An Old Sailor's Yarns Part 25

CHAPTER VI.

Finally, my dear hearers.

OLD SERMONS.

Nothing material occurred to the good brig Avon after parting company, as aforesaid, with her consort, the Hyperion; a circ.u.mstance that I regret not a little, as it deprives me of my only chance for describing a storm at sea. They only experienced one tornado, and fifteen gales of wind, before joining the other ship. The tornado was no great things after all--the brig ran merrily before it, under a reefed foresail and close-reefed main-topsail. The crew were all on deck during the whole night it lasted, in case of their services being required. But the females below had by far the worst of it--they were "turned in" to berths that the ship-joiner had built with reference rather to the accommodation of an able-bodied man, than a delicate young lady; and in consequence, poor Julia was dashed first against the vessel's side, and then against the front berth-board, as the brig rolled gunwales under at every motion, till she began to think with the Frenchman, that she "should get some sleeps, no, not never." In this dilemma she thought of taking her maid, Miss Dorothea Hastings, into the berth with her, where the two females, operating mutually as "checks" to each other, eventually made out a very pa.s.sable night's rest. As for the gales of wind, they were the merest flea-bites in creation, though one of them borrowed the brig's fore-topmast, and another walked away with her jib-boom.

During this period, Benavidas had been taken a second time; and as his captors did not choose to risk shooting him again, which they had already practised upon him once without success, they hanged him. His gang were nearly all killed or taken at the same time, and the prisoners summarily dealt with.

Longford and about thirty more made their escape in a small schooner; and as they well knew that they would experience no other mercy, if taken, than a high gallows and short halter, they shaped a course for the island of Masafuero, which they determined to make their head-quarters, and to commit depredations upon all vessels that pa.s.sed which were not too well armed. They effected a landing with some difficulty, and found, as they expected, considerable quant.i.ties of provisions and stores, that had been deposited among the deep fissures of the rocks by Benavidas some time previous, when his affairs on the continent began to a.s.sume a smoky appearance. Here the scattered but desperate remnant of his lawless followers found a temporary respite from the hara.s.sing pursuit of the Chilenos, that resulted every day in the capture and immediate execution of some of their number.

The landing-place at Masafuero, with the open ground beyond it, surrounded on three sides by broken rocks or high mountains, makes a very beautiful appearance from the offing--anchorage, I believe, there is none. It is a gentle slope, fronting the northern or sunny side of the horizon, smooth, and of most delightful verdure. Perhaps it appeared more lovely to me, who had been groping among the ices of the ant-arctic circle for five months previous. The men whom we had left to get seal-skins a.s.sured me the soil was very rich and deep, and the herbage green and luxuriant. Since commencing these chapters, I have been informed that the island is very frequently visited by our whalemen for supplies of wood and young goat's flesh, which last is a savory morsel to men who have been many months tumbling and rolling about on the long regular swell of the Pacific. The waters that surround the island are almost literally filled with fine fish, to which sailors have given the general name of "snappers," and which differ from any fish among us, more particularly in their propensity to bite as greedily at a bare hook as a baited one.

It was here that the pirates lay _perdue_, waiting when the devil, who always befriends such gentry, should send them a defenceless prey. They were unable to anchor, as I have already noticed that there was no anchorage, and were accordingly continually on the move, sometimes extending their researches fifty or sixty miles to the eastward of Juan Fernandez, which lies about that distance nearer the main than Masafuero.

As they were lying to one morning, off the north-western side of Fernandez, they were suddenly startled by the unexpected appearance of a large brig that came out from behind the western extremity of the island, and edged away towards the northward and eastward under all sail. It was the first vessel they had seen since they had set up the piratical business on their own account and risk, except an English "jacka.s.s frigate," that chased them at the rate of one mile to the schooner's five. The Vincedor, which was the name of the schooner, also kept away and made sail, but kept yawing about in a manner that excited the suspicions of the people on board the brig, and it was evident that the manoeuvre would soon bring the schooner alongside. The brig now hoisted the English ensign, but continued on her way without deviating from her course. The schooner also made an attempt to "talk bunting," or show colors; but she had nothing of the kind on board but some old ragged signals that formerly belonged to the ill-fated brig Swan; and one of these was accordingly run up to the end of the main gaff. Captain Burton, for it was indeed he and the brig Avon, after attentively examining the stranger, gave it as his opinion that she was a pirate, and directed his men to stand to their guns.

