, and he immediately recognised us in the throng, made a bow to
+Captain Transom, and held out his hand to Mr Bang, who was nearest to
+him, and shook it cordially.  The procession moved on.  The troops
+formed into three sides of a square, the remaining one being the earthen
+mound, that constituted the rampart of the place.  A halt was called.
+The two firing parties advanced to the sound of muffled drums, and
+having arrived at the crest of the glacis, right over the counterscarp,
+they halted on what, in a more regular fortification, would have been
+termed the covered way.  The prisoners, perfectly unfettered, advanced
+between them, stepped down with a firm step into the ditch, led each by
+a grenadier.  In the centre of it they turned and kneeled, neither of
+their eyes being bound.  A priest advanced, and seemed to pray with the
+brown man fervently; another offered spiritual consolation to the
+Englishman, who seemed now to have rallied his torpid faculties, but he
+waved him away impatiently, and taking a book from his bosom, seemed to
+repeat a prayer from it with great fervour.  At this very instant of
+time, Mr Bang caught his eye.  He dropped the book on the ground, placed
+one hand on his heart, while he pointed upwards towards heaven with the
+other, calling out in a loud clear voice, "Remember!" Aaron bowed.  A
+mounted officer now rode quickly up to the brink of the ditch, and
+called out, "Depechez."
+
+The priests left the miserable men, and all was still as death for a
+minute.  A low solitary tap of the drum--the firing parties came to the
+recover, and presently taking the time from the sword of the staff
+officer who had spoken, came down to the present, and fired a rattling,
+straggling volley.  The brown man sprang up into the air three or four
+feet, and fell dead; he had been shot through the heart; but the white
+man was only wounded, and had fallen, writhing, and struggling, and
+shrieking, to the ground. I heard him distinctly call out, as the
+reserve of six men stepped into the ditch, "Dans la tete dans la tete."
+One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close to his
+face, fired.  The ball splashed into his skull, through the left eye,
+setting fire to his hair and clothes, and the handkerchief bound round
+his head, and making the brains and blood flash up all over his face,
+and the person of the soldier who had given him the coup de grace.
+
+A strong murmuring noise, like the rushing of many waters, growled
+amongst the ranks and the surrounding spectators, while a short sharp
+exclamation of horror every now and then gushed out shrill and clear,
+and fearfully distinct above the appalling monotony.
+
+The miserable man stretched out his legs and arms straight and rigidly,
+a strong shiver pervaded his whole frame, his jaw fell, his muscles
+relaxed, and he and his brother in calamity became a portion of the
+bloody clay on which they were stretched.
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+
+The Third Cruise of the Wave
+
+'Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean--roll!
+Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain:
+Man marks the earth with ruin--his control
+Stops with the shore,--upon the watery plain
+The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
+A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
+When for a moment, like a drop of rain
+He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
+Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
+
+BYRON, CHILDE HAROLD, IV 1603--11.
+
+
+I  had  been invited to breakfast on board the corvette, on the  morning
+after  this;  and Captain Transom, Mr Bang, and myself, were comfortably
+seated at our meal on the quarterdeck, under the awning, skreened off by
+flags from the view of the men.  The ship was riding to a small westerly
+breeze,  that was rippling up the bight.  The ports on each quarter,  as
+well  as  the  two  in the stern, were open, through  which  we  had  an
+extensive view of Port--au--Prince, and the surrounding country.
+
+"Now, Transom," said our amigo Massa Aaron, "I am quite persuaded that
+the town astern of us there must always have been, and is now,
+exceedingly unhealthy.  Only reflect on its situation; it fronts the
+west, with the hot sickening afternoon's sun blazing on it every
+evening, along the glowing mirror of the calm bight, under whose
+influence the fat black mud that composes the beach must send up most
+pestilent effluvia; while in the forenoon it is shut out from the
+influence of the regular easterly sea--breeze, or trade--wind, by the
+high land behind.  However, as I don't mean to stay here longer than I
+can help, it is not my affair; and as Mr. S----will be waiting for us,
+pray order your carriage, my dear fellow, and let us go on shore."
+
+The carriage our friend spoke of, was the captain's gig, by this time
+alongside, ready manned, each of the six seamen who composed her crew,
+with his oar resting between his knees, the blade pointed upwards
+towards the sky.  We all go in "Shove off" dip fell the oars into the
+water "Give way, men" the good ash staves groaned, and cheeped, and the
+water buzzed, and away we shot towards the wharf.  We landed, and having
+proceeded to Mr S---'s, we found horses ready for us, to take our
+promised ride into the beautiful plain of the Cul de Sac, lying to the
+northward and eastward of the town; the cavalcade being led by Massa
+Aaron and myself, while Mr S----rode beside Captain Transom.
+
+Aforetime, from the estates situated on this most magnificent plain,
+(which extends about fifteen miles into the interior, while its width
+varies from ten to five miles, being surrounded by hills on three
+sides,) there used to be produced no less than thirty thousand hogsheads
+of sugar.  This was during the ancient regime; whereas, now, I believe,
+the only articles it yields beyond plantains, yams, and pot herbs for
+the supply of the town, are a few gallons of syrup, and a few puncheons
+of tafla, a very inferior kind of rum.  The whole extent of the sea
+like plain, for there is throughout scarcely any inequality higher than
+my staff, was once covered with well--cultivated fields and happy homes;
+but now, alas! with brushwood from six to ten feet high,--in truth, by
+one sea of jungle, through which you have to thread your difficult way
+along narrow, hot, sandy bridle--paths, (with the sand flies and
+musquittoes flaying you alive,) which every now and then lead you to
+some old ruinous court--yard, with the ground strewed with broken
+boilers and mill--rollers, and decaying hardwood timbers, and crumbling
+bricks; while, a little further on, you shall find the blackened
+roofless walls of what was most probably an unfortunate planter's once
+happy home, where the midnight brigand came and found peace and comfort,
+and all the elegancies of life, and left--blood and ashes; with the wild
+flowers growing on the window sills, and the prickly pear on the tops
+of the walls, while marble steps, and old shutters, and window hinges,
+and pieces of china, are strewn all about; the only tenant now being
+most likely an old miserable negro who has sheltered himself in a
+coarsely thatched hut, in a corner of what had once been a gay and well
+furnished saloon.
+
+After having extended our ride, under a hot broiling sun, until two
+o'clock in the afternoon, we hove about, and returned towards the town.
+We had not ridden on our homeward journey above three miles, when we
+overtook a tall good--looking negro, dressed in white Osnaburg trowsers,
+rolled up to his knees, and a check shirt.  He wore neither shoes nor
+stockings, but his head was bound round with the usual handkerchief,
+over which he wore a large glazed cocked hat, with a most conspicuous
+Haytian blue--and--red cockade.  He was goading on a jackass before him,
+loaded with a goodly burden apparently; but what it was we could not
+tell, as the whole was covered by a large sheepskin, with the wool
+outermost. I was pricking past the man, when Mr S----sung out to me to
+shorten sail, and the next moment he startled me by addressing the
+pedestrian as Colonel Gabaroche.  The colonel returned the salute, and
+seemed in no way put out from being detected in this rather unmilitary
+predicament.  He was going up to Port--au--Prince to take his turn of
+duty with his regiment.  Presently up came another half--naked black
+fellow, with the same kind of glazed hat and handkerchief under it; but
+he was mounted, and his nag was not a bad one by any means.  It was
+Colonel Gabaroche's Captain of Grenadiers, Papotiere by name.  He was
+introduced to us, and we all moved jabbering along.  At the time I write
+of, the military force of the Haytian Republic was composed of one
+third of the whole male population capable of bearing arms, which third
+was obliged to be on permanent duty for four months every year; but the
+individuals of the quota were allowed to follow their callings as
+merchants, planters, or agriculturists, during the remaining eight
+months; they were, I believe, fed by Government during their four months
+of permanent duty.  The weather, by the time we had ridden a couple of
+miles farther, began to lower, and presently, large heavy drops of rain
+fell, and preserving their globular shape, rolled like peas, or rather
+like bullets, amidst the small finely pulverized dust of the sandy path.
+"Umbrella" was the word--but this was a luxury unknown to our military
+friends.  However, the colonel immediately unfurled a blanket from
+beneath the sheepskin, and sticking his head through a hole in the
+centre of it, there he stalked like a herald in his tabard, with the
+blanket hanging down before and behind him.  As for the captain he
+dismounted, disencumbered himself of his trowsers, which he crammed
+under the mat that served him for a saddle, and taking off his shirt, he
+stowed it away in the capacious crown of his cocked hat, while he once
+more bestrid his Bucephalus in puris naturalibus, but conversing with
+all the ease in the world, and the most perfect sangfroid, while the
+thunder shower came down in bucketfuls.  In about half an hour, we
+arrived at the skirt of the brushwood or jungle, and found on our left
+hand some rice fields, which from appearance we could not have
+distinguished from young wheat; but on a nearer approach, we perceived
+that the soil, if soil it could be called on which there was no walking,
+was a soft mud, the only passages through the fields, and along the
+ridges, being by planks, on which several of the labourers were standing
+as we passed, one of whom turning to look at us, slipped off, and
+instantly sunk amidst the rotten slime up to his waist.  The
+neighbourhood of these rice swamps is generally extremely unhealthy.  At
+length we got on board the Firebrand, drenched to the skin, to a late
+dinner, after which it was determined by Captain Transom--of which
+intention, by the by, with all his familiarity, I had not the smallest
+previous notice--that I should cross the island to Jacmel, in order to
+communicate with the merchant--ships loading there; and by the time I
+returned, it was supposed the Firebrand would be ready for sea, when I
+was to be detached in the Wave, to whip in the craft at the different
+out ports, after which we were all to sail in a fleet to Port Royal.
+
+"I say, skipper," quoth Mr Bang, "I have a great mind to ride with Tom
+what say you?"
+
+"Why, Aaron, you are using me ill; that shaver is seducing you
+altogether; but come, you won't be a week away, and if you want to go, I
+see no objection."
+
+It was fixed accordingly, and on the morrow Mr Bang and I completed our
+arrangements, hired horses, and a guide, and all being in order, clothes
+packed, and every thing else made ready for the cruise, we rode out
+along with Mr S----(we were to dine and sleep at his house) to view the
+fortifications on the hill above the town, the site of Christophe's
+operations when he besieged the place; and pretty hot work they must
+have had of it, for in two different places the trenches of the
+besiegers had been pushed on to the very crest of the glacis, and in one
+the counterscarp had been fairly blown into the ditch, disclosing the
+gallery of the mine behind, as if it had been a cave, the crest of the
+glacis having remained entire.  We walked into it, and Mr S----pointed
+out where the President's troops, in Fort Republicain, had countermined,
+and absolutely entered the other chamber from beneath, after the
+explosion, and, sword in hand, cut off the storming party, (which had by
+this time descended into the ditch,) and drove them up through the
+breach into the fort, where they were made prisoners.
+
+The assault had been given three times in one night, and he trembled for
+the town; however, Petion's courage and indomitable resolution saved
+them all.  For by making a sally from the south gate at grey dawn, even
+when the firing on the hill was hottest, and turning the enemy's flank,
+he poured into the trenches, routed the covering party, stormed the
+batteries, spiked the guns, and that evening's sun glanced on the
+bayonets of King Henry's troops as they raised the siege, and fell back
+in great confusion on their lines, leaving the whole of their battering
+train, and a great quantity of ammunition, behind them.
+
+Next morning we were called at daylight, and having accoutred ourselves
+for the journey, we descended and found two stout ponies, the biggest
+not fourteen hands high, ready saddled, with old fashioned demi piques,
+and large holsters at each of the saddlebows.  A very stout mule was
+furnished for Monsieur Pegtop; and our black guide, who had contracted
+for our transit across the island, was also in attendance, mounted on a
+very active, well--actioned horse.  We had coffee, and started.  By the
+time we reached Leogane, the sun was high and fierce.  Here we
+breakfasted in a low one--story building, our host being no smaller man
+than Major L----of the Fourth Regiment of the line.  We got our
+chocolate, and eggs, and fricasseed fowl, and roasted yam, and in fact
+made, even according to friend Aaron's conception of matters, an
+exceedingly comfortable breakfast.
+
+Mr Bang here insisted on being paymaster, and tendered a sum that the
+black major thought so extravagantly great, considering the
+entertainment we had received, that he declined taking more than one
+half.  However, Mr Bang, after several unavailing attempts to press the
+money on the man, who, by the by, was simply a good looking blackamoor,
+dressed in a check shirt, coarse but clean white duck trowsers, with the
+omnipresent handkerchief bound round his head, and finding that he could
+not persist without giving offence, was about pocketing the same, when
+Pegtop audibly whispered him, "Massa, you ever shee black niger refuse
+money before? but don't take it to heart, massa; me, Pegtop, will pocket
+him, if dat foolis black person won't."
+
+"Thank you for nothing, Master Pegtop," said Aaron.
+
+We proceeded, and rode across the beautiful plain, gradually sloping up
+from the mangrove--covered beach, until it swelled into the first range
+of hills that formed the pedestal of the high precipitous ridge that
+intersected the southern prong of the island, winding our way through
+the ruins of sugar plantations, with fragments of the machinery and
+implements employed in the manufacture scattered about, and half sunk
+into the soil of the fields, which were fast becoming impervious jungle,
+and interrupting our progress along the narrow bridle--paths.  At length
+we began to ascend, and the comparative coolness of the climate soon
+evinced that we were rapidly leaving the hot plains, as the air became
+purer, and thinner, at every turn.  After a long, hot, hot ride, we
+reached the top of the ridge, and turning back had a most magnificent
+view of the whole Bight of Leogane, and of the Horseshoe, and Aaron's
+Frog; even the tops of the mountains above the Mole, which could not
+have been nearer than seventy miles, were visible, floating like islands
+or blue clouds in the misty distance.  Aaron took off his hat, reined
+up, and turning the head of his Bucephalus towards the placid waters we
+had left, stretched forth his hand:
+
+'Ethereal air, and ye swift--winged winds,
+Ye rivers springing from fresh founts, ye waves
+That o'er the  interminable ocean wreathe
+Your crisped smiles, thou all--producing Earth,
+And thee, bright Sun, I call, whose flaming orb
+Views the wide world beneath. See!'
+
+
+Nearly got a stroke of the sun, Tom--what Whiffle would call a cul de
+sac by taking off my chapeau in my poetical frenzy  so shove on.
+
+We continued our journey through most magnificent defiles, and under
+long avenues of the most superb trees, until, deeply embosomed in the
+very heart of the eternal forest, we came to a shady clump of bamboos,
+overhanging, with their ostrich--feather--like plumes, a round pool of
+water, mantled or creamed over with a bright green coating, as if it had
+been vegetable velvet, but nothing akin to the noisome scum that
+ferments on a stagnant pool in England.  It was about the time we had
+promised ourselves dinner, and in fact our black guide and Pegtop had
+dismounted, to make their preparations.
+
+"Why, we surely cannot dine here? you don't mean to drink of that
+stagnant pool, my dear sir?"
+
+"Siste paulisper, my boy," said Mr Bang, as he stooped down, and skimmed
+off the green covering with his hand, disclosing the water below, pure
+and limpid as a crystal--clear fountain.  We dined on the brink, and
+discussed a bottle of vin--de--grave a--piece, and then had a small pull
+at brandy and water; but we ate very little, although I was very hungry,
+but Mr Bang would not let me feed largely.
+
+"Now, Tom, you really do not understand things.  When one rides a
+goodish journey on end--say seventy miles or so--on the same horse, one
+never feeds the trusty creature with half a bushel of oats; at least if
+any wooden spoon does, the chances are he knocks him up. No, no--you
+give him a mouthful of corn, but plenty to drink, little meal and water
+here, and a bottle of porter in water there, and he brings you in
+handsomely.  Zounds! how would you yourself, Tom, like to dine on turtle
+soup and venison, in the middle of a hissing hot ride of sixty miles,
+thirty of them to be covered after the feed?  Lord! what between the
+rich food and the punch, you would have fermented like a brewer's vat
+before you reached the end of the journey; and if you had not a boll
+imperial measure of carbonate of soda with you, the chances are you
+would explode like a catamaran, your head flying through some old
+woman's window, and capsizing her teapot on the one hand, while on the
+other your four quarters are scattered north, south, east, and west. But
+Gaudeamus, sweet is pleasure after pains Tom, and all you sailors and
+tailors--I love to class you together--are tender--not hearted
+creatures.  Strange now that there should be three classes of his
+Majesty's subjects, who never can be taught to ride,--to whom riding is,
+in fact, a physical impossibility; and these three are the aforesaid
+sailors and tailors, and dragoon officers.  However, hand me the brandy
+bottle; and, Pegtop, spate me that black jack that you are rinsing--so.
+Useful commodity, a cup of this kind." here our friend dashed in a large
+qualifier of cognac, "it not only conceals the quality of the water, for
+you can sometimes perceive the animalculae hereabouts without a
+microscope, but also the strength of the libation.  So--a piece of
+biscuit now, and the smallest morsel of that cold tongue--your health,
+Thomas"--a long pull--"speedy promotion to you, Thomas." Here our friend
+rested the jug on his knee.  "Were you ever at a Gaudeamus of
+Presbyterian clergymen on the Monday after the Sacrament Sunday, Tom,
+that is, at the dinner at the manse?"
+
+"No, my dear sir; you know I am an Episcopalian."
+
+"And I am a Roman Catholic.  What then?  I have been at a Gaudeamus, and
+why might not you have been at one too?  Oh the fun of such a meeting!
+the feast of reason, and the flow of Ferintosh, I and the rich stories,
+ay, fatter than ever I would venture on, and the cricket--like chirps of
+laughter of the probationer, and the loud independent guffaw of the
+placed minister, and the sly innuendos about the land round the Jordan,
+when our freens get half foo.  Oh how I honour a Gaudeamus!  And why,"
+he continued, "should the excellent men not rejoice, Tom?  Are they not
+the very men who should be happy?  Is a minister to be for ever boxed up
+in his pulpit--for ever to be wagging his pow, bald, black, or grizzled
+as it may be, beneath his sounding board, like a bullfrog below a
+toadstool.  And like the aforesaid respectable quadruped or biped (it
+has always puzzled me which to call it), is he never to drink any thing
+stronger than water? Hath not a minister eyes? hath not a minister
+hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?  Fed with the
+same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
+healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and
+summer, that another man is?  If you prick them, do they not bleed?  If
+you tickle them, do they not laugh? And shall we grudge them a
+Caudeamus now and then?  Shall opera peracta ludemus be in the mouths of
+an mankind, from the dirty little greasy--faced schoolboy, who wears a
+red gown and learns the Humanities and Whiggery in the Nineveh of the
+West, I as the Bailie glories to call it, to the King upon his throne,
+and a dead letter, as well as a dead language, to them, and them only?
+Forbid it, the Honourable the Lord Provost--forbid it, the Honourable
+the Lord Provost and all the Bailies, and those who sit in Council with
+them!  Forbid it,--the whole august aggregate of terror to evildoers,
+and praise of them who do well!  Forbid it, the Devil and Dr Faustus!"
+
+By this time I had smuggled the jug out of our amigo's claw, and had
+done honour to his pledge.  "Do you know, my dear Mr Bang, I have always
+been surprised that a man of your strong intellect, and clear views of
+most matters, should continue, in profession at least, a Roman
+Catholic?"
+
+Aaron looked at me with a seriousness, an unaffected seriousness in his
+manner, that possessed me with the notion that I had taken an
+unwarrantable liberty.  "Profession," at length said he, slowly and
+deliberately, apparently weighing every word carefully as it fell from
+him, as one is apt to do when approaching an interesting subject, on
+which you desire not to be misunderstood--"Profession--what right have
+you to assume this of me or any man, that my mode of faith is but
+profession?" and then the kind--hearted fellow, perceiving that his
+rebuke had mortified me, altering his tone, continued, but still with a
+strong tinge of melancholy in his manner--"Alas!  Tom, how often will
+weak man, in his great arrogance, assume the prerogative of his Maker,
+and attempt to judge--honestly, we will even allow, according to his
+conception--of the heart and secret things of another, but too often, in
+reality, by the evil scale of his own!  Shall the potsherd say to his
+frail fellow, Thou art weak, but I am strong? Shall the moudiewort say
+to his brother mole--(I say, Quashie, mind that mule of yours don't
+snort in the water, will ye?)--Blind art thou, but lo, I see? Ah, Tom,
+I am a Roman Catholic; but is it thou who shalt venture down into the
+depths of my heart, and then say, whether I be so in profession only, or
+in stern unswerving sincerity?"
+
+I found I had unwittingly touched a string that vibrated to his heart.
+"I am a Roman Catholic, but, I humbly trust, not a bigoted one; for were
+it not against the canons of both our churches, I fear I should incline
+to the doctrine of Pope."
+
+'He can't be wrong whose life is in the right.'
+
+"My fathers, Tom, were all Catholics before me; they may have been wrong;
+but  I am only my father's son--not a better, and, I fear, I fear, not
+so  wise  a man.--Pray, Tom, did you ever hear of even a good Jew,  who,
+being converted, did not become a bad Christian?  Have you not all  your
+life  had a repugnance to consort with a sinner converted from the faith
+of  his  fathers,  whether  they  were  Jews  or  Gentiles,  Hindoos  or
+Mahomedans, dwellers in Mesopotamia, or beyond Jordan?  You have such  a
+repugnance, Tom, I know; and I have it too."
+
+"Well," I proceeded, on the strength of the brandy grog, "in the case of
+an  unenlightened, or ignorant, or half--educated man,  I  might  indeed
+suspect duplicity, or even hypocrisy, at the bottom of the abjuration of
+his  fathers  creed;  but  in  a  gentleman  of  your  acquirements  and
+knowledge"
+
+"There  again  now,  Cringle, you are wrong.  The  clodhopper  might  be
+conscientious in a change of creed, but as to the advantage I have  over
+him  from superior knowledge!--Knowledge, Tom! what do I know--what does
+the greatest and the best of us know--to venture on a saying somewhat of
+the tritest--but that he knows nothing?  Oh, my dear boy, you and I have
+hitherto  consorted together on the deck of life, so to speak, with  the
+bright joyous sun sparkling, and the blue heavens laughing overhead, and
+the  clear  green sea dancing under foot, and the merry  breeze  buzzing
+past us right cheerily.  We have seen but the fair--weather side of each
+other,  Thomas,  without  considering  that  all  men  have  their  deep
+feelings, that lie far, far down in the hold of their hearts, were  they
+but  stirred up.  Ay, you smile at my figures, but I repeat  it--in  the
+deep  hold  of  their hearts; and may I not follow out  the  image  with
+verity  and  modesty, and say that those feelings, often  too  deep  for
+tears,  are  the ballast that keeps the whole ship in trim, and  without
+which  we should be every hour of our existence liable to be driven  out
+of  our heavenward course, yea, to broach--to and founder, and sink  for
+ever,  under one of the many squalls in this world of storms?  And here,
+in this most beautiful spot, with the deep, dark, crystal--clear pool at
+our  feet,  fringed with the velvet grass, and the green quivering  leaf
+above  flickering between us and the bright blue cloudless sky, and  the
+everlasting rocks, with those diamond--like tears trickling  down  their
+rugged  cheeks,  impending over us,--and those gigantic  gnarled  trees,
+with  their  tracery of black withes fantastically tangled, whose  naked
+roots  twist  and  twine amongst the fissures, like serpents  trying  to
+shelter  themselves  from the scorching rays of the  vertical  sun,  and
+those  feather--like  bamboos high arching overhead,  and  screening  us
+under  their  noble canopy,--and the cool plantains, their broad  ragged
+leaves  bending under the weight of dew--spangles, and the  half--opened
+wild--flowers,--yea,  even here, the ardent  noontide  sleeping  on  the
+hill,  when even the quickeyed lizard lies still, and no longer  rustles
+through  the  dry grass, and there is not a breath of air strong  enough
+out  of  heaven to stir the gossamer that floats before us, or  to  wave
+that  wild flower on its hair like stem, or to ruffle the fairy  plumage
+of  the  humming--bird, that, against the custom of  its  kind,  is  now
+quietly   perched  thereon;  and  while  the  bills  of  the  chattering
+paroquets,  that are peering at us from the branches above, are  closed,
+and  the woodpecker interrupts his tapping to look down upon us, and the
+only  sound we hear is the moaning of the wood--pigeon, and the  lulling
+buzz of myriads of happy insects booming on the ear, loud as the rushing
+of  a  distant  waterfall--(Confound these  musquittoes,  though!)--Even
+here, on this:"
+
+'So sweet a spot of earth, you might, I ween,
+Have guessed some congregation of the elves,
+To sport by summer moons, had shaped it for themselves.'
+
+Even  in such a place could I look forward without a shudder, to set  up
+my  everlasting rest, to lay my weary bones in the earth, and to  mingle
+my  clay  with  that whereout it was moulded.  No fear of being  houcked
+here, Thomas, and preserved in a glass case, like a stuffed woodcock, in
+Surgeons  Hall.  I  am  a  barbarian, Tom, in these  respects--I  am  a
+barbarian,  and  nothing of a philosopher.  Quiero  Paz  is  to  be  my
+epitaph.  Quiero Paz--'Cursed be he who stirs these bones.' Did not even
+Shakspeare write it?  What poetry in this spot, Thomas!  Oh,
+
+'There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
+There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
+There is society, where none intrudes,
+By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
+I love not man the less, but nature more,
+From these our interviews, in which I steal
+From all I may be, or have been before,
+To mingle with the universe, and feel
+What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.'
+
+"Yes, even here where nature is all beautiful and every thing, and man
+abject and nothing even here, Tom, amidst the loneliness of earth,
+rugged and half--mad as you must sometimes have thought me, a fellow
+wholly made up of quips and jests,--even I at this moment could, like an
+aboriginal Charibl of the land, 'lift up my voice to the Great Spirit,'
+and kneel, and weep, and pray."
+
+I was much moved.
+
+"You have spoken of knowledge, Tom.  Knowledge--what do I know?  Of
+myself I know as little as I do of any other grub that crawls on the
+surface of this world of sin and suffering; and what I do know, adds
+little to my self--esteem, Tom, and affords small encouragement to
+enquire further.--Knowledge, say you?  How is that particle of sand
+here? I cannot tell.  How grew that blade of grass?  I do not know.
