A Desperate Voyage Part 22

Carew's experiences on Trinidad produced an ineffaceable impression on his mind. His melancholy deepened into a dull despair. He pa.s.sed most of the day alone in his cabin, avoiding as much as possible even the sight of his companions. By means of ever-increasing doses of laudanum, the miserable man stupefied his brain into a lethargic condition, which was, however, frequently broken by frightful dreams when he was asleep, and by nervous seizures of acute and causeless terrors when he was awake.

Baptiste, observing these symptoms, began to fear for Carew's reason, and tried in various ways to rouse him, but in vain.

At last one morning a fresh south-east wind sprang up. Carew did not even seem to notice the change, and he gave no orders to get under way.

So Baptiste approached him--

"The sooner we have the anchor up and are off the better, captain."

Carew a.s.sented in an apathetic way, and a.s.sisted the men in weighing the anchor and setting the sails; but he worked with a sullen silence, making no suggestions, leaving everything to Baptiste.

After paying the vessel off before the wind with the foretopmast staysail, they set the fore and main topsails, an amount of canvas which the prudent mate considered sufficient for a barque so undermanned.

As soon as the last yard had been squared, and there was no more for him to do, Carew again went into his cabin.

A few minutes later Baptiste followed him there.

"Sorry to disturb you, captain," he said, seeing the expression of annoyance on Carew's face, and also noticing the bottle of laudanum standing on the table; "but now we are off, running merrily before the wind, away from that accursed island. If you please, what is our course--where are we bound for--and have you thought of a plausible explanation of how we picked up this derelict? Rouse yourself, sir.

Think, act, and be a man again."

Carew had drunk a quant.i.ty of laudanum that morning, and he replied in a dreamy voice, as if he had lost all interest in life, and was heedless of the future--

"Do what you like. I leave it all to you. I am unable to think."

"Sir, this is cowardly of you!" cried Baptiste vehemently. "Everything has gone so well with us thus far, and now you lose heart when an immense fortune is almost in our hands. Remember what we have done for you, and do not risk all our lives by neglecting your duties to us."

"What do I care for your lives?" replied Carew with a bitter laugh, that had an insane ring in it. "What is it to me where we go, even if it be to the bottom? Leave me."

"Good-bye, sir; I will take charge of the vessel until you come to your senses." As he spoke, Baptiste contrived to slip the bottle of laudanum into his pocket unperceived by Carew.

The mate went on deck and threw the bottle into the sea. "That coward will go mad if he drugs himself much longer," he said to himself. "When he got on sh.o.r.e he would ruin us all in some silly fit of garrulous remorse. He would disburden his conscience and hang us in his present temper. He shall have no more laudanum. I must look after him and cure him before we get into port. If I cannot do so, well, then, he must die.

A pity that; for he is useful, almost necessary, to us."

Baptiste consulted the chart, and determined to run for the port of Bahia, which is about seven hundred miles to the north-west of Trinidad.

Having quickly formed his plans, he carried them out with considerable cleverness.

He collected a quant.i.ty of combustible matter, and proceeded to set fire to some of the storerooms and other portions of the vessel in such a way that he could always keep the fires under control and extinguish them at will. It was a hazardous undertaking, but he omitted no precaution; and after the vessel had been three days at sea, and was still three hundred miles from Bahia, the effect he desired was satisfactorily produced. She appeared to have been ablaze almost from end to end, and so there was manifest a sufficient reason for the desertion of the crew at sea.

The last spark having been extinguished, Baptiste hove the vessel to while he completed his preparations. He lowered two of the boats into the sea and sank them.

"And now," he asked himself, "what things are the crew likely to have taken with them in the boats? For we must preserve the verisimilitude.

Our story must be above suspicion; every circ.u.mstance must corroborate it."

So he threw overboard a chronometer, a valuable s.e.xtant, a compa.s.s, and other articles which a captain deserting his ship would most certainly have carried away. The Spaniards ridiculed this excess of caution.

"Thoughtless children!" Baptiste explained; "it is most probable that there are people on sh.o.r.e who know exactly how many chronometers, compa.s.ses, and so on, were on board this vessel. These things will be counted up, and if none are missing, the minds of men will be puzzled at the strange conduct of the captain. Now I do not want to puzzle people; very much otherwise, my imprudent children. For the same reason I am now going to burn the ship's papers. No captain ever leaves those behind him on a derelict."

Carew had watched these preparations listlessly, a.s.sisting when asked to do so, but still suggesting nothing. He never alluded to the loss of his bottle of laudanum, and very probably he knew that Baptiste had taken it away.

Early on the sixth day of the voyage the Brazilian coast was sighted, and the mate recognised the palm-clad hills that border the entrance to the Reconcava of Bahia--a beautiful inland sea, as extensive as that of Rio de Janeiro.

And now Baptiste, feeling how great a risk would be incurred by entering the port while the captain was in his present demented condition, dared not sail into the bay; and, after a consultation with the men, braced up the yards, and steered the vessel along the coast to the northward, with the intention of making Pernambuco, which is nearly five hundred miles distant from Bahia. By this a delay of about three days would be gained; and should Carew not recover his senses in that time, he must be put out of the way. There was no help for it.

