By Conduct and Courage Part 22

Alice, aided by the negresses, tore up the linen into strips and sewed these together to make bandages. Canes split up formed excellent splints.

Will rendered all the a.s.sistance in his power. Now he held splints in position while Mr. Palethorpe wound the bandages round them, and now he helped to distribute among the wounded the soothing drinks that the servants of the house brought down.

"What are you going to do now?" he asked as the last bandage had been applied.

"I will drive down to the town and see how things are doing there. Peter tells me that two of my horses are killed, but the other two seemed to have escaped without injury, as the part of the stable in which they stood was sheltered by a huge tree, which lost its head, but was fortunately otherwise uninjured. You had better come down with us, Alice; we must stop at our house in town till things are put straight here. I will, of course, ride backwards and forwards every day."

"Can't I be of some help here, father?"

"None at all; by nightfall the slaves will have built temporary shelters of canes and branches of trees. The overseer is among those who were killed; he was on his way from his house to the huts when a branch struck him on the head and killed him on the spot. I will put Sambo in his place for the present; he is a very reliable man, and I can trust him to issue the stores to the negroes daily. I am afraid it will be some time before we get the house put right again, as there will be an immense demand for carpenters in the town. We may feel very thankful, however, that we have got a house there. It is a good strong one, built of stone, so we may hope to find it intact."

The carriage was brought round and they took their seats in it. The planter ordered two strong negroes to get axes and to stand on the steps, and when all was ready they started. The journey was long and broken; at every few yards trees had fallen across the road, and these had to be chopped through and removed before the carriage could pa.s.s. It was therefore late in the day before they reached the town. Will could not help grieving at the terrible destruction wrought in the forest. In some places acres of ground had been cleared of the trees, in others the trunks and branches lay piled in an inextricable chaos. All the huts and cottages they pa.s.sed on their way were in ruins, and their former inhabitants were standing listlessly gazing at the destruction. Mr. Palethorpe had placed in the carriage two gallon jars of spirits and a large quant.i.ty of bread, and these he had distributed among the forlorn inhabitants while his men were chopping a road through the trees.

When they arrived in the town they beheld a terrible scene of devastation.

The streets occupied by the dwellings of well-to-do inhabitants had, for the most part, escaped, but in the suburbs, where the poorer part of the population dwelt, the havoc was something terrible. Parties of soldiers and sailors were hard at work here, clearing the ruins away and bringing out the dead and injured. Will, after saying good-bye to his friends at their door, joined one of these parties, and until late at night laboured by torchlight. At midnight he went to Mr. Palethorpe's house, to which he had promised to return, and slept till morning. Two long days were occupied in this work, and even then there was much to be done in the way of clearing the streets of the debris and restoring order. Not until this was finished did Will cease from his labours. He then drove up with Mr.

Palethorpe to his estate. They found that a great deal of progress had been made there, and that a gang of workmen were already engaged in preparing to replace the roof and to restore the house to its former condition. The slaves were still in their temporary homes, but with their usual light-heartedness had already recovered from the effects of their shock and losses, and seemed as merry and happy as usual.

On his return to Port Royal, Will was the object of the greatest attentions on the part of the other pa.s.sengers of the _Northumberland_, and received so many invitations to dinner that he was obliged to ask the admiral to allow him to give up his leave and to take another short cruise in _L'Agile_, promising that if he did so he would take good care not to capture any more prizes. The admiral consented, and in a few days the cutter set sail once more.

After they had been out a month Will found it necessary to put in to get water. He chose a spot where a little stream could be seen coming down from the mountains and losing itself in the shingle, and he rowed ash.o.r.e and set some of his men to fill the barrels. When he saw the work fairly under weigh he started to walk along the sh.o.r.e with Dimchurch and Tom.