In a few minutes the schooner, having closed with the Avon, fired a shot across her bows, which being unnoticed, another was fired that pa.s.sed through her foresail, to which the brig replied with three guns loaded with grape, that took fatal effect upon the exposed and crowded deck of the Vincedor. The pirates then kept up a heavy and well-directed fire of small arms upon the Avon, and Captain Burton, seeing several of his best men killed and wounded, reluctantly gave orders to haul up the courses and back the main yard, still keeping his colors flying.

Longford and about twenty ruffians like himself immediately came on board; and their first question to Captain Burton was, how he had dared to fire upon their schooner?

"Because," said the st.u.r.dy old seaman, "I knew you to be pirates, and I was determined not to surrender this vessel without some resistance."

During this speech, Longford raised his pistol, and at its conclusion fired; and the brave old sailor, shot through the body, and mortally wounded, fell at his feet. This was the signal for a general ma.s.sacre of the crew; and while the b.l.o.o.d.y act was perpetrating, Longford ran down into the cabin, to secure certain articles of plunder that he did not choose to share with his partners in crime and blood.

Before the pirate came alongside the Avon, Captain Burton, suspecting her real character, had requested Julia to go below for a while, on pretence that he was going to tack ship, and she would be in the way, as women always are at sea, of the head-braces and main-boom. As the blunt old veteran never used much ceremony upon such occasions, she thought no more about it, but went below as she was bid. The firing, however, had terrified her exceedingly; and Miss Dorothy Hastings, who was sent out as a vidette as far as the upper step of the companion-ladder, came scampering back to the main body with intelligence that the stranger was a pirate, and immediately proceeded to enumerate the outrages that they might certainly calculate upon being subjected to. Almost sinking with terror, Julia listened with a scarce-beating heart to the increased trampling of feet on deck, the oaths of the pirates, and the report of a pistol; and when the murderer Longford, splashed with poor Burton's blood, suddenly appeared before her, she uttered a wild shriek, and sank senseless upon the cabin floor.

But vengeance was on its way, and close at hand. While the pirates were busily engaged in murdering the unhappy crew of the Avon, which they did not accomplish without considerable loss to themselves, for the gallant fellows fought most desperately, the Hyperion hove in sight from behind Fernandez, following the track of her consort. Captain Allerton had heard the firing, and, suspecting all was not right, had "packed on" a press of sail, and soon came within short musket-shot of the schooner, whose hull received eight or ten round shot, but her sweeps and superiority of sailing on a wind, enabled her to escape. Allerton then steered for the brig, the disordered state of whose sails, her braces loose and yards flying about as the wind and sea pleased, convinced him that the pirates had been on board, and it was with a horrible dread of what might have taken place that he drew near. When within half a mile of the Avon, he saw a boat shove off from alongside, that a single look at his gla.s.s convinced him contained none of the brig's crew. Satisfied that they were part of the schooner's piratical crew, he sent all his men forward armed with muskets, with orders to give them a volley as soon as they came near enough to be sure of their mark. This was done, and the next moment the boat was sunk by the ship pa.s.sing over her, and not one of the blood-stained wretches escaped. The Hyperion then shortened sail, and hove to.

To return to the Avon's cabin. When Longford saw a lovely young woman lying insensible before him, when he expected no such person's existence on board, his better feelings prevailed--he thought of his mother, his sisters, his home, and the bright prospects he had forever darkened by his own folly and vice, and he leaned against the bulk-head in bitter agony. He neither heard nor heeded the repeated calls of one of his comrades, announcing the rapid approach of the Hyperion, his thoughts were in a complete whirl, nor was he roused from his gloomy reflections but by the voices of Allerton and his boat's crew, as they came alongside. Then he started and ran up the companion-way, but escape was impossible. He drew a pistol from his belt; but before he could even put himself in an att.i.tude of defence, he was cloven to the teeth by a blow of Allerton's cutla.s.s.

Without stopping to see if there was more of them, George ran instantly below, and found his Julia still insensible, and Miss Hastings kicking her heels and screaming, after the most approved recipe for performing hysterics. Allerton sprinkled the young lady's face with water and vinegar, and ransacked the medicine-chest for hartshorn and ether, but without success, till at length he thought of bleeding, at which he was sufficiently expert when his patients had been sailors. The snow-white, round arm was instantly bared and bandaged; the vein rose, and was pierced by the lancet with as much skill as Sangrado himself could have displayed; but the operator, although he knew how much blood a tough seaman could afford to lose, was completely at a loss when his patient was a delicate young lady; and, having, to his joy, witnessed the success of his phlebotomy in restoring her to life and consciousness, slacked the bandage and stopped the bleeding.