+Even when I look into that jug of brandy grog, (I'll trouble you for it,
+Thomas,) all that I know is, that if I drink it, it will make me drunk,
+and a more desperately wicked creature, if that were possible, than I am
+already.  And when I look forth on the higher and more noble objects of
+the visible creation, abroad on this beautiful earth, above on the
+glorious universe studded with shining orbs, without number numberless,
+what can I make of them?  Nothing absolutely nothing--yet they are all
+creatures like myself.  But--if I try--audaciously try--to strain my
+finite faculties, in the futile attempt to take in what is infinite--if
+I aspiringly, but hopelessly, grapple with the idea of the immensity of
+space, for instance, which my reason yet tells me must of necessity be
+boundless--do I not fall fluttering to the earth again, like an owl
+flying against the noontide sun?  Again, when I venture to think of
+eternity--ay, when, reptile as I feel myself to be, I even look up
+towards heaven, and bend my erring thoughts towards the Most High, the
+Maker of all things, who was, and is, and is to come; whose flaming
+minister, even while I speak, is pouring down a flood of intolerable day
+on one half of the dry earth, and all that therein is; and when I
+reflect on what this tremendous, this inscrutable Being has done for me
+and my sinful race, so beautifully shown forth in both our creeds, what
+do I know? but that I am a poor miserable worm, crushed before the moth,
+whose only song should be the miserere, whose only prayer 'God be
+merciful to me a sinner!"
+
+There was a long pause, and I began to fear that my friend was shaken in
+his mind, for he continued to look steadfastly into the clear black
+water, where he had skimmed off the green velvet coating with his stick.
+
+"Ay, and is it even so? and is it Tom Cringle who thinks and says that I
+am a man likely to profess to believe what he knows in his heart to be a
+lie?  A Roman Catholic!  Had I lived before the Roman Conquest I would
+have been a Druid, for it is not under the echoing domes of our
+magnificent cathedrals, with all the grandeur of our ritual, the flaming
+tapers, and bands of choristers, and the pealing organ, and smoking
+censers, and silver--toned bells, and white--robed priests, that the
+depths of my heart are stirred up.  It is here, and not in a temple made
+with hands, however gorgeous--here, in the secret places of the
+everlasting forest,--it is in such a place as this that I feel the
+immortal spark within me kindling into a flame, and wavering up
+heavenward. I am superstitious, Thomas, I am superstitious, when left
+alone in such a scene as this. I can walk through a country churchyard
+at midnight, and stumble amongst the rank grass that covers the graves
+of those I have lived with and loved, even if they be 'green in death,
+and festering in their shrouds,' with the wind moaning amongst the
+stunted yew--trees, and the rain splashing and scattering on the moss
+covered tombstones, and the blinding blue lightning flashing, while the.
+headstones glance like an array of sheeted ghosts, and the thunder is
+grumbling overhead, without a qualm--direness of this kind cannot once
+daunt me; it is here and now, when all nature sleeps in the ardent
+noontide, that I become superstitious, and would not willingly be left
+alone.  Thoughts too deep for tears!--ay, indeed, and there be such
+thoughts, that, long after time has allowed them to subside, and when,
+to the cold eye of the world, all is clear and smooth above, will, when
+stirred up, like the sediment of this fountain of the wood, discolour
+and embitter the whole stream of life once more, even after the lapse of
+long long years.  When my heart crushing loss was recent--when the wound
+was green, I could not walk abroad at this to me witching time of day,
+without a stock or a stone, a distant mark on the hill--side, or the
+outline of the grey cliff above, taking the very fashion of her face, or
+figure, on which I would gaze, and gaze, as if spell--bound, until I
+knew not whether to call it a grouping of the imagination, or a reality
+from without--or her, with whom I fondly hoped to have travelled the
+weary road of life.  Friends approved--fortune smiled--one little month,
+and we should have been one; but it pleased Him, to whom in my present
+frame of mind I dare not look up, to blight my beautiful flower, to
+canker my rose--bud, to change the fair countenance of my Elizabeth, and
+send her away.  She drooped and died, even like that pale flower under
+the scorching sun; and I was driven forth to worship Mammon, in these
+sweltering climes; but the sting remains, the barbed arrow sticks fast."
+
+Here the cleared surface of the water, into which he was steadfastly
+looking, was gradually contracted into a small round spot about a foot
+in diameter, by the settling back of the green floating matter that he
+had skimmed aside.  His countenance became very pale; he appeared even
+more excited than he had hitherto been.
+
+"By heavens! look in that water, if the green covering of it has not
+arranged itself round the clear spot into the shape of a medallion into
+her features! I had dreamed of such things before, but now it is a
+palpable reality--it is her face--her straight nose--her Grecian upper
+lip--her beautiful forehead, and her very bust!--even,"
+
+'As when years apace had bound her lovely waist with woman's zone.'
+
+"Oh, Elizabeth--Elizabeth!"
+
+
+Here his whole frame shook with the most intense emotion, but at length,
+tears,  unwonted tears, did come to his relief, and he hid his  face  in
+his  hands,  and wept bitterly. I was now convinced he was  mad,  but  I
+durst  not  interrupt him.  At length he slowly removed  his  hands,  by
+which  time,  however, a beautiful small black diver,  the  most  minute
+species of duck that I ever saw--it was not so big as my fist--but which
+is  common in woodland ponds in the West Indies, had risen in the centre
+of  the  eye  of  the fountain, while all was so still that  it  floated
+quietly  like a leaf on the water, apparently without the least fear  of
+us.
+
+"The devil appeared in Paradise under the shape of a cormorant," said Mr
+Bang,  half  angrily, as he gazed sternly at the unlooked  for  visitor;
+"what imp art thou?"
+
+Tip--the little fellow dived; presently it rose again in the same place,
+and  lifting  up its little foot, scratched the side of its tiny  yellow
+bill  and  little red--spotted head, shook its small wings,  bright  and
+changeable  as shot silk, with a snow--white pen--feather in  each,  and
+then tipped up its little purple tail, and once more disappeared.
+
+Aaron's  features were gradually relaxing; a change was coming over  the
+spirit  of his dream.  The bird appeared for the third time, looked  him
+in  the  face,  first  turning up one little  sparkling  eye,  and  then
+another,  with its neck changing its hues like a pigeon's.  Aaron  began
+to  smile; he gently raised his stick--"Do you cock your fud at me,  you
+tiny  thief, you?"--and thereupon he struck at it with his stick.  Tip
+the  duck  dived,  and did not rise again; and all that  he  got  was  a
+sprinkling shower in the face, from the water flashing up at  his  blow,
+and once more the green covering settled back again, and the bust of his
+dead  love,  or  what he fancied to be so, disappeared.   Aaron  laughed
+outright, arose, and began to shout to the black guide, who, along  with
+Pegtop,  had  taken  the beasts into the wood in  search  of  provender.
+"Ayez  le  bont  de donnez moi mon cheval?  Bring us the  horsos,  Massa
+Bungo--venga los quadrupedos--make haste, vite, mucho, mucho."
+
+Come, there is my Massa Aaron once more, at all events, thought I; but
+oh, how unlike the Aaron of five minutes ago!
+
+"So now let us mount, my boy," said he, and we shoved along until the
+evening fell, and the sun bid us good--by very abruptly.  "Cheep,
+Cheep," sung the lizards--"chirp, chirp," sung the crickets, "snore,
+snore," moaned the tree--toad--and it was night.
+
+"Dame Nature shifts the scene without much warning here, Thomas," said
+Massa Aaron; "we must get along, Doechez, mon cher--doechez, diggez
+votre spurs into the flankibus of votre cheval, mon ami," shouted Aaron
+to our guide.
+
+"Oui, monsieur," replied the man, 'mais'
+
+I did not like this ominous "but," nevertheless we rode on.  No more did
+Massa Aaron.  The guide repeated his mais again.  "Mais, mon filo," said
+Bang, "mais--que meanez vous by baaing comme un sheep, eh?  Que vizzy
+vous, eh?"
+
+We were at this time riding in a bridle--road, to which the worst sheep
+paths in Westmoreland would have been a railway, with our horses every
+now and then stumbling and coming down on their noses on the deep red
+earth, while we as often stood a chance of being pitched bodily against
+some tree on the pathside.  But we were by this time all alive again,
+the dullness of repletion having evaporated; and Mr Bang, I fancied,
+began to peer anxiously about him, and to fidget a good deal, and to
+murmur and grumble something in his gizzard about "arms--no arms," as,
+feeling in his starboard holster, he detected a regular long cork of
+claret, where he had hoped to clutch a pistol, while in the larboard, by
+the praiseworthy forethought of our guide, a good roasted capon was
+ensconced.  "I say, Tom tohoo mind I don't shoot you," presenting the
+bottle of claret.  "If it had been soda water, and the wire not all the
+stronger, I might have had a chance in this climate--but we are somewhat
+caught here, my dear we have no arms."
+
+"Poo," said I, "never mind--no danger at hand, take my word for it."
+
+"May be not, may be not--but, Pegtop, you scoundrel, why did you not
+fetch my pistols?"
+
+"Eigh, you go fight, massa?"
+
+"Fight! no, you booby; but could not your own numscull--the fellow's a
+fool--so come--ride on, ride on."
+
+Presently we came to an open space, free of trees, where the moon shone
+brightly; it was a round precipitous hollow, that had been excavated
+apparently by the action of a small clear stream or spout of water, that
+sparkled in the moonbeams like a web of silver tissue, as it leaped in a
+crystal arch over our heads from the top of a rock about twenty feet
+high, that rose on our right hand, the summit clearly and sharply
+defined against the blue firmament, while, on the left, was a small
+hollow or ravine, down which the rivulet gurgled and vanished; while
+ahead the same impervious forest prevailed, beneath which we had been
+travelling for so many hours.
+
+The road led right through this rugged hollow, crossing it about the
+middle, or, if any thing, nearer the base of the cliff; and the whole
+clear space between the rock and the branches of the opposite trees
+might have measured twenty yards.  In front of us, the path took a turn
+to the left, as if again entering below the dark shadow of the wood; but
+towards the right, with the moon shining brightly on it, there was a
+most beautiful bank, clear of underwood, and covered with the finest
+short velvet grass that could be dreamed of as a fitting sward to be
+pressed by fairy feet.  We all halted in the centre of the open space.
+
+"See how the moonlight sleeps on yonder bank!" said I.
+
+"I don't know what sleeps there, Tom," said Aaron; "but does that figure
+sleep, think you?" pointing to the dark crest of the precipitous
+eminence of the right hand, from which the moonlight rill was gushing,
+as if it had been smitten by the rod of the Prophet.
+
+I started, and looked--a dark half--naked figure, with an enormous cap
+of the shaggy skin of some wild creature, was kneeling on one knee, on
+the very pinnacle with a carabine resting across his thigh.  I noticed
+our guide tremble from head to foot, but he did not speak.
+
+"Vous avez des arms?" said Bang, as he continued with great fluency, but
+little grammar; "ayez le bonte de cockez votre pistolettes?"
+
+The man gave no answer.  We heard the click of the carabine lock.
+
+"Zounds!" said Aaron, with his usual energy when excited, "if you won't
+use them, give them to me;" and forthwith he snatched both pistols from
+our guide's holsters.  "Now, Tom, get on.  Shove t'other blackie a--head
+of you, Pegtop, will you?  Confound you for forgetting my Mantons, you
+villain.  I will bring up the rear."
+
+"Well, I will get on," said I. "but here, give me a pistol."
+
+"Ridez vous en avant, blackimoribus ambos--en avant, you black rascals
+laissez le Capitan and me pour fightez"--shouted Bang, as the black
+guide, guessing his meaning, spurred his horse against the moonlight
+bank.
+
+"Ah--ah!" exclaimed the man, as he wheeled about after he had ridden a
+pace or two under the shadow of the trees--"Voila ces autres brigands
+la."
+
+"Where?" said I.
+
+"There," said the man in an ecstasy of fear--"there"--and peering up
+into the forest, where the checkering dancing moonlight was flickering
+on the dun, herbless soil, as the gentle night--breeze made the leaves
+of the trees twinkle to and fro, I saw three dark figures advancing upon
+us.
+
+"Here's a catastrophe, Tom, my boy" quoth Aaron, who, now that he had
+satisfied himself that the pistols were properly loaded and primed, had
+resumed all his wonted coolness in danger.  "Ask that fellow who is
+enacting the statue on the top of the rock what he wants. I am a
+tolerable shot, you know; and if he means evil, I shall nick him before
+he can carry his carabine to his shoulder, take my word for it."
+
+"Who is there, and what do you want?" No answer, the man above us
+continued as still as if he had actually been a statue of bronze.
+Presently one of the three men in the wood sounded a short snorting note
+on a bullock's horn.
+
+It would seem that until this moment their comrade above us had not been
+aware of their vicinity, for he immediately called out in the patois of
+St Domingo, "advance, and seize the travellers;" and thereupon was in
+the act of raising his piece to his shoulder, when crack--Bang tired his
+pistol.  The man uttered a loud hah, but did not fall.
+
+"Missed him, by all that is wonderful!" said my companion.  "Now, Tom,
+it is your turn."
+
+I levelled, and was in the very act of pulling the trigger, when the
+dark figure fell over slowly and stiffly on his back, and then began to
+struggle violently, and to cough loudly, as if he were suffocating.  At
+length he rolled over and down the face of the rock, where he was caught
+by a strong clump of brushwood, and there he hung, while the coughing
+and crowing increased, and I felt a warm shower, as of heated water,
+sputter over my face.  It was hot hot and salt--God of my fathers! it
+was blood.  But there was no time for consideration; the three figures
+by this had been reinforced by six more, and they now, with a most
+fiendish yell, jumped down into the hollow basin, and surrounded us.
+
+"Lay down your arms," one of them shouted.
+
+"No," I exclaimed; "we are British officers, and armed, and determined
+to sell our lives dearly; and if you do succeed in murdering us, you may
+rest assured you shall be hunted down by bloodhounds."
+
+I thought the game was up, and little dreamed that the name of Briton
+would, amongst the fastnesses of Haiti, have proved a talisman; but it
+did so.  "We have no wish to injure you, but you must follow us, and see
+our general," said the man who appeared to take the lead amongst them.
+Here two of the men scrambled up the face of the rock, and brought their
+wounded comrade down from where he hung, and laid him on the bank; he
+had been shot through the lungs, and could not speak.  After a minute's
+conversation, they lifted him on their shoulders; and as our guide and
+Monsieur Pegtop had been instantly bound, we were only two to nine armed
+men, and accordingly had nothing for it but to follow the bearers of the
+wounded man, with our horses tumbling and scrambling up the river
+course, into which, by their order, we had now turned.
+
+We proceeded in this way for about half a mile, when it was evident that
+the jaded beasts could not travel farther amongst the twisted trunks of
+trees and fragments of rock with which the river--course was now
+strewed.  We therefore dismounted, and were compelled to leave them in
+charge of two of the brigands, and immediately began to scramble up the
+hill--side, through a narrow footpath, in one of the otherwise most
+impervious thickets that I had ever seen.  Presently a black savage,
+half--naked like his companions, hailed, and told us to stand.  Some
+password that we could not understand was given by our captors, and we
+proceeded, still ascending, until, turning sharp off to the left, we
+came suddenly round a pinnacle of rock, and looked down into a deep
+dell, with a winding path leading to the brink of it.  It was a round
+cockpit of a place, surrounded with precipitous limestone--rocks on all
+sides, from the fissures of which large trees and bushes sprung, while
+the bottom was a level piece of ground, covered with long hay--like
+grass, evidently much trodden down.  Close to the high bank, right
+opposite, and about thirty yards from us, a wood--fire was sparkling
+cheerily against the grey rock; while, on the side next us, the roofs of
+several huts were visible, but there was no one moving about that we
+could see.  The moment, however, that the man with the horn sounded a
+rough and most unmelodious blast, there was a buzz and a stir below, and
+many a short grunt arose out of the pit, and long yawns, and eigh,
+eighs! while a dozen splinters of resinous wood were instantly lit, and
+held aloft, by whose light I saw fifty or sixty half--naked, but well
+armed blacks, gazing up at us from beneath, their white eyes and whiter
+teeth glancing.  Most of them had muskets and long knives, and several
+wore the military shake, while others had their heads bound round with
+the never--failing handkerchief.  At length a fierce--looking fellow,
+dressed in short drawers, a round blue jacket, a pair of epaulets, and a
+most enormous cocked hat, placed a sort of rough ladder, a prank with
+notches cut in it with a hatchet, against the bank next us, and in a
+loud voice desired us to descend. I did so with fear and trembling, but
+Mr Bang never lost his presence of mind for a moment; and, in answer to
+the black chief's questions, I again rested our plea on our being
+British officers, despatched on service from a squadron (and as I used
+the word, the poor little Wave and solitary corvette rose up before me)
+across the island to Jacmel, to communicate with another British force
+lying there.  The man heard me with great patience; but when I looked
+round the circle of tatterdemalions, for there was ne'er a shirt in the
+whole company--Falstaff's men were a joke to them--with their bright
+arms sparkling to the red glare of the torches, that flared like tongues
+of flame overhead, while they grinned with their ivory teeth, and glared
+fiercely with their white eyeballs on us--I felt that our lives were not
+worth an hour's purchase.
+
+At length the leader spoke--"I am General Sanchez, driven to dispute
+President Petion's sway by his injustice to me--but I trust our quarrel
+is not hopeless; will you, gentlemen, on your return to Port--au--Prince,
+use your influence with him to withdraw his decree against me?"
+
+This was so much out of the way the idea of our being deputed to
+mediate between such great personages as President Petion and one of his
+rebel generals, was altogether so absurd, that, under other
+circumstances, I would have laughed in the black fellow's face.
+However, a jest here might have cost us our lives; so we looked serious,
+and promised.
+
+"Upon your honours"--said the poor fellow.
+
+"Upon our words of honour"--we rejoined.
+
+"Then embrace me"--and the savage thereupon, stinking of tobacco and
+cocoa--nut oil, hugged me, and kissed me on both cheeks, and then did
+the agreeable in a similar way to Mr Bang.  Here the coughing and
+moaning of the wounded man broke in upon the conference.
+
+"What is that?" said Sanchez.  One of his people told him.  "Ah!" said
+he, with a good deal of savageness in his tone--"A--ha! blood?"
+
+We promptly explained how it happened;--for a few moments, I did not
+know how he might take it.
+
+"But I forgive you," at length said he--"however, my men may revenge
+their comrade.  You must drink and eat with them."
+
+This was said aside to us, as it were.  He ordered some roasted
+plantains to be brought, and mixed some cruel bad tafia with water in an
+enormous gourd.  He ate, and then took a pull himself we followed,--and
+he then walked round the circle, and carefully observed that every one
+had tasted also.  Being satisfied on this head, he abruptly ordered us
+to ascend the ladder, and to pass on our way.
+
+The poor fellow was mad, I believe.  However, some time afterwards, the
+President hunted him down, and got hold of him, but I believe he never
+punished him.  As for the wounded man, whether he did live or die, Tom
+Cringle does not know.
+
+We  were  reconducted by our former escort to where we left our  horses,
+remounted, and without farther let or hinderance arrived by day dawn  at
+the  straggling  town of Jacmel.  The situation is very  beautiful,  the
+town  being  built on the hillside, looking out seaward on a  very  safe
+roadstead, the anchorage being defended to the southward by bright  blue
+shoals, and white breakers, that curl and roar over the coral reefs  and
+ledges.   As  we  rode up to Mr S----'s, the principal merchant  in  the
+place,  and  a  Frenchman,  we were again struck  with  the  dilapidated
+condition  of the houses, and the generally ruinous state of  the  town.
+The brown and black population appeared to be lounging about in the most
+absolute  idleness; and here, as at Port--au--Prince, every  second  man
+you  met was a soldier.  The women sitting in their little shops, nicely
+set  out  with  a  variety of gay printed goods, and the  crews  of  the
+English vessels loading coffee, were the only individuals who seemed  to
+be capable of any exertion.
+
+"I say, Tom," quoth Massa Aaron, "do you see that old fellow there?"
+
+"What? that old grey--headed negro sitting in the arbour there?"
+
+"Yes--the patriarch is sitting under the shadow of his own Lima bean."
+
+And so in very truth he was.  The stem was three inches in diameter, and
+the  branches had been trained along and over a sparred arch,  and  were
+loaded with pods.
+
+"I shall believe in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, henceforth and
+for ever," said I.
+
+We were most kindly entertained by Mr S----, and spent two or three days
+very happily.  The evening of the day on which we arrived, we had
+strolled out about nine o'clock to take the air--our host and his clerks
+being busy in the counting--house--and were on our way home, when we
+looked in on them at their desks, before ascending to the apartments
+above.  There were five clerks and Mr S----, all working away on the top
+of their tall mahogany tripods, by the light of their brown home--made
+wax candles, while three masters of merchantmen were sitting in a
+corner, comparing bills of lading, making up manifests, and I do not
+know what beside.
+
+"It is now about time to close," said Mr S----; "have you any objection
+to a little music, gentlemen? or are you too much fatigued?"
+
+"Music--music," said Mr Bang, "I delight in good music, but"--He was
+cut short by the whole bunch, the clerks and their master, closing their
+ledgers, and journals, and day--books, and cashbooks with a bang, while
+one hooked up a fiddle, another a clarionet, another a flute, &c, while
+Mr S----offered, with a smile, his own clarionet to Massa Aaron, and
+holding out at the same time, with the true good--breeding of a
+Frenchman, a span--new reed.  To my unutterable surprise he took it
+sucked in his lips--wet the reed in his mouth; then passing his hand
+across his muzzle, coolly asked Mr S----what the piece was to be?
+"Adeste fideles, if you please," said S----, rather taken aback.  Mr
+Bang nodded--sounded a bar or two gave another very scientific flourish,
+and then calmly awaited the opening.  He then tendered a fiddle to me
+altogether beyond my compass--but I offered to officiate on the
+kettledrum, the drummer being competent to something else.  At a signal
+from our host away they all launched in full crash, and very melodious
+it was too, let me tell you, Aaron's instrument telling most famously.
+
+The next day we went to visit a tafia property in the neighbourhood.  On
+our way we passed a dozen miserable--looking blacks, cleaning canes,
+followed by an ugly Turk of a brown man, almost naked, with the
+omnipresent glazed cocked--hat, and a drawn cutlass in his hand.  He was
+abusing the poor devils most lustily as we rode along, and stood so
+pertinaciously in the path, that I could not for the life of me pass
+without jostling him.  "Le vous demands pardon," said I, with a most
+abject salaam to my saddle--bow.  He knit his brows and shut his teeth
+hard, as he ground out between the glancing ivory, "Sacre!--voila ces
+foutres blancs la,"--clutching the hilt of his couteau firmly all the
+while.  I thought he would have struck me.  But Mr S----coming up,
+mollified the savage, and we rode on.
+
+The tafia estate was a sore affair.  It had once been a prosperous sugar
+plantation, as the broken panes and ruined houses, blackened by fire,
+were melancholy vouchers for; but now the whole cultivation was reduced
+to about a couple of acres of wiry sugar canes, and the boiling and
+distilling was carried on in a small unroofed nook of the original
+works.
+
+Two days after this we returned to Port--au--Prince, and I could not
+help admiring the justness of Aaron's former description; for noisome
+exhalations were rising thick, as the evening sun shone hot and sickly
+on the long bank of fat black mud that covers the beach beneath the
+town.  We found Captain Transom at Mr S----'s.  I made my report of the
+state of the merchantmen loading on the south side of the island, and
+returned to rest, deucedly tired and stiff with my ride.  Next morning
+Bang entered my room.
+
+"Hillo, Tom--the skipper has been shouting for you this half hour--get
+up, man--get up."
+
+"My dear sir, I am awfully tired."
+
+"Oh!" sung Bang--"'I have a silent sorrow here' eh?"
+
+It  was true enough; no sailor rides seventy miles on end with impunity.
+That  same evening we bid adieu to our excellent host Mr S----, and  the
+rising  moon shone on us under weigh for Kingston, where two days  after
+we  safely anchored with the homeward bound trade. "The roaring seas  Is
+not  a place of ease," says a Point ditty.  No more is the command of  a
+small  schooner in the West Indies.  We had scarcely anchored, when  the
+boarding  officer  from the flag--ship brought me a  message  to  repair
+thither immediately. I did so.  As I stepped on deck, the lieutenant was
+leaning  on  the  drumhead of the capstan, with  the  signal--book  open
+before  him, while the signal--man was telling off the semaphore,  which
+was rattling away at the Admiral's pen, situated about five miles off.
+
+"Ah!  Cringle," said he, without turning his head, "how are you? glad to
+see you--wish you joy, my lad.  Here, lend me a hand, will you? it
+concerns you." I took the book, and as the man reported, I pieced the
+following comfortable sentence together.
+
+"Desire--Wave--fit--wood--water--instantly--to take convoy to Spanish
+Main--to--morrow morning--Mr Cringle--remain on board--orders will be
+sent--evening."
+
+"Heigh ho, says Rowley," sang I Thomas, in great wrath and bitterness of
+spirit.   "D--d  hard--am  I a duck, to live in  the  water  altogether,
+entirely?"
+
+"Tom,  my  boy," sung out a voice from the water.  It was Aaron  Bang's,
+who,  along  with  Transom, had seen me go on board the receiving  ship.
+"Come  along, man--come along--Transom is going to make interest to  get
+you a furlough on shore; so come along, and dine with us in Kingston."
+
+"I  am ordered to sea to--morrow morning, my dear sir," said I, like  to
+cry.--"No!"--"Too  true, too true." So no help for  it,  I  took  a  sad
+farewell  of  my friends, received my orders, laid in my provisions  and
+water,  hauled  out into the fairway, and sailed for Santa  Martha  next
+morning at daybreak, with three merchant schooners under convoy one  for
+Santa Martha--another for Carthagena--and the third for Porto--Bello.
+
+We  sailed  on the 24th of such a month, and, after a pleasant  passage,
+anchored  at  Santa Martha, at 8 AM, on the 31st.   When  we  came  to
+anchor,  we  saluted,  which seemed to have been a  somewhat  unexpected
+honour,  as  the  return was fired from the fort after a most  primitive
+fashion.  A black fellow appeared with a shovel of live embers,  one  of
+which  another sans culotte caught up in his hand, chucking it from  one
+palm  to  another, until he ran to the breech of the first  gun,  where,
+clapping  it  on the touch--hole, he fired it off, and so  on  seriatim,
+through the whole battery, until the required number of guns were given,
+several  of which, by the by, were shotted, as we could hear  the  balls
+whiz overhead.  The town lies on a small plain, at the foot of very high
+mountains,  or  rather on a sand--bank, formed from  the  washings  from
+these  mountains.  The summit of the highest of them, we could see  from
+the deck, was covered with snow, which at sunrise, in the clear light of
+the  cool  grey dawn, shone, when struck by the first rays of  the  sun,
+like  one entire amethyst.  Oh, how often I longed for the wings of  the
+eagle,  to  waft  me from the hot deck of the little vessel,  where  the
+thermometer  in  the  shade  stood at 95, far  up  amongst  the  shining
+glaciers, to be comforted with cold!