They had gone but a short distance when a number of negroes rushed suddenly out upon them. Will had just time to discharge his pistols before he was knocked senseless by a negro armed with a bludgeon. Tom and Dimchurch stood over him and made a desperate defence, and just before they were overpowered Dimchurch shouted at the top of his voice: "Put off, we are captured," for he saw that the number of their a.s.sailants was so great that it would only be sacrificing the crew to call them to their a.s.sistance. They were bound and carried away by the exulting negroes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "TOM AND DIMCHURCH MADE A DESPERATE DEFENCE"]

"This is a bad job," Will said when he came to his senses.

"A mighty bad job, Master Will. Who are these n.i.g.g.e.rs, do you think?"

"I suppose they are escaped slaves; there are certainly many of them in the mountains of Cuba. I suppose they saw us sailing in, and came down from the hills in the hope of capturing some of us. It is likely enough they take us for pirates, who are a constant scourge to them, capturing them in their little fishing-boats and either cutting their throats or forcing them to serve with them. I am afraid we shall have but very little opportunity of explaining matters to them, for, of course, they don't speak English, and none of us understand a word of Spanish."

They were carried up the hill and thrown down in a small clearing on the summit. Will in vain endeavoured to address them in English, but received no attention whatever.

"What do you think they are going to do with us, sir?" Dimchurch asked.

"Well, I should say that they are most likely going to burn us alive, or put us to death in some other devilish way."

"Well, sir, I don't think these n.i.g.g.e.rs know much about tying ropes. It seems to me that I could get free without much trouble."

"Could you, Dimchurch? I can't say as much, for mine are knotted so tightly that I cannot move a finger."

"That won't matter, sir. If I can shift out of mine I have got my jack-knife in my pocket, and can make short work of your ropes and Tom's."

"Well, try then, Dimchurch. Half those fellows are away in the wood, and by the sounds we hear they are cutting brushwood; so there is no time to lose."

For five minutes no remark was made, and then Dimchurch said: "I am free."

Immediately afterwards Will felt his bonds fall off, and half a minute later an exclamation of thankfulness from Tom showed that he too had been liberated.

"Now we must all crawl towards the edge of the forest," Will said, "and then, instead of going straight down the hill we will turn off for a short distance. They are sure to miss us immediately, and will believe that we have made direct for the sea."

They had barely got into the shelter of the forest when they heard a sudden shout, so they at once turned aside and hid in the brushwood. A minute or two later they had the satisfaction of hearing the negroes rushing in a body down the hill. They waited until their pursuers had covered a hundred yards, and then they jumped to their feet and held on their way along the hillside for nearly a quarter of a mile, after which they began to descend. Just as they changed their course they heard an outburst of musketry fire.

"Hooray!" Dimchurch exclaimed, "our fellows are coming up the hill in search of us. That's right, give it them hot! I guess they'll go back as quick as they came." They now changed their direction, taking a line that would bring them to the rear of their friends. The firing soon ceased, the negroes having evidently got entirely out of sight of the sailors, but by the shouting they had no difficulty in ascertaining the position of the party, who were pushing on up the hill, and presently Will hailed them.

"That is the captain's voice," one of the party exclaimed, and then a general cheer broke from the seamen. In another two minutes they were among their friends. Harman had landed with three-and-thirty men, leaving only five on board _L'Agile_. Great was their rejoicing on finding that the three missing men were all safe.

"We had better fall back now," Will said. "There must be at least three hundred negroes at the top, and though I don't say we would not beat them we should certainly suffer some loss which might well be avoided. There is no doubt they took us for pirates and believed they were going to avenge their own wrongs. So we may as well make our way down before their whole force gathers and attacks us."

They retired at once to the sh.o.r.e, and had but just taken their places in the boats when a crowd of negroes rushed down to the beach. Four or five shots were fired, but by Will's order no reply was made. They pushed off quietly and in a few minutes reached the cutter.

"That has been a narrow escape," Will said when he and Harman were together again on the quarter-deck; "as narrow as I ever wish to experience. If it hadn't been for Dimchurch I don't think you would have arrived in time, for they were cutting brushwood for a fire on which they intended to roast us. Fortunately he was not so tightly bound as we were, and so managed to free himself and us."