But Baptiste and the two Spaniards knew well that if they went into port without the owner of the yacht, their tale would be received with suspicion. It would be necessary to account for his absence. Their own histories would be closely inquired into; the well-elaborated scheme might end in failure after all. The gloom of the captain seemed to communicate itself to the crew. The usual cheeriness of sailors was altogether absent during the voyage. A vague foreboding of calamity oppressed the men; and on board that guilty ship all went about their work with dismal faces, never smiling, sullen and silent, suspicious of each other.

On the second day, the vessel was slowly sailing up the coast near Alagoas Bay. Baptiste was sitting on deck, rolling up and smoking his innumerable cigarettes as he contemplated the beautiful panorama that opened out before him--a land of forest-clad mountains and fertile valleys, down which broad rivers poured into the sea, while among the cocoa-nut groves upon the sandy beaches were the numerous bamboo villages of the negro fishermen. But Baptiste, though gazing at it, was in no mood to admire beautiful scenery; he was looking forward with alarm to the perils before him.

At last, after pondering over it for some while, he determined on a course of action. It was a desperate thing to do, but it would bring matters to a crisis at once.

He threw away his cigarette, loaded his revolver and placed it in his breast, and then, with face pale with fear but determined in expression, he entered Carew's cabin.

The Englishman was reading a book, or pretending to do so. Baptiste took a seat in front of him, and commenced abruptly--

"Do you wish to live, sir?"

Carew looked up. "Why do you ask? If I wished to die, I could take away my life at any moment."

"You will probably be saved that trouble. I will be perfectly frank with you, because I understand you. You see that we are afraid of going into port in your company. We think you are losing your senses, and we cannot allow a madman to rave our secrets in Pernambuco. We wish you to live, because you might be very useful to us. But if, before we are in sight of port, you don't satisfy us that you are sane, by ridding yourself of your melancholia and taking an interest in this business, we shall be under the painful necessity of despatching you for our own protection.

We will have to kill you, not in any ill-feeling, I a.s.sure you, but with real regret."

Baptiste had rightly imagined that this cool and almost ludicrously matter-of-fact way of broaching the subject was the best in the circ.u.mstances.

Carew first appeared to be lost in astonishment; then he smiled sadly, and said, "You are a strange man. You come here to tell me that I am mad, and that I must become sane in two days or die--is that it?"

"I don't think that you are exactly mad, but"--

"I know what you mean," interrupted Carew, "and you are right. I have been ill for several days; but I am not mad, as you will soon discover.

I will allow that I might soon have become so had you not stolen my laudanum."

From that moment Carew changed his mode of life, and became much as he had been before his visit to the desert island. Though melancholy in his manner and miserable in his mind, he shook off his lethargy, bestirred himself, took an interest once more in the working of the ship, and exhibited all his old ingenuity in improving upon Baptiste's preparations for deceiving the authorities as to the fate of the barque.

"Talented and unfathomable being," exclaimed the Frenchman admiringly, "what could we do without you?"

The voyage was over, and the _La Bonne Esperance_ was lying under the Recife, that marvellous natural breakwater built by myriads of diminutive coral insects, which, running in a parallel line to the sh.o.r.e, forms the harbour of Pernambuco. In front of her stretched the long and crowded quay, with its pleasant boulevard and lofty white houses.

The barque had been an object of great interest to the people of Pernambuco ever since the tug had towed her in from outside. The romantic story of the little English yacht that had foundered at sea, and of her shipwrecked crew, who had been so fortunate as to come across such a valuable prize, was on everybody's lips. The English residents had been profuse in their offers of hospitality to Carew, but under the pretext of ill-health he refused all these; and as soon as he had handed over the barque to the proper authorities he hired a room in a French hotel on the quay, and lived there as quietly as possible with Baptiste, while the Spaniards were lodged in a neighbouring tavern.

The torments of his accusing conscience having now subsided, life once more appeared of value to this mutable-minded man, and his anxiety and dread of discovery returned. It caused him great uneasiness to learn how long a time must elapse before the settlement of the salvage would be completed. He found that he might have to wait many months in Pernambuco before receiving his share of the vessel's value.

The barque had been in the Recife for about three weeks when one morning a coasting steamer from Rio entered the harbour. Among her pa.s.sengers was an Englishman. When he stepped on sh.o.r.e he disregarded the importunate crowd of hotel touts, and handing his portmanteau to a black porter, said merely, "English Consulate!" The negro understood, and led the way.

The Englishman found the consul in his office, asked if he could speak to him alone on urgent business, and was shown into a private room.

He placed a letter in the consul's hands. "This," he said, "is from the British Consul at Rio. It will serve to introduce me."

It was a somewhat lengthy letter, and as he read it an expression of extreme surprise came to the consul's face. "This is a most extraordinary story!" he exclaimed. "Tell me what more you know of this man."

The interview was a long one. At its termination the consul said:--"Of course I can do nothing until an extradition warrant arrives from England. In the meanwhile, we must not rouse his suspicions. Let him still consider himself safe. He applied to me for an advance of money yesterday; I will let him have it if he does not ask for too much. But he must not see you. I recommend you to go to Caxanga--a pretty watering-place about half an hour from here by train. I will give you the name of a good hotel there. Do not come into town unless I send for you. Keep out of his way. I should like you to be here to-morrow morning at ten; for, shortly after that hour, his crew are going to make some depositions. I will conceal you in the next room in such a way that you can see them; for it will be well for you to know these men by sight. Of course you will pa.s.s under an a.s.sumed name while you are here."