+
+One striking natural phenomenon is exhibited here, arising out of the
+vicinity of this stupendous prong of the Cordilleras.  The sea breeze
+blows into the harbour all day, but in the night, or rather towards
+morning, the cold air from the high regions rushes down, and blows with
+such violence off the land, that my convoy and myself were nearly blown
+out to sea the first night after we arrived; and it was only by
+following the practice of the native craft, and anchoring close under
+the lee of the beach--in fact, by having an anchor high and dry on the
+shore itself--the player, as the Spaniards call it--that we could count
+on riding through the night with security or comfort.
+
+There are several small islands at the entrance of the harbour, on the
+highest of which is a fort, that might easily be rendered impregnable;
+it commands both the town and harbour.  The place itself deserves little
+notice; the houses are mean, and interspersed with negro huts, but there
+is one fine church, with several tolerable paintings in it.  One struck
+me as especially grotesque, although I had often seen queer things in
+Roman Catholic churches in Europe.  It was a representation of Hell,
+with Old Nicholas, under the guise of a dragon, entertaining himself
+with the soul of an unfortunate heretic in his claws, who certainly
+appeared far from comfortable; while a lot of his angels were washing
+the sins off a set of fine young men, as you would the dirt off scabbit
+potatoes, in a sea of liquid fire.  But their saints!--I often rejoiced
+that Aaron Bang was not with me; we should unquestionably have
+quarrelled; for as to the manner in which they were dressed and
+decorated, the most fantastic mode a girl ever did up her doll in, was a
+joke to it.  Still these wooden deities are treated with such
+veneration; that I do believe their ornaments, which are of massive gold
+and silver, are never, or very rarely, stolen.
+
+On the evening of the 2nd of the following month we sailed again, but
+having been baffled by calms and light winds, it was the 4th before we
+anchored off the St Domingo gate at Carthagena, and next morning we
+dropped down to Boca Chica, and saw our charge, a fine dashing schooner
+of 150 tons, safe into the harbour.  About 9 AM, we had weighed, but
+we had scarcely got the anchor catted, when it came on to blow great
+guns from the northwester most unusual thing hereabouts--so it was down
+anchor again; and as I had made up my mind not to attempt it again
+before morning, I got the gig in the water with all convenient speed;
+and that same forenoon I reached the town, and immediately called on the
+Viceroy, but under very different circumstances from the time Mr
+Splinter and I had entered it along with the conquering army.
+
+We dined with the magnate, and found a very large party assembled.
+Amongst others, I especially recollect that the Inquisidor--General was
+conspicuous; but every one, with the exception of the Captain General
+and his immediate staff, was arrayed in gingham jackets; so there was
+not much style in the affair.
+
+I had before dinner an opportunity to inspect the works of Carthagena at
+my leisure.  It is unquestionably a very strong place, the walls, which
+are built of solid masonry, being armed with at least three hundred
+pieces of brass cannon, while the continued ebb and flow of the tide in
+the ditch creates a current so strong, that it would be next to
+impossible to fill it up, as fascines would be carried away by the
+current--so that, were the walls even breached, it would be
+impracticable to storm them.  The appearance of Carthagena from the sea,
+that is, from a vessel anchored off the St Domingo gate, is very
+beautiful, and picturesque.  It is situated on a sandy island, or rather
+a group of islands; and the beach here shoals so gradually, that boats
+of even very small draught of water cannot approach within musket--shot.
+The walls and numerous batteries have a very commanding appearance.  The
+spires and towers on the churches are numerous, and many of them were
+decorated with flags when we were there; and the green trees shooting up
+amidst the red--tiled houses afforded a beautiful relief to the
+prospect.  A little behind the town, on a gentle acclivity, is the
+citadel, or fort San Felipe, whose appearance conveys an idea of
+impregnable strength; (but all this sort of thing, is it not written in
+Roderick Random?) and on the ship like hill beyond it, the only other
+eminence in the neighbourhood, stands the convent of the Popa, like a
+poop lantern on the high stern of a ship, from which indeed it takes its
+name.  This convent had been strongly fortified; and, commanding San
+Felipe, was of great use to Morillo, who carried it by assault during
+the siege, and held it until the insurgents shelled him out from the
+citadel.  The effect, when I first saw it, was increased by the whole
+scene--city, and batteries, and Popa--being reflected in the calm smooth
+sea, as distinctly as if it had been glass; so clear, in fact, was the
+reflection, that you could scarcely distinguish the shadow from the
+reality.  We weighed next morning--that is on the sixth of the month,
+and arrived safe at Porto--Bello on the 11th, after a tedious passage,
+during which we had continual rains, accompanied with vivid lightning
+and tremendous thunder.  I had expected to have fallen in with one of
+our frigates here; but I afterwards learned that, although I had slid
+down cheerily along shore, the weather current that prevailed farther
+out at sea had swept her away to the eastward; so I ran in and anchored,
+and immediately waited on the Governor, who received me in what might
+once have been a barn, although it did not now deserve the name.
+
+Porto--Bello was originally called Nombre de Dios, having received the
+former name from the English when we took it. It is a miserable, dirty,
+damp hole, surrounded by high forest--clad hills, round which
+everlasting mists curl and obscure the sun, whose rays, at any chance
+moment when they do reach the steamy swamp on which it is built or the
+waters of the lead--coloured, land--locked cove that constitutes the
+harbour, immediately exhale the thick sickly moisture, in clouds of
+sluggish white vapours, smelling diabolically of decayed vegetables, and
+slime, and mud.  I will venture a remark that will be found, I am
+persuaded, pretty near the truth, that there were twenty carrion crows
+to be seen in the streets for every inhabitant--the people seem every
+way worthy of such an abode, saffron, dingy, miserable, emaciated
+looking devils.  As for the place itself, it appeared to my eyes one
+large hospital, inhabited by--patients in the yellow fever.  During the
+whole of the following day, there was still no appearance of the
+frigate, and I had in consequence now to execute the ulterior part of my
+orders, which were, that if I did not find her at anchor when I arrived,
+or if she did not make her appearance within forty eight hours
+thereafter, I was myself to leave the Wave in Porto--Bello, and proceed
+overland across the isthmus to Panama, and to deliver, on board of H. M.
+S. Bandera, into the Captain's own hands, a large packet with despatches
+from the Government at home, as I understood, of great importance,
+touching the conduct of our squadron, with reference to the vagaries of
+some of the mushroom American Republics on the Pacific.  But if I fell
+in with the frigate, then I was to deliver the said packet to the
+Captain, and return immediately in the Wave to Port Royal.
+
+Having, therefore, obtained letters from the Governor of Porto--Bello to
+the Commandant at Chagres, I chartered a canoe with four stout canoemen
+and a steersman, or patron, as he is called, to convey me to Cruzes; and
+having laid in a good stock of eatables and drinkables, and selected the
+black pilot, Peter Mangrove, to go as my servant, accompanied by his
+never--failing companion, Sneezer, and taking my hammock and double
+barrelled gun, and a brace of pistols with me, we shoved off at Six A.M.
+on the morning of the 14th.
+
+It was a rum sort of conveyance this said canoe of mine.  In the first
+place, it was near forty feet long, and only five broad at the broadest,
+being hollowed out of one single wild cotton--tree; how this was to be
+pulled through the sea on the coast, by four men, I could not divine.
+However, I was assured by the old thief who chartered it to me, that it
+would be all right; whereas, had my innocence not been imposed on, I
+might, in a caiuco, or smaller canoe, have made the passage in one half
+the time it took me.
+
+About ten feet of the after part was thatched with palm leaves, over a
+framework of broad ash hoops; which awning, called the toldo, was open
+both towards the steersman that guided us with a long broad--bladed
+paddle in the stern, and in the direction of the men forward, who, on
+starting, stripped themselves stark naked, and, giving a loud yell every
+now and then, began to pull their oars, or long paddles, after a most
+extraordinary fashion.  First, when they lay back to the strain, they
+jumped backwards and upwards on to the thwart with their feet, and then,
+as they once more feathered their paddles again, they came crack down on
+their bottoms with a loud skelp on the seats, upon which they again
+mounted at the next stroke, and so on.
+
+When we cleared the harbour it was fine and serene, but about noon it
+came on to blow violently from the northeast.  All this while we were
+coasting it along about pistol--shot from the white coral beach, with
+the clear light green swell on our right hand, and beyond it the dark
+and stormy waters of the blue rolling ocean; and the snowwhite roaring
+surf on our left.  By the time I speak of, the swell had been lashed up
+into breaking waves, and after shipping more salt water than I had
+bargained for, we were obliged, about four PM, to shove into a cove
+within the reef, called Naranja.
+
+Along this part of the coast there is a chain of salt--water lagoons,
+divided from the sea by the coral beach, the crest of which is covered
+here and there with clumps of stunted mangroves.
+
+This beach, strangely enough, is higher than the land immediately behind
+it, as if it had been a dike, or natural breakwater, thrown up by the
+sea.  Every here and there, there were gaps in this natural dike, and it
+was through one of these we shoved, and soon swung to our grapnel in
+perfect security, but in a most outlandish situation certainly.
+
+As we rode to the easterly breeze, there was the beach as described,
+almost level with the water, on our left hand, the land or lee side of
+it covered with most beautiful white sand and shells, with whole warrens
+of land--crabs running out and in their holes like little rabbits, their
+tiny green bodies seeming to roll up and down, for I was not near enough
+to see their feet, or the mode of their locomotion, like bushels of
+grapeshot trundling all about on the shining white shore.  Beyond, the
+roaring surf was flashing up over the clumps of green bushes, and
+thundering on the seaward face.  On the right hand, ahead of us, and
+astern of us, the prospect was shut in by impervious thickets of
+mangroves, while in the distance the blue hills rose glimmering and
+indistinct, as seen through the steamy atmosphere.  We were anchored in
+a stripe of clear water, about three hundred yards long by fifty broad.
+There, was a clear space abeam of us landward, of about half an acre in
+extent, on which was built a solitary Indian hut close to the water's
+edge, with a small canoe drawn up close to the door.  We had not been
+long at anchor when the canoe was launched, and a monkey--looking naked
+old man paddled off, and brought us a most beautiful chicken turtle,
+some yams, and a few oranges.  I asked him his price.  He rejoined, "Por
+amor de Dios"--that it was his saint's day, and he meant it as a gift.
+However, he did not refuse a dollar when tendered to him before he
+paddled away.
+
+That night, when we were all at supper, master and men, I heard and felt
+a sharp crack against the side of the canoe.  "Hillo, Peter, what is
+that?" said I.
+
+"Nothing, sir," quoth Peter, who was enjoying his scraps abaft, with the
+headman, patron, or whatever you may call him, of my crew.  There was a
+blazing fire kindled on a bed of white sand, forward in the bow of the
+canoe, round which the four bogas, or canoemen, were seated, with three
+sticks stuck up triangularly over the fire, from which depended an
+earthen pot, in which they were cooking their suppers.
+
+I had rigged my hammock between the foremost and aftermost hoops of the
+toldo, and as I was fatigued and sleepy, and it was now getting late, I
+desired to betake myself to rest; so I was just flirting with a piece of
+ham, preparatory to the cold grog, when I again felt a similar thump and
+rattle against the side of the canoe.  There was a small aperture in the
+palm thatch, right opposite to where I was sitting, on the outside of
+which I now heard a rustling noise, and presently a long snout was
+thrust through, and into the canoe, which kept opening and shutting with
+a sharp rattling noise.  It was more like two long splinters of mud
+covered and half--decayed timber, than any thing I can compare it to;
+but as the lower jaw was opened, like a pair of Brobdignag scissors, a
+formidable row of teeth was unmasked, the snout from the tip to the eyes
+being nearly three feet long.  The scene at this moment was exceedingly
+good, as seen by the light of a small, bright, silver lamp, fed with
+spirits of wine, that I always travelled with, which hung from one of
+the hoops of the toldo.  First, there was our friend Peter Mangrove,
+cowering in a corner under the after part of the awning, covered up with
+a blanket, and shaken as if with an ague--fit, with the patron peering
+over his shoulder, no less alarmed.  Sneezer, the dog, was sitting on
+end, with his black nose resting on the table, waiting patiently for his
+crumbs; and the black boatmen were forward in the bow of the canoe,
+jabbering, and laughing, and munching, as they clustered round a
+sparkling fire.  When I first saw the apparition of the diabolical
+looking snout, I was in a manner fascinated, and could neither speak nor
+move.  Mangrove and the patron were also paralysed with fear, and the
+others did not see it; so Sneezer was the only creature amongst us,
+aware of the danger, who seemed to have his wits about him, for the
+instant he noticed it, he calmly lifted his nose off the table, and gave
+a short startled bark, and then crouched and drew himself back as if in
+the act to spring, glancing his eyes from the monstrous jaws to my face,
+and nuzzling and whining with a laughing expression, and giving a small
+yelp now and then, and again riveting his eyes with intense earnestness
+on the alligator, telling me as plainly as if he had spoken it--"If you
+choose, master, I will attack it, as in duty bound, but really such a
+customer is not at all in my way." And not only did he say this, but he
+shewed his intellect was clear, and no way warped through fear, for he
+now stood on his hind legs, and holding on the hammock with his fore
+paws, he thrust his snout below the pillow, and pulled out one of my
+pistols, which always garnished the head of my bed, on such expeditions
+as the present.
+
+My presence of mind returned at witnessing the courage and sagacity of
+my noble dog. I seized the loaded pistol, and as by this time the eyes
+of the alligator were inside of the toldo, I clapped the muzzle to the
+larboard one, and fired.  The creature jerked back so suddenly and
+convulsively, that part of the toldo was tom away: and as the dead
+monster fell off, the canoe rolled as if in a seaway.  My crew shouted
+"Que es esto?" Peter Mangrove cheered--Sneezer barked and yelled at a
+glorious rate, and could scarcely be held in the canoe--and looking
+overboard, we saw the monster, twelve feet long at least, upturn his
+white belly to the rising moon, struggle for a moment with his short
+paws, and after a solitary heavy lash of his scaly tale, he floated away
+astern of us, dead and still.  To proceed poor Peter Mangrove, whose
+nerves were consumedly shaken by this interlude, was seized during the
+night with a roasting fever, brought on in a great measure, I believe,
+by fear, at finding himself so far out of his latitude; and that he had
+grievous doubts as to the issue of our voyage, and as to where we were
+bound for, was abundantly evident.  I dosed him most copiously with salt
+water, a very cooling medicine, and no lack of it at hand.
+
+We weighed at grey dawn, on the morning of the 15th, and at 11 o'clock,
+AM arrived at Chagres, a more miserable place, were that credible, even
+than Porto--Bello.  The eastern side of the harbour is formed by a small
+promontory that runs out into the sea about five hundred yards, with a
+bright little bay to windward; while a long muddy mangrove--covered spit
+forms the right hand bank as you enter the mouth or estuary of the river
+Chagres on the west.  The easternmost bluff is a narrow saddle, with a
+fort erected on the extreme point facing the sea, which, so far as
+situation is concerned, is, or ought to be, impregnable, the rock being
+precipitous on three faces, while it is cut off to landward by a deep
+dry ditch, about thirty feet wide, across which a movable drawbridge is
+let down, and this compartment of the defences is all very regular, with
+scarp and counterscarp, covered--way and glacis.  The brass guns mounted
+on the castle were numerous and beautiful, but every thing was in
+miserable disrepair; several of the guns, for instance, had settled down
+bodily on the platform, having fallen through the crushed rotten
+carriages. I found an efficient garrison in this stronghold of three old
+negroes, who had not even a musket of any kind, but the commandant was
+not in the castle when I paid my visit; however, one of the invincibles
+undertook to pilot me to El Senor Torre's house, where his honour was
+dining.  The best house in the place this was, by the by, although only
+a thatched hut; and here I found his Excellency the Commandant, a little
+shrivelled insignificant--looking creature.  He was about sitting down
+to his dinner, of which he invited me to partake, and as I was very
+hungry, I contrived to do justice to the first dish, but my stomach was
+grievously offended at the second, which seemed to me to be a compound
+of garlic, brick dust, and train oil, so that I was glad to hurry on
+board of my canoe, to settle all with a little good Madeira.
+
+At four P.m. I proceeded up the river, which is here about a hundred
+yards across, and very deep; it rolls sluggishly along through a low
+swampy country, covered to the water's edge with thick sedges and
+underwood, below which the water stagnates, and generates myriads of
+musquittoes, and other troublesome insects, and sends up whole clouds of
+noxious vapours, redolent of yellow fever, and ague, and cramps, and all
+manner of comfortable things.
+
+At ten P.m. we anchored by a grapnel in the stream, and I set Peter
+Mangrove forthwith to officiate in his new capacity of cook, and really
+he made a deuced good one. I then slung my hammock under the toldo, and
+lighting a slow match, at the end of it forwards, to smoke away the
+musquittoes, having previously covered the aftermost end with a mat, I
+wrapped myself in my cloak, and turned in to take my snooze.  We weighed
+again about two in the morning.  As the day dawned the dull grey steamy
+clouds settled down on us once more, while the rain fell in a regular
+waterspout.  It was anything but a cheering prospect to look along the
+dreary vistas of the dull brimful Lethe--like stream, with nothing to be
+seen but the heavy lowering sky above, the red swollen water beneath,
+and the gigantic trees high towering overhead, and growing close to the
+water's edge, laced together with black snake--like withes, while the
+jungle was thick and impervious, and actually grew down into the water,
+for beach, or shore, or cleared bank, there was none,--all water and
+underwood, except where a heavy soft slimy steaming black bank of mud
+hove its shining back from out the dead waters near the shore, with one
+or more monstrous alligators sleeping on it, like dirty rotten logs of
+wood, scarcely deigning to lift their abominable long snouts to look at
+us as we passed, or to raise their long scaly tails, with the black mud
+sticking to the scales in great lumps--oh--horrible--most horrible!  But
+the creatures, although no beauties certainly, are harmless after all.
+For instance, I never heard a well--authenticated case of their
+attacking a human being hereabouts; pigs and fowls they do tithe,
+however, like any parson.  I don't mean to say that they would not make
+free with a little fat dumpling of a piccaniny, if he were thrown to
+them, but they seem to have no ferocious propensities.  I shot one of
+them; he was about twelve feet long; the bullet entered in the joints of
+the mail, below the shoulder of the fore paw, where the hide was tender;
+but if you fire at them with the scale, that is, with the monster
+looking at you, a musket ball will glance. I have often in this my log
+spoken of the Brobdignag lizards, the guanas. I brought down one this
+day, about three feet long, and found it, notwithstanding its dragon
+like appearance, very good eating.  At eleven AM on the 18th, we
+arrived at the village of Cruzes, the point where the river ceases to be
+navigable for canoes, and from whence you take horse, or rather mule,
+for Panama.  For about fifteen or twenty miles below Cruzes, the river
+becomes rapid, and full of shoals, when the oars are laid aside, and the
+canoes are propelled by long poles.
+
+The Town, as it is called, is a poor miserable place, composed chiefly
+of negro huts; however, a Spanish trader of the name of Villaverde, who
+had come over in the Wave as a passenger, and had preceded me in a
+lighter canoe, and to whom I had shown some kindness, now repaid it, as
+far as lay in his power.
+
+He lodged me for the night, and hired mules for me to proceed to Panama
+in the morning; so I slung my hammock in an old Spanish soldier's house,
+who keeps a kind of posada, and was called by my friend Villaverde at
+daydawn, whose object was, not to tell me to get ready for my journey,
+but to ask me if I would go and bathe before starting.  Rather a rum
+sort of request, it struck me; nevertheless, a purification, after the
+many disagreeables I had endured, could not come amiss; and slipping on
+my trowsers, and casting my cloak on my shoulders, away we trudged to a
+very beautiful spot, about a mile above Cruzes, where, to my surprise, I
+found a score of Crusafios, all Altering in the water, puffing and
+blowing and shouting.  Now an alligator might pick and choose, thought
+I; however, no one seemed in the least afraid, so I dashed amongst them.
+Presently, about pistol--shot from us, a group of females appeared.
+Come, thought I, rather too much for a modest young man this too; and
+deuce take me, as I am a gentleman, if the whole bevy did not disrobe in
+cold blood, and squatter, naked as their mother Eve was in the garden of
+Eden, before she took to the herbage, right into the middle of the
+stream, skirting and laughing, as if not even a male musquitto had been
+within twenty miles.  However, my neighbour took no notice of them; it
+seemed all a matter of course.  But let that pass.  About eight o'clock
+A.M. I got under weigh, with Peter Mangrove, on two good stout mules,
+and a black guide running before me with a long stick, with which he
+sprung over the sloughs and stones in the road with great agility; I
+would have backed him against many a passable hunter, to do four miles
+over a close country in a steeple--chase.
+
+Panama is distant from Cruzes about seven leagues.  The road is somewhat
+like what the Highland ones must have been before General Wade took them
+in hand, and only passable for mules; indeed, in many places where it
+had been hewn out of the rock in zigzags on the face of the hill, it is
+scarcely passable for two persons meeting.  But the scenery on each side
+is very beautiful, as it winds, for the most part, amongst steep rocks,
+over shadowed by magnificent trees, amongst which birds of all sizes,
+and of the most beautiful plumage, are perpetually glancing, while a
+monkey, every here and there, would sit grimacing, and chattering, and
+scratching himself in the cleft of a tree.
+
+I should think, judging from my barometer--but I may have made an
+inaccurate calculation, and I have not Humboldt by me--that the ridge of
+the highest is fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, so that
+it would be next to impossible to join the two seas at this point by a
+canal with water in it.  However, I expect to see a joint Stock Company
+set a--going some fine day yet for the purpose of cutting it, that is,
+when the national capital next accumulates (and Lord knows when that
+will be) to a plethora, and people's purses become so distended that
+they require bleeding.
+
+After travelling about twenty miles, the scene gradually opens, and one
+begins to dream about Vasco Nunez and the enthusiastic first explorers
+of the Isthmus; but my first view of the Pacific was through a drenching
+shower of rain, that wet me to the skin, and rather kept my imagination
+under, for this said imagination of mine is like a barn--door chuckey
+brisk and crouse enough when the sun shines, and the sky is blue, and
+plenty of grub at hand, but I can't write poetry when I am could, and
+hungry, and drooked. Still, when I caught my first glimpse of the
+distant Pacific, I felt that, even through a miserable drizzle, it was a
+noble prospect.
+
+As you proceed, you occasionally pass through small open savannahs,
+which become larger, and the clear spaces wider, until the forest you
+have been travelling under gradually breaks into beautiful clumps of
+trees, like those in a gentleman's park, and every here and there a
+placid clear piece of water spreads out, full of pond turtle, which I
+believe to be one and the same with the tortoise, and eels; the latter
+of which, by the by, are very sociable creatures, for in the clear
+moonlight nights, with the bright sparkling dew on the short moist
+grass, they frequently travel from one pond to another, wriggling along
+the grass like snakes.  I have myself found them fifty yards from the
+water; but whether the errand was love or war, or merely to drink tea
+with some of the slippery young females in the next pool, and then
+return again, the deponent sayeth not.
+
+As you approach the town, the open spaces before--mentioned become more
+frequent, until at length you gain a rising ground, about three miles
+from Panama, where, as the sun again shone out, the view became truly
+enchanting.
+
+There lay the town of Panama, built on a small tongue of land, jutting
+into the Pacific, surrounded by walls, which might have been a
+formidable defence once, but I wish my promotion depended on my rattling
+the old bricks and stones about their ears, with one single frigate, if
+I could only get near enough; but in the impossibility of this lies the
+strength of the place, as the water shoals so gradually, that the tide
+retires nearly a mile and a half from the walls, rising, I consider,
+near eighteen feet at the springs, while, on the opposite side of the
+Isthmus, at Chagres for instance, there is scarcely any at all, the gulf
+stream neutralizing it almost entirely.
+
+On the right hand a hill overhangs the town, rising precipitously to the
+height of a thousand feet or thereabouts, on the extreme pinnacle of
+which is erected a signal station, called the Vigia, which, at the
+instant I saw it, was telegraphing to some craft out at sea.  As for the
+city, to assume our friend Mr Bang's mode of description, it was shaped
+like a tadpole, the body representing the city, and the suburb the tail;
+or a stewpan, the city and its fortifications being the pan, while the
+handle, tending obliquely towards us, was the Raval, or long street,
+extending Savannahward, without the walls.  At the distance from which
+we viewed it, the red--tiled houses, cathedral, with its towers, and the
+numerous monasteries and nunneries, seemed girt in with a white ribbon,
+while a series of black spots here and there denoted the cannon on the
+batteries.  To the left of the town, there was a whole flotilla of small
+craft, brigs, schooners, and vegetable boats; while farther out at sea,
+beyond the fortifications, three large ships rode at anchor; and beyond
+them again, the beautiful group of islands lying about five miles off
+the town, appeared to float on and were reflected in the calm, glasslike
+expanse of the Pacific, like emeralds chased in silver, while the ocean
+itself, towards the horizon, seemed to rise up like a scene in a
+theatre, or a burnished bright silver wall, growing more and more blue,
+and hazy and indistinct, as it ascended, until it melted into the
+cloudless heaven, so that no one could tell where water and sky met.
+
+        "Thou glorious mirror, in all time,
+        Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm,
+        Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
+        Dark heaving boundless, endless, and sublime,
+        The image of Eternity--the throne
+        Of the Invisible."
+
+While a sperm whale every now and then rose between us and the islands,
+and spouted up a high double jet into the air, like a blast of steam,
+and then, with a heavy flounder of his broad tail, slowly sank again;
+and a boat here and there glided athwart the scene, and a sleepy sail
+arose with a slow motion and a fitful rattle, and a greasy cheep, on the
+mast of some vessel, getting all ready to weigh, while small floating
+trails of blue smoke were streaming away astern from the tiny cabooses
+of the craft at anchor, and a mournful distant "yo heave oh" came
+booming past us on the light air, and the everlasting tinkle of the
+convent bells sounded cheerily, and the lowing of the kine around us
+called up old associations in my bosom, as I looked forth on the
+glorious spectacle from beneath a magnificent bower of orange--trees and
+shaddocks, while all manner of wild--flowers blossomed and bloomed
+around us.
+
+We arrived at Panama about three PM, covered to the eyes with mud, and
+after some little difficulty, I found out Senor Hombrecillo Justo's
+house, who received me very kindly.  Next morning I waited on the
+Governor, made my bow and told him my errand.  He was abundantly civil;
+professing himself ready to serve me in any way, and promising to give
+me the earliest intelligence of the arrival of the Bandera. I then
+returned to mine host's, to whom I had strong letters of introduction
+from some Kingston friends.