"I cannot say how thankful I was when I heard your voice. Of course we were proceeding only by guesswork, and could only hope that we should find you at the top of the hill. If they had carried you any farther away we could not have followed. I was turning this over in my mind as we advanced, when we heard the rushing of a large number of men down the hill towards us, and we at once concluded that you had escaped and that they were in pursuit, and as soon as the negroes appeared we opened fire."

"Well, all is well that ends well. It was very foolish of me to wander away from the men. Of course there was nothing whatever to tell us that we were being watched, but I ought to have a.s.sumed that there was a possibility of such a thing and not to have run the risk. I'll be mighty careful that I don't play such a fool's trick again. It was lucky that Dimchurch shouted when he did to the watering-party, otherwise we should have lost the whole of them, and with ten gone you would have found it very hazardous work to land a sufficiently strong party."

"I should have tried if I had only had a dozen men. I concluded that it must have been negroes who had carried you off, and my only thought was to rescue you before they set to work to torture you in some abominable manner."

"Well, I expect it would soon have been over, Harman, but certainly it would have been a very unpleasant ending. To fall in battle is a death at which none would grumble, but to be burnt by fiendish negroes would be horrible. Of course every man must run risks and take his chances, but one hardly bargains for being burnt alive. It makes my flesh creep to think of it, more now, I fancy, than when I was face to face with it. When I was lying helpless on the hill, there seemed something unreal about it, and I could not appreciate the position, but now that I think of it in cold blood it makes me shiver. I will take your watch to-night; I am quite sure that if I did get to sleep I should have a terrible nightmare."

"I can quite understand that you would rather be on deck than lying down and trying to sleep. I am sure I should do so myself, and even now the thought of the peril you were in makes me shudder."

For a time _L'Agile_ cruised off the sh.o.r.e of Cuba, effecting a few small captures, but none of importance. Finally she fell in with three French frigates and was chased for two days, but succeeded in giving her pursuers the slip by running between two small islands under cover of night. The pa.s.sage was very shallow, and the Frenchmen were unable to follow, and before they could make a circuit of the islands _L'Agile_ was out of sight. When the cutter at length returned to Jamaica the admiral decided to lay her up for a time, and the crew was broken up and retransferred to the vessels to which they belonged.

Will was greeted with enthusiasm when he rejoined the _Hawke_.

"You certainly have singular luck, Gilmore," said Latham, who was the _Hawke's_ master's mate. "Here we have been cruising and cruising, till we are sick of the sight of islands, without picking up a prize of importance, while you have been your own master, and have made a fortune.

And now, just as there is a rumour that we are to go home you rejoin."

A few weeks after this conversation the _Hawke_ received orders to sail for Portsmouth, and after a long and wearisome voyage arrived home late in the summer of the year 1793.

CHAPTER X

BACK AT SCARCOMBE

The news of their destination had created great satisfaction among the crew, as there was little honour or prize-money to be gained, and the vessel had been for some time incessantly engaged in hunting for foes that were never found. Not the least pleased was Will. He had left England a friendless ship's-boy; he returned home a midshipman, with a most creditable record, and with a fortune that, when he left the service, would enable him to live in more than comfort.

On arriving at Portsmouth the crew were at once paid off, and Will was appointed to the _Tartar_, a thirty-four gun frigate. On hearing the name of the ship, Dimchurch and Tom Stevens at once volunteered. They were given a fortnight's leave; so Will, with Tom Stevens, determined to take a run up to Scarcombe, and the same day took coach to London. Dimchurch said he should spend his time in Portsmouth, as there was no one up in the north he cared to see, especially as it would take eight days out of his fortnight's leave to go to his native place and back.

On the fourth day after leaving London the two travellers reached Scarborough. Tom Stevens started at once, with his kit on a stick, to walk to the village, while Will made enquiries for the house of Mrs. Archer, which was Miss Warden's married name. Without much trouble he made his way to it; and when the servant answered his knock he said: "I wish to see Mrs. Archer."

"What name, sir?" the girl said respectfully, struck with the appearance of the tall young fellow in a naval uniform.

"I would rather not say the name," Will said. "Please just say that a gentleman wishes to speak to her."