For a few minutes Julia's senses seemed completely bewildered; she stared wildly around, and uttered the most incoherent ravings; when George, who seemed to retain his presence of mind most wonderfully, wisely reflecting that human nature was about the same, whether in breeches or petticoats, poured out a gla.s.s of wine, and compelled his patient to swallow a large share of it. The wine produced the most happy effects. In a few minutes she looked up in his face with an intelligent glance, and in a soft voice murmured his name.

In the mean time it would be unpardonable in us to leave Miss Dorothea Hastings any longer. Allerton had been followed into the cabin by several of his men, one of whom, compa.s.sionating the situation of the young woman, who was, in truth, a plump, rosy-cheeked la.s.s, and having seen cold water thrown into the faces of people in fits, caught up a gallon pitcher filled with the element, and dashed it into her countenance. The remedy effectually restored her to consciousness and herself, by rousing her indignation against the perpetrator of such an ungallant action.

A German theorist of the present age has much such a way of curing all human diseases; that is, he drives one disorder out of the system by introducing another more powerful--in some cases similar, in others directly opposite; as for instance, he attacks pulmonary consumption with insanity, gout with the "seven-years-itch," small-pox with its partial namesake, pleurisy with inflammatory rheumatism, &c., and so _vice versa_ in all cases; no doubt the theory is a good one, and so was that which proposed to keep a horse upon nothing.

In the course of an hour Julia declared herself sufficiently restored to accompany George to his own ship, whither she was accordingly removed, and a cabin fitted up for her accommodation.

In the process of burying the murdered crew of the Avon, four of her men were found alive, severely but not dangerously wounded; and a fifth, who had lowered himself over the bows, and clung to the bob-stays. Six of the pirates were also found dead on her decks, their brains dashed out by the handspikes with which the seamen had defended themselves till shot down in detail.

By the time all necessary arrangements and changes had been made, it was dark; and the Avon, with the second officer and six men from the Hyperion, jogged along in the wake of that ship, which carried a lantern at her gaff-end for her direction. Miss Dorothy, being comfortably established in the Hyperion's cabin, complained of "feeling bad somehow." Her mistress had _turned in_ long before, and was sound asleep under the influence of a composing medicine, prescribed by her physician and lover. Perhaps Miss Hastings thought the same medicine might do _her_ good; perhaps she meant the complaint as a hint to Mr. Brail, the mate, to have pity upon her. The seaman took the hint, real or imaginary, and declared he could compound a draught as composing as any prescribed in the "book of directions," and accordingly mixed a tumbler of hot grog, well sweetened with loaf-sugar; but he forgot he was not mixing for himself, and put in the same quant.i.ty of pure Antigua as though the "charge" was intended for his own throat and brain of proof.

Miss Dolly drank the potent mixture, which effectually dispelled the remains of her hysterical squall; and in a few minutes after retiring to her berth, she was fast in the arms of Morpheus, if Morpheus ever goes to sea.

Our story must now gallop a little. Mr. Effingham was delighted with George's gallant conduct, though he was too late to save poor Burton and his men; the cargoes of both vessels were sold, and the old gentleman, with his daughter, returned to England with Allerton. Shortly after their arrival, the hall of Effingham House witnessed the performance of that ceremony, which, in the English prayer-books, "begins with 'dearly beloved,' and ends with 'amazement;'" but "the bishops, priests, and deacons, and all other clergy," who were engaged in altering and adapting the Book of Common Prayer to the Episcopal church in this country, finding nothing very amazing in matrimony, have omitted the short sermon that usually closed its performance, and the form, like most religious forms, now ends modestly with a simple Amen.

In three days after the murder on board the Avon, the schooner was driven ash.o.r.e upon Masafuero in a "norther," a violent gale so called in that sea, from its uniformly blowing from the northward; and of the eight on board, seven perished. The wretched survivor, after suffering every thing but death from starvation, escaped in a whaler to the main, was recognised, identified as one of Benavidas' gang, and shot before he had been on sh.o.r.e two hours.