+
+I soon found that I had landed amongst a family of originals.  Mine host
+was a little thin withered body, with a face that might have vied with
+the monkey whom the council of Aberdeen took for a sugar planter.  He
+wore his own grey hair in a long greasy queue, and his costume, when I
+first saw him, was white cotton stockings, white jean small clothes and
+waistcoat, and a little light--blue silk coat; he wore large solid gold
+buckles in his shoes, and knee--buckles of the same.  His voice was
+small and squeaking, and when heated in argument, or crossed by any
+member of family,--and he was very touchy--it became so shrill and
+indistinct that it pierced the ear without being in the least
+intelligible.  In those paroxysms he did not walk, but sprung from place
+to place like a grasshopper, with unlooked--for agility, avoiding the
+chairs and tables and other movables with great dexterity. I often
+thought he would have broken whatever came in his way; but although his
+erratic orbit was small, he performed his evolutions with great
+precision and security.  His general temper, however, was very kind,
+humane, and good--humoured, and he seldom remained long under the
+influence of passion.  His character, both as a man and a merchant, was
+unimpeachable, and, indeed, proverbial in the place.  His better half
+appeared to be some years older, and also a good deal of an original.
+She was a little short thick woman; but, stout as she was when I had the
+honour of an embrace, she must have been once much stouter, for her skin
+appeared from the colour and texture to have come to her at second
+hand, and to have originally belonged to a much larger person, for it
+bagged and hung in flaps about her jowls and bosom, like an ill--cut
+maintopsail, which sits clumsily about the clews.  I think I could have
+reefed her with advantage, below the chin.
+
+Her usual dress was a shift, with a whole sailroom of frills about the
+sleeves and bosom, and a heavy pink taffeta petticoat, (gowns being only
+worn by these fair ones as you put on a greatcoat, that is, when they go
+abroad,) and a small round apron like a flap of black silk.  Over these
+she wore a Spanish aroba, or twenty--five pounds weight of gold chains,
+saints, and crucifixes, and a large black velvet patch, of the size of a
+wafer, on each temple, which I found, by the by, to be an ornament very
+much in fashion amongst the fair of Panama.  Her hair, or rather the
+scanty remnant thereof, was plaited into two grizzled braids, with a
+black bow of ribbon at the end of each, and hung straight down her back.
+Like may excellent wives, she loved to circulate her spouse's blood by a
+little well--timed opposition now and then; but she never tried her
+strength too far, and she always softened down in proportion as he waxed
+energetic, and began to accelerate his motions, so that by the time he
+had given one or two hops, she had either fairly given in, or moved out.
+They had no children, but had in a manner adopted a little black
+creature about four years old, which, being a female, the lady had
+christened by the familiar diminutive of Diablita.
+
+Another curiosity was the maternal aunt of Don Hombrecillo, a little
+superannuated woman about four feet high, if she could have stood erect,
+but old age had long since bent her nearly double; she was on the verge
+of eighty--five years of age, and had outlived all her faculties.  This
+poor old creature, in place of being respectably lodged and taken care
+of, was allowed to go about the house, tame, without any fixed abode so
+far as I could learn; nor did she always meet with that attention, I am
+sorry to say it, from the family, or even from the servants, that she
+was entitled to from her extreme helplessness.  She had a droll custom
+of eating all her meals walking, and it was her practice to move around
+the dinner--table in this her dotage, and to commit pranks, that,
+against my will, made me laugh, and even in despite of the feelings of
+pity and self--humiliation that arose in my bosom at the sight of such
+miserable imbecility in a fellow--creature.  Thus keeping on the wing as
+I have described, it was her practice to cruise about behind the chairs,
+occasionally snatching pieces of food from before the guests, so slyly,
+that the first intimation of her intentions was the appearance of her
+yellow shrivelled birdlike claw in your plate.
+
+The brother of our host was a little stout man, but still very like
+Senor Justo himself.  For instance, I always gloried in likening the
+latter to a dried prune; then, to conceive of his plump brother, imagine
+him boiled, and so swell out the creases in his skin, and there you have
+him.
+
+This little dumpling was very asthmatic, and used to blow like a
+porpoise by the time he reached the top of the stairs.  The only time he
+had ever been out of Panama was whilst he made a short visit to Lima,
+the wonders of which he used to chant unceasingly.  But the continual
+cause of my annoyance--I fear I must write disgust--was the stepmother
+of mine host, a large fat dirty old woman.  She had a pouch under her
+chin like a pelican, while her complexion, from the quantity of oil and
+foul feeding in which she delighted, was a greasy mahogany.  She
+despised the unnatural luxuries of knives and forks, constantly
+devouring her meat with her fingers, whatever its consistency might be;
+if flesh, she tore it with both hands; if soup, she--bah! and, as the
+devil would have it, the venerable beauty chose to take a fancy to me.
+Oh, she was a balloon! I have often expected to see her rise to the
+roof.
+
+These polished personages may be called Senor Justo's family, but it was
+occasionally increased by various others; none of whom, however, can I
+heave--to to describe at present.
+
+The day after my arrival, the operation of covering dollar boxes with
+wet hides had been going on in the dinner saloon the whole forenoon,
+which drove me forth to look about me; but I returned about half--past
+two, this being the hour of dinner, and found all the family, excepting
+mine hostess, assembled, and my appearance was the signal for dinner
+being ordered in. I may mention here, that this worthy family were all
+firmly impressed with the idea, that an Englishman was an ostrich,
+possessing a stomach capable of holding and digesting four times as much
+as any other person; and under this belief they were so outrageously
+kind, that I was often literally stuffed to suffocation when I first
+came amongst them; and when at length I resolutely refused to be
+immolated after this fashion, they swore I was sick, or did not like my
+food, which was next door to insulting them.  El Senor Justo's fat
+dumpling of a brother thought medical advice ought to be taken, for when
+he was in Lima several seamen belonging to an English whaler had died,
+and he had remarked, the twaddling body, that they had invariably lost
+their appetites previous to their dissolution.
+
+But to return.  Dinner being ordered, was promptly placed on the table,
+and mine host insisted on planting me at the foot thereof, while he sat
+on my left hand; so the party sat down; but the chair opposite, that
+ought to have been filled by Madama herself, was still vacant.
+
+"Adonde esta su ama," quoth Don Hombrecillo to one of the black waiting
+wenches.  The girl said she did not know, but she would go and see.  It
+is necessary to mention here that the worthy Senor's counting--house was
+in a back building, separated from the house that fronted the street by
+a narrow court, and in a small closet off this counting--house, my
+quatre had been rigged the previous night, and there had my luggage been
+deposited.  Amongst other articles in my commissariat, there was a
+basket with half--a--dozen of champagne, and some hock, and a bottle of
+brandy, that I had placed under Peter Mangrove's care to comfort us in
+the wilderness.  We all lay back in our chairs to wait for the lady of
+the house, but neither did she nor Tomassa, the name of the handmaiden
+who had been despatched in search of her, seem inclined to make their
+appearance.  Don Hombrecillo became impatient.
+
+"Josefa,"--to another of the servants--"run and desire your mistress to
+come here immediately." Away she flew, but neither did this second
+pigeon return.  Mine host now lost his temper entirely, and spluttered
+out, as loud as he could roar, "Somos comiendo, Panchita, somos
+comiendo;" and forthwith, as if in spite, he began to fork up his food,
+until he had nearly choked himself.  Presently a short startled scream
+was heard from the counting--house, then a low suppressed laugh, then a
+loud shout, a long uproarious peal of laughter, and the two black
+servants came thundering across the wooden gangway or drawbridge, that
+connected the room where we sat with the outhouse, driven onwards by
+their mistress herself.  They flew across the end of the dining room
+into the small balcony fronting the lane and began without ceremony to
+shout across the narrow street to a Carmelite priest, who was in a
+gallery of the opposite monastery, "that their mistress was possessed."
+
+Presently in danced our landlady, in propria persona, jumping and
+screaming and laughing, and snapping her fingers, and spinning round
+like a Turkish dervish, "mira el fandango, mira el fandangodexa me
+baylar, dexa me baylar--See my fandango, see my fandangolet me dance
+let me dance--ha, ha, ha."
+
+"Panchita," screamed Justo, in extreme wrath, "tu es loco, you are mad
+sit down, por amor de Dios--seas decente--be decent."
+
+She continued gamboling about, "loven soy y virgin--I am young and a
+virgin--y tu Viejo diablo que queres tu,--and you, old devil, what do
+you want, eh?--Una virgin por Dios soy--I am young," and seizing a
+boiled fowl from the dish, she let fly at her husband's head, but missed
+him, fortunately; whereupon she made a regular grab at him with her paw,
+but he slid under the table, in all haste, roaring out,--"Ave Maria, que
+es esso--manda por el Padre--Send for the priest, y trae una puerco, en
+donde echar el demonio, manda, manda--send for a priest, and a pig, into
+which the demon may be cast,--send--" "Dexa me, dexa me baylar"
+continued the old dame--"tu no vale, Bobo viejo, you are of no use, you
+old blockhead--you are a forked radish, and not a man--let me catch you,
+let me catch you," and here she made a second attempt, and got hold of
+his queue, by which she forcibly dragged him from beneath the table,
+until fortunately, the ribbon that tied it slid off in her hand, and the
+little Senor instantly ran back to this burrow, with the speed of a
+rabbit, while his wife sung out, "tu gastas calzones, eh? para que,
+damelos damelos, yo los quitare?" and if she had caught the worthy man,
+I believe she would really have shaken him out of his garments, peeled
+him on the spot, and appropriated them to herself as her threat ran.  "I
+am a cat, a dog, and the devilhoo--hoo--hoo--let me catch you, you
+miserable wretch, you forked radish, and if I don't peel off your
+breeches,--I shall wear them, I shall wear them,--Ave Maria." Here she
+threw herself into a chair, being completely blown; but after a gasp or
+two, she started to her legs again, dancing and singing and snapping her
+fingers, as if she had held castanets between them, "Venga--Venga--dexa
+me baylar Dankee, Dankee la--Dankee, Dankee la--mi guitarra--mi
+guitarra Dankee, Dankee la--ha, ha, ha,"--and away she trundled down
+stairs again, where she met the priest who had been sent for, in the
+lower hall, who happened to be very handsome young man.  Seeing the
+state she was in, and utterly unable to account for it, he bobbed, as
+she threw herself on him, eluded her embraces, and then bolted up
+stairs, followed by Mrs Potiphart at full speed.--"Padre, father," cried
+she, "stop till I peel that forked radish there, and I will give you his
+breeches--Dankee, Dankee." All this while, Don Hombrecillo was squeaking
+out from his lair, at the top of his pipe--"Padre, padre, trae el
+puerco, venga el puerco--echar el demonio--echar el demonio bring the
+pig, the pig, and cast out the devil."--"Mi guitarra, canta, canta y
+bayle, viejo diablito, canta o yo te matarras--Bring my guitar, dance,
+dance and sing, you little old devil you, or I'll murder you, dankee,
+dankee."
+
+In fine, I was at length obliged to lend a hand, and she was bodily laid
+hold of, and put to bed, where she soon fell into a sound sleep, and
+next morning awoke in her sound senses, totally unconscious of all that
+had passed, excepting that she remembered having taken a glass of the
+Englishman's small beer.
+
+Now the secret was out.  The worthy woman, like most South American
+Spaniards, was distractedly fond of cervesa blanca, or small beer, and
+seeing the champagne bottles with their wired corks (beer requiring to
+be so secured in hot climates,) in my basket, she could not resist
+making free with a bottle, and, as I charitably concluded, small beer
+being a rarity in those countries, she did not find out the difference
+until it was made evident by the issue; however, I have it from
+authority, that she never afterwards ventured on any thing weaker than
+brandy, and from that hour, utterly eschewed that most dangerous liquor,
+cervesa blanca.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+
+Tropical High--links
+
+"Now, massa, pipe belay
+Wid your weary, weary Log, O;
+Peter sick of him, me say,
+Ah! sick more as one dog, O."
+
+THE HUMBLE PETITION OF
+PETER MANGROVE,
+
+BRANCH PILOT.
+
+
+
+Like all Portuguese towns, and most Spanish, Panama does not realize the
+idea which a stranger forms of it from the first view, as he descends
+from the savannah.  The houses are generally built of wood, and three
+stories high: in the first or ground floor, are the shops; in the
+second, the merchants have their warehouses; and in the third, they
+usually live with their families.  Those three different regions, sorry
+am I to say it, are all very dirty; indeed they may be said to be the
+positive, comparative, and superlative degrees of uncleanness.  There
+are no glazed sashes in the windows, so that when it rains, and the
+shutters are closed, you are involved in utter darkness.  The furniture
+is miserably scanty--some old fashioned, high backed, hardwood chairs,
+with a profusion of tarnished gilding; a table or two, in the same
+style, with a long grass hammock slung from corner to corner,
+intersecting the room diagonally, which, as they hang very low, about
+six inches only from the floor, it was not once only, that entering a
+house during the siesta, when the windows were darkened, I have tumbled
+headlong over a Don or Dofia, taking his or her forenoon nap.  But if
+movables were scarce, there was no paucity of silver dishes; basins,
+spit boxes, censers, and utensils of all shapes, descriptions, and
+sizes, of this precious metal, were scattered about without any order or
+regularity, while some nameless articles, also of silver, were thrust
+far out of their latitude, and shone conspicuously in the very centre of
+the rooms.  The floors were usually either of hard--wood plank, ill
+kept; or terraced, or tiled; some indeed were flagged with marble, but
+this was rare; and as for the luxury of a carpet, it was utterly
+unknown, the nearest approach to it being a grass mat, plaited prettily
+enough, called an estera.  Round the walls of the house are usually hung
+a lot of dingy faced, worm eaten pictures of saints, and several
+crucifixes, which appear to be held in great veneration.  The streets
+are paved, but exceedingly indifferently; and the frequent rains, or
+rather waterspouts, (and from the position of the place, between the two
+vast oceans of the Atlantic and Pacific, they have considerably more
+than their own share of moisture,) washing away the soil and sand from
+between the stones, render the footing for bass of all kinds extremely
+insecure.  There are five monasteries of different orders, and a convent
+of nuns, within the walls, most of which, I believe, are but poorly
+endowed.  All these have handsome churches attached to them; that of La
+Merced is very splendid.  The cathedral is also a fine building, with
+some good pictures, and several lay relics of Pizarro, Almagro, and
+Vasco Nufiez, that riveted my attention; while their fragments of the
+Vera Cruz, and arrow points that had quivered in the muscles of St
+Sebastian, were passed by as weak inventions of the enemy.
+
+The week after my arrival was a fast, the men eating only once in the
+twenty our hours, (as for the women, who the deuce can tell how often a
+woman eats?) and during this period all the houses were stripped of
+their pictures, lamps, and ornaments, to dress out the churches, which
+were beautifully illuminated in the evenings, while a succession of
+friars performed service in them continually.  High mass is, even to the
+eye of a heretic, a very splendid ceremony; and the music in this
+outlandish corner was unexpectedly good, every thing considered; in the
+church of La Merced, especially, they had a very fine organ, and the
+congregation joined in the Jubilate with very good taste.  By the way,
+in this same church, on the right of the high altar, there was a deep
+and lofty recess, covered with a thick black veil, in which stood
+concealed a figure of our Saviour, as large as life, hanging on a great
+cross, with the blood flowing from his wounds, and all kinds of horrible
+accompaniments.  At a certain stage of the service, a drum was beaten by
+one of the brethren, upon which the veil was withdrawn, when the whole
+congregation prostrated themselves before the image, with every
+appearance of the greatest devotion.  Even the passengers in the streets
+within ear--shot of the drum, stopped and uncovered themselves, and
+muttered a prayer; while the inmates of the houses knelt, and crossed
+themselves, with all the externals of deep humility; although, very
+probably, they were at the moment calculating in their minds the profits
+on the last adventure from Kingston.  One custom particularly struck me
+as being very beautiful.  As the night shuts in, after a noisy prelude
+on all the old pots in the different steeples throughout the city, there
+is a dead pause; presently the great bell of the cathedral tolls slowly,
+once or twice, at which every person stops from his employment, whatever
+that may be, or wherever he may be, uncovers himself, and says a short
+prayer--all hands remaining still and silent for a minute or more, when
+the great bell tolls again, and once more every thing rolls on as usual.
+
+On the fourth evening of my residence in Panama, I had retired early to
+rest.  My trusty knave, Peter Mangrove, and trustier still, my dog
+Sneezer, had both fallen asleep on the floor, at the foot of my bed, if
+the piece of machinery on which I lay deserved that name, when in the
+dead of night I was awakened by a slight noise at the door. I shook
+myself and listened.  Presently it opened, and the old woman that I have
+already described as part and portion of Don Hombrecillo Justo's family,
+entered the room in her usual very scanty dress, with a lighted candle
+in her hand, led by a little naked negro child.  I was curious to see
+what she would do, but I was not certain how the dog might relish the
+intrusion; so I put my hand over my quatre, and snapping my finger and
+thumb, Sneezer immediately rose and came to my bedside.  I immediately
+judged, from the comical expression of his face, as seen by the taper of
+the intruder, that he thought it was some piece of fun, for he walked
+quietly up, and confronting the old lady, deliberately took the
+candlestick out of her hand.  The little black urchin thereupon began
+shouting, "Perro Demonio--Perro Demonio" and in their struggle to
+escape, she and the old lady tumbled headlong over the sleeping pilot,
+whereby the candle was extinguished, and we were left in utter darkness.
+I had therefore nothing for it but to get out of bed, and go down to the
+cobbler, who lived in the entresol, to get a light.  He had not gone to
+sleep and I gave him no small alarm; indeed he was near absconding at
+my unseasonable intrusion, but at length I obtained the object of my
+visit, and returned to my room, when, on opening the door, I saw poor
+Mangrove lying on his back in the middle of the floor, with his legs and
+arms extended as if he had been on the rack, his eyes set, his mouth
+open, and every faculty benumbed by fear.  At his feet sat the negro
+child, almost as much terrified as he was, and crying most lamentably;
+while, at a little distance, sat the spectre of the old woman,
+scratching its head with the greatest composure, and exclaiming in
+Spanish, "a little brandy for love of the Holy Virgin." But the most
+curious part of it was the conduct of our old friend Sneezer.  There he
+was sitting on end upon the table, grinning and showing his ivory teeth,
+his eyes of jet sparkling like diamonds with fun and frolic, and
+evidently laughing, after his fashion, like to split himself, as he
+every now and then gave a large sweeping whisk of his tail, like a cat
+watching a mouse.  At length I got the cobbler and his sable rib to take
+charge of the wanderers, and once more fell asleep.
+
+On my first arrival, I was somewhat surprised at my Spanish
+acquaintances always putting, up their umbrellas when abroad after
+nightfall in the streets; the city had its evil customs, it seemed, as
+well as others of more note, with this disadvantage, that no one had the
+discretion to sing out gardyloo.
+
+There was another solemn fast about this time, in honour of a saint
+having had a tooth drawn, or some equally important event, and Don
+Hombrecillo and I had been at the evening service in the church of the
+convent of La Merced, situated, as I have already mentioned, directly
+opposite his house, on the other side of the lane; and this being over,
+we were on the eve of returning home, when the flannel--robed superior
+came up and invited us into the refectory, whereunto, after some
+palaver, we agreed to adjourn, and had a good supper, and some bad
+Malaga wine, which, however, seemed to suit the palates of the Frailes,
+if taking a very decent quantity thereof were any proof of the same.
+Presently two of the lay brothers produced their fiddles, and as I was
+determined not to be outdone, I volunteered a song, and, as a key--stone
+to my politeness, sent to Don Hombrecillo's for the residue of my
+brandy, which, coming after the bad wine, acted most cordially, opening
+the hearts of all hands like an oyster knife, the Superior's especially,
+who in turn drew on his private treasure also, when out came a large
+green vitrified earthen pipkin, one of those round nbottomed jars that
+won't stand on end, but must perforce lie on their sides, as if it had
+been a type of the predicament in which some of us were to be placed ere
+long through its agency.  The large cork, buried an inch deep in green
+wax, was withdrawn from the long neck, and out gurgled most capital old
+Xeres. So we worked away until we were all pretty well fou, and anon we
+began to dance; and there were half--a--dozen friars, and old Justo and
+myself, in great glee, jumping and gamboling about, and making fools of
+ourselves after a very fantastic fashion--the witches in Macbeth as an
+illustration.
+
+At length, after being two months in Panama, and still no appearance of
+the Bandera, I received a letter from the Admiral, desiring me to rejoin
+the Wave immediately, as it was then known that the line of battle ship
+had returned to the River Plate.  Like most young men, who have hearts
+of flesh in their bosoms, I had in this short space begun to have my
+likings--may I not call them friendships?--in this, at the time I write
+of, most primitive community; and the idea of bidding farewell to it,
+most likely for ever, sank deep.  However, I was His Majesty's officer,
+and my services and obedience were his, although my feelings were my
+own; and, accordingly, stifling the latter, I prepared for my departure.
+
+On the very day whereon I was recalled, a sister of mine host's--a most
+reverend mechanic, who had been fourteen years married without chick or
+child--was brought to bed, to the unutterable surprise of her spouse,
+and of all the little world in Panama, of a male infant.  It had rained
+the whole day, notwithstanding which, and its being the only
+authenticated production ever published by the venerable young lady, the
+piccaniny was carried to the Franciscan church, a distance of half a
+mile, at nine o'clock at night, through a perfect storm, to be
+christened, and the evil star of poor Mangrove rose high in the
+ascendant on the occasion.
+
+After the ceremony, I was returning home chilled with standing uncovered
+for an hour in a cold damp church, and walking very fast, in order to
+bring myself into heat, when, on turning a corner, I heard a sound of
+flutes and fiddles in the street, and from the number of lanterns and
+torches that accompanied it, I conjectured rightly that it was a
+Function of no small importance--no less, in fact, than a procession in
+honour of the Virgin.  Poor Mangrove at this time was pattering close to
+my heels, and I could hear him chuckling and laughing to himself.
+
+"What dis can be--I say, Sneezer"--to his never--failing companion
+"what you tink, John Canoe--after Spanish fashion, it mosh be, eh?"
+
+The dog began to jump and gambol about.
+
+"Ah," continued the black pilot, "no doubt it must be John Canoe I may
+dance--why not--eh?--oh, yes--I shall dance."
+
+And as the music struck into rather a quicker tune at the moment, our
+ebony friend began to caper and jump about as if he had been in Jamaica
+at Christmas time, whereupon one of the choristers, or music boys, as
+they were called, a beautiful youth, about forty years of age, six feet
+high, and proportionally strong, without the least warning incontinently
+smote our amigo across the pate with a brazen saint that he carried, and
+felled him to the earth; indeed, if el Senor Justo had not been on the
+spot to interfere, we should have had a scene of it in all likelihood,
+as the instant the man delivered his blow, Sneezer's jaws were at his
+throat, and had he not fortunately obeyed me, and let go at the sound of
+my voice, we might have had a double of Macaire and the dog of
+Montargis. As it was, the noble animal, before he let go, brought the
+culprit to the ground like a shot.  I immediately stood forward, and got
+the feud soldered as well as I could, in which the worthy Justo
+cordially lent me a hand.
+
+Next morning I rode out on my mule, to take my last dip in the Quebrada
+of the Loseria, which was a rapid in a beautiful little rivulet, distant
+from Panama about three miles, and a most exquisite bath it was.  Let me
+describe it.  After riding a couple of miles, and leaving the open
+savannah, you struck off sharp to the left through a narrow bridle--path
+into the wood, with an impervious forest on either hand, and proceeding
+a mile farther, you came suddenly upon a small rushing, roaring,
+miniature cascade, where the pent--up waters leaped through a narrow gap
+in the limestone rock, that you could have stepped across, down a tiny
+fall about a fathom high, into a round foaming buzzing basin, twenty
+feet in diameter, where the clear cool water bubbled and eddied round
+and round like a boiling cauldron, until it rushed away once more over
+the lower ledge, and again disappeared, murmuring beneath the thick
+foliage of the rustling branches.  The pool was about ten feet deep,
+and never was any thing more luxurious in a hot climate.
+
+After having performed my morning ablutions, and looking with a heavy
+heart at the sweet stream, and at every stock and stone, and shrub and
+tree, as objects I was never to see again; I trotted on, followed by
+Peter Mangrove, my man--at--arms, who bestrode his mule gallantly, to
+Don Hombrecillo's pen, as the little man delighted to call his country
+house, situated about five miles from Panama, and which I was previously
+informed had been given up to the use of his two maiden sisters. I got
+there about half past ten in the forenoon, and found that el Senor Justo
+had arrived before me.  The situation was most beautiful; the house was
+embosomed in high wood; the lowest spurs put forth by the gigantic trees
+being far above the ridge--pole of the wooden fabric.  It was a low one
+story building of unpainted timber, which, from the action of the
+weather, had been bleached on the outside into a whitish grey
+appearance, streaked by numerous green weather--stains, and raised about
+five feet on wooden posts, so that there was room for a flock of goats
+to shelter themselves below it. Access was had to the interior by a
+rickety rattle--trap of a wooden ladder, or stair of half--a--dozen
+steps, at the top of which you landed in an unceiled hall, with the
+rafters of the roof exposed, and the bare green vitrified tiles for a
+canopy, while a small sleeping apartment opened off each end.  In the
+centre room there was no furniture except two grass hammocks slung
+across the room, and three or four old--fashioned leather, or rather
+hide covered chairs, and an old rickety table; while overhead the tiles
+were displaced in one or two places, where the droppings from the leaves
+of the trees, and the sough of their rustling in the wind, came through.
+There were no inmates visible when we entered but a little negro girl,
+of whom el Senor Hombrecillo asked "where the Senoras were?"--"En
+capillo," said the urchin.  Whereupon we turned back and proceeded to a
+little tiny stone chapel, little bigger than a dog--house, the smallest
+affair in the shape of a church I had ever seen, about a pistol--shot
+distant in the wood, where we found the two old ladies and Senor Justo's
+natural son engaged at their devotions. On being aware of our presence,
+they made haste with the service, and, having finished it, arose and
+embraced their brother, while the son approached and kissed his hand.
+
+One of the ancient demoiselles appeared in bad health; nevertheless,
+they both gave us a very hearty reception, and prepared breakfast for
+us; fricasseed fowls, a little too much of the lard, but still, fish
+from the neighbouring stream, &c., and I was doing the agreeable to the
+best of my poor ability, when el Senor Justo asked me abruptly if I
+would go, and bathe.  A curious country, thought I, and a strange way
+people have of doing things.  After a hearty meal, instead of giving you
+time to ruminate, and to allow the gastric juices to operate, away they
+lug you to be plumped over head and ears into a pool of ice cold water.
