Chapter Twelve.
I become the victim of a villainous outrage.
Making room, Christie presently hauled to the wind and hove-to; and some ten minutes later he presented himself on board the schooner—brought alongside by the ship’s gig, manned by four of the ship’s crew—to report his own share in the incidents of the night. From this report I gathered that, like myself, at first he had mistaken the French privateer for Morillo’s brigantine, and had also arrived at the conclusion that the ship was a prize of the latter. He had kept a keen watch upon the movements of the schooner until it had become apparent that we intended to attack the supposed pirate, when he at once turned his attention to the ship, with the object of ascertaining whether, with such a phenomenally slow craft as the Three Sisters, anything could be done with her. He believed that, with luck, it could, as he felt pretty certain that the attention of the ship’s prize crew would be fully occupied in watching the manoeuvres of the brigantine and the schooner; and, trusting to this, he hauled his wind until he had placed the brig in position the merest trifle to windward of the course that the ship was steering, when, taking his chance of having thus far escaped observation, he clewed up and furled everything, afterwards patiently awaiting the development of events.
And now ensued a very curious and amusing thing, it having transpired that the French prize crew of the ship had seen the brig, and had at once jumped to the conclusion that she was a prize to the schooner. The curious behaviour of the Three Sisters had puzzled them not a little at the outset, but when we opened fire upon the brigantine they knew at once that we must be an enemy; and, supposing that the prize crew of the brig—whom they rashly judged to be their own countrymen—had taken advantage of our preoccupation to rise and recapture their vessel, they immediately bore down to their assistance. This lucky mistake enabled Christie to fall alongside the ship without difficulty, when, laying aside for the nonce his gentle, lady-like demeanour, he led his eight men up the ship’s lofty sides and over her high bulwarks on to her deck, where the nine of them laid about them with such good will that, after about a minute’s resistance, the astounded Frenchmen were fain to retreat to the forecastle, where, in obedience to Christie’s summons, they forthwith flung down their arms and surrendered at discretion. Then, clapping the hatch over them, and stationing two men with drawn cutlasses by it as a guard, Christie proceeded to liberate the imprisoned crew of the ship,—which he discovered to be the British West Indiaman Black Prince, homeward-bound at the time of her capture, two days previously, with an exceedingly valuable general cargo,—and then sent his own men back to the Three Sisters, which had all this time been lying alongside, secured to the Indiaman by grapnels. The brig then cast off, and the two craft forthwith bore down upon us to report, the fight between ourselves and the brigantine being by that time over.
By the time that our own and the brigantine’s damages had been repaired it was daylight, and we were all ready for making sail once more. But before doing so I caused the whole of the Frenchmen to be removed to the schooner, where they were first put in irons and then clapped safely under hatches; after which I visited first the Belle Diane and then the Indiaman. I must confess I was astonished when I beheld the effect of our fire upon the former; I could scarcely credit that so much damage had been inflicted by our six-pounders in so short time, her stern above the level of the covering-board being absolutely battered to pieces, while the shot had also ploughed up her decks fore and aft in long, scoring gashes, so close together and crossing each other in such a way as showed what a tremendous raking she had received. She began the action with fifty-seven men, all told, out of which eighteen had been killed outright, and the remainder, with one solitary exception, more or less seriously wounded. Looking upon the paths our shot had ploughed along her deck, I was only surprised that any of her people were left alive to tell the tale. In addition to this, five of her twelve guns were dismounted, and her rigging had been a good deal cut up; but this was now of course all knotted and spliced by Lindsay’s people. She was a very fine vessel, of three hundred and forty-four tons measurement, oak built, copper fastened, and copper sheathed to the bends, very shallow—drawing only eight feet of water—and very beamy, with most beautiful lines. Her spars looked enormously lofty compared with our own, as I stood on her deck and gazed aloft, and her canvas had evidently been bent new for the voyage. She had only arrived in West Indian waters a week previously, from Brest, and the Black Prince was stated to be her first prize.
Having given the Diane a pretty good overhaul, and satisfied myself that her hull was sound, I gave Lindsay his instructions, and then proceeded on board the Black Prince, where I arrived in good time for breakfast, and where I made the acquaintance, not only of her skipper—a fine, grey-headed, sailorly man named Blatchford—but also of her thirty-two passengers, eighteen of whom were males, while the remainder were of the gentler sex, the wives and daughters mostly of the male passengers. There were no young children among them, fortunately. My appearance seemed to create quite a little flutter of excitement among the petticoats, and also not a little astonishment, apparently; for I overheard one of the matrons remark to another, behind her fan, “Why, he is scarcely more than a boy!”