+I rose, confoundedly against my inclinations I will confess, and, we
+proceeded to a small rocky waterfall, where a man might wash himself
+certainly, but as to swimming, which is to me the grand desideratum, it
+was impossible, so I prowled away down the stream, to look out for a
+pool, and at last I was successful. On returning, as I only took a dip
+to swear by, the situation of my venerable Spanish ally was entertaining
+enough.  There he was, the most forlorn little mandrake eye ever rested
+on, cowering like a large frog under the tiny cascade, stark naked, with
+his knees drawn up to his chin, and his grey queue gathered carefully
+under a green gourd or calabash that he wore on his head, while his
+natural son was dashing water in his face, as if the shower bath
+overhead had not been sufficient.
+
+"Soy banando--soy banando, capitan--fresco--fresquito," squealed
+Hombrecillo; while, splash between every exclamation, his dutiful son
+let fly a gourdfull of agua at his head.
+
+That same evening we returned to Panama; and next morning, being the 22d
+of such a month, I left my kind friends, and, with Peter Mangrove,
+proceeded on our journey to Cruces, mounted on two stout mules.  I got
+there late in the evening, the road, from the heavy rains, being in sad
+condition; but next morning the recua, or convoy of silver, which was to
+follow me for shipment on merchants account to Kingston, had not
+arrived.  Presently I received a letter from Don Justo, sent express, to
+intimate that the muleteers had proceeded immediately after we had
+started for about a mile beyond the suburbs, where they were stopped by
+the officer of a kind of military post or barrier, under pretence of the
+passport being irregular; and this difficulty was no sooner cleared up,
+than the accounts of a bullfight, that was unexpectedly to take place
+that forenoon, reached them, when the whole bunch, half drunk as they
+were, started off to Panama again, leaving the money with the soldiers;
+nor would they return, or be prevailed on to proceed, until the
+following morning.  However, on the 24th, at noon, the money did arrive,
+which was immediately embarked on board of a large canoe that I had
+provided; and, having shipped a beautiful little mule also, of which I
+had made a purchase at Panama, we proceeded down the river to the
+village of Gorgona, where we slept.  My apartment was rather a primitive
+concern.  It was simply a roof or shed, thatched with palm--tree leaves,
+about twelve feet long by eight broad, and supported on four upright
+posts at the corners, the eaves being about six feet high.  Under this I
+slung my grass hammock transversely from corner to corner, tricing it
+well up to the rafters, so that it hung about five feet from the ground;
+while beneath Mangrove lit a fire, for the twofold purpose, as it struck
+me, of driving off the musquittoes, and converting his Majesty's officer
+into ham or hung beef; and after having made mulo fast to one of the
+posts, with a bundle of malojo, or the green stems of Indian corn or
+maize, under his nose, he borrowed a plank from a neighbouring hut, and
+laid himself down on it at full length, covered up with a blanket, as if
+he had been a corpse, and soon fell fast asleep.  As for Sneezer, he lay
+with his black muzzle resting on his fore paws, which were thrust out
+straight before him, until they almost stirred up the white embers of
+the fire; with his eyes shut, and apparently asleep, but from the
+constant nervous twitchings and pricking up of his ears, and his
+haunches being gathered up well under him, and a small quick switch of
+his tail now and then, it was evident he was broad awake, and considered
+himself on duty.  All continued quiet and silent in our bivouac until
+midnight, however, except the rushing of the river hard by, when I was
+awakened by the shaking of the shed from the violent struggles of mulo
+to break loose, his strong trembling thrilling along the taught cord
+that held him, down the lanyard of my hammock to my neck, as he drew
+himself in the intervals of his struggles as far back as he could,
+proving that the poor brute suffered under a paroxysm of fear.  "What
+noise is that?" I roused myself.  It was repeated.  It was a wild cry,
+or rather a loud shrill mew, gradually sinking into a deep growl.  "What
+the deuce is that, Sneezer?" said I. The dog made no answer, but merely
+wagged his tail once, as if he had said, "Wait a bit now, master; you
+shall see how well I shall acquit myself, for this is in my way." Ten
+yards from the shed under which I slept, there was a pigsty, surrounded
+by a sort of tiny stockade a fathom high, make of split cane, wove into
+wickerwork between upright rails sunk into the ground; and by the clear
+moonlight I could, as I lay in my hammock, see an animal larger than an
+English bulldog, but with the stealthy pace of the cat, crawl on in a
+crouching attitude until within ten feet of the sty, when it stopped,
+looked round, and then drew itself back, and made a scrambling jump
+against the cane defence, hooking on to the top of it by its fore paws.
+the claws of its hind feet scratching and rasping against the dry cane
+splits, until it had gathered its legs into a bunch, like the aforesaid
+puss, on the top of the enclosure; from which elevation the creature
+seemed to be reconnoitring the unclean beasts within.  I grasped my
+pistols.  Mangrove was still sound asleep.  The struggles of mulo
+increased; I could hear the sweat raining off him; but Sneezer, to my
+great surprise, remained motionless as before.  We now heard the alarmed
+grunts, and occasionally a sharp squeak, from the piggery, as if the
+beauties had only now become aware of the vicinity of their dangerous
+neighbour, who, having apparently made his selection, suddenly dropped
+down amongst them; when mulo burst from his fastenings with a yell
+enough to frighten the devil, tearing away the upright to which the
+lanyard of my hammock was made fast, whereby I was pitched like a shot
+right down on Mangrove's corpus, while a volley of grunting and
+squeaking split the sky, such as I never heard before; while, in the
+very nick, Sneezer, starting from his lair with a loud bark, sprang at a
+bound into the enclosure, which he topped like a first rate hunter; and
+Peter Mangrove, awakening all of a heap from my falling on him, jumped
+upon his feet as noisy as the rest.
+
+"Caramighty in a tap--wurra all dis--my tomach bruise home to my
+backbone like one pancake;" and, while the short fierce bark of the
+noble dog was blended with the agonized cry of the gatto del monte, the
+shrill treble of the poor porkers rose high above both, and mulo was
+galloping through the village with the post after him, like a dog with a
+pan at his tail, making the most unearthly noises; for it was neither
+bray nor neigh.  The villagers ran out of their huts, headed by the
+Padre Cura, and all was commotion and uproar.  Lights were procured.
+The noise in the sty continued, and Mangrove, the warm hearted creature,
+unsheathing his knife, clambered over the fence to the rescue of his
+four footed ally, and disappeared, shouting, "Sneezer often fight for
+Peter, so Peter now will fight for he;" and soon began to blend his
+shouts with the cries of the enraged beasts within.  At length the mania
+spread to me upon hearing the poor fellow shout, "Tiger here, Captain
+tiger here tiger too many for we--Lud--a--mercy--tiger too many for we,
+sir,--if you no help we, we shall be torn in piece." Then a violent
+struggle, and a renewal of the uproar, and of the barking, and yelling,
+and squeaking.  It was now no joke; the life of a fellow--creature was
+at stake.  So I scrambled up after the pilot to the top of the fence,
+with a loaded pistol in my hand, a young active Spaniard following with
+a large brown wax candle, that burned like a torch; and looking down on
+the melee below, there Sneezer lay with the throat of the leopard in his
+jaws, evidently much exhausted, but still giving the creature a cruel
+shake now and then, while Mangrove was endeavouring to throttle the
+brute with his bare hands.  As for the poor pigs, they were all huddled
+together, squeaking and grunting most melodiously in the corner. I held
+down the light.  "Now, Peter, cut his throat, man--cut his throat."
+
+Mangrove, the moment he saw where he was, drew his knife across the
+leopard's weasand, and killed him on the spot.  The glorious dog, the
+very instant he felt he had a dead antagonist in his fangs, let go his
+hold, and making a jump with all his remaining strength, for he was
+bleeding much, and terribly torn, I caught him by the nape of the
+neck, and, in my attempt to lift him over and place him on the outside,
+down I went, dog and all, amongst the pigs, upon the bloody carcass; out
+of which mess I was gathered by the Cura and the standers by in a very
+beautiful condition; for, what between the filth of the sty and blood of
+the leopard, and so forth, I was not altogether a fit subject, for a
+side box at the Opera.
+
+This same tiger or leopard had committed great depredations in the
+neighbourhood for months before, but he had always escaped, although he
+had been repeatedly wounded; so Peter and I became as great men for the
+two hours longer that we sojourned in Gorgona, as if we had killed the
+dragon of Wantley. Our quarry was indeed a noble animal, nearly seven
+feet from, the nose to the tip of the tail.  At day dawn, having
+purchased his skin for three dollars, I shoved off; and, on the 25th, at
+five in the evening, having had a strong current with us the whole way
+down, we arrived at Chagres once more. I found a boat from the Wave
+waiting for me, and to prevent unnecessary delay, I resolved to proceed
+with the canoe along the coast to Porto Bello, as there was a strong
+weather current running, and no wind; and, accordingly, we proceeded
+next morning, with the canoe in tow, but towards the afternoon it came
+on to blow, which forced us into a small cove, where we remained for the
+night in a very uncomfortable situation, as the awning proved an
+indifferent shelter from the rain, that descended in torrents.
+
+We had made ourselves as snug as it was possible to be in such weather,
+under an awning of boat sails, and had kindled a fire in a tub at the
+bottom of the boat, at which we had made ready some slices of beef, and
+roasted some yams, and were, all hands, master and men, making ourselves
+comfortable with a glass of grog, when the warp by which we rode
+suddenly parted, from a puff of wind that eddied down on us over the
+little cape, and before we could get the oars out, we were tailing on
+the beach at the opposite side of the small bay.  However, we soon
+regained our original position, by which time all was calm again where
+we lay; and this time, we sent the end of the line ashore, making it
+fast round a tree, and once more rode in safety.  But I could not sleep,
+and the rain having ceased, the clouds broke away, and the moon once
+more shone out cold, bright, and clear.  I had stepped forward from
+under the temporary awning, and was standing on the thwart, looking out
+to windward, endeavouring to judge of the weather at sea, and debating
+in my own mind whether it would be prudent to weigh before daylight, or
+remain where we were.  But all in the offing, beyond the small headland,
+under the lee of which we lay, was dark and stormy water, and white
+crested howling waves, although our snug little bay continued placid and
+clear, with the moonbeams dancing on the twinkling ripple, that was lap,
+lapping, an& sparkling like silver on the snow--white beach of sand and
+broken shells; while the hills on shore that rose high and abrupt close
+to, were covered with thick jungle, from which, here and there, a
+pinnacle of naked grey rock would shoot up like a gigantic spectre, or a
+tall tree would cast its long black shadow over the waving sea of green
+leaves that undulated in the breeze beneath.
+
+As the wind was veering about rather capriciously, I had cast my eye
+anxiously along the warp, to see how it bore the strain, when to my
+surprise it appeared to thicken at the end next the tree, and presently
+something like a screw, about a foot long, that occasionally shone like
+glass in the moonlight, began to move along the taught line, with a
+spiral motion.  All this time one of the boys was fast asleep, resting
+on his folded arms on the gunwale, his head having dropped down on the
+stem of the boat; but one of the Spanish bogas in the canoe, which was
+anchored close to us, seeing me gazing at something, now looked in the
+same direction; the instant he caught the object, he thumped with his
+palms on the side of the canoe exclaiming, in a loud alarmed tone--
+"Culebra--culebra,--a snake, a snake,"--on which the reptile made a
+sudden and rapid slide down the line towards the bow of the boat where
+the poor lad was sleeping, and immediately afterwards dropped into the
+sea.
+
+The sailor rose and walked aft, as if nothing had happened, amongst his
+messmates, who had been alarmed by the cries of the Spanish canoe man,
+and I was thinking little of the matter, when I heard some anxious
+whispering amongst them.
+
+"Fred," said one of the men, "what is wrong, that you breathe so hard?"
+
+"Why, boy, what ails you?" said another.
+
+"Something has stung me," at length said the poor little fellow,
+speaking thick, as if he had laboured under sore throat.  The truth
+flashed on me, a candle was lit, and, on looking at him, he appeared
+stunned, complained of cold, and suddenly assumed a wild startled look.
+
+He evinced great anxiety and restlessness, accompanied by a sudden and
+severe prostration of strength--still continuing to complain of great
+and increasing cold and chilliness, but he did not shiver. As yet no
+part of his body was swollen, except very slightly about the wound;
+however, there was a rapidly increasing rigidity of the muscles of the
+neck and throat, and within half an hour after he was bit, he was
+utterly unable to swallow even liquids.  The small whip--snake, the most
+deadly asp in the whole list of noxious reptiles peculiar to South
+America, was not above fourteen inches long; it had made four small
+punctures with its fangs, right over the left jugular vein, about an
+inch below the chin.  There was no blood oozing from them, but a circle
+about the size of a crownpiece of dark red surrounded them, gradually
+melting into blue at the outer rim, which again became fainter and
+fainter, until it disappeared in the natural colour of the skin.  By the
+advice of he Spanish boatman, we applied an embrocation of the leaves of
+the palma Christi, or castor--oil nut, as hot as the lad could bear it,
+but we had neither oil nor hot milk to give internally, both of which
+they informed us often proved specifics.  Rather than lie at anchor,
+until morning, under these melancholy circumstances, I shoved out into
+the rough water, but we made little of it, and when the day broke, I saw
+that the poor fellow's fate was sealed.  His voice had become
+inarticulate, the coldness had increased, all motion in the extremities
+had ceased, the legs and arms became quite stiff, the respiration slow
+and difficult, as if the blood had coagulated, and could no longer
+circulate through the heart; or as if, from some unaccountable effect of
+the poison on the nerves, the action of the former had been impeded;--
+still the poor little fellow was perfectly sensible, and his eye bright
+and restless.  His breathing became still more interrupted--he could no
+longer be said to breathe, but gasped--and in another half hour, like a
+steam--engine when the fire is withdrawn, the strokes, or contractions
+and expansions of his heart became slower and slower, until they ceased
+altogether.
+
+From the very moment of his death, the body began rapidly to swell, and
+become discoloured; the face and neck, especially, were nearly as black
+as ink within half an hour of it, when blood began to flow from the
+mouth, and other symptoms of rapid decomposition succeeded each other so
+fast, that by nine in the morning we had to sew him up in a boat sail,
+with a large stone, and launch the body into the sea.
+
+We continued to struggle against the breeze until eleven o'clock in the
+forenoon of the 27th, when the wind again increased to such a pitch,
+that we had to cast off our tow, and leave her on the coast under the
+charge of little Reefpoint, with instructions to remain in the creek
+where he was, until the schooner picked him up; we then pushed once more
+through the surf for Porto Bello, where we arrived in safety at five
+P.m. Next morning at daylight we got under weigh, and stood down for the
+canoe, and having received the money on board, and the Spaniards who
+accompanied it, and poor mulo, we made sail for Kingston, Jamaica, and
+on the 4th of the following month were off Carthagena once more, having
+been delayed by calms and light winds.  The captain of the port shoved
+out to us, and I immediately recognized him as the officer to whom poor
+old Deadeye once gave a deuced fright, when we were off the town, in the
+old Torch, during the siege, and about a fortnight before she foundered
+in the hurricane; but in the present instance he was all civility; on
+his departure we made sail, and arrived at Kingston, safe and sound, in
+the unusually short passage of sixty hours from the time we left
+Carthagena.
+
+Here the first thing I did was to call on some of my old friends, with
+one of whom I found a letter lying for me from Mr Bang, requesting a
+visit at his domicile in St Thomas in the Vale so soon as I arrived; and
+through the extreme kindness of my Kingston allies, I had, on my
+intention of accepting it being known, at least half a dozen gigs
+offered to me, with servants and horses, and I don't know what all. I
+made my selection, and had arranged to start at day--dawn next morning,
+when a cousin of mine, young Palma, came in where I was dining, and said
+that his mother and the family had arrived in town that very day, and
+were bound on a picnic party next morning to visit the Falls in St
+David's. I agreed to go, and to postpone my visit to friend Aaron for
+the present; and very splendid scenery did we see; but as I had seen the
+Falls of Niagara, of course I was not astonished.  There was a favourite
+haunt and cave of Three--fingered Jack shown to us in the neighbourhood,
+very picturesque and romantic, and all that sort of thing, but I was
+escorting my Mary, and the fine scenery and roaring waters were at this
+time thrown away on me.  However, there was one incident amusing enough.
+Mary and I had wandered away from the rest of the party, about a mile
+above the cascade, where the river was quiet and still, and divided into
+several tiny streams or pools, by huge stones that had rolled from the
+precipitous banks, down into its channel; when on turning an angle of
+the rock, we came unexpectedly on my old ally Whiffle, with a cigar in
+his mouth, seated on a cane bottomed chair, close to the brink of the
+water, with a little low table at his right hand, on which stood a plate
+of cold meat, over which his black servant held a green branch, with
+which he was brushing the flies away, while a large rummer of cold
+brandy grog was immersed in the pool at his feet, covered up with a cool
+plantain leaf.  He held a long fishing rod in his hands, eighteen feet
+at the shortest, fit to catch salmon with, which he had to keep nearly
+upright, in order to let his hook drop into the pool, which was not
+above five feet wide--why he did not heave it by hand I am sure I cannot
+tell; indeed, I would as soon have thought of angling for gold fish in
+my aunt's glass globe--and there he sat fishing with great complacency.
+However, he seemed a little put out when we came up.  "Ah, Tom, how do
+you do?--Miss, your most obsequious--no rain mullet deucedly shy, Tom--
+ah! what a glorious nibble--there--there again--I have him;" and sure
+enough, he had hooked a fine mountain mullet, weighing about a pound and
+a half, and in the ecstasy of the moment, and his hurry to land him
+handsomely, he regularly capsized in his chair, upset the rummer of
+brandy grog and table and all the rest of it.  We had a good laugh, and
+then rejoined our party, and that evening we all sojourned at Lucky
+Valley, a splendid coffee estate, with a most excellent man and an
+exceedingly obliging fellow for a landlord.
+
+Next day we took a long ride, to visit a German gentleman, who had
+succeeded in a wonderful manner in taming fish.  He received us very
+hospitably, and after lunch, we all proceeded to his garden, through
+which ran a beautiful stream of the clearest water.  It was about four
+feet broad, and a foot deep, where it entered the garden, but gradually
+widened in consequence of a dam with stakes at the top having been
+erected at the lower part of it, until it became a pool twelve feet
+broad, and four feet deep, of the most beautiful crystal clear water
+that can be imagined, while the margin on both sides was fringed with
+the fairest flowers that Europe or the tropics could afford.  We all
+peered into the stream, but could see nothing except an occasional
+glance of a white scale or fin now and then.--"Liverpool!" shouted the
+old German who was doing the honours--"Liverpool, come bring de food for
+de fis." Liverpool, a respectable--looking negro, approached, and
+stooping down at the water's edge, held a piece of roasted plantain
+close to the surface of it.  In an instant, upwards of a hundred mullet,
+large fine fish, some of them above a foot long, rushed from out the
+dark clear depths of the quiet pool, and jumped, and walloped, and
+struggled for the food, although the whole party were standing close by.
+Several of the ladies afterwards tried their hand, and the fish,
+although not apparently quite so confident, after a tack here and a tack
+there, always in the end came close to and made a grab at what was held
+to them.
+
+That evening I returned to Kingston, where I found an order lying for me
+to repair as second--lieutenant on board the Firebrand once more, and to
+resign the command of the Wave to no less a man than Moses Yerk,
+esquire; and a happy man was Moses, and a gallant fellow he proved
+himself in her, and earned laurels and good freights of specie, and is
+now comfortably domiciled amongst his friends.
+
+The only two Waves, that I successfully made interest at their own
+request to get back with me, were Tailtackle, and little Reefpoint.
+
+Time wore on--days and weeks and months passed away, during which we
+were almost constantly at sea, but incidents worth relating had grown
+scarce, as we were now in piping times of peace, when even a stray
+pirate had become a rarity, and a luxury denied to all but the small
+craft people.  On one of our cruises, however, we had been working up
+all morning to the southward of the Pedro shoals, with the wind strong
+at east, a hard fiery sea--breeze.  We had hove--about, some three hours
+before, and were standing in towards the land, on the starboard tack,
+when the look--out at the masthead hailed.
+
+"The water shoals on the weather bow, sir;" and presently, "breakers
+right ahead."
+
+"Very well," I replied--"all right."
+
+"We are nearing the reefs, sir," said I, walking aft and addressing
+Captain Transom; "shall we stand by to go about, sir?"
+
+"Certainly--heave in stays as soon as you like, Mr Cringle."
+
+At this moment the man aloft again sung out--"There is a wreck on the
+weather most point of the long reef, sir."
+
+"Ay! what does she look like?"
+
+"I see the stumps of two lower masts, but the bowsprit is gone, sir--I
+think she must be a schooner or a brig, sir."
+
+The Captain was standing by, and looked up to me, as I stood on the long
+eighteen at the weather--gangway.
+
+"Is the breeze not too strong, Mr Cringle?"
+
+I glanced my eye over the side--"Why, no, sir--a boat will live well
+enough--there is not so much sea in shore here."
+
+"Very well--haul the courses up, and heave--to."
+
+It was done.
+
+"Pipe away the yawlers, boatswain's mate."
+
+The boat over the lee--quarter was lowered, and I was sent to
+reconnoitre the object that had attracted our attention.  As we
+approached, we passed the floating swollen carcasses of several
+bullocks, and some pieces of wreck; and getting into smooth water, under
+the lee of the reef, we pulled up under the stem of the shattered hull
+which lay across it, and scrambled on deck by the boat tackles, that
+hung from the davits, as if the jolly--boat had recently been lowered.
+The vessel was a large Spanish schooner, apparently about one hundred
+and eighty tons burden, nearly new; every thing strong and well fitted
+about her, with a beautiful spacious flush--deck, surrounded by high
+solid bulwarks.  All the boats had disappeared; they might either have
+been carried away by the crew, or washed overboard by the sea.  Both
+masts were gone about ten feet above the deck; which, with the whole of
+their spars and canvass, and the wreck of the bowsprit, were lumbering
+and rattling against the lee--side of the vessel, and splashing about in
+the broken water, being still attached to the hull by the standing
+rigging, no part of which had been cut away.  The mainsail, foresail,
+fore--topsail, fore--staysail, and jib were all set, so she must most
+likely have gone on the reef, either under a press of canvass in the
+night, in ignorance of its vicinity, or by missing stays.
+
+She lay on her beam--ends across the coral rock, on which there was
+about three feet water where shallowest, and had fallen over to leeward,
+presenting her starboard broadside to the sea, which surged along it in
+a slanting direction, while the lee gunwale was under water.  The
+boiling white breakers were dashing right against her bows, lifting them
+up with every send, and thundering them down again against the flint--
+hard coral spikes, with a loud gritting rumble; while every now and then
+the sea made a fair breach over them, flashing up over the whole deck
+aft to the tafferel in a snow storm of frothy flakes.  Forward in the
+bows there lay, in one horrible fermenting and putrefying mass, the
+carcasses of about twenty bullocks, part of her deck--load of cattle,
+rotted into one hideous lump, with the individual bodies of the poor
+brutes almost obliterated and undistinguishable, while streams of
+decomposed animal matter were ever and anon flowing down to leeward,
+although as often washed away by the hissing waters.  But how shall I
+describe the scene of horror that presented itself in the after part of
+the vessel, under the lee of the weather--bulwarks!
+
+There, lashed to the ring--bolts, and sheltered from the sun and sea, by
+a piece of canvass, stretched across a broken oar, lay, more than half
+naked, the dead bodies of an elderly female, and three young women; one
+of the latter with two lifeless children fastened by handkerchiefs to
+her waist, while each of the other two had the corpse of an infant
+firmly clasped in her arms.
+
+It was the dry season, and as they lay right in the wake of the windward
+ports, exposed to a thorough draft of air, and were defended from the
+sun and the spray, no putrefaction had taken place; the bodies looked
+like mummies, the shrunken muscles, and wasted features, being covered
+with a dry horny skin, like parchment; even the eyes remained full and
+round, as if they had been covered over with a hard dim scale.
+
+On looking down into the steerage, we saw another corpse, that of a tall
+young slip of a Spanish girl, surging about in the water, which reached
+nearly to the deck, with her long black hair floating and spread out all
+over her neck and bosom, but it was so offensive and decayed, that we
+were glad to look another way.  There was no male corpse to be seen,
+which, coupled with the absence of the boats, evinced but too clearly
+that the crew had left the females, with their helpless infants, on the
+wreck to perish.  There was a small roundhouse on the after--part of the
+deck, in which we found three other women alive, but wasted to
+skeletons.  We took them into the boat, but one died in getting her over
+the side; the other two we got on board, and I am glad to say that they
+both recovered.  For two days neither could speak; there seemed to be
+some rigidity about the throat and mouth that prevented them; but at
+length the youngest--(the other was her servant)--a very handsome woman,
+became strong enough to tell us, "that it was the schooner Caridad that
+we had boarded, bound from Rio de la Hache to Savana la Mar, where she
+was to have discharged her deck--load of cattle, and afterwards to have
+proceeded to Batabano, in Cuba.  She had struck, as I surmised, in the
+night, about a fortnight before we fell in with her; and next morning,
+the crew and male passengers took to the boats, which with difficulty
+contained them, leaving the women under a promise to come back that
+evening, with assistance from the shore, but they never appeared, nor
+were they ever after heard of." And here the poor thing cried as if her
+heart would break.  "Even my own Juan, my husband, left me and my child
+to perish on the wreck.  Oh God!  Oh God!  I could not have left him--I
+could not have left him."
+
+There had been three families on board, with their servants, who were
+emigrating to Cuba, all of whom had been abandoned by the males, who, as
+already related, must in all human probability have perished after their
+unmanly desertion.  As the whole of the provisions were under water, and
+could not be got at, the survivors had subsisted on raw flesh so long as
+they had strength to cut it, or power to swallow it; what made the poor
+creature tell it, I cannot imagine, if it were not to give the most
+vivid picture possible, in her conception, of their loneliness and
+desolation, but she said, "no sea--bird even ever came near us."
+
+It were harrowing to repeat the heart--rendering description given by
+her, of the sickening of the heart when the first night fell, and still
+no tidings of the boats; the second sun set--still the horizon was
+speckless; the next dreary day wore to an end, and three innocent
+helpless children were dead corpses; on the fourth, madness seized on
+their mothers, and--but I will not dwell on such horrors.
+
+During these manifold goings and comings I naturally enlarged the circle
+of my acquaintance in the island, especially in Kingston, the mercantile
+capital; and often does my heart glow within me, when the scenes I have
+witnessed in that land of fun and fever rise up before me after the
+lapse of many years, under the influence of a good fire and a glass of
+old Madeira.  Take the following sample of Jamaica High Jinks as one of
+many.  On a certain occasion I had gone to dine with Mr Isaac Shingle,
+and extensive American merchant, and a most estimable man, who
+considerately sent his gig down to the wherry wharf for me.  At six
+o'clock I arrived at my friend's mansion, situated in the upper part of
+the town, a spacious one--story house, overshadowed by two fine old
+trees, and situated back from the street about ten yards; the
+intervening space being laid out in a beautiful little garden, raised
+considerably above the level of the adjoining thoroughfare, from which
+it was divided by a low parapet wall, surmounted by a green painted
+wooden railing.  There was a flight of six brick steps from the street
+to the garden, and you ascended from the latter to the house itself,
+which was raised on brick pillars a fathom high, by another stair of
+eight, broad marble slabs.  The usual verandah, or piazza, ran along the
+whole front, beyond which you entered a large and lofty, but very
+darksome hall, answering to our European drawing room into which the
+bedrooms opened on each side.  It did strike me at first as odd, that
+the principal room in the house should be a dark dungeon of a place,
+with nothing but borrowed lights, until I again recollected that
+darkness and coolness were convertible terms within the tropics.
+Advancing through this room you entered, by a pair of folding doors, on
+a very handsome dining room, situated in what I believe is called a back
+jamb, a sort of outrigger to the house, fitted all round with movable
+blinds, or jealousies, and open like a lantern to all the winds of
+heaven except the west, in which direction the main body of the house
+warded off the sickening beams of the setting sun.  And how sickening
+they are, let the weary sentries under the pillars of the Jamaica
+viceroy's house in Spanish Town tell, reflected as they were there from
+the hot brick walls of the palace.
+
+This room again communicated with the back yard, in which the negro
+houses, kitchen, and other offices were situated, by a wooden stair of
+the same elevation as that in front.  Here the table was laid for
+dinner, covered with the finest diaper, and snow--white napkins, and
+silver wine--coolers, and silver forks, and fine steel, and cut glass,
+and cool green finger--glasses with lime leaves floating within, and
+tall wax lights shaded from the breeze in thin glass barrels, and an
+epergne filled with flowers, with a fragrant fresh--gathered lime in
+each of the small leaf--like branches, and salt--cellars with red
+peppers in them, &c. &c. all of which made the tout ensemble the most
+captivating imaginable to a hungry man.
+
+I found a large party assembled in the piazza and the dark hall, to whom
+I was introduced in due form.  In Jamaica, of all countries I ever was
+in, it is a most difficult matter for a stranger to ascertain the real
+names of the guests at a bachelor dinner like the present, where all the
+parties were intimate--there were so many soubriquets amongst them; for
+instance, a highly respectable merchant of the place, with some fine
+young women for daughters, by the way, from the peculiarity of a
+prominent front tooth, was generally known as the Grand Duke of Tuscany;
+while an equally respectable elderly man, with a slight touch of
+paralysis in his head, was christened Old Steady in the West, because he
+never kept his head still; so, whether some of the names of the present
+party were real or fictitious, I really cannot tell.
+
+First, there was Mr Seco, a very neat gentlemanlike little man,
+perfectly well bred, and full of French phrases.  Then came Mr Eschylus
+Stave, a tall, raw--boned, well--informed personage; a bit of a quiz on
+occasion, but withal a pleasant fellow.  Mr Isaac Shingle, mine host, a
+sallow, sharp, hatchet--faced, small, but warm hearted and kind, as I
+often experienced during my sojourn in the west, only sometimes a little
+peppery and argumentative.  Then came Mr Jacob Bumble, a sleek fat--
+pated Scotchman.  Next I was introduced to Mr Alonzo Smoothpate, a very
+handsome fellow, with an uncommon share of natural good--breeding and
+politeness.  Again I clapper--clawed, according to the fashion of the
+country, a violent shake of the paw being the Jamaica infeftment to
+acquaintanceship, with Mr Percales, whom I took for a foreign Jew
+somehow or other at first, from his uncommon name, until I heard him
+speak, and perceived he was an Englishman; indeed, his fresh complexion,
+very neat person, and gentlemanlike deportment, when I had time to
+reflect, would of themselves have disconnected him from all kindred with
+the sons of Levi.  Then came a long, dark--complexioned, curly--pated
+slip of a lad, with white teeth and high strongly marked features,
+considerably pitted with small--pox.  He seemed the great promoter of
+fun and wickedness in the party, and was familiarly addressed as the
+Don, although I believe his real name was Mr Lucifer Longtram.  Then
+there was Mr Aspen Tremble, a fresh--looking, pleasant, well informed
+man, but withal a little nervous, his cheeks quivering when he spoke
+like shapes of calf's foot jelly; after him came an exceedingly polite
+old gentleman, wearing hair--powder and a queue, ycleped Nicodemus; and
+a very devil of a little chap, of the name of Rubiochico, a great ally
+in wickedness with Master Longtram; the last in this eventful history
+being a staid, sedate looking, elderly--young man, of the name of Onyx
+Steady, an extensive foreign merchant, with a species of dry caustic
+readiness about him that was dangerous enough.--We sat down, Isaac
+Shingle doing the honours, confronted by Eschylus Stave, and all was
+right, and smooth, and pleasant, and in no way different from a party
+of well bred men in England.
+
+When the second course appeared, I noticed that the blackie, who brought
+in two nice tender little ducklings, with the concomitant green peas,
+both just come in season, was chuckling, and grinning, and showing his
+white teeth most vehemently, as he placed both dishes right under Jacob
+Bumble's nose.  Shingle and Longtram exchanged looks. I saw there was
+some mischief toward, and presently, as if by some preconcerted signal,
+every body asked for duck, duck, duck.  Bumble, with whom the dish was a
+prime favourite, carved away with a most stern countenance, until he had
+got half through the second bird, when some unpleasant recollection
+seemed to come over him, and his countenance fell; and lying back on his
+chair, he gave a deep sigh.  But "Mr Bumble, that breast, if you please
+thank you,"--"Mr Bumble, that back, if you please," succeeded each
+other rapidly, until all that remained of the last of the ducklings was
+a beautiful little leg, which, under cover of the following story, Jacob
+cannily smuggled on to his own plate.
+
+"Why, gentlemen, a most remarkable circumstance happened to me while
+dressing for dinner.  You all know I am next door neighbour to our
+friend Shingle--our premises being only divided by a brick wall, about
+eight feet high.  Well, my dressing room window looks out on this wall,
+between which and the house, I have my duck pen"
+
+"Your what?" said I.
+
+"My poultry yard--as I like to see the creatures fed myself--and I was
+particularly admiring two beautiful ducklings which I had been carefully
+fattening for a whole week"--(here our friend's voice shook, and a tear
+glistened in his eye)--"when first one and then another jumped out of
+the little pond, and successively made a grab at something which I could
+not see, and immediately began to shake their wings, and struggle with
+their feet, as if they were dancing, until, as with one accord--deuce
+take me!"--(here he almost blubbered aloud)--"if they did not walk up
+the brick wall with all the deliberation in the world, merely helping
+themselves over the top by a small flaff of their wings; and where they
+have gone, none of Shingle's people know."
+
+"I'll, trouble you for that leg, Julius," said Longtram, at this
+juncture, to a servant, who whipped away the plate from under Bumble's
+arm, before he could prevent him, who looked after it as if it had been
+a pound of his own flesh.  It seemed that Longtram, who had arrived
+rather early, had found a fishing--tackle in the piazza, and knowing the
+localities of Bumble's premises, as well as his peculiarities, he, by
+way of adding his quota to the entertainment, baited two hooks with
+pieces of raw potatoes, and throwing them over the wall, had, in
+conjunction with Julius the black, hooked up the two ducklings out of
+the pen, to the amazement of Squire Bumble.
+
+By and by, as the evening wore on, I saw the Longtram lad making
+demonstrations to bring on a general drink, in which he was nobly
+seconded by Rubiochico; and, I grieve to say it, I was no ways loath,
+nor indeed were any of the company.--There had been a great deal of
+mirth and frolic during dinner,--all within proper bounds, however,--but
+as the night made upon us, we set more sail--more, as it turned out,
+than some of us had ballast for--when lo! towards ten of the clock, up
+started Mr Eschylus to give us a speech.  His seat was at the bottom of
+the table, with the back of his chair close to the door that opened into
+the yard; and after he had got his breath out, on I forget what topic;
+he sat down, and lay back on his balanced chair, stretching out his long
+legs with great complacency.  However, they did not prove a sufficient
+counterpoise to his very square shoulders, which, obeying the laws of
+gravitation, destroyed his equilibrium, and threw him a somersault, when
+exit Eschylus Stave, esquire, head foremost, with a formidable rumble
+tumble and hurry--scurry, down the back steps, his long shanks
+disappearing last, and clipping between us, and the bright moon like a
+pair of flails.
+
+However, there was no damage done; and, after a good laugh, Stave's own
+being loudest of all, the Don and Rubiochico righted him, and helped him
+once more into his chair.
+
+Jacob Bumble now favoured us with a song, that sounded as if he had been
+barrelled up in a puncheon, and was cantando through the bunghole; then
+Rubiochico sang, and the Don sang, and we all sang and bumpered away;
+and Mr Seco got on the table, and gave us the newest quadrille step;
+and, in fine, we were all becoming dangerously drunk.  Longtram,
+especially, had become uproarious beyond all bounds, and, getting up
+from his chair, he took a short run of a step or two, and sprang right
+over the table, whereby he smashed the epergne full of fruit and
+flowers, scattering the contents all about like hail, and driving a
+volley of preserved limes like grapeshot, in all their syrup and
+stickiness, slap into my face--a stray one spinning with a sloppy whit
+into Jacob Bumble's open mouth as he sang, like a musket--ball into a
+winter turnip; while a fine preserved pineapple flew bash on Isaac
+Shingle's sharp snout, like the bursting of a shrapnel shell.
+
+"D--n it," hiccuped Shingle, "wont stand this any longer, by JuJu
+jupiter!  Give over your practicals, Lucifer.  Confound it, Don, give
+over--do, now, you mad long legged son of a gun!"--Here the Don caught
+Shingle round the waist, and whipping him bodily out of his chair,
+carried him kicking and spurring into the hall, now well lit up, and
+laid him on a sofa, and then returning, coolly installed himself in his
+seat.
+
+In a little we heard the squeaking of a pig in the street, and our
+friend Shingle's voice high in oath. I sallied forth to see the cause of
+the uproar, and found our host engaged in single combat with a drawn
+sword--stick that sparkled blue and bright in the moonbeam, his
+antagonist being a strong porker that he had taken for a town guard, and
+had hemmed into a corner formed by the stair and the garden wall, which,
+on being pressed, made a dash between his spindleshanks, and fairly
+capsized him into my arms. I carried him back to his couch again; and,
+thinking it was high time to be off, as I saw that Smoothpate, and
+Steady, and Nicodemus, and the more composed part of the company, had
+already absconded, I seized my hat, and made sail in the direction of
+the former's house, where I was to sleep, when that devil Longtram made
+up to me.
+
+"Hillo, my little man of war--heave--to a bit, and take me with you.
+Why what is that? what the deuce is that?" We were at this time
+staggering along under the dark piazza of a long line of low wooden
+houses, every now and then thundering against the thin boards or
+bulkheads that constituted the side next the street, making, as we could
+distinctly hear, the inmates start and snort in the inside, as they
+turned themselves in their beds.  In the darkest part of the piazza,
+there was the figure of a man in the attitude of a telescope levelled on
+its stand, with its head, as it were, counter--sunk or morticed into the
+wooden partition.  Tipsy as we both were, we stopped in great surprise.
+
+"D--n it, Cringle," said the Don, his philosophy utterly at fault, "the
+trunk of a man without a head,--how is this?"
+
+"Why, Mr Longtram," I replied, "this is our friend Mr Smoothpate, or I
+mistake greatly."
+
+"Let me see," said Longtram,--"if it be him, he used to have a head
+somewhere, I know.--Let me see.--Oh, it is him; you are right, my boy;
+and here is his head after all, and a devil of a size it has grown to
+since dinner--time to be sure.--But I know his features bald pate--high
+forehead and cheekbones."
+
+Nota Bene. We were still in the piazza, where Smoothpate was
+unquestionably present in the body, but the head was within the house,
+and altogether, as I can avouch, beyond the Don's ken.
+
+"Where?" said I, groping about--"very odd, for deuce take me if I can
+see his head.--Why, he has none--a phenomenon--four legs and a tail, but
+no head, as I am a gentleman--lively enough, too, he is, don't seem to
+miss it much." Here poor Smoothpate made a violent walloping in a vain
+attempt to disentangle himself.
+
+We could now hear shouts of laughter within, and a voice that I was sure
+belonged to Mr Smoothpate, begging to be released from the pillory he
+had placed himself in by removing a board in the wooden partition, and
+sliding it up, and then thrusting his caput from without into the
+interior of the house, to the no small amazement of the brown fiddler
+and his daughter who inhabited the same, and who had immediately secured
+their prize by slipping the displaced board down again, wedging it
+firmly on the back of his neck, as if he had been fitted for the
+guillotine, thus nailing him fast, unless he had bolted, and left his
+head in pawn.
+
+We now entered, and perceived it was really Don Alonzo's flushed but
+very handsome countenance that was grinning at us from where it was
+fixed, like a large peony rose stuck against the wall.  After a hearty
+laugh we relieved him, and being now joined by Percales, who came up in
+his gig, with Mr Smoothpate's following in his wake, we embarked for an
+airing at half--past one in the morning--Smoothpate and Percales,
+Longtram and Tom Cringle.  Amongst other exploits, we broke into a
+proscribed conventicle of drunken negroes--but I am rather ashamed of
+this part of the transaction, and intended to have held my tongue, had
+Aaron managed his, although it was notorious as the haunt of all the
+thieves and slight ladies of the place; here we found parson Charley, a
+celebrated black preacher, three parts drunk, extorting, as Mawworm
+says, a number of devotees, male and female, all very tipsy, in a most
+blasphemous fashion, the table being covered with rummers of punch, and
+fragments of pies and cold meat; but this did not render our conduct
+more excusable, I will acknowledge.  Finally, as a trophy, Percales, who
+was a wickeder little chap than I took him for, with Longtram's help,
+unshipped the bell of the conventicle from the little belfry, and
+fastening it below Smoothpate's gig, we dashed back to Mr Shingle's with
+it clanging at every jolt.  In our progress the horse took fright, and
+ran away, and no wonder.
+
+"Zounds, Don, the weather--rein has parted--what shall we do?" said I.
+
+"Do?" rejoined Lucifer, with drunken gravity--"haul on the other, to be
+sure--there is one left, an't there?--so hard a--port, and run him up
+against that gun at the street corner, will ye?  That will stop him, or
+the devil is in it."
+
+Crash--it was done--and over the horse's ears we both flew like
+skyrockets; but, strange to tell, although we had wedged the wheel of
+the ketureen fast as a wreck on a reef, with the cannon that was stuck
+into the ground postwise between it and the body, there was no damage
+done beyond the springing of the starboard shaft, so, with the
+assistance of the negro servant, who had been thrown from his perch
+behind, by a shock that frightened him out of his wits, we hove the
+voiture off again, and arrived in safety at friend Shingle's once more.
+Here we found the table set out with devilled turkey, and a variety of
+high--spiced dishes; and, to make a long story short, we had another set
+to, during which, as an interlude, Longtram capsized Shingle out of the
+sofa he had again lain down on, in an attempt to jump over it, and broke
+his arm; and, being the soberest man of the company, I started off,
+guided by a negro servant, for Doctor Greyfriars.  On our return, the
+first thing that met our eyes was the redoubted Don himself, lying on
+his back where he had fallen at his leap, with his head over the step at
+the door of the piazza. I thought his neck was broken; and the doctor,
+considering that he was the culprit to be carved, forthwith had him
+carried in, his coat taken off, and was about striking a phleme into
+him, when Isaac's voice sounded from the inner apartment, where he had
+lain all the while below the sofa like a crushed frog, the party in the
+background, who were boosing away, being totally unconscious of his
+mishap, as they sat at table in the room beyond, enjoying themselves,
+impressed apparently with the belief that the whole affair was a lark.
+
+"Doctor, doctor," shouted he in great pain,--"here, here--it is me that
+is murdered--that chap is only dead drunk, but I am really dead, or will
+be, if you don't help."
+
+At length the arm was set, and Shingle put to bed, and the whole crew
+dispersed themselves, each moving off as well as he could towards his
+own home.
+
+But the cream of the jest was richest next day.  Parson Charley, who,
+drunk as he had been overnight, still retained a confused recollection
+of the parties who had made the irruption, in the morning applied to Mr
+Smoothpate to have his bell restored, when the latter told him, with the
+utmost gravity, that Mr Onyx Steady was the culprit, who, by the by, had
+disappeared from Shingle's before the bell interlude, and, in fact, was
+wholly ignorant of the transaction.  "Certainly," quoth Smoothpate, with
+the greatest seriousness, "a most unlikely person, I will confess,
+Charley, as he is a grave, respectable man; still, you know, the most
+demure cats sometimes steal cream, Charley; so, parson, my good man, Mr
+Onyx Steady has your bell, and no one else."
+
+Whereupon, away trudged Charley to Mr Steady's warehouse, pulling off
+his hat with a formal salaam, "Good Massa Onyx--sweet Massa Teady--pray
+give me de bell." Here the sable clerigo gathered himself up, and leant
+composedly on his long staff, hat still in hand, and ear turned towards
+Mr Steady, awaiting his answer.
+
+"Bell!" ejaculated Steady, in great amazement,--"bell! what bell?"
+
+"Oh, good, sweet Massa Onyx, dear Massa Onyx Teady, every body know you
+good person--quiet, wise somebody you is--all person sabe dat," whined
+Charley; then slipping near our friend, he whispered to him--"but de
+best of we lob bit of fon now and dende best of we lef to himshef
+sometime."
+
+"Confound the fellow!" quoth Onyx, rather pushed off his balance by such
+an unlooked--for attack before his clerks; "get out of my house, sir
+what the mischief do I know of you or your infernal bell? I wish the
+tongue of it was in your stomach--get out, sir, away with you."
+
+Charley could stand this no longer, and losing patience, "D--n me eye,
+you is de tief, sir--so give me de bell, Massa Teady, or I sall pull you
+go before de Mayor, Massa Teady, and you sall be shame, Massa Teady; and
+it may be you sall be export to de Bay of Honduras, Massa Teady.  Aha,
+how you will like dat, Massa Teady? you sall be export may be for break
+into chapel, during sarvice, and teal bell--aha, teal bell--who ever
+yeerie one crime equal to dat!"
+
+"My good man," quoth Onyx, who now felt the absurdity of the affair, "I
+know nothing of all this--believe me there is a mistake.  Who sent you
+here?"
+
+"Massa Smoothpate," roared Charley, "Massa Smoothpate, he who neber tell
+lie to nobody, Massa Smoothpate sent me, sir, so de debil if you no give
+up de bell I sall"
+
+"Mr Smoothpate--oh ho!" sung out Steady, 'I see, I see'--Finally the
+affair was cleared up, a little hush--money made him snug, and Charley
+having got back his instrument, bore no malice, so he and Steady resumed
+their former friendly footing--the "statu quo ante bellum."
+
+Another story and I have done.
+
+About a week after this, several of the same party again met at dinner,
+when my excellent friend Mr Nicodemus amused us exceedingly by the
+following story, which, for want of a better title, I shall relate under
+the head of:
+
+A Slippery Youth
+
+"We  all know," quoth old Nic, "that house robberies have been very rife
+of  late, and on peril even of having the laugh against me, I will  tell
+you  how  I suffered, no longer than three nights ago; so, Tom  Cringle,
+will  you  and  Bang  have  the charity to hold  your  tongues,  and  be
+instructed?
+
+"Old  Gelid,  Longtram, Steady, and myself, had been eating ratoons,  at
+the  Fortner's domicile, and it was about nine in the evening when I got
+home.   We  had  taken next to no wine, a pint of Madeira apiece  during
+dinner,  and six bottles of claret between us afterwards, so I  went  to
+bed  as  cool as a cucumber, and slept soundly for several hours,  until
+awakened  by my old gander--now do be quiet, Cringle--by my old watchman
+of  a gander, cackling like a hero.  I struck my repeater--half past one
+so  I  turned  myself, and was once more falling over into the  arms  of
+Morpheus, when I thought I saw some dark object flit silently across the
+open window that looks into the piazza, between me and the deep blue and
+as  yet moonless sky.  This somewhat startled me, but it might have been
+one  of  the servants.  Still I got up and looked out, but I  could  see
+nothing.  It did certainly strike me once or twice, that there was  some
+dark object cowering in the deep gloom caused by the shade of the orange
+tree at the end of the piazza, but I persuaded myself it was fancy, and
+once more slipped into my nest.  However, the circumstance had put sleep
+to  flight.  Half an hour might have passed, and the deep dark purity of
+the  eastern  sky  was  rapidly quickening into a  greenish  azure,  the
+forerunner  of  the  rising  moon," ("oh, confound  your  poetry,"  said
+Rubiochico,) "which was fast swamping the sparkling stars, like a bright
+river  flowing  over  diamonds, when the old gander  again  set  up  his
+gabblement and trumpeted more loudly than before.  'If you were  not  so
+tough,  my noisy old cock'--thought I--'next Michaelmas should be your
+last.'  So  I  now resolutely shut my eyes,  and  tried  to  sleep
+perforce,  in which usually fruitless attempt, I was actually  beginning
+to  succeed,  do you know, when a strong odour of palm oil came  through
+the  window,  and  on opening my eyes, I saw by the increasing  light  a
+naked  negro standing at it, with his head and shoulders in sharp relief
+against  the  pale broad disk of the moon, at that moment  just  peering
+over the dark summit of the Long mountain.
+
+"I rubbed my eyes, and looked again; the dark figure was still there,
+but as if aware that some one was on the watch, it gradually sank down,
+until nothing but the round bullet head appeared above the window sill.
+This was trying enough, but I made an effort, and lay still.  The
+stratagem succeeded; the figure, deceived by my feigned snoring and
+quietude, slowly rose, and once more stood erect.  Presently it slipped
+one foot into the room, and then another, but so noiselessly that when I
+saw the black figure standing before me on the floor, I had some
+misgivings as to its being really a being of this world.  However, I had
+small space for speculation, when it slid past the foot of the bed
+towards my open bureau--I seized the opportunity--started up--turned the
+key of the door--and planted myself right between the thief and the open
+window.  'Now, you scoundrel, surrender, or I will murder you on the
+spot.' I had scarcely spoken the word, when with the speed of light, the
+fellow threw himself on me--we closed--I fell--when, clip, he slipped
+through my fingers like an eel--bolted through the window--cleared the
+balcony at a bound, and disappeared.  The thief had stripped himself as
+naked as he was born, and soaped his woolly scull, and smeared his whole
+corpus with palm oil, so that in the struggle I was charmingly
+lubricated."
+
+Nicodemus here lay back on his chair, evidently desirous of our
+considering this the whole of the story, but he was not to be let off so
+easily, for presently Longtram, with a wicked twinkle of his eye, chimed
+in.
+
+"Ay, and what happened next, old Nic--did nothing follow, eh?"
+
+Nic's countenance assumed an irresolute expression; he saw he was jammed
+up in the wind, so at a venture he determined to sham deafness.
+
+"Take wine, Lucifer--a glass of Hermitage?"
+
+"With great pleasure," said his Satanic majesty.  The propitiatory
+libation, however, did not work, for no sooner had his glass touched the
+mahogany again, than he returned to the charge.
+
+"Now, Mr Nicodemus, since you won't, I will tell the company the reason
+of so nice an old gentleman wearing Baltimore flour in his hair instead
+of perfumed Mareschale powder, and none of the freshest either, let me
+tell you; why, I have seen three weavels take flight from your august
+pate since we sat down to dinner."
+
+Old Nic, seeing he was caught, met the attack with the greatest good
+humour.
+
+"Why, I will tell the whole truth, Lucifer, if you don't bother." ("The
+devil thank you," said Longtram.)--"So you must know," continued
+Nicodemus, "that I immediately roused the servants, searched the
+premises in every direction without success--nothing could be seen; but,
+at the suggestion of my valet, I lit a small spirit lamp, and placed it
+on the table at my bed--side, on which it pleased him to place my brace
+of Mantons, loaded with slug, and my naked small sword, so that, thought
+I, if the thief ventures back, he shall not slip through my fingers
+again so easily.  I do confess that these imposing preparations did
+appear to me somewhat preposterous, even at the time, as it was not, to
+say the least of it, very probable that my slippery gentleman would
+return the same night.  However, my servant in his zeal was not to be
+denied, and I was not so fit to judge as usual, from having missed my
+customary quantity of wine after dinner the previous day; so, seeing all
+right, I turned in, thus bristling like a porcupine, and slept soundly
+until daylight, when I bethought me of getting up. I then rose--slipped
+on my nightgown--and,"--here Nicodemus laughed more loudly than ever,
+"as I am a gentleman, my spirit lamp--naked sword--loaded pistols--my
+diamond breast--pin, and all my clothes, even unto my unmentionables,
+had disappeared; but what was the cruelest cut of all, my box of
+Mareschale powder, my patent puff, and all my pomade divine had also
+vanished; and true enough, as Lucifer says, it so happened that from the
+delay in the arrival of the running ships, there was not an ounce of
+either powder or pomatum to be had in the whole town, so I have been
+driven in my extremity--oh most horrible declension!--to keep my tail on
+hog's lard and Baltimore flour ever since."
+
+"Well but"--persisted Lucifer--"who the deuce was the man in the moon?
+Come, tell us.  And what has become of the queue you so tenderly
+nourished, for you sport a crop, Master Nic, now, I perceive?"
+
+Here Nicodemus was neither to hold nor to bind; he was absolutely
+suffocating with laughter, as he shrieked out, with long intervals
+between.
+
+"Why, the robber was my own favourite body--servant, Crabclaw, after
+all, and be d--d to him--the identical man who advised the warlike
+demonstrations; and as for the pigtail, why, on the very second night of
+the flour and grease, it was so cruelly damaged by a rat while I slept,
+that I had to amputate the whole affair, stoop and roop, this very
+morning." And so saying, the excellent creature fell back in his chair,
+like to choke from the uproariousness of his mirth, while the tears
+streamed down his cheeks and washed channels in the flour, as if he had
+been a tattooed Mandingo.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+The Last of the Log.
+Tom Cringle's Farewell.
+
+"And whether we shall meet again, I know not."
+
+JULIUS CAESAR, Vi. 114.
+
+
+One fine morning about this time, we had just anchored on our return
+from a cruise, when I received, as I was dressing, a letter from the
+secretary, desiring me instantly to wait on the Admiral, as I was
+promoted to the rank of commander, (how I did dance and sing, my eye!)
+and appointed to the Lotus--Leaf, of eighteen guns, then refitting at
+the dockyard, and under orders for England.
+
+I accordingly, after calling and making my bow, proceeded to the
+dockyard to enter on my new command, and I was happy in being able to
+get Tailtackle and Reefpoint once more removed along with me.