The Black Prince was a noble ship, of twelve hundred and fifty tons, frigate-built, and only nine years old, splendidly fitted up, and full to the hatches of coffee, tobacco, spices, and other valuables; she also had a reputation for speed, which had induced her skipper to hazard the homeward voyage alone, instead of waiting for convoy. The poor old fellow was of course dreadfully cut up at his misfortune—for, having been in the enemy’s hands more than twenty-four hours, she was a recapture in the legal sense of the term, and, as such, we were entitled to salvage for her. However, unfortunate as was the existing state of affairs, it was of course vastly better than that of a few hours before, and he interrupted himself in his bemoanings to thank me for having rescued him out of the hands of those Philistines, the French privateersmen. I informed him that it would be my duty to take him into Fort Royal, but he received the news with equanimity, explaining that even had I not insisted on it, he should certainly, after his recent experience, have availed himself of my escort to return to Kingston, and there await convoy. I breakfasted with him and his passengers, and then, leaving Christie aboard as prize master, returned to the schooner; and we all made sail in company, arriving at Port Royal five days later, without further adventure.
The admiral was, as might be expected, immensely pleased at our appearance with three prizes in company, and still more so when I reported to him the discovery and destruction of Morillo’s headquarters.
“You have done well, my boy, wonderfully well; better even than I expected of you,” said he, shaking me heartily by the hand. “Go on as you have begun, and I venture to prophesy that it will not be long before I shall feel justified in giving you t’other ‘swab,’” pointing, as he spoke, to my single epaulet.
To say that I was delighted at my reception but very feebly expresses the feelings that overwhelmed me as the kind old fellow spoke such generous words of appreciation and encouragement. Of course I knew that I had done well, but I regarded my success as due fully as much to good fortune as to my own efforts, and I was almost overwhelmed with joy at so full and complete a recognition of my efforts. So astonished indeed was I, that I could only stammer something to the effect that our success was due quite as much to the loyalty with which Christie and Lindsay had seconded me, and the gallantry with which the men had stood by me, as it was to my own individual merits.
“That’s right, my boy,” remarked the admiral; “I am glad to hear you speak like that. No doubt what you say is true, but it does not detract in the least from the value of your own services. I always think the better of an officer who is willing to do full justice to the merits of those who have helped him, and your promotion will not come to you the less quickly for having helped your shipmates to theirs. You have all done well, and I will see to it that you are all adequately rewarded—Christie and Lindsay by getting their step, and you by getting a somewhat better craft than the little cockleshell in which you have already done so well. I am of opinion that all you require is opportunity, and, by the Piper, you shall have it.”
And the old gentleman kept his word; for when I went aboard the Tern on the following day—I dined and slept at the house of some friends a little way out from Kingston that night—Christie and Lindsay met me with beaming faces and the information that the former had got his step as master, while Lindsay had received an acting order as lieutenant pending his passing of the necessary examination. The only drawback to this good news was the intelligence that the man Garcia had mysteriously disappeared during the night, leaving not a trace of his whereabouts behind him.
An hour or two later I went ashore and waited upon the admiral at his office, in accordance with instructions received from him on the previous day; and upon being ushered into his presence, he at once began to question me relative to the qualities of the Diane. I was able to speak nothing but good of her; for indeed what I had seen of her, during the passage to Port Royal, had convinced me that she was really a very fine vessel in every respect, a splendid sea-boat, wonderfully fast, and, I had no doubt, a thoroughly wholesome, comfortable craft in bad weather.
“Just so,” commented the admiral, when I had finished singing her praises; “what you have said quite confirms my own opinion of her, which is that, in capable hands, she may be made exceedingly useful. Moreover, she is more nearly a match for Morillo’s brigantine than is the little Tern, eh? Well, my lad, I have been thinking matters over, and have made up my mind that she is good enough to purchase into the service; so I will have it seen to at once, and of course I shall give you the command of her. She will want a considerable amount of attention at the hands of the shipwrights after the mauling that you gave her, but you shall supervise everything yourself, and they shall do nothing without your approval; so see to it that they don’t spoil her. I notice that she mounts six sixes of a side. Now I propose to alter that arrangement by putting four long nines in place of those six sixes, with an eighteen-pounder on her forecastle; and with such an armament as that, and a crew to match, you ought to be able to render an exceedingly good account of yourself. What do you think of my idea?”
I replied truthfully that I considered it excellent in every way; and we then launched into a discussion of minor details, with which I need not weary the reader, at the end of which I went aboard the Tern and paid off her crew, preparatory to her being turned over to the shipwrights, along with her prize.
It happened that just about this time there was an exceptionally heavy press of work in the dockyard; for there had been several frigate actions of late, and the resources of the staff were taxed to the utmost to effect the repairs following upon such events and to get the ships ready for sea again in the shortest possible time; with the result that such small fry as the Diane and the Tern were obliged to wait until the heaviest of the work was over and the frigates were again ready for service. It thus happened that, although I contrived to worry the dockyard superintendent into putting a few shipwrights aboard the Diane, three weeks passed, and still the brigantine was very far from being ready for sea. During this time I made my headquarters at “Mammy” Wilkinson’s hotel in Kingston,—that being the hotel especially affected by navy men,—although I was seldom there, the planters and big-wigs of the island generally proving wonderfully hospitable, and literally overwhelming me with invitations to take up my abode with them. But about the time that I have mentioned it happened that certain alterations were being effected aboard the brigantine, which I was especially anxious to have carried out according to my own ideas; I therefore spent the whole of the day, for several days in succession, at the dockyard, going up to Kingston at night, and sleeping at the hotel.
It was during this interval that, one night about ten o’clock, a negro presented himself at the hotel, inquiring for me; and upon my making my appearance in the entrance-hall, the fellow—a full-blooded African, dressed very neatly in a white shirt and white duck trousers, both scrupulously clean, for a wonder—approached me, and, ducking his head respectfully, inquired—
“You Massa Courtenay, sar, cap’n ob de man-o’-war schoonah Tern?”
“Well, yes,” I replied, “my name is Courtenay, and I commanded the Tern up to the time of her being paid off; so I suppose I may fairly assume that I am the individual you have been inquiring for. What is it you want with me?”
“You know a genterman, nam’d Lindsay, sar?” asked the negro, instead of replying to my question.
“Certainly I do,” answered I; “what of him?”
“Why, sar, he hab got into a lilly scrape down on de wharf, and de perlice hab put him into de lock-up. Dey don’ beliebe dat he am man-o’-war bucra, and he say, ‘Will you be so good as to step down dere an’ identerfy him an’ bail him out?’”
“Lindsay got into a scrape?” repeated I incredulously. “I cannot believe it! What has he been doing?”
“Dat I cannot say, sar,” answered the black; “I only know dat a perliceman come out ob de door ob de lock-up as I was passin’ by, and asked me if I wanted to earn fibe shillin’; and when I say ‘yes,’ he take me into de lock-up and interdooce me to young bucra, who say him name am Lindsay, and dat if I will take a message to you he will gib me fibe shillin’ when I come back wid you.”
“It is very extraordinary,” I muttered; “I cannot understand it! But I will go with you, of course. Wait a moment until I fetch my cap.”
So saying, I left the fellow and hastened to my room, where, closing the door, I opened my chest and furnished myself with a supply of money, and then, closing and locking the chest, I hastened away to where the negro was waiting for me. As I passed through the hall several men of my acquaintance were lounging there, smoking, and one of them hailed me with—
“Hillo, Courtenay! whither away so fast, my lad?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to explain to them my errand, but I bethought me just in time that if Lindsay had been doing anything foolish he might not care to have the fact blazoned abroad; so I kept my own counsel, merely replying that I was called out upon a small matter of business, and so effected my escape from them into the dark street.
“Oh, here you are!” exclaimed I, as the negro emerged, at my appearance, from the deep shadow of the hotel portico. “Now, then, which way? Is Mr Lindsay in the town jail?”
“No, sar, no; he am in de harbour lock-up,” answered my guide. “Dis way, sar; it am not so bery far.”
“The harbour lock-up?” queried I. “Where is that? I didn’t know that there was such a place.”
“Oh yes, sar, dar am. You follow me, sar; I show you de way, sar,” answered the negro.
“All right, heave ahead then,” said I; and away we went a little way down the main street, and then turned to the right, plunging into one of the dark, narrow side streets which then intersected the town of Kingston.
“Keep close to de wall, sar,” cautioned my guide; “dere am a gutter in de middle ob de road, and if you steps into dat you go in ober your shoes in muck.”