+
+The gunner of Lotus--Leaf having died, Timotheus got an acting warrant,
+which I rejoice to say was ultimately confirmed, and little Reefy, now a
+commander in the service, weathered it many a day with me afterwards,
+both as midshipman and lieutenant.
+
+After seeing every thing in a fair train on board, I applied for a
+fortnight's leave, which I got, as the trade which I was to convoy had
+not yet congregated, nor were they likely to do so before the expiry of
+this period.
+
+Having paid my respects at the Admiral's pen, I returned to Kingston.
+Most of the houses in the lower part of the town are surmounted by a
+small lookout, as it is called, like a little belfry, and usually
+furnished with one or more good telescopes, fitted with green blinds.
+It is the habit of the Kingstonians to resort in great numbers to those
+gardemange--looking boxes, whenever a strange sail appears in the
+offing, or any circumstance takes place at sea worth reconnoitring.  It
+was about nine o'clock on a fine morning, and I had taken my stand in
+one of them, peering out towards the east, but no white speck on the
+verge of the horizon indicated an approaching sail, so I slewed round
+the glass to the westward, to have a squint at the goings on amongst the
+squadron, lying at anchor at Port Royal, about six miles off, then
+mustering no fewer than eighteen pennants, viz. one line of battle ship,
+one fifty, five frigates, two corvettes, one ship--sloop, four eighteen
+gun brigs, three schooners, and a cutter.  All was quiet, not even one
+solitary signal making amongst them; so I again scoured the horizon
+towards the east, when I noticed a very dashing schooner, which had
+sailed that morning, as she crept along the Palisadoes.  She was lying
+up the inner channel, taking advantage of the land--wind, in place of
+staggering away to the southward through the ship--channel, already
+within the influence of the sea breeze, but which was as yet neutralized
+close in shore where she was by the terral.  The speed of the craft--the
+rapidity with which she slid along the land with the light air, riveted
+my attention.  On enquiry, I found she was the Carthagenian schooner
+Josefa.  At this moment the splash of oars was heard right below where
+we stood, and a very roguish--looking craft, also schooner--rigged,
+about a hundred tons burden apparently, passed rapidly beneath us,
+tearing up the shining surface of the sleeping harbour, with no fewer
+than fourteen sweeps.  She was very heavily rigged, with her main mast
+raking over the tafferel, and full of men. I noticed she had a long gun
+on a pivot, and several carronades mounted.  Presently there was a good
+deal of whispering amongst the group of half--a--dozen gentlemen who
+were with me in the lookout, who, from their conversation, I soon found
+were underwriters on the schooner outside.
+
+"Heyday," said one, "the Antonio is off somewhat suddenly this morning."
+
+"Where may that schooner, that is sweeping so handsomely down harbour,
+belong to?" said I to the gentleman who had spoken.
+
+'To Havanna,' was the answer; "but I fear he intends to overhaul the
+Josefa there, and she would be a good prize to him, now since Carthagena
+has thrown off allegiance to Spain."
+
+"But he will never venture to infract the neutrality of the waters
+surely," rejoined I, "within sight of the squadron too?"
+
+The gentleman I spoke to smiled incredulously; and as I had nothing
+particular to do for a couple of hours, I resolved to remain and see the
+issue.  In a few minutes, the sea--breeze came thundering down, in half
+a gale of wind, singing through the rigging of the ships alongside of
+the wharfs, and making the wooden blinds rattle again.  The Antonio laid
+in her sweeps, spread her canvass in an instant, and was lying--to, off
+the fort at Port Royal, to land her pass, in little more than half--an
+hour from the time she passed us, a distance of no less than seven
+miles, as she had to sail it.  In a minute the jib sheet was again
+hauled over to leeward, and away she was like an arrow, crowding all
+sail. I had seldom seen a vessel so weatherly before.  In an hour more,
+she was abreast of the town, and abeam of the Josefa, who, from being
+cooped up in the narrow inner channel, had, ever since the sea--breeze
+set down, been bothering with short tacks, about, and about, every
+minute.  Presently the Antonio dashed in through a streak of blue water
+in the reef, so narrow, that to look at it, I did not think a boat could
+have passed, and got between the Josefa and Port Royal, when he took in
+his gaff--topsail, and hauled down his flying--jib, but made no hostile
+demonstration, beyond keeping dead to leeward, tack for tack with the
+Josefa; and once, when the latter seemed about to bear up and run past
+him, I noticed the foot of his foresail lift, and his sails shiver as he
+came to the wind, as much as to say, "Luff again, my lady, or I'll fire
+at you." It was now clear Josefa did not like her playmate, for she
+cracked on all the canvass she could carry; and, having tried every
+other manoeuvre to escape without effect, she at length, with reckless
+desperation, edged away a point, and flew like smoke through another
+gap, even smaller and shallower than the one the Antonio had entered by.
+We all held our breath until she got into blue water again, expecting
+every moment to see her stick fast, and her masts tumble over the side;
+but she scraped clear very cleverly, and the next moment was tearing and
+plunging through the tumbling waves outside of the reefs.  Antonio, as I
+expected, followed her, but all very quietly, still keeping well to
+leeward, however.  Thus they continued for half an hour, running to the
+southward and eastward, when I noticed the Havanero, who had gradually
+crept up under the Josefa's lee--quarter, hoist his colours and pennant,
+and fire a gun at her.  She immediately tacked in great confusion, and
+made all sail to get back through the canal into the inner channel, with
+the other schooner close at her heels, blazing away from his long gun as
+fast as he could load.  A Spaniard, who was one of the principal owners
+of the Josefa's cargo, happened to be standing beside me in the lookout;
+at every shot, he would, with a face of the most intense anxiety, while
+the perspiration hailed off his brow, slap his hands on his thighs, and
+shrink down on his hams, cowering his head at the same time, as if the
+shot had been aimed at him, and he was trying to shun it, apostrophizing
+himself, with an agitated voice, as follows:
+
+"Valga me Dios, que demonio, que demonio!  Ah, Pancho Roque, tu es
+ruinado, mi amigo." Another shot.  "Tu es ruinado, chicatico, tan cierto
+como navos no son coles." A third flash.  "Oh, rabo de lechon de San
+Antonio, que es eso, que es eso!"
+
+Neck and neck, however, in came the Josefa, staggering right through the
+narrow channel once more, persecuted by the Antonio, with the white
+breakers foaming and flashing close to on each side of her, but by this
+time there was a third party in the game. I had noticed a lot of signals
+made in the flag--ship.  Presently one of the sloops of war fired a gun,
+and before the smoke blew off, she was under weigh, with her topsails,
+spanker, and fore--topmast--staysail set.  This was his Majesty's sloop
+of war Seaflower, which had slipped from her moorings, and was now
+crowding all sail in chase of the arrogant Don, who had dared to fire a
+shot in anger in the sanctuary of British waters.  All this while, the
+Antonio had been so intent on hooking the Carthagenian, that the sloop
+was nearly up to him before he hove about and gave up the chase; and now
+the tables were beautifully turned on him, for the Seaflower's shot was
+flying over and over him in whole broadsides, and he must have been
+taken, when, crack, away went the sloop's foretopgallant mast, which
+gave the rogue a start.  In an hour he was away to windward as far as
+you could see, and his pursuer and the Josefa were once more at anchor
+in Port Royal.
+
+That evening I returned to the dockyard, where I found every thing going
+on with Lotus--Leaf as I could wish.  So I returned, after a three days
+sojourn on board, to Kingston, and next afternoon mounted my horse, or
+rather a horse that a friend was fool enough to lend me, at the agent's
+wharf, with the thermometer at ninety--five in the shade, and cantering
+off, landed at my aunt Mrs Palma's mountain residence, where the mercury
+stood at sixty--two at nightfall, just in time to dress for dinner. I
+need not say that we had a pleasant party, as Mary was there; so, having
+rigged very killingly as I thought, I made my appearance at dinner, a
+mighty man, indeed, with my two epaulets; but to my great
+disappointment, when I walked into the piazza, not a soul seemed to
+acknowledge my promotion.  How blind people are! thought I. Even my
+cousins, little creole urchins, dressed in small transparent cambric
+shifts, tied into a knot over their tails, and with devil the thing else
+on, seemed to perceive no difference, as they pulled me about, with a
+volley of "Cousin Taam, what you bring we?"
+
+At length, dinner was announced, and we adjourned from the dark balcony
+to the dining room.  "Come, there is light enough here; my rank will be
+noticed now, surely--but no, so patience." The only males of the party
+were the doctor of the district, two Kingston gentlemen, and Colonel
+B----of the Guards; the ladies at dinner being my aunt, Mary, and her
+younger sister.  We sat down all in high glee; I was sitting opposite
+my dearie.  "Deuced strange--neither does she take any notice of my two
+epaulets;" and I glanced my eye, to be sure that they were both really
+there.  I then, with some small misgiving, stole a look towards the
+Colonel--a very handsome fellow, with all the ease and polish of a
+soldier and a gentleman about him.  "The devil, it cannot be, surely,"
+for the black--eyed and black--haired pale face, seemed annoyingly
+attentive to the militaire.  At length this said officer addressed me,
+"Captain Cringle, do me the honour to take wine." Mary started at the
+Captain.
+
+"She gazed, she redden'd like a rose, Syne pale as ony lily."
+
+Aha, thought I, all right still.  She trembled extremely, and her mother
+at length noticed it, I saw; but all this while, B----was balancing a
+land--crab on his silver fork, while, with a wine--glass in his other
+claw, he was ogling me in some wonderment.  I saw the awkwardness of the
+affair, and seizing a bottle of catchup for one of sercial, I filled my
+glass with such vehemence, that I spilt a great part of it; but even the
+colour and flavour did not recover me; so, with a face like a northwest
+moon, I swilled off the potion, and instantly fell back in my chair
+"Poisoned! by all that is nonsensical--poisoned catchup oh Lord!" and
+off I started to my bedroom, where, by dint of an ocean of hot water, I
+got quit of the sauce, and clinching the whole with a caulker of brandy,
+I returned to the dinner--table a good deal abashed, I will confess, but
+endeavouring most emphatically all the while to laugh it off as a good
+jest.  But my Mary was flown; she had been ailing for some days, her
+mother alleged, and she required rest.  Presently my aunt rose, and we
+were left to our bottle, and sorry am I to say it, I bumpered away, from
+some strong unaccountable impulse, until I got three parts drunk, to the
+great surprise of the rest of the party, for guzzling wine was not
+certainly a failing of mine, unless on the strong provocation of good
+fellowship.
+
+Mary did not appear that evening, and I may as well tell the whole
+truth, that she was pledged to marry me whenever I got my step; and next
+morning all this sort of thing was duly communicated to mamma, &c. &c.
+&c., and I was the happiest, and so forth--all of which, as it concerns
+no one but myself, if you please, we shall say no more about it.
+
+The beautiful cottage where we were sojourning was situated about three
+thousand feet above the level of the sea, and half way up the great
+prong of the Blue Mountains, known by the name of the Liguanea range,
+which rises behind, and overhangs the city of Kingston.  The road to it,
+after you have ridden about five miles over the hot plain of Liguanea,
+brings you to Hope estate, where an anatomy of an old watchman greeted
+me with the negro's constant solicitation--"Massa, me beg you for one
+fee--penny." This youth was, as authentic records show, one hundred and
+forty years old only.--The Hope is situated in the very gorge of the
+pass, wherein you have to travel nine miles farther, through most
+magnificent scenery; at one time struggling among the hot stones of the
+all but dry river--course; at others, winding along the breezy cliffs,
+on mule--paths not twelve inches wide, with a perpendicular wall of rock
+rising five hundred feet above you on one side, while a dark gulf, a
+thousand feet deep, yawned on the other, from the bottom of which arose
+the hoarse murmur of the foliage--screened brook.  Noble trees spread
+their boughs overhead, and the most beautiful shrubs and bushes grew and
+blossomed close at hand, and all was moist, and cool, and fresh, until
+you turned the bare pinnacle of some limestone--rock, naked as the
+summit of the Andes, where the hot sun, even through the thin attenuated
+air of that altitude, would suddenly blaze on you so fiercely, that your
+eyes were blinded and your face blistered, as if you had been suddenly
+transported within the influence of a sirocco.  Well, now, since you
+know the road, let us take a walk after breakfast.  It shall be a
+beautiful clear day--not a speck or cloud in the heavens.  Mary is with
+me.
+
+"Well, Tom," says she, "you were very sentimental last evening."
+
+"Sentimental! I was deucedly sick, let me tell you--a wineglassful of
+cold catchup is rather trying even to a lover's stomach, Mary.  Murder,
+I never was so sick, even in my first cruise in the old Breeze!  Bah!
+Do you know I did not think of you for an hour afterwards?--not until
+that bumper of brandy stayed my calamity.  But come, when shall we be
+married, Maria?  Oh! have done with your blushing and botheration
+tomorrow or next day?  It would not be quite the thing this evening,
+would it?"
+
+"Tom, you are crazy. Time enough, surely, when we all meet in England."
+
+"And when may that be?" said I, drawing her arm closer through mine.
+"No, no--tomorrow I will call on the admiral; and as you are all going
+to England in the fleet at any rate, I will ask his leave to give you a
+passage."
+
+All of which, as I said before, being parish news, we shall drop a veil
+over it--so a small touch at the scenery again.
+
+Immediately under foot rose several lower ranges of mountains those
+nearest us, covered with the laurel--looking coffee--bushes,
+interspersed with negro villages hanging amongst the fruit--trees like
+clusters of birds nests on the hillside, with a bright green patch of
+plantain suckers here and there, and a white painted overseer's house
+peeping from out the wood, and herds of cattle in the Guinea--grass
+pieces.  Beyond these, stretched out the lovely plain of Liguanea,
+covered with luxuriant cane--pieces, and groups of negro houses, and
+Guinea--grass pastures of even a deeper green than that of the canes;
+and small towns of sugar--works rose every here and there, with their
+threads of white smoke floating up into the clear sky, while, as the
+plain receded, the cultivation disappeared, and it gradually became
+sterile, hot, and sandy, until the Long Mountain hove its back like a
+whale from out the sea--like level of the plain; while to the right of
+it appeared the city of Kingston, like a model, with its parade, or
+place d'armes, in the centre, from which its long lines of hot sandy
+streets stretched out at right angles, with the military post of Up
+park camp, situated about a mile and a half to the northward and
+eastward of the town.  Through a tolerably good glass, the church spire
+looked like a needle, the trees about the houses like bushes, the tall
+cocoa--nut trees like harebells; a slow crawling black speck here and
+there denoted a carriage moving along, while waggons, with their teams
+of eighteen and twenty oxen, looked like so many centipedes.  At the
+camp, the two regiments drawn out on parade, with two nine--pounders on
+each flank, and their attendant gunners, looked like a red sparkling
+line, with two black spots at each end, surrounded by small black dots.
+Presently the red line wavered, and finally broke up, as the regiments
+wheeled into open column, when the whole fifteen hundred men crawled
+past three little scarlet spots, denoting the general and his staff.
+When they began to manoeuvre, each company looked like a single piece in
+a game at chess; and as they fired by companies, the little tiny puffs
+of smoke floated up like wreaths of wool, suddenly surmounting and
+overlaying the red lines, while the light companies breaking away into
+skirmishers, seemed, for all the world, like two red bricks suddenly
+cast down, and shattered on the ground, whereby the fragments were
+scattered all over the green fields, and under the noble trees, the
+biggest of which looked like small cabbages.  At length the line was
+again formed, and the inspection being over, it broke up once more, and
+the minute red fragments presently vanished altogether like a nest of
+ants, the guns, looking like so many barleycorns, under the long lines
+of barracks, that looked no bigger than houses in a child's toy. As for
+the other arm, we of the navy had no reason to glorify ourselves.  For,
+while the review proceeded on shore, a strange man--of--war hove in
+sight in the offing, looming like a mussel--shell, although she was a
+forty--four--gun frigate, and ran down before the wind, close to the
+Palisadoes, or natural tongue of land, which juts out like a bow from
+Rock Fort, to the eastward of Kingston, and hoops in the harbour, and
+then lengthens out, trending about five miles due west, where it widens
+out into a sandy flat, on which the town and forts of Port Royal are
+situated.  She was saluting the admiral when I first saw her.  A red
+spark and a small puff on the starboard side--a puff, but no spark, on
+the larboard, which was the side farthest from us, but no report from
+either reached our ears; and presently down came the little red flag,
+and up went the St George's ensign, white, with a red cross, while the
+sails of the gallant craft seemed about the size of those of a little
+schoolboy's plaything.  After a short interval, the flag ship, a seventy
+four, lying at Port Royal, returned the salute.  She, again, appeared
+somewhat loftier; she might have been an oyster--shell; while the
+squadron of four frigates, two sloops of war, and several brigs and
+schooners, looked like ants in the wake of a beetle.  As for the dear
+little Wave, I can compare her to nothing but a musquitto, and the large
+500--ton West Indiamen lying off Kingston, five miles nearer, were but
+as small cock--boats to the eye.  In the offing the sea appeared like
+ice, for the waves were not seen at all, and the swell could only be
+marked by the difference in the reflection of the sun's rays as it rose
+and fell, while a hot haze hung over the whole, making every thing
+indistinct, so that the water blended into sky, without the line of
+demarcation being visible.  But even as we looked forth on this most
+glorious scene, a small black cloud rose to windward.  At this time we
+were both sitting on the grass on a most beautiful bank, beneath an
+orange--tree--the ominous appearance increased in size--the sea breeze
+was suddenly stifled--the swelling sails of the frigate that had first
+saluted, fell, and, as she rolled, flattened in against the masts the
+rustling of the green leaves overhead ceased.
+
+The cloud rolled onward from the east, and spread out, and out, as it
+sailed in from seaward, and on, and on, until it gradually covered the
+whole scene from our view, (shipping, and harbour, and town, and camp,
+and sugar estates,) boiling and rolling in black eddies under our feet.
+Anon the thunder began to grumble, and the zigzag lightning to fork out
+from one dark mass into another, while all, where we sat, was bright and
+smiling under the unclouded noon--day sun.  This continued for half an
+hour, when at length the sombre appearance of the clouds below us
+brightened into a sea of white fleecy vapour like wool, which gradually
+broke away into detached masses, discovering another layer of still
+thinner vapour underneath, which again parted, disclosing through the
+interstices a fresh gauze--like veil of transparent mist, through which
+the lower ranges of hills, and the sugar estates, and the town and
+shipping, were once more dimly visible; but this in turn vanished, and
+the clouds, attracted by the hills, floated away, and hung around them
+in festoons, and gradually rose and rose until presently we were
+enveloped in mist, and Mary spoke. "Tom, there will be thunder here
+what shall we do?"
+
+"Poo, never mind.  Mary, you have a conductor on the house."
+
+"True," said she; "but the servants, when the post that supported it was
+blown down t'other day, very judiciously unlinked the rods, and now,
+since I remember me, they are, to use your phrase, 'stowed away' below
+the house;" and so they were, sure enough.  However, we had no more
+thunder, and soon the only indications of the spent storm were the red
+discoloured appearance of the margin of the harbour, from the rush of
+muddy water off the land, and the chocolate colour of the previously
+snow--white sandy roads, that now twisted through the plain like black
+snakes, and a fleecy dolphin--shaped cloud here and there stretching
+out, and floating horizontally in the blue sky, as if it had been hooked
+to the precipitous mountain tops above us.  Next day it was agreed that
+we should all return to Kingston, and the day after that, we proceeded
+to Mr Bangs's Pen, on the Spanish Town road, as a sort of halfway house,
+or stepping stone to his beautiful residence in St Thomas in the Vale,
+where we were all invited to spend a fortnight. Our friend himself was
+on the other side of the island, but he was to join us in the valley,
+and we found our comforts carefully attended to; and as the day after
+we had set up our tent at the Pen was to be one of rest to my aunt, I
+took the opportunity of paying my respects to the admiral, who was then
+careening at his mountain retreat in the vicinity with his family.
+Accordingly, I took horse, and rode along the margin of the great lagoon,
+on the Spanish Town road, through tremendous defiles; and after being
+driven into a watchman's hut by the rain, I reached the house, and was
+most graciously received by Sir Samuel Semaphore and his lady, and their
+lovely daughters. Oh, the most splendid women that ever were built!  The
+youngest is now, I believe, the prime ornament of the Scottish Peerage;
+and I never can forget the pleasure I so frequently experienced in those
+days in the society of this delightful family.  The same evening I
+returned to the Pen.  On my way I fell in with three officers in white
+jackets, and broad--brimmed straw hats, wading up to the waist amongst
+the reeds of the lagoon, with guns held high above their heads.  They
+were shooting ducks, it seemed; and their negro servants were heard
+ploutering and shouting amidst the thickets of the crackling reeds,
+while their dogs were swimming all about them.
+
+"Hillo!" shouted the nearest--"Cringle, my lad--whither bound? how is
+Sir Samuel and Lady Semaphore, eh?  Capital sport, ten brace of teal
+there"--and the spokesman threw two beautiful birds ashore to me.  This
+wise man of the bulrushes was no less a personage than Sir Jeremy Mayo,
+the commander of the forces, one of the bravest fellows in the army, and
+respected and beloved by all who ever knew him, but a regular dare
+devil of an Irishman, who, not satisfied with his chance of yellow fever
+on shore, had thus chosen to hunt for it with his staff, in the Caymanas
+Lagoon.
+
+Next morning, we set out in earnest on our travels for St Thomas in the
+Vale, in two of our friend Bang's gigs, and my aunt's ketureen, laden
+with her black maiden and a lot of bandboxes, while two mounted servants
+brought up the rear, and my old friend Jupiter, who had descended, not
+from the clouds, but from the excellent Mr Fyall, who was by this time
+gathered to his fathers, to Massa Aaron, rode a musket shot ahead of the
+convoy to clear away, or give notice of any impediments, of wagons or
+carts, or droves of cattle, that might be meeting us.
+
+
+After driving five miles or so, we reached the seat of government,
+Spanish Town.  Here we stopped at the Speaker's house--by the way, one
+of the handsomest and most agreeable men I ever saw--intending to
+proceed in the afternoon to our destination.  But the rain in the
+forenoon fell so heavily, that we had to delay our journey until next
+morning; and that afternoon I spent in attending the debates in the
+House. of Assembly, where every thing was conducted with much greater
+decorum than I ever saw maintained in the House of Commons, and no great
+daring in the assertion either.  The Hall itself, fitted with polished
+mahogany benches, was handsome and well aired, and between it and the
+grand court, as it is called, occupying the other end of the building,
+which was then sitting, there is a large cool saloon, generally in term
+time well filled with wigless lawyers and their clients.  The House of
+Assembly (this saloon and the court--house forming one side of the
+square) is situated over against the Government House; while another
+side is occupied by a very handsome temple, covering in a statue erected
+to Lord Rodney, the saviour of the Island, as he is always called, from
+having crushed the fleet of Count de Grasse.
+
+At length, at grey--dawn the next day, as the report of the morning gun
+came booming along the level plain from Port Royal, we weighed and
+finally started on our cruise.  As we drove up towards St Thomas in the
+Vale, from Spanish Town, along the hot sandy road, the plain gradually
+roughened into small rocky eminences, covered with patches of bushes
+here and there, with luxuriant Guinea--grass growing in the clefts; the
+road then sank between abrupt little hills the Guinea corn fields began
+to disappear, the grass became greener, the trees rose higher, the air
+felt fresher and cooler, and proceeding still farther, the hills on
+either side swelled into mountains, and became rocky and precipitous,
+and drew together, as it were, until they appeared to impend over us.
+We had now arrived at the gorge of the pass, leading into the valley,
+through which flowed a most beautiful limpid clear blue stream, along
+the margin of which the road wound, while the tree--clothed precipices
+rose five hundred feet perpendicularly on each brink.  Presently we
+crossed a wooden bridge, supported by a stone pier in the centre, when
+Jupiter pricked a--head to give notice of the approach of waggons, that
+our cavalcade might haul up, out of danger, into some nook in the rock,
+to allow the lumbersome teams to pass.
+
+"What is that?"--I was driving my dearie in the leading gig--"is that a
+pistol shot?" It was the crack of the long whip carried by the negro
+waggoner, reverberated from hill to hill, and from cliff to cliff; and
+presently the father of gods came thundering down the steep acclivity
+we were ascending.
+
+"Massa, draw up into dat corner; draw up."
+
+I did as I was desired, and presently the shrill whistle of the negro
+waggoners, and the increasing sharpness of the reports of their loud
+whips, the handles of which were as long as fishing--rods, and their
+wild exclamations to their cattle, to whom they addressed themselves by
+name, as if they had been reasonable creatures, gave notice of the near
+approach of a train of no fewer than seven waggons, each with three
+drivers, eighteen oxen, three hogsheads of sugar, and two puncheons of
+rum.
+
+Come, thought I--if the negroes are overworked, it is more than the
+bullocks are, at all events.  They passed us with abundance of yelling
+and cracking, and as soon as the coast was clear, we again pursued our
+way up the ravine, than which nothing could be more beautiful or
+magnificent.  On our right hand now rose, almost perpendicularly, the
+everlasting rocks, to a height of a thousand feet, covered with the
+richest foliage that imagination can picture, while here and there a
+sharp steeple--like pinnacle of grey--stone, overgrown with lichens,
+shot up, and out from the face of them, into the blue sky, mixing with
+the tall forest trees that overhung the road, festooned with ivy and
+withes of different kinds, like the rigging of a ship, round which the
+tendrils of many a beautiful wild--flower crept twining up, while all
+was fresh with the sparkling dew that showered down on us, with every
+breath of wind, like rain. On our left foamed the roaring river, and on
+the other brink the opposite bank rose equally precipitously, clothed
+also with superb trees, that spread their blending boughs over the
+chasm, until they wove themselves together with those that grew on the
+side we were on, qualifying the noonday fierceness of a Jamaica sun into
+a green cool twilight, while the long misty reaches of the blue river,
+with white foaming rapids here and there, and the cattle wading in them,
+lengthened out beneath in the distance.  Oh! the very look of it
+refreshed one unspeakably.