I could well believe this, for although it was too dark in this narrow lane to see anything, the abominable odour of the place told me pretty well what its condition must be. We plodded on for nearly ten minutes, winding hither and thither, and penetrating deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of dark, crooked lanes, but gradually edging nearer to the harbour, while, as I thought, working our way a considerable distance to the westward. Presently my guide, who had been humming some negro melody to himself, lifted up his voice in a louder key and began to chant the praises of a certain “lubly Chloe, whose eyes were like the stars, and whose ‘breaf’ was like the rose!” The fellow had a wonderfully melodious voice, and in listening to him as he strode easily along at a swinging pace, improvising verse after verse in honour of the unknown Chloe, I lost my bearings as well as my count of time, and was only brought back to a consciousness of the present by suddenly finding my head closely enveloped in what seemed to be a blanket, while at the same instant my feet were tripped from under me, so that I should have fallen forward but for the restraining influence of the blanket and of a pair of arms that gripped mine tightly behind my back, so that I was instantly overpowered and effectually precluded from making the slightest effort to free myself. Then, before I had time to realise what was happening, I was lifted off my feet, and, despite my desperate struggles and ineffectual efforts to shout for assistance, carried in through an open doorway and flung upon my face upon the ground, where someone at once knelt upon me and securely lashed my hands behind my back, some other individual at the same instant lashing my ankles firmly together.
“Dere, dat will do, Peter; I t’ink him cannot do much harm now,” remarked the voice of my whilom guide; and as the fellow spoke I was relieved of the very considerable weight that had been pressing upon me and holding me down. Then I was rolled over on my side, and, as the blanket that enveloped my head and very nearly suffocated me was cautiously removed, I felt the prick of something sharp against my left breast, and the same voice that had spoken before observed—
“Massa Courtenay, we hab no wish to hurt you, sah; but it am my painful duty to warn you dat, if you sing out, or make de slightest attempt to escape, I shall be obleeged to dribe dis lilly knife ob mine home to yo’ heart, sar. So now you knows what you hab to expec’. Does you understan’ what I say, sah?”
“Certainly I do,” answered I, with suppressed fury, “your meaning is clear enough, in all conscience. But beware what you do, my fine fellow. You were seen by several of my friends at the hotel, who will have no difficulty in identifying you; and I warn you that you will be made to pay dearly for this outrage to a British naval officer. What is the meaning of it all? Have you any idea of the enormity of your offence?”
“Oh yes, sah,” answered my guide cheerfully, “we hab a very clear idea ob dat, haben’t we, Peter?” addressing another big, powerful negro of somewhat similar cut to himself, but attired in much less respectable garments.
Peter grinned affirmatively, but said nothing; whereupon his companion continued—
“Now, Peter, where am dat gag? Just bring it along, and let us fix it up, so as to make all safe. It would be a most drefful misfortune if Massa Courtenay was to sing out, and force me to split him heart wid dis knife ob mine; so we will just make it onpossible for him to do any such foolis’ t’ing.”
All this time the knife—a formidable dagger-shaped blade fully a foot long—was kept pressed so firmly to my breast that it had drawn blood, the stain of which was now dyeing the front of my white shirt, so the moment was manifestly inopportune for any attempt at escape or resistance even; I therefore submitted, with the best grace I could muster, to the insertion of the gag between my teeth, reserving to myself the right to make both ruffians smart for their outrage upon me at the first available opportunity. But before the gag was placed between my teeth, I contrived to repeat my inquiry for an explanation.
“Nebber you mind, Massa Courtenay; you will find out all about dat in good time, sah,” answered the leading spirit of the twain; and with that reply I was perforce obliged to be content for the moment.
Having made me perfectly secure, the two negroes squatted down upon their haunches, and, with much deliberation, produced from their pockets a short clay pipe each, a plug of tobacco, and a knife; and, after carefully shredding their tobacco and charging their pipes, proceeded to smoke, with much gravity and in perfect silence. It struck me that possibly they might be waiting for someone, whose appearance upon the scene would, I hoped, throw some light upon the cause of this extraordinary outrage, and give me an inkling as to what sort of an end I might expect to the adventure. Meanwhile, having nothing else to do, I proceeded to take stock of the place, or at least as much of it as I could command in my cramped and constrained position.
There was little or nothing, however, in what I saw about me of a character calculated to suggest an explanation of the motive for my seizure. The building was simply one of those low, one-storey adobe structures, thatched with palm leaves, such as then abounded in the lower quarters of Kingston, and which were usually inhabited by the negro or half-breed population of the place. The interior appeared to be divided into two apartments by an unpainted partition of timber framing, decorated with cheap and gaudy coloured prints, tacked to the wood at the four corners; and as a good many of these pictures were of a religious character, in most of which the Blessed Virgin figured more or less prominently, I took it that the legitimate occupant of the place was a Roman Catholic. The furniture was of the simplest kind, consisting of a table in the centre,—upon which burned the cheap, tawdry, brass lamp that illumined the apartment,—a large, upturned packing-case, covered with a gaudy tablecloth, and serving as a table against the rear wall of the building, and three or four old, straight-backed chairs, that had evidently come down in the world, for they were elaborately carved, and upholstered in frayed and faded tapestry. A few more cheap and gaudy coloured prints adorned the walls; a heavy curtain, so dirty and smoke-grimed that its original colour and pattern was utterly unrecognisable, shielded the unglazed window; two or three hanging shelves—one of which supported a dozen or so of dark green bottles—depended from the walls; and that was all. The floor upon which I lay was simply the bare earth, rammed hard, thick with dust and swarming with fleas,—as I quickly discovered,—and the whole place reeked of that hot, stale smell that seems to pervade the abodes of people of uncleanly habits.
The two negroes smoked silently and gravely for a full half-hour, about the end of which time my captor slowly and with due deliberation knocked the ashes from his pipe, and, rising to his feet, yawned and stretched himself. In so doing his eye fell upon the shelf upon which stood the bottles, and, sauntering lazily across the room, he laid his hand upon one of the bottles and placed it on the centre table. Then, lifting up the cloth which covered the packing-case, he revealed a shelf within the interior, from which he withdrew a water monkey, two earthenware mugs, and a dish containing a most uninviting-looking mixture, which I presently guessed, from its odour, to be composed of salt fish and boiled yams mashed together, cold. These he placed upon the table, and, still without speaking, the pair drew chairs up to the table and, seating themselves opposite each other, proceeded to make a hearty meal, helping themselves alternately, with their fingers, from the central dish, and washing down the mixture with a mug of rum and water each.
They were still thus agreeably engaged when the distant sound of rumbling wheels and clattering hoofs became audible, rapidly drawing nearer, and accompanied by the persuasive shouts and ejaculations of a negro driver.
“Dat am de boy Moses wid de cart, I ’spects,” remarked the negro whose name I had not yet learned. “What a drefful row de young rascal makes! Dat nigger won’t nebber learn discreshun,” he continued, wiping his fingers carefully on a flaming red handkerchief which he drew from his breeches pocket.
Peter grunted an unintelligible reply, and the next moment the vehicle pulled up sharply at the door; the cessation of its clatter being immediately followed by the entrance of a negro lad, some eighteen years of age.
“I’se brought de cart, as you tole me, Caesar,” he remarked. “Am it all right?”
“It am, sar,” remarked Caesar—the hitherto unnamed negro—loftily; “when did you ebber know me to fail in what I undertooken, eh, sar?”
“Nebber, sah, nebber,” answered Moses appreciatively. “An’ so dat am de gebberlum, am it?” pointing at me with his chin, as I lay huddled up on the floor.
“Yes, sar, it am,” answered Caesar curtly, in a tone of voice which was evidently intended to cut short all further conversation. “An’ now, Peter,” he continued, “if you has finished yo’ supper we better be movin’. Nebber mind about puttin’ de t’ings away; de ole ’oman will see to dat when she comes home in de mornin’. Now den, Peter, you take hold ob de genterman’s legs, and help me to carry him out; does you hear?”
Peter the Silent grunted an affirmative, stooping as he did so and seizing my legs, while Caesar raised me by the shoulders in his powerful arms, remarking, as he did so—
“Massa Courtenay, jus’ listen to me, if you please, sah. We am goin’ to take you for a nice, pleasant lilly dribe in a cart, and I am goin’ to sit on you, so dat you may not fall out. Now I still has my knife wid me, and if I feels you begin to struggle, I shall be under de mos’ painful necessity ob drivin’ it into you to keep you quiet; so I hope dat you will lie most particular still durin’ yo’ little journey. You sabbe?”
I nodded my head.
“Dat’s all right, den,” resumed Caesar. “Now, Peter up wid him, and away we goes.”
And therewith the two black rascals raised me carefully, and carrying me into the open, placed me in a mule cart, covered me with a thick layer of green forage, and—Caesar coolly carrying out his threat to sit upon me—drove away.