+
+Presently a group of half--a--dozen country Buccras--overseers, or
+coffee--planters, most likely, or possibly larger fish than either--hove
+in sight, all in their blue--white jean trowsers, and long Hessian boots
+pulled up over them, and new blue square--cut, bright--buttoned coatees,
+and thread--bare silk broad--brimmed hats.  They dashed past us on
+goodish nags, followed at a distance of three hundred yards by a covey
+of negro--servants, mounted on mules, in white Osnaburg trowsers, with a
+shirt or frock over them, no stockings, each with one spur, and the
+stirrup--iron held firmly between the great and second toes, while a
+snow--white sheep's fleece covered their massas portmanteaus, strapped
+on to the mail pillion behind.  We drove on for about seven miles, after
+entering the pass, the whole scenery of which was by far the finest
+thing I had ever seen, the precipices on each side becoming more and
+more rugged and abrupt as we advanced, until all at once we emerged from
+the chasm on the parish of St Thomas in the Vale, which opened on us
+like a magical illusion, in all its green luxuriance and freshness.  But
+by this time we were deucedly tired, and Massa Aaron's mansion, situated
+on its little airy hill above a sea of canes, which rose and fell before
+the passing breeze like the waves of the ocean, was the most consolatory
+object in the view; and thither we drove is fast as our wearied horses
+could carry us, and found every thing most carefully prepared for our
+reception.  Having dressed, we had a glorious dinner, lots of good wine;
+and, the happiest of the happy, I tumbled into bed, dreaming of leading
+a division of line--of--battle ships into action, and of Mary, and of
+our eldest son being my first lieutenant.
+
+"Massa"--quoth Jupiter--"you take cup of coffee, dis marning, massa?"
+
+"Thank you--certainly."
+
+It was by this time grey dawn.  My window had been left open the evening
+before, when it was hot and sultry enough, but it was now cold and damp,
+and a wetting mist boiled in through the open sash, like rolling wreaths
+of white smoke.
+
+"What is that--where are we in the North Sea, or on the top of Mont
+Blanc?  Why, clouds may be all in your way, Massa Jupiter, but."
+
+"Cloud!" rejoined the Deity--"him no more den marning fag, massa;
+always hab him over de Vale in de morning, until de sun melt him.  And
+where is you?--why, you is in Massa Aaron house, here in St Thomas in de
+Vale--and Miss."
+
+"Miss"--said I--"what Miss?"
+
+"Oh, for you Miss," rejoined Jupiter with a grin, "Miss Mary up and
+dress already, and de horses are at de door; him wait for you to ride
+wid him before breakfast, massa, and to see de clearing of de fag."
+
+"Ride before breakfast!--see the clearing of the fog!" grumbled I.
+"Romantic it may be, but consumedly inconvenient." However, my
+knighthood was at stake; so up I got, drank my coffee, dressed, and
+adjourned to the piazza, where my adorable was all ready rigged with
+riding--habit and whip; straightway we mounted, she into her side
+saddle with her riding--habit, and who knows how many petticoats beneath
+her, while I, Pilgarlic, embarked in thin jean trowsers upon a cold,
+damp, indeed wet, saddle, that made me shiver again.  But I was
+understood to be in love; ergo, I was expected to be agreeable.
+However, a damp saddle and a thin pair of trowsers allays one's ardour a
+good deal too.  But if any one had seen the impervious fog in which we
+sat--why, you could not see a tree three yards from you--a cabbage
+looked like a laurel bush, and Sneezer became a dromedary, and the
+negroes passing the little gate to their work were absolute Titans.
+Boom, a long reverberating noise thundered in the distance, and amongst
+the hills, gradually dying away in a hollow rumble. "The admiral
+tumbling down the hatchway, Tom--the morning gun fired at Port Royal,"
+said Mary; and so it was.
+
+The fire--flies were still glancing amongst the leaves of the beautiful
+orange--trees in front of the house; but we could see no farther, the
+whole view being shrouded under the thick watery veil which rolled and
+boiled about us, sometimes thick, and sometimes thinner; hovering
+between a mist and small rain, and wetting ones hair, and face, and
+clothes, most completely.  We descended from the eminence on which the
+house stood, rode along the level at the foot of it, and, after a canter
+of a couple of miles, we began to ascend a bridle--path, through the
+Guinea--grass pastures, which rose rank and soaking wet, as high as
+one's saddlebow, drenching me to the skin, in the few patches where I
+was not wet before.  All this while the fog continued as thick as ever;
+at length we suddenly rose above it--rode out of it, as it were.
+
+St Thomas in the Vale is, as the name denotes, a deep valley, about ten
+miles long by six broad, into which there is but one inlet comfortably
+passable for carriages--the road along which we had come.  The hills, by
+which it is surrounded on all sides, are, for the most part, covered
+with Guinea--grass pastures on the lower ranges, and with coffee
+plantations and provision grounds higher up.  When we had ridden clear
+of the mist, the sun was shining brightly overhead, and every thing was
+fresh and sparkling with dewdrops near us; but the vale was still
+concealed under the wool--like sea of white mist, only pierced here and
+there by a tall cocoa--nut tree rising above it, like the mast of a
+foundered vessel.  But anon the higher ridges of the grass pieces
+appeared, as the fog undulated in fleecy waves in the passing breeze,
+which, as it rose and sank like the swell of the ocean, disclosed every
+now and then the works on some high--lying sugar estate, and again
+rolled over them like the tide covering the shallows of the sea, while
+shouts of laughter, and the whooping of the negroes in the fields, rose
+from out the obscurity, blended with the signal cries of the sugar
+boilers to the stockholemen of "Fire, fire grand copper, grand copper,"
+and the ca cawing, like so many rooks, of the children driving the mules
+and oxen in the mills, and the everlasting splashing and panting of the
+water--wheel of the estate immediately below us, and the crashing and
+smashing of the canes, as they were crushed between the mill rollers;
+and the cracking of the wain and waggonmen's long whips, and the
+rumbling, and creaking, and squealing of the machinery of the mills, and
+of the carriage--wheels; while the smoke from the unseen chimney stalks
+of the sugar--works rose whirling darkly up through the watery veil,
+like spinning waterspouts, from out the bosom of the great deep.  Anon
+the veil rose, and we were once more gradually enveloped in clouds.
+Presently the thickest of the mist floated up, and rose above us like a
+gauze--like canopy of fleecy clouds overhanging the whole level plain,
+through which the red quenched sun, which a moment before was flaming
+with intolerable brightness overhead, suddenly assumed the appearance of
+a round red globe in an apothecary's window, surrounded by a broad
+yellow sickly halo, which dimly lit up, as if the sun had been in
+eclipse, the cane--fields, then in arrow, as it is called, (a lavender
+coloured flower, about three feet long, that shoots out from the top of
+the cane, denoting that it is mature, and fit to be ground,) and the
+Guinea--grass plats, and the nice--looking houses of the bushas, and the
+busy mill--yards, and the noisy gangs of negroes in the field, which
+were all disclosed, as if by the change of a scene.
+
+At length, in love as we were, we remembered our breakfast; and
+beginning to descend, we encountered in the path a gang of about three
+dozen little glossy black piccaninies going to their work, the oldest
+not above twelve years of age, under the care of an old negress.  They
+had all their little packies, or calabashes, on their heads, full of
+provisions; while an old cook, with a bundle of fagots on her head, and
+a fire stick in her hand, brought up the rear, her province being to
+cook the food which the tiny little work--people carried.  Presently one
+or two book--keepers, or deputy white superintendents on the plantation,
+also passed,--strong healthy looking young fellows, in stuff jackets and
+white trowsers, and all with good cudgels in their hands.  The mist,
+which had continued to rise up and up, growing thinner and thinner as it
+ascended, now rent overhead about the middle of the vale, and the
+masses, like scattered clouds, drew towards the ledge of the hills that
+surrounded it, like floating chips of wood in a tub of water, sailing in
+long shreds towards @he most precipitous peaks, to which as they
+ascended they attached themselves, and remained at rest.  And now the
+fierce sun, reasserting his supremacy, shone once more in all his
+tropical fierceness right down on the steamy earth, and all was glare,
+and heat, and bustle.
+
+Next morning, I rode out at daylight along with Mr Bang, who had arrived
+on the previous evening.  We stopped to breakfast at a property of his
+about four miles distant, and certainly we had no reason to complain of
+our fare--fresh fish from the gully, nicely roasted yams, a capital junk
+of salt beef, a dish I always glory in on shore, although a hint of it
+at sea makes me quake; and, after our repast, I once more took the road
+to see the estate, in company of my learned friend.  There was a long
+narrow saddle, or ridge of limestone, about five hundred feet high, that
+separated the southern quarter of the parish from the northern.  The
+cane--pieces, and cultivated part of the estate, lay in a dead level of
+deep black mould, to the southward of this ridge, from out which the
+latter rose abruptly.  The lower part of the ridge was clothed with the
+most luxuriant orange, shaddock, lime, star--apple, breadfruit, and
+custard apple--trees, besides numberless others that I cannot
+particularize, while the summit was shaded by tall forest timber.
+Proceeding along a rough bridle path for the space of two miles, we
+attained the highest part of the saddle, and turned sharp off to the
+right, to follow a small footpath that had been billed in the bush,
+being the lines recently run by the land--surveyor between Mr Bang's
+property and the neighbouring estate, the course of which mine host was
+desirous of personally inspecting.  We therefore left our horses in
+charge of the servants, who had followed us running behind, holding on
+by the tails of our horses, and began to brush through the narrow path
+cut in the hot underwood.  After walking a hundred yards or so, we
+arrived at the point where the path ended abruptly, abutting against a
+large tree that had been felled, the stump of which remained, being
+about three feet high, and at least five in diameter.  Mr Bang
+immediately perched himself on it to look about him, to see the lay of
+the land over the sea of brushwood. I remained below, complaining loudly
+of the heat and confined air of my situation, and swabbing all the while
+most energetically, when I saw my friend start.
+
+"Zounds, Tom, look behind you!" We had nothing but our riding switches
+in our hands.  A large snake, about ten feet long, had closed up the
+path in our rear, sliding slowly from one branch to another, and hissing
+and striking out its forked tongue, as it twisted itself, at the height
+of my head from the ground, amongst the trees and bushes, round and
+round about, occasionally twining its neck round a tree as thick as my
+body, on one side of the path, and its tail round another, larger in
+girth than my leg, on the other; when it would, with prodigious
+strength, but the greatest ease, and the most oily smoothness, bend the
+smaller tree like a hoop, until the trunks nearly touched, although
+growing full six feet asunder; as if a tackle fall, or other strong
+purchase, had been applied; but continuing all the while it was putting
+forth its power, to glide soapily along, quite unconcernedly, and to all
+appearance as pliant as a leather thong,--shooting out its glancing
+neck, and glowering about with its little blasting fiery eyes,--and
+sliding the forepart of the body onwards without pausing, as if there had
+been no strain on the tail whatsoever, until the stems of the two trees
+were at length brought together, when it let the smaller go with a loud
+spank, that shook the dew off the neighbouring branches, and the
+perspiration from Tom Cringle's forehead--whose nerves were not more
+steady than the tree--like rain, and frightened all the birds in the
+neighbourhood; while it, the only unstartled thing, continued steadily
+and silently on its course,--turning and looking at us, and poking its
+head within arm's length, and raising it with a loud hiss, and a
+threatening attitude, on our smallest motion.
+
+"A modern group of the Laocoon--lord, what a neckcloth we shall both have
+presently!" thought I.
+
+Meanwhile, the serpent seemed to be emboldened from our quietude, and
+came so near, that I thought I perceived the hot glow of its breath,
+with its scales glancing like gold and silver, and its diamond--like
+eyes sparkling; but all so still and smooth, that unless it were an
+occasional hiss, its motions were noiseless as those of an apparition.
+
+At length the devil came fairly between us, and I could stand it no
+longer.  We had both up to this period been really and truly fascinated;
+but the very instant that the coast was clear in my wake, by the snake
+heading me, and gliding between me and Mr Bang, my manhood forsook me
+all of a heap, and, turning tail, I gave a loud shout, and started off
+down the path at speed, never once looking behind, and leaving Bang to
+his fate, perched on his pedestal, like the laughing satyr; however, the
+next moment I heard him thundering in my rear.  My panic had been
+contagious, for the instant my sudden motion had frightened the snake
+out of his way, he started forth after me at speed, and away we both
+raced, until a stump caught my foot, and both of us, after flying
+through the air a couple of fathoms or so, trundled head over heels,
+over and over, shouting and laughing.  Pegtop now came up to us in no
+small surprise, but the adventure was at an end, and we returned to Mr
+Bangs to dinner.
+
+Here we had an agreeable addition to our party in Sir Jeremy Mayo, and
+the family of the Admiral, Sir Samuel Semaphore, his lady, his two most
+amiable daughters, and the husband of the eldest.
+
+Next morning we rode out to breakfast with a very worthy man, Mr
+Stornaway, the overseer of Mount Olive estate, in the neighbourhood of
+which there were several natural curiosities to be seen.  Although the
+extent of our party startled him a good deal, he received us most
+hospitably.  He ushered us into the piazza, where breakfast was laid,
+when uprose ten thousand flies from the breakfast table, that was
+covered with marmalade, and guava jelly, and nicely roasted yams, and
+fair white bread; and the fragrant bread--fruit roasted in the ashes,
+and wrapped in plantain leaves; while the chocolate and coffee pots--the
+latter equal in cubic content to one of the Wave's water--butts
+emulated each other in the fragrance of the odours which they sent
+forth; and avocado pears, and potted calipiver, and cold pork hams, and
+really, I cannot repeat the numberless luxuries that flanked the main
+body of the entertainment on a side table, all strong provocative to
+fall to.
+
+"You, Quacco--Peter--Monkey"--shouted Stornaway--"where are you, with
+your brushes; don't you see the flies covering the table?" The three
+sable pages forthwith appeared, each with a large green branch in his
+hand, which they waved over the viands, and we sat down and had a most
+splendid breakfast.  Lady Semaphore and I--for I have always had a touch
+of the old woman in me--were exceedingly tickled with the way in which
+the piccaniny mummas, that is, the mothers of the negro children,
+received our friend Bang.  After breakfast, a regular muster took place
+under the piazza of all the children on the property, under eight years
+of age, accompanied by their mothers.
+
+"Ah, Massa Bang," shouted one, "why you no come see we oftener? you
+forget your poor piccaniny hereabout."
+
+"You grow foolish old man now," quoth another.
+
+"You no wort--you go live in town, an no care about we who make Massa
+money here; you no see we all tarving here;" and the nice cleanly
+looking fat matron, who made the remark, laughed loudly.
+
+He entered into the spirit of the affair with great kindliness, and
+verily, before he got clear, his pockets were as empty as a half--pay
+lieutenant's.  His fee pennies were flying about in all directions.
+
+After breakfast we went to view the natural bridge, a band of rock that
+connects two hills together, and beneath which a roaring stream rushes,
+hid entirely by the bushes and trees that grow on each side of the
+ravine.  We descended by a circuitous footpath into the river course,
+and walked under the natural arch, and certainly never was any thing
+finer; a regular Der Freyschutz dell.  The arch overhead was nearly
+fifty feet high, and the echo was superb, as we found, when the sweet
+voices of the ladies, blending in softest harmony--(lord, how fine you
+become, Tom!)--in one of Moore's melodies, were reflected back on us at
+the close with the most thrilling distinctness; while a stone, pitched
+against any of the ivy--like creepers, with which the face of the rock
+was covered, was sure to dislodge a whole cloud of birds, and not
+infrequently a slow--sailing white--winged owl.  Shortly after the
+Riomagno Gully, as it is called, passes this most interesting spot, it
+sinks, and runs for three miles under ground, and again reappears on the
+surface, and gurgles over the stones, as if nothing had happened.  By
+the by, this is a common vagary of nature in Jamaica.  For instance, the
+Rio Cobre, I think it is, which, after a subterranean course of three
+miles, suddenly gushes out of the solid rock at Bybrook estate, in a
+solid cube of clear cold water, three feet in diameter; and I remember,
+in a cruise that I had at another period of my life, in the leeward part
+of the Island, we came to an estate, where the supply of water for the
+machinery rose up within the bounds of the mill--dam itself, into which
+there was no flow, with such force, that above the spring, if I might so
+call it, the bubbling water was projected into a blunt cone, like the
+bottom of a cauldron, the apex of which was a foot higher than the level
+of the pond, although the latter was eighteen feet deep.
+
+After an exceedingly pleasant day we returned home, and next morning,
+when I got out of bed, I complained of a violent itching and pain, a
+sort of nondescript sensation, a mixture of pain and pleasure in my
+starboard great toe, and on reconnoitring, I discovered it to be a good
+deal inflamed on the ball, round a blue spot about the size of a
+pinhead.  Pegtop had come into the room, and while he was placing my
+clothes in order, I asked him "What this could be--gout, think you,
+Massa Pegtop--gout?"
+
+"Gote, massa--gote--no, no, him chiger, massa--chiger--little something
+like one flea; poke him head under de kin, dere lay egg; ah, great
+luxury to creole gentleman and lady, dat chiger; sweet pain, creole miss
+say--nice for cratch him, him say."
+
+"Why, it may be a creole luxury, Pegtop, but I wish you would relieve me
+of it."
+
+"Surely, massa surely, if you wish it," said Pegtop, in some surprise at
+my want of taste.  "Lend me your penknife den, massa;" and he gabbled
+away as he extracted from my flesh the chiger bag--like a blue pill in
+size and colour.
+
+"Oh, massa, top till you marry creole wife,--she will tell you me say
+true; ah, daresay Miss Mary himself love chiger to tickle him--to be
+sure him love to be tickle--him love to be tickle--ay, all Creole miss
+love to be tickle--he, he, he!"
+
+By agreement, Mr Bang and I met Mr Stornaway this morning, in order to
+visit some other estates together, and during our ride I was
+particularly gratified by his company.  He was a man of solid and very
+extensive acquirements, and far above what his situation in life at that
+time led one to expect.  When I revisited the island some years
+afterwards, I was rejoiced to find that his intrinsic worth and ability
+had floated him up into a very extensive business, and I believe he is
+now a man of property. I rather think he is engaged in some statistical
+work connected with Jamaica, which, I am certain, will do him credit
+whenever it appears.  Odd enough, the very first time I saw him, I said
+I was sure he would succeed in the world; and I am glad to find I was a
+true prophet.  To return: Our chief object at present was to visit a
+neighbouring estate, the overseer of which was, we were led to believe
+from a message sent to Mr Bang, very ill with fever.  He was a most
+respectable young man, Mr Stomaway told me, a Swede by birth, who had
+came over to England with his parents at the early age of eight years,
+where both he and his cousin Agatha had continued, until he embarked for
+the West Indies.  This was an orphan girl whom his father had adopted,
+and both of them, as he had often told Mr Stornaway, had utterly
+forgotten their Swedish,--in fact, they understood no language but
+English at the time he embarked.  I have been thus particular, from a
+very extraordinary phenomenon that occurred immediately, preceding his
+dissolution, of which I was a witness.
+
+We rode up in front of the door, close to the fixed manger, where the
+horses and mules belonging to the busha are usually fed, and encountered
+a negro servant on a mule, with an umbrella--case slung across his back,
+and a portmanteau behind him, covered with the usual sheep's fleece, and
+holding a saddle horse.
+
+"Where is your master?" said Mr Bang.
+
+"De dactor is in de hose," replied quashie.  "Busha dere upon dving."
+
+We ascended the rocky unhewn steps, and entered the cool, dark hall,
+smelling strong of camphor, and slid over the polished floors towards an
+open door, that led into the back piazza, where we were received by the
+head book--keeper and carpenter.  They told us that the overseer had
+been seized three days before with fever, and was now desperately ill;
+and presently the doctor came forth out of the sick--room.
+
+"Poor Wedderfelt is fast going, sir--cold at the extremities already
+very bad fever--the bilious remittent of the country, of the worst type."
+
+All this while the servants, male and female, were whispering to each
+other; while a poor little black fellow sat at the door of the room,
+crying bitterly--this was the overseer's servant.  We entered the room.
+which was darkened from the jealousies being, all shut, except one of
+the uppermost, which happening to be broken, there was a strong pencil
+of light cast across the head of the bed where the sick man lay while
+the rest of the room was involved in gloom.
+
+The sufferer seemed in the last stage of yellow fever; his skin was a
+bright vellow, his nose sharp, and his general features very much
+pinched.  His head had been shaven, and there was a handkerchief bound
+round it over a plantain leaf, the mark of the blister coming low down
+on his forehead, where the skin was shrivelled like dry parchment
+apparently it had not risen.  There was also a blister on his chest.  He
+was very restless, clutching the bedclothes, and tossing his limbs
+about; his mouth was ulcerated, and blood oozed from the corners; his
+eyes were a deep yellow, with the pupil much dilated, and very,
+lustrous; he was breathing with a heavy moaning noise when we entered,
+and looked wildly round, mistaking Mr Bang and me for some other
+persons.  Presently he began to speak very quickly, and to lift one of
+his hands repeatedly close to his face, as if there was something in it
+he wished to look at. I presently saw that it held a miniature of a fair
+haired, blue--eyed Scandinavian girl; but apparently he could not see
+it, from the increasing dimness of his eyes, which seemed to distress
+him greatly.  After a still minute, during which no sound was heard but
+his own heavy breathing, he again began to speak very rapidly, but no
+one in the room could make out what he said. I listened attentively--it
+struck me is being like--I was certain of it--it was Swedish, which in
+health he had entirely forgotten, but now in his dying moments vividly
+remembered.  Alas, it was a melancholy and a moving sight, to perceive
+all the hitherto engrossing thoughts and incidents of his youth and
+manhood, all save the love of one dear object, suddenly vanish from the
+tablet of his memory, ground away and abrased, as it were, by his great
+agony--or like worthless rubbish, removed from above some beautiful
+ancient inscription, which for ages it had hid, disclosing in all their
+primeval freshness, sharp cut into his dieing heart, the long
+smothered, but never to be obliterated impressions of his early,
+childhood. I could plainly distinguish the name Agatha, whenever he
+peered with fast glazing eyes on the miniature.  All this while a nice
+little brown child was lying playing with his watch and seals on the bed
+beside him, while a handsome coloured girl, a slight young creature,
+apparently its mother, sat on the other side of the dying man,
+supporting his head on her lap, and wetting his mouth every now and then
+with a cloth dipped in brandy.
+
+As he raised the miniature to his face, she would gently endeavour to
+turn away his hand, that he might not look at one whom she, poor thing,
+no doubt considered was usurping the place in his fluttering heart, that
+she long fancied had been filled by herself solely; and at other times
+she would vainly try to coax it out of his cold hand, but the dieing
+grasp was now one of iron, and her attempts evidently discomposed the
+departing sinner; but all was done kindly and quietly, and a flood of
+tears would every now and then stream down her cheeks, as she failed in
+her endeavours, or as the murmured, gasped name, Agatha, reached her
+ear.
+
+"Ah!" said she, "him heart riot wid me now--it far away in him own
+country, him never will make me yeerie what him say again no more."
+
+Oh, woman, woman! who can fathom that heart of thine!  By this time the
+hiccup grew stronger, and all at once he sat up strong in his bed
+without assistance, "light as if he felt no wound;" but immediately
+thereafter gave a strong shudder, ejecting from his mouth a jet of dark
+matter like the grounds of chocolate, and fell back dead whereupon the
+negroes began to howl and shriek in such a horrible fashion, that we
+were glad to leave the scene.
+
+Next day, when we returned to attend the poor fellow's funeral, we found
+a complete bivouac of horses and black servants below the trees in front
+of the house, which was full of neighbouring planters and overseers, all
+walking about, and talking, and laughing, as if it had been a public
+meeting on parish business.  Some of them occasionally went into the
+room to look at the body as it lay in the open coffin, the lid of which
+was at length screwed down, and the corpse carried on four negroes
+shoulders to its long home, followed by the brown girl and all the
+servants, the latter weeping and howling,--but she, poor thing, said not
+a word, although her heart seemed, from the convulsive heaving of her
+bosom, like to burst.  He was buried under a neighbouring orange--tree,
+the service being read by the Irish carpenter of the estate, who got
+half a page into the marriage service by mistake before either he or any
+one else noticed he was wrong.
+
+Three days after this the admiral extended my leave for a fortnight,
+which I spent in a tour round this most glorious island with friend
+Aaron, whose smiling face, like the sun, (more like the nor'west moon in
+a fog, by the by,) seemed to diffuse warmth, and comfort, and happiness,
+wherever he went, while Sir Samuel and his charming family, and the
+general, and my dearie, and her aunt, returned home; and after a three
+weeks philandering, I was married, and all that sort of thing, and a
+week afterwards embarked with my treasure for I had half a million of
+dollars on freight, as well as my own particular jewel; and don't grin
+at the former, for they gave me a handsome sum, and helped to rig us
+when we got to Ould England, where Lotus--Leaf was paid off, and I
+settled for a time on shore, the happiest, &c. &c. &c., until some years
+afterwards, when the wee Cringles began to tumble home so deucedly fast,
+that I had to cut and run, and once more betake myself to the salt sea.
+My aunt and her family returned at the same time to England, in a
+merchant ship under my convoy, and became our neighbours.  Bang also got
+married soon after to Miss Lucretia Wagtail, by whom he got the Slap
+estate.  But old Gelid and my other allies remain, I believe, in single
+blessedness until this hour.
+
+MY TALE is told--my yarn is ended,--and were I to spin it longer, I fear
+it would be only bending it "end for end;" yet still I linger, "like the
+sough of an auld sang" on the ear, loath to pronounce that stern heart
+crushing word, that yet "has been, and must be," and which, during my
+boisterous and unsettled morning, has been, alas! a too familiar one
+with me.  I hope I shall always bless Heaven for my fair Blinks,
+although, as the day has wore on, I have had my own share of lee
+currents, hard gales, and foul weather; and many an old and dear friend
+has lately swamped alongside of me, while few new ones have shoved out
+to replace them.  But suffering, that scathes the heart, does not always
+make it callous; and I feel much of the woman hanging about mine still,
+even now, when the tide is on the turn with me, and the iron voice of
+the inexorable First--Lieutenant, Time, has sung out, "Strike the bell
+eight,"--every chime smiting on my soul as if an angel spoke, to warn
+me, that my stormy forenoon watch is at length over--that the sun, now
+passing the meridian, must soon decline towards the western horizon, and
+who shall assure himself of a cloudless setting.
+
+I have, in very truth, now reached the summit of the bald spray washed
+promontory, and stand on the slippery ledge of the cliff, that trembles
+to the thundering of the surge beneath; but the plunge must be made--so
+at once, Farewell all hands, and God bless ye.  If, while chucking the
+cap about at a venture--but I hope and trust there has been no such
+thing--it has alighted on the head of some ancient ally, and pinched in
+any the remotest degree, I hereby express my most sincere and heartfelt
+regret; and to such a one I would say, as he said, who wrote for all
+time,
+
+"I have shot Mine arrow o'er the house, and hurt my brother."
+
+Thus I cut my stick while the play is good, and before the public gets
+wearied of me; and, as for the Log, it is now launched, swim, or
+founder; if those things be good, it will float from its own buoyancy;
+if they be naught, let it sink at once and for ever--all that Tom
+Cringle expects at the hands of his countrymen is--A CLEAR STAGE, AND NO
+FAVOUR.
+
+                  THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, TOM CRINGLE'S LOG